Subjects: Visit to Nelson Bay; Labor’s offshore wind proposal in the Hunter that will decimate the local environment and economy; Labor’s cost of living crisis; the barbaric attacks on Israel; China relations; Vegemite returns to Australia; Sir Paul McCartney in Newcastle.
E&OE
RICHARD KING:
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is certainly in my neck of the woods at the moment and he’s on the line.
‘Morning Mr Dutton.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning Richard.
RICHARD KING:
Nice to have you on. Thank you very much for your time.
Look, if you’d just explain the purpose of the visit, I think this is the second time you’ve been here in three weeks, now. Why have you come back again?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it sure is, and good to be on the program, thank you.
Look, I think there’s a really, very significant issue that more and more locals are becoming aware of. We met with tourism operators and fishermen and environmentalists yesterday who are really alarmed by the prospect of three or 400 of these huge wind turbines being set up off the shore: the environmental impacts, the way in which it can adversely affect the tourism sector. There’s a lot of concern out there and there’s very little detail, and the problem is that the consultation was conducted in a pretty secretive way and we’re calling on the Government to reconduct that process, so that they can hear legitimately from locals who have got really big concerns about the environment and the impact it will have.
RICHARD KING:
What are their concerns? I mean, you’ve now spoken to them on a couple of occasions. What are their main concerns?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we know that the tourism industry and the fishing industry is combined about a billion dollar industry and huge numbers of jobs – not just direct jobs, but indirect jobs in cafes and in chemists and supermarkets, etc., onshore – so, the concern is that these wind turbines are 260 metres out of the water, the wingspan is about the size that you would find on an A380 aircraft, they’re anchored into the ocean bed with a huge tonnes and tonnes of concrete slab – essentially the size of a ship – and you’ve got potentially three to 400 of these things in an area the Government’s designating of over 1,800 square kilometres.
The concern is that it will impact on the migration patterns of the whales, the rock lobster fishing industry is very concerned about what impact it will have, particularly with the cables dragging across the sea floor, which will be onshored somewhere, no one knows where yet and those cables will come up the beach, over sand dunes, potentially through wetlands, and the Government’s allowing the proponents to do the environmental impact study. That’s the essence of the argument of the concerns and very legitimate concerns, as I say, of many locals.
RICHARD KING:
Right. Look, I know we discussed this only couple of weeks ago, but at this stage it’s the, you know, expressions of interest from groups who might be prepared to, you know, build these things at a massive cost, I think. I spoke to the managing director of Ocean X – one of the companies that’s interested in going ahead with one of these offshore wind farms, and they’re talking about a $10 billion investment. Again, you know, the lack of detail. But I mean, at this stage, it’s potential – well, it is way off over the horizon, could be years away, it might never happen, and it may be that companies just don’t want to do it.
But as I understand it – and I had an email a moment ago from a listener who said they’ve been travelling in the Northern Hemisphere and they’re everywhere, these offshore wind farms, are those ones the same as the sort we may see off the Australian coastline?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Richard, just back to the first point you make in relation to whether or not it goes ahead. The Government’s got a process, a tender process calling for the expressions of interest, which closes on the 14th of November. So, that date’s almost upon us obviously and they’ll proceed because the Government subsidy here is just phenomenal, and the irony is that it’ll be local residents who are paying for it through increases in their electricity bills at a time when they can’t afford it. Everybody is in favour of renewable energy, but we need to be able to firm it up legitimately and the cost is going to be borne by electricity payers, and that’s just the reality of the government system.
RICHARD KING:
Right. And again, back to a comparison with the Northern Hemisphere. As I understand it, in the Northern Hemisphere, they’re much closer to the shoreline and they are actually sitting on the seabed, whereas ours are going to be, I think, a minimum of ten kilometres offshore. So, they’re hardly likely to be visible, but I think the main concern is the way they are anchored. As I understand it, there are sort of four cables – you said they’re, what, tethered to concrete blocks the size of a football ground?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, that’s the reality just given the climate that they need to operate in. If there are very strong winds or cyclonic conditions, then they need to be able to be secured. So again, the impact on the seabed there, the 40,000 whales that move up and down the coast right through that shipping lane, the view is that the ships are likely to come closer to the coast and it’s obviously a very busy shipping route.
So, I mean these are questions that are reasonably asked.
RICHARD KING:
Yep. Yep.
PETER DUTTON:
And at the moment, there’s just no answers to them. And if it negatively impacts on the tourism industry, which I don’t think there’s any doubt about, then jobs will go and there’s no sense destroying the environment and destroying the jobs to save the environment and to create new jobs.
RICHARD KING:
Right, and that date was in November for the closing of expressions of interest, is what, only a couple of weeks away now?
PETER DUTTON:
That’s exactly right. I think Chris Bowen’s admission that the consultation process was botched, is evidenced by the fact that he’s asked for an independent review. That comes back to him, ironically, in December. So, there needs to be proper consultation, and we need to understand, as I say, where the cables will come onshore because that is a very significant environmental impact itself.
It’s just hard to imagine that any project, any road project, any new housing development would have less of an onerous environmental compliance regime than what we’re talking about with those wind turbines, where they will create a huge disruption to the seabed.
RICHARD KING:
Right. It’s a quarter past seven, daylight saving time. My guest; Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.
You’ve been putting a lot of pressure on the Government, particularly the Prime Minister, to travel to Israel on the way home from the United States, obviously in support of Israel. He said he has no plans to do so and yet he, well and he hasn’t spoken to Benjamin Netanyahu, his Israeli counterpart, despite other Western leaders doing so. Should the responsibility fall on Penny Wong, do you think she should be over there ASAP, Mr Dutton?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, Richard, we made the suggestion to the Prime Minister because we think it’s in our national interest to do so. Nobody wants to see conflict in the Middle East, we want to see peace, but the horrific terrorist attacks are akin to what we saw in 9/11, where people were decapitated, babies are still held captive, and if 290 or 200-odd Australian citizens were being held in captivity, Australians would demand action from their Government.
You’ve seen visits from Germany, from other countries, like minded, including of course the United States, and the United Kingdom, there’s a collaboration between Italy and Canada, the US, the UK, other like minded countries to show a sign of strength because that gives us the best ability to deter.
If people realise that there’s a collaboration, if you like, between Western countries and between countries that respect the rule of law and democracy, then they’re less likely to attack and war is less likely to take place. That’s why I think it’s important for Australia to stand up for our values, to stand up for what we believe in and the horrific scenes that we’ve seen, the attacks on the Israeli people, we don’t want to see that take place on a grander scale.
RICHARD KING:
Your thoughts on the fact that Canterbury-Bankstown Council has become the first council in Australia to unanimously agree to throw their support behind the people of Gaza and fly the Palestinian flag? Do you think that’s a good move?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I hope that they’ve condemned Hamas because Hamas is a listed terrorist group in our country and Hamas, frankly, is no friend of the Palestinian people in any case.
So, I think some of the political posturing, which is frankly targeted at their own ratepayer base or their own constituents – there is a national interest for us to contend with, and there are also a lot of Jewish people living in fear at the moment, so we don’t want to see persecution or discrimination against any Australian of any religious colour or type, and we want to make sure that people are treated equally.
So, I think people need to be very careful with the actions that they take and that they are not encouraging behaviours that aren’t just acceptable – behaviours that we saw for example at the Sydney Opera House. The chanting in support of the kidnapping of young children, the slaughter of 260 young people in the desert out of that music concert, they were deplorable scenes and they shouldn’t be encouraged.
RICHARD KING:
The aftermath of the Voice Referendum and the analysis of that, I think it indicated that for many, many Australians it wasn’t a high priority. I think cost of living is way out in front, given that we now have wars on two fronts happening in the Northern Hemisphere – there’s Russia and Ukraine, and now of course Israel potentially against the whole Arab world. What about the suggestion from French President Emmanuel Macron about an international coalition going in there to destroy Hamas and ISIS? Do you think Australia should get involved if that happens?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, there’d be understandable reluctance, but we should be respectful and listen to the proposal.
Obviously, when our troops went off to Afghanistan, it resulted in no repeat of the attacks that we saw in New York on 9/11, and our country was a safer place because of the actions of our diggers and we should be very grateful for that. So, defeating terrorism wherever it exists is a good thing for Australia and for Australians who travel around the world, but we would want to see any detail before you consider any such request.
At the moment I think the lead of the Americans in trying to calm the tensions, to see the recovery of the hostages and to try and show the strength and therefore encourage deterrence instead of war, is something that we should encourage and lend our support to.
RICHARD KING:
Been a lot of incidents recently in the South China Sea. China obviously – well they’re our major trading partner, way out in front, I think it’s about a third of our total trade is with China – under your government, relations certainly affected the trade with China. They seem to be improving. The Prime Minister will be going to China next week to hopefully further ease those trade tensions. Do you think the present Government can rightly take credit for improving relations with China?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Richard, we want to see a very strong trading relationship and see it improve. It’s good for our economy, both in terms of imports and exports. So, we want a very strong trading relationship with China, but we can’t compromise on our values.
You saw the advice of the Director-General of Security, the head of ASIO, Mike Burgess, the other day talking about the industrial scale espionage that’s taking place where intellectual property is being stolen from Australian companies. Chris Wray, the FBI Director, has spoken about this as well, and that directly impacts companies, it means the loss of Australian jobs and the loss of opportunities to create wealth in our country.
So, we have to be realistic about what’s happening in the South China Sea. We’ve seen the Philippines in contact with a Chinese vessel only in the last 10 days or so. Japan obviously has similar concerns. So again, we want peace in our region, we want to support an increase in the trading relationship, but Australia shouldn’t cower or back down from the values which are important to us. China doesn’t respect weakness, and that’s why we signed the AUKUS deal with the United States and the United Kingdom, because we don’t want to be bullied, we want to be treated well and we respect the relationship with China, but we need to be realistic about the dynamic of what’s a very complex situation.
RICHARD KING:
Speaking of things we’ve lost ownership of: we did for many years lose ownership of Vegemite. It’s now back in Australian hands. It turns 100 officially today, Vegemite. Are you a lifelong Vegemite fan, Mr Dutton?
PETER DUTTON:
I’ve got to say I am, Richard. Even when I travel overseas, I take a bit of Vegemite with me. I saw Ash Barty in Brisbane…
RICHARD KING:
Seriously? You take Vegemite with you when you travel overseas?
PETER DUTTON:
Yes, I do. Yeah. I love a bit of vegemite on toast in the morning and I’ve just been out for a walk along the beach here at Terrigal this morning, which is spectacular – that’s to try and work off that – or if I don’t have Vegemite, I have a bit of peanut butter, which is not good for me obviously.
But I saw Ash Barty in Brisbane just by chance at the airport yesterday, so I think we can thank Ash for Vegemite coming home.
RICHARD KING:
Yeah. Alright then, and what about Beatles fan? I had the pleasure of seeing Paul McCartney last night here at McDonald Jones Stadium in Newcastle, it was a fabulous concert. Are you a Paul McCartney and a Beatles fan?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I saw a clip the other day on TV, I think he was rehearsing in Adelaide before the concert got underway and they said the reports out of there was that he hadn’t lost any of it at all. So, I presume that he was in fine tune last night.
RICHARD KING:
He was! For an 81 year old, he put on about a three hour show. It was fantastic. He’s certainly in very good nick.
Thank you very much for your time this morning, Mr Dutton. Appreciate that.
PETER DUTTON:
My pleasure mate.
RICHARD KING:
You staying long here or are you heading off today?
PETER DUTTON:
I’m here today and then off to Sydney this afternoon.
RICHARD KING:
Alright. Enjoy your time in our neck of the woods and I hope the weather’s good for you.
PETER DUTTON:
Thank you mate. Take care.
RICHARD KING:
Much appreciated. Peter Dutton, Opposition Leader.
[ends]