Subjects: President Xi; MH17 verdict; human rights abuses in Iran; the government’s gas and electricity price shambles; the government’s thought bubbles on gas supply; proposed changes to industrial relations laws; small business; Voice to Parliament.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Let’s go live to Brisbane. Joining me is the Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. Peter Dutton, thank you very much for your time. The Prime Minister is back in Australia today after those talks in Southeast Asia, including the bilateral with Xi Jinping. In Bangkok, there was another very warm greeting and pleasantries exchanged. Do you welcome the apparent thaw in relations with Beijing?
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning, Kieran.
As I’ve said from day one, as an opposition we will support the government where they get it right and where it’s in our national interest to do so, and when the Prime Minister is on the world stage, it’s important for us to provide that support. It’s good to see the meetings – the bilateral meetings, and in particular with China. China has been difficult – as you’ve seen with Canada, with New Zealand, with the United States, with Britain and with Australia and many, many other countries over the course of recent years – and we want a normalised relationship. We want a good trading relationship, but most of all we want peace in our region.
The Prime Minister will be pushing for that, as other world leaders are and, of course, we support it, but we’re realistic about what China is saying, what they’re doing, and the environment in which we live.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Indeed, and I guess recent history would help prompt that realistic approach. But given these talks – you had a meeting with the Chinese Ambassador, that Xi Jinping talks about the relationship being one that’s worth cherishing. Is there some cause for optimism in our ties with our largest trading partner?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Kieran, the first point is that Australia will always stand up for her values and we’re never going to compromise on that. It’s why when we were in government we made the decision on 5G. As people have seen with Medibank and other cyber attacks, we just can’t have a telecommunications system which is compromised and the Chinese government were not happy with that decision. We’ve made other decisions in relation to AUKUS, for example – a very important strategic defence decision taken by the Morrison Government and that was targeted at making sure that our long-term security needs are met here in the region. So, let’s be realistic about the situation. It was only a few days before the meeting, as you know, that President Xi was dressed in his army fatigues prepping his people for conflict. So, I just think we have to be realistic about the times in which we live. But do we want a normalised relationship? Do we want a respectful and mutually-respectful relationship with China? Of course we do. We’ve got an incredible Chinese diaspora community here in Australia. They’ve contributed very significantly to our country, and we celebrate that, and we don’t want conflict in the South China Sea or anywhere else. Australia is a peaceful nation and we’ve formed alliances with the US and the UK, with India, with Japan and many other countries to that end, and we want China to be a very responsible actor in the region. We welcome the fact that the Prime Minister’s been able to meet, and as you say, I met with the Ambassador in Canberra the week before last.
KIERAN GILBERT:
The Prime Minister urged the Chinese leader to pressure Putin over Ukraine. Is that influence overstated to an extent, given how desperate and on the back foot the Russian dictator is?
PETER DUTTON:
I think the relationship between Russia and China is obvious. It’s been there for a long time and if China’s in a situation where they’re buying energy from Russia at the moment, then no doubt that’s been raised in meetings as well, because other countries, including our own, have taken strong sanctions against Russia because of the invasion in Ukraine and the attacks on the Ukrainian people are still ongoing. So, any pressure that can come to bear on President Putin is important. It’s also important domestically that that happened in Russia because there, I think, will be a lot of discontent within the Russian population about committing their young people to this conflict where many of those Russian soldiers are dying on the battlefront, and look, nobody wants to see conflicts, as I say, here in the Indo-Pacific and certainly not in Europe, either.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Another Russian atrocity has met some legal response. Sadly, the three men found guilty were in absentia, so unlikely to face any time behind bars for the downing of MH17, which killed nearly 300 people, 38 of our own countrymen and women. The Dutch PM has urged Australians to not stop the fight for justice. What more can be done on that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we should never stop that fight for justice and the work that was undertaken initially from the Australian Federal Police, from ASIO, from ASIS, from all of our agencies, as well as the people obviously within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade really should be applauded – and that work goes on. As you’ve seen in the International Criminal Court and elsewhere over a period of time, there is an opportunity potentially to extradite people or to arrest them. There are different angles and options that can become available over time. I’d love to say that those people could be brought into custody and that justice could be done now. But of course, that’s not the reality and we have to really think of those families and friends who are reliving the dreadful circumstances of the downing of that flight and a senseless attack. If Putin had a shred of decency to him then he would be giving these people up and would be offering an apology. But of course, he’s not, and we see his conduct and his character on full display in relation to Ukraine at the moment.
KIERAN GILBERT:
On another matter, the Prime Minister has been highly critical of the human rights abuses, the widespread attacks on those protesters in Iran. You’ve written to the Prime Minister. You want the government to go further. Peter Dutton, what would you like to see happen?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Kieran, sitting governments are always rightly worried about what the economic impact will be on a society like ours if you impose trade sanctions or you propose sanctions of some other description, but I believe we should join with other countries – other like-minded countries – in imposing those sanctions, even if there is a financial cost. I think there are displacement markets and we can work in a bipartisan way with the government to look at where those other markets might be or to support them in the decisions that they will take. But when you see the human rights abuses, particularly against young women, they’re abhorrent and completely unacceptable, and we need to continue to ramp up that pressure from across the world on the Iranian administration, the regime there to allow women to be treated equally. I’ve written to the Prime Minister, as you say, in those terms, and I spoke about it in Parliament when we were last there a couple of weeks ago, because people are watching those atrocities and you can see the footage. You’ve seen the protests, and we want that momentum to continue, and if that happens, that gives us the best chance of equality and the decent treatment of women in that country and across the world. It’s a cause that we should all be fighting for.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Back home, we’ve got a big focus on the final two parliamentary sitting weeks, the challenges for the government are a couple of key ones, energy and IR. First on energy, I’ve seen you’ve made a number of very strong comments on where the government is at the moment on the energy price shock. The Prime Minister is not ruling out, as you heard a bit earlier with Andrew Clennell, he’s not ruling out a cap on gas prices. You warn against heavy intervention in the market. Would a cap amount to heavy intervention in the market in your view?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, Kieran, what we’ve seen over the last few weeks since the budget is a thought bubble most days. The Treasurer has been talking about a price cap, export controls, he’s talking about a super profits tax that would be distributed somehow. The fact is that the government went to the election and promised on 97 occasions that they would reduce people’s power bills by $275. And people expected that plan to be laid out in the budget. Don’t forget the budget was only a few weeks ago and there was no plan in that budget. So, Australian families and businesses at the moment are really, I think, quite bewildered by the fact that in the budget all it spoke about was that after two years of Labor in government, when they’ve introduced their policies, electricity prices are projected to go up by 56 per cent and gas prices by 44 per cent. If you start applying a tax, well the tax is just passed on to consumers and as you saw a couple of weeks ago, the Japanese Prime Minister especially came out to see our Prime Minister in Perth and the sole reason for that visit was to get assurances that there wouldn’t be any disruption to the exports to Japan. South Korea has sought the same assurances and our other trading partners. The trouble is that Labor always gets it wrong on the big economic calls. It happened in the Whitlam years, it happened in the Hawke-Keating years, it certainly happened in the Rudd-Gillard years and you’ve got Chris Bowen and Jim Chalmers, who are two huge characters within the Rudd-Gillard years, who are now trying to design a system. If you disrupt investment, not just into the mining sector, it will spread across other parts of the economy and that sort of sovereign risk ultimately will be paid for by consumers. So, more supply is needed in the system. You certainly need more gas. If you’ve got huge demand for gas, you can’t restrict supply like the government’s doing at the moment. They funded environmental activists in the budget to help defeat some of these projects coming online and the best thing the government could be doing at the moment is working with the industry to expedite some of the applications that are there, to get that supply into the system as quickly as possible. But applying new taxes and export controls and all of these measures will only lead to higher prices for consumers.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Just on the tax issue, why shouldn’t the government generate additional revenue from an Australian resource where there are super profits?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Kieran, I mean, Wayne Swan tried this and no tax on the profits were realised. It’s a Labor thought bubble and let’s see what they propose because, as I say, they’ve aired every option and the solution was supposed to be detailed in the budget. So, the government doesn’t know what it is that they want to do, and they understand that there is a risk with each of the options that they’re looking at at the moment. But one thing I do know is if you restrict supply in a market where there’s increasing demand the price will go up and if you stop the exports or you start to make customers overseas believe that there’s some chance of that export being impacted upon or restricted or phased down over a period of time, you will have a knock-on consequence into other parts of the economy. So, as I say, when it comes to the big economic decisions, in an environment where inflation is projected to go to 8 per cent, obviously interest rates continuing to go north, you’ve got a situation where the government is trying to impose an economy-wide 1970s style industrial relations system at exactly the wrong time. So, you end up with a position where you get a perfect storm and I really worry about what the government is doing to the Australian economy and what will happen over the next few years when families and small businesses just can’t afford the sort of price increases that are projected. I really do worry very much about the decisions that Labor is making and the broader economic impacts that that will have on our economy.
KIERAN GILBERT:
On that IR bill you referenced, Anthony Albanese this morning told Andrew Clennell that he’s willing to have extra sitting days in order to get the IR bill through. He says ‘he’s committed to lifting wages and wants that through by Christmas.’ He says they’re trying to get the balance right. It sounds like he might be open to further compromise. Is that encouraging?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Kieran, every independent – don’t just look at what the Liberal Party is saying – but every independent has said that this process is completely rushed. Now, over the last 15 years, the union movement has given about $100 million to the Labor Party and you’re seeing now a policy that the union movement, only the union movement, is applauding. There was a Jobs Summit where there was supposed to be consultation with business, that was really just a smokescreen. Just so that businesses understand what’s going on here: you have the ability in a shopping centre where you’ve got a Coles and a BWS and maybe a couple of other anchor tenants and then you’ve got a dozen other smaller retailers – a delicatessen, a butcher shop, a fruit shop, etc. If the bigger companies come to an arrangement with the unions that has the ability to be applied across the smaller businesses if they’ve got more than 15 employees and I don’t think those businesses have any contact with the union movement at the moment. When you’ve got union leaders like John Setka from the CFMEU out applauding this legislation, you should start to worry and I think that’s exactly what David Pocock, the other independents are doing. They realise that there is a very significant negative impact on small businesses economy-wide, and the multi-employer bargaining arrangements are just the start of this bad Bill. So, I think we should apply a lot of scrutiny and the Bill should be voted down.
I suspect in the end the government will do a deal with David Pocock but it’s not going to be good for business and it’s not going to be good for the economy. As I said before, it comes at exactly the wrong time. If you’ve got businesses paying double digit interest rates, you’ve got inflation at 8 per cent, talk of a deep recession in the United States and in the United Kingdom, elsewhere around the world. Over the next couple of years, it is going to be difficult, and the government should be trying to help people out of a bad situation, not making a bad situation worse.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Finally, John Howard told Paul Kelly in The Australian yesterday that he’d advise against a free vote like that in the 1999 Republic Referendum. He says, ‘I would counsel the Coalition against having a free vote.’ That’s in relation to the constitutional referendum on an Indigenous Voice. What’s your response to the advice from Mr Howard?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Kieran, we’ve laid out a process and that process is for our Party Room to remain sacrosanct, and we’ll have a discussion within the Party Room as to what the next step will be – and that’s an important process for us. At the moment, it’s difficult to have this conversation because the key elements are still missing and there are many Indigenous leaders, particularly in regional areas that I’ve spoken to over the course of the last month or so who don’t even know what the Voice means, and they are very worried that it is essentially an elitist model; that it’s designed to represent a capital city view, not a regional and remote view, and I worry about the fact that the Prime Minister is refusing to release detail and now saying that there’ll be a truncated process of information given out to the public, so, let’s hear more from the Prime Minister…
KIERAN GILBERT:
So, you’re not leaning towards a free vote?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, as I say, that’ll be a decision for the Party Room and that’s the process that we’ve laid out. We’ll have that discussion at the appropriate time, but, at the moment, people have got very significant reservations – and understandably so – and just being told that there’s nothing to see here, I mean, they can’t answer the basic questions at the moment and I think that’s why there’s a lot of rising anger within the Indigenous community because the government’s sort of put this issue out there and they haven’t contributed anything to the public debate or answering reasonable questions that Australians would have. Every one of us wants to see conditions improved in Indigenous communities. I’ve called on the Prime Minister to hold a royal commission into the Northern Territory and what’s happening there at the moment where it’s unconscionable behaviour resulting in children being sexually and physically abused. I want to see that issue resolved and issues like that resolved. That’s truly a priority for me and I know for most decent-thinking Australians.
So, I hope the Prime Minister can do that, that we can get the answers and that has to be a priority. I’m absolutely determined to make sure that we can keep the pressure on the government to deal with those issues because our children are too important, and they need to answer the basic questions. At the moment, they’re trying to sort of, you know, make people look the other way, Kieran, and it’s too important an issue for that to be the approach.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Peter Dutton, I appreciate your time. Thank you.
PETER DUTTON:
Thank you.
[ends]