Subject: Budget in Reply; Labor’s Big Australia Migration Policy.
E&OE
DAVID LIPSON:
Peter Dutton, thanks for your time.
PETER DUTTON:
Pleasure, David.
DAVID LIPSON:
You’re supporting the government’s bulk billing incentives, the expanded single Parenting Payment, increased rental assistance, the reduction in NDIS growth, increased welfare for over 55s and at this point you’re not opposing the increase to the PRRT or even the JobSeeker increase? If the government’s budget is so bad, why are you backing in so many of the big ticket items in it?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, David, the government’s created a problem with inflation, we know that. We have a higher core inflation rate than any G7 nation and a lot of that problem is because the government’s either taken bad decisions or not taken decisions at all…
DAVID LIPSON:
But you’re backing them?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’re backing support to help people get through the impact of those bad decisions. The problem here is that particularly around energy, where people’s bills just keep going up and up with no end in sight, you’ve got a situation where there’s temporary support but not a permanent support arrangement. I think there are millions of Australians who are in a very difficult situation, given the cost of their mortgages, their supermarket basket, their insurance bill. I mean, the bills just are stacking up for Australians at the moment and that problem which Labor’s created is not going to be fixed overnight and not in one budget in reply speech.
DAVID LIPSON:
You’re accusing the government of a big spending budget, but you want the low and middle income tax offset brought back. That alone would kill the surplus. You also want more spending on defence and infrastructure. Is a surplus no longer a sign of good economic management?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it’s good to see a surplus in place because the Labor government, I think is a beneficiary, frankly, if we’re being honest about it. A beneficiary of nine years of economic management by the Coalition. There’s a 50 year low unemployment rate. The labour market is still tight, and we have obviously international factors, but there are a lot of domestic factors that are feeding into inflation and the government has to make sure that they’ve got the measures on the table. They don’t at the moment, and I worry that as a result of this budget, inflation will remain higher for longer and people will feel that in their hip pocket.
DAVID LIPSON:
The government says it will consider your proposal to allow people on JobSeeker to earn $150 more through work before losing their welfare payments. If that passes, do you think people on JobSeeker will still need the $2.85 a day increase?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, David, a couple of things. I mean, firstly, there’s the base rate to JobSeeker and then there’s other assistance that’s available. It’s still a modest payment in the end, but as we well know – having particularly young people go on to JobSeeker for an extended period, it is much harder for them then to get off it.
At the moment in our country, it doesn’t matter where you go – regional areas, capital cities – businesses can’t find staff. Restaurants aren’t opening for particular shifts because they just can’t get the staff in. Similar story in tourist locations, etc. We’ve got 438,000 job vacancies in the country at the moment and over 800,000 people on JobSeeker, 75 per cent of them are doing no part time work. So, I think there is an opportunity to offer between say five and 10 hours work a fortnight. So, we’re not talking a shift every day, but I think there’s an entree there into a job, into an environment, which might lead to a permanent arrangement, that might help people transition off even long-term JobSeeker, and so I think there’s a balance in it and it ends up providing people with more support than what the government’s proposing.
DAVID LIPSON:
Just to the question, though, that $2.85 increase, you’re not committing to supporting the government on that at this point. So, is that because you’d like to see that cut if your proposal goes through?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it’s a well over four and a half billion dollar measure that the government’s proposing, and we’ll consider the legislation in due course. But I think the important conversation now is similar to what we announced in my budget in reply speech last October. In fact, I’d announced it before that in June. The extension of the work bonus arrangement for people on an Aged Pension or veterans who decided that they did want to work an extra day or two. Maybe they’d retired too early, maybe their circumstances had changed in terms of their relationship, or maybe just because they’re on a fixed income, they need to work an extra day or two because they just can’t afford Labor’s bills. So, it’s an extension of that policy, of that theory, and in a tight labour market, it is important from a productivity perspective to help provide incentive for those people to get back into work.
DAVID LIPSON:
You’ve pointed to migration as the cause of a lot of pain being felt by Australians now. Seventy per cent of the increase to migration is due to the return, the rebound of international students after the pandemic. Are you suggesting the number of students or temporary migrants should be restricted in some way?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, David, the point I made last night was that 1.5 million people coming into our country over a five year period will be the highest intake in our country’s history. We have an amazing country, largely because we’ve had people come here from the four corners of the earth. We have a multicultural community. We celebrate it every day. We’re richer for it. But you have to have a migration plan which is in place before you bring people in. At the moment we’ve got, I mean, stories on the ABC or elsewhere every night of people who can’t, they can’t even find accommodation, let alone try and negotiate an increase in the rent because of the demand for that property or that unit. It’s difficult…
DAVID LIPSON:
But in terms of the plan, this isn’t planned by the government. This is just a rebound of temporary migrants. It’s not permanent migrants.
PETER DUTTON:
But David, the question is a reasonable one. Where will people live? Where will these people be accommodated?
DAVID LIPSON:
But are you saying that should be restricted in some way, then?
PETER DUTTON:
I’m saying there needs to be planning by the government, as there has been by governments, even back in the Rudd-Gillard period when there was a ramp-up of the number as well. I think there was proper planning in place at that stage. The government didn’t go to the election announcing their Big Australia policy, but that’s what we’ve got from the Prime Minister. People are already living in congestion. People are at least skittish about having extra density and high rises in their street, in many parts of the country. We have to have that conversation.
DAVID LIPSON:
Peter Dutton, we’ll have to leave it there. Thanks for joining us.
PETER DUTTON:
Pleasure, David. Thank you.
[ends]