Subjects: Avalon Airshow 2023; Labor’s superannuation shambles; the Prime Minister’s broken promise on superannuation; the Treasurer’s Sunrise shocker on capital gains tax and the family home; cost of living pressures; AUKUS; defence acquisition; foreign investment; Aston by-election.
E&OE.
PETER DUTTON:
It’s great to be here at Avalon Airshow. I just want to pay tribute to all of the men and women in uniform that we’ve met with today. The amazing efforts of the Air Force in particular, obviously, in bringing together this international collaboration.
When Labor were in government, they dropped spending on defence to the lowest level since 1938. We increased defence spending up over two per cent of GDP. We negotiated with the US and the UK the AUKUS agreement, which will be delivered I hope or announced at least some of the detail over the next couple of weeks. There is a very significant investment that we put into guided weapons and other programs and to see some of that coming to fruition and speaking with some of those suppliers here, it makes me very proud of what we were able to do in the national security space when we were in government.
It’s clearly the case that the Treasurer has a shopping list, a hit list, and most Australian taxpayers are on that hit list. If you look at the family home, the Treasurer this morning refused to rule out capital gains tax on the family home, which is unbelievable. The Treasurer has a different stance it seems on some of these issues than the Prime Minister. I don’t know what’s happened with the rushed decision that they’ve made in the last 24 hours, but it seems that there is an internal war going on within the Labor Party at the moment when it comes to taxing Australians.
Now, the Treasurer can describe it as a tweaking or a minor change or a minuscule change; all of that language, frankly, doesn’t mean anything to Australians who know that they have worked hard for their money, they have put their money into their superannuation fund, and for the government now to start changing the rules, it really unsettles a lot of Australians, particularly those who are heading towards retirement.
When Labor says that there won’t be any changes before an election, how on earth could you believe them? How could you believe anything the Prime Minister says? How could you believe anything the Treasurer says? And when they put out this hit list, most Australians are going to be affected on that hit list one way or the other.
So, if they think that out of $150 billion that they’re going to be satisfied with $2 billion, that is an absurdity. I would be very worried as you go down through that list, the impact that that would have on the economy and in the end, people who work hard for their super enjoy a retirement as a result of their hard work. If we walk away from that principle, which clearly the Labor Party has, then I think it provides great uncertainty around superannuation as an asset class and you can understand why a lot of Australians are really scratching their head about a Prime Minister that they now can’t trust, a Treasurer that they can’t trust, and their own superannuation money is under attack from the Labor Party, who when they run out of their own money, comes after yours.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, Angus Taylor has described the government’s changes as an attack on middle Australia. Does that mean you’ll repeal them at the next election?
PETER DUTTON:
It means that we’re absolutely committed to supporting Australian taxpayers because they work hard for their money and we’re not going to support a broken promise. We’ve been very clear about that. We’re not going to be a party to the government’s broken promise. They went to the last election saying there would be no changes to superannuation, and we’ve now seen the first change of what I think will be many changes in the superannuation, and tax space over the term of this government and into the next term of government if they’re re-elected.
QUESTION:
So specifically on Andrew’s question though, will you look to repeal them?
PETER DUTTON:
We’re absolutely dead against it and we will repeal it. We’re not going to stand by and watch Australians attacked. There are 88,000 that they’re talking about now. The figure of $3 million is not indexed so in 10 or 15 years time there will be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Australians who will be affected by this. But the message that it sends otherwise to a lot of other Australians who are next in line when the Labor Party needs more and more money, those people know that they’re next on the hit list and I think the uncertainty that they’re creating around the superannuation is completely unacceptable.
QUESTION:
One of the big themes of this show is drones. Your government cancelled the $1.3 billion SkyGuardian program. The SkyGuardian is an existing drone, not a developmental offering. Did the Coalition drop the ball on unmanned?
PETER DUTTON:
No, not at all. I mean when you look at the billions of dollars that we put into different platforms, including drones and programs that we bought to an end on the advice of Air Force because there wasn’t a near prospect of success within some of those programs, I think that’s an appropriate way to guard taxpayers’ money, but to maximise the impact out of the money that we’re spending in making sure we’ve got adequate protections.
So, I hope that the government can get their mess sorted out soon enough because everything has just ground to a halt. I mean when you talk to a lot of exhibitors here, they’re critical of the government’s timelines on the DSR. They want to know when it’s going to be resolved because at the moment Defence is not doing anything with them and there are contracts being held in abeyance at the moment and I don’t think we’re living in an environment where you can lose months because of government inaction.
QUESTION:
Your colleague Simon Birmingham has backed the government’s decision to block a Chinese investment fund from doubling its stake in a mineral earth producer. Do you support that decision and what more can be done to ensure Northern Minerals can access the finance they need to begin processing.
PETER DUTTON:
Well Andrew, as you know, when we were in government we changed the foreign investment rules and we want foreign investment in our country, absolutely we do, but we want it to be in our national interest. The Treasurer at the time, Josh Frydenberg, made decisions in relation to a number of projects that didn’t proceed and that was based on advice from the agencies, from Treasury, obviously from ASIO and ASIS and Defence, etc.. That’s the way that those decisions should be made and governments do have to make tough decisions and act in our country’s best interests and we’ll support the government where they do that.
QUESTION:
Just back to superannuation, why should the taxes of a nurse or plumber be used to subsidise tax breaks for people with more than $3 million in superannuation? How is that fair?
PETER DUTTON:
The nurses and plumbers are in the Labor Party sights. Have a look at the hit list that Jim Chalmers has put out. He refuses today to rule out capital gains being paid by the nurse or the plumber and when you go through that list, the superannuation concessions around capital gains, etc. have an impact on companies, have an impact therefore on those people that have got shares or have their superannuation investments with those companies.
So, I think every Australian should be unsettled by what the Labor Party is doing at the moment. They went to an election and the Prime Minister promised and looked the Australian public in the eye, and said that he wouldn’t change superannuation and they’ve made the first change. The first change will be on higher income Australians. The next change will be on people on the next rung down, and the next rung down after that, because they need to find areas where you have critical mass, large numbers of people to get the sort of billions of dollars that Labor always needs – because as we know with Labor, they always tax and spend – and if they’re going to stop tax cuts and they’re going to increase taxes on Australians at a time when people are paying more and more for their bills under a Labor government, then I think they need to explain it properly.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, on submarines, you favoured the US option. There’s rumours that the SSNR, the developmental British option, might be the successful one. Do you think that would be a mistake and did you believe that there might be room in the US production line or that we could perhaps even invest in the US production line to deliver US [inaudible].
PETER DUTTON:
Look, I had very frank discussions and productive discussions, as you know, with Lloyd Austin and with Ben Wallace – at the time my American and British counterparts. I have the greatest respect for the Brits who frankly, facilitated us coming into discussions with the Americans. The Americans bent over backwards to do whatever they could in the context of the AUKUS negotiations. So, it’s clear to me that there is a will from the Albanese Government that many options are available to them. We’ll wait to see what decision is made, but the advice to me at the time was very clear; that Rolls-Royce didn’t have any production capability left, no headroom; Barrow-in-Furness is obviously landlocked, it didn’t have the ability to scale up; and the problem that we had with the French design, in particular, was that it was a new design, and as anybody in the defence space can tell you, going with the first-in-class makes it very difficult because there are production mistakes, there are design mistakes, and by the second or third or fourth or fifth that rolls off the production line – whether it’s a tank or ship or a submarine – you get it right by then.
The beauty in my mind with the American model, of the Virginia-class was that it was a proven design, it gave us interoperability with the Americans, and there’ll be more American subs in the Indo-Pacific then there will be British submarines, who will concentrate, quite rightly, particularly given the Russian threat to continental Europe.
So, it made more sense to me, given the ability of the Americans to scale up very quickly, the desire from an industry perspective to be able to do that. It still allowed us to potentially build Blocks here in Australia as well. But I worry that if the government’s taken a decision to go for a cheaper design, that it will delay the delivery of those submarines, and with the Virginia-class, I thought that we could bring them on this decade and I made that point on a number of occasions. I absolutely still believe it to be the case.
QUESTION:
Could we crew it, Mr Dutton?
PETER DUTTON:
We could crew it, yes, and we could joint crew it, and that’s going to be the reality on any platform.
QUESTION:
There are reports in Tasmania that forces within the Liberal Party are looking to oust Bridget Archer. What do you say to those people?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I haven’t seen those reports and Bridget Archer is an important part of our team. So, she works hard and she represents her community. I want us to continue to work. There is a divergence of views on a number of issues in the Labor Party – if you cross the floor, you have to resign from the Party – in our Party Room, there’s a greater capability. I hope that we can preselect a candidate soon for the seat of Braddon (*Lyons). As we know with Gavin Pearce, he’s been an incredible local member there. I think there’s opportunity for us in Tasmania, and I hope that Bridget can continue to work with her colleagues in Canberra.
QUESTION:
Just on the Liberal Party in Victoria and just two on this. Firstly, the Federal Court, there’s a case today involving a number of Liberal members that are concerned about some of the bullying that’s been going on within the Liberal Party in Victoria, particularly around a website Real Freedom News. Have those concerns reached you at all? Have you got any concerns about that?
PETER DUTTON:
No, I haven’t seen those, they can follow through the normal process.
QUESTION:
On the Aston by-election; Roshena Campbell held an afternoon tea with members on Sunday to try and smooth things over after the decision to preselect was taken out of their hands? Is that just, you know, a smoothing over attempt there because ultimately members didn’t get a say in Aston?
PETER DUTTON:
Simon, I don’t think there is any big news in holding an afternoon tea with members. I mean, these are the people who have already been out door knocking with Roshena. Roshena was out door knocking the day after she got preselected. The tight timeline was as a result of the government rushing the Aston by-election to get it out of the way before the budget, because clearly what’s coming in this budget, is now a mystery to people in Aston and right around the country. People in Aston know that the Treasurer has got a hit list, which includes and quite remarkably he didn’t rule out this morning, a capital gains tax on family homes. The aspirational voters within Aston will be deeply disappointed by Prime Minister Albanese as well as the Treasurer. I think Roshena is an exceptional candidate. She’s got a great story, she’s got great life experience, she’s a mother of three and I think the people of Aston are after a champion for their local community and she represents that. So, the fact that we weren’t able to hold a plebiscite was not for any other reason other than we needed to get the candidate selected and out in the field.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, just quickly back on superannuation. If you did get in at the next election, would you index the $3 million in super?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, our policies in relation to how we can provide support to people at the next election will be announced at that time. The basic principle that I want to adhere to in relation to superannuation is similar to that which happened when capital gains tax was introduced in this country, and that is that if people have put money into their super fund, they’ve worked hard for it, they’ve put money in, in some cases they put a relatively low amount of money into their superannuation, but they’ve done well through their investments. They’ve invested in shares that have taken off, they’ve invested in crypto. It might be a butcher that owns a shop within a shopping centre and when the butcher and his spouse have sold that shop – a single shop – and they’ve taken financial advice to roll that into their superannuation, that might now be worth – if it’s been in there for 15 years – it might be worth a couple of million dollars. It doesn’t mean that they’re multi-millionaires because they’ve worked hard, they’ve sacrificed, they haven’t bought a new car, they haven’t gone on overseas holidays; they put money into super because they want to provide for themselves and for their children into the future. The principle should be that if they’ve done that according to the law, then frankly, they should be protected. The Labor Party, in what they’ve proposed now is effectively retrospective because these people haven’t acted against the law, they’ve acted according to the law and they’ve acted according to financial advice from their accountants, or from their financial adviser who’s advised them that, here are the rules, let’s abide by them, put money into superannuation and the government now is coming after them, because as you know with Labor, when they run out of money, they come after yours.
Thank you.
[ends]