Subjects: The Prime Minister’s Covid Inquiry cop-out; the Prime Minister’s protection racket for Labor premiers; the Prime Minister’s divisive Voice, Treaty, Truth proposal; Labor’s cost of living crisis; Labor’s energy policy shambles; Josh Frydenberg.
E&OE
LUKE GRANT:
The Federal Opposition Leader is Peter Dutton. He speaks to Ray when he can every week, and he’s on the line.
Good morning, Peter Dutton. Hope you’re well.
PETER DUTTON:
Yeah, good morning, Luke. Nice to have a chat, mate. I’m very well, thank you.
LUKE GRANT:
What do you make of Daniel Andrews and what we know of the Prime Minister’s inquiry into COVID-19? First off, the question of a Royal Commission: isn’t that the best way to ask all the leaders, all the chief health officers, that got up each day and said, ‘you know what, based on the latest results or the latest numbers’, we never got to see any of that stuff. Shouldn’t this be, you know, we can look at everything and anything in order to ensure that next time this happens, we’re completely prepared?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, absolutely, Luke. I mean, that’s why the Prime Minister gave his word to the Australian people when he was the Opposition Leader that that’s what he would do and what he would commit to if he became Prime Minister of our country. Look, I think there will be a lot of Australians today who are really bewildered as to what the Prime Minister’s doing on a number of fronts. But now, most lately today, on this issue, it’s quite remarkable. I mean he’s obviously been dictated to by Daniel Andrews and Annastacia Palaszczuk, who clearly don’t want a Royal Commission, but there are families who lost loved ones, who were separated, businesses went broke, the lockdowns that were imposed on them by the State Premiers and every element of it at a federal and state level should be examined, and I think it’s appropriate. I can’t believe that the Prime Minister is breaking such a significant promise to the Australian people, and I think a lot of people today will feel deceived by their Prime Minister, and there is no legitimate explanation as to why he’s backflipped on his position – other than the fact that it seems that there’s some internal politics at play in the Labor Party when the State Premiers are dictating to the Prime Minister of our country.
LUKE GRANT:
So we have a Royal Commission into Robodebt, and of course, you know, that was awful and people did lose their lives. But comparatively, if you can even make that comparison, perhaps you can’t, perhaps it’s not fair to do that. This brought the country to a halt for a couple of years, it cost us thousands of Australians, everyone had an opinion, and if I might say, the then Opposition Leader, Mr Albanese, and his mates, they seemed to pot you and Scott Morrison’s Government for three years. Why aren’t we entitled to know what was sent by whom, to whom, what evidence there was, when did we or did we not try to order vaccines? I mean, I think we’re all adult enough, mature enough, to handle a warts-and-all inquiry, however ugly it gets.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I agree with that, Luke, and I think there’s a huge opportunity that’s missed here to learn the lessons, so that if there is another pandemic, the Government’s response is based on the lessons – the good and the bad – of the decisions that were made over the course of the last pandemic. It just completely and utterly escapes me as to why you wouldn’t want to learn from the mistakes so that they’re not repeated into the future.
I think also to be fair and to be honest, I think this is a massive distraction. The Prime Minister’s announcing this now because he’s on the ropes in relation to the Voice. People are, I think really angry as you move around the country, the number of people coming up saying they’re voting ‘no’ and, you know, ‘stay strong’ and all the rest of it is quite phenomenal. The Labor members must be getting that as they move around the country as well, and I just think the Prime Minister’s trying to distract away from the Government’s latest mess. But in his announcement today he’s created the Government’s newest mess, and I think a lot of Australians want to know those answers.
I mean Anthony Albanese was out there at the time saying that more JobKeeper money should be paid out, not less. He now complains about the amount that was paid out, so the hypocrisy here and if he’s trying to cover up for State Premiers and for their role, then I think most Australians are smart enough to see through that. The Royal Commission allows for a comprehensive review: I think Australians expected that and that’s certainly what they were promised by the Prime Minister and now we’re in a position where he’s stepped back from it.
LUKE GRANT:
You know, three and a half weeks, that’s about it, and then we’re into the Referendum. Good on you for being in Indigenous communities earlier this year and having a listen and for not escaping to the tennis while you’re in the middle of some of these meetings. You’ve been, I think, almost Abbott-like – if I can put it that way, Peter – in the way that you’ve actually been in these communities to find out what people think and what we can do to help. What’s your sense of where things are? Apart from the appalling insults that we’re hearing aimed at the various proponents – do you think, like many of us, October 14, can’t come quick enough?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, Luke, look, firstly, I think most Australians just want the Prime Minister to concentrate on issues that are important to them, which include, you know, how can we get our energy prices down, how can we get our electricity bill to stop going up every month or every quarter? People are struggling to pay their mortgage repayments. You’re now starting to see small businesses lay staff off and the government predicts that unemployment will go up.
I think we’re coming into a tighter period in the economy and I think it’s clear that for the last 15 months the Prime Minister’s just been distracted by the Voice and every other issue. The two budgets that they’ve delivered have delivered decisions which has made it harder for families, not easier, and certainly that’s the case with small business as well. So, I think there’s a level of frustration in the public at the moment that so much time is being spent on the Voice.
I think there’s also a rising level of frustration that people – even if they were inclined to support the Voice – are looking at just the lack of detail and really amazed that it’s a deliberate decision by the Prime Minister to keep the detail from the public. The design of the Voice, don’t forget, starts on the 16th of October. It runs for six months and people are being asked to vote for something that hasn’t been designed that they don’t know how will work, and that’s, I think, the mood. So, I don’t think we should be complacent around where the vote is. The polling obviously is encouraging, but you need to get people to turn-out and you need to get people to, you know, to speak to their kids and their grandkids about what I think is the most important vote of their life. I think the ramifications for our system of government, for democracy, for the way in which the Voice would change a lot within our society and not for the good, and certainly not for the practical, good outcomes that we want in Indigenous communities. I really think we just need to keep our foot flat to the floor all the way up to October 14 to make sure that this thing is defeated because it’s just not in our country’s best interests.
LUKE GRANT:
Yeah. I’ve been speaking this week to a couple of people from Port Stephens in particular about this wind farm that they’re talking about off the coast of – well, it goes from essentially Swansea, from what we’re told, up to Nelson Bay – so Lake Macquarie to Port Stephens. And there’s other areas around the state that people are concerned about that there might be wind farms there.
Now I was amazed yesterday when I heard from the president of a 100 year old fishing club. Mind you, he’s not been president for 100 years, I hasten to add. But he sat there with the Energy Minister, Peter, and he said, ‘Now here’s where the, you know, the wind farm will be’. And Chris Bowen says, ‘righto, well, that’s going to have impact on the commercial fishers, but it won’t have impact on recreational fishermen, fisherwomen, if you will, because they don’t fish there’. And this bloke said, ‘are you serious? There’s a place there called the car park where they have bait fish and they have various marlin. It’s famous for recreational fishing’. Now he’s completely out of touch.
How do we end up in a position where to solve the energy crisis, we’ve got to put these monstrous, I think, 300 metre-tall wind turbines in the Pacific Ocean?
PETER DUTTON:
Look, Luke, I just don’t know how the government’s got itself into this mess as well, because I just can’t accept that people living in regional communities or rural communities are worth any less than Australians who live in capital cities. There’s no way in the world that people living in Manly or living in other parts of capital cities and outer suburbs in any capital city would tolerate a wind turbine being popped up in the local park or in their local community.
But somehow we say, ‘Well, it’s okay for people in regional areas because, you know, we don’t go out to the regions very much’. Well, their amenity is important. These things are a blight on the landscape. There’s very little marginal benefit to them in terms of the amount of energy that they create because they’re unreliable. They only have a 20-year lifespan. They have an enormous impact on the environment where they’re drilling into the seabed and disrupting pristine rural lands where they’re on land. At the end of the 20 years, the blades and everything else that’s not recyclable goes into landfill. But to have that conversation with Chris Bowen, you can’t have a rational conversation with him, and he’s a zealot on all of this stuff.
I think if people believe that their power bills have gone up a lot already, I think just wait for another two or three or five years’ time when they double again because they’re talking about rolling out 28,000 kilometres of poles and wires to distribute the energy off these windmills, and that comes at a cost of over $100 billion. The whole plan of the Albanese Government has been costed at between $1.2 and $1.5 trillion dollars – trillion dollars – which is all going to be passed on in electricity bills and gas bills. They’ll send businesses broke, manufacturing will just close down and go offshore. The jobs will be taken to a place like Malaysia and they’ll just import the product back in and there’ll be no net benefit to the environment. We’ll end up paying more for our goods and services, and it seems the Prime Minister and certainly Chris Bowen just have no regard for that whatsoever.
LUKE GRANT:
Yeah. Now before you go, it looks like Josh Frydenberg has decided that he’s going to continue being a banker as the new Chair of Goldman Sachs in Asia Pacific. That kind of closes the door on a political comeback. Must be disappointing?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, Josh is young enough to come back at some stage. But I think, at the moment, he’s made a decision – and I was talking to him early this morning – but he’s made a decision which is in his best interests, his family’s best interests. He’s got still two young kids, and, you know, Canberra life can be pretty gruelling when you’ve got a young family.
So, Josh has contributed an enormous amount to our Party as Deputy Leader, as Treasurer, taking our country through a very tough time. Lots of people kept their businesses or households kept the lights on because of decisions that Josh made. So, he’s done a wonderful job for the Party and for his family and wish him well in the next stage of his career and in particular, now that it’ll give him some more time with Amie and the kids. So, we wish him well.
LUKE GRANT:
Good to talk to you again, Peter Dutton. Appreciate your time.
PETER DUTTON:
You too, mate. Thank you.
LUKE GRANT:
Take care. Bye bye.
[ends]