Subjects: Visit to Central Queensland; road trip from Bundaberg to Rockhampton; the Albanese Government; defence procurement; Labor’s crab walking away from legislated tax cuts; workforce shortages; Central Queensland’s powerhouse economy.
MICHAEL BAILEY:
Good morning to you Peter. How are you?
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning Michael. I’m well mate, how are you?
MICHAEL BAILEY:
Yeah good. It’s tight…you’ve got so many commitments being here in Central Queensland, it just must blow your mind, or is this just part of the job?
PETER DUTTON:
Mate, I think it’s part of the job, but I’ve been a Queensland resident all my life, so I’ve travelled many times through Rocky and we are just on the drive up from Bundy up to Rocky now, so I need a suggestion for a good stop for a good crumbed sausage somewhere, but maybe your listeners can let me know where to go.
But no mate, it’s a bit overcast. I think the meetings we had in Bundy yesterday were good with some of the farmers just talking about issues that are facing them and we’ve got some small business visits in Rockhampton, we’ve got a Shadow Cabinet meeting in Rockhampton and Michelle Landry has been keen to get us up – the whole Shadow Cabinet is going to be there talking to different stakeholders in their areas of interest in their portfolios. So, it will be a good trip, a quick one, and then we’re on to Mackay and Townsville from there.
MICHAEL BAILEY:
You’re having a pub meet too, at the Criterion Hotel. How cool is that?
PETER DUTTON:
Yeah, what could go wrong? So I’ll have a couple of pots there and we’ll see how the night goes.
MICHAEL BAILEY:
So, Anthony Albanese – is he a one term government or two terms?
PETER DUTTON:
I think he’s shown over the last week, he’s got a great ability to turn it into one term and you’d expect that governments might stay longer than that, but I think in the modern age, to be honest mate, people are more prepared to change their vote, more prepared to think about the alternative. I think over the next year or two, there is going to be some very significant economic headwinds. We’re already seeing property start to wind back, interest rates go up, in all likelihood the United States, the United Kingdom will go into recession and it’s a pretty precarious position in Europe at the moment with Russia and energy prices and the South China Sea in our own region, Taiwan, etc. So there are lots of variables and lots of uncertainty.
I think the governments of the day always have to deal with events that come along and people will reward them or chastise them depending on how they handle those events. I’ve been in Parliament now 21 years and I’ve served under four Liberal leaders, so I bring a depth of experience to the role and I worked very closely with John Howard and was Peter Costello’s Assistant Treasurer back in the day. So, you have to make decisions – as I did as Defence Minister – which are our country’s best interests and normally you need to make those decisions pretty quickly.
So, there’s a lot that will transpire between now and the next election, but the government is in a honeymoon, that’ll continue for a while and we will continue to push hard and also to agree with the government where they get it right. I think that’s an important part of opposition, not just to criticise where we think they’ve got it wrong, but to support them on issues that are in our national interest to do so.
MICHAEL BAILEY:
Well hallelujah – agreeing with something that’s actually doing good for the country. I flicked on the TV last night, I turned it off after about 15 minutes because all I heard was your name and how bad a Defence Minister you were and how the submarines have blown out and this has blown out and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How do you combat such lies and deceitfulness?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I think you’ve got to rely on the common sense of Australians. They know that that’s all sort of political rhetoric. Richard Marles was praising me as a great Defence Minister when he came into the role and of course now they want to create a distraction away from the debate on tax cuts and this is their way that they could do it. They want to attack my character – I’m proud of my time as Defence Minister and most vets and diggers that I come across have a nice word to say, which I’m very grateful for because it was a great honour to work with them and to make decisions to support them.
But the fact is that spending had been very low when Labor was in government and we had nine years where we ramped up the spending in defence and as I’ve said, I’ve supported Anthony Albanese and Richard Marles in the decisions that they’ve made in the defence portfolio, the decisions that they’ve made and the judgments they’ve made in the engagement with our Indo-Pacific partners. All of that’s incredibly important because we do live in a very uncertain time and I think it’s important for the world to hear a united voice in Australia, and I think the cheap politics of last 24 hours from Richard Marles, as I say, is more about throwing out a red herring to distract from the government’s woes on their indecision around the tax cuts, and less than anything about substance or a legitimate attack. I mean, it’s a silly argument that they’re putting and I think most people will see through it, so you’ve got to develop a thick skin.
MICHAEL BAILEY:
Look, I’ve got to tell you, welcome to Central Queensland, it’s the powerhouse. I was just talking to Mary Carroll, CEO, of course, Capricorn Enterprise. They’ve got a huge 2022 major industry forum happening, there was one a couple of weeks ago in Gladstone. I just read that Emerald and surrounding areas, they got $3 billion worth of projects on the books. We are really powering along, how are we going to get more workers into the country?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’ve got a couple of things. I mean, we do need to bring more workers in and if you look at abattoirs for example – not just in Rocky but around the country – a lot of them only open the doors because of that migrant workforce.
The other suggestion, we made back in June, which I had hoped the government had have picked up by now, maybe they will in the budget, is to allow people who are on an Age Pension or veterans who are on a pension, who have a capacity to work, who want to work, who need to work, to allow them to do a couple of days or a week of work and not have that affect their pension. That is a policy which works really well in New Zealand and elsewhere, but there are a lot of pensioners who say, ‘look, I just retired too early and I’d had a gut full of work, but now my wife wants me out of the house,’ so it’s a few extra dollars and if the economy tightens then people can go back onto their pension full time. I think there is a ready workforce there of about 400,000 people who could go into jobs in hospitality and tourism, which would generate that additional economic activity for a region like Central Queensland.
But the other point I would make Michael is that there are a lot of Australians that need to recognise the activity and the productivity and the revenues that are generated in our mining sector, but a lot of sectors that hang off that industry as a result. We take a lot for granted when we are putting money into roads in Brisbane or in Sydney or Melbourne, there’s a lot of money that comes from the mining sector and from Central Queensland that goes to pay for those bills or helps open those schools, or provides funding to the police or whatever it might be. I think frankly, we should be more grateful for the sacrifice people make, living away from their families and working hard and long hours, and there – as you say – is a huge powerhouse of activity that goes on in Central Queensland.
MICHAEL BAILEY:
There certainly is. Peter Dutton, thanks very much for giving us the inspiration. Keep up the good work and we will see how long Anthony Albanese lasts, hey?
PETER DUTTON:
Pleasure mate, we will work hard on it. Take care.
[ends]