TRANSCRIPT – ABC RADIO GOLD COAST

Angie Bell MP
Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education
Shadow Minister for Youth
Federal Member for Moncrieff

TRANSCRIPT

ABC RADIO GOLD COAST – MORNINGS WITH SARAH CUMMING

13 June 2024

Subjects: Labor’s energy policy shambles, nuclear energy, vaping

E&OE…………………………

SARAH CUMMING:
You might have heard the saying to never discuss politics or religion at a dinner party. That religion and politics are forbidden topics in polite conversation. But now, another hotly contested issue seems to be joining that list; climate, climate change, climate targets. We often hear the term climate wars these days. Why is it so hard to get consensus on an issue as important as the climate?

Member for Moncrieff, Angie Bell joins you this morning. Hello to you Angie.

ANGIE BELL MP:
Good morning. How are you this morning, Sarah? Lots of Gold Coasters to be proud of in the swimming, hey.

SARAH CUMMING:
Oh, absolutely. Yes, I know. It would be nice to just talk about swimming all day, wouldn’t it? That is something I can talk about in polite conversation. Yeah, big shout out to all of the swimmers. Some incredibly fast times we’re seeing at these Olympic trials with many already booking their ticket to Paris.

I’m interested to know as a politician yourself, a Federal MP. How do you avoid talking about politics at dinner parties?

ANGIE BELL MP:
Well, it does get tricky, Sarah. I try to just sort of say we’re here having a nice dinner so let’s not talk about all of those issues that people like to go for at a dinner party, but that is also my advice. Don’t talk about religion or politics at a dinner party.

SARAH CUMMING:
Talk about swimming, talk about the lovely food, lots of other issues to talk about. Climate seems to be one issue that is becoming, well, not just becoming, has been for some time, hotly contested and we hear now about climate wars and people incredibly passionate, understandably, with their own views about this. Seems to be difficult to get consensus in the political space as well.

Now this year, or this week, rather, Peter Dutton said the Coalition won’t set a 2030 climate target before the next election. Why is that?

ANGIE BELL MP:
Well, we can’t set a 2030 target from Opposition, Sarah. We did commit, you may recall under Scott Morrison to net zero by 2050 under the Paris Agreement, and what we’ve seen from Labor in the last couple of days is a bit of a scare campaign saying that we’re pulling out and that is not on the table. We have committed to that and that has not changed. What Peter Dutton is saying is that Labor’s legislated target, which is a 43 per cent reduction on 2005 levels by 2030, which is only a couple of years away really, is unachievable, and they know it, and that’s why they’re being so defensive about it.

Under their legislated target, they need to get 82 per cent renewables by 2030. Currently, they’re at half that, and so what Peter Dutton is saying, is that Labor needs to come clean with Australians and let them know that actually they’re not going to reach their target, and Australians are paying a cost for that.

SARAH CUMMING:
So, any watering down of this interim 2030 target, though, would be contrary to the Paris Climate Agreement. Do you feel that this stance will cost your party votes in South East Queensland?

ANGIE BELL MP:
Well, I think what’s costing Australians is this Government, because we’re in a cost of living crisis, and the Prime Minister has promised, as we know, that power bills would go down, and families are really struggling, Sarah, to pull together the money to pay their bills and feed their family and pay their mortgage, because of promises not delivered by this Prime Minister. I guess the question is, will he keep his emissions promises as well?

SARAH CUMMING:
Certainly, though, there would be a bigger price to pay if we don’t take action on the climate.

ANGIE BELL MP:
Look, certainly climate change is undeniable. We definitely need to take action on it, but what Peter Dutton is saying, is that the Labor Party are stringing along Australians promising, with their only renewables policy, that they will deliver their emissions target. We don’t believe they will, because they’re only halfway there, and they’ve got five years to go.

SARAH CUMMING:
So why can’t the Coalition set a 2030 climate target before the next election?

ANGIE BELL MP:
Well, you can only do that from Government. Currently, it’s legislated, and we’ll look at that should we come to Government after the next election, in terms of what those targets will be. But the Labor Party’s targets are unachievable, and how do they end? In very high power bills and blackouts, ultimately.

SARAH CUMMING:
The Coalition has promised to reveal details of a plan for nuclear power in Australia, which some experts say would take at least a decade to be operational. Can we afford to wait that long, though? What are your personal views on nuclear power?

ANGIE BELL MP:
Well, my views are that we need more than one source of power into the grid, and that we need to upgrade our grid, not build a whole brand new grid, which costs $1.3 trillion under Labor.

I think Australians understand that we don’t have the technology right now to deliver baseload power when renewables are not working, except for obviously coal. As we phase out of coal, and to zero emissions technology, Australia should be looking at nuclear as an option, because 19 out of 20, G20 countries are actually looking at that.

And in fact, the Albanese Government is embracing that with our submarine technology, and they’ve also just signed an agreement in the Pacific to support those countries to head towards looking at using nuclear. There’s a great hypocrisy at play here and I think the Government is taking Australians for mugs.

SARAH CUMMING:
But are you concerned, we saw the emergence of Teals really after the last federal election and this issue of climate is front and centre for many. Are you concerned though that this position on the climate will cause the Coalition party votes here in South East Queensland?

ANGIE BELL MP:
I think what the Opposition Leader is doing is showing Australians that there will be a big difference between him and Anthony Albanese, at the next election. He’s laying out our platform for those differences, and one of those differences is energy policy. We need to have secure, reliable, affordable energy that does not deliver higher emissions, and that’s what he’s talking about. So, I think he’s ticking all the boxes with that.

SARAH CUMMING:
Member for Moncrieff, Angie Bell, your guest this morning on ABC Gold Coast. Sarah Cumming with you. Let’s talk about a different topic, that of vaping. The first new anti-smoking campaign in a decade will target vaping as a focus of its messaging. The campaign will use TikTok, gaming and other platforms to communicate the many harms of vaping.

Do you think this is an effective campaign? An effective way to combat this problem of vaping?

ANGIE BELL MP:
This is a huge problem across the Gold Coast as well in high schools when I meet with parents and when I meet with principals across the school system. So many young Australians are accessing illegal vaping products and our primary goal as a Coalition is to avoid that and stop that.

We think that the law is not being adequately enforced across the states and territories and it really needs to be stepped up. We know that that prescription only model will not work to prevent children accessing vapes. I think the main thing with vaping is that enforcement is key. So that, basically, it’s being enforced by the relevant authorities to make sure that it stops.

I think any campaign to increase awareness for young people and the terrible, terrible cost that they pay for their health through vaping is important.

SARAH CUMMING:
So, what would you change in terms of policy position to combat this issue of vapes?

ANGIE BELL MP:
We’ve had a Senate Inquiry where we’ve looked into Labor’s legislation on this and we’re going through our party processes before we come to our final position on what we would do if we were in Government. Obviously, it’s important for us to scrutinize the findings of that inquiry, but our main goal here is to prevent Australian children from accessing vaping or becoming addicted to vaping products, which is happening so widely.

SARAH CUMMING:
So, do you expect it to be supported then in its current form?

ANGIE BELL MP:
We’re scrutinizing it at the moment, so I can’t speak on the party’s position on that right now because we haven’t come to it.

SARAH CUMMING:
What is it that you’re hearing, you know from people here on the Gold Coast, you say speak to schools, they say it’s a big issue. What are they saying they want politicians to do about it?

ANGIE BELL MP:
Well, they want children to be prevented from accessing vapes, and I think that’s key. When you think about how vapes have come into the country, it’s illegally through Border Force, and vapes have nicotine in them and Border Force don’t have adequate equipment to find nicotine because it’s not illegal per se, to bring into the country and therefore they don’t have the opportunities to enforce that. So, I think there needs to be some enforcement there as well. Teachers and parents are saying they don’t want their children to have access to vapes.

SARAH CUMMING:
Access to vapes is certainly, yeah, a considerable issue right across the country, not just here on the Gold Coast. So certainly, we’ll be watching on with interest to see what happens in Parliament in terms of changes, yeah, to vapes and how people can access them and whether this legislation currently before Parliament certainly gets through.

Angie Bell, thank you for your time this morning.

ANGIE BELL MP:
My pleasure.

[ends]