Subjects: the MQ-28A Ghost Bat program; Richard Marles’ war with Defence; the Prime Minister’s shocking betrayal on the stage three tax cuts; Labor’s cost of living crisis; Labor’s Industrial Relations Bill to inflict more damage on the economy; the Coalition’s push for real tax reform; the Government’s new car and ute tax.
E&OE.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Australia’s ambition to build a fleet of killer drones has taken its next step with a $400 million price tag. Let’s bring in Opposition leader Peter Dutton in Melbourne and Minister for Government Services Bill Shorten in Canberra.
‘Morning guys.
BILL SHORTEN:
‘Morning.
PETER DUTTON:
‘Morning Karl.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Bill, you’re first up; Richard Marles bagged defence force heads yesterday, today sending in the drones.
BILL SHORTEN:
Nah, Richard didn’t say that yesterday, but he just wants to make sure that we’ve got a culture of excellence in defence.
The drones announcement, which is being made by Minister Pat Conroy, who’s in charge of defence industry, is an exciting development. These drones will be the best in the world, which makes them only just good enough for Australian defence forces, and it’s going to employ a lot of Aussie jobs in the process of making them. So I think it’s exciting news later this morning.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Hard to see a negative in that. Pete, as the former Defence Minister though, why didn’t you give our respected defence chiefs a little rev up?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, where is Richard, Karl? I mean he’s MIA and Bill, I don’t know what he’s done with him, but this should be Richard’s bread and butter this morning, but he’s nowhere to be found…
BILL SHORTEN:
I’ll tell him you miss him.
PETER DUTTON:
Please do. I understand you two aren’t talking, but if you could send him a text that’d be good.
Look, this is a great announcement, and we supported it…
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Oh. Stand by. Stand by.
PETER DUTTON:
Too soon, too soon, sorry.
BILL SHORTEN:
Stop treating me like an ABC TV announcer.
PETER DUTTON:
You’d make a great one.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Hey, hey, oh…all right, so just quickly on that announcement, Pete?
PETER DUTTON:
Mate look, it’s a great announcement. I went out to Amberley air base as Defence Minister, we put a lot of funding into this, and it’s a huge collaboration with Boeing. It’s an export quality product from us, and there’s not only sort of a domestic benefit, but this will enhance our global reputation. So, I think it’s a great outcome and we support it very much.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Just quickly, do you think Pete that the defence chiefs needed that pull through yesterday from Richard Marles?
PETER DUTTON:
Look, I suspect Richard’s frustrated, as I was, with the delivery of some of the programs and the cost overruns and the rest of it; but in the end, you have to respect our men and women in uniform, and I’m not sure that Richard’s done that on this occasion, it seems, by the reporting.
I hope that the relationship can improve because we’re in a precarious period, and we need a good relationship between the Defence Minister, and the Chief of the Defence Force, and the Minister can’t blame his own shortcomings on the CDF.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Moving on. It’s been a big week for the Government. The PM got his mojo back after losing his voice. I mean who could have seen this last week coming? Well, Bill Nostradamus Shorten did.
[excerpt]
BILL SHORTEN:
Pete, I’m going to make a $10 bet with you that you will have to back in our lower taxes, otherwise the Liberal Party will be the Party of higher taxes for middle Australia.
[end excerpt]
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Bill, it only cost you $100 mil, give or take, to get on top of your game again.
BILL SHORTEN:
Well, I think it’s just cost Peter Dutton $20. These tax cuts are in the best interests of Australians. The Liberal Party, when we announced the changes, had more positions than the Kamasutra. Poor old Sussan – it’s an oldie but a goldie – poor old Sussan Ley sort of stumbled into the crossfire and said they were going to roll them back, and I never sure quite what Angus Taylor thought, but these…In all seriousness, they’re great for 13.6 million Aussies who go to work every day. So it’s a good outcome, and I think Pete you owe me $20.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
All right, there you go, Pete. Took you a while to make up your mind. How much skin did you lose this week apart from the 20 bucks?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I’ll send Bill the $20 bucks – I’d buy him two schooners if I could, but you can’t get schooners for $20 bucks anymore under this Government.
BILL SHORTEN:
Maybe you could…are we back shopping at Woolworth’s? We could get a Woolies voucher.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’re all celebrating Chinese New Year, they’re stocking all of that gear, so that’s great, and we’re very happy to celebrate all of that. So let’s…
BILL SHORTEN:
…by the way, it’s not just Chinese New Year…
PETER DUTTON:
We’ll get you a kimono, Japanese spirit maybe, Bill?
BILL SHORTEN:
…It’s the Lunar New Year across Asia, it’s not just China, but anyway…I’ll get you a map.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
All right.
Bill, now you want to send bosses – I mean you’ve had such a great week you’re just rolling on with it now, IR laws now – you want to send bosses to the clink – as much as some of us want to do that. How did that even get tabled?
BILL SHORTEN:
Oh listen, I’ve seen this latest Tory tantrum on workers getting better rights. No, we don’t think there should be criminal penalties for the right to disconnect.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
How to get in there, then?
BILL SHORTEN:
Well, it’s in the Act, and we said to the Libs, ‘listen, we just better tidy that up’, and would you believe the Liberals threw the toys out of the cot and said, ‘no, no, you’ve got your laws, we’re not going to let you amend it’. Goodness me.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
All right Pete, even former New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet this morning is saying that he wants negative gearing tax reform. You better get in front of this one, maybe?
PETER DUTTON:
We’ve been very clear we don’t support it. The Prime Minister yesterday refused to rule out grandfathering people that have got negative gearing arrangements in place already.
See Bill Shorten took this to the election in 2019, and I know he’s still suffering – he’s probably shaking now, I’m not sure if you can say it on camera – but he went to the election, he got smashed because he was promising to roll back negative gearing.
Now, we don’t have rental stock in this country without negative gearing. People who want a save for their family, for their kids and grandkids look at a rental property as core business and this Government attacks aspiration.
Australians are about $8,000 a year worse off at the moment under this Government, and if you’ve got an average mortgage, you’re paying $24,000 more each year in net dollars under this Government. So, everybody’s feeling the pinch, and yet this Government’s talking about jacking up the car prices – the Mazda CX30 by about $19,000 under their new car and ute tax – and now we understand that they want to abolish negative gearing.
This Government only dances to the tune of the union movement, as you just pointed out, and I’d say that Anthony Albanese would be pretty smart to have a chat to Bill Shorten and talk to his counsellor to say, ‘do you really want to go through what Bill went through in 2019?’.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Look, let’s not kick a man while he’s down. Billy, I mean, you love taking tax reform to the electorate. Let’s be fair about that. Are you ruling it out?
PETER DUTTON:
Yeah, double down Bill.
BILL SHORTEN:
I think that Pete’s in quite a dismal mood this morning. We got the elevator pitch of everything that’s wrong with the world.
No, seriously, on negative gearing, we’re not doing it. I did take a policy to restrict some of the aspects of it to the 2019 election. I have learnt my lesson. I take tax reform to the election, and all we got at the end of it was Scott Morrison. If that’s not reason not to do it… oh good one, I knew that’d crack a smile. Is Pete smiling? I hope so.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Yeah, Pete’s smiling.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, to be fair, Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese.
BILL SHORTEN:
I just want to apologise to Australia for helping give you Scott Morrison.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Sorry, go on Pete.
PETER DUTTON:
Yeah, yeah.
To be fair, and Bill can’t say the second part of that sentence, but Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese which makes, again – you sweating or you shaking Bill?
BILL SHORTEN:
No, I’ll tell you what, I know that people don’t think you have a sense of humour, but this week, the hutzpah of copying out Albo’s and Jim’s tax homework and then saying it was yours and then dobbing us in, I think that was…
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Excellent use of hutzpah too.
Well done guys. Thank you so much. That was a thoroughly entertaining and informative.
BILL SHORTEN:
All right. Have a nice day.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks guys.
[ends]