Subjects: Senator Thorpe’s unprofessional antics; Chris Bowen’s trainwreck Sky News interview; Labor’s energy policy shambles; electoral reforms; Labor’s immigration detention chaos; Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek on their Nature Positive showdown; Penny Wong; election date speculation.
E&OE.
RAY HADLEY:
Peter Dutton joins us every Thursday on the Ray Hadley Morning programme. He’s on the line right now. Of course, he’s in Canberra.
Mr Dutton, good morning.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning Ray.
RAY HADLEY:
Wild old place, Canberra, these days.
PETER DUTTON:
Yeah, it all gets a bit silly in the last week. I think people are – if you have a look at what’s happening between Tanya Plibersek and the Prime Minister at the moment, there’s obviously an almighty barney going on there and I think the Government’s really got three flat tyres at the moment and I think they’re limping toward Christmas.
As for Lidia Thorpe and the craziness of all of that, I hope she can get a break over Christmas and come back after having reflected on some of her conduct. Young kids and Australians are watching her behaviour, and I think she needs to do much better than what she’s doing, to say the least.
RAY HADLEY:
Well, I think that’s a very good point. You see, I made the point to the young Zac De Silva – one of our political reporters who you know – earlier, that what people are looking for out of politicians, not always getting it, is leadership. If what we saw from Fatima Payman yesterday, screaming like a banshee and then of course, the regrettable incident with Lidia Thorpe throwing scraps of paper at Pauline, then giving the middle finger to the entire Senate as she walked out the door, then arriving this morning and screaming again like a banshee from the press gallery. I don’t know how that encourages young people to think that politicians are a breed apart?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it just becomes all about them, unfortunately. People don’t vote you into Parliament or into the Senate to make it all about yourself. It’s about how you can work for our country and make decisions that keep us safe and secure, and unfortunately I think some of them lose sight of that, and it all becomes about hearing their name mentioned on radio, or seeing their name printed in the paper. I think when you’ve got to that point, it’s time to look for something else to do.
RAY HADLEY:
Are you sitting down?
PETER DUTTON:
I am, yes, yes.
RAY HADLEY:
Okay, well I’m going to share with you some audio from Sky News you may not have heard, when Laura Jayes tried to interrogate the Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, about coal. Have a listen:
[excerpt]
LAURA JAYES:
How is your plan going to make the electricity grid more reliable and cheaper? When we’re talking about 80 per cent renewables in the system by 2030? I mean the only reason we’ve got the power on at the moment, the only reliable system that you can call on, is coal. You can’t tell me when the wind’s going to blow and the sun’s going to shine.
CHRIS BOWEN:
Yeah, well I can’t tell you when the rains going to fall either, Laura…
LAURA JAYES:
But that’s right.
CHRIS BOWEN:
…but we drink water every day because we store it.
LAURA JAYES:
But that’s what goes to the whole reliability issue, doesn’t it?
CHRIS BOWEN:
It does, and that’s why we’re going to build – we are building the transmission and the storage and backed by gas peaking when necessary, to ensure a reliable system. But here’s the thing: the least reliable part of our energy grid at the moment is coal fired power. That’s just a statement of fact.
[end excerpt]
RAY HADLEY:
Well fair dinkum, I’m glad I’m going in a couple of weeks. I really am. I won’t have to listen to that imbecile too much longer. But I mean, he’s blaming coal for what occurred in New South Wales yesterday, when Chris Minns said, ‘look, you better switch off all these appliances, you councils better stop using, industry better stop using’. He’s saying, ‘oh that’s all the fault of coal’. Because he keeps closing down the coal fired power stations!
PETER DUTTON:
Honestly, I can’t explain Chris Bowen, I’m sorry. I want to do better for you, Ray, but I just can’t explain his logic, his thinking, the irrational nature of his approach. How can we have the premier state in Australia saying to its residents, ‘you need to turn off the washing machines’, ‘don’t turn on the kettle’, we’re living in Australia in 2024 and we’re left with power rations like we’re in South Africa. Honestly, I just don’t understand how the Government can hold a straight face when they’re saying things like that. The reality is the New South Wales Labor Government at the moment is signing contracts to extend coal fired power stations. As Laura rightly points out on Sky, the lights don’t stay on without them.
I just think people see this Government as a joke, and we look at the economic situation at the moment and start to see some of the figures which paint our country in a worse light than when Gough Whitlam was in power, you know people have got real problems.
RAY HADLEY:
Yeah. Well I mentioned earlier to my listeners here, Liddell and Eraring – which service a lot of New South Wales – Liddell closed at the end of April last year, Eraring was due to close August next year, but now will stay open thanks to intervention by Chris Minns until August 2027. But I mean if you’d closed Eraring last year and closed Liddell next year, or vice versa – Liddell last year and Eraring next year, well it takes a big chunk out of baseload power and he doesn’t understand that, Casanova!
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it was a train wreck interview that he had, and if you listen to some other parts – because I got the transcript on that – but it is…he has no rational explanation at all. He talks about storage and the rest of it. What he’s talking about is battery storage, which can last for up to four hours maybe, and then you’ve got to overbuild all of the solar panels and wind because not only do you need to provide the energy during the day, you need extra solar panels to charge the batteries for the night time, and then it’s inconvenient because there are actually 24 hours in the day and the batteries only last for four hours. Honestly, it is a complete and utter debacle, and the saddest part is that people can’t afford to turn their air conditioners on, or to turn the heating on, and particularly for older Australians or mums with young kids and the rest of it.
We live in a civilised, developed country, we’re talking to a lot of companies at the moment, Ray, who are saying, ‘look, we’re not going to say anything publicly, but we have a global board that says to us that we’re not investing in Australia, we’re on pause and we’re going to invest money into North America, or into Asia, or into Europe, or into Africa, we just don’t see Australia as a stable environment in which to invest literally billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of jobs, under this Government, and the energy policy means that the manufacturers who need a 24/7 manufacturing process, they won’t consider Australia because of these blackouts and the scheduled brownouts that’ll take place, and the cost! This Government has no regard for the cost, for what people are paying. I think that’s why, frankly, the Prime Minister, I think, is on his last legs.
RAY HADLEY:
Now, we’ll leave Casanova here. I’m reminded of a quote which you’d probably be aware of by Winston Churchill about Russia. In 1939 he said, ‘it’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’, and that’s Casanova.
PETER DUTTON:
Well said. Well said.
RAY HADLEY:
Exactly, exactly. That’s what he is.
Now, to all the other things that you’re talking to them about – and I’ll get to immigration policies and what we’re going to do with people who are rapists, murderers and child sex offenders – but it’d appear that you’re all set to agree with them on the political donation laws, then all of a sudden Clive Palmer comes [inaudible] over the hill to talk to the Special Minister of State, Don Farrell, and then we’ve got another one – Simon Holmes à Court holding talks with Farrell again about these caps. Now, it seems to me that you’re now seeking some changes. Can you share with us what the changes might be and why there’s been a change of heart in relation to political donation laws?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Ray, we’ve been talking to the Government in good faith, and I think part of the concern that I have at the moment, to be honest, is that when you look at a millionaire like Simon Holmes à Court, or others, who might be thinking that they can put $100 million into an election campaign and try and get some more teals elected, I think that is subverting our democratic process.
When we see in the United States that both the Democrats and the Republicans spend $1 billion on a campaign, or hundreds of millions of dollars, I just don’t think that has a place in our country. So, I think when people are buying elections, or they’re seeking to influence elections – either for their own ego or because they have an obsession on climate change or whatever else it might be – that’s something that I don’t think is healthy in the system.
So, we’ve been talking with the Government, but as I understand it, the Government’s got some internal discussions going on in relation to one part of the bill at the moment, and so the ball’s really in their court and we’ll wait to hear back from them.
RAY HADLEY:
Okay. But if there are no changes – despite the intervention of Simon Holmes à Court and Clive Palmer – would you say to them, ‘yeah, we would be in agreement if you come back with us with the plan that we’d all agreed upon on the first place?
PETER DUTTON:
Well the bill that they’ve got on the table at the moment is not something that we would support, but we’re talking with them.
RAY HADLEY:
Alright, okay.
Now, I’ve been trying to figure out – and I need your help, I need a bit of counselling on this one – you’ve got these new laws you’ve agreed to, and basically this is the Liberal National Party Immigration Bill. It’s got nothing to do with Labor because they pinched it off you, because everything else they’ve done, they’ve Casanova-ed it as well, and as a result they’ve come back with a raft of migration changes – three separate bills. It looks on paper like it will work, unless there’s intervention from, of course, the High Court again somewhere along the line where we deport people, and if they can’t be deported, there is a policy where we’ll pay other countries to take them. Now, I guess I cheekily said yesterday, the list comes out for those Pacific Island nations and elsewhere, and look, ‘we’ll give you a choice of the child rapist, the murderer, the sex offender, the drug dealer. Which one do you want? How much do you want?’. I mean, how does that work? How do you convince another nation to take the vile, low life that we’ve got here at the moment to their shores?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Ray, I think what they’ve done here is created one almighty mess. I mean we’re seeing up in the Northern Territory at the moment, the boats are landing and people are walking onto mainland Australia and some of the Indigenous communities are discovering some of these people. So, I think the Government has dropped the ball in that part of the immigration portfolio.
Second point is that they’ve released over 200 criminals into the community – they didn’t need to do so, as it turns out. So we’ve now got Australians at greater risk of serious harm and some of these people have gone on to commit offences.
The next point, which I think is valid, is that the Government here is spending hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of your taxpayer dollars each year fighting these matters in the court, because as we know, Minister Giles didn’t give the evidence required to defend the Commonwealth in one of the key cases. So they’ve created their own mess is the point that I’m making, and it’s theirs to clean up.
Now, if they can convince other countries to take people with criminal records, etc., good luck, but I suspect they’ll be talking about this for a while. I think what they want you to hear is that they’re cleaning up the mess that they’ve created and everything will be okay; but frankly, if you buy that line, then you’ve probably got a good Harbour Bridge for sale.
RAY HADLEY:
So I take it from those comments, you don’t think any nations will take these people.
PETER DUTTON:
Look, unless there’s part of some broader discussion that we’re not a party to, then I think it’s hard to see.
RAY HADLEY:
Well, that’s what I thought.
PETER DUTTON:
Yeah.
RAY HADLEY:
I mean, I sat here thinking, ‘how do you convince someone in Fiji or Samoa or, you know, Tonga or Tahiti or parts of Asia – look, we’ll give you 100,000 for a rapist, but 200,000 for a murderer and 350,000 for a paedophile. You’ve got plenty there so you might as well take another one’ sort of thing. I just don’t see it’s plausible. No amount of money could make a sensible person in power in any one of those regimes say, ‘oh yeah, we’ll have them’. I mean, it’s a bit like, just say, for instance, we go to the worst jail in Australia, in Goulburn, what used to be called supermax, and we say, ‘look, the best way to deal with these blokes, let’s get them out of here’. And we start contacting the other nations and say, ‘look, how much would it cost to get rid of – we want all these, you know, these thousands of inmates out of the joint. How much do you want to take them?’. I mean, I just can’t see how it would ever work.
PETER DUTTON:
Yeah well, look, there may be circumstances, say in witness protection cases where they’re trying to relocate somebody internationally that needs a new identity, and has given evidence in a case – and I had some of those matters when I was in the Home Affairs Portfolio – where you’re trying to give somebody a new identity and particularly that’s the case in organised crime matters, then maybe there’s sort of a broader discussion around…
RAY HADLEY:
Sure.
PETER DUTTON:
…What that arrangement looks like, but it’s at the margins. As we know, under Tony Burke and under Minister Giles before him, they aren’t cancelling visas under the security provisions, the character provisions of Section 501, they’re allowing these criminals to stay in Australia even though there is the ability to deport them back to their country of origin.
RAY HADLEY:
Okay. To other matters; how do you think Tanya Plibersek felt when she found out that Anthony Albanese had told the Labor Government in Western Australia about his plans to scupper her green plans? And then she found out about it after someone announced it on a Tuesday night in Perth?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it’s an interesting question and funny you should ask it because we just had a division before I came on air, and before that, Jim Chalmers and Tanya Plibersek were in deep, deep conversation in the chamber, and I suspect that they share some things in common, but the one thing that they do share in common is that they can’t stand Anthony Albanese and they think he’s a bad Prime Minister. So I think there is a lot of rancour and turmoil on their side at the moment and a lot of animosity.
You’re right, Tanya Plibersek wanted to pass – they call it Nature Positive – what it should be called is anti-mining, it’s the anti-mining bill, and she wanted to do a deal with the Greens to pass that and the Prime Minister knows that he’s got big problems in WA because West Australians are just cottoning on to the fact that this bill would be a disaster for jobs and mining approvals in WA, and so I don’t think she’s too happy at the moment. I think a ticket between Chalmers and Plibersek would be – if you can get some money on Sportsbet onto that, I’ll have a look.
RAY HADLEY:
Alright. Now finally, Penny Wong – we find out yesterday she dresses down Mr Yamagami, the Japanese Ambassador, when she’s not in Government, she’s in Opposition, about comments he made about things happening in his region. Now, we’re told by Dennis Shanahan today that she did the same with her own Labor MP Michael Danby, called to her office and given a dressing down for a speech in opposing extradition treaty with China because it would upset Beijing. I mean, this is a person who wasn’t in a ministerial position, this is a person in opposition! Under what pretence does she get an Ambassador into her office and gives him a ticking off and then I guess Michael Danby, he’s got to put up with it because he’s a member of her Party.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I just think there’s just breathtaking arrogance in it, to start with. Shingo, who was a very, very good Ambassador, Japan’s a very important trading partner to us and a very important security partner to us as well – and increasingly so. He was a great defender of the relationship, and her dressing down of him, I think was completely inappropriate.
Don’t forget, Penny Wong and Katy Gallagher and others were the ones responsible for bullying the late Senator Kimberley Kitching. It was a very, very untidy situation, that which still causes a lot of angst in the Labor Party. I think it gives you a window into maybe some of the personal attributes of some of these Labor Ministers.
RAY HADLEY:
Now, do you think you’ll be coming back to Canberra to sit again, or when you wind up this week, will that be it? And there’ll be an election called in the new year?
PETER DUTTON:
Oh mate, look it’s a good question. Nobody knows. I don’t think the Prime Minister can keep going for too many more months without the leadership change discussion taking place. I think it’s being discussed within Labor now – well I know it is – and I think over Christmas that could play out, but I would think he’d be reluctant to come back to Parliament because Parliament’s where leadership changes take place – and I’ve got no hair as a result of some of these matters over the years…
RAY HADLEY:
You’ve been in the thick of it!
PETER DUTTON:
We’ve discussed these matters before.
RAY HADLEY:
How is Malcolm anyway?
PETER DUTTON:
We don’t talk about ghosts. They scare people.
RAY HADLEY:
The Ghostly Grey’s down the outside in the race for the worst Prime Minister. It’s Turnbull to the line! with Rudd, Rudd-Turnbull locked together! What’s this? Down the outside at 100 miles an hour – Anthony Albanese wins!
PETER DUTTON:
Yes, perfectly summed up. You’ve still got it. You should stay on Ray, I don’t know why you’re retiring? We’ve got another week to go, I think. But look, the short answer is, I don’t know. I think there’s every prospect that we get to early March, something like that – get past the WA election. They have a budget scheduled for March, but they’re going to announce four huge deficits in the budget. So, I think they’ll probably go before that, but a bit of anyone’s guess at the moment.
RAY HADLEY:
Alright, we’ll talk next Thursday. Thanks, as always for your time.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks, Ray. See you mate.
[ends]