(generated from captions) This program will be live captioned by Ai-Media. Just before Contrarians we'll take you live to Canberra now. The resources Minister Gary Gray for a news conference. A final investment decision in the context of James Price Point and therefore the Commonwealth and the state of Western Australia will move to the next step in managing those leases in a way that will ensure that a development takes place. Their expires 2014, time is of the essence, money can easily walk elsewhere, for example Woodside's looking at an LNG export term nale in British Columbia, don't you want them to move quickly to this next plan? We know that these companies wanted to develop this resource. They have said no to a particular development option. Now, the date of the 25th of June was important because a number of years ago when that lease was put in place it was structured to force a decision on a final investment. Now that decision has come, it's negative, but we're still highly optimistic that the Browse basin fields that we're speaking of here, will be developed, in the interests of Australia, Western Australia and the people of the Kimberley coast. Is that date still relevant, the 25th of June, do you want them to come up with a plan for example FLNG by 25 June.No, what will happen is a new lease will be put in place following the joint venture's approach to the Government and the Western Australian Government. That lease will stay in place until 2014 when a new lease will take over. I think over the course of close to 40 years since these fields were discovered there have been something like 8 rollovers of leases. This isn't an uncommon thing. That was not un expected in the cob text of lease hangment but this is a good decision. Do you want something more definitive from Woodside as the plans before you renew that lease? I think we have to be reasonable about the amount of finance required to drive these projects. We're talking here of 40, 50, billion dollars on a single location investment. So therefore we do have to have patience and we do have to allow the joint venturers to come together to discuss their options and determine where they will put their investment in order to drain those oil and gas fields. Minister,... was seething when he spoke about this today. He also suggested that the Greens and Woodside were in cahoots. I've not heard Paul's comments. I've been in Alice Springs and on my way back to Canberra. What I do know is that these leases represent important resources that will be developed in the interests of Australia, in the interests of Western Australia and in the interests of the communities of the Kimberley coast. We also know that the joint venturers have come to a decision that because of the size of the capital expenditure required to build a Pipeline some 400km long from out in the Indian Ocean to the Kimberly coast and then another Pipeline 400km long back out in the resource and then offshore facilities and onshore facilities at a time when the cost of construction in Australia is going up, the joint venture has made a commercial decision, we understand that commercial decision from the perspective of the Australian Government, we wish to see that resource developed and we would expect it toe eye developed in a timely fashion. How serious do you take the use it or lose it principle, given it was deployed by your predecessor, Martin Ferguson to effectively force chevron to get cracking. Shouldn't this same principle be applied here to Woodside. It's a principle that could work in some contexts. Here we have a joint venturer that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to prove up the idea of a massive onshore development. As we speak right now Australia hosts seven of the world's 12 major LNG construction projects. We know that our future in LNG is strong and secure and growing. We also know that with innovative technology at work in Queensland and also off the coast of Western Australia where Shell have got their Prelude project, we know that that innovative technology being brought to these new investments will bring good employment outcomes for Australia and the best technological solution for Australia. Let's let the joint venturer come to their next decision. Premier Barnett is worried that Woodside is looking at a untried and as yet unprovable use of a floating rig in what he says is a cyclone area in a. There is no doubt that the north-west has cyclones, also where we have most of our offshore gas facilities. It's also where there is already an approval in place and construction currently taking place for the world's first floating LNG platform, the Shell Prelude platform. It will be big, around 500m long, around 100m wide, one of the world's largest floating structures. Is it going to happen? It is currently happening, Prelude is currently being constructed in shipyards and supporting industry around Australia and around the world to get this innovative technology into place. It's one of the ways in which the joint venture partners will be able to reduce their capital expenditure and ensure the growth of this important industry. Colin Barnett said he only found out about it last night. Does that Sunled plausible to you? Well, I was informed after the markets closed last night and before the market opened this morning. That's not unreasonable and, indeed, it's early warning because in any event we had to be told before the 25th of June. We had to be told almost certainly before Woodside's annual general meeting which I understand takes place in a few days time. So I think the window of information flowing to government isn't unreasonable and I think the time line for information flow has been what we would expect it to be in a difficult set of commercial circumstances for the proponents. Could you foresee that? What I knew was that the state of Western Australia and the joint venture and the communities of the Kimberley coast were working hard to make an onshore option work. What I equally know is that the joint venture itself had begun its own internal dialogue to discuss its commercial future. And I was informed by Woodside after the close of the market last night and before the market opened this morning. Minister, does this commercial decision of withdrawing all of these funds mean the end of the peak of resources investment in Australia? Necessarily, we have to look at the way in which the resource cycle works. A decade ago the resource cycle work ed off prices driving up massive revenues both for government and for companies as production was constrained. We then had the resource cycle move to production with rapid expansion of iron ore exports, coal exports and growth in LNG construction which has never been matched anywhere in the world ever before. So Australia raced from very low in the global ratings scales for countries producing LNG to being, when all of these production facilities are in place, the world's leading producer of LNG with the world's leading technology. That's where we want to be, at the production phase of the super cycle in commodities. At that production phase we'll produce sustainable jobs, sustainable careers, and ensure that the revenues from these projects underwrite our nation at state, local and Commonwealth level for the next generation. Given that that answer there about production is quite right, obviously, but is this the end of the peak of investment for future projects? I think we've seen that for quite some time, that a number of projects had been changing how they phase their expenditure on capital. What we're seeing here with the Browse project is globally significant oil and gas companies, Woodside, Shell, MIMI, we're seeing big global companies saying we want to look at a different technology for this $45 billion investment. I don't think that's an end of that investment. I think it moves it to a new plane, to a new technology base and keeps Australia at the innovative edge of this technology. #2340u it also -- now it also necessarily means that these resource majors are absolutely keyed into cost pressures and they want to make investments that are sustainable and that will endure. That's what we're seeing right now. Speaking of cost pressures... From Canberra there the resources Minister Gary Bray responding to the announcement from Woodside that it scrapped plans for a $45 billion LNG project in Australia. The Minister still confident that the project will be developed in time. Also in extra our reporting Tom constable. Tom, the Prime Minister has also been responding to this significant decision. Yeah, she has. You heard the Minister saying he does believe this project will still go ahead. He's urging patience saying this particular model is not viable but he says there's still plenty of other ones on the table. He's also talking about the fact he doesn't see this as the end of the mining boom, that this is a sign that things are slowing down. He says this project itself could still get up, still plenty more in the pipe line. Words echoed by the Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Have a listen to what she es said earlier today. This is a decision for Woodside. More generally when we look at our economy, what we are continuing to see is strong investment in resources. We haven't seen the peak of the investment phase into resources yet and we are yet to see the peak of the production phase. So we will be seeing the resources boom at work in our economy for a long time to come. Colin Barnett the Western Australian Premier wasn't trying to hide his disappointment. Again like the Government he's hoping this will still come to fruition. He's pushing it to be onshore not offshore because he says that will be a lot more jobs for Western Australia. Have a listen to the Premier from earlier today. It would be a tragedy and a missed opportunity if that gas did not come onshore into Australia, which is James Price point and it was not an opportunity for literally thousands of people to work on the construction. Colin Barnett there hoping this is become can an onshore project still. And that's the main objection from the Greens, they're hoping that James Price Point coastline is going to be preserved as a result of this decision. Christine Milne spoke eearlier today about a campaign the Greens have been running. She says it's still going to be run because of course the option is open for this development to be onshore. She said that would ruin the coast laoib and have various environmental impacts. The Greens have run a huge campaign across the country to try to stop Woodside's James Price Point proposal and the news today that they are reconsidering means that we now keep the campaign going until they declare James Price Point completely free of this gas development. So Leigh this $45 billion project, it has been shelved for now, you've heard from both the federal and state governments, they're hoping it will go ahead in whatever form, and also it still could be onshore. The environment am debate might rage on, it's basically up to Woodside and their partners what they think is the most economically viable option, whether that included this onshore option or goes offshore to these other technologies. The Government's released a $40 million crime prevention program by increasing CCTV systems. The program will be funded from confiscated proceeds of crime which will also be used to fund youth mentoring and outreach programs. Where crime is worst and help other non-government organisations with youth out reach services to target young people at risk of falling into a life of crime. The Opposition says the program is a direct copy of its policy. No October of -- in October of last year the Coalition announced a crime prevention policy, a save the streets program that involved community grants, $50 million worth of community grants to support the very initiatives, the types of programs, infrastructure such as CCTV cameras and things of that in crime hot spots all around the country. Indonesian authorities are searching for an asylum seeker boat which has thought to have sunk in the Sunleda strait en route to Christmas Island. Up to 70 people were on board. A fishing investigate yell is thought to have rescued some of the passengers when the ship sank. Indonesian authorities are coordinating the search and rest cus operation. Australian authorities haven't been asked to assist. The South Australian Government will work with automotive giant Holden to minimise the impact on the 4 Lunn workers who will soon lose their jobs. Premier Jay Weatherill says his Government will do everything it can to ensure there are no forced redundancies from Holden. We've committed ourselves together to ensure that every single one of those workers can be found alternative employment or to avoid a compulsory re dundancy. Mr Earth all also confirmed his Government remains committed to providing Holden with $50 million for two new models but any additional funding is now uncertain. US Secretary of State John Kerry has arrived in the South Korea capital Seoul as tension continue toss mount. The crisis on the Korean peninsula is bound to dominate talks between Mr Kerry and his South Korean counterpart . Intelligence reports from the Japanese, South Koreans and the Americans indicate a North Korean missile test might be imminent but there's been silence from upon yang. Earlier Barack worned North Korea to back down. Tomorrow's forecast, rain in the east, mostly sunny in the south-east. Showers in the south. Better late than never, Peter van Onselen with Contrarians. You might as well throw to the ad break yourself. Before we do that we'll introduce the panel, Ed Husic, Julian leaser, thanks for your company. Claire Harvey, welcome back. Congratulations, you're pregnant. Thank you. What's the due date? October the 14th. Boy or a girl. Hopefully only one but I don't know what sort. Save that up, we'll get you to announce it on air. And Hugh McDermott. Lot to talk about from this week both in terms of state politics, domestic politics at the federal level but also Julia Gillard's trip to China. We'll be back in a moment with my rant and the panel. Hello and welcome to the Contrarians. I'm Peter van Onselen. Thanks very much for your company. This is the only show on Sky and everywhere elsewhere we truly involve the viewers by reading out your Tweets and emails. There's a lot at the federal and indeed at the international level for us to talk about with the panel shortly. For my rant I want to start by talking about a state issue out of Western Australia and not the James Price Point issue because that has massive federal implications. I want to talk about a fellow called Rob Johnson. He's the former Police Minister at the state level in Western Australia. He got dumped from the cabinet in the first term Colin Barnett. He must have been hopeless to get dumped then. But he was so hopeless that Barnett decided to get rid of him. And this individual is now very up set about what's happened. If you go online to various news sources particularly out of Western Australia with the local papers there you can see in full the kind of detail of the spray that Rob Johnson has given more recently about Colin Barnett. This is a man who when he was Police Minister tried to institute a removal of reasonable suspicion when making a search of an individual, meaning the police for no reason at all were targeting people for all the wrong reasons, could decide to stop and search individuals. It was a diss graceful and stupid thing for the WA Government to allow him to try to get through cabinet. You won't hear me say this often, but thank God for the Nationals. The national s blocked it in the Upper House. This man tried to run for the speakership. He's the state equivalent of Peter Slipper if you like within the Western Australian parliament. There's a compliment. But this individual lost, he is a disgrace, he attack s his premier. The Liberals in Western Australia should sack this buffoon because that's exactly what he is. We will talk to the panel about a range of other issues. Ed Husic, welcome, Julian leaser good to have you on board, Claire Harvey and Hugh McDermot. Let's start with you Hugh. Is there any shining light for the Labor Party at the moment or is it all doom and glam at the federal level? There's plenty of shining light, lot of reforms going on. The Government's doing a lot of different things mp the work in China by the Prime Minister has been outstanding. We're still - our different levels of progress in the economy. We had, the last couple of weeks has been hard, this week's been good, back on action, back on track to keep going in the Government. Ed Husic you know when your colleague on the left, normally he's very elegant. You have a good way of enticing guests to come back on. Kudos to you. I think the China announcement this week was very significant. Particularly the establishment of the joint talks on an annual basis, I think was really one of the key foreign affairs announcements for quite some time. Why is that? We don't get to talk to the prt. We only get the access once a year to the Premier. Surely you want to talk to the big cahooter. I think senior leadership roles over there, it does help us particularly, we've had a very strong relationship, China has a constructive role to play in the region as Edded what we're going through with North Korea. Isn't it all about free trade? At the end of the day, it's been 7, 8, 9 years, depending on when you start the negotiation point to get free trade with China and we still haven't got one. Firstly I don't think you could plausibly argue that the lack of a free trade agreement has hindered our ability to have a very strong economic relationship with China. There are difficult issue that is need to be dealt with not just by us, but other countries, particularly on the services side, a lot of countries are trying to rangle with this. But having said that no-one could doubt for a moment the strength of the relationship on an economic level. I'll come back to talk to you about the NBN. Claire Harvey, everybody fawns over China. Why do we do that? They're not even a democracy. It's one thing for them to embrace capitalism. I think the question of China is incredibly problematic for Australia in a way that is not often acknowledged. I have a great problem with dealing with a country that's not just a democracy but is a totalitarian regime on a trade level and all sorts of things. Regardless of what I think or anyone else thinks about what China is doing in Tibet, we are in our region, we do have to deal with them. The North Korean situation illustrates why we do need friends in that part of the world. They're sort of a lesser of evils almost. Because they have influence over countries that are even more problematic in the region. They're not getting anywhere though. They haven't blown us up yet. But I must say I do think the Prime Minister has been very deft in turning what was looking like a foreign policy nightmare with China in terms of their reaction of Obama's bid to Asia, his decision to bring troops to Australia essentially, put simply, that was looking very unpleasant for a while, but it's not now. It seems to have been - there's been a lot of work done behind the scenes clearly and the Prime Minister has done well, interestingly for someone who says foreign affairs is not her bag. Julian leaser, do you give Julia Gillard credit when it comes to the foreign stage he's done a bangup job compared to what she's done domestically. She set the bar low. She made it clear that she was more interested in education. Doing things with kids in schools than she was with foreign policy. John Howard said this week the China relationship has to be managed at a head of Government level from Australia to China, and I think that this has been a good thing. Despite the problems that we may have with some things that the Chinese Government does from time to time, you don't get any close relationship with any nation unless you're actually engaged with them. That's why you reckon it's okay that John Howard let a dictator of a totalitarian regime address the elected representatives of the house in twoth you have 2003. I don't think there was anything wrong with that. I think it was actually good. The Chinese got to see how a democratic house worked. They've really taken up on that. The day before you remember George Bush addressed the parliament and the Chinese leadership would worried that the Greens would inter ject on them again. They wanted John Howard to move the address out of the House of Representatives so he could stop the inter jection. John Howard said no. Take dater you might. Absolutely, the Greens would be in there and could interrupt him. I think that's a good thing. We finally agree on something together that he really makes guests comfortable. Is that something you and I can... I'm sorry that joth allowing the dictator of a regime to speak to the elected member of our House is a bangup thing. Silly me: Do you think it's a good thing. Very contrarian. So are you pushing that we shouldn't have any engagement with China? I'm not saying we need an iron curtain. What I am saying, you can read all this in 'The Australian' tomorrow. I've gone into this in some depth. You've got a column which no-one reads. Is disglle shame. As I was sake the reason that I take the view... Tell us more peter.... with China, there's an issue. It goes back to when they were originally allowed into the WTO. There were steps that could have been made. You can't force democracy. You have to make a decision on it. But the way you get democracy there is by providing the kind of levers. Like George Bush did in Iraq. Is that what you're talking about? At the end of the day Iraq is nor of a deckcy than China. I actually think there's going to be this challenge for a lot of democracies or market economies where China, and we've previously talked about this, China basically sets up a dam and tells people "You leave". You wish you had that power? The point I was going to make is in actual fact you have to go through a whole engagement process in communities in democracies like ours or the states that impact on the lead times for thing to happen. Whereas China doesn't have that and disrupts people's lives like that and benefit and interinfluence the world economy in a way that no-one else can. Your point is absolutely correct. There needs to be ways in which we can force that change and there will be an incentive for countries to do that as well. That's the interesting thing. This week about the 45 year timetable for the very fast rail here, that's an incredibly long time. Which is it is, I accepted. China managed to build 4,000 kilometres of rail inter 21 days, isn't that amazing, yes, but they don't have an occupational health and safety regime. People were impressed by Russia in the 1930s for the same reason. Same in the 1800s with the use of slaves. The other big issue in China is of course their currency, the central control of their currency. That's something that the WTO could have done something about. Indeed, I assume there were discussions between the Prime Minister and the Chinese leadership on the currency issue, particularly the 'Financial Review' today had a story with more and more people, more and more companies wanting to do deals in the ren himby, I think China has to come in and float their currency in order to help play its part. We're going to take a commercial break. We're going to discuss the NBN when we come back. You're watching Contrarians. Welcome back you're watching the Contrarians where I'm joined by Ed Husic, Julian Leeser, Claire Harvey and Hugh McDermott. Ed, let me start with you, you asked to come on this show to talk about the NBN. You're one of the few Labor MPs who truly understands the issue, no, that's not true. I think it's more offensive you suggested I asked to come on this program. I also like to stick nigh finger in power points too. Which is I think for the responsibilities of any children watching, that is not something anyone should do at home. Children have more sense not to watch this program. All right. Ed, let me ask you, seriously, compare the Coalition's policy to Labor's policy because I get the impression that one of the arts that's run by the Coles apart from the fact it's obviously cheaper, yes it's slower, the theory seems to be you can expand it if necessary down the track or indeed not and save the money if technology to use the copper or wireless, whatever it might be, ends up being such that you just don't need fibre all the way to the home. Instead of going into the political spiel, let me take it back a step. If you look at the way that data is growing across the planet, it's expected it will grow 44 times between 2009 and 2020. And the reason for that is because businesses, communities, schools, they're all now more and more of their lives are online. There's only so many video games you can download. With all that move and demand on data you need to have a network in place that can deal with all that. The big difference between Labor, and in terms of the Coalition is they're still going to rely on that last stretch on copper, a technology that was only ever there to help for the delivery of telephones and telephone service and never designed to carry a lot of data. For us ultimately we can either put in place technologies now that will help us meet that phenomenal growth in data or go for what the Opposition's saying, which is build half of it now and then be forced to build the rest later. Which is expensive. Julian, a couple of years ago you were telling me how much you loved using your Commodore 64 to dial up and get on the internet. What do you think of Malcolm Turnbull's far-reaching policy on the NBN I think this is good. The Liberals had to res lease the NBN policy early, because it was and issue for them the last campaign. The real expense, the reason why the Government's policy is so expensive, it's the last bit, getting things from the end of the street into people's homes. All the civil construction work that's there. According to the Coalition you can have four people downloading videos, different things... Is it all when downloading videos. Not just downloading videos. One of the other examples Malcolm gave is people exchanging information, architects who might be wanting to build things in different parts of the world or working on different projects. Of course there's a range of business and educational applications. But it's a question of the cost of this, and it's also a question of the takeup. If the Government's proposal was so good you'd have much more than 10,000 out of the 200,000-odd people who currently have... You shake your head, why. For a whole stack of reasons. One is fundamentally I really, and Malcolm did this this week when he said people will still be able to download movies and games. And this is the almost snerg way in which conservatives have looked at the value of broadband. They tried 19 times and failed under the Howard Government to get this right. They said they'd destroy the NBN, they weren't able to do that. They recognise that people want this. It's going to run past nearly, it's currently under construction, running past 800,000 homes. 50,000 people, not the 10 that you just misleadingly said, are taking it up. 50,000, and on top of that the takeup rates are roughly equivalent to what was being taken up when we were rolling out FOXTEL, similar sorts of rates. It's not about movies and games. This is about businesses and schools and communities moving now online. And needing a network that can match that. Isn't Turnbull's point if it isn't about specific businesses they can pay for it to be rolled out. Why do it to every individual that owns a home? Let me give you an example. Two things, firstly in my area I've had broadband black spots, we finally got those fixed up working with Telstra and ultimately NBN Coe. Those businesses were baulking at the notion they have to pay two and a half thousand dollars to connect. Now the Opposition is saying 5,000. Huge cost to small business. Paying for something they're not paying for at the moment in a direct sense. I'm worried in my area it will drive out jobs and businesses who will just go to areas they they can already connect. The other point is too they are relying on a substandard network in what they want to be able to do. Video conferencing, hele health, the type of things that people want to be able to use the application for. Is this all just spin? You hear Ed, he's running Government lines, I don't mean that disparaging, but you're running the Government line on the NBN. How does that sound? I must say I think Malcolm Turnbull has done a good job to get a version of the NBN through the Coalition. I suspect that his brief was to do something different. I think he's achieved something in at least not opposing it in principle. They kept it off budget after having railed against it being off budget for so long. I agree request Ed in the sense that, and I think this is what most of our readers certainly struggle with. The copper network is the horse and cart of the 21st century, it is in the quipped to do anything other than voice. One of the arguments is that they can im prove it with technology. The 9 Government has failed to tell the story. So they've left the gap where Malcolm Turnbull can talk about downloading videos, and people say oh right, okay, wasn't sure about that. Rather than start at the beginning of this policy, say you can do anything from make the Contrarians from all our homes, sitting in our living rooms, which would be a horrible sight, to downloading movies in 10 seconds rather than the hof iwho are nauf it takes me. I think that story hasn't got through to the voters in Chifley. The thing is Claire, the Coalition, conservativings have tried to couch this as this is all about downloading movies. When Julia Gillard, shortly after he was Prime Minister when she came to visit editors at News Ltd, one of the things she said about the NBN is that it would create incredibly fast download times for music and video. Sure. That's the very thing you're condemning. It's the cost benefit yes here in relation to this. I mean the Government never suggested this to a proper cost analysis. You announced your policy and then going to do a cost analysis afterwards, you've already got the policy, who cares? You have to to have the policy built. Why didn't you do a cost benefit analysis before. You would have said that's just a copout and you don't really have a real policy here. The main difference between what the Coalition has proposed and the Government has espoused is that the Government agency proposal doesn't have the takeup, is very expensive because it's that lasts bit of getting it from the street to people's homes that is so expensive. Julian, there is very little you'll be able to do to speed up or maximise data channelling through that element of copper, AADSL has done that, but the best thing, hands down. Even when the Coalition, Christopher Pyne when you guys were in Government, brought down a report that said hands down fibre was the best way to deliver data and that is what you're going on to need to do. The bigger thing it. I'll tell you how you pay for it actually. Already at the moment the internet is delivering $50 billion of economic value to this nation, expected to go up to 70 billion. The network will pay for itself, opening up in terms of economic growth, I couldn't answer that but what I could say is data three years ago, it's grown three times. The use of data has grown. Not through movies, not through downloading... Despite all that growth and value to the economy we're still running huge deficits. That's not the point. That's a very cute way of phrasing it. The bottom line is business wants to go online, open up markets overseas, have a network that's capable of doing what is necessary for trade purptss for commerce. It will pay for itself. Why aren't more of them taking it up? Going off the figures in the 'Financial Review' today. Those figures are completely... Even if you have different figures you gave us 50,000 homes and 800,000 going past. That are under construction. What's new? Surely it's one of those things where there's exponential growth. If there's not the takeup there's the question why you need to spend the additional public money getting it to people's homes. Why don't you give people the choice as to what speed they want, whether the copper network is adequate for them. Isn't there an argument that if technology is there people will use it. You could have made that argument about roads, do we need to build every road. You look at the cross-Sydney tunnel, no-one came. I love it. You and two other people. But the other thing is too, you talk to most people within the IT world and they will tell you that it's not just the applications we have now but the ability to unleash what can happen in terms of development and the way we will change the way we do business and the way we live. And the problem with what you guys are doing, you talk about the fact that there's a big risk in what we do, why do we spend so much. If you're willing to accept that phenomenal growth in data and willing to accept we're going to have to deal with that, why would we only build part of it now and Spen spend more down the track as prices grow and it costs more. Still be the key technology down the track. This is such a fast moving space. Are you expect can pigeon express. Got to go to a commercial break. You always cut plea off. I'm so sorry to do that to you. We're going to take a commercial break. We will be back in a moment. You're watching the Contrarians. Welcome back. You're watching the Contrarians where I'm joined by a raft of people we won't go through. Let plea start with you, Hugh, on this issue of Margaret Thatcher, veil Margaret Thatcher, she's passed away. I suspect you would have been a strong support er of hers.No, I wasn't. I can't say I'm mourning her loss and thatcherism. Bit of a rough thing to say. Not at all. Just because someone's dead it shouldn't be they're great we like them. Thatcherism was more than just a few policies, it had a major impact on the world. It destroyed tens of hundreds of people's lyse. People who took on her neo-liberal ideas. Destroyed industries, destroyed social infrastructure . Glad you raised that because they are two people who did not take on her ideology. Something I do know about. Whilst Thatcher really strip ed away the social infrastructure and took away the safety nets and let wealth ease people make money and get wealthier whilst the poor were neglected and destroyed, like in the UK, that didn't happen here. Yes, there was restructuring, the economy had to be restructured and Hawke and Keating did that. Did they do it in the same way as Thatcher? No, they didn't. They transferred us into a global economy, whilst keeping a compassionate and caring Government that looked after the vulnerable in our society and transitioned ourselves into, by the 90s, into a leader in the economy. What's an example, give me a couple of policy examples that something that Hawke and Keating did that Thatcher clearly did the opposite. If you look at the way that the trade union movement had to go through some major reforms. Here we had the accord. It kept the awards, things like that. At the same time it restructured the industries and restructured those unions. In the UK, she just fought them. She fought the unions, she destroyed industries in the process. She took away safety nets and did the complete opposite. What we had here. Let plea get the response from Julian. That is in part because in England the unions were so militant. The key figure in Australia was Bob Hawke himself who was able to bring the union movement to the table. In England the union movement were all like the CFMEU in its most militant... Do you reject. You're right, the miners were a prime example of that. And there were militant unions here. A lot of us, Ed's the same, spend many years fighting the hard left and bringing moderation to the union movement of Australia in certain unions. Over there that wasn't an attempt to do that. There were plenty of moderate unions in the UK she could have worked with but she didn't. She refused to. She chose to file out the more militant ones. If you put someone who's militant into a corner they're going to fight back. Did I agree with what Scargill did? You're talking about entire industries that were being destroyed. I've been a member of the journalist union but I do feel as the granddaughter of a working class Yorkshire family there were a lot of people suffering at the hands of the unions before Margaret Thatcher came along, the wharfies. When you say suffering at the hands of union. They were ripping off the poor people. How? The wharfies were stealing from the docks in an absolutely rampant fashion. I think there were absolutely - the same thing was going on with printing unions, entire ghost shifting working on every shift at printing presses. I think it's wrong to suggest that working people all suffered only because of Thatcher. I've always thought of you as a sort of closet Thatcher fan, am I right? You don't know about me, good call. In actual fact, I mean I have to say, just going back, I thought Hugh's point was absolutely spot on, in terms of the difference between Thatcher and Hawke/Keating was the accord and that whole notion of consensus. You're nodding Julian, whereas before you tried to say they were the same. I said it was because of Bob Hawke himself, you had a person like Hawke who was able to make, Thatcher didn't have someone. That was a feature of reconciliation and recovery was about bringing people together. Clearly in terms of Margaret Thatcher she sought another line, which was confrontation. Winning through that process. If John Howard had won that 87 election he probably would have been a Thatcherite style Prime Minister. He saw what had happened through the 80 and that confrontation. He knew if he tried doing that here, he only tried it once, because he was still a Thatcher ideologue. He realised he couldn't bring it into Australia He tried it once when he tried to bring in WorkChoices. I think this is where we have a big difference, you made a comment earlier about Hawke/Keating, there was this sweeping change in terms of economic approach that was happening across the word. But Thatcher picked up, I think people would accept that both Thatcher and Reagan picked up the debate that was happening in economics and there was this change of approach about what Governments would do post-Keynes, recognising this... and economies weren't work ing in the way they once were, and they needed a change. There was a move to try to reduce the role of Government. Just very differently, in WA, James Price Point, a lot of on nowance certainly at the state level in WA by Colin Barnett that Woodside won't be going ahead but there is some chance for an offshore processing. The difference is then the royalties go to a feds and go to the state level if it's onshore. Is that all this is about or is the prospect of doing anything in serious peril. Colin Barnett spent a lot of time on this issue, native title issues, vierletsal approvals and so on. I think there would be a reasonable degree of anger in Western Australia about this being paused, basically because there's been so much political capital, time and effort to get this project to a point where it could start. I think part of Barnett's problem here will be that he has put so much on the table and he'll want to get a result. If it does go ahead in some form, if they can't do it in the Kimberley on the land itself, hope they can do a platform, I think Woodside of said they're going to pull out, people are criticising them for that, it has to be based on what profits they can make, let's hope they do find a way so they can bring jobs to the Kimberly, find a way of piping it further south, having platforms, it shouldn't be based on royalties, it should be looking at what's the best for setting up industry and infrastructure up in the Kimberley. All right's that's all we've got time for on this particular segment. We're going to take a commercial break, Ed Husic has got to go, cry me a river. Don't start working out just yet. You said I could read out Tweets, Michael O'Hare says tell van Onselen lfr about fiddler on the roof. That is shameless, absolutely shameless. We're going to take a commercial break. Back in a moment. Live Captioning by Ai-Media ai-media.tv.