Subjects: Getting Australia Back on Track; Labor’s cost of living and homegrown inflation crisis; the Coalition’s $7.5 million commitment to boost Crime Stoppers; Labor’s energy policy shambles; Minister Wong’s attendance at President Trump’s inauguration after saying in 2021 the President “trashed alliances”.
E&OE.
DAVID LIPSON:
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton launched his election year pitch in Melbourne yesterday with a new slogan promising to ‘Get Australia Back on Track’. Mr Dutton pledged to ramp up gas production, improve community safety, and bring down the cost of living, but many policy details are yet to come. The Opposition Leader joined me earlier.
Peter Dutton, thanks for being with us. Your new slogan is ‘Let’s get Australia Back on Track’. Now that’s identical to New Zealand’s ‘Back on Track’ election slogan, and it’s quite similar, you’d have to say, to ‘Make America Great Again’. Isn’t this lack of creativity a bit of a clue that the biggest problems we’re facing around cost of living are largely global?
PETER DUTTON:
David, good to be with you. Thank you for having me on the programme.
I think what Australians are feeling is that our country does need to be put back on track. So, I know there are a lot of sort of insider comments about slogans, etc, but what it means is that we want to help families who have really struggled under this Government.
The fact is that people are paying higher interest rates because of government spending. People are really struggling in their own small businesses because the Government has withdrawn support for small business. Health services aren’t delivering as they should because the Government is putting the money into the wrong areas. So, to get our country back on track, I think reflects the reality of where we are at the moment and what most Australians – particularly those in the outer suburbs – would want from an alternative Government.
DAVID LIPSON:
You talked about government spending there and yesterday you said Labor’s ‘Panadol policies must stop’. So which cost of relief measures should Australians not have received?
PETER DUTTON:
Well David, as the Reserve Bank Governor has pointed out, we’ve got a home grown inflation problem here in Australia, and that is as diplomatic as the Reserve Bank Governor can be to say ‘stop the spending’, and it applies not only to Federal Government but to the State Governments as well who are adding to the fuel, that is keeping inflation higher for longer. If you have a look at the sugar hits, you can provide support to people and people appreciate some support, obviously – particularly for energy costs or other support that the Government might provide – but people are smarter than that. They realise that what it’s doing is keeping their mortgage rates higher for longer. Interest rates should already have started to come down here in Australia and the fact is that they haven’t. They have in the United States, the United Kingdom…
DAVID LIPSON:
So power bill relief shouldn’t have happened?
PETER DUTTON:
Well David, we’ll make an announcement in relation to our policies when we get closer to the election in relation to what support we’ll provide, what we think is inflationary that we won’t support, and we’ll have a look at that, particularly, given that we’ve got a budget coming up in March.
DAVID LIPSON:
You’ve said that the Coalition will deliver lower taxes. Will you promise any sort of tax cut to everyday Australians before the next election?
PETER DUTTON:
Well David, we’ll do what we can afford. I think one of the things that we know about a Labor Government is that they live beyond their means, which is why they need to tax so much. They spend a lot, and they tax a lot, and we’re seeing it in Victoria, we’ve seen it in Queensland and we’re starting to see it in New South Wales as well. We will act responsibly. We’ll manage the economy effectively and we’ll make the decisions that will bring inflation down, interest rates down, and make sure that we cut the government waste.
DAVID LIPSON:
And you’ll do that without providing what you describe as these ‘sugar hit’, these kind of cost of living relief measures that the Government has favoured in the last couple of years?
PETER DUTTON:
Well David, when you look at your own household budget at the moment, people are paying more for their insurance, they’re paying more for gas, they’re paying more for electricity – and it’s not just their own households, as people well appreciate. It’s the local IGA store, it’s the butcher, it’s the farmer, it’s the manufacturer who are all facing massive increases in their power bills and their electricity bills and their insurance bills. That’s what’s fuelling inflation.
This Government was bequeathed an incredible set of economic numbers, which is why they achieved a surplus in the first two years, but they’ve spent an extra $347 billion, they’ve gone and taxed Australians more and more and more, and we’ve got an inflationary environment which is not under control, and if it doesn’t get under control, we’ll see interest rates sit higher for longer or indeed go up and we’ll see an environment where families continue to lose their small businesses and continue to struggle to pay the bills.
DAVID LIPSON:
One priority you outlined yesterday is keeping Australians safe. Today you’ve got a modest announcement, a couple of million dollars a year for Crime Stoppers. But what will you do more broadly, in particular, to address youth crime in the regions?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, David, we’ve announced a policy in relation to uniform national laws on knife crime. There’s a lot that we want to do with the states as well in this area. The Commonwealth has a significant resource through the Home Affairs portfolio with the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Border Force, etc…
DAVID LIPSON:
Do you deploy them?
PETER DUTTON:
We would be happy to join in joint task forces, which is what happens now, but it needs to be properly funded. We need to address the scourge of drugs in our country, the use of tobacco as just another commodity for bikie gangs to raise money to deal in illicit drugs and nefarious activities otherwise. There’s a lot that we can do and we’re only able to do that if we can manage the economy well and get the priorities right. This Government hasn’t done that.
When you look at the number of violent deaths of women over the course of the last couple of years, it’s horrific. The general level of anti-Semitism in our country, which is up by 700 per cent, is a scourge on our society. It makes people feel less safe. The Prime Minister has, I think, failed his basic obligations to keep Australians safe, and I think there’s a lot that we can do in that regard as well.
As Immigration Minister, as Home Affairs Minister, I cancelled the visas of over 6,000 people who had been convicted of very serious criminal offences and this Government’s dropped the ball on that as well. So, I think there are a number of measures that we can undertake.
DAVID LIPSON:
You spoke yesterday also of ramping up domestic gas production to deliver affordable, reliable energy. Is gas going to be enough or do we need more coal in the mix, which currently makes up about 60 per cent of the energy mix?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, at the moment we know that we’ve got state Labor governments in Victoria and New South Wales and in WA extending the life of coal fired power plants. So, when the energy regulator warns that the lights are going out, the state governments rightly will make decisions to keep the lights on, because if we don’t, small business can’t fuel cold storage. We can’t run businesses that require energy. We can’t run hospitals that require energy on a part-time basis.
At the moment, the problem is that the Government’s got this view of trying to please inner city green voters with a renewables only policy which has driven uncertainty into the market.
So, gas is going to be required. Every serious commentator from AEMO down, says that gas will play a very significant role in shoring up and providing the baseload power that we need to shore up the renewable energy in the system. Renewable energy is great, but we can’t pretend that it operates 24/7. It doesn’t. The realisation is now here and it’s why, at the moment, in Victoria, there are very serious concerns about disruption to power. A modern functioning economy can’t survive on part-time power.
DAVID LIPSON:
Penny Wong and Kevin Rudd have been invited to Donald Trump’s inauguration. Is that a signal that a Labor Government could work with President Trump?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I hope that Penny Wong, when she’s there, can make contact with the incoming Cabinet Ministers, as she says, the Secretaries. That would be important.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with four US Administrations, back to the Obama Administration, and we were able to form very functioning, productive relationships. It was the reason we were able to do the deal on AUKUS with the US and the UK. But Penny Wong has made some pretty derogatory remarks in the past about President Trump. As we know, Ambassador Rudd has, as well. So presumably that will form part of the discussions that they have in Washington to explain whether or not that view has changed. I think Penny Wong has been completely at odds with the US over a number of issues in recent months with regard to the Middle East as well.
So, there’s a lot of repair work and I think the damage that Penny Wong has done to a number of relationships should be the focus of repair work over the balance of this term.
DAVID LIPSON:
Peter Dutton, we look forward to speaking to you more in the months ahead. Thanks for joining us on AM.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks, David. Take care, mate. Thank you.
[ends]