Subjects: Visit to Western Australia and the Northern Territory; Labor’s abolition of the Cashless Debit Card; Labor’s superannuation shambles; foreign interference.
E&OE
RAY HADLEY:
The Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton joins me. He’s in the Northern Territory, Arnhem Land. He’s travelling around the country. He’s on the line right now, an hour later than normal, but of course he’s been in the air.
Mr Dutton, good morning.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning, Ray.
RAY HADLEY:
You’re in Arnhem Land, you’ve spent most of the week travelling around Australia, meeting with different Indigenous communities. This Cashless card that you and I have spoken about before – the Cashless Debit Card – I saw a report coming out of a small Indigenous community and saw photographs with you, of people in the community and the Indigenous people there are crying out for it to be returned. Tell me more about it.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, that’s certainly the case, Ray. We’re up in Gove, which I’ve got to say is a different story. The level of professionalism and the way in which the job-creating opportunities here are really taken with both hands, the involvement obviously of Rio in the mining, I think distinguishes this community from many others. But you know, we were in Leonora in WA the other day, a really tough situation there, and the communities there that you speak to, the local store owners, they can track when the grog restarted and the kids going to the soup kitchen – the numbers have increased dramatically. It’s really, you know, very sad to see, and the Elders there are quite angry about it, I’ve got to say. In their presentation, they had a situation where food was being bought, meals were being prepared under the Cashless Debit Card and families were able to manage their budget. Once the grog restarted, then money is being spent on that instead of on food and necessities for kids and their families. So, whether it’s the Cashless Debit Card or another form – I know Noel Pearson and others have got different models which obviously work – but in some of those communities that we’ve been to it is just a tragedy to see, and I mean the Prime Minister hasn’t given any reason as to why they abolished the Cashless Debit Card just for ideological reasons. But a lot of the locals – most of the locals that we spoke to – are very much in favour of them returning back to that situation so that they could have law and order and just a peaceful life as anyone would want.
RAY HADLEY:
It’s becoming a pattern with this federal government. They removed programmes that had been working simply because you started them as a government, the former government, and you’ve got these vulnerable communities. They’re telling them, ‘oh, we’re helping you’, they’re not helping them. They’ve got to get out there and talk to these people like you have this week.
PETER DUTTON:
I just don’t think the Prime Minister’s across the detail of what’s going on and I don’t understand why. The people are perfectly reasonable, hospitable, they’re desperate to sit down and be heard, and these are the voices in these local communities, the elders, the ones who are involved in delivering the services, they can’t understand the decisions either. So, I think, you know, frankly, it’d be good – as the Prime Minister eventually did in his visit to Alice Springs – to visit some of the places, particularly in parts of remote WA, where there really is a desperate situation, not unfolding, it’s at play: the squalor, the housing, the lack of attendance rates of kids going to school. Indigenous parents, like any other parents, they want the best for their kids, and we should be creating an environment which helps that, not hinders it.
RAY HADLEY:
Look, back to superannuation, obviously it’s a hot topic at the moment. We had the Treasurer on with my colleague yesterday, Chris O’Keefe on 2GB in Sydney and he insisted the government has no decision, no decision has been taken, but he pushed the conversation in the direction of caps for people with large superannuation balances, which will be a minuscule number of people.
But they keep saying this ‘the average Australian had about $150,000 in their account’. When experts say you need $500,000 to in any way retire and what they’re doing is averaging it from people who are just entering the workforce to those exiting the workforce. Of course, it’s going to skew towards a lower amount because some of the people we’re talking about have got 35 years or 40 years, you know, before they get to the stage where they will retire. So, the $150,000 is a misnomer. They toss it up as if ‘oh, you know, you’re going to retire with $150,000’. Good luck retiring, whether the interest rates go up or come down, you won’t retire on $150,000. You simply can’t do it.
PETER DUTTON:
No, and again, Ray, I just think the government needs to be honest here. I mean, there was no mention of any of this before the last election. People have worked hard, it’s their money. It’s not money that’s owned by the government or the super funds. I notice the Assistant Treasurer out this morning, Stephen Jones, talking about the budgetary pressures that they’ve got. Well, if they’re just treating it as a piggy bank, as a cash cow, then people will rightly get angry because they’ve worked hard for their money and they’ve put money away, they’ve sacrificed, they’ve put it into an account that they were given assurances about the taxation treatment when they made those deposits and made those financial decisions, and now the government’s seeking to change the rules and to tax them more.
Look, I mean, you might start with a modest balance, as you point out, but you might have a good financial adviser, you might have good shares that you’ve invested in, and all of a sudden your balance dramatically increases. It doesn’t mean that that’s an opportunity for the government to tax you, it means that you’re trying to set yourself up for retirement so you don’t have to claim the pension, or maybe you’ll claim a part-pension. It’s an ideological thing that the ALP always seem to have, that the view of the superannuation funds – the money that’s held there, that somehow that’s an opportunity for the government to tax because they want to spend more money in every other area of government. I think Australians, you know, will cotton onto this very quickly, and the Treasurer has tied himself in knots in a couple of radio interviews, as you point out. They do have plans, of course they do, and you’ll see it in the May budget. It’s part of the reason why the Aston by–election date has been brought forward so quickly, because I think they want to get it over and done with before people see the detail in the budget. But if the government had a plan, they should have detailed it before the last election instead of springing it on people now.
If it starts on people with higher balances Ray, they’ll just keep coming back to the well and all of a sudden you’re a couple of rungs down and people who didn’t think they were in line next, they’re having to pay additional tax. The other final point is that there needs to be certainty around superannuation. There’d be kids speaking to their parents and grandparents now who would be saying, ‘well, why would I invest money into super if you’ve done the right thing, you abided by the rules and now the rules have been changed and there’s uncertainty that’s been created about your retirement nest egg’.
RAY HADLEY:
Look, it’s very simple, if you go to an election and you’re wanting to tinker with perhaps one of the most important issues in the country in terms of younger, older, middle Australians, put it to them, but don’t spring it upon them. If you’ve got a mandate to change super by spelling it out and whether they spell it out, you know, correctly and say ‘this is what we’ll do X, Y and Z’, take it to the electorate and then then install it once you’ve got the mandate. But don’t just say, as they’ve said previously in March of 2022, Jim Chalmers ‘we’ve said about superannuation that we would maintain the system. Australians shouldn’t expect major changes if the government changes hand’. The Prime Minister back in May before the election said, ‘we’ve said we have no intention of changing any super. One of the things we’re doing in this campaign is we’re making all our policies clear’. I mean, you cannot go to the electorate, be elected and then change the rules once you’re in power.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, you just, you break faith and people will give the benefit of the doubt to a new government, to the Prime Minister, but if you start telling these sort of fibs, and I mean, the Prime Minister was out there yesterday with a form of words, you know, saying exactly what he said last year, ‘oh, the government’s got no intention of doing this’. Well, that’s just code for, ‘wait for the budget because it’s coming but I just can’t talk about it right now’. Jim Chalmers, as I say, and as you pointed out earlier, has tripped himself up left, right and centre in a couple of radio interviews in the last 24 hours, and Stephen Jones – the gift that keeps on giving – he’s belled the cat that they are thinking about it because they want to spend money in other areas and if you want to take retirees’ funds and spend it in another area, well, I’ll tell you what, you’d better explain it properly because I think people are of the view that if they worked hard for their money, they’re the ones that decide where it’s going to be spent.
RAY HADLEY:
Okay. To another issue. The ASIO boss Mike Burgess says he was pressured by public servants and business leaders, what he calls senior people to ease up on foreign interference and espionage charges. According to the (inaudible) intelligence service that have been more spies in Australia than any time in our history and the boss of ASIO is being pressured to turn a blind eye. Who’s putting pressure on him? Who’s saying ‘don’t tell the public about it, because it might rattle them up’? I mean, that’s not the way to deal with it, surely?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, of course it’s not Ray. I mean, Australia is not going to surrender its sovereignty. I mean, would you expect that any other country would pull punches if you’ve got people trying to interfere in elections and people trying to interfere in decisions and stealing intellectual property and the rest of it. No self-respecting country would tolerate that, and if there are some business people who are putting profits ahead of our national interest, well, they should come out and say publicly instead of trying to whisper it behind closed doors. If there are those on the left and the Greens or the Labor Party who believe that our sovereignty is not sacrosanct and worth fighting for, well again, say it publicly and let us know who they are.
But full credit to Mike Burgess in the comments I read in the paper in the last couple of days. He is a person that won’t compromise or sacrifice our national interest and thank goodness he’s in charge because they do work every day that prevents terrorist attacks taking place and foreign interference from occurring so all the strength to his arm.
RAY HADLEY:
Well, there’s no doubt, that it can only be two areas we’re talking about – it’s either the Russians or the Chinese. And we know that the Labor government and members of the Labor government – senior members, are very sympathetic to the Chinese and want to repair any damage they perceive was done by your government and that’s where it’s come from. Maybe then there are other people who have a vested interest in making sure the trade barriers are open between Australia and China. It has to be someone in government who has a perception that, you know, we’ve given China a rough deal and we need to be nicer to China despite the way they’ve treated us and are treating Taiwan and other places.
PETER DUTTON:
Well Ray, I mean, if there are ministers in the government that have that view, again, they should speak publicly about it because I think the vast majority of Australians have a different view and I think their view aligns with Mike Burgess. I think it’s obviously hard for Mr Burgess to name names or anything like that – you wouldn’t expect him to – but I don’t think you’d have to have a great imagination to decide, or at least to have a fair suspicion as to who the suspects are, as you say.
RAY HADLEY:
Well, as I said, there are members of the Albanese Government very sympathetic of the Chinese and if Mr Burgess and others came out and said, ‘well, these people are spying on us’, and you can imagine one or two of the people right at the very top of the Albanese Government saying, ‘oh, don’t do that, that will ruin the opportunity for a photo opportunity in Beijing where we’re pretending that everything’s hunky dory and wonderful’. I mean, you know, it’s as simple as that. You don’t need to be a Rhodes Scholar to figure out who we’re talking about.
PETER DUTTON:
No, again, I just think we live in a very uncertain time. All of the defence analysts have pointed that out, and we’ve got to take every decision to keep our country safe and secure, and as I say, interference in elections and foreign interference otherwise, I mean the deal that the Coalition did with the United States and the United Kingdom on AUKUS. I mean, there will be spies from all over the world trying to get those secrets and that detail so we need the best agencies and we’ve got them in ASIO and ASIS, and I think we should all be incredibly proud of the work that they do.
RAY HADLEY:
Ok, good luck in Arnhem Land. Thanks for taking time out to talk to me, I know you’re busy.
PETER DUTTON:
Thank you, mate. Bye, bye.
[ends]