two syllable tony, page-11

Denben from Tony's interview today with Barrie Cassidy on ABC Insiders can you tell me what this three syllable word means without googling it?

benighted Denben as in his sentence:-
We've got a civil war going on in that benighted country between two pretty unsavoury sides.

And you can throw in unsavoury as a three syllable word in the very same sentence.
See how many more you can find denben, all from the one short interview?

BARRIE CASSIDY: Why do you want to be prime minister?

TONY ABBOTT: I want a stronger Australia and that means building a stronger economy so everyone can get ahead. It means scrapping the carbon tax, ending the waste, stopping the boats and building the roads of the 21st century.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Let's talk about some of the policies. We will start with the cuts to come. How severe will they be?

TONY ABBOTT: There will be no surprises and no excuses from a Coalition government Barrie. We've already put out a lot of the savings that we think are necessary. Joe Hockey outlined $31 billion worth of savings this week. There will be some additional savings to be announced later this week...

BARRIE CASSIDY: That is what I as asking about. How severe will they be?

TONY ABBOTT: Nothing like Labor's scare campaign. All eminently defensible because, let's face it Barrie, our first priority here is to build a stronger economy. And that means reinvesting taxpayers' dollars in things that will actually strengthen our economy rather than just build bureaucracies.

BARRIE CASSIDY: But you now know the size of these cuts, how significant, how big?

TONY ABBOTT: Look, there will be some further, relatively modest savings announced later in the week. But I don't think anyone is going to think at the end of this week 'my God there is this massive fiscal squeeze coming.' If anything, what they will think is that there has been a massive scare campaign, a massive campaign of exaggerations and even lies from the Labor Party.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Well put it this way, will the cuts impact on ordinary Australians?

TONY ABBOTT: Inevitably there will be some changes that people won't like, for instance the ...

BARRIE CASSIDY: Ordinary Australians will feel it?

TONY ABBOTT: Ending the so-called School Kids Bonus.

BARRIE CASSIDY: We know about that one.

TONY ABBOTT: I don't believe the additional savings to be announced later in this week, will impact on ordinary Australians. And I want to give people this absolute assurance, no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, and no changes to the GST (Goods and Services Tax).

BARRIE CASSIDY: And on timing, you say later in the week, clearly they will come after the electronic black-out happens. But will Kevin Rudd, when he stands up at the National Press Club on Thursday, will he know what the cuts are by then?

TONY ABBOTT: What will be ... It's not so much whether Kevin Rudd will know, the important thing is will the Australian people know Barrie? And the answer is yes, they will.

BARRIE CASSIDY: They will know by Thursday?

TONY ABBOTT: We can't give you our final figures until we have given you our final policy initiatives and we will be making policy initiatives, new policy initiatives right up until the middle of the week.

BARRIE CASSIDY: On climate change, we have just had the warmest winter ever along the east coast. Is that evidence of climate change?

TONY ABBOTT: It is evidence of the variability in our weather. But just to make it clear, Barrie, I think that climate change is real, humanity makes a contribution. It's important to take strong and effective action against it, and that is what our direct action policy does.

BARRIE CASSIDY: You say it is in evidence of variability but it is getting warmer.

TONY ABBOTT: And there is no doubt that we have had a warm winter. No doubt whatsoever. The important thing is to take strong and effective action to tackle climate change, action that doesn't damage our economy. And that is why the incentive-based system that we've got, the direct action policies, which are quite similar to those that president Obama has put into practice, is - that's the smart way to deal with this, a big tax is a dumb way to deal with it.

BARRIE CASSIDY: And the target within the direct action is a 5 per cent reduction on 2000 levels by 2020.

TONY ABBOTT: That's correct.

BARRIE CASSIDY: And yet there are a lot of experts around who say you can't achieve that with $3 billion?

TONY ABBOTT: We believe we can. When we released our policy back in 2010, we released a range of letters of comfort from different reputable organisations that said that they thought that it was possible to achieve very large amounts of emissions reduction at a relatively low cost per tonne.

BARRIE CASSIDY: What if, down the track, say a year or two from now, it became obvious that you can't hit that 5 per cent target, would you (a)increase the funding to meet the target or would you (b) abandon the target?

TONY ABBOTT: I don't accept that we are going to be in that position Barrie.

Let's also remember that business has a very strong incentive to reduce its costs and some of the highest costs are power, fuel etc., which are the big sources of emissions. Now given that power is expensive, given that fuel is expensive, there's a big incentive for business to reduce those costs anyway.

Take for instance the big transport company Linfox, they reckon that they've reduced their emissions as a corporate by 35 per cent since 2007, and they didn't need a tax to do that. They did that to save themselves money. They did it because it was simple, good economics for them.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Yes, no, I accept that it is a hypothetical question in a sense. But it still goes to the level of your commitment as to whether, if you face that situation, whether you would increase the funding or abandon the target.

TONY ABBOTT: We're determined to reduce emissions. But we think common sense and standard economics, along with some targeted incentives is going to get us there.

BARRIE CASSIDY: On boats and this idea of buying boats in Indonesia. Do you think it is just possible that we will never buy a single boat from an Indonesian?

TONY ABBOTT: (Laughs) Look, it is possible. But what we were announcing during the week was a fund, $20-odd million, that would be available to our people on the ground in consultation and cooperation with the Indonesians to try to ensure that the local villages were working with us rather than with the people smugglers.

We may not buy boats back. But if we did have the opportunity to pay someone a couple of thousand dollars to stop a boat from being launched, when, if that boat arrived in Australia, it would cost some $12 million per boat to deal with people, that would be a shrewd investment.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Except surely on reflection, you now appreciate that they will just go and find another boat, there is so many of them out there?

TONY ABBOTT: And yet there is often a very narrow window of time for these things to happen. And if we can interrupt a particular operation in this way that may well be a sensible thing to do. But, again, it's adding to the resources, adding to the flexibility of our response on the ground.

BARRIE CASSIDY: The paid parental leave scheme. It's generous, I think everybody says, but it is generous at a time when you say we have a budget emergency. Is this the wrong time for generosity?

TONY ABBOTT: It's always easy to pick holes in an important social advance. Every social advance, whether it was the pensions, whether it was superannuation, has always been criticised as being too much too soon.

Look this is an important social advance, I think it's got important economic spin-offs. If we want to ensure that 50 per cent of our work force, the female percentage of our work force, has every incentive to stay in the economy and to have a family, this is an idea whose time has come.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Sure, but the criticism is you've gone right over the top.

TONY ABBOTT: I don't believe that I have. I think six months at your real wage, capped, is the right way forward. It acknowledges the contribution that women make to our country, both economically and socially.

BARRIE CASSIDY: You call it a social issue, but there was an observation made, I think in the Financial Review, yesterday that you won't be as much interested in economic management as you will be in cultural and social issues. Is that a fair characterisation?

TONY ABBOTT: Not really Barrie, because while economic strength is not an end in itself, we want a richer Australia so we can have a better Australia. Economic strength is the foundation of almost everything else. For instance, if we want a better environment, a stronger economy helps.

If we want more national security, a stronger economy helps. If we want a better health and education system, a stronger economy helps. So a stronger economy is the key to everything else.

BARRIE CASSIDY: The other observation I saw in that article was that of previous prime ministers, you are more likely to throw taxpayers' money at failing businesses than any other prime minister. What do you say to that?

TONY ABBOTT: Well I don't accept that. Certainly we've been criticised uphill and down dale by the Labor Party for not wanting quite as much assistance to the car industry as they're proposing. Look, I just don't accept that. I think it's a caricature.

BARRIE CASSIDY: It could be just a week before you're prime minister of the country, is there any trepidations, any apprehension about that?

TONY ABBOTT: Barrie I am incredibly conscious of what an extraordinary privilege it is to lead a major political party. And should we win the election, I will be acutely conscious of the burden of duty and responsibility that has descended upon my shoulders. I will be very, very conscious of that. But, I think I am ready, my team is ready, our plan is ready and we can produce a better country.

BARRIE CASSIDY: It comes at a time when Australia's about to take over the leadership of the UN Security Council.

Whoever is prime minister next year will be hosting the G20 meeting. Australia is about to take a lead in world affairs, in other words, and Kevin Rudd says you're not up to it.

TONY ABBOTT: Yes, I thought that was a comment that was a little beneath our Prime Minister. It was an echo of something that Paul Keating, in his desperate last moments, said of John Howard back in early 1996. And as you know, John Howard turned out to be almost certainly our best prime minister since Menzies and a very effective foreign policy prime minister.

Look, I am ready for the responsibilities of the highest office, including foreign responsibilities.

BARRIE CASSIDY: BARRIE CASSIDY: It's fair to ask the question, though, where are your foreign policy credentials?

TONY ABBOTT: I was a minister for nine years in a successful government, I was leader of the House of Representatives for six years in a successful government. I worked very closely with John Howard and with Alexander Downer.

Sure, I don't have the overseas experience that they had at the end of their time. But I have the overseas experience that they had at the beginning of their time, and look how well they turned out.

BARRIE CASSIDY: President Obama said overnight the United States will take military action against the Syrian regime targets, and he won't be waiting for UN inspectors. What do you think of that approach?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, all Australian governments instinctively want to support our friends and allies, and our greatest ally is obviously the United States. All Australian governments instinctively want to uphold the universal human decencies. And the regime's use of poison gas on its own people is an utter abomination.

That said, any punitive strike, it's got to be targeted, it's got to be proportionate and it's got to be carefully considered to try and ensure that as far as is humanly possible, we aren't making a bad situation worse.

BARRIE CASSIDY: When the second general of the UN says he would like to see a political solution, not a military solution, the United States says otherwise. Your inclination would be to support the US on this?

TONY ABBOTT: If we could get a political solution tomorrow that would be terrific, but I don't believe we're likely to get a political solution tomorrow. We've got a civil war going on in that benighted country between two pretty unsavoury sides. It's not goodies versus baddies, it's baddies versus baddies. And that is why it is very important that we don't make a very difficult situation worse.

The other point I should make, Barrie, is Australia has a role here but it is a diplomatic role, not a military role. There's probably only three Western countries with the ability to actually take military action. That is the United States, Britain, which has apparently ruled itself out, and France, which has a very limited capacity.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Now the other thing that president Obama said is that the UN Security Council has become completely paralysed. Now there's a challenge for you; how do you make the Security COUNCIL more active?

TONY ABBOTT: This is really a difficulty between the United States and Britain and France on one hand and Russia and China on the other hand. Plainly, Russia thinks that it has an important strategic interest in propping up the Assad regime. Where the Security Council is, for whatever reason, ineffective, there is precedent for right thinking powers, if you like, to take action. And that was in former Yugoslavia, where Britain, the United States and other countries took action in Kosovo.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Just finally, you were press secretary to John Hewson when he lost the unlosable election in 1993. Did you learn anything from that experience that will get you through the next week?

TONY ABBOTT: Well you take nothing for granted. You absolutely take nothing for granted. And every day for the next six days, I will talk about our positive plans versus more of the same from the Labor Party. Build a stronger economy so that everyone can get ahead, scrap the carbon tax, end the waste, stop the boats and build the roads of the 21st century. But to do that we need a stable majority government.

BARRIE CASSIDY: So there will be no public rallies, no shouting slogans at crowds?

TONY ABBOTT: There'll be all sorts of events over the next few days. But I am conscious of the fact that the Australian people want to be confident that their next government is vastly better and vastly more adult, if I may say so, than the one they've got now.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Thanks for coming in this morning and good luck on Saturday.

TONY ABBOTT: Thanks so much Barrie