Greens Leader Bob Brown discusses the carbon tax, mining tax and constitutional issues with Paul Bongiorno on Meet the Press.

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PAUL BONGIORNO, PRESENTER: Hello and welcome to Meet The Press. Nature, the destroyer, made another unwanted appearance in 2011. New Zealand's deadly earthquake dominated the week, dwarfing the concerns of Canberra. As with our own natural disasters, the scale of destruction and human suffering in Christchurch was a powerful unifier in the normally fiercely combative forum of parliament.

JULIA GILLARD, PRIME MINISTER (TUESDAY): Today our family is suffering a very devastating blow. I am sure many Australians, like me, have watched the images on TV today and they have been truly shocking.

TONY ABBOTT, OPPOSITION LEADER (TUESDAY): The bonds of love stretch tight and close across the Tasman. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of New Zealand at this time.

PAUL BONGIORNO: But the harmony did not linger long, with the flood levy passing the house by the narrowest of margins and now running the gauntlet of the Senate. On Thursday, the Prime Minister announced a controversial carbon tax by July next year - something she promised wouldn't happen.

JULIA GILLARD (16 AUGUST 2010): There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.

TONY ABBOTT: How can she possibly justify today's betrayal?

JULIA GILLARD: The Australian people have voted for change. They voted for a carbon price.

TONY ABBOTT: Since when does one vote trump 149 votes, unless the real Prime Minister of this country is Senator Bob Brown?

PAUL BONGIORNO: The Leader of the Greens, Bob Brown, is a guest … But first what the nation's papers are reporting this Sunday, February 27. The ‘Sunday Age’ has “Christchurch shut for months”. A third of its buildings in the city centre will be demolished as rescue crews continue the painstaking task of searching for more than 200 missing people. The ‘Sunday Mail’ reports “petrol freeze mooted to offset carbon tax”. Petrol prices could be frozen under a cent for cent excise cut. The Gillard government will consider to limit the early impact of the carbon tax. The ‘Sun Herald’ leads with “Gaddafi slaughter”. His own ambassador to the United Nations has likened Muammar Gaddafi to Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot as dramatic amateur video shows injured demonstrators being taken to hospital. The ‘Sunday Telegraph’ carries the story, “Hawke says Combet should be next Prime Minister”. The paper says the former prime minister has been caught out speculating about the Labor leadership. And welcome back to the program Bob Brown. Good morning, Senator.

SENATOR BOB BROWN, GREENS LEADER: Good morning. How are you, Paul?

PAUL BONGIORNO: Well, we know from the election campaign Julia Gillard did talk of a carbon price and an ETS by 2012. It was the Greens who were talking about a temporary carbon tax. Are you responsible for making her a break her promise?

SENATOR BOB BROWN: Well, the people of Australia voted for a minority government. I might add here that in talking with Tony Abbott in the wake of the election, he said he would be prepared to negotiate on anything, in terms of reaching government. We were successful in striking a compact with Labor, with Julia Gillard. She now is acknowledging that compact in the wake of the vote of the Australian people who want action on climate change. That is what we are working hard to achieve.

PAUL BONGIORNO: Can I pick you up on that. In your talks with Tony Abbott as both leaders were trying to form government, did he keep on the table an ETS or a carbon price?

SENATOR BOB BROWN: No, he did not. But he did comment that he was prepared to negotiate on anything, in terms of achieving government. That obviously included the potential for negotiations on climate change, but we did not get to specifics like that. This was a historic election outcome with a minority government, negotiating with a number of independents as well as the Greens, and one of the upshots of that, regardless of what Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott committed to during the election outcome, was the insistence that in forming government, we take action on climate change and the Prime Minister, to give her her due, has not only agree to that, but she is following through. The result is going to be a very good one for Australia.

PAUL BONGIORNO: There’s discussion in the papers this morning that the Greens would insist that transport, that petrol be kept in, and there is now talk that maybe the Gillard government will offset some of that pain. Are the Greens sympathetic to compensation for any carbon tax that is introduced?

SENATOR BOB BROWN: Well, absolutely. Our job is to ensure that the average Australian householder and car user is not punished by a carbon price. The idea here is to make the polluters pay. The big corporate polluters, who are threatening this country's economy and jobs with dangerous climate change. That has to be underscored, all the way down the line, Paul, that no action on climate change is going to be very destructive of the economy, and I might add, that Tony Abbott's alternative prescription is to leave the polluting companies, the cause of the pollution alone, but to take $3.5 billion over forward estimates away from the Australian people services. When you look at that, that is the equivalent of 10,000 jobs. People like nurses and teachers in this country. That is a prescription that we will not be taking up. What we want to do is to see through a proper carbon pricing system, as is the experience over seven years in Germany, where they created 330,000 new jobs, we want to be following that positive path rather than cutting jobs as Tony Abbott would have it.

PAUL BONGIORNO: Tony Abbott says Julia Gillard has breached the trust of the electorate as we mentioned but he made his prediction.

TONY ABBOTT (THURSDAY): We will fight this tax every second of every minute of every day of every week, of every month. I think there will be a people's revolt against this carbon tax. I do not believe it will ever happen.

PAUL BONGIORNO: Senator Brown, are you on the wrong side of this people's revolution?

SENATOR BOB BROWN: Well, it is a pretty poor revolt that Tony Abbott is engendering here. I think the Australian people are smarter than he is. They are not going to be patronised like that. They want action on climate change. But they want the action to be reasonable. That is exactly what this climate committee is doing while Tony Abbott is tub-thumping and I think it is not going to wash with the Australian people.

PAUL BONGIORNO: The climate committee does seem to find it hard to agree. There are reports it has had four meetings and the only thing it can agree on is a framework that Tony Windsor in a press release on Friday said there is still no carbon tax. There is no agreement on a carbon tax at this point in time.

SENATOR BOB BROWN: We have agreed on a framework which would move us to a carbon price, through a carbon tax and then onto a carbon trading system, which everybody seems to agree on. No, there have been no definitive. We are due to report as the Prime Minister said, by 1st July. One of the things that is happening here, is that the committee, through the government, has announced the framework of now getting to working out what the figures will be in terms of catching up with the polluters. They are compensating households.

PAUL BONGIORNO: Just briefly, are you confident that there will be a carbon tax, that Tony Abbott is wrong?

SENATOR BOB BROWN: I think there will be a carbon tax on the polluters. There will be abundant compensation to low income earners for example who, even under the Kevin Rudd scheme, they were going to end up with more money in their pockets than they would have lost in Australia. It is the big polluting companies of course who have Tony Abbott to thank for saying that he put the impost on average Australians and allow the companies to get away scot free.

PAUL BONGIORNO: Time for a break. When we return with the panel, are Australians being diddled out of billions by the Gillard Government's mining tax compromise? And Tony Abbott let smoke get in his eyes when he came face to face with a carbon-polluting former Prime Minister on Thursday.

BOB HAWKE, FORMER PRIME MINISTER (THURSDAY): I thought I was coming out for a quiet cigar and what happens? (BLEEP) Bloody (inaudible) (LAUGHTER).

SIMON CREAN: You are always capable of that.

TONY ABBOTT: I am the person who is supposed to use scatological language around here.

PAUL BONGIORNO: You're on Meet The Press with Greens Leader, Bob Brown. And welcome to the panel, Eleanor Hall, ABC The World Today and Paul Osborne from AAP. Good morning Eleanor and Paul. Labor will need the Greens to get its mining tax through later this year. April last year saw the mining super profits tax unveiled, creating such a backlash that it helped cost Kevin Rudd his job. Julia Gillard diluted the tax, giving it a new name. Her sobriquet-stitching handiwork - according to Treasury – will cost the revenue a projected $60 billion over 10 years. But the Treasurer is not for turning.

WAYNE SWAN, TREASURER (MEET THE PRESS, 20 FEBRUARY 2011): We reached a fair agreement with the mining companies on the rate. It is very important that we have certainty in this area. It is important that that agreement is honoured.

ELEANOR HALL, ABC THE WORLD TODAY: Senator Brown, the Treasurer says this agreement must be honoured. Do you agree with him?

SENATOR BOB BROWN: Well, I think the Treasurer, along with Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Martin Ferguson backed off to the big three mining companies at the expense of the Australian taxpayer and householder and I don’t accept that. And the latest Treasury figures I question Ken Henry about these inestimates, Senate estimates during the week, are that taxpayers are going to use effectively $100 billion over the next 10 years. That is $10 billion a year in each Budget for the next decade, not available for such things as a National Disability scheme, or $2 billion of that would give us a national dental healthcare scheme or we could have high speed rail. I am not going to, and we Greens are not going to simply give up on that.

ELEANOR HALL: But the Treasurer raised the issue of certainty for this industry. Given at this point that you also looking to impose a carbon price on the mining industry, isn’t certainty a critical issue?

SENATOR BOB BROWN: The carbon price will apply to the coal industry. That is where it effectively is going to end up affecting a resource extraction. But built into the Treasurer's model is a one cent reduction in taxes for all of the miners. So they not only have got a massive reduction in the fair tax they pay on super profits to help this country run, but they’re going to get a tax break as well. I agree with those economists and very senior economists who think that Australia should have a sovereign find out of this massive wealth, which is largely pouring overseas so that this nation is able to provide the schools, the hospitals, public transport and housing that it requires in the coming years when we are not doing so well.

ELEANOR HALL: So you clearly do not agree with the Treasurer. How much pressure are you prepared to put on the government over this?

SENATOR BOB BROWN: The problem for us is Tony Abbott again because he would not collect a dollar off the big companies like BHP who are making tens of billions and exporting large amounts of those profits. The problem there is that if Tony Abbott got together with the Greens, Australians would be $100 billion better off in getting services over the next 10 years. But he is missing in action. He is a man who wants to oppose everything that is put up. But in so doing, he is robbing the Australian people of their right to good services and a more secure future. We will have to argue with the government but we are doing so from the disadvantage of having an opposition which is, if you want to look for a constructive opposition, it is missing in action.

PAUL OSBORNE, AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS: Senator, the carbon price is going to make nuclear power more affordable. Doesn't the carbon tax give more added impetus to the movement within Labor and the Coalition, and indeed internationally, to bring on nuclear power as a clean, green source of power?

SENATOR BOB BROWN: I had Bob Hawke, who we saw just a while ago, lobbying over a nuclear waste dump in WA just a week ago. No, the expense and danger of that is unnecessary. You will remember when John Howard, before the last election, but one, brought up the spectre of 25 nuclear power stations. He dropped it very quickly. It is so unpopular in Australia because those power stations will have to be sited near centres of population, use a great deal of water, which is scarce in our big cities, and it will not be as cheap as renewable energy in this solar blessed country of Australia.

PAUL OSBORNE: In your negotiations with the government, do you risk the possibility, as the Democrats did, falling apart over the GST?

SENATOR BOB BROWN: No. The Democrats supported a pretty unpopular tax. By the way, the GST was a 10% impost on everything.

PAUL OSBORNE: This carbon tax looks quite unpopular as well, doesn’t it?

SENATOR BOB BROWN: But nowhere near the order of that. I think it is much more popular. I think people are recognising, as long as they are looked after. As I had said earlier, households will be. It is the polluters that are going to pay. People see the common sense in that. And remember this, this is the difference with the GST, if we do not act on climate change, there is going to be a 5-20% hit on the national wealth later this century. That means our children or grandchildren are going to have massive costs put up against them, according to Sir Nicholas Stern, who was commissioned to look at this on behalf of the British Government. It is economically responsible that the Greens are trying to ensure to take the management responsibility, as we are doing now along with the Gillard government, something missing from Tony Abbott, to ensure that we do not leave the Australia that economically damaging legacy.

PAUL BONGIORNO: On Monday, the Opposition agreed with the government that the Senate's money bill on youth allowance was unconstitutional. Here is Christopher Pyne.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE, MANAGER FOR OPPOSITION BUSINESS (MONDAY): It is certainly up to the government whether it is presented to the Governor General, but that is a different distinction from whether we can consider it.

PAUL BONGIORNO: The opposition has made the concession that they can have the argument over a Senate money bill, but it is only that. It will not have the force of law. Does that deter you from trying to bring in other money bills originating in the Senate?

SENATOR BOB BROWN: They are not money bills. They are bills that come from standing appropriations which have already been passed by Parliament. The Constitution Section 53 and 54 is very clear on this. The Senate has equal powers with the House of Representatives. What a situation we get into if you follow the logic of Christopher Pyne there, and the Senate were to say, we are not going to pass bills coming up from the house, Private Member's Bills for example. This is uncharted territory and we need some maturity here. I have spoken to cross-benches in the house during the week, and to the government, and there needs to be a new compact between the two houses in the interests of stability to see that decent Private Members' Bills coming from both houses are passed by the upper house if warranted by the interest of Australia of the day. That is what the Constitution wanted. That is what we Greens are going to ensure happens. I am not about to devalue the Senate as the big parties appear to want to do.

PAUL BONGIORNO: Thank you very much for being with us this morning, Bob Brown.

SENATOR BOB BROWN: Thank you, Paul.