Subjects: Visit to Safcol; cost of living pressures; the Prime Minister’s broken promise on a $275 cut to your power bills; Jobseeker; NDIS; Jim Chalmers’ Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee farce; the Prime Minister’s Canberra Voice proposal.
E&OE.
ANDREW MITCHELL:
Thanks for coming along, guys. It’s rare that we have the press come along and see our factory, but a little bit about us; Safcol we’ve been in and around since 1945, so we’re a very old Australian company. Today we’re probably one of the fastest growing food companies in Australia, but the pressures are immense and we appreciate Peter coming along to come and see us and see what we do, and also talk about some of the challenges.
You’ve probably seen, we make a lot of baby food. We are arguably Australia’s biggest baby food manufacturer, along with soups and stocks and many other products we make in this site here. But the pressures around power at the moment are immense. Our electricity bill went up 120 per cent in January and gas has gone up over 300 per cent in the last 12 months. So those things put pressure on us and the ability to price products that consumers can afford to pay for them. So that’s our biggest challenge.
I think, as a company we want to expand in Australia, in fact we’re looking at plans to expand and build a $60 million state of the art factory in Adelaide, but our biggest concern is particularly around power. It’s doubled plus in the last year. Will that happen again next year? Will it happen the year after? And they’re the challenges we need to determine to fully invest further future money into growing the company, which of course employs Australians, but also uses Australian ingredients.
I was saying to Peter we process something like four million kilograms of tomatoes in this site and thousands of tonnes of vegetables on a yearly basis and running 24 hours a day in that production. So, it’s pretty important not only for us to succeed but for the farmers who supply us and the people who work for us, and the consumers who buy our products. So that’s a bit about us and you know, I’ll hand over to Mr Dutton.
PETER DUTTON:
Andrew, thank you very much. Well, look, this is an incredible story and I’m just really pleased to be here with Andrew today. I want to say thank you to all of the staff at Safcol for the work that you do and the products that you see on your shelves at Woolworths and IGAs and at different retail points around the country, a lot of it originates from here. So next time you pick up that packet of baby food or a pre-prepared soup or a stock, for example, know that it has had a lot of input to get it onto the shelf.
It’s not just the raw products and materials from farmers and producers that go into it, but it’s also the very sophisticated model here that is really feeling the pressure. We know that, as Andrew points out, if you’ve got a factory here in Australia that’s paying 45 cents a kilowatt hour for their power and the sister factory in Malaysia is paying 15 cents a kilowatt hour off coal fired generation in that country, it doesn’t take much to work out that in an energy intensive operation like this, the pressures will continue to mount.
The difficulty, of course, is that when you go to the checkout, you’re feeling this pressure every day because all of these products are going up in price because without being able to pass on those costs, businesses would go broke and suppliers and farmers wouldn’t be able to operate. So, when the government said that they had a plan going into the last election to deal with all of this, there was no evidence of the plan in the October budget, and we’ll wait to see what happens in a couple of weeks’ time in the May budget. But it’s clear that for 250,000 Australian small businesses and 1.6 million households from the 1st of July, they will see an increase in their power prices of one third.
The Prime Minister promised on 97 occasions before the last election that power prices would actually go down by $275 a year, but he’s never once mentioned that figure since being elected. So, I think Australians are right to feel angry and miffed at the moment and they’re asking on top of the mortgage payment increases, on top of the insurance bill going through the roof, on top of their petrol price going up and up and up, how can they continue to afford increasing gas and electricity prices and the businesses like this one around the country will have to pass on the cost of energy increases. You can’t have a business like this which sees 120 per cent increase in their electricity bill in 12 months and not expect that to feed through into power prices. That’s why we’re very worried about inflation, whether it holds up, maybe it’s sticky and holds around for a lot longer than people are anticipating, and families will feel that when they pay their mortgages. As we’ve said all along, mortgages will always be higher under Labor as a result because they’ve got this ideological approach to energy policy in this country. All of the costs – they’re talk about 28,000 kilometres of new poles and wires at a cost of $100 billion – every cent of that will be passed on to consumers.
So, the problem that Andrew talked about, the future risk that he spoke of, is very real and I just don’t know how companies will continue to operate in our country and not move offshore, particularly with the carbon tax, which is three times the size of the one that Julia Gillard had proposed. Those costs are going to be passed on to consumers. So, you’ll end up with even less in your grocery basket for the same amount of money. I think the cost of living pressures continue to mount on Australians and we will do everything that we can to give them support and relief from that and holding the government to account.
I’m happy to take any questions.
QUESTION:
On the cost of living, Leader, the government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has recommend an $18 a day increase to JobSeeker payments. Is that feasible?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I would imagine that Senator Pocock feels pretty disillusioned with the government at the moment because the government hasn’t kept their word to him. He was a key part of the negotiation, and I don’t think the government ever had a true intent of passing any of that on by way of an increase in the base rate. I would be very surprised if this is not another big tax and spend budget. Labor will have huge revenues coming in. Let’s be very clear about this – in the budget you’ll see a dramatic increase in royalties, you’ll see a dramatic increase in company tax receipts and they will spend and they will spend a lot of money for pet causes to keep the unions happy and the rest. Ultimately, that will drive up inflation, it’ll keep inflation higher than it otherwise needs to be, and we’ll see what announcements they have in the budget.
QUESTION:
Would you offer the government any bipartisan support in raising the rates of JobSeeker?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’ve said in relation, for example, to the NDIS, and I noticed those stories today where Bill Shorten – the architect of the NDIS – is saying that there are inherent weaknesses in the model. Now he’s the designer of it. If he designed it with flaws, then he needs to fix it. Because if taxpayers’ money is being sent to organised crime groups and others who are spending money that should be spent on those with a profound disability, then that is a system that truly is broken, and this is what happens under Labor. There’s a lot of taxing, a lot of spending and a lot of waste, and we will support the government in sensible measures. We want the NDIS to be a sustainable model for many decades to come for those who are profoundly disabled, and that’s particularly important to ageing parents who have adult children with a disability. They want to know that there is a secure system that when they pass, their kids can be taken care of in terms of the provision of those services, the health services, the housing and accommodation, etc. and if Mr Shorten is setting up the scheme, which ultimately is going to topple over, then I think we’re doing a great injustice to those people who deserve the most help.
QUESTION:
JobSeeker went up $50 a week during the pandemic. Is $18 too much of a shift in that context?
PETER DUTTON:
Let’s see what the government says in their budget. Let’s see the numbers. We don’t understand yet what their revenue numbers are. We don’t know what new spending there will be. We’ve been very forthright in saying that their energy policy is resulting in the sort of increases that we’re seeing here. 1.6 million households from the 1st of July will see an increase in their power bills of 33 per cent and that’s what’s happening on Labor’s watch. So, you can increase payments given to people, but if you end up paying more out to an insurance company, to your bank, to Coles or Woollies, then you’re out of pocket and you’re going backwards under Labor. I don’t think there’s any Australian at the moment that could say that they’re better off today than they were 12 months or two years ago when the Coalition was still in government.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, are you the best person to lead the Coalition given the latest approval rating?
PETER DUTTON:
I absolutely am. I mean John Howard went through different periods in relation to the numbers and that’s the reality of it. We had a change of personnel, when that’s messy, as it always is, when Julian Leeser left, the public don’t like that perception of disunity and the rest and they mark you down for it – understandably. One of the hallmarks of my leadership has been that we’ve had unity. We’ve got a strong team, united and with a determination to hold the government to account so that we can get better outcomes for families and small businesses.
QUESTION:
Also, one of the other hallmarks is that the numbers have been on the slide, though?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I think I’ve dealt with that.
QUESTION:
Can Jacinta Price still run her role in the Fair Australia campaign and be your Shadow Minister?
PETER DUTTON:
Yes she can. I think Jacinta Price is one of the strongest, most coherent cut-through voices in the country. She just distils the message down in a way that Australians can understand it. At the moment you’ve got a proposal for a Voice, which is a Canberra-based Voice, it’s the Voice of the elites and it’s not going to help Indigenous people on the ground.
The process – just remind yourselves of this – the process that the government’s putting forward means that Australians will vote on the Saturday in the Referendum on the Canberra voice, on the Monday, the following Monday, there will be a six month process that will start and that will be to consult on the design of the Voice. So, people are being asked to vote before the government’s even put the model forward and this is why the Prime Minister can’t answer even the most basic of questions.
So, I think Jacinta will be able to distil that message. I think she’ll be able to sell it in a way that people understand because having a great big new bureaucracy at the cost of billions of dollars in the form of the Canberra Voice, it’s not going to help Indigenous Australians and it is going to slow down the process of government decision-making, and that is not in our national interest.
QUESTION:
Okay, so those positions are both reconcilable?
PETER DUTTON:
I believe so, yes.
QUESTION:
Back to JobSeeker sorry, just for a moment – is it pointless for the government to have an Economic Inclusion Advisory if they’re going to ignore the report?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I just think if the government’s setting up processes that they aren’t going to pay any attention to, then people will start to get angry about that. And stakeholders, including David Pocock, no doubt were given a nudge and a wink from the Prime Minister when they did the deal and now the Prime Minister’s reneged on that deal. So, I would expect Senator Pocock to be publicly expressing his view in relation to that, whether he agrees with it or not. But I think the government sets these processes up. When you look at the number of committees and reviews that they’ve set up so far, they haven’t been in government for 12 months and they haven’t been able to make a decision. The decisions that they have made, including on energy policy, mean that your power prices are going through the roof under Labor.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, what’s the Coalition’s policy on the cost of living?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’ve been clear for example in relation to gas, this factory here is the biggest producer of baby food in the country, can’t operate without gas because it needs steam in its processes and it needs electricity in other parts of the supply line. The government is reducing the supply of gas. They’re – in the October budget – providing millions of dollars to advocates to take legal action against Narrabri and other potential gas fields that would come on. So, when you’ve got more demand for gas, particularly as we come into the colder months, as you have more demand for gas, the government is actually taking a deliberate decision to reduce the amount of gas and you don’t need to be, you know, great economists to work out that the price goes up.
Our argument is that there should be more gas being delivered into the domestic market because if you deliver more gas and you can do it in an efficient way, you can reduce prices. At the moment, if you’ve got a government that is rolling out $100 billion of new poles and wires – including through productive farming land, including through national parks – you are going to have all of that money passed on to consumers. That’s the complete opposite of what we should be doing because we don’t want to drive up people’s power prices and that is one of the main inputs at the moment.
I’ll just say, in relation to Labor’s spending otherwise, that has fuelled inflation. The industrial relations policies that Labor has presided over mean that small businesses around the country are going to be getting a knock on the door from union reps like the CFMEU over the course of the next few years and that is going to drive up their compliance costs which will be passed on to consumers. If you’ve got food prices going up and you’ve got inputs otherwise that continue to go up and up under Labor, that is fuelling inflation and that’s not how the Coalition ran the budget or the economy. So, there is a big contrast between the two parties and I think that will become ever more evident to Australians over the course of the next 18 months.
QUESTION:
Woodside Energy CEO is at the Press Club today. They’re against the budget lift to the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax. Do you think that that tax is working?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, again, I mean if the government’s proposing a new tax, they went to the election saying that they didn’t support any new taxes, but we’ve already seen this proposal to tax unrealised capital gains, which is a completely new and alarming principle. That means that before you sell your asset and make the capital gain and actually get the money in your bank, you’re paying the tax on the unrealised gain. I mean, that will just stifle investment and it’s a disastrous Labor policy. The Treasurer was out there talking about the tax on the family home, until he was reeled back by the Prime Minister, so that gave you an insight into what they’re thinking. So, is it possible that they will drive up taxes in the budget and that those costs will be passed on to consumers by business? Absolutely. I mean, that’s what the Labor government does. This is why when the Liberal Party is elected, we’re always landed with a Labor mess that we need to clean up and that’s been the history in our country, and I fear history is repeating itself right now.
Thank you very much.
[ends]