Subjects: Liberal Party candidates for Warringah and Mackellar; Labor’s cost of living and energy crisis hurting Australians; the three year anniversary of the Prime Minister’s broken promise to reduce power bills by $275; Albanese Government abandons key allies at UN; GDP figures highlight Labor’s weak economy; gambling advertising; nuclear energy; the green-teals spell disaster for Australia; Australia Day celebrations; Commonwealth Bank withdrawal fees.
E&OE.
JAMES BROWN:
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. My name’s James Brown, I’m the Liberal candidate for Mackellar and delighted to welcome you here to Dee Why.
Well, we have set up our campaign office for the forthcoming federal election for the seat of Mackellar. This is a community where the first thing we do in the morning is check the temperature of the water, check the direction of the wind and check what the tide is doing. But increasingly, the first thing a lot of families in this community are doing in the morning is checking their bank balance, checking for the latest bill and checking whether interest rates have gone down. We’ve just come from a community discussion where we’ve talked about the cost of living, the pressures we’re seeing on every day families, particularly as we’re coming into Christmas.
I’m delighted to have our Leader, Peter Dutton here today. He’s an authentic and respected leader who is mapping out a vision for the country, and that is resonating with voters in Mackellar and elsewhere across the country. They want real leadership, they want a Liberal Government to fix the economy and I’m delighted to have Peter here showing just how important this seat is, not only to the Liberal Party, but to the country as we look to bring a Liberal Government back into power.
Also delighted to be joined by Jamiee Rogers – who you’ll hear from in a second – our recently endorsed candidate in Warringah, who can swim faster and longer than me and is an incredible candidate. I’m really excited to be working closely with her over the next few months as we lead into the federal election.
Jamiee, I’ll let you say a few words and then Peter, over to you.
Thank you for being here.
JAIMEE ROGERS:
Thanks James.
Thanks to everyone that has come out to Dee Why. We’re obviously in the electorate over from us in Warringah, but really happy to be here with Peter and with James. As James was mentioning before, in Warringah, we’re the same with issues of the cost of living crisis, housing in terms of letting the next generation down, if they can’t afford to live within the area they grew up in and move away from their family and their support.
With Warringah, we’re a new electorate. So we actually now take in 70 per cent of North Sydney. So we feature places like Luna Park and North Sydney and Wendy Whiteley’s Secret Garden, the Spit Bridge, Mosman and then head over here to the Northern Beaches, where we take in Manly, Freshwater and Curl Curl. So we’re a big electorate, we’re a beautiful electorate, and I’m really, really honoured and excited to be the Liberal candidate for Warringah because I think right now we need a Liberal Government to be back in place to get this country back on track.
PETER DUTTON:
Well Jaimee, thank you very much. James, great to be here with you as well.
I want to say thank you firstly to the community members that we met this morning. We spoke to a cafe owner who has been in business for 32 years and has never experienced it as tough as it is today. I think that reflects what many small businesses across the country are experiencing. It’s certainly what a lot of households are experiencing.
The cost of electricity is up under this Government. We know that it’s 12 months ago to this day that we had promises and reports of the Labor Government’s commitment – Mr Albanese promised on 97 occasions that there would be a $275 reduction in people’s power prices and now we know that power prices have gone up by about $1,000 – and for some small businesses, it’s up by 2-or-300 per cent. It’s not just power, it’s gas. Electricity is an essential ingredient into manufacturing, into a business like this and if we don’t get the energy mix right, then we end up with businesses closing. Over the course of the last two and a half years, there’s been a 300 per cent increase in the number of manufacturing businesses that have closed in this country. That is quite remarkable.
So we lose the jobs because these businesses are just moving to Malaysia, or to other parts of the world where there’s cheaper energy, we lose the economic multiplier into the economy, and ultimately we miss out because there are more emissions operating in an environment that doesn’t have the level of environmental standards that we do in this country.
I am so pleased to be here with two exceptional candidates who know their local areas, who have worked hard, who I think, will be great Members of Parliament. At the moment, we’ve got two teal candidates in these seats. We know that in the case of the teal candidates, they’re voting between 75 and 80 per cent of the time on legislation with the Greens and Labor.
Every political commentator worth their salt at the moment is saying that the best scenario possible for the Albanese Government is that they can just creep across the line, but in minority government after the next election. Now, if that happens, it means that the green-teals and the Greens are in Coalition government, in a power sharing government as Adam Bandt describes it, with Mr Albanese. It would be a disaster for the economy. If you think power prices have gone up dramatically over the last two and a half years, if you think gas prices have gone up and the rest of the cost of living that you’re really suffering under at the moment, you haven’t seen anything yet because they will destroy the economy.
I think it’s very important to point out that a vote for a teal candidate is a vote for Anthony Albanese because they will not support the Coalition in a minority government after the next election. They will only support the Labor Party and the Greens.
In James and Jamiee we have two exceptional candidates who I think will do a great job for the local community. If we win these seats back, we win government and we can stop the Albanese Government from destroying the livelihoods of many Australians. We can get our country back on track, and that’s exactly what we intend to do.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, regarding the Australia shift in its longstanding position regarding the Israel-Palestinian conflict in two UN votes today, is that shift something that you support?
PETER DUTTON:
It’s not something I support, and we’ve been very critical of the position that the Government’s adopted, which has been at odds to the commitments that they gave to the Jewish community before the election. I think this is a really important point to make: not only did the Prime Minister promise to reduce the cost of living and the cost of mortgages, he looked people of Jewish faith in the eye before the election and gave them a guarantee that there would be no difference between the two Parties, that there would be bipartisan positions in relation to votes at the UN and our position with regard to Israel.
They’ve completely abandoned the Jewish community, the State of Israel. There is a lot of anger, understandably, in the community at the moment with the way in which the Government has sold out the Jewish community.
I think the Prime Minister stands condemned because when you ask yourself, ‘why would the Government, why would the Prime Minister sacrifice his credibility and backflip on the commitment he gave?’. It’s for votes. He sold the Jewish community out in this country for Green votes in Western Sydney and in places like Marrickville. That’s what the Prime Minister’s done and I think we should be standing with allies like the United States. Instead, the Albanese Government is chasing Green votes and they’ve been prepared to sacrifice the wellbeing of the Jewish community here in Australia to do so.
QUESTION:
Just on that, do you think that there should be ramifications in regards to the US Australia Alliance?
PETER DUTTON:
Well look, I think obviously we’ll wait til January 20th to see the new Administration take office and what the relationship is like between our country and the United States. It’s absolutely imperative, more so than ever given the precarious times in which we live, that the relationship with the United States is strengthened, not weakened.
It seems to me that the Prime Minister is at odds with a lot of his contemporaries of like-minded countries, not just the United States. To be out there voting the way that they have in relation to Israel, I think demonstrates that the Prime Minister’s more interested in domestic votes than he is in the well-being of Jewish Australians, our national interests from a security or social cohesion perspective, and it’s obvious that I think the Prime Minister’s sold out millions of Australians on this issue, but on cost of living issues otherwise.
QUESTION:
What is the Liberal Party’s position on a two state solution? Because there’s been a bit of contention over this position now?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, there’s been no contention from us whatsoever – we’ve been very clear. When you see what happened on October 7, we’re not going to provide support to terrorist organisations, or to encouraging terrorist organisations.
Look at what’s happened in Lebanon. Lebanon, I think, now has an opportunity for good people to reassert their position with Hezbollah being degraded. The Hezbollah terrorists aren’t just attacking Israelis, they’re attacking Maronites and others within Lebanon. So, we want to make sure that there’s peace, and peace can operate if terrorist organisations aren’t in control; if they’re given encouragement by believing that they can achieve statehood through terrorist activities, then what encouragement is there for them to lay down their weapons?
So, I think Australia has had a strong bipartisan position recognised in the world, at the UN and with our partners for a long period of time, but that has now changed. It’s changed because the Prime Minister has abandoned Israel and abandoned other like-minded countries with a similar view to Australia because they want to achieve domestic votes here.
QUESTION:
So without Hamas, could Palestine be part of a two state solution for the Liberal Party?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, let’s concentrate on Hamas at the moment. I think our position…
QUESTION:
…but voters in Western Sydney will want to know this too. It’s an issue that’s going to ring true across the whole city of Sydney, right?
PETER DUTTON:
The best that we can do at the moment for peace in the Middle East is to defeat Hamas and Hezbollah and to make sure that their proxy in Iran doesn’t strike with nuclear weapons, or through the Houthis, or others that their funding because innocent women and children are losing their lives.
Let’s not forget this, and I think this is an important point to make; the Hamas leadership, or the Hezbollah leadership have no regard for human life at all. So it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about Israelis, or Palestinians, or people from across the region. They hide their weapons, their stashes of munitions under schools, under hospitals. They don’t have any regard for human life whatsoever, and I don’t think we should be giving them support, or allowing them to use as propaganda the stance that Mr Albanese’s taken for crass political purposes.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, the latest GDP figures are going to be released in the next couple of seconds. The latest indications are that there’s going to be a slight uptick in GDP, but overwhelmingly any economic growth that we’re seeing at the moment is largely due to record government spending. What’s your response to that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it’s clear that because of the Albanese Government policies in three budgets now, families are living in a recession. That’s the reality of the numbers. Now there’s a lot of government spending, which in part is propping up the economy, but it’s not sustainable.
The difficulty for families is that the unsustainable funding that is being splashed into the economy by the Albanese Government is actually what is driving and keeping high the inflation rate at the moment.
If inflation’s high, as the Reserve Bank Governor has pointed out, because of government spending, then interest rates will remain high. Now, interest rates have come back in the United States, in the United Kingdom, in Canada and New Zealand, but they haven’t come back here yet. I desperately want them to come back because families need that support, but we haven’t seen that yet.
QUESTION:
We just had the figures come through, it’s fallen to 0.8 per cent, down from one per cent – lower than market expectations. Do you have any concerns about those figures?
PETER DUTTON:
I think what the figures reflect today is a bad Government getting worse, and a bad Government that is making our economy tougher and harder every day for everyday Australians and small businesses.
The Government has presided now for most of its term over a household recession and people are feeling it. There are families at the moment who will go home tonight sitting around a kitchen table not knowing how they’re going to pay the power bill, not knowing whether they can keep their insurance cover for their car, or for their business, and this is a tough time for Australian families.
The Government can sugarcoat all they want, but the fact is, as the Reserve Bank Governor keeps pointing out, it’s the Government’s reckless spending that drives up inflation and therefore keeps interest rates higher for longer.
QUESTION:
You’re here in the Northern Beaches today – Dee Why, is this for the first time?
PETER DUTTON:
No, I’ve been here many times over the years and I’m very happy to be back, and I’ve got to say, the weather you’ve turned on for me – I think it might be blowing out a bit out there now, but it’s been a beautiful day.
I’ll be back here a lot because when you look at Jaimee and James and what they have to offer the community, they’re genuine, They’re real, and they’re not pretending to be someone they’re not.
The problem with the teals is that they’re really Greens at heart, which is why they vote for the Greens eight out of 10 times. They haven’t delivered anything for their local area, and the reality is that after the election, if Mr Albanese is to form Government – which would be really bad for people on the Northern Beaches because interest rates will stay higher for longer under an Albanese Government – it will be because the teal independents, the so-called independents, but those from the teal party, are supporting Mr Albanese. So a vote for your teal candidate is a vote for Anthony Albanese and a continuation of the devastation that families and small businesses are feeling at the moment.
QUESTION:
The Liberals largely lost because of the local concern over climate change and also gambling and gambling advertising. Are these areas that you’re going to be focusing on in this election?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I think what families are voting on at the next election is cost of living, because as we heard before, a couple of cafe workers here on a good wage, but not a huge wage, are paying now $300 a week for a single room that they’re sharing in somebody’s flat, or apartment, or home. People just can’t afford to pay rent under this Government, people can’t afford to pay their power bills, they can’t afford their electricity bills under this Government, and that’s the difficulty that people are facing. I think they will be the motivating factors.
In relation to gambling advertising, the Prime Minister’s promised for two and a half years to reform this area, he’s done nothing about it. We offered a bipartisan position to the Government to restrict gambling advertising, the Government hasn’t done that because there’s a huge fight going on within the Labor Party at the moment. There’s not just a rift between the Prime Minister and Tanya Plibersek, and obviously they are completely at odds with each other on environmental issues, but the Government can’t decide what it wants to do on gambling advertising restrictions, and we’ve put forward a plan in that regard. It was there on the table for the Government, they didn’t adopt it.
In relation to climate, you’ve got the New South Wales Labor Government and the Victorian Labor Governments now signing an extension of the coal assets in their states. We know that Premier Minns and Premier Allan have done that, and we know that that’s been supported by the Albanese Government.
So I think there’s a lot of hypocrisy from the Greens and from the Labor Party when it comes to all of these issues, but what I do know is that the Coalition can get our country back on track. Interest rates will always be lower under a Coalition Government than a Labor Government and we’ll help families restore their own household budgets as much as we will the country’s budget as well.
QUESTION:
Just on nuclear; the federal inquiry into nuclear energy has heard it would take decades to rehabilitate mine sites in Victoria before any nuclear reactor is built, would your plans seek to bypass state rules to fast track any construction of reactors.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, the Commonwealth powers are very clear under the Constitution in relation to these matters. But the point I’d make is that the Government hasn’t had any safety concerns about nuclear, because they’ve signed up to the nuclear submarines where the sailors will sleep alongside the nuclear reactors. They haven’t had any problems in relation to disposal of waste because the Government – the Labor Government – under AUKUS has signed up to disposing the end of life reactors and that’s a commitment that they’ve made.
We’ve identified the seven sites because you’ve got the existing poles and wires to distribute the electricity to households and businesses and we don’t need to go through prime farming land and national parks – which is Labor’s plan – with 28,000km of new poles and wires.
Importantly, and this is a really important point to note in terms of timing: we’ve already passed the legislation in relation to AUKUS – the nuclear submarines, because there was a bipartisan position. We dealt the Greens out of any negotiation because to Anthony Albanese’s credit, when he was Opposition Leader, he supported the AUKUS deal that we signed with the US and the UK, and that legislation has now passed through the Parliament to provide for the nuclear subs to be in our waters, to be serviced here at Osborne, in Henderson, and to do so safely.
So we can condense the timeline on a civil nuclear industry if there’s a bipartisan position, which I believe in time there will be, because Premier Malinauskas and Premier Minns and others, I think, quietly, strongly, support nuclear because they know it’s zero emissions, and frankly, they know it’s the only way we’re going to shore up renewables and get to net zero by 2050. That’s the best thing that we can do for our environment and for our economy.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, you’re in the Northern Beaches with two local candidates, that would have been, in years gone by, been two local Members. There are no Councillors, there’s only one State Member on the Northern Beaches and there are no Federal Members in the Northern Beaches. What can the Liberal Party do to regain the faith of the public, to vote Liberal?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it’s a good question. I think the first point is that we’ve got to, as a Party, to select the best candidates available. When you look at the two candidates here, their CVs, their commitment to the local area, I think we’ve ticked that first box for locals.
I think people know that it’s tough to get preselected, it’s a tough process to go through, and in James and Jamiee, we’ve got two local champions who will be part of a Government which will fight for the Northern Beaches, get the infrastructure funding that we need, provide support to families and small businesses so that the local economy can thrive. Under Labor, they’ve been left with a failing economy, businesses closing, people losing their jobs, electricity bills you can’t afford, and teals have been completely and utterly hopeless at providing any solution to the local residents.
So I think also people know that three more years of an Albanese Government would be a disaster for not just New South Wales, but for the country. We can get our country back on track and quickly with a Coalition Government, but we can only do that if we support Jamiee and James and other candidates across the country.
We know with the teal candidates, that if there is to be a minority Labor Government after the election, which is a disaster for every Australian, it will only happen because the teals will automatically side with Albanese and the Labor Party. They vote with the Greens eight out of 10 times when legislation is coming before the Parliament, and that will tell you that they’re not interested in supporting the Liberal Party, they’re not disaffected Liberals, they are Greens and they’re Labor supporters and people should know that when you’re voting for a Green-teal candidate, you’re actually voting for Anthony Albanese.
QUESTION:
In terms of nuclear, sorry, can we just go back to that because there’s a question as to whether or not the Coalition’s releasing the costings on nuclear close to Christmas to avoid scrutiny. What would you say to that?
PETER DUTTON:
I just think that this has been the most scrutinised policy in recent history and it’s been the biggest commitment to, and the most tangible, significant commitment to actually having a chance at meeting our net zero by 2050 target. The Labor Party has no chance of doing that. Coal is going to be in the system for longer as Labor has signed up to. We need more gas. We can’t have rationing of power.
The cold rooms here, in this business, can’t be turned on and off because the produce goes off. We can’t have manufacturing where we’re turning the power down in the afternoon to keep the lights on for houses. We need business to be employing people and paying taxes and allowing us to employ nurses and pay for doctors and police officers, etc. We can’t have a stop start economy and that’s what we’re getting under Mr Albanese. That’s why the nuclear debate is important for our country.
I’m not holding a candle for nuclear, or for renewables, or for gas, or whatever it might be. I want the lowest cost energy, I want it to be reliable and I want it to contribute to our decarbonising of our economy – that’s the important part. So we’ll have more to say, there’ll be plenty of time to scrutinise, we’re not releasing it on the day of the election. Part of the reason that there’s been a delay is we’ve gone to announce it a few times, to be honest, and the Government’s latest disaster has happened on that day where we’ve decided that we’ll let people concentrate on how bad the Albanese Government is.
The other point that I’d make is that we’ve got independent costings that have been done, by I think, the most credible company in this space in the country. They did a report a few weeks ago which demonstrated that the cost of Mr Albanese’s renewables only policy wasn’t $122 billion, it was out by about $550 billion. The Government hasn’t disputed those figures. So I think what it shows is the company that we’ve chosen is credible and we will present those figures and all of the assumptions behind it. We’ll have that debate, etc., etc. in due course.
I think what’s being demonstrated at the moment is that Labor doesn’t have a plan for families or for business and the economy is faltering.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, can I ask you about the Australia Day – the decision by the large pub company to not have Australia Day celebrations within its…
PETER DUTTON:
Look, we live in the best country in the world and we should celebrate it and we should celebrate it regularly. I was with some veterans only the other day and as you know, James has served his country in uniform for a decade, and we should be very proud of that. We have a country that’s the envy of the world. We’re not a perfect country, we don’t have a perfect history, but what we should do is gather together on days of national significance, like Australia Day, like Anzac Day, and we should celebrate what we have and we should make sure that we’re united and we stand together and that we can celebrate the wonderful country we live in.
On those pubs, I’d make this point, and I think the reaction that we’ve seen from the public across the board is that they don’t want to be told what they think by pubs. They want to go to the pub, they want to have a beer, they want to have a steak, they want to catch up with their mates and they want to unwind and watch a bit of sport on TV. They don’t want to be told what the company believes and therefore they should believe it, or they should celebrate or shouldn’t celebrate this or that.
I’d say if you’ve got a Christmas booking at a pub, or a Australia Day booking at a pub with your friends or family that’s not celebrating Australia Day, then cancel and go to another pub that celebrating Australia Day. You’ll see the companies change their behaviours pretty quickly. They’re not closing down the pokies on Australia Day, are they? They’re not saying that they’re going to reduce the price of beer on Australia Day because it’s philosophically what they want to do. They’re still happy to make money and I think they should be supporting our national cause and our national cause is best advanced when we celebrate the great country that we are.
QUESTION:
Do you think the Commonwealth Bank should reverse its decision to charge its customers $3 to take cash out at the branch and from post offices?
PETER DUTTON:
I think the CBA should reconsider that decision. I think people should be given choice, and I choose to do most of my banking online because it’s convenient to do so, but for a lot of older Australians or people with disabilities, they want to go into a branch, they want interaction and particularly with the amount of scams that are around at the moment, many of them will want reassurance. It’s not just the transaction of wanting to withdraw or deposit cash, it’s also that they want reassurance about a decision that they need to make in relation to their own finances. I think the banks have a responsibility to older Australians in particular, and I hope that they can reconsider the decision, particularly this close to Christmas.
Thank you very much.
[ends]