Subjects: AUKUS; Labor’s broken promise on superannuation; Productivity Commission five-year report; electricity prices; the Prime Minister’s broken promise on a $275 cut to your power bills; gas supply.
E&OE.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
I spoke a short time ago with the Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, where we covered a range of issues, including those forecast gas shortages. But I began by asking about Paul Keating’s comments on AUKUS and what it was about those comments that Mr Dutton objected to the most.
PETER DUTTON:
I think the comments were out of order to say the least, and I think it distracts from what’s been a very important deal; that AUKUS has been years in the making and the government’s been able to build on that work. They’ve made the announcement, there’s a bipartisan position to support it. I suspect Mr Keating is reflecting a vein within the Labor Party, particularly on the left, that aren’t happy at all with this deal and that’s always the devil – the Labor Party and national security and foreign policy – and I guess we’re seeing that at play here as well. I think he’s just putting a voice to a very significant undercurrent within the Labor Party.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Was this AUKUS deal similar to your plan given on Sunday Agenda two years ago, you told me you wanted to lease a Virginia-class boat first to fill the capability gap?
PETER DUTTON:
The short answer is yes. I think the Virginia-class is best in class. One of the things you need to be very careful about in defence acquisition and our country has made the mistake many times before, in part it was the problem with the French submarines, if you’re buying a first type, the first, you know, new submarine, a frigate, a tank, even helicopters that are modified, it takes the second or the third or the fourth to come off the production line before you can iron out all the difficulties and it’s what ends up taking much longer, it’s why you have delays in these projects, it might cost billions of dollars more, and you need to be very careful about going to a new fresh design.
The beauty in my mind and why I started those discussions with Lloyd Austin, the Defense Secretary in the United States, was because I thought we could lease the Virigina-class and I thought that we could get the Virginia-class submarines off the production line out of Connecticut, and that was the most efficient way, the most cost effective way and just given the circumstances that we are in, the time that we live in, I think it was the quickest way to get those submarines into our service and Richard Marles has executed that plan and delivered on that idea and I’m very pleased that he has.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Are you concerned then about the UK element that’s newer technology isn’t it, that comes at the back of it, that part of the plan?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I expressed concerns about that a while ago. I have every faith in the British industrial system and the ability for the new design to be designed efficiently and at the lowest possible cost and delivered into service, but the government secured up to five Virgina-class submarines. They certainly said that three so far, are locked in, I hope that they can increase that to the five because that will be a very important asset for us to own. It provides incredible deterrence capability, somebody who is thinking about a strike against us or one of our allies or our partners thinks twice if you have that submarine in your fleet. I think the British design, obviously off the back of the current Astute-class is a new generation, so it does carry risk, there’s no question about that, but I am sure the government’s put in place measures to mitigate that risk and that’ll be part of their thinking and part of the negotiation with the Brits.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
I wanted to ask about how to pay for this. Bill Shorten said yesterday on this channel that ‘the NDIS should not be cut in order to pay for it’. But doesn’t the NDIS need to be reined back?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I think there are two separate issues here. If the government’s, across every program in their budget, if they’re identifying where money’s not being spent efficiently or where there is waste, well, the government has an obligation to act because the fact is that people work hard for their money, they pay their taxes and they expect the government to spend it efficiently. I guess the point that I made in my Budget-In-Reply speech last year was that we strongly supported and still do the NDIS because it provides dignity and support to people who have profound disabilities, and we want it to be a sustainable system – Bill Shorten himself has pointed out that there’s money that’s being wasted or not being spent appropriately on those who are most in need – so if the government’s aware of that then they need to address it.
In relation to the expense on the submarine and the other elements that are coming in AUKUS as well, because the other side of the AUKUS deal was around artificial intelligence, around quantum computing, around space investment that we need to continue to make, the hypersonic weapons and the counter hypersonic weapons program, all of that is crucial as well to the defence of our country, the government needs to explain. I mean they’re either going into more debt, they’re cutting programs and expense in other areas of government expenditure, or they’re going into more debt. There’s no magic pudding solution here and Labor telling you that this is cost neutral and over the forward estimates there will be no additional cost, I mean nobody believes that. So they need to be credible and upfront with the Australian public that there is a cost that has to be incurred to keep our country safe because it is an uncertain period over the next decade or two or three, and this is how we’re going to provide for it, and we’ll see some of that in the May budget.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Well, they would say, I guess, we’ve got this super tax change, that’s going to be $2 billion a year. At least that will pay for some of it. What would you say to that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Andrew, I mean no credible financial commentator is suggesting that they’ll raise anything like that. It’s got all hallmarks of Jim Chalmers when he was working for Wayne Swan as his Chief of Staff for the mining tax. I mean, all they did was scare investment and they ended up raising no money. I think that the same thing’s going to happen here. People will either unwind arrangements or they’ll get around what the government’s providing here. So, I would doubt very much that they raise anything like that, but I do know what they’re doing at the moment is scaring younger people from investing into superannuation. It should be a stable asset class and if the government has changes to make, if they want to break an election promise, then frankly they should do it prospectively and take that change to the election.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Alright, we’ve had a taste of this Productivity Commission report today, but we haven’t got the report yet, which says productivity has barely lifted over the past decade. Your government was in power in that period, did it do enough to lift productivity?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I don’t think we did because, frankly, it was impossible to get through the Senate. The sort of changes that you require to lift productivity and to incentivise productivity. I said to the government, I want to be the Opposition that John Howard was when he supported the changes that the Hawke and Keating Government decided to put in place which underpinned economic reform. John Howard, when he was in government as Prime Minister, obviously didn’t get that reciprocated from Labor, but if there are sensible reforms that can increase and improve productivity, and help grow jobs and help grow wages, and benefit in net terms to the economy, then we’re very keen to have that conversation with the government.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
But they’re calling you the ‘No-alition’, Mr Dutton. Mr Dutton they’re calling you the ‘No-alition’ they’re saying far from that approach, you’re blocking everything and doing a Tony Abbott to them.
PETER DUTTON:
I mean that’s just a gimmick. It’s a line that their ad people have worked up. So, we’ve supported them on AUKUS, in relation to national security, in relation to foreign affairs, but am I going to support a new carbon tax that was three times the size that Julia Gillard dreamt up? That’s going to be inflationary and drive interest rates higher? And drive electricity prices higher? And drive gas prices higher? I’m not going to do that because it wouldn’t be in the interests of consumers and small businesses around the country.
So, if they want us to sign up to things that are going to kill wealth and make it harder for families to balance their budgets, I’m not going to support that. But if they’ve got policies which will be of benefit to the economy and help businesses not hinder them, then that’s the policy that we will support.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Alright, well what do you make of these warnings today of a gas shortage?
PETER DUTTON:
I think they’re real. I think that all the writing’s on the wall. The government funded all of these activists in the budget to take legal action against new approvals and approvals that had already been given. So, they’re going to bog these companies down in the courts for years, which means that the gas in Narrabri, for example, is not going to come online, which is designed to come into the domestic market, and if they don’t allow that gas to come online, you are going to see shortages. I mean people are seeing massive spikes in their power at the moment. People’s electricity prices in Victoria are going up by 31 per cent, by a third, and there is more to come and the government is adding to that pressure.
People’s electricity prices and the gas prices are higher under this government because of the decisions they’re making, and some decisions they’re not making. You need more gas into the market, otherwise, given the demand, prices are going to go up. I mean that sort of economic logic escapes the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, but we are going to see disruption in power supplies. We’re going to see blackouts by the advice that we are receiving from the experts. You’re going to see a continuation in bills being driven higher because they’re trying to turn off the old system before the new system is ready.
Everyone wants to see a reduction in emissions, everyone wants to see renewables come into the system, but the fact is that the local IGA here, their freezes and their cold rooms don’t work off the solar panels on their roof. It needs to be firmed up, and if you’re going to turn off coal, you’re going to turn off gas, or make it more difficult for new gas to come into the system, then we are going to see disruption and we are going to see power prices and gas prices continue to go up under this government, and that’s the dead opposite of what we need.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Alright, just finally, there was a report overnight, Scott Morrison secretly swore Ben Morton into administering Home Affairs in the very last days of your time in that portfolio. Do you know why this was or have a view on it?
PETER DUTTON:
No and no, I guess is the answer to your question. That’s for others to comment on. I wasn’t aware of it. I just didn’t know anything about it. So, it’s not something that I’ll comment on. I’ve made comments previously in relation to those matters and it wouldn’t add to them.
ANDREW CLENNELL:
Peter Dutton, thanks so much for your time.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks very much Andrew. Thank you.
[ends]