Subjects: Power prices rising under Labor; Senator Van.
E&OE
RAY HADLEY:
Mr Dutton, good morning to you.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning, Ray.
RAY HADLEY:
Just before we get to what I want to talk to you about – power prices. There’s a double page spread in News Limited newspapers today and I’ve got a stack of emails from listeners who have just been notified by the various power companies that they’ll be flat-strapped paying their bills. I just mentioned the median annual power bill in the ACT is leaping from $2,200 to $2,700 and from $1,500 up until $1,800 and while Rome burns, good old Nero – Bowen – is fiddling.
PETER DUTTON:
Ray, I just don’t understand how families can afford to pay their energy bills at the moment. If you’re a self-funded retiree, or a pensioner, or a part pensioner, you’ve got a fixed income and all of the costs just keep going up.
It’s at the grocery market, at the supermarket when you buy groceries, your insurance bill and the government’s taken a decision to reduce the supply of gas into the market, which is driving the price up.
I was just looking at some figures the other day, they’re talking about putting in something like 58 million solar panels by 2030 and 28,000 kilometres of transmission lines by 2050. All of this is just going to mean higher and higher bills on top of what people are already paying and, as you say, our dear friend Chris Bowen is at it again and people are really struggling.
I mean, businesses, you know, I think if there’s a significant downturn as people are talking about, we’re going to see businesses shutting their doors in this country like we did when Labor was in government in the ’90s and I really, genuinely, worry for people in that environment.
RAY HADLEY:
Is your Shadow Cabinet across this lunacy of these wind farms off the coast of southern central and northern New South Wales that they’re talking about, that Bowen is talking about? These massive structures. I mean, people on the Central Coast where I broadcast to and the mid-north coast and the north coast and the south coast are terrified. I mean, it seems lunacy.
PETER DUTTON:
But I mean, again, the amount of energy that goes into building one of these towers, it’s, you know, it’s deep into the seabed – the environmentalists don’t talk anything about it. It’s not reliable in terms of it being an intermittent energy source, so you’ve still got to firm it up, and when the Prime Minister says, you know, it’s free to have wind and solar, well, you’re getting your power bills now, you realise that, you know, it’s the greatest con going. So, I hope that, you know, we can have a proper debate about nuclear energy because, as we’re seeing in Canada and elsewhere, the latest technology, you turn off the coal-fired generation, you put in the small modular reactor, distribute on the network, no new poles and wires, you have zero emissions, and you can bring down power prices. And why they reject even a discussion on it is beyond me.
RAY HADLEY:
And these things, I was reading about earlier this year and then I got back into it yesterday, they’re bigger and taller than the Harbour Bridge, and then they’re talking about laying cable from offshore, bringing the power back. I mean, we’ll go broke! We’ll all be living in the dark and living…I mean, we can’t afford that.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, and then all this stuff comes to an end of life. So, the 58 million solar panels are going to be dumped into landfill and we’re reliant in a very uncertain world on supply chains, predominantly coming out of China. And where will all these critical minerals come from?
I mean, Robert Gottliebsen and others have spoken about shortages in copper and, honestly, consumers in the end and the ones copping it in the neck. The bills, as you say, are just unacceptable now but they’re going higher and much higher. And it’s by design because some of it, I mean, people want you to believe that when you plug your electric vehicle in to be charged of a night-time, that you’re saving the planet – it’s being powered by gas and coal because the solar panels don’t work at night. You can’t get around the physics and the science. All good to have renewables in the system, everyone agrees with that, but you have to firm it up and that’s where there’s significant and fixed cost that comes with it. But they completely ignore the realities and Chris Bowen’s on this sort of world crusade at the moment that, as you say, it’ll send us broke.
RAY HADLEY:
Okay. Back where we started, we were all blindsided by Lidia Thorpe’s claims in the Senate and it sent shockwaves. People saying, I know Kieran Gilbert said on Sky News, ‘Well, this has never happened before’, the way it happened. But you thought there was enough in it to speak to Lidia Thorpe, am I correct about that?
PETER DUTTON:
No, I haven’t spoken to Lidia Thorpe but our Senate leadership team, obviously, worked with Lidia and the Greens, when she was in the Greens. I didn’t act, Ray, off the back of Lidia Thorpe’s contribution to the Senate. There were further allegations that were brought to my attention and, as you know, Senator Thorpe didn’t detail the names of people. She’s made allegations, she doesn’t want to refer them to the police etcetera so they’re separate issues in the sense. The detail that I received meant that the allegations were serious. I looked into them as best I could. I had a conversation with Senator Van in relation to them, and I made a decision after that that he should not sit in our party room and I think that’s in his best interests and ours, and it sends a very clear message that we just won’t tolerate behaviour that’s unacceptable or of poor character. I don’t tolerate the sexual assault of women. I’ve been very clear about that for many, many years and – it’s not a throwaway line for me – I believe it very strongly and I believe that I had to act and I did that and I don’t have any regrets in doing so.
RAY HADLEY:
But surely then, if you didn’t speak, but the leadership team may have spoken, what she said – as outrageous as it did seem at the time – precipitated, I guess, others coming forward, and…
PETER DUTTON:
That’s right, yes.
RAY HADLEY:
So, Amanda Stoker has put her hand up and said, ‘well, he touched me inappropriately on the backside’, I’m talking from one bloke to another here, I don’t get that. I don’t understand a bloke who thinks he can grab a woman, you know, I mean that is not his partner or his wife in the manner that is documented in this case with Amanda Stoker. I mean, what sort of creep does that?
I’ve got no idea how someone just walks into a room, affected by alcohol or not, and thinks he’s man enough to go up and grab someone on the behind with these unwanted advances. It’s just out of my scope of understanding, if you know what I mean.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I agree. I mean, he denies the allegation, Senator Stoker has been clear in her recollection and made notes of it at the time etcetera, so I don’t get it, Ray. I find it repulsive and I just don’t believe that somebody could behave like that, or accept that it’s conduct that they could get away with. I think it should be a very clear message – Parliament House is just one workplace in the nation, plenty of workplaces where sexual assault takes place and people should be encouraged to report it or deal with as they best are able to, and, you know, for some women that means that they don’t want to come forward, they don’t want their name published, and they don’t want to be dragged through the media etcetera, which is a perfectly understandable decision, and others will, rightly, want to refer it to the police or to an authority. The allegations have been brought to my attention, I referred to the Parliamentary Workplace Authority in the Parliament, which is independent of the parties, and it has the ability to investigate these matters and they’re conducting their investigation now.
RAY HADLEY:
You just said allegations. On the Today Show this morning you raised the spectre of another complaint apart from that made by Amanda Stoker, now that’s obviously, what, a member of your party?
PETER DUTTON:
Ray, I don’t want to go into the detail because it’s a person who I understand doesn’t want to be identified. I’ve given the details to the Workplace Authority, they’ll investigate. But they’re allegations of a similar nature to those related to Senator Stoker and it caused me great concern. I met with Senator Van, as I said, and I wasn’t satisfied with his response or his denial. He’s been very clear about his denial both to me and in public comments that he’s made but I didn’t accept that and that’s why I made a decision to exclude him from the party room.
RAY HADLEY:
So we’ve got a serial groper now on the crossbenches in the Senate, you know, and that’s Lidia Thorpe making one allegation that she’s not prepared to go any further with, Amanda Stoker bravely standing up, and I understand if there’s a third woman involved, that she’s decided she’ll make the complaint to you and she wants to retain her anonymity and I support that view – it’s her decision. But just one thing, he’s on the crossbenches now – I went through that yesterday about getting of people out of parliament and the rules have changed after a bloke went back in, I think, 1920 was dumped from the seat of Kalgoorlie and you can’t do that anymore – but I think if Van’s, given that he won’t admit to what he did and this is a quality woman, Amanda Stoker, he should do the honourable thing and resign from Parliament altogether, in my opinion, and just be sent back to Victoria to put his head between his legs. But you’ve suspended him from the parliamentary party, what’s the Liberal Party in Victoria doing with him? Have you heard from them at all in relation to his status there?
PETER DUTTON:
I’ve spoken to the President of the Victorian Division and I’ve spoken to some of my Victorian colleagues. So, the membership of the party is an issue for the party to resolve. I agree with your statement in relation to Senator Van. I think it’s in everyone’s best interests that he resign from the Parliament and I hope he’s able to do that sooner than later and seek the help that he needs, and I think that would be an appropriate next step. In terms of the decision to expel him from the party, well, that’s a decision for the party in each of the state divisions. We are a separate body in each state and territory, as is the case with the Labor Party.
RAY HADLEY:
When you say the help that he needs, I suggest that when he goes to gatherings now, he be put in a straitjacket so he can’t pinch people on the backside. That probably is the best help he can receive.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, whatever help is going to prevent it happening again. I think they’re very serious issues that people have and, as I say, he denies the allegations, not for me to prove or disprove someone’s guilt or innocence – he has a presumption of innocence, and that’s fine. But there are serious, credible allegations that have been made, and my decision was whether he should stay in the party room or not and I made the decision that he should not.
RAY HADLEY:
Alright, thanks for your time. We’ll talk, as usual, next Thursday. I appreciate that today.
PETER DUTTON:
Thank you very much.
RAY HADLEY:
That’s Peter Dutton, the Federal Opposition Leader.
[ends]