Subjects: Happy Australia Day; 2025 Australian of the Year Neale Daniher; changes to the Shadow Ministry; government waste; Labor’s cost of living crisis; apprenticeships; the CFMEU’s rackets, rorts, and rip-offs in the construction sector; hate speech laws.
E&OE.
PETER DUTTON:
Across the country today, people have joined ceremonies like this one to commit to Australia, to really sign up to the best country in the world.
Australia Day is that day and it has been for generations. It marks an anniversary in migrant families who can look back to great-great grandparents who got sworn in, became Australian citizens on Australia Day. So, today is a day of national significance for them.
I am so proud to have been here today with young Australians, with older Australians, but people who are committed to our country, who want a better life for their children and grandchildren.
We do live in the best country in the world and today is an opportunity to celebrate what that means. The values that people have fought for in uniform, and given their lives up for. It is an incredible day. We live in an amazing country and we should treat it as such.
I do want to say congratulations to Neale Daniher for his recognition as well. Neale is an inspiration to all Australians. What he has done, the philanthropic support that he’s done, even during the most difficult years of his life, should serve as a real inspiration to every Australian.
I’m very proud as an Australian to see him as the Australian of the Year, and I think it’s an inspired choice and I think he will do a great job in lifting awareness of MND, making sure he can talk about the wonderful benefit of philanthropic support that comes to the individual when you know you’re raising money for a very important cause, but also the people who are giving and knowing that they’re giving to a cause which is going to change lives and provide support to people who are less fortunate.
So, today we celebrate living in the best country in the world. I want to say congratulations to all of those new citizens and to all of those who have been recognised in local citizenship ceremonies for their community work, their charity work in their local communities.
We live in a great country and I’m so proud of the work that they do.
I’m happy to take any questions.
QUESTION:
Just on Neale Daniher, what do you think it means for people with family members or people themselves suffering with long term and terminal diseases like this, to see someone like Neale Daniher as Australian of the Year?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I hope it really gives an inspiration to those people who may have been recently diagnosed, to those people who have been through a traumatic loss of a loved one. It is an insidious disease and I hope it inspires more money going into research. I hope it inspires more money going into the service groups who support those people who have been diagnosed and their families.
I really think this is an amazing thing for our country because it lifts awareness of a terrible disease, but it also speaks about the benefit of giving back to the community through philanthropic work and fundraising for research and wonderful causes.
So, I think he’s a great Australian and he’s absolutely deserving of this recognition.
QUESTION:
You announced your Shadow Cabinet reshuffle yesterday, including the establishment of the department of effectively Government Efficiency. What will that role be for Jacinta Nampijinpa Price?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it’s not establishing a new department, it’s to come into the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. That way you can have coordination across government to understand where there is waste and where we can make savings, because we’ve got a lot of important projects to invest in.
The Government’s taken a decision to employ 36,000 new public servants in Canberra at a cost of about $6 billion a year and growing and growing every year. That’s money that we could be spending elsewhere to provide support to people during Labor’s cost of living crisis or into defence or into security and into priorities for Australians otherwise.
I just don’t think any Australian can say that their lives are simpler or better off today because of the tens of thousands of additional public servants that the Prime Minister’s employed in Canberra.
QUESTION:
Is this just a direct copy of Donald Trump’s plan?
PETER DUTTON:
I think Liberal Governments have been the greatest stewards of the economy since Federation. I think it’s a really important point to make. When you think back to the mess that John Howard had to clean up after the Hawke-Keating years, the mess that Tony Abbott had to clean up after the Rudd-Gillard years, and the mess that the Fraser Government had to clean up after the Whitlam years. We will have to clean up Labor’s mess after the next election, as well. The Albanese Government has spent money like drunken sailors. The Reserve Bank Governor’s warned the Prime Minister not to be wasteful in spending and the whole idea of Jacinta’s appointment is to continue the work of Coalition Governments past, to clean up Labor’s mess, to identify where taxpayers’ money is being wasted.
Don’t forget that today people are working harder than ever, with bills that they can’t pay, they want to know that their dollars, that they’re paying to the tax man, that they’re being spent efficiently. People don’t want to work their guts out and find that the tax they’re paying is being wasted by a bad government, and that’s exactly what’s happened under Mr Albanese’s watch.
QUESTION:
This has been announced in the same week that Donald Trump takes office and has signed an executive order to establish a government efficiency taskforce – a department there, not a department here – but is this more than a coincidence? Is this just copying what Donald Trump has done?
PETER DUTTON:
Well again, I think this goes back to the history of the Liberal Party. People want our economy to be managed well, and that’s exactly what a Coalition government does. If you want to manage the economy well, you can’t be wasting money. So, I think we’ve had efficiency reviews in the past and I’m very happy that Jacinta has not just the ability and the intellect, but the real drive to be able to find the efficiencies so that we can stop wasting taxpayers’ money.
The US system is a very different one to ours, but the creation of this within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet means that you can look across government for areas of wasteful spending. At the moment, families are living in a recession themselves. We’ve had seven quarters of consecutive negative growth for households under this Government, and the Prime Minister can say that families have never had it better off, but the fact is that families are struggling under the Albanese Government. They want to get our country back on track, and their lives back on track, and that’s exactly what we will take to the next election.
QUESTION:
On tradies, what do you make of the incentive payments announced by Labor in recent days?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we support incentives to keep tradies in the building industry, and to attract them into the building industry. I think it’s important because the Government’s brought in a million people over two years, which is a record number. We’ve had an 11 year low in building approvals. We’ve had the CFMEU running roughshod across the building industry, which has driven up the cost of every tradie that every Australian employs, or if you’re building a new house or renovating, people know that that’s the reality. So, we do want more young apprentices and we do want greater retention in the trades as well, because we also have, a lot of tradies who are getting older and that generation’s going to retire. We need the next generation coming through. Labor’s created a housing crisis. The Prime Minister, frankly, should have announced this two-and-a-half years ago but he’s doing it now on the eve of the election. We do believe that incentives for tradies provide part of the solution to the housing crisis that Labor’s created.
QUESTION:
Labor’s also signalled they’ll do more to improve tradie safety after a strategic review. Does the Opposition have any plans to improve safety or would they be willing to cooperate with Labor on that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’re happy to improve safety, but if that just means more power to the corrupt and discredited and disgraced CFMEU, then, no, we’re not interested in partnering with the CFMEU. The CFMEU obviously is a financial donor to the Government, but they’re also responsible for jacking up the prices, in some cases, by 100 per cent on projects. So, we could be building double the number of hospitals that we’re building at the moment, or we could be building an extra kilometre for every kilometre of road that’s been constructed if the CFMEU just got out of the way and we allowed taxpayers’ money to be spent efficiently and to get the infrastructure built that we need.
QUESTION:
Also is there any movement or have you had any negotiations – are you any closer to a deal with the Government on hate speech laws?
PETER DUTTON:
No, we’re not. I think the Government’s – I mean, you look at a number of key issues that the Government claimed were essential to be dealt with, and I just don’t think they’ve got the capacity or the bandwidth to be able to deal with the Government’s agenda. I just think that the wheels have fallen off the Albanese Government and they’re in the final days and they’re shuffling chairs on the deck of the Titanic at the moment.
I think Australians increasingly can’t wait to get rid of this Government and we now know that it’s impossible for Mr Albanese to form a majority government after the election. So, if you’re voting for Labor or voting for a Green-Teal or a Green at the next election, you’re voting for an Albanese-Greens Coalition Government, which would be a disaster for the economy. We just can’t afford three more years of Anthony Albanese.
Thanks. Have a great Australia Day.
Thank you.
[ends]