DEBORAH KNIGHT: And joining us, as they do every Friday for Question Time, Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic and shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor. And Ed’s been busy – just wrapped up a press conference with the Prime Minister. We’ll talk the methane tax or possible methane tax in just a moment, fellas, but I want to talk about the cost of energy because we know how hard the cost of living pressures are hitting already. Energy prices have jumped on average about 300 bucks by April, and they’re set to rise by another 35 per cent over the next year. Ed, that’s going to test a hell of a lot of households and businesses who are struggling as it is.

ED HUSIC, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND SCIENCE: Well, we are very much focused on reducing prices, Deb. I mean, that’s why I’ve been going on a bit this week about getting the gas producers to deliver better prices that will flow through to businesses and households. And we’ve got to make sure that we see that because it’s an Australian resource, we’ve got a lot of it and we should be making sure it flows through to, you know, help manufacturers and also ensure that households have access to gas at prices that they’re used to, not some of the predictions that are being made.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: Are you on the same page though, as your Resources Minister Madeleine King? Because you’ve been pushing for the gas companies to cut their prices locally, but she hasn’t been as strong on the price front. She’s made this deal with the gas companies last month, so they’ll offer all available gas domestically before shipping it overseas. Wasn’t that a big enough step in managing gas supply and cost?

ED HUSIC: It was really important what Madeleine did to ensure that we confronted what the ACCC was saying – that we’d have 56 petajoules as a shortfall. Under what Madeleine’s negotiated we’ve got 156, 57 petajoules that has been committed to by those companies on top of what we – we’ve got those additional, I should say, petajoules coming through. So, the shortfall shouldn’t be a problem. Because as you well know, if we don’t have the supply and the demand is high you can imagine what happens to prices. So, we needed to make sure that happens. But the next step is to deliver and to continue to push for lower prices, and that’s certainly as Industry Minister what I’m doing given that industry and particularly the larger users make up about half the domestic gas demand.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: So, is this a case, Angus, of one hand in government not talking to the other?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, it certainly looks like it, Deb. I mean, Labor promised over and over again that they would reduce energy costs $275 – 97 times since early December. We know the key to this is getting more gas supply out from under the ground. And I’m sure Ed would agree that that’s crucial. The AWU certainly made that point in recent times. But you can’t do that if at the same time you’ve got Chris Bowen out there saying we need to slash gas supplies by 30 per cent. I mean, how does this add up? None of it adds up, Deb.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: How does it add up, Ed?

ED HUSIC: I – sorry, Angus, I haven’t heard – and Chris has certainly understood the need for us to have gas available, particularly in the transition. And we have been pushing this case to make sure that more gas is available. And the thing that gets me is that we export 4,300 petajoules of which there’s about 20 per cent of that that’s uncontracted. And if we get access to that uncontracted amount we can honour the deals that we’ve made with customers overseas, but we can also supply gas locally, and then it’s an issue of what price that supply is made available at. And that’s the stuff that we’re working on. So there’s not – I mean, Deb, you made the point earlier that it’s, you know, maybe one hand not talking to the other. That’s not entirely right, I’ve got to tell you. You know, we are working closely within government to make sure the supply is there and now we’re working on the pricing part.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: So, you’re all on the same page?

ED HUSIC: Absolutely.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: Now, the other gas that’s got people upset is the methane gas, and farmers across the country aren’t happy at all about this pledge to lower methane emissions 30 per cent by 2030, which wasn’t an election promise when Labor was in opposition. In fact, Labor supported not signing this agreement, Ed. What’s changed?

ED HUSIC: Nothing, well, we’re taking on board the fact that there are a number of other countries that are looking at what can be done to reduce methane. I’ve noticed David Littleproud has got a bit of the Barnabys about him at the moment suggesting all sorts of terrible things will happen. Barnaby said we’d be paying $100 for a roast lamb and now we’ve got David Littleproud saying it will be the end of weekend barbie and we’ve had Scott Morrison say that electric vehicles will lead to an end of the weekend. I mean, the hype versus the reality out of the Coalition is just something that really shouldn’t be tolerated anymore. People know they’re a joke, and they continue to make themselves a joke on this stuff.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: Are you over-egging this, Angus?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Absolutely not. Look, let’s be clear about this: methane is gas. Now, two sources – agriculture – sheep and cattle, burps and  –

DEBORAH KNIGHT: Farts, yes.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Call them what they are. That’s one piece. The second piece is natural gas, which we need in our energy system. Now, Ed’s just agreed we need to get some more supply of natural gas, and this pledge is calling for a 30 per cent reduction. Talk about the left hand not talking to the right hand, Deb. It’s worse than that, though. Chris Bowen before the election committed to not sign up to this pledge if he didn’t know how he was going to implement it. And he sure as hell isn’t telling us how he's going to implement the reduction of methane coming from sheep and cattle and how he’s going to get a reduction in the gas production if at the same time he wants to have energy prices lower. It just doesn’t make any sense. It isn’t adding up. It is a tax on the T-bone if you start doing what New Zealand or other countries around the world are doing by taxing – that is the truth. We have seen it happening in New Zealand. We have seen it happening in Europe.

ED HUSIC: Oh, my God.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, Ed, you need to explain how you’re going to implement this. How are you going –

DEBORAH KNIGHT: How would it be implemented without a tax or without regulation, Ed?

ANGUS TAYLOR: How are you going to implement it?

ED HUSIC: Can I just – before I get to it, Angus is always so sore about Chris Bowen. I think we need to go out for a T-bone and sort this one out.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: Well, take your wallet because they’re pretty expensive already.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Just answer the question: how are you going to implement it?

ED HUSIC: He’s always having a go at Chris. Well, the other thing is too, Angus – and you know this too – is that there are smart Australians that have come up with ways in terms of what you feed livestock –

ANGUS TAYLOR: I’ve got to feed seaweed to my cattle on the weekend, do I? Is that what I’ve got to do? Look, Ed, you can’t answer the question because you don’t have the answer.

ED HUSIC: Well, hang on.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: Let me have a go.

ED HUSIC: You’ve asked me. And this is making a difference. The asparagopsis and the feeding of that seaweed is delivering lower methane output because, as Angus also knows from his time as climate change minister, that the ag sector is one of those hard-to-abate areas. We do need to think deeply about how we cut emissions. We have not made any decision on this yet. We are consulting with – absolutely with the agriculture sector on it and we are looking at ways of working and using smart ways of reducing methane as well. And that’s all stuff that has to – I was going to say flow through, but – geez, pardon the pun.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: Well. Well, look, I can tell you, from the reaction to our listeners – from the reaction to our listeners to this, Ed, it sounds like all hot air. And you’re not getting any positive response from our listeners. Our listeners are saying, “You’ve lost me if you’re talking about taxes or regulation on farmers with burping and farting, you know, cattle and sheep, then you’ve completely jumped the shark.”

ED HUSIC: Well, again, this is because the people that have, you know, threatened the end of the weekend because of EVs, hundred-dollar roast lamb and the way that David Littleproud has been yammering on disconnected from fact and reality, of course people would be whipped up on that. But that’s not what’s being talked about here whatsoever. And there are ways we can reduce methane output, and where we haven’t got the immediate solution we do need to work on because methane is a very potent – in terms of an emission that we’ve got to be able to tackle is very potent. And with smarts and goodwill and people working together we can do it. But not in the way that you’ve got David Littleproud doing a Barnaby and making all sorts of predictions that just don’t actually align to fact.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: All right. The other big issue, of course –

ANGUS TAYLOR: Can I just briefly quote Chris Bowen here when he said, “I am not going to sign up to a pledge” – this is May this year – “I am not going to sign up to a pledge which I don’t know how it will be implemented.” All we’ve heard from Ed about how it will be implemented is farmers are going to go and have to give seaweed to their cattle and sheep. That’s it. We’ve heard nothing else. Now, if they are going to do this and keep to their election commitment, they need to explain how farmers are going to find this 30 per cent reduction. They haven’t done it. It hasn’t done it, and they need to do it now.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: Fair call. Now, the other big issue doing the rounds is the economy, of course. And the Treasurer Jim Chalmers is in the US at the moment. He’s saying inflation is public enemy number one, which we know is the case here in Australia too. But Jim Chalmers seems more concerned about the state of the US economy going into recession than the US President does, Joe Biden, obviously talking about the state of his economy. Angus, how worried should we be about the US economy and how tightly linked their economy is with ours?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, six months ago the Treasurer was saying Australians couldn’t give a stuff about what’s happening overseas, and now that’s all he seems to be talking about. But we actually have a very strong economy, a strong budget position. That needs to be consolidated. Of course there are threats on the horizon. There have been for years. That’s the reality of being in government. But we do need to see from him a clear plan about dealing with inflation and interest rates. We haven’t –

DEBORAH KNIGHT: We lost Angus. We might try and get Angus’s phone line up as we go back to Ed. We’ll try and get Angus back on the line. With inflation, we’ve seen, Ed, today that the US inflation has hit a 40-year high. If inflation is the concern that it is and increasingly so, how can you afford to bring in the stage 3 tax cuts?

ED HUSIC: I think – look, in terms of the tax cuts, those have been factored in by respective governments. So, let’s put that – that’s already factored in - counted in the budget. Let’s go to the issue of inflation, though. It is a serious one. And we do need to make sure – and that’s why, again, if I come back to the issue of gas prices and I’ve been fighting a lot of those gas producers this week, it is important for us to get things like that reduced so that we can take that inflation out of the system. There is a lot of concern about the impact of supply chains and the availability of some goods and making sure that we work with industry to deal with some of those things. Really important as well. But the reality is we do sell a lot of products internationally to countries where the concern is that they might be going or maybe poised for recession. And so that is something that does need to be factored in. And we want to make sure that through the budget that we’ll deliver in a couple of weeks’ time that we can meet the cost of living relief, be it through, you know, making child care more affordable through to reducing the cost of medicines, for instance off the top of my head, making sure that stuff flows through, making sure the economy is strong, investing in capability and industry. All that stuff, really important.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: We’ve got Angus Taylor back on the line; he just dropped off there. It must have been the NBN, Angus. But the other big issue, of course, with inflation, last week when we were speaking to you you were saying that our economy is going great guns.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, it is. I mean, we are in a stronger position than almost any other country in the world. And I’m sure Jim Chalmers would be seeing that as he’s overseas. The unemployment rate, of course, is extremely low. We’ve had lower inflation than many other countries in the world, but it’s still high, there’s no doubt about that. And we’ve got a budget position which is extraordinary. Since November last year we’ve run a cumulative surplus through to the end of June. So an unbelievably strong position. It’s not to say that there aren’t threats, but so far we’ve heard no real plan from Jim Chalmers as to what’s going to be in the budget. He’s flying kites on legislated tax cuts. You know, tax reduction is an important policy for making sure we have a strong economy in the coming years. Labor was all over the place on that over the last week or so. And we still don’t know whether they’re ultimately going to bring back their preferred approach – which is to drop the stage 3 tax cuts. We do need to see a clear plan, Deb, and we haven’t seen it.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: All right. Well, the budget only a couple of weeks to go. I want to end on something a bit fun. In the UK there’s this auction coming up selling all sorts of rare celebrity items and memorabilia, things like Dave Bowie’s space suit from his “Ashes to Ashes” music video, Paul McCartney’s famous striped blazer. I want to know: what is your favourite or maybe the strangest piece of memorabilia that either of you own. Ed?

ED HUSIC: I had a mate of mine give me a birthday gift. It was a slice of the floor of the United Centre where the Chicago Bulls play. Sorry to go back to basketball.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: Basketball. It’s always the basketball.

ED HUSIC: Of course. I’m obsessive. And it’s an actual piece that they’ve cut out of the floorboard that was given to me as a gift –

DEBORAH KNIGHT: Did you frame it, put it in the poolroom?

ED HUSIC: There’s a little – it comes in a special box and everything. It’s fantastic. I’m over at Pallion today, the people that make the Melbourne Cup and I was here with the Prime Minister. And they’ve given him what they call an Albo ounce and they’ve given me one as well. So that might be the next thing that comes up too.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: An Albo ounce?

ED HUSIC: An Albo ounce.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: What is it?

ED HUSIC: I think it’s an Albo ounce of silver.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: Wow.

ED HUSIC: So –

DEBORAH KNIGHT: Hang on to that. The value might go up or well down – you never know. You never know. Angus, how about you?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, favourite rather than strange, I suppose, this one: it’s a pair of binoculars that my great uncle was carrying with him in no man’s land in the Battle of the Somme when he was shot by a sniper, and it was sent back by – the Germans, in fact, collected it and sent it back, which is a remarkable story. So, it sits on – it sits on our shelf at home. It’s an incredible piece and one, of course, that just shows what sort of sacrifice so many great Australians have been prepared to make.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: Priceless. And a very strong family heritage too. Fellas, thanks for joining us.

ED HUSIC: Thanks, heaps.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Thanks, Deb.

DEBORAH KNIGHT: Angus Taylor there and Ed Husic, and they’re with us every Friday for Question Time here on Afternoons with Deborah Knight.