Subject: Fadden by-election.
E&OE
PETER DUTTON:
Thank you for being here tonight. I want to say, firstly, congratulations to Cameron Caldwell. He’s our successful and endorsed candidate for the upcoming by-election in Fadden.
He lives here on the Gold Coast in the electorate of Fadden, he has a beautiful wife and two children, and he’s been working locally in this community. Firstly, as a small business person; and for 12 years as a councillor. So he’s already established himself as somebody who’s prepared to fight for the local constituents here, he’s prepared to take the fight up to the Labor government who has made it more difficult for families and small businesses here because they’ve mismanaged the economy, and in two budgets they haven’t delivered support to families and small businesses who are really struggling with energy bills and the cost of living pressures otherwise.
So, I want to say thank you to the other candidates for putting their hand up today. We had a field of exceptional candidates, and I’m very proud as the Leader of this Party to have been involved in a democratic process that assessed each of the candidates: just average people who live here on the Gold Coast, who looked at the credentials of each candidate and they very strongly supported Cameron Caldwell.
There’s a big fight ahead of us. We need to make sure that we work every day between now and the by-election because it will be important to send a message and to send a very clear message to the Prime Minister that the government’s just not doing well enough when it comes to supporting families and small businesses. In fact, we know that Labor is making it much harder for those families and small businesses.
So, Cameron, congratulations to you and I look forward mate, to working with you very closely and I’ll hand over to you. Thank you.
CAMERON CALDWELL:
Thanks, Peter. Well, look, firstly, if I can just say it’s a great honour to be the endorsed candidate for the LNP in the seat of Fadden. I feel like as a long term local in this part of the world, I really understand what the community expects from their parliamentarians and I know that I can be the one that they can support in order to deliver for our local community.
More broadly, it’s very important to be part of Peter Dutton’s team because we need to use this by-election as an opportunity to send a message to the Albanese government that families here in Fadden are doing it tough. I’ve been around the electorate in recent weeks, and they are telling me the cost of living pressures are really starting to bite, and this by-election is the opportunity for them to get behind me as a genuinely local candidate and we can send our message down to Canberra.
PETER DUTTON:
Okay, I’m happy to take any questions.
QUESTION:
Are you happy to comment on the vote?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, not on the numbers, but I can tell you that there was overwhelming support for Cameron’s candidacy today, and that’s because he’s a local, he’s been on council for 12 years, he’s lived on the Coast here for a couple of decades and he understands the local community, and I think people really picked that up in his presentation today. He has a sense of what families are going through at the moment because he’s out in his local community every day and that will stand him in very good stead as our candidate.
QUESTION:
The Coast has always been a LNP stronghold. At the Labor Party conference this morning they called the seat of Fadden a ‘rolled gold LNP seat’, but David Crisafulli said this morning that he doesn’t believe there’s any such thing as a ‘safe seat’ these days. How hard do you think you’re going to campaign in Fadden?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, there’s nothing that we take for granted and we will work day and night to make sure that we win this seat, because at the moment I think it’s important for many Australians who are really suffering. We’ve had now two budgets delivered by Labor where they said they had a plan to help families and they’ve just made it harder.
They’re putting upward pressure on interest rates. We know that under the Prime Minister’s budget that we’re now going to see interest rates remain higher for longer than they otherwise would need to be and sending a message to the Prime Minister that he’s got to lift his game and try and support people in a more tangible way.
They promised to reduce the power prices of people here on the Gold Coast by $275 a year, and in fact, we know that come the 1st of July, all your power prices are going to go up by about another 25 per cent.
So, I think Cameron will be a great local member. He’ll work hard and we don’t take anything for granted. We’ll be working hard and I believe we can win the seat. We’ve chosen an excellent candidate, a local candidate and somebody who is well credentialed to fight hard on behalf of the people of Fadden. Okay, thank you very much.
QUESTION:
Just another question for Cameron – what will this mean as far as council’s concerned?
CAMERON CALDWELL:
Look, in the coming days, I’ll make some arrangements in relation to my current role in council. I’ve already spoken to people within council about the practicalities of how that will work, and I’ll deal with those in coming days.
PETER DUTTON:
Alright. Thank you very much.
CAMERON CALDWELL:
Thanks guys. Thank you.
[ends]