Subjects: The second inauguration of President Donald Trump; Labor’s cost of living crisis; the rise of anti-Semitism in Australia and the need for stronger action from the Prime Minister; the Coalition’s commitment to real consequences for perpetrators of anti-Semitism; the acceleration of business insolvencies under Labor; the Coalition’s plan to get Australia Back on Track.
E&OE.
CHRIS SMITH:
If the latest polls in this country are any guide, my next guest could be your next Prime Minister. Two polls out this week put the Coalition ahead of Labor 51 to 49 per cent.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton joins us on the line right now. Welcome to 2SM and the Super Radio Network, Peter.
PETER DUTTON:
‘Morning Chris. Pleasure to be with you. Thank you.
CHRIS SMITH:
Great to have you on.
The second coming of Donald Trump officially underway. It’s been a mammoth event. They do it in epic proportions in the United States of America, don’t they?
PETER DUTTON:
They sure do. They are a great nation, an incredibly important ally, and I think President Trump has signalled very clearly in his speech, but well and truly before that, what he intends to do and how he intends to lead. I think Australians can see that we live in an uncertain world and they want somebody with strength and character. I think the American people have demonstrated that they wanted a change, they wanted a change of direction for their country and they’re certainly going to get it under Donald Trump.
CHRIS SMITH:
Labor here though seems intent on painting you as Trump-esque. Firstly, I think it’s fair to say there are similarities in philosophy – you’re both from a conservative side of the political spectrum; and secondly, that comparison may backfire if the euphoria we are witnessing in America is true.
PETER DUTTON:
Well Chris, I just think people at the moment in many households are struggling to pay their bills. There are 27,000 small businesses who have gone broke under this Government’s watch. We’re seeing a national crisis in relation to the anti-Semitism and the criminal act that we’ve seen overnight in Maroubra as well, just highlights the inefficiency, the ineffectiveness and the weakness of the Prime Minister.
I think there is an opportunity for us at the next election to get our country back on track, as we say, and to work hard on the priorities for Australians, and that is making sure that we can put downward pressure on those cost of living pressures and also ensuring that we have a safer community and society. I think people vote for a Liberal government because they want a strong economic manager in charge and we’re always charged with cleaning up Labor’s mess – and that’s exactly what I suspect will be the case after the next election.
They’ve done a lot of damage over the course of the last two and a half years and the best prospect for Mr Albanese after the election is a minority government with the Greens, and that would be an even worse three years for our country than the three we’ve just experienced.
CHRIS SMITH:
O-M-G.
This anti-Semitic attack in Maroubra in Sydney’s east, it’s prompted you to announce yesterday a raft of mandatory sentencing policies for terrorism offences. It got a great deal of support on our open line here. You obviously don’t trust the judiciary to get it right?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Chris, there are maximum penalties now and some of them are 10 years, and some even more than that, and very rarely do the courts impose the maximum penalty and a penalty that I think reflects the community attitude. I think we have to be very clear, particularly when we see the firebombing of a synagogue, or a place of worship, or a childcare centre, when people are targeted because of their ethnicity, or because of their religious belief, or because of the colour of their skin, that just has no place in our country whatsoever.
CHRIS SMITH:
None.
PETER DUTTON:
…We need to send a very clear message that we have a zero tolerance for it. Unfortunately for the last 14 or 15 months, the Prime Minister has allowed these protests to continue on university campuses, the hate to spew from people online, the targeting of individuals, and the fact that Jewish kids are going to school now with armed guards out the front should surely ring the alarm bells for the Prime Minister. But even now, he refuses to call a National Cabinet, even though Chris Minns and the other Premiers, I’m sure, want exactly that.
CHRIS SMITH:
I thought Minns was stronger on this issue than even the Prime Minister, which doesn’t say much for the Federal Government.
You mentioned the economy, there are lots of measures of how bad the economy is shaping, but the measurement that I think gives us the best view of reality are this week’s insolvency statistics. In the last six months, 7,480 businesses collapsed in Australia. That’s a whole lot of pain and loss, isn’t it?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it is Chris, and you’ve got to ask yourself why, when you see other countries starting to improve their economic settings. In the United Kingdom, the United States, in Canada, in New Zealand, interest rates have already started to come down, and as the Reserve Bank Governor’s pointed out here, the spending that continues by the Labor Party – particularly at a federal level, but also at the state level, particularly in Victoria – it leads to higher inflation and higher interest rates.
The Government’s energy policy of renewables only is continuing to fuel increases in electricity and gas prices. We’re now talking about a situation where there could be blackouts and brownouts like they have in South Africa, and we’ve had a threefold increase in the number of manufacturing businesses that have closed in the last couple of years as well.
So, there are all these points that I think spell out the fact that Jim Chalmers and Chris Bowen, frankly, have no idea what they’re doing, but unfortunately, behind each of those insolvencies, there’s a story of a small business family, or people who have lost their life savings, or their jobs, and that’s the price of a Labor government, and this is a very bad one.
CHRIS SMITH:
Yeah, and the common thread in all of them is the fact that they cannot afford to pay the energy bill.
The Prime Minister has been throwing the cheque book around this month – big time – but his latest policy is interesting; to save the aluminium industry in a zero fossil fuel world by propping it up with renewables. Is that even possible?
PETER DUTTON:
No, of course it’s not. I think when you look at what the Prime Minister is doing at the moment, he’s given up on people in regional towns, in outer metropolitan areas. He’s targeting Green voters in the inner city and in Western Sydney. That’s what’s happening here…
CHRIS SMITH:
Yeah.
PETER DUTTON:
…And the Government’s position on law and order is all about trying to please Green voters, it’s all about trying to please Green voters in terms of their energy policy. The Prime Minister would have to install 22,000 solar panels a day, and it’s just not going to happen. The cost to the environment, the cost to regional towns, and the complete disregard for the communities that are going to be covered with this 28,000km of poles and wires to distribute the energy from the solar panels when they’re working, I mean it just shows complete contempt for people, particularly in regional areas. I just think people have had a gutful of it, to be honest.
CHRIS SMITH:
Yeah, that’s very, very true. So your agenda at the moment is very busy, almost election like, what’s on the schedule for today?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’re going to be out in Sydney today. We’ve got some visits across regional New South Wales over the week and around the country otherwise. So yeah, look, I mean it’s a huge job, as you know, there’s always a demand to be in Tasmania, or in Perth, or Darwin, or Sydney, or Melbourne, or Brisbane, wherever it might be. So I think there’s just a continuation of that road show, and I want to talk to people about the plan that we’ve got, the priorities that we’ve identified to help provide stability and improvement in the economy, to help families and small businesses thrive again and to make the tough decisions that are required that can keep our country safe and deal with the scourge of terrorism and knife crime.
We’ve proposed national laws in relation to knife crime and certainly the mandatory sentencing in relation to terrorism offences I hope will be a great deterrent as well. But there are a lot of other things that we want to do. We’ve announced policies around providing extra funding to Crime Stoppers, and we’ll have more announcements in due course. But I think the nuclear policy, it shows to Australians that we have a longer term vision for our country and that we’re not afraid to take the tough decisions that are in our country’s best interests, and we’ll continue to prosecute that message all the way up to polling day.
CHRIS SMITH:
As I think you should! It’s gathering momentum, and I’m gaining that kind of feedback from our open line. On behalf of our listeners, on our 50 stations, thank you very much for your time. Thank you for squeezing us in. All the very best for the year ahead.
PETER DUTTON:
Thank you mate, and to you. Thanks Chris.
CHRIS SMITH:
Good on you. Appreciate that.
[ends]