Subjects: Visit to South West WA; Labor’s cost of living crisis; Labor’s weak record on border security and immigration; Labor’s immigration record: 50,000 illegal arrivals, 800 boats and 1,200 deaths at sea; the Prime Minister’s divisive Voice, Treaty, Truth proposal.
E&OE
NOLA MARINO:
Look, it’s really good to have Peter Dutton here in the South West of WA, right now at Piacentini’s. It’s a great company producing and manufacturing and exporting around the world, employing nearly a thousand of our South West people.
So, I’m really pleased, Peter, that you’re here today, not only to be here at this business, but in a range of other visits that we’re going to be doing today and the meetings that we’ve held. So, welcome to the South West.
PETER DUTTON:
Thank you, Nola, very much.
Look, I’m really excited to be here with Nola today in the South West. We’ve had a number of meetings already with the local councils and just talking about issues: infrastructure pressures, demands, and capital costs, and many other issues that are facing regional areas around the country.
I want to say thank you very much to the team here. They’ve given us a great tour. We’ve met with some of the apprentices. Piacentini’s is an amazing story when you look at the family success that has been 80 years in the making. They employ, as Nola says, almost a thousand people and they contribute very significantly to the WA economy. Their story is the story of many migrant families over the course of our country’s history that have made us into the best nation in the world today. They’ve sacrificed, they’ve worked hard, and now a couple of generations on, there’s a huge opportunity to continue to build the business, the export opportunities, our international reputation is enhanced because of the quality of the product that’s coming out of a facility like this.
Like every business, though, their costs continue to go up. The Government’s now had two budgets where they’ve made decisions that have put upward pressure on interest rates, inflation stays high and everybody knows it’s not just in business, but it’s in your household as well, where expenses are always more expensive under Labor.
Your electricity cost is higher under the Albanese Government. The gas prices are higher under the Albanese Government. We certainly know you’re paying more for your insurance under this Government and people are paying more for their mortgages. That’s why a lot of families and small businesses are struggling at the moment. That’s what happens when you get a Labor Government: they can’t manage money.
I want to say today, obviously, the Government’s released the Nixon Report. Now this has been seven months in the making. Ask yourself: why would it be released this week? The Prime Minister has a proposal before him to the Australian people to make the biggest change to our Constitution since Federation. He’s got a task to convince the Australian people to vote for a Voice that they don’t understand, that he refuses to explain, and he decides – having sat on this report for seven months – that he would release it ten days before people vote and people are already voting at pre-poll stations around the country. So, it’s a massive distraction.
I’ll say about Clare O’Neil – I mean, she’s a very angry person, always very angry and very aggressive – and the negativity coming out of Clare O’Neil today and the overstated position that she’s taken, frankly, is all about trying to provide cover for a bad Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister should be concentrating on selling his plan and explaining it to the Australian public. He’s got less than two weeks to explain to the Australian people what the Voice is, because remember the Voice design doesn’t start until the Monday after the vote takes place. So, there are people across the country who want the information that the Prime Minister promised when he was elected in May of last year – it’s still not available to Australians.
So, the release of the Report is nothing more than a cheap distraction by a bad government looking to hide for the next ten days because they know that they have presided over an enormous mess. They’re dividing our country and they can’t give a proper explanation as to how the Voice will work, and another layer of bureaucracy with the Albanese Voice is just a disaster for our country.
Happy to take questions.
QUESTION:
The Nixon review found abuse and misuse of the visa system over a long period of time. Do you take any responsibility for that issue given you were Immigration Minister?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I’ll tell you what I did as Immigration Minister: cancelled over 6,000 visas of bikies, of criminals, of drug dealers, of rapists, of child sex offenders. This Government hasn’t done anything like that. In fact, there are many more criminals staying in our country today because weak ministers like Clare O’Neil and Mr Giles have no capacity to make the tough decisions to keep our borders safe. At the same time, Labor’s presided over 105,000 asylum seekers over the course of the last 15 months – a record number in our country.
What did I do when I was Immigration Minister? Well, we stopped the boats. Under Labor, they had 50,000 people arrive on 800 boats and 1,200 people drowned at sea. They put children into detention. So, not only did we stop the boats, we kept the boats stopped. We got all of the children out of detention that Labor put into detention and we, on a record basis, cancelled the visas of criminals who had committed sexual offences and other serious offences against Australians. So, if you think I’m going to take a lecture from Clare O’Neil and Anthony Albanese in relation to migration and how to keep our country safe, you’ve got another thing coming.
This Prime Minister is weak. Every day he comes up with a different story about the Voice. He comes up with a different pitch – it doesn’t last from day-time to night-time. He has no consistency. Labor is in the middle of choking our economy in this country. They are driving up prices for families, and you’ve got a Prime Minister who’s looking for a desperate and cheap distraction.
Why has he sat on this Report for seven months? Why does he release it a week or so before people are being asked to vote on the biggest change to our Constitution in our nation’s history? It’s the most consequential change ever proposed by any government. There’s never been a constitutional convention. He’s never answered the basic questions that I wrote to him in January this year to ask on behalf of millions of Australians to please explain what it is you’re asking us to vote for. He’s done none of that. I think, you don’t have to think too much about the silly stunt that they’ve pulled today, and I think most Australians are pretty contemptuous of the Prime Minister at the moment.
QUESTION:
[inaudible] Clare O’Neil has accused you of presiding over migration system that’s facilitated exploitation. What’s your response?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I’ve just dealt with that.
QUESTION:
Do you support the 43 per cent increase in immigration compliance resources?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, again, when we came to government, Labor had reduced the spending in defence to the lowest level since 1939, okay? First point.
Second point is that they’d taken money out of ASIO – our chief intelligence agency. They’d taken money out of the Australian Federal Police. They’d taken money out of Australian Border Force, and the fact is that they’d lost control of our borders. I mean, that’s why you had the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd debacle and Mr Albanese was a senior Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister during the worst period in our country’s history of losing control of our borders.
So, I’m happy to stand up and debate the Prime Minister on migration matters any day of the week because he’s weak as water and the people smugglers get that. You’ve got 105,000 asylum seekers that have come in on his watch. In the seven months that they have sat on this report, you’ve had tens of thousands of people who should have been either denied or deported and they’ve done none of it.
This is a weak government and we’re not going to take lectures in relation to migration issues from a Labor Government that presided over the greatest immigration debacle in our country’s history.
QUESTION:
What more can the Opposition do to get Catherine King to front the Qatar Airways Senate Inquiry?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, again, what does she have to hide?
You know, Anthony Albanese loves to spend time with the top end of town. He’s long forgotten about the workers. The Liberal Party is the Party of the Australian worker today. The Labor Party under Anthony Albanese is the Party of the big end of town. He hangs out on the red carpet with Alan Joyce, he’s there with the union bosses, he’s there with the industry super fund bosses, he’s there with all the people who are telling him, you know, ‘that they should go ahead with the Voice’ and ‘we’ll support the Voice’ and well, the fact is that most Australians don’t, and that’s the reality of the divide that the Prime Minister finds himself in the middle of at the moment.
Australians have cost of living at the top of their issue. They can’t afford to pay their bills under this Labor Government, and you’ve got the Prime Minister off on this frolic in relation to the Voice. He’s been obsessed about the Voice for the last couple of years and he’s taken his eye off the ball economically.
Let’s be very clear about this, the changes that they’re proposing in relation to industrial relations at the moment will be another wet blanket over small business and at a time when we can’t afford it. There is an economic downturn taking place across the world at the moment and Australia is not immune from that and the Government should be helping, not hindering small businesses; they should be helping, not hurting families, and at the moment I think the Government’s got all their priorities completely wrong on the policy.
QUESTION:
On the Voice, are you concerned a ‘no’ vote would affect Australia’s international reputation?
PETER DUTTON:
Well again, I mean, the Prime Minister has been warned of this. The Prime Minister predicted months ago that this would set back reconciliation, that it would create an international reputational risk for us, but did he stop? Did he change the wording? Did he tighten the wording? No, he did none of that, because Alan Joyce and others were telling him not to.
So, when you hang out with the top end of town, you forget about what normal people in the suburbs and the cities and the regions are saying, and that’s the problem that the Prime Minister’s got. I think he’s out of touch. I think the Prime Minister is misleading the Australian people at the moment when he says that this is just a ‘mild, modest, respectful change’. This is the biggest change to our Constitution proposed since Federation and nobody understands what it is that he’s talking about, and that’s why Australians in record number will vote ‘no’, and I would encourage them to vote ‘no’ because we live in the best country in the world. We don’t want to disrupt our system of democracy, and we’ve got a Prime Minister who has not listened to the Australian people. I think they’re going to send him a very clear message on the 14th of October.
QUESTION:
Just going back, the Government has put the sole responsibility of all the problems facing immigration at your feet…
PETER DUTTON:
Well, what a surprise! I mean, I’m really shocked by that!
Why have they sat on this report for seven months? Why did they lose control of our borders when they were in government? Why have they allowed 105,000 asylum seekers into our country over the last 15 months? Why did they allow a system where they put children into detention? Why did they preside over a withdrawal of funding from all of our intelligence and security agencies? I mean, that’s Labor’s record.
I cancelled over 6,000 visas of criminals: of people who had committed rape, sexual assault against women and men, paedophiles, I cancelled the visas of drug traffickers and our country is safer today because of that. Labor has not done a fraction of the visa cancellations over the course of the last 15 months compared to what we did when we were in government. So, I’m not taking any lecture from Labor when it comes to the migration program.
But the Prime Minister today deserves to be called out because he’s dropped this report as a distraction from the Voice. How can a Prime Minister proposing the biggest change to our Constitution in our nation’s history have any other priority than getting out there and explaining and answering the questions that millions of Australians want answered? Why would he drop the report a week before the vote’s to take place? Because he wants to distract from his stuff-up. That’s it. And he’s dividing our country at the moment, and I don’t think we’ve had a Prime Minister in our country’s history who has taken such a deliberate path that is going to result in division within families, within communities – in non-Indigenous and Indigenous communities.
He’s been warned about all of this. The country should not be going to this Referendum, as the Prime Minister has proposed it. We were clear about that right through the course of the last 15 months, asking the Prime Minister reasonably for questions. Do we want a better outcome for Indigenous Australians? Of course we do. But this is not going to deliver that. Let’s be very clear about it.
QUESTION:
Just on your comments yesterday about funding for regional and remote communities, when you were in government, 150 remote WA communities lost their funding. How do you reconcile that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, all I can say is that we provided record amounts of funding to communities because we were able to manage the economy well. We were able to deal with Labor’s debacle when they were in government in relation to a number of areas, and we put record amounts of money into regional communities.
I really worry for the Australian economy at the moment because the Labor Party, under Mr Albanese, has made a series of decisions over two budgets which families are feeling the impact of this very day.
There are programs and infrastructure projects that we promised that the Labor Party now has on hold and there are countless projects across the country which should be proceeding, in fact some of them are already contracted, and the Government’s decided to put them into abeyance and communities will be hurting as a result of that.
But Labor is slowly choking the Australian economy through their bad decisions and families are paying for that when they go to the supermarket. They know the pressures that they’re under and yet this Prime Minister continues to hang out with people like Alan Joyce and others from the top end of town, with Woollies and Coles and others who are funding the Voice project, and he’s forgotten about and lost touch with average Australians who are really hurting at the moment under this bad Labor Government.
Alright? Thank you very much.
[ends]