Subjects: Indigenous Voice to Parliament; cost of living pressures; the Prime Minister’s broken promise on a $275 cut to your power bills; Australia-China relations; Kevin Rudd; Tony Abbott; Jim Molan.
E&OE
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Mr Dutton, thank you for your time this morning.
PETER DUTTON:
‘Morning Andrew.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
I just wanted to start with the Indigenous Voice to Parliament – the proposal. Can I just ask you very directly, do you think you will be opposing the Voice this year?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Andrew, I’ve been very clear that the Liberal Party Party Room will have a discussion. We’ll do that and we’ll draw a conclusion about our position. I respect the views of my colleagues and that’s the approach that we’ve taken and that’s been the approach in the past and I think that’s going to serve us well.
A couple of points. I mean firstly, putting all of the rhetoric aside that you just heard from the Treasurer then, I think millions of Australians want to hear the detail of what it is the Prime Minister’s promoting. You saw the train wreck interview on 2GB with Ben Fordham during the week where his office then changed the transcript afterwards. I think people want to know how it will work? In Alice Springs at the moment there’s a national tragedy that’s unfolding. How will the Voice help improve the lives of those young kids in Alice Springs?
ANDREW CLENNELL:
That’s all fair enough. I guess there is this Calma-Langton Report, which the PM says it’s based on though, it’s 260 pages long. I assume you’ve read it.
Let me just read some of the detail in this report Mr Dutton. It says the members of the Local and Regional Voice should be chosen by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people rather than appointed by the government. There should be equal gender representation. The Indigenous Voice at the local, regional and national level should be used by state, territory and local governments, as well as the federal government, provide oversight, advice and plans, but not necessarily administer programs or money – the government said they won’t. Provide a forum for people to bring ideas or problems to government, and governments should be able to use the Indigenous voices to road test and evaluate policy. This process should work as a dialogue with the appropriateness of policy and its possible need for change should be negotiable.
Now, that seems plenty of detail to me. What detail are you looking for?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Andrew, the report’s 272 pages. It’s not been adopted by the government. The government’s not saying ‘if you vote for the Voice, that this is the report, the 272 pages that we’ll implement’. In fact, if you have a look at some of the detail within the report, it provides options to the government, not a definitive model at all.
If the Prime Minister had just been upfront and straight and honest with the Australian public, and said, ‘if you vote for the Voice, this is what we will legislate’, well, we would have the detail. But he’s not done that, as you know. He’s not adopted the report that you’ve just made reference to.
Yes, it’s a report, it’s comprehensive, but it’s not the government’s work and it’s not what the government has adopted. The Prime Minister’s being cute when he makes reference to this report, but he’s not saying that this is what will be implemented, and as I say, it’s not definitive. There are choices within the report. So I mean, the question for the Treasurer should have been which options do you pick up?
ANDREW CLENNELL:
What choices do you fear here?
PETER DUTTON:
I want an outcome that’s going to bring an end to the violence, the sexual assaults on children taking place in Alice Springs at the moment. I want reconciliation to improve in our country. I don’t want to see the escalation in domestic violence that we’ve seen and I want a model that is going to help those kids enjoy the life that I would expect my kids to enjoy in a capital city.
There are children being sexually assaulted at a record rate. It’s an unsavoury topic to talk about, but it’s a national disgrace and it’s at a rate that is incomprehensible. There are some reports of Indigenous kids in communities where there is 100 per cent sexually transmitted diseases.
Now, the Prime Minister has the ability to legislate the Voice next week when Parliament returns. He has an absolute majority in the Lower House. He has control of the Senate with the Greens and he could introduce his model of the Voice and demonstrate how it could work to help those children, to bring an end to that violence, because in many cases – I was up in Alice Springs only a few months ago speaking to whistleblowers up there – they’re taking kids back into communities where those kids are grabbing onto the legs of the DOCS workers. Everybody’s in tears, there’s screaming, and if that was the case in Brisbane or Adelaide or Sydney or Melbourne, it would be the front page of every newspaper until the state government resolved the issue, until the Premier addressed the issue. But it’s happening in Alice Springs and across parts of the Northern Territory at the moment, and the Prime Minister has refused to provide any additional resources by way of sending the Federal Police up there. Mark Dreyfus has ruled that out.
So, it’s not so much in my mind whether or not there’s a Voice, it’s whether there’s action from the government to address the very legitimate concerns that people, including Indigenous women and elders raised with me in Alice Springs, their voice is not being heard now. So, if the Prime Minister is talking about 24 people across the country. In South Australia, they’ve just implemented a model there that will have 40 voices. So, I just want to know when the action is going to start. Honestly, all of us in our hearts want to see better outcomes for Indigenous Australians, but at the moment the Prime Minister’s got himself into a very tricky position where he won’t provide the detail and I think millions of Australians expect the detail.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Alright. Well let me ask you, because you sort of alluded to this early, you’re going to take this to the Party Room. So, do you believe there’ll be a united Liberal Party position on this Referendum? Or could it be that Liberal members will be able to go yes or no, their own way on it?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Andrew, that’s a process question for us down the track. I think the question right now, so that we could all make an informed judgement, so that when our Party Room has the discussion and people are deciding whether they’ll support it or not, we need to know the detail.
I just don’t understand the personal attacks undertaken by the Treasurer and the Prime Minister and others on those of us who have just simply asked for the detail. The Prime Minister said, ‘well, hang on, this is not my proposal, it was put forward by Indigenous leaders’. Well, I don’t know whether he’s trying to blame them or abrogate his responsibility. He’s the Prime Minister and he has to show leadership and stand up, not just for the people in Alice Springs, but to demonstrate to the Australian public why he believes this is the best model to provide support, and I can’t believe that he won’t legislate the model so that he can do demonstrate it working and then it would be a no brainer for people…
ANDREW CLENNELL:
…Mr Dutton, it sounds to me like you don’t think the Voice could solve the problems in Alice Springs. Is that fair?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Andrew, again, nobody has the detail as to what the Voice will be, or do? You make reference to a report…
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Well Mr Dutton, here’s some detail, the detail is that when it comes to policy measures, including presumably how to handle child sexual abuse in these communities, this group of 24 people will advise the government and the Parliament. Now, will that assist or not?
PETER DUTTON:
That’s not the government’s model, Andrew. I mean just to be very clear, that reference to 24 I made before and that you’ve made, is in the report, but the government hasn’t yet adopted the report.
So, the Prime Minister could be straight and upfront and come out tomorrow and say here’s the report, here’s the detail and you can contemplate whether you support the Voice based on this detail, but he hasn’t done that. He’s all over the shop and I just don’t think it’s reasonable.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Given the pressure you’ve put on him, I’m sure that detail will be forthcoming sooner rather than later. Just a final question on this issue…
PETER DUTTON:
On a serious point, I just honestly, I mean, let’s be serious about it. I don’t understand how, I mean, Bob Hawke or John Howard would never have conducted themselves this way. You can’t just say that we’re going to change the Constitution.
There are legitimate concerns that people have about the interventions from the High Court, the way in which that could be interpreted and expanded. There are legitimate questions that people have about the detail, the operation. All of us share in common a desire to help Indigenous Australians, but if the Prime Minister of the day can’t stand up and explain the detail of what it is he’s asking people to vote for. How can people be expected to vote for it?
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Okay. Well, Ken Wyatt has also spoken during the week to me. He has said you’ve turned into a ‘naysayer’ on this and when he dealt with you, and the Morrison Government was considering the Voice, you were not a ‘naysayer’.
So what do you say to that?
PETER DUTTON:
I’ve got the utmost respect for Ken and for Linda Burney and for other advocates. I met with Noel Pearson again before Christmas.
The detail is not there. Now, it’s a political strategy that the Prime Minister’s adopted not to release the detail. He’s got some very smart political strategists who are saying bring this on early. It was never to be held in the second half of this year, it was always to be held in 2024 because the government wanted to make their case, but they want to get it rushed through and off their books, and they’ve decided that if they put the detail out there, people will ask questions.
Well, I mean, we live in a democracy and people are entitled to ask questions, and I’ve got reasonable questions that I think millions of Australians want answered. We’ve written to the Prime Minister, still no response. I mean Ken and others will make reference to the report, but again, without labouring this point, the Prime Minister hasn’t adopted that report as the model that would be implemented if the Voice is successful.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Let me ask now about the energy intervention by the government. Jim Chalmers has put those figures out there on the wholesale electricity price drops in the 20 to 40 per cent range. Do you welcome that? Is that a sign that the action’s working?
PETER DUTTON:
It’s not a sign. The sign will be when Australian families get the bill in the mail or on email that says that there’s been a reduction of the $275 that the Prime Minister promised on 97 occasions before the election.
I think the cost of living crisis is well and truly underestimated by the government at the moment. The Treasurer is trying to put all sorts of spin on what will be in the May budget and trying to set Australians up for the tax cuts to be abolished. But the fact is that Australians are doing it tough at the moment and it’s going to get tougher over the next 12 months under Labor, and they’re making decisions, including in the energy policy area, that will have upward pressure on their bills and will introduce a lack of reliability within the system. That’s going to be a disaster for small businesses and manufacturing who will just take their manufacturing offshore.
So, of course we want to see a price reduction, but I don’t see any Australians out there waving their bill around at the moment saying that their gas bill or their power bills come down this last quarter.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
And the government, with its stance on China, has had more success with engagement than the former government. At the National Press Club during the election campaign, you said Penny Wong would be conned by President Xi. Do you believe she has been?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, a couple of points here Andrew. Firstly, China is an incredibly important trading partner with us, and we want that trading relationship to continue. We want it to strengthen. We want there to be more opportunities. We want respect in the relationship, and we’ve demonstrated that respect over a long period of time.
When we were in government, we made tough decisions in relation to 5G, which upset President Xi. The decision was about not allowing high risk vendors into the system because we didn’t want people’s data being compromised, we didn’t want there to be attacks on our communications system and it compromised, potentially, of that communication system. But that was in our country’s best interests. President Xi was very upset about the deal with the United States and the United Kingdom through AUKUS, but that is about underpinning our national security for the next 20 or 30 years. These aren’t decisions that Labor has to make because we made them. There are other decisions that we made in our country’s best interest [inaudible] – closing the border for example with China during the course of COVID, they were necessary, but tough decisions.
You saw the list of demands that the Chinese Ambassador here put out. We want a strong relationship with China. We have an incredible Chinese diaspora community here celebrating New Year at the moment here in our country and we want a strong relationship, but we’re going to stand up for what’s in our country’s best interests and I hope that continues for many years into the future.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Just finally Mr Dutton, I wanted to ask you about two former Prime Ministers. Tony Abbott – there’s been speculation he should run for a House of Representatives seat. He says he might do it if everyone were to support it, and even the Senate, he’s ruled that out. And Kevin Rudd’s appointment about Australia’s Ambassador to Washington. I know you have differing views of both gentlemen. I just wanted a reaction to both.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I think one of the things that we have to recognise in our country is that we don’t utilise the skills and the talents of former Prime Ministers. The relationship between the US and Australia is our most important and followed very closely by the relationship with the United Kingdom. Stephen Smith’s a good appointment to the United Kingdom and we welcome the appointment of Kevin Rudd to the United States. I think there’ll be a lot of people in Washington who are stocking up on popcorn to see what the debate brings and what Kevin Rudd will have to be saying. So, let’s hope it’s in our country’s best interests, I’m sure it will be.
In relation to Tony Abbott. I mean look, Tony has got an enormous amount to contribute to our country’s debate. He understandably, rightly believes that he left politics too early, that’s the rough and tumble of this game unfortunately, and he was a great Prime Minister.
In terms of the preselection in New South Wales, I’m not making any comment in relation to that. Jim Molan’s funeral is on Wednesday and I think out of respect to Jim, the time and focus now is really about celebrating his life, the contribution that he made to his country, in uniform, in the Senate, in our case, the contribution to the Liberal Party.
I’ve been clear that there will be a process that will be announced shortly, but it will allow the members of the New South Wales division to elect Jim’s replacement, and that will be done in an orderly way after the New South Wales state election. But I don’t have any comment to make in relation to candidates or who would be a good successor.
Jim Molan was a very dear friend, I was speaking to Anne just the other day, their family, obviously, understandably is still grieving and the funeral is next week and we’ll honour a great Australian at that stage and we’ll have further comments to make about the process beyond that.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Mr Dutton, thanks so much for your time this morning.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks Andrew. Thank you.
[ends]