TONY JONES: Good evening. Welcome to Q&A. I'm Tony Jones and answering your questions tonight: the Shadow Minister for Telecommunications, Malcolm Turnbull; writer and comedian Corinne Grant; editorial cartoonist for The Australian newspaper, Bill Leak; the new Deputy Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, also known as Albo; and the director of the Centre for Policy Development, Miriam Lyons. Please welcome our panel. As usual, we are being simulcast on ABC News 24 and News Radio and you can join the Twitter conversation with the hashtag that just appeared on your screen. Well, our first question tonight comes from Anne Clarke.

LABOR LEADERSHIP REFORM

ANNE CLARKE: Good evening. Mr Albanese, I'd like to ask you, as a loyal Labor voter since the age of 18, so quite a long time, I have been dismayed and absolutely disgusted, I guess, by the events that have happened recently to unseat yet another Labor Prime Minister. Nonetheless, since I don't want an Abbott-led government, if people like me are willing to get behind the Rudd-led campaign, what can you do to assure me that the reforms that have been announced tonight are going to protect us from making sure that this never happens again, if you defy the odds and retain the government this year?

TONY JONES: Anthony Albanese?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, thanks Anne. Look, the reforms are aimed at doing two things. One is to provide that reassurance, because the structure will mean that the Prime Minister that you vote for is the Prime Minister that you will get for the entire term and that's important. We recognise that our internals have caused concern out there, as well as inside the Caucus.

TONY JONES: You are talking about internal polling?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Secondly - no, no. Our internal issues and conflicts...

TONY JONES: Oh, right.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: ...need to be put behind us. One way to do that is to look outward and I have been a supporter of greater democratisation of the Labor Party for a very long time and I was very proud today to stand up with the Prime Minister and announce that we will have the Labor Party membership determine, on a 50% basis with the Caucus membership, the future leadership of the Party. What it will do is ensure that there is real engagement and already there has been a sense of excitement. We've had people flooding the ALP websites and phoning in wanting to participate, actually wanting to join a political party.

TONY JONES: Wanting a new vote already?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Because - no, no, no, no. Not at all Tony. I think people want to put that behind us. What people do want, though, with politics is not just to go along once every three years and vote or, if you are a Labor Party member or supporter, I am not sure how involved you are, maybe you have put things in a letter box or handed out on polling day how-to-votes, you will get a real say if you join the Labor Party and that is, I think, a really important reform. It is one that reflects what's going on around the world, is that with new technology and new social engagement, even the success of this show, I think, is a reflection of the fact that people want engagement, people don't just want to receive, they want to also be able to participate in a real way.

TONY JONES: Okay. We need to hear from you exactly and the audience here in particular, how this is actually going to work. I mean you mentioned there, for example, people get to vote for a Prime Minister and the Prime Minister will remain for the full term. What about Opposition leaders? Is that the same? If you are an Opposition leader, do you remain Opposition leader, no matter what you are polling, no matter how badly you are doing?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: What will happen is in order to change the leadership of the Labor Party, it will require a 75%, so three out of every four Caucus members, has to petition for there to be a change. There then will be a vote over a 30-day period. You need 20%, or one in every five Caucus members to nominate. So you might have two or three candidates put themselves forward in that process. But it essentially means that it will be extremely difficult to change leaders during a political term, but after an election, if Labor is not successful, then there'd be an opening up, obviously, of the process and people will be able to participate. I think it's a good thing.

TONY JONES: So I'll again come back to the question what happens if you are an Opposition Leader who is not performing? A Labor Opposition Leader. This 75% of the Caucus is quite a high bar to jump over and, plus, Kevin Rudd has added to that that you have to be showing the party in serious disrepute.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, I think in terms of the definition, if you have got three out of every four Caucus members think that we should think about having a new Opposition leader, then that shows your performance - chances are you would yourself resign. That's one of the things, the 75%, or if an Opposition leader chose to declare the position vacant and then you would have that process, that would involve directly the ALP membership, which is around about 40,000 people at the moment, but I expect it is climbing as we speak.

TONY JONES: Malcolm Turnbull, I am going to go to you, just to get - is this sort of mechanism the kind of thing you might dream of in the Liberal Party?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: What, as a leader of the Opposition who lost his spot? Well, I think...

TONY JONES: Funny you should say that.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: We're a different political party. Our pre-selections for our members are in every State except New South Wales plebiscites, so our members all get a direct say and I'd certainly like to see plebiscites in New South Wales as well.

TONY JONES: We'd like to see plebiscites for the leader?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, we've never had any call for that in our party, because we've never had the sort of problem Labor's had. You have got to remember there have been five Labor Prime Ministers in the last 40 years. Three of them have been removed while in office. Three of them have been removed while in office. So the Labor Party Caucus - what Anthony and Kevin Rudd are basically doing is they're admitting that the Labor Party Caucus is so hopelessly dominated by trade unions and factions that it can no longer be trusted with choosing the leader - its own leader and that raises very real questions about the culture of the Labor Party. Now, it's very different in the Liberal Party because it's a grass roots organisation and there is no equivalent of the trade unions pulling the strings on any of our members. So we're a genuinely grass roots political party. Labor is trying to transition, it seems to me, from being a party that is dominated and controlled by unions, which it still is today, and Kevin Rudd is obviously trying to change that, and hence all of the instability and grief that they're facing. It's a very divided team. I mean Kevin Rudd wants to make this election a presidential contest between him and Tony Abbott but parliamentary politics is about teams and we are a united team, stable team. Labor, well, I could describe it as a rabble but that's actually worse than that. The animosities and hatreds are so considerable that what they are seeking to do is to take the choice of the leader out of the hands of the elected representatives to give it to the party members at large.

TONY JONES: Corinne Grant ...

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, can I just make one point?

TONY JONES: Sorry, yes, you can respond to that briefly?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Can I just make one point, apart from the irony of getting a lecture about unity in a political party from you, Malcolm, given what occurred in the Liberal Party when you were also torn down as leader by Tony Abbott...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: This was four years ago, Anthony. Four years ago and we've been completely united. We had that issue. It was an issue about policy. It wasn't about personality. It was an issue about policy and it was resolved and there has been complete teamwork and unity ever since and that's a fact.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You look at the changes - if you look at the changes that we've made and you say it is about our internals, but you look at a party like the British Conservative Party that used to determine its leaders where the hereditary peers used to select the leader of the conservative party. Now, it's opened up to the membership. This is happening around the world with parties of both the left and the right. People increasingly want to participate in their democracy and they understand that participation is more than just voting on polling day.

TONY JONES: Okay. I want to hear from Corinne Grant. Do you see it as Malcolm Turnbull does or do you think this could be the ALP Spring?

CORINNE GRANT: I think it's very magnanimous of Malcolm to say that, you know, that the party decides their leaders. I think if you did open it up to the Liberal Party membership to decide who their leader is they might choose you over Tony.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, very kind of you. You are off to a great start complimenting me like that.

CORINNE GRANT: Yeah. I just wonder whether - I think it is a good idea to go to the membership and get them more involved and I think you are right, that we are moving into a world where people do want more of a direct say in how connected they are to their politicians and the way that their country runs, but I wonder whether you end up spending your time in Opposition running around a country trying to shore up votes instead of sitting down and nutting out what you're going to do when you get back into Parliament? Do you see that becoming an issue?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: No, because you'll do it really quickly in terms of there is a process of 30 days...

CORINNE GRANT: Okay.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: ...in which you determine who the leader is, that occurs in other political parties.

TONY JONES: So a 30 day national campaign with potentially four candidates?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Potentially, that's right.

CORINNE GRANT: Yeah.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: And wouldn't that be a good thing? It happened in England. You have a look at where Labour was positioned after a considerable defeat after the last election in England and you had two brothers bizarrely running against each other, David and Ed Miliband. It enthused and re-energised the Labour Part so that - and that took a much longer process. As Malcolm said, it was more complex than the system we're suggesting that's pretty simple: one vote, one value for every rank and file member matched with the Caucus membership. I think it would be a very positive way to spend, frankly, the first 30 days because you would be talking about ideas and people would undoubtedly be coming on shows like this and on various media outlets engaging in the debate about the future of the party. I mean one of the problems, I think, that we don't have enough of in politics is it's so confrontational in recent times that part of the new politics is about ideas and I think that's a genuine criticism of all sides of politics at the moment. You would have that debate and inevitably, given the nature of communications these days, it would be public.

TONY JONES: Okay. Miriam, what do you think? Is this an ALP Spring or a delusion?

MIRIAM LYONS: Look, I think this is a very important and long overdue reform. You know, Labor started out as the party of social democracy and I think for too long it's forgotten the democracy bit and I think that the closed culture that's developed in Labor is part of what has led to the sort of New South Wales Labor disease that, you know, we have all been so frustrated by and not just party members like Anne. I think the general public has been really frustrated particularly, you know, by this fact that it doesn't seem like there is only one poll that counts anymore. There is dozens. So, you know, I do think this is really important. I wonder whether the unity will remain after the election if the Coalition were to win the next election. You know, it may be a united front federally but of course we have seen sitting members turned over in Victoria or in the Northern Territory. So this is not necessarily just a Labor Party disease and I think what you are talking about in terms of the global trend here is very true and I think it is partly that really big old established parties are being forced to open up because they know that everybody is just completely sick of this closed political culture. You know, you see the rise of movements like the 5M movement in Italy, where people are just frustrated by politics in general, and I think that that frustration explains a lot of Kevin Rudd's personal popularity and why that's been so enduring.

TONY JONES: Bill Leak, maybe you could give us an insight in the cartoonist's mind. If you had to represent the new democratisation of the ALP, how would you represent it visually?

BILL LEAK: The first thing I'm reminded of is an old joke when I was - a sort of a variation on a joke when Rudd undertook to - well, you just go in. The 30 days seem to be the magic figure all the time. In 30 days he is going to clean up the New South Wales right or the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party and I thought in one of his many conversations with God, you know, I can imagine God saying to him "Now, look, Kevin, if you want to get into heaven, you can either clean up New South Wales Labor or empty the Pacific Ocean out with a bucket. You've got 30 days" and I think Kevin would pause for a moment and say "Oh, bugger it, give me the bucket.0"

TONY JONES: Well, he had already spent 40 days in the wilderness.

BILL LEAK: Well, that's right. His wilderness days are over.

TONY JONES: Let's move on. Our next Dean Shachar.

LABOR LEADERSHIP REFORM

DEAN SHACHAR: Mr Albanese, you have just made reference to the situation in the United Kingdom with the Labour Party there and the Miliband brothers. I'm not sure how aware you are of the facts there, however trade unions did play a role in that decision as well. In fact it could be argued, based on the facts, that the other Miliband brother did have the support in Caucus, while Ed, the current leader, got his support from the trade unions. So you've just said then that you would like to see that sort of model implemented here and it would be good. So are you really just saying that trade unions should continue to have that sort of influence over your party?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: No, let's be very clear. One vote one value is the system that we are putting forward and the Caucus will have a 50% balance with that. So there is no trade union component whatsoever in we are putting forward. What we want is...

TONY JONES: That's the fundamental thing, isn't it? I mean do you accept that it is Kevin Rudd's antagonism of trade union power that has actually driven you in this direction so quickly?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Not at all. Not at all. A number of us have been talking about this for a long time and in terms of there was a debate in the Labor Party Caucus a while ago about the choice - who gets to select the front bench and I argued that wasn't the question. The question was democratising the party and giving the members a say in electing the leader. That's exactly what this does and that's why I referred to - the UK system is very different. We haven't adopted the UK model but, nonetheless, the UK model that has votes for members of affiliated unions get to participate as well as party members. What happened with that process was a re-energising of Labour and if you look from a very early stage the Opposition has been very competitive, whereas you would expect a first-term Opposition usually struggles.

TONY JONES: I've got to ask you this though: when we see headlines like the one in the Fin Review today - I will come back to you actually. Good. Keep your hand up there. The Fin Review today had a headline: "Howes and Shorten split". I mean, is that an indication that union influence is beginning to wane in the Labor Party?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Look, I think it's really overestimated in terms of unions - one of the things that this membership change will do, the democratisation - I want to encourage trade union members to join the Labor Party and be active in the Labor Party. I think it's a matter of one vote, one value will do that whether you are a trade unionist or an activist in some community organisation or a small business person. It doesn't matter. You will get one vote, the same vote as everyone else and I think that's going to be really important in spreading the membership and saying to them that they have rights, which are valued.

TONY JONES: Okay. Just before I come back to our questioner, here is a fundamental question: I mean, is this democratisation going to spread to the selection of candidates? Will you have primary votes in individual seats for candidates?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, we have, of course, here in New South Wales, rank and file pre-selection of candidates and we have also had some experimentation including for the Sydney City Council. We had a primary and there was some primaries conducted in Victoria as well in some State seats that were really successful.

TONY JONES: Can we expect to see that at a Federal level?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I certainly would support a trial of it in some seats. It's a bit difficult between now and the federal election, there is obviously not time but in future...

TONY JONES: So there will be no ballots for the current candidates who are lining up in controversial ways in different seats right now? In Lawler?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, it takes more time. To hold a primary it takes months, not days or weeks and in terms of given the timing of the federal election, that's not possible. But I think there will be primaries in the lead-up, for example, to the next New South Wales State election, including in absolutely winnable seats. And that will be a really important way to mobilise support for those candidates, because you'll ensure that they're actually connected with the community and, therefore, the community has a sense of ownership to campaign for them.

TONY JONES: Okay.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I think it's smart politics, as well as being a good thing for re-energising the party.

TONY JONES: All right. So I'm going to go back to our questioner up there. Go ahead.

DEAN SHACHAR: Just before you made reference whereby a leader would need to - could only be sort of knifed again if the other member had 75% support within the Caucus. But if, as is likely, Kevin Rudd goes on to lose the next election, the leadership would be vacant. In that scenario, a leader could get 70% of the membership vote and only 31% of the Caucus vote and then become leader with a minority of Caucus wanting them. Wouldn't this continue the same instability, dysfunction and chaos we have seen over the last six years?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: No, because they would, having been elected under that process, be the leader until the next term.

DEAN SHACHAR: But it's a minority of Caucus that has elected them. 69% don't want them.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: But in terms of - but the point is it is not just about the Caucus. It's actually about, at the end of the day, often in politics and it is one of the things that we have to recognise and I think has been recognised with this change and I'm hopeful the Caucus will adopt it in a couple of weeks: at the end of the day it's not the votes inside the Caucus that matters, it's the votes in the Australian population that matters. And you can't do anything unless you're in government. So we've got to engage. We've got to engage with the Australian people. This system does just that and if it means that the Australian people's views is more important than the Caucus's views, well, so be it.

TONY JONES: I'm just going to interrupt you there. We have got another questioner up the back. I'll quickly take your question and then we'll move onto other subjects.

FROM THE FLOOR

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, Mr Albanese, Kevin Rudd has been Prime Minister now for about a fortnight, shouldn't he be busy running the country rather than sorting out the Labor Party?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I think we've been pretty busy...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Tony, can I just say something on this?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I think it is hard to argue we haven't been busy running the country in terms of we've had, in 12 days to be precise - in 12 days we've had the launch of DisabilityCare Australia by Kevin Rudd in Newcastle. We had the Prime Minister represented the nation at the memorial service for Mr Yunipingu, one of the great Indigenous Australians of our time. We've had, in terms of a change in policy and negotiations with over the education package in terms of the Better Schools Program. Today I met with the Business Council of Australia, with all of their senior chief executives of major Australian companies with the Prime Minister and the Treasurer and other representatives.

TONY JONES: Anthony, I think we might sort of...

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I think we're working.

TONY JONES: All right. Malcolm Turnbull, briefly?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, I am very touched by Anthony's concerns about democracy but the Prime Minister should be chosen by the people of Australia and the time to do that is at an election and we should have an election now.

TONY JONES: Thank you and let's move along. The next question comes from Keith Lawler.

ABBOTT - DEBATE

KEITH LAWLER: It seems clear that one of the major issues contributing to Tony Abbott's poor polling as preferred Prime Minister in recent days is his failure to present clear policies on a range of issues. So my question is does his refusal to debate Prime Minister Rudd on issues such as debt and deficit, asylum seeker policy and other issues indicate that he has nothing of substance really to offer or is it simply that e lacks ticker?

TONY JONES: Corinne Grant, I will start with you.

CORINNE GRANT: It's the lack of detail. He still keeps holding up that little booklet - what's your little booklet called, Malcolm?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Real Solutions.

CORINNE GRANT: Real Solutions.

TONY JONES: That was said with real enthusiasm.

CORINNE GRANT: Awkward. Very awkward. See he cradles it like a baby and just goes, "Here, this is it. These are my real solutions". And today he launched a policy about cutting red tape, I think it was. And somebody said, "Well, okay, how are you going to do that?" And he paused and then he said, "We'll get rid of the carbon tax." I went, "Oh, we've heard that. We've heard that. Come up with something new. Put some detail into it." There still doesn't seem to be - there only seems to be boats and carbon tax and that seems to be it.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: There is a huge amount of detail out there.

CORINNE GRANT: Where? Where?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: You know, if you don't...

CORINNE GRANT: Floating around?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: If you don't read it, I mean in my own area, the broadband...

CORINNE GRANT: Where would I read it? In the little Real Solutions?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, the broadband policy is on the web. It's about 60 pages.

CORINNE GRANT: And it's incomprehensible, Malcolm.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No.

TONY JONES: No, that's not fair.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No. No. Well, Corinne, you can't have it both ways. You can't say you are not releasing any policy and then when I point you to one you say, "Oh, I couldn't understand it," or "It's incomprehensible." I mean, that's ...

CORINNE GRANT: I didn't say I couldn't understand it.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Look, can I just say with respect to the debate issue, you know, we do have a debating chamber for politicians. It is called the House of Representatives and if Kevin Rudd wants to debate Tony Abbott on all of these issues, and Tony Abbott certainly wants to debate him, he should recall Parliament, we should go back to Parliament on the schedule and we can debate all of those things in the Parliament. If, on the other hand, Mr Rudd wants to have an early election, and we certainly agree that's a very good idea and we'd encourage you, Albo, to have an election and get on with it, then, of course, Mr Abbott will debate him in the National Press Club or anywhere else because that's what you do during election campaigns.

TONY JONES: Malcolm Turnbull, is it unique for an Opposition Leader to refuse the opportunity for three cracks at a sitting Prime Minister before the election even begins?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I am not a statistician.

TONY JONES: Can you think of an occasion where an Opposition Leader has refused that kind of opportunity for public debates on policy with the Prime Minister?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, look, Tony Abbott is not refusing to debate Kevin Rudd. What he is saying is if we are going to an election, if you call an election, I'll be there at the Press Club. If we're governing - if the election is being pushed out and out so Kevin can go to St Petersburg or whatever else he wants to do, then bring the Parliament back, it's due to come back in August anyway, bring it back early and we'll debate these things. We have a debating chamber. It is called the Parliament. It's called the Parliament and that's where the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition debate.

TONY JONES: So, but I mean, is there - he already did at least have one debate outside of the Parliament and outside an election with Kevin Rudd, so he has obviously changed his opinion on this, because that was a debate on health. He didn't win it.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Didn't go well.

TONY JONES: According to the public.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Look, Tony Abbott was so hopeless in his advocacy against Kevin Rudd that you guys, Albo, despaired of Kevin Rudd's ability to win an election and removed him as leader. I mean, you know, Tony Abbott was responsible for creating the environment where you got rid of Kevin Rudd.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, why doesn't he front up, Malcolm, Thursday?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, why don't you bring Parliament back?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Thursday. You just said you wanted an election.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Look, anyway, you don't need Tony Abbott. Kevin can debate himself. He can. He can. I mean, look, take immigration. Kevin '07 can say, "Stop the boats." And then he can duck around to the other side of the platform and Kevin '13 can say, "Oh, you can't stop the boats. You can't tow those boats back."

MIRIAM LYONS: To be fair, Malcolm, Tony Abbot could do the same on carbon tax.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: On economics - no, Kevin has had so many positions on economics, he doesn't need to have a debate.

MIRIAM LYONS: As has Tony Abbott.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: He can be a panel. Kevin could be the whole panel. He's had '07 fiscal Conservative; '08, the government should be at the centre of the economy; '09 spend, spend, spend.

MIRIAM LYONS: Yes, a global financial crisis happened in the meantime.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: '013, we've got to cuddle up to the business community. I mean there is a whole range.

CORINNE GRANT: But at least we know what they are. Tony Abbott never comes out and speaks to the people. We don't know what he thinks. That's why I want the debate.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Tony Abbott - Tony Abbot - you could never accuse Tony Abbott of being a faceless man. He is on television all the time.

CORINNE GRANT: There are no faceless men in the ALP anymore either. We have seen them all far too many times.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: I would like...

ANTHONY ALBANESE: He is never here. He's never here.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, he was on 7:30 report earlier this evening.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: He keeps ducking the big debates.

TONY JONES: I want to hear from the other panellists. So, Bill, what do you think about this? Is he ducking a debate or just waiting to have it in a property forum?

BILL LEAK: Well, I'd like to see as many debates between now and the election, whenever it is, as is possible and I agree with Malcolm's basic position that these things should take place during an election campaign but something strange happened in February this year when Julia Gillard actually announced when the election would be and although she said she'd be putting aside days for governing and days for campaigning, it seemed to me like one endless campaign ever since and I'm, frankly, sick and tired of this presidential approach to politics and elections where it is sort of like Australia hasn't got talent or, you know...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Or remember what - I don't know whether it was original but Latham always used to say that politics is show business for ugly people.

BILL LEAK: Yes, that's right. But it is sort of popularity contest stuff. And I think if we do want to make it a context of ideas, and Kevin Rudd is suggesting a series of debates, well I think let's have them, let's make it a contest of ideas and let's forget about the fact that officially we are not in election campaign mode because whether we like it or not, we have been for months.

TONY JONES: Well, we'd like to open up this forum to that possibility if anyone would like to use the Q&A set and the Q&A audience, we can have the debate right here. Miriam Lyons, what do you think?

MIRIAM LYONS: Look, I am sure that Kevin Rudd is looking forward to debating an empty chair but, to be honest, I think that the contributions that Tony Abbott has made to Australia's public debate over the last four years, you know you want to have a serious conversation about Australia's future, our economic future, a whole bunch of serious social problems and you may as well be debating an empty chair. You know, I think that, you know, to your credit, Malcolm, the broadband policy is a serious, well-referenced, detailed policy but it's an exception. That Real Solutions bull - booklet is full - booklet. It's full of superficial slogans. You know, I think that this regulation, you know, we're going to save a billion dollars by cutting regulation example is great. What regulation are you going to cut: the bank regulation that was so effective in shepherding Australia through difficult economic times where we, you know, ended up suffering from the global financial crisis a lot less because we had a well-regulated sector? Are we going to cut regulation of, say, installing home insulation? Yeah, you know, that's a great idea. Yeah. You know, I mean, you...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: I can give you some examples. One of the biggest problems we've got at the moment is we have so many layers of environmental and planning approvals and I saw this when I was Environment Minister. It has got ridiculously too many tiers. One of our policies is without walking away from any of the legal obligations is to have a one-stop shop for environmental approvals for planning purposes. Now, that is a huge saving. Now, that is a very big save...

MIRIAM LYONS: I would be very keen to see what it meant by, "without walking away from the legal obligations."

TONY JONES: Hang on. Just hang on a sec. I think we need to hear the answer finished there. Go ahead.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, I can explain it. I can explain it. I mean it simply means that you...

TONY JONES: If you could just do it briefly.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, well, it means you delegate to the State the Federal Government's authority under the EPBC Act, with the ability to call it back obviously, if you're unhappy with what they're doing. But when I was Environment Minister, I can tell you there were people doing residential subdivisions at Mission Beach in Queensland who had to come all the way down to Canberra to get Federal approval because there was, you know, a threatened species under the EPBC Act. Now, it makes much more sense to delegate that to the State planning authorities and save all of that time and expense. Now, that's one. So this is not, you know, wafty or anything like this. There is a lot of very specific work that we have done.

TONY JONES: Okay. We're going to another question on policy. It is a video. It's a video. It's from James Brotchie in Brisbane.

NBN

JAMES BROTCHIE: As the inventor of the Internet in Australia, Mr Turnbull, I would expect you to understand the importance of high-speed uploads especially as more and more data moves to the cloud and a greater number of citizens begin telecommuting. Given that you have alienated an entire generation with your marginally cheaper and much slower broadband policy, how can you allay concerns that the Coalition simply doesn't get technology and lacks a strong vision for Australia's future?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, marginally cheaper, it is about $60 billion cheaper so it depends on what you think is marginal but the reality is that our policy is a fully worked out one which will ensure that all Australians get very fast broadband and they get it much sooner, much cheaper, at less cost to the taxpayer and it will be more affordable. The problem with Labor's vision of running fibre to every premises, every house, every flat, business and flat and so forth is that it simply isn't happening. The project has barely reached 15% of its target to date. That's the target as at June 30 and so far they've passed around 2% of all the premises they're meant to pass with fibre by 2021. So this project is going to take decades and decades and decades and what we have got is a plan that uses a mix of technologies and will get the job done promptly.

TONY JONES: Now, can I just - the questioner is not here obviously because he asked a video. But just to follow up on one of the key parts of what he said, do you get much greater upload capacity with fibre than copper?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, yes, you can. Well, let me just get this. This is not a dichotomy between fibre and copper.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Oh Malcolm.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, please let me explain this. If you have got an exchange there and you've got your house there, there is going to be anything from 2, 3, 4,000 metres to the pillar in the street, the node. All of that copper is being replaced under our scheme, as indeed under Labor's. The only difference is what do you do with the last 400 or 500m and that is where three-quarters of the cost is. So what we are proposing is you use modern technologies which enable you to achieve very high speeds, up to 100 megabits per second, over that in much shorter time: a quarter of the time, a quarter of the cost.

TONY JONES: The question was about uploading and...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, uploads and downloads are normally set in the ratio of 4:1. So if you had an 80 meg download product, the upload would be 20 megs. You need, at best, a couple of megs to do video conferencing. So the reality is the Internet is becoming - while people are uploading more, it is actually becoming more asymmetrical, not less.

TONY JONES: Okay.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: And the reason for that is because there's so much - the thing that's driving bandwidth demand is the video, you know, entertainment. That is - you know, Netflix alone consumes over a third of all the bandwidth in the United States. That's one movie download business. So, you know, the idea that everyone needs to have symmetrical bandwidth is simply not right.

TONY JONES: Okay, Anthony Albanese, new Minister for Communications and self-confessed non-tech head, how do you answer that?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: The question - no. No. I am not an engineer but what I do understand - what I do understand is the importance of uploads as being the key and the NBN will allow uploads of 400 megs, 1,000 meg downloads for a total cost of $30.4 billion in terms of equity. Malcolm's plan is 29.5 billion and it gets you 25 megs and it is...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Your plan will cost $100 billion.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Now, you said it was 90 previously. It's gone up $10 billion in the last minute.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: It will cost 90.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: That's nonsense.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: On very conservative assumptions, it will cost $94 billion.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: That's complete nonsense.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, which of our assumptions is wrong, Anthony?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: That's complete nonsense.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: The plan has been out for three months.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, do you want to listen?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: You haven't been able to pick one hole in it.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: It is complete nonsense, their plan. What we have with the NBN is something that's real and is being rolled out right now. It met its targets for June 30. You can look at the actual cost, because it is being rolled out. You can look at the cost and compare it with what the predictions are and they're on track and the upload factor - the upload factor - I was in Bendigo last Friday with a company, Keitch Engineering. What they're doing - what they're doing is uploading the material so that if you want to order a screw these days, you get it sent to you, you upload the file and you - this is a company that's a steel and metal fabrication. It is currently exporting products to Germany, exporting car components to Germany. For that company, the NBN is absolutely critical. In Coffs Harbour, there are people which were switched on last week. There are people in their home, elderly people, who can upload their basic health, blood pressure, get their sugar levels checked, upload that data, talk to a nurse at a hospital, be it Gold Coast or Sydney or somewhere else, that keeps the elderly person in their home for longer, makes sure that they don't have an acute crisis. If we think about education and think about what kids are going through now, it is the uploads that is the key that will transform our economy and for a very - why would you buy an inferior product for basically 29 bucks rather than 30? That's the difference in terms of equity between the two and frankly, you know, our plan compares, I think - is about the future. To go on about copper as being the future, which is what your plan would do, is a silly as those people who 100 years ago argued that iron wire was good enough and we didn't need copper.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, look...

TONY JONES: No, Malcolm, can I just interrupt there because I am very afraid this could turn into a debate and we're not yet in an election...

ANTHONY ALBANESE: They don't like debates.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, but I want to make two points. Now, Anthony referred to an engineering official that needed to have a lot of bandwidth to upload CAD files and so forth. And that is exactly the sort of firm premises that would have that would have fibre under any - certainly under our scheme. The question is: do you need to provide that sort of bandwidth to every flat, every house, every cottage in Australia? And the answer is there isn't the need for it and the cost differential is tens of billions of dollars. Now, as far as uploading medical information, like blood pressure and so forth, the bandwidth required for that is negligible, it is absolutely negligible.

MIRIAM LYONS: But isn't it true that a lot of health care companies that are being involved in the current trials are saying that they don't want to rely on the copper network because they think of it as unreliable?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: That's not right. I mean, in fact if you are talking about monitoring vital signs, if you think about it, the signals that you are sending involve so little data, because it is just, you know, your blood pressure is X and so forth, what takes up a lot of data is big visual files. You know, so video or big design files. So for vital signs, actually, some of the best techniques are obviously wireless devices because they follow the patient where they go. So, you see, the point is this shouldn't be - I have been involved in the Internet much of my life, right? I didn't invent it. I hasten to add, Al Gore did that, you know.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Tony Abbott thinks you did.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, he is confusing me with Al Gore perhaps.

TONY JONES: It is an easy mistake.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: It is. It is. But the bottom line is there is huge amount of money involved here and when Labor got in in 2007, there were 2 million houses or premises in Australia that couldn't get basic broadband, couldn't download a YouTube video. They still can't. So after six years and billions of dollars, the people that have had no broadband are no better off and that's a fact.

MULTIPLE SPEAKERS TALK AT ONCE

TONY JONES: Let's hear from a couple of other panellists. Bill Leak, copper/fibre do you care?

BILL LEAK: Well, I do but - in fact, I love sort of visionary nation-building projects but I love the idea of them. And we've got a very poor track record of actually putting them in place in Australia. We are not very good at them and as Anthony was saying, you know, well, yes, I think the broadband rollout is a wonderful thing and he is talking about how brilliantly it is going but I have this awful feeling that it we might be nearing the end of the Asian century before I see them rolling down my street and I only live an hour and a half north of Sydney but I can't get TV reception when it's raining and if we are starting to talk about the wonders of wireless, I have to step outside to use the mobile phone. I'm only an hour and a half from where we are sitting right here. And I'd throw in a little anecdote. And that is because I have an uncle who worked for Telecom. I've worked out that it must have been in about 1972. He showed me this wonderful thing. He said, "This is called optical fibre." It was like strands of hair. And he and a group of other people within telecom were trying to convince management that this stuff was the way of the future. He said what we've got to start doing is rolling this stuff out, replacing all of the copper wire with it. I didn't understand a word of what he was talking about and, you know, with all the sort of foresight that you'd expect, management at Telecom told him to pull his bloody head in.

TONY JONES: Well, I tell you what, I am going to stop it there so we can go to other subjects. Our next question...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Can I make one point about Coffs Harbour?

TONY JONES: Yeah.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Anthony, when you were up in Coffs Harbour and you mentioned you were launching the NBN up there, remember when you went to that place to do the demonstration of video conferencing? Remember that?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Yeah. Yeah.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: You know that there was no fibre connected there?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Yeah, absolutely.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: That was actually done on ADSL.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Absolutely. I do know that.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: So you were there talking about the joys of...

MIRIAM LYONS: It is not the point though, is it?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: What we were...

MIRIAM LYONS: It's about what we haven't done yet. It's not about what we're doing now.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: So what was that rotten copper system? That was the rotten copper system...

ANTHONY ALBANESE: No. No. What we were doing was turning on 14,000 homes in Coffs Harbour that are connected now. That's what we were doing.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: But you did the big demo - you did the big demo with the media...

ANTHONY ALBANESE: No, we didn't. No, we didn't.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: ...and it was using the terrible copper system.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: No, we didn't. What we did was turn on the homes.

CORINNE GRANT: Can I talk about my terrible copper system?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: 14,000 of them.

TONY JONES: Okay.

CORINNE GRANT: Every six months Telstra has to come around and fix the crappy copper system that is outside my house and I am without the internet. And I work from home. I am not sitting at home on YouTube. That's not what every Australian person is doing.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, we will fix that.

CORINNE GRANT: You'll fix the copper outside my house?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Fix it faster.

CORINNE GRANT: You will actually fix the copper?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Albo will get to you in 20 years time.

TONY JONES: Will you fix it...

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You will fix them a second rate...

CORINNE GRANT: Are you going to fix the copper?

TONY JONES: Will you fix it every week?

CORINNE GRANT: Because that's Telstra's...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, we'll fix it once.

CORINNE GRANT: You will actually replace it?

MIRIAM LYONS: This is so like the debate that we had 100 years ago that turned up in Hansard...

ANTHONY ALBANESE: That's right.

MIRIAM LYONS: ...the other day, right? It started going around on Twitter where people were debating whether or not to have iron wire or the more expensive then copper wire that was more reliable.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, just remember a vision without proper resources is a hallucination.

MIRIAM LYONS: Well, a short-term vision that isn't going to go the distance is pretty typical of why Australia has ended up with such a massive infrastructure ...(indistinct)...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, but you see, there is enormous value...

TONY JONES: Okay. No, I'm sorry, I'm going to stop you there, Malcolm.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: There is enormous value in optionality.

TONY JONES: Malcolm. Malcolm. You are debating and you are not allowed to do that.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Not allowed, sorry.

TONY JONES: According to your own party rules

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Do it once and do it right.

TONY JONES: Let's go to our next question. It's from Daniel Skehan.

DANIEL SKEHAN: My question is for Malcolm Turnbull. In December 2009 you wrote an opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald in which you stated that it wasn't possible to reduce carbon emissions without a cost and if I...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: That's true.

DANIEL SKEHAN: ...can quote the same article you also said that any policy...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Yep. That is - no, I adhere to that view. There is no such thing as a carbon-free free lunch.

DANIEL SKEHAN: Exactly. In the same article you also said that any policy released by the Coalition would simply be a con.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: That was a bit harsh.

EMISSIONS TRADING SCHEME

DANIEL SKEHAN: With the Rudd Government's plan to move - it was a big month for you. With the Rudd Government's plan to move to an ETS and the Coalition's policy being to scrap it, what would your position be?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, I'm part of the team and we have a collective policy.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You're not.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: You know how politics works. And we have a different climate change policy. We have the same target, that is to reduce our emissions by 5% from 2000 levels by 2020. The Liberal Party's policy is to do that with a range of measures, so-called direct action but that involves a lot of things. You know, by competitive bidding of carbon reduction mechanisms and a whole range of measures and but the big difference between our policy, apart from the fact it has a much lower cost than obviously the carbon tax at the moment, is that it is not designed to go any further than 2020.

TONY JONES: Okay.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: So it is not a long-term policy.

TONY JONES: I'm going to...

DANEL SKEHAN: (Indistinct).

TONY JONES: Hang on for one second. You have actually explained this to us on this program before but the situation has changed now in that the new Kevin Rudd-led Government may move quickly to bring...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, it may but can they do that?

TONY JONES: Well, hang on a sec. Well, to bring an emissions trading scheme forward by at least a year, let's say. If that happens, then Tony Abbott won't be repealing a carbon tax, he will be repealing or attempting to repeal an emissions trading scheme. Would you support that?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: I will support the collective wisdom of the party room.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: So you would help campaign for the repeal of an emissions trading scheme?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: There would be more convincing advocates but I would certainly - I will certainly - you know, you've got to - look, I have a track record there. I mean, you know, I have been a very strong advocate of market-based mechanisms. I have to say, however, being very honest - frank about it, that emissions trading schemes to date have worked better in theory than in practice. The over-allocation in Europe has really been something of a disaster in terms of the emissions trading scheme there. So, you know, there is a...

TONY JONES: So have you actually...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No. No.

TONY JONES: So have you reformed your personal view about emissions trading schemes?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No. I think if you want to reduce your emissions over the very long-term, by which I mean, you know, 50 years or something, then you are going to have to have a long-term, market-based price on carbon and that may well be - I imagine that is where the world will get to. I might be wrong. To date emissions trading schemes, as I say, have worked better in theory than in practice but the Coalition's policy is to use direct action measures to get to that 5% cut by 2020 and I think the policy will work up to that point, to have a review in 2015, consider what is happening elsewhere in the world and plan our post-2020 policy there. So, you know, it is a much more short-term, if you might think a much more cautious approach than the one that was previously the Liberal Party's policy or, indeed, is Labor's policy now.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Bill Leak tapped me foot under the table, which means he wants to say something.

BILL LEAK: I was just wondering about how you feel about the concept of the green army, Malcolm? I mean, I am imagining Field Marshal Abbott and Brigadier General Turnbull. I would have thought amassing a green army, you know, people armed to the back teeth with shovels and pitch forks. That would be fraught with danger, wouldn't it?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, look, I'm not...

BILL LEAK: I mean just imagine the sexting for a start.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, I think you...

TONY JONES: Couldn't you use them to dig up the copper network?

BILL LEAK: I don't want to draw them. I don't want to draw that many people.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No. No. No. You will. You will do cartoons of picnickers in Centennial Park being disturbed by the Green Army and so on.

BILL LEAK: That's right.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: But, look, I...

TONY JONES: How many will there be?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, it is 15,000 but I think it will be...

BILL LEAK: What if you get a mutiny? The ADF has only got about 20,000 people.

MULTIPLE SPEAKERS TALK AT ONCE

TONY JONES: There's a couple of questions. Will they be getting the basic wage.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: I am not sure what the remuneration arrangements...

CORINNE GRANT: It is $400 a week. It's $400 a week.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Look, I'm sure they'll be adequately paid. But the point is this is just building on all those land care programs we have had for years. From my point of view, anything that gets lots of people working to improve their environment is a really good thing so I am all for the green army. I am not suggesting it is going to be easy to manage. I don't think a mutiny is going to be the issue. I imagine...

BILL LEAK: I just want you to send a battalion up to my back yard.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: But, you know, if you - look, if you've got - whether, it's, you know - whether they are young people or old people, but if you've got lots of Australians out there cleaning up our rivers and planting trees and dealing with degraded areas and eroded areas and fixing them up, isn't that a fabulous idea?

BILL LEAK: (Indistinct).

TONY JONES: Okay. Well, no, we'll leave that point there because the question was about the emissions trading scheme. Anthony Albanese, will you be moving to bring the emissions trading scheme forward?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, I won't be announcing it here tonight, Tony.

TONY JONES: So when will you be announcing it: next week, the week after?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, we will be announcing it and is imminent once we make a decision. And so what we've done is, look, we've made it clear in terms of what we would like to do but we are looking at the costings of all of that. Actually the costings are there. I have had a discussion today but we certainly believe...

TONY JONES: Does it look like you can afford it?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, we certainly believe in market-based mechanisms. All we are talking about here...

TONY JONES: But you've looked at the costings today. Does it look like you can you afford it?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: We have. Well, I am not about to announce it here tonight, Tony, so...

TONY JONES: How expensive would it be?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: We have a - good try, Tony. It's not Lateline but in terms of...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Why wouldn't you - this program rates its head off compared to Lateline. Why wouldn't you announce it here? Hardly anyone watches Lateline. They're all asleep.

TONY JONES: No, I'm sorry, you are quite wrong about that.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Now you're being mean.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No. No. No.

TONY JONES: Go ahead.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: In terms of, look, our position is we want a market based mechanism. We think that, you know, at the moment, it clicks in in a couple of years. It's a matter of whether it's brought forward or not. But as for Malcolm's argument, if you agree on a market-based mechanism as the cheapest way, what you also know and Malcolm knows is that the sooner you do it, the cheaper the cost is. All of the studies show that that's the case. The sooner you move to that market-based mechanism, the sooner you have the drive-through and in terms of carbon pricing, we've had a 9% increase in renewables. We have had a success in terms of carbon pricing up to now. But the sooner we move to a market-based mechanism (indistinct)...

MALCOLM TURNBULL: I think renewables have been driven by the ...(indistinct)...

MULTIPLE SPEAKERS TALK AT ONCE

TONY JONES: Hang on a sec. Hang on a sec. Let's allow some of the other panellists to get in here.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: It's a combination of measures.

TONY JONES: Miriam?

MIRIAM LYONS: Malcolm is right, the push to renewables has largely been driver by the rate but the carbon price has also played a part. It does seem to be working and, you know, I can certainly see why you are looking at changing it so that Tony Abbott can't use the word tax anymore. But, you know, let's look at the bigger pictures here for a moment. You know, the Coalition policy on climate change has rightly been criticised and you are probably rightly uncomfortable with the holes that are in it. But there is some good stuff in there. You know, this is not an either or situation where you can either have a market-based mechanism or you can have, you know, volunteer supported community action investing. You know, investing in soil carbon is a great idea for other reasons.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Absolutely.

MIRIAM LYONS: Unfortunately our soil science probably isn't good enough to actually allow us to tell whether or not that's significantly reducing our carbon emissions. But we are in a situation right now where the Climate Commission has told us that 80% of fossil fuels have to remain in the ground in order to prevent runaway climate change. You know, the International Energy Agency, is a very conservative international body, told us, I think almost two years ago now, that we only had five years before we had to stop building coal-fired power plants in order to prevent runaway global warming. So in that context, a bipartisan 5% emissions reduction target really just tells us how unambitious that target is when, you know, you've got a party leader on one side of that bipartisan position who used to say that climate change is crap.

TONY JONES: Okay. I'm going to leave it there because we've got a little time left to go to a couple of other questions. Our next question tonight is from Dianne Hiles.

ALBANESE - POVERTY

DIANNE HILES: Mr Albanese, the front cover of this week's Inner West Courier features your progress from starting life in a council house to holding high office in Parliament House. How do you respond to the proposition that by supporting such policies as forcing parents on to Newstart, not providing enough affordable housing and slashing university funding and scholarships, you have made it much harder for any of the one in six Australian children living in poverty today to follow in your footsteps?

TONY JONES: Just before we go to the panel, let's disclose that Dianne Hiles is the Greens candidate for the Labor seat of Sydney, which we just learnt before the show. Anthony Albanese?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Okay. Well, if you go to Lilyfield, in what you hope to be your electorate or a range of other places, you will see some of the 20,000 affordable housing, either renovations or new stock that were built as part of our economic stimulus plan. We have done more in terms of new public housing stock, social housing stock, than any previous government in Australia's history since 2007. In terms of university funding, we will increase from $14 billion up to $17 billion over the coming three years, our funding of universities.

TONY JONES: Okay. There is some speculation you might reverse the cuts. That Kim Carr taking over as new minister is already looking at that. Is that true?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I'm not going to comment on the budget matters either way here but we are increasing funding from $14 billion to $17 billion. You would like to spend a lot more money, except it's got to add up. So we're saying is any commitments - any new commitments will be offset by savings. We are in circumstances whereby we do have tough fiscal policies in terms of those processes. So, for example, if we decide to do something re the carbon price, we will have to find offsets of where the money comes from. I think that is a sensible thing to do.

TONY JONES: Or you could go back to the mining tax and create one that actually earns money.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You could do a range of measures...

MIRIAM LYONS: You could reverse the 2007 tax cuts you copied from Howard, which would have actually put this year's budget in surplus if they hadn't been implemented.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You could do a range of measures.

TONY JONES: You could raise the GST.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, that would all go to the states.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: What I am not doing is setting the Budget here. But in terms of our proud record - I am very proud of the fact that you can be and I think it's part of the Australian story is that you can be from pretty humble origins and aspire to high office in this country. I think that's part of what the Australian story is all about. I don't say it's about a Labor story. I say Labor has played a role in the Australian story and we remain the party of the disadvantaged.

TONY JONES: We have got time for one last question before we go to the rest of panel. They can reflect on what's been said just there. It is from Fraser Tustian in Thornleigh, New South Wales.

ETS COMPROMISE

FRASER TUSTIAN: My question is for Mr Broadband - Turnbull. Mr Turnbull, for as long as I've known you, you have been an outspoken supporter of using market-based strategies to reducing carbon emissions. Now, at the end of this year you have got an excellent chance of retaking government, but one of the costs of doing so will be to sacrifice one such system and possibly make it difficult to ever reintroduce one into Australia again. My question is a personal one: how do you and Mr Albanese deal with the fact that politics is all about compromise and very often that leads you to have to support policies which are the exact opposite of what you actually believe in?

TONY JONES: Okay. Before I go to the two politicians, I'd like to hear from the rest of the panel. This is our final question. Corinne Grant?

CORINNE GRANT: So can I just refer back to the question that the Greens candidate asked?

TONY JONES: If you can, yeah. Yeah.

CORINNE GRANT: I think that I'm hoping now, now that we've got the whole leadership turmoil and everything in the past, that Labor can work towards getting its message a little bit more clear. I mean, it really got muddied with incomprehensible decisions such as shifting those single parents off the Newstart allowance - onto the Newstart allowance. It really muddied the waters on what Labor actually stands for and the same with fiddling around with university funding. Those are two things that traditionally you think of being ALP issues. I am just hoping that you can find your message and stick to it a little bit more clearly from now on in.

TONY JONES: We will come to you in a minute. Let's hear from Bill Leak. The idea of compromise and that politicians have to give up some things they really strongly value in order to go along with the team or make a compromise?

BILL LEAK: Oh, look, I don't know. I think it has to be - I mean, I've seen with the way the Greens have implacably refused to compromise on all sorts of things and as a result we didn't have the ETS a lot earlier and could have had one a long time ago and all of this could have been done and dusted if they had understood that that's precisely what politics is: the art of compromise and the art of achieving what is possible. And I think we had the same sort of thing with the...

MIRIAM LYONS: You think they would have learnt this from that government, though. I mean they've made lots of...

TONY JONES: Just hang on, Miriam. We'll just...

BILL LEAK: I think we had the same sort of thing, this fiasco on boat policy - you know, refugee policy only a little while ago when it really came down to the Greens, once again, flatly refusing to compromise and so we couldn't come up with a solution. And so, yeah, I think people have to compromise and that is what politics is about because the more people that put their ideas together, the better the ideas are going to be I think.

TONY JONES: Miriam Lyons?

MIRIAM LYONS: Just picking up on Bill's point, I mean the Greens have obviously compromised to get the current carbon package through the Parliament because they certainly...

BILL LEAK: Wonderfully successful thing that it is.

MIRIAM LYONS: A 5% emissions reduction is certainly not their own policy. Look, it is always incredibly sad and...

TONY JONES: But, Miriam, we are on the Greens and if, for example, the Government called back the Parliament to legislate to bring an emissions trading scheme forward, the Greens would once again be faced with the same question whether to let it go through the Senate?

MIRIAM LYONS: Yeah, they would. It's hard.

TONY JONES: Should they compromise?

MIRIAM LYONS: I don't envy them that decision and, look...

BILL LEAK: Well, should they have last time?

MIRIAM LYONS: I actually understood at the time why they were being so vehement and uncompromising on the initial Emissions Trading Scheme. I think that the current policy is actually a better policy than the one that was being put up at the time but it is going to be a better policy for a couple of years, most likely. You know, it's not going to be a policy that lasts. So when you look at it with the wisdom of hindsight, they probably should have compromised that first time around and, you know, hoped that the policy could gradually be improved over time. I understand why they didn't want to do that. They were worried that there were some things in that policy that would have made it extremely hard to change, that they were essentially locking in a very unambitious target. I mean, when you look at climate change, it doesn't suit politics. You know, on most issues I'm a total pragmatist. You know, like it is much better to take those the incremental steps forward than to not get any action at all. But we're actually going to need some kind of transformational change to deal with the seriousness of climate change in a time frame that scientists are telling us is necessary and given you are both the greenest members, I think, respectively of your own parties, Anthony and Malcolm, I'd be interested in hearing your views on how you think that what the science is telling us and the way politics currently works can be reconciled.

TONY JONES: We'll start with Malcolm Turnbull on that and the idea of compromise. I mean you acknowledge, in fact, that you have given up one of your most treasured policies in order to go along with the team.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, look, politics is the business of compromise and, you know, there are none so pure as the impotent, right? And so you can be pure in isolation there and not compromise with anyone and not achieve anything and that's the reality. So you do have to compromise. I'd also say in respect of climate change policy, that Emissions Trading Schemes are not an ideological issue, they are not an objective. They are a tool. They're one of many tools to reduce emissions. Barack Obama gave a great speech about climate change recently. A lot of initiatives, an Emissions Trading Scheme is not part of them. The measures he announced are more like the Coalition's policies, in fact. So there is a bunch of tools and it just depends which ones you select. We all have different views on what are the most effective ones but I think the critical thing is that we're seeking - that both parties are seeking to achieve the same goal, which is that 5% reduction by 2020.

TONY JONES: Okay. We are nearly out of time. I'll go to Anthony Albanese to wind up and the concept there that Tony Abbott is Australia's Barack Obama.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Barack Obama certainly doesn't think so. If you have a look at what he's had to say about climate change, it's very different from Tony Abbott. It's much more in line with what Malcolm's real views are and with what my views are. Look, politics is compromise. I mean, I think that the task is how do you deal with immediate issues whilst keeping your eye on the longer-term picture? That, to me, seems to be the big challenge of politics. That you need to - so, for example, on Budget issues, the Budget needs to add up. You can't do everything you want now but how do you keep your eye on the longer-term objectives? That's why climate change is such an important issue that goes beyond an election or two. That's why I'm a firm believer in the National Broadband Network. That's why I want to be the Infrastructure Minister, because it's about that long-term legacy. Public transport, dealing with urban congestion. All of those issues can't be dealt with in one term and that's why I think in terms of the reasons - I hope that Kevin Rudd's return to the leadership allows us to lift politics up a little bit, because I think people are sick of people arguing and yelling at each other and I really hope - I mean, that's why I hope there are some serious debates, not just pre the election but during the election. There is no agreement for debates either. None. None.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, we could do the opener at the Press Club on Thursday, you and me.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I have been trying to debate Warren Truss for six years.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: There you go. We'll do it at morning tea. Kevin can debate himself at lunch and you and I can debate each other at morning tea.

CORINNE GRANT: I'd like to see you do a soft show shuffle, with top hats and tails.

TONY JONES: Okay. I'm going to interrupt because that is all we have time for. Please thank our panel: Malcolm Turnbull, Corinne Grant, Bill Leak, Anthony Albanese, Miriam Lyons. Thank you very much. Thank you to a great audience. Next Monday night we will be live from Perth with the Minister for Defence Stephen Smith, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition Julie Bishop, WA Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, the chief executive of the Minerals Council of Australia Mitch Hooke and popular WA broadcaster Nirelda Jacobs. Until then, goodnight.