Subjects: Indigenous Voice to Parliament; Alice Springs crime crisis; cost of living pressures.
E&OE.
SABRA LANE:
Joining us now in the Parliament House studios is Peter Dutton, the Leader of the Opposition. Good morning and welcome back to AM.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning Sabra. Thank you.
SABRA LANE:
When will the Liberal Party make a decision about whether you will vote yes or no on the Voice?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Sabra, we’ve asked the Prime Minister for more detail and I think it’s reasonable that we do so. This thought that asking for detail is some radical proposition is a nonsense. There’s clearly a lot of thinking still going on within the government. Senator Dodson was out yesterday talking about whether the Voice would have an into the National Cabinet. Now, I don’t know whether that’s part of what would be implemented, but I think if the government can lay it out, then people can be more informed and make their judgement – but I would expect in the not too distant future.
There are a lot of my colleagues, I think like a lot of Australians who – I think 99.9 per cent of Australians frankly – who want to see the situation improve for Indigenous Australians, we want to see reconciliation advanced, but we want to have some assurance that the model they’re talking about at, a very lofty level, is going to have a positive impact for people on the ground, including in places like Alice Springs.
SABRA LANE:
The Morrison Government considered this. It went before Cabinet twice. I’m also told it went before the Expenditure Review Committee to find the money to fund a referendum, but the former Prime Minister subsequently got cold feet. You were part of that razor gang at the time. Why was it okay then, but not now?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I’m not going to go into Cabinet discussions from any time that I’ve been in Cabinet, but I’d make this point; there was increase in spending on Indigenous health, on every aspect of Indigenous policy, education, etc., trying to close or narrow the gap in relation to all of those key indicators – so there was never a reluctance to spend money or to provide support to communities – but as we know and as the Prime Minister’s pointed out, this is not a failing of the Labor Party or the Liberal Party, it’s spanned a long time and it’s why I believe very strongly if we can find a bipartisan position in this area of public policy, then that would be the best approach. But it’s frustrating when circumstances like we’re seeing in Alice Springs are brought to the attention of the government and nothing happens for months and months, and the Indigenous women and elders in Alice Springs have been crying out for a long period of time for assistance and it hasn’t been forthcoming.
SABRA LANE:
If you’re genuine about finding that bipartisan approach and being undecided about the Voice, and there is a chance that you will back it, do you worry that your approach on this might undermine public confidence in it?
PETER DUTTON:
I don’t think so. I mean in the Fairfax poll you saw that 13 per cent of Australians understand the Voice, in the News Limited poll yesterday, you’ve roughly got say a quarter or about 30 per cent of Australians who are strongly in favour and then it’s partly in favour, somewhat against, totally against. I think a lot of that is driven just by the fact that instinctively people, as I said before, want to do the right thing, but don’t understand what it is the government’s proposing.
The Prime Minister makes constant reference to the Langton Calma Report, it’s about 272 pages, but he hasn’t said that if there is a yes vote at the Constitutional Referendum, that that report will be implemented; in actual fact, there are options that are provided to government in that report and day after day we hear these different thought bubbles from the government. I think what would give people more assurance is if there is a bill that can explain how it’s going to work, because there are different models as well Sabra.
SABRA LANE:
Aren’t you putting the cart before the horse. The Referendum is on the Voice itself, and that’s what Indigenous people asked for from the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and it’s up to Parliament then to debate the details of how that will work.
PETER DUTTON:
But it’s more complicated than that, with respect, that’s how the government puts it. The fact is that there are models that people who might be in the sort of undecided column at the moment, that would cross over to support the Voice if they understood it properly. People recognise that changing the Constitution is a very significant decision to make.
If you’re changing the law, as the government can do now, because they’ve got a majority in the Lower House, they can introduce the Voice by way of legislation tomorrow and they could demonstrate how it works. But there are different models which people could support, others which they don’t think would be effective or helpful on the ground. That’s the point that needs to be made, and yes, at the referendum, you’re voting for a higher level model, but if Pat Dodson’s now talking about having a seat at the table for National Cabinet, that is not just an advisory seat there, this is a body that would be enshrined in the Constitution. We need to understand the import of that.
SABRA LANE:
Just getting back to the snippet I talked to you about earlier, that the Expenditure Review Committee under the Morrison Government considered this and had ticked off on it, but the Prime Minister got cold feet. Is it possible that there is a group within the Liberal Party now who will never vote yes, there’s a vote that will never vote no, you can’t reconcile those two groups without splitting the party and bringing your leadership under question?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I don’t think people should speculate about what the Liberal Party might or might not do until we make an announcement and we have the discussion. I spoke with many of my colleagues over Christmas and in relation to this and other issues. I mean, cost of living is a huge issue across the community at the moment, and growing as a particular problem for small businesses and families, including in Indigenous communities, of course. So, there are many issues to grapple with this year, as you pointed out in your intro.
In relation to the Voice, I think people want that detail, they want to have all of the detail before them so that they can make an informed decision. I just don’t think it’s a it’s an outrageous proposition that if you’re being asked to change the Constitution.
SABRA LANE:
Was the previous government prepared to lay out the kind of detail that you’re talking about now?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I’m not going into Expenditure Review Committee discussions. If there was a government Minister sitting here at the moment who was on the ERC, they’re not disclosing those sort of Cabinet in confidence discussions. All I can say is that every discussion I was involved in resulted in more money going into programs to support Indigenous Australians.
SABRA LANE:
Okay. What more now needs to happen in Alice Springs?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, certainly we need to do more about the drugs that are rife in the community. It’s not just alcohol that’s changing the behaviour of young people in particular. We need to do more in relation to the protection of children, probably the first priority by any measure, and there is a lot of thought, I think, in the minds of public servants in Northern Territory of the Stolen Generation, and people don’t want to repeat that mistake, understandably. But we’ve got children who we know are being sexually abused and we’re putting them back into an environment where they’re not safe. I don’t care what the circumstances, what culture we’re talking about, we can’t be putting anything above the interests of the child and the protection of those children. The Prime Minister’s made no comment in relation to what I think is the most important issue.
Alcohol is certainly a very influencing factor – and I applaud the Northern Territory Government for overturning their decision – but the protection of children is still paramount and we don’t want to take people away from their country, we still want them to have a connection to their country, but there are a lot of loving families in Alice Springs and in the community within the Northern Territory that could take care of those children; and it horrifies me to think, and the whistleblowers I’ve spoken to in Alice Springs around on mental health and stress leave at the moment because they’ve got kids grabbing onto their legs as they’re taking them back into that community, or into that household, that is completely unacceptable and it needs to be addressed and there are many more factors. We would be happy to work with the Prime Minister to try and get that better outcome.
SABRA LANE:
Okay, we could have a long discussion about interest rates, but what would you do differently right now to ease pressures knowing that there are going to be billions of dollars this year from federal and state governments for relief?
PETER DUTTON:
I think when you look at the decisions the government’s made so far, it’s not going to relieve the pressure that the Reserve Bank is under, it’s going to increase the pressure and this is why interest rates are always…
SABRA LANE:
…that’s because world events too are affecting what’s happening here.
PETER DUTTON:
World events always influence interest rates, and the RBA takes that into consideration, it always has since they’ve had their targets. The fact is though, that this government has made decisions which has put upward pressure on interest rates, including for example, in relation to industrial relations.
So, the next couple of years when you are going to have probably sticky inflation by most analysis that I can read at the moment, you are going to have a situation where the Albanese Government is feeding into that upward pressure on interest rates and that is going to be passed on to families at a time when they can least afford it.
SABRA LANE:
Peter Dutton, thank you so much for joining the program this morning.
PETER DUTTON:
Pleasure, thanks Sabra.
[ends]