Subjects: Cost of living pressures; the Government’s broken promise on a $275 cut to your power bills; gas prices; renewable energy; Optus data breach; NRL Grand Final.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Groceries, fuel, your mortgage – now you can add gas bills to the long list of things becoming more expensive by the day. The government inking a deal with gas suppliers, meaning no more shortfalls but it will cost you. Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton join me now.
Good morning, guys. Nice to see you all this morning.
RICHARD MARLES:
`Morning Karl.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning, Karl.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Richard, to you first up – these cost of living pressures are getting excessive, aren’t they? Through the roof, this is the last thing that households need.
RICHARD MARLES:
Well, there are a lot of pressures and we really understand with things like rising interest rates what that means for household budgets. Easing that pressure has really been core business for the government since the moment that we were sworn in. Seeking a real increase to the lowest paid is what we have achieved at the start, we have obviously seen the biggest increase in the pension last week and during the course of this week we had legislation in the Parliament which was about making childcare more affordable, medicines cheaper. So we are really focused on that and what has been achieved through Madeleine King’s efforts with the gas market is trying to do something about the east coast gas market, which after a decade of the Liberals being in office – despite the fact that we are a massive gas exporter – we don’t have a functional gas market in the east coast and that’s what we are trying to achieve, but there are a lot of pressures on cost of living and it is core business for us right now.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Ok, coal fired power plants are closing up. When conservatively do you think renewables will be at a level where they can safely sustain supply to Australians – what year, do you think?
RICHARD MARLES:
What’s a real difference from now, compared to when I entered Parliament, say, back in 2007, is that cheap energy is renewable energy. We need to get it online as quickly as we can and that’s not going to happen overnight…
KARL STEFANOVIC:
But, how long?
RICHARD MARLES:
Well, it’s not going to happen overnight. But we have got in place a policy which makes it clear that we will get to an emissions reduction target of 43 per cent by 2030 and that is all about getting renewables online and it’s about making sure that our electricity grid is able to take those renewables. Again, a decade, a lost decade, in terms of action on investment in renewable energy is the negative legacy that we are trying to deal with now. We can’t do this overnight but we can start the job and we’re doing that.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Ok. Peter?
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning, Karl. Well, a couple of points. Firstly, people are going to grow tired pretty quickly of constantly Anthony Albanese and Richard Marles saying ‘well, you know, it was the other mob’s fault’. They were elected in May of this year. They haven’t got a plan. They told the public before the election on 97 occasions that they were going to guarantee a price reduction of $275 in people’s power bills – they refuse to mention that figure any day since the election. The problem with the rhetoric around cheap energy, you know; ‘when the sun’s shining it’s all free’, the fact is that the sun doesn’t shine 24/7, Karl, so it needs to be firmed up. This is the problem that the Government’s got. Everybody wants renewables in the system – that’s fine. But the question is how you firm them up and the cost associated with that, that’s either through coal or gas, if you don’t like that then it’s through hydrogen which is potentially years and years away.
What I’m worried about is that Labor is marching us down the track that Germany’s in at the moment or that California is in, where they’ve got rolling blackouts and families just can’t afford ever-increasing power prices. At the moment, with the system that Labor is promising – to roll out these poles and wires which is going to take decades to distribute the energy that they are talking about – it’s just a pipe dream, it’s not going to happen, and we’re going to have the rolling blackouts that we have seen in California, the desperate situation in the United Kingdom where pensioners can’t afford to turn their heaters on over winter. That’s exactly where Labor is taking us and we need to be very careful.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
It’s got to be delicate. Moving on, there is plenty of anger from Aussies who have had their personal data stolen in the Optus hack. Richard, you have vowed to crack down on cyber security. Are fines really going to be enough, though?
RICHARD MARLES:
Well, fines are part of it, but what we need to be doing is making sure that the whole of corporate Australia and government is obviously as robust as possible for these kind of hacks and I think what’s happened with Optus is that it has been a wake-up call for corporate Australia. We’ve obviously been working very closely with Optus from the moment that we became aware of this – both to minimise the impact of the hack, but also maximise the protection of those Optus customers who have been affected. Ultimately people have a right to feel that the information that they’ve given to companies is going to be robustly protected and stored and this has been a massive wake-up call for corporate Australia and we need to be doing everything we can to make our private sector more resilient.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Peter, Mark Dreyfus the Attorney-General was on our programme yesterday saying there would be some sort of legislation around this by the end of the year. What do you think about that time frame?
PETER DUTTON:
Karl, it should have been in the Parliament this week. Parliament’s been sitting, the Government was aware of this problem, and I think 10 million Australians should be white hot with anger, at the moment, that their information was compromised, and the Home Affairs Minister went missing for three days. Time is of the essence. Time is critical in these circumstances. People need to secure their information, because identity theft is a huge problem. You can lose your credit rating, you can be responsible for debt you never ran up and the Government has completely missed the ball here. So I think customers really are angry in these lines at the moment, we suggested that the passport office should be issuing the passports for free and then the money recovered from Optus subsequently, so that you can get it done quickly before the information can be used to start bank accounts or create credit cards, because it’s too late then and I just can’t believe that the Minister sat on her hands for three days, didn’t come out. She was tweeting about the AFL Grand Final but didn’t give a stuff, frankly, about the customers of Optus and they are trying to sort of gather it all together and send Mark Dreyfus out instead, because he’s a bit of a stronger voice than the Home Affairs Minister, but she was completely missing in action.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Alright, Richard, I wanted to get your thoughts on that, but it was pretty strong and I kind of agreed with him.
RICHARD MARLES:
Well, he is wrong. I can tell you he’s wrong.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Let’s get your opinion on the NRL Grand Final. It’s coming up on Sunday which is going to be absolutely fantastic. Richard, who do you think the main playmakers for Penrith are going to be?
RICHARD MARLES:
Oh, to ask a specific question like that of me, is obviously above my pay grade! You are not a nice person for doing it!
KARL STEFANOVIC:
I’m joking, I’m joking!
RICHARD MARLES:
I know nothing about this, as you know! Anyway, I’m going to give you my lines.
PETER DUTTON:
I can’t see him, but what tie is he wearing, Karl?
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Still got a Geelong tie on blah, blah, blah.
PETER DUTTON:
Still got the Cats tie on?
RICHARD MARLES:
Yeah. And it will come off, I don’t know, New Years Day. The head says Penrith, the heart says Parramatta.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Did you get a Geelong premiership tattoo…
PETER DUTTON:
You’ve got to go the underdog…
KARL STEFANOVIC:
…and if so, where?
RICHARD MARLES:
I’m not going to show you the tattoo but it did get a bit messy on Sunday morning…
KARL STEFANOVIC:
How good.
RICHARD MARLES:
It was very good is the answer.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Alright, Pete and finally to you?
PETER DUTTON:
Oh, no, I want to hear the tatt story, Karl! Keep going with that!
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Hey, thanks guys, we’ll talk to you very soon. We appreciate it.
PETER DUTTON:
Go the Eels. See you, mate.
[ends]