:00:00. > :00:10.arrested since February. Now on BBC News it's time for
:00:11. > :00:19.Hardtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. Whoever told
:00:20. > :00:23.Australia the lucky country was onto something `` dubbed. This vast
:00:24. > :00:28.resource rich nation has outperformed other economies over
:00:29. > :00:32.the last decade. Right now, Australia doesn't seem at ease with
:00:33. > :00:37.itself or its Asian neighbours. Why? My guest is Malcolm Turnbull,
:00:38. > :00:43.mutations minister in Tony Abbott's Australian government. ``
:00:44. > :00:44.communications. Is Australia in danger of alienating friends and
:00:45. > :01:19.partners? Malcolm Turnbull, welcome to
:01:20. > :01:24.HARDtalk. White you are part of a government who came to power in
:01:25. > :01:28.autumn. Within two months the polls suggested the move had turned and
:01:29. > :01:33.the opposition was more popular than the government. It is called the
:01:34. > :01:36.shortest honeymoon in political history. What is going on? We are
:01:37. > :01:41.getting on with the job. After succeeding to office after six years
:01:42. > :01:46.of very bad leadership by the Labour Party, running up massive deficits,
:01:47. > :01:51.massive debt, really, a dysfunctional government at war with
:01:52. > :01:54.itself. The civil war between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard was an
:01:55. > :02:01.extraordinary phenomenon. It was a lot of hard work. We have got to
:02:02. > :02:10.knuckle down and get it done. In a way, you have the Labour Party are
:02:11. > :02:16.so unpopular in Australia and yet, within months of you and your lot
:02:17. > :02:19.coming to power, the Australian public decided that we are back with
:02:20. > :02:22.labour. The only poll that matters is the one on election day and that
:02:23. > :02:27.won't be until sometime towards the end of 2016. The critical thing for
:02:28. > :02:30.us to do, look, journalists and commentators can read the polls and
:02:31. > :02:34.I am not suggesting politicians don't read them, but they are only a
:02:35. > :02:39.snapshot in time, they are not predictive and the important thing
:02:40. > :02:42.to do for all of us in government is focus on the task at hand. The
:02:43. > :02:47.public will judge us at the due date late in 2016. It we will get to
:02:48. > :02:50.policy issues in a moment. The politics of Australia are
:02:51. > :03:00.fascinating for you, because he you are serving in a liberal led
:03:01. > :03:05.government. You, six years ago, were the leader of the Liberal Party and
:03:06. > :03:08.you were toppled by Tony Abbott, the man who you now serves as a cabinet
:03:09. > :03:16.minister. Is that proving difficult for you? Not at all. We serve the
:03:17. > :03:20.Australian people. It is not a dictatorship or a presidential
:03:21. > :03:28.system. Tony Abbott is the leader, the PM. He is, in any Westminster
:03:29. > :03:35.system, part of a collective leadership. He he is very socially
:03:36. > :03:45.conservative. You seem a very different sort of social Liberal
:03:46. > :03:50.Party member. The Liberal Party is a broad church and Tony and I agree on
:03:51. > :03:53.a lot of things and we have very well`known differences of opinion on
:03:54. > :04:00.some others. The differences are not... In politics and in public
:04:01. > :04:05.debate, it is always the differences that are highlighted and people
:04:06. > :04:08.overlook that there is actually, between people and indeed parties,
:04:09. > :04:16.often a lot of commonality. Let's pick out some of these conservative
:04:17. > :04:22.thoughts and opinions that Tony Abbott holes, because they have
:04:23. > :04:25.gained traction. For example, on the issue of women. I can give you a
:04:26. > :04:28.raft of controversial quotes. Abortion, he said, is the easy way
:04:29. > :04:41.out. He said that quite a long time ago. Anyway. Still, Tony has got a
:04:42. > :04:43.fairly... Tony is a... Look, generalising about Catholics is
:04:44. > :04:51.ridiculous because it is the largest in the world. There is great
:04:52. > :04:55.diversity. Tony is a conservative person in matters of what you might
:04:56. > :05:01.call faith and morals. All of our views, all of us grow up and as we
:05:02. > :05:06.grow up and get older, we learn more and our views change and Tony Abbott
:05:07. > :05:12.is no exception. He is dead set against having a conscience vote on
:05:13. > :05:17.gay marriage. That's not true. It seemed to be true when you suggested
:05:18. > :05:23.it would be a good idea and you told the party they wouldn't be one. We
:05:24. > :05:26.have said and he has said, and it is the party's position which we took
:05:27. > :05:31.to the election, that whether we have a free vote on gay marriage in
:05:32. > :05:35.this parliament will be decided by the party room, not by the leader
:05:36. > :05:41.and not by the Cabinet. Lletget on the record. Do you believe the party
:05:42. > :05:48.must have a vote of conscience, a free vote on this very important
:05:49. > :05:54.social signal issue of gay marriage in Australia? I think we should have
:05:55. > :05:57.a free vote and I have been public about that and if there is a free
:05:58. > :06:00.vote, then I will vote subject to the detail of the legislation, to
:06:01. > :06:06.support gay marriage `` let get on the record. If the party goes
:06:07. > :06:10.against that, will you feel comfortable serving in the Abbott
:06:11. > :06:17.government? It is a keen business. I would be disappointed if we didn't
:06:18. > :06:22.have a free vote. I think we will. Whether there is a majority in the
:06:23. > :06:28.Parliament to legislate for same`sex marriage remains to be seen. You
:06:29. > :06:32.have to remember, there has been a complete seachange on this issue in
:06:33. > :06:39.recent years. Same`sex marriage is lawful in all of the major English
:06:40. > :06:45.speaking countries that we are closest to, the UK, Canada, South
:06:46. > :06:51.Africa and one third of the US, and New Zealand. So, really, I have
:06:52. > :06:57.never seen a social issue on which public opinion and legislation has
:06:58. > :07:01.moved as quickly as it has on same`sex marriage. Interesting that
:07:02. > :07:05.you are suggesting to me that Australia is evolving, Tony
:07:06. > :07:12.Abbott's personal views are a evolving. On one really important
:07:13. > :07:16.issue, there doesn't seem to be much evolution, and that is immigration.
:07:17. > :07:19.It seems Tony Abbott come with his porky stamps, introducing the
:07:20. > :07:24.military to respond to unauthorised immigration is playing the same
:07:25. > :07:30.playbook that John Howard played in the last Conservative Australian
:07:31. > :07:35.administration. He absolutely is playing the same book that John
:07:36. > :07:38.Howard did and the reason he is doing it and the reason we support
:07:39. > :07:42.it is because the one thing we want to stop is this appalling and
:07:43. > :07:46.dangerous trade of people smuggling and the only way you can do that is
:07:47. > :07:51.to deprive the people smugglers of a product to sell. There is an
:07:52. > :07:56.interesting history to this. It played out when I was Leader of the
:07:57. > :07:59.Opposition. Kevin Rudd came into government and he said he wanted to
:08:00. > :08:06.change John Howard's laws on border protection. Kevin had the view that
:08:07. > :08:13.the limiting factor on unlawful arrivals, on people smuggling, was
:08:14. > :08:17.not Australia's domestic policies, but only the circumstances in the
:08:18. > :08:19.Middle East, Africa, or wherever the refugees were coming from. He
:08:20. > :08:24.recognised humanitarian need an international law. Let me finish. He
:08:25. > :08:35.said it was only the push factors that accounted for the decline. What
:08:36. > :08:39.we set at the time, and we have been proven correct, was that the push
:08:40. > :08:45.factors go from being big two very big, but the limiting factor is
:08:46. > :08:51.whether a people smuggler can say to somebody with confidence, give me
:08:52. > :08:56.$5,000, get on my boat, and I will get you permanent residence in
:08:57. > :09:00.Australia. If you prevent that, then you stop the trade and that is what
:09:01. > :09:03.we have done. There have been no unlawful arrivals by boat since
:09:04. > :09:06.December 19. Unlawful arrivals don't get to Australian waters because the
:09:07. > :09:12.Australian Navy intercepts them and turns them back and in some cases
:09:13. > :09:17.the unauthorised would`be immigrants and up in detention camps in
:09:18. > :09:21.papillon New Guinea. That was the detention came in papillon new
:09:22. > :09:28.Cannae which was established by Kevin Rudd when he recognised that
:09:29. > :09:31.his previous policy had been a clique failure and he sought to
:09:32. > :09:37.reinstate the Howard era policies `` Papua New Guinea. As we have seen
:09:38. > :09:44.with Manus Island, without adequate planning or logistics and security.
:09:45. > :09:49.There have been, as you know, a number of tragic incidents. I we are
:09:50. > :09:54.talking about this year, one death, scores injured, clashes between
:09:55. > :09:58.inmates and security clients. Amnesty International say that
:09:59. > :10:02.Australia has spectacularly failed to respect and protect the rights of
:10:03. > :10:08.some of the world 's most vulnerable people. It is a illegally
:10:09. > :10:16.outsourcing responsibilities to ill`equipped third countries ``
:10:17. > :10:19.Third World countries. You are a lawyer. Are you comfortable with
:10:20. > :10:24.your `` with what York country is doing? I don't think any of us are
:10:25. > :10:32.comfortable with any issue relating to order protection `` with what
:10:33. > :10:38.your country is doing. Do you believe you we are in compliance
:10:39. > :10:46.with international law. We have harsh measures. Some would say they
:10:47. > :10:52.are cruel. What would you say? I would say they are harsh. I wouldn't
:10:53. > :10:54.say cruel. Lets not argue about semantics. If you want to stop
:10:55. > :11:00.people smuggling, you have to be very very tough. Kevin Rudd
:11:01. > :11:05.conducted a massive social science experiment. He believed that his
:11:06. > :11:12.approach wouldn't result in a resurgence of arrivals. He had
:11:13. > :11:18.50,000, somewhere between five and 10% of those numbers, we don't
:11:19. > :11:23.know, drowned at sea. It has been a catastrophe. You have just yourself
:11:24. > :11:26.acknowledged that things aren't right in the Manus Island detention
:11:27. > :11:33.camp run by Papua New Guinea. Would you have your government closed back
:11:34. > :11:36.down? It is a matter for the Immigration Minister, Scott
:11:37. > :11:42.Morrison, who is getting that state of affairs into order `` close that
:11:43. > :11:48.down. Would you like to see it closed down? No he hasn't, but what
:11:49. > :11:51.we want to see is it being properly run and we are taking the steps to
:11:52. > :11:57.ensure that happens, well, Scott is taking those steps. You need to
:11:58. > :12:01.remember this was set up by Kevin Rudd. I'm not trying to pass the
:12:02. > :12:08.blame. He set it up in a screaming hurry to try and get the Labour
:12:09. > :12:12.Party's immigration, border protection house in order before an
:12:13. > :12:15.election at the truth is that the most effective policy that we have
:12:16. > :12:19.at the moment a lot which is the one that John Howard used very
:12:20. > :12:27.skilfully, is turning the boats back and that means you are not taking
:12:28. > :12:31.people into custody or... There is something reputational at stake. You
:12:32. > :12:39.sit here as the communications minister. I assume that part of your
:12:40. > :12:47.job is to communicate Australia's case to the world. It seems you have
:12:48. > :12:52.a problem when the one hand... Will you tell me the problem? I am about
:12:53. > :12:53.to lay it out. At the UN Security Council, for example, Australia
:12:54. > :13:00.co`authors resolutions deploring the humanitarian crisis in Syria,
:13:01. > :13:08.demanding that the B addressed. At the same time, we see Syrians, on
:13:09. > :13:12.leaking boats, desperately trying to get to Australia, being intercepted
:13:13. > :13:15.by the Australian Navy, who turned them around and tow them towards
:13:16. > :13:17.Indonesia, violating Indonesian territorial waters at the same time.
:13:18. > :13:20.It looks like that is a fundamental hypocrisy coming from Australia. It
:13:21. > :13:23.is absolutely not. We have a generous humanitarian programme, and
:13:24. > :13:35.we take 20,000 humanitarian refugees each year. Aaron the point is, as
:13:36. > :13:41.John Howerd said, we, on behalf of the Australian people, we want to
:13:42. > :13:45.determine who comes to Australia, and the circumstances in which they
:13:46. > :13:52.come. We recognise that the disaster in Syria is staggering, and there
:13:53. > :13:59.will be a massive refugee problem, and it will get worse until the
:14:00. > :14:02.situation is stabilised. Those unlucky enough to see in leaky boat
:14:03. > :14:07.heading to your country will be very unlucky, it is they will get turned
:14:08. > :14:12.down, and may well end up in Papua New Guinea. The boats are not full
:14:13. > :14:21.of Syrians. The people smuggling business is a business, it is
:14:22. > :14:24.essentially a travel business, and unlawful immigration business.
:14:25. > :14:28.People are paying $5,000 to get on these boats, and you have got to ask
:14:29. > :14:32.yourself, if you are going to have an humanitarian programme, do you
:14:33. > :14:37.want to select who should come? The answer to that is clearly yes. If
:14:38. > :14:39.you want to do that, you have to stop the people smuggling business,
:14:40. > :14:45.because otherwise they end up selecting who you'll humanitarian
:14:46. > :14:48.programme is made up of. Let me shift focus to another area where
:14:49. > :14:53.Australia is under serious international scrutiny. That is
:14:54. > :15:05.climate change. You say, I can't hold Tony Abbott's past words
:15:06. > :15:12.against him for eternity, but he did once described climate change as
:15:13. > :15:31.absolutely... It is a word I can't actually use on the BBC, it begins
:15:32. > :15:37.with, and ends with macro to `` P. You were out of step with your
:15:38. > :15:41.party, you still are. The emissions trading scheme was the Liberal
:15:42. > :15:46.Party's policy under John Howard. The emissions trading scheme was
:15:47. > :15:50.designed... We don't have so much time, and I appreciate this is
:15:51. > :15:56.important... Tony Abbott challenged me over this issue, and the party
:15:57. > :16:03.changed its policy. Until such time as I ceased to be leader, the
:16:04. > :16:08.Liberal Party's policy under John Howard, and under Brendan Nelson,
:16:09. > :16:11.was an emissions trading scheme. I accept that, but the reality today
:16:12. > :16:17.is that you sit around the Cabinet table, with Tony Abbott. I believe
:16:18. > :16:23.this summer it is going to happen, he is committed to the full repeal
:16:24. > :16:26.of the carbon tax introduced by the Labour party, and I just wonder
:16:27. > :16:33.whether that is a fundamental mistake, if you think it is a
:16:34. > :16:37.fundamental mistake. We won an election with the repeal of the
:16:38. > :16:44.carbon tax is one of our biggest and most prominent planks. We couldn't
:16:45. > :16:49.possibly not repeal it. You could if you given Australia being pretty
:16:50. > :16:55.much the most polluting, dirtiest country in the developed world, you
:16:56. > :17:01.may laugh, but look at the OECD figures. You are the dirtiest nation
:17:02. > :17:04.in the rich world. Isn't it actually a very strange priority for Tony
:17:05. > :17:11.Abbott to pick to reveal the carbon tax, when those are the facts? Our
:17:12. > :17:15.government is committed to the same emissions reduction target to which
:17:16. > :17:19.the previous government was, they are bipartisan. We are trying to
:17:20. > :17:23.achieve those cuts without putting a price on carbon, having a programme
:17:24. > :17:28.that has been described as direct action, which essentially means
:17:29. > :17:34.providing incentives to polluters to cut their emissions, and our policy
:17:35. > :17:37.is that this is an alternative approach, and there are many
:17:38. > :17:44.alternative approaches to cutting CO2 emissions. You can see them in
:17:45. > :17:47.the US. The targets you have set yourself are more lenient, more
:17:48. > :17:51.relaxed than those that had been set by Obama for the US, and certainly
:17:52. > :17:58.weigh more lenient than those had been set by the European Union. When
:17:59. > :18:01.is Australia going to set up to its responsibilities, given the amount
:18:02. > :18:06.of emissions you are responsible for? I contest what you are saying.
:18:07. > :18:13.The cut is a substantial one, cutting our emissions by 2020 by
:18:14. > :18:17.5%. We have had a rapidly growing economy, unlike Europe, so the cut
:18:18. > :18:22.on a business as usual basis is actually very large. Don't fall for
:18:23. > :18:28.that idea that it is just a 5% cut, it is a very significant cut, and we
:18:29. > :18:34.are confident that we can achieve it. The real question for the global
:18:35. > :18:40.community, ears, is there going to be a global arrangement going
:18:41. > :18:44.forward? We had the disaster at Copenhagen, and we all know that
:18:45. > :18:48.without a global agreement we will not get effective abatement of
:18:49. > :18:54.greenhouse gas emissions, it is if one country stops admitting a tonne
:18:55. > :18:59.and another one in its an additional time, then they hate each other off.
:19:00. > :19:11.I want to address some of the issues that are in your area as the
:19:12. > :19:16.telecommunications minister. That is the way Australia has handled the
:19:17. > :19:20.revelations that have come out of Edward Snowden and what he has told
:19:21. > :19:24.us about the mass electronic surveillance, led by the US, of
:19:25. > :19:29.internet traffic around the world. We have learned that Australia has
:19:30. > :19:33.been very much part of that. Australia has an intelligence
:19:34. > :19:40.alliance with the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand. Before you came to
:19:41. > :19:42.power, you said that you thought all Australians should take very
:19:43. > :19:47.seriously what Edward Snowden had revealed. Since then, you have
:19:48. > :19:55.changed your tune, and said that you believe he has done enormous damage
:19:56. > :19:58.to Australia. I don't think you have quite characterised he has done a
:19:59. > :20:03.lot of damage, because he has revealed very current, a massive
:20:04. > :20:09.amount of very current operational information about the work of the
:20:10. > :20:16.intelligence services in Britain and America and Australia. I would have
:20:17. > :20:18.thought that as a lawyer who represented Peter Wright in a long
:20:19. > :20:24.battle with the British government about the freedom to speak openly
:20:25. > :20:26.about what intelligence services do, you would have instinctively
:20:27. > :20:31.supported Edward Snowden and the important revelations he has given
:20:32. > :20:35.us. There is a huge difference between Peter Wright and Edward
:20:36. > :20:40.Snowden. Peter Wright's information was firstly very old, and secondly,
:20:41. > :20:46.it had all been published before, and thirdly, Peter Wright offered
:20:47. > :20:52.his book to MI5 to blue pencil. Edward Snowden's stuff is absolutely
:20:53. > :20:58.current operational staff, and he has never suggested that he would
:20:59. > :21:03.submit it for vetting or anything like that. The two cases... Don't
:21:04. > :21:09.Australians have a right to know that if they use Gmail or any other
:21:10. > :21:13.big corporate internet provider, there is a strong possibility that
:21:14. > :21:17.not just Australian intelligence, but US intelligence, there will be
:21:18. > :21:20.able to access the information they are putting online? Australian
:21:21. > :21:27.intelligence services operate within the law, as indeed it... And
:21:28. > :21:33.international lawyer says there is real doubt about that. That
:21:34. > :21:38.Australia has been sharing with the US without any warrant or formal
:21:39. > :21:42.permission. Our intelligence services operate within the law,
:21:43. > :21:45.that is the fact. You can tell me that, but there has been no
:21:46. > :21:54.Parliamentary enquiry to make sure that is true in Australia, has there
:21:55. > :21:57.was yellow there is an intelligence service that regulates it, and I'm
:21:58. > :22:05.confident it operates within the law. The thing about Snowden was
:22:06. > :22:10.that it was very current, and it has done a great deal of harm. There is
:22:11. > :22:15.a very active debate right now that when the organisation and control of
:22:16. > :22:20.the internet needs to change, and in the past it has been very much a US
:22:21. > :22:27.dominated area. Has that got to change? Putin says that at the
:22:28. > :22:31.moment it is a CIA project. Do things have to change because of
:22:32. > :22:37.international perception? The US has had a fairly formal role in the
:22:38. > :22:41.contracts relating to the administration... Federal
:22:42. > :22:48.institutions have had a very important... It has been a formal
:22:49. > :22:54.role, only. The best way I can describe it is the way the House of
:22:55. > :22:57.Lords is described, it has done nothing in particular, but done it
:22:58. > :23:01.very well. Is your opinion that it has to change? Has to be
:23:02. > :23:03.internationalised and taken away from the US? The US have said they
:23:04. > :23:10.don't want the department of commerce to be involved, even in a
:23:11. > :23:17.titular sense. But what the Americans insist on, and we insist
:23:18. > :23:21.on and support them in this, as you do in the UK, is that we do not want
:23:22. > :23:25.to have the administration of the internet being overseen by
:23:26. > :23:29.governments at large. By the UN force a multilateral body. It should
:23:30. > :23:34.be run by the internet community, which is how it has been run. It is
:23:35. > :23:38.not elegant, what we call it the multi` stakeholder approach. That is
:23:39. > :23:44.how the body that administers all of these addresses and domain name
:23:45. > :23:49.system is, that is how it has operated in the past, and that is
:23:50. > :23:53.how it should operate in the future. It is critical that the internet
:23:54. > :23:55.remains free. We believe there should be freedom of the internet
:23:56. > :23:58.and freedom on the internet. We have run out of time. Malcolm Turnbull,
:23:59. > :24:33.thank you for being on HARDtalk. Monday was the warmest day of the
:24:34. > :24:37.holiday weekend, 20 degrees in Cambridge. We had more of a
:24:38. > :24:42.southerly trees developing, blowing in some warmer air, ahead of this
:24:43. > :24:43.weather front which has brought rain across many parts of the