Subjects: Federal Budget; Fadden by-election.
E&OE
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
We’re joined now by the Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton. Mr Dutton, good morning to you.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
The budget’s back in black. Does the government get a tick for that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I think they do get a tick, and frankly, I think if they’re being gracious, they should acknowledge that they inherited a pretty good set of figures. They’ve obviously had a surge of income and they’ve spent some of that wisely, but there’s a lot of extra taxing and lots of extra spending, which is going to be inflationary. As Chris Richardson points out, he thought the Reserve Bank Governor had already finished with the baseball bat, but he thinks that there’s likely another interest rate increase out of this. So, I worry for those families who are missing out and who are really hurting at the moment.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
The Treasurer, and by extension, the Treasury, says the spending measures, the cost of living relief will knock .75 per cent off inflation though, next year.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I just don’t get that when you’re spending $185 billion extra in spending; when you’re creating a problem, which is exactly what they’ve done, particularly in relation to energy. You’ve got a bandaid for it in the short term, but in 12 and 18 months’ time those families are still going to have big power bills, and in this budget they’re still projecting that your power bill will go up by about $500, which is a huge turnaround from the Prime Minister’s promise before the election that your power bill would go down by $275 each year.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
You support, though, the energy relief payments?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we support those payments to families in the way in which the government’s proposed them. but it’s a short-term fix and the problem is that it’s a long term problem that they’ve created, and there are lots of families, millions of families who aren’t getting any assistance in this budget, who thought they were. An average family with a mortgage, three children – $25,000 worse off under Labor in this budget and that’s a huge hit.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
But you’re calling by saying all of that for more spending and therefore that would further stoke inflation.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, there’s things that the government could have done in the budget. For example, there’s no mention of infrastructure. There was no mention of productivity. So, there are things that they could have done to reduce the inflationary pressures. But in this budget, as the independent economic advisors have pointed out, the government is putting upward pressure on inflation, which is going to make it harder for the Reserve Bank.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
Do you support the increase in JobSeeker payments?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’re going to assess that. Obviously, we’ve been in the lock-up like the media yesterday. We haven’t had months…
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
But you know the basic figure. $40 a fortnight.
PETER DUTTON:
And we’ll look at all of those figures and we’ll make an announcement in relation to that tomorrow night in my budget in reply speech…
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
Could you see yourself not supporting that increase?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’ll make an announcement tomorrow. We’ve certainly spoken a lot about trying to provide support to people on lower incomes, but there are millions of Australians who have missed out significantly in this budget. They’re the ones that I think are really hurting at the moment and we’ll have more to say about that tomorrow night.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
The single Parent Payment, the extension of that. Do you support that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, again, we’ll have more to say about that Michael, tomorrow night, and some other measures as well.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
Don’t single mums though, deserve all the help they can get?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, of course they do. And there are millions of families more; single parent families, families with kids, who are $25,000 worse off under this government. There are lots of people that deserve support because Labor has created a huge cost of living crisis. In this budget they put upward pressure on interest rates at exactly the wrong time.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
Medicare – the $3.5 billion to help encourage more GPs to offer bulk billing. Do you support that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, again, we’ll have more to say about that, but clearly more needs to be done in the bulk billing space and more needs to be done in general practice and in primary care. So, in principle we support more assistance to doctors to help them see patients, particularly those with acute needs and those that require regular attendance at GPs, and that includes pensioners and kids, etc., as the government’s proposed last night.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
Stage three tax cuts. The Treasurer confirmed last night they’d cost $69 billion over the next four years. Does the opposition continue to support those tax cuts?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, of course we do, because they’ve been legislated. We went to an election promising it, as did the Prime Minister, and there are about 17 broken promises now that the Prime Minister sits on, and surely he’s not going to add this one to the list as well.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
But you’re fine with them going ahead and potentially feeding more money into the economy?
PETER DUTTON:
I think they come in at the right time. They were staged for a reason. They haven’t come in at the moment because we don’t want to see that extra spending in an inflationary environment. But I do think as you come out of the inflationary period, you do want to be providing support to families who are still going to have massive electricity and gas bills to pay under Labor’s policies.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
So, the Treasurer does predict inflation is starting to trend down. So that’s another positive…
PETER DUTTON:
Well, there are some pretty heroic predictions in the budget, if I might say, and I’ve been around budgets and ERCs long enough to know that Treasurers have a pretty heavy hand in some of the assumptions and the way in which Treasury arrive at those calculations, so…
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
The Treasurer what, interfering with the budget processes?
PETER DUTTON:
I just wouldn’t trust this Treasurer in terms of the numbers. I would wait to see what happens once the Coalition money has run out. So, they’re projecting this small budget for the first year, which is what they’ve been bequeathed from a Liberal government. When they’re on their own over the next three and four years, they’re projecting heavy deficits in each year, growing each year, and that’s what happens when you lock in structural spend off the back of a windfall or a sugar hit as we’ve seen.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
Ok, and everybody agrees, the structural deficit has to be tackled. What would you cut? And what serious tax reform would you bring in if you were running the show?
PETER DUTTON:
We’ll have our policies out before the next election, Michael. The government’s got to deal with the here and now. Their opportunity in the budget last night was to invest. They’ve made an announcement that they’re going to bring in 1.5 million people over a five year period, which would be the highest number in the migrant program in our country’s history, and at the same time, they’re cutting infrastructure spending. So, we’ve got a housing crisis, we’ve got a rental crisis, and they’re bringing in one and a half million people over a five year period. Congestion is a huge issue in our cities and they’re ripping money out of roads and public transport – so, it doesn’t add up. So, there are lots of mistakes and missed opportunities in this budget and there’s lots of things that we support as well.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
Can we expect policy announcements in your address in reply speech tomorrow night?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I just want to build expectation. I want you to be excited by what it is tomorrow night!
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
I just want to know what’s coming up.
PETER DUTTON:
You want the splash.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
By all means.
PETER DUTTON:
I’ll leave it until tomorrow night. But we’ve been, I think, contemplating a lot over, we’re not 12 months into opposition yet, so we’ve got two years to go until the election. So, there’ll be some announcements tomorrow night, but also there’ll be obviously advice where we support the government, where we critique what’s in there, in the budget from last night. I just really feel for those families who have missed out, who have had their power prices jacked up at a time when the Prime Minister promised to reduce them, and you’ve got a scenario where they get no assistance in this budget at all.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
Okay. A bit going on outside the budget, before you go. Stuart Robert, your long-time colleague has announced he is resigning from his seat of Fadden on the Gold Coast. Will that by-election be a test of your leadership?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it’s always a test in a by-election because people aren’t happy about having to go back to the polls. In Aston, we know that people have to go to the polls three times in 10 months and that creates a level of frustration. Equally, when you look back over history, there are normally four or five by-elections post a change of government and we will deal with that. We’ve got some great candidates who are lining up and we’ll campaign well. I think the government is hurting a lot of people in a seat like Fadden and we’ll be talking a lot about that in the campaign right up to election day, whenever that might be.
MICHAEL ROWLAND:
Peter Dutton, really appreciate your time this morning. Thank you for joining us.
PETER DUTTON:
Thank you.
[ends]