Subjects: Asian Business Association of Whitehorse Golden Age Box Hill Lunar New Year Festival; Lunar New Year; China-Australia relations; Labor’s cost of living crisis; anti-Semitism; government waste; tariffs.
E&OE.
PETER DUTTON:
Thank you very much for being here – and thank you for persevering. It’s been a hot day, but an incredibly productive day!
We’re at our best as a country when we’re celebrating every element of our country, and the Chinese community, people of Chinese heritage and Asian heritage have continued over the course of many, many decades to contribute to our amazing country. We live in the best country in the world, and, in good part, that’s because we have people who have come here to call Australia home, have contributed, they’ve raised their families, they’ve educated their children, and the celebration of Lunar New Year is something that is very special on the Australian calendar. It’s been wonderful to be here today with all of the leaders in the community, and it’s wonderful to be here today with all of my colleagues as well, people who really understand and work hard in their community.
I am very pleased to have made the announcement today, that not will we provide future funding for this festival to continue, but also to make sure that we can recognise the full contribution of people of Chinese heritage to our country through the commissioning of a sculpture recognising the contribution to Australia through the Defence Forces that many people of Chinese heritage have made.
So, it’s great to be here, and I’m very happy to take any questions.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, how do you intend on winning back the Chinese-Australian voters who abandoned the Coalition at the last election?
PETER DUTTON:
I think we’ve sent a very clear message when you look at the work that Keith Wolahan’s doing, when you look at the work that Jason Wood is doing and obviously my other colleagues – Katie Allen, Amelia Hamer, and others – who really are working very hard.
I wouldn’t listen to some of the negative stuff coming out of the Labor Party. The Labor Party is being negative because they don’t have a positive story to tell themselves. They haven’t achieved anything over this term of government, so of course they’re going to be negative.
The relationship that we have between Australia and China is our most important trading relationship. We intend to build and to grow it to our mutual benefit, and we will make sure from day one we continue to strengthen this great relationship.
QUESTION:
Could you turn a seat like Chisholm around?
PETER DUTTON:
Look, I think we can. If you look at an amazing candidate in Katie Allen, who is well connected with her electorate, she works hard, and people want, I think, a change of government. They want to get rid of a bad government – not just here at a state level, but also at a federal level. They know that the Labor Party can’t manage money. They always apply taxes, they always make it harder for business.
Many community leaders I’ve spoken with today are just completely and utterly bemused with what is happening here in Victoria under the Labor Party, and the Prime Minister’s watch as well.
The Prime Minister’s made it so much harder for small businesses, and we know of people who have a great interest in business here today represent a broader part of the community, particularly those from migrant communities, but particularly from Chinese backgrounds, who want to work hard, who are small business people, who want to keep more of what they earn. They are the values of the Liberal Party, and that’s why I believe that we can win a number of seats at the election, as we must here in Victoria and across the country.
QUESTION:
It took ten days for the public to be made aware of the foiled terror attack in Sydney and nine days for the Prime Minister to be made aware. Would a Coalition Government commit to releasing those operational details from police as soon as possible?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, again, I think we’re at a point where we need some transparency to what’s gone wrong here. The Prime Minister can’t just continue to cut and run and be chased by cameras and refuse to answer reasonable questions. The Prime Minister has to stand up and be open and honest with the Australian people.
It’s obvious that he doesn’t have an instinct for or frankly much interest in the national security picture of our country. If he did, he would have been getting day by day, hour by hour, updates from the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, from the other agencies. Now, if he’s got those and he’s not telling us, well – why? If there’s been a briefing to the Premier of New South Wales, but the Prime Minister wasn’t interested in getting a briefing, well, what does that mean for our national security? I think it’s unsettling to be honest, because every Prime Minister I’ve known – both Liberal and Labor – have taken seriously their obligation to keep Australians safe. If this Prime Minister wasn’t notified – effectively, until the public was notified – that is without precedent.
I honestly think there should be an independent assessment of what has gone wrong here. I think the Prime Minister should appoint an eminent Australian from the law enforcement and intelligence community to have a transparent look at what has failed here, because we can’t have what could have been the most catastrophic terrorist event in our country’s history and the Prime Minister doesn’t know about it until the public does. I don’t think that is acceptable, and we need to understand why the Prime Minister hasn’t applied himself to the most important task.
I think the Prime Minister is out of his depth and I think increasingly Australians are drawing that conclusion as well.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, does the Coalition plan to bring back the significant investor visa stream?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’ve done a lot of work and full credit to Jason Wood here as well, who has worked as the Shadow Minister in this space, and as you know as Immigration Minister I brought in a record number of people through different visa programmes, and we did it in a responsible way.
The significant investment visa provides an opportunity for people to invest capital. You talk to Jeff Xu before, who – if you look around us – has invested many hundreds of millions of dollars in the local community, has invested into jobs and growth, and that’s exactly what we want from our migrant programme, and that part of it. We’ll make announcements in relation to our policy in due course.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, if elected, will you audit the public service to find people working in diversity to fire?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I want a public service that’s serving the Australian public, because in the end Australians are taking up second and third and fourth jobs at the moment, just to pay the bills under Labor.
Mr Albanese has created an energy crisis, he’s created a cost of living crisis, and now we know he’s created a national security crisis. It is time to get our country back on track and people who are working hard want to know that for every dollar of tax they pay, the money is being spent efficiently.
It’s not good enough to employ another 36,000 public servants in Canberra, just to please the unions, when I haven’t met an Australian who says that their services have improved for them as a result of 36,000 additional people being employed in Canberra.
So, we’ll deliver the public service in an efficient way, we want to make sure that we can protect and grow the numbers on the front line – because I want more doctors, I want more nurses, I want more law enforcement and intelligence agencies to be staffed properly, for them to be remunerated properly. I want to spend more money on infrastructure and many other aspects that need investment in our country.
Most of all, I want to help Australians who are really hurting under what is a very bad Albanese Government. I want to get their lives back on track and I want to get our country back on track, and that’s exactly what we’ll do after the next election.
Thank you.
QUESTION:
Just quickly on the US tariffs, how would you manage the China-US relationship? The relationship with President Trump and China – how would you manage that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, as you know, we’ve had, when we were in government, a very constructive discussion with China, which led to the Free Trade Agreement being established. I was talking to the Ambassador this morning, with whom I have an excellent relationship, about the opportunities that have come. The Prime Minister talked this morning about the different commodities, which are a feature of the relationship – all possible because of the Free Trade Agreement that the Coalition Government established when we were in power.
My great desire is to continue to build the relationship that we have with China, and the United States equally, as an incredibly important partner to us and we’ll grow that relationship. So, I think as a senior Minister, I’ve worked closely with the Obama Administration, with Trump 45 Administration, with the Biden Administration, and I intend to have a very close working relationship with the Trump 47 Administration as well. We’ll manage our relationships, we’ll grow the relationships, and that will be to the mutual benefit of us and our important trading and security partners.
Thank you very much.
[ends]