Subjects: Visit to Kalgoorlie and the Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum; National Terrorism Threat Level; the Prime Minister’s Makaratta mess of his own making; the Prime Minister at odds with his Indigenous Affairs Minister on Makaratta; Labor’s cost of living crisis; economic management; nuclear energy; Labor’s Nature Positive bill shambles; Austal.
E&OE.
RICK WILSON:
Thank you everybody and welcome to those of you who have travelled to Kalgoorlie – it’s good to see some local faces.
Great to welcome Peter Dutton here to Kalgoorlie for the Diggers and Dealers. As you would know, there have been some sectors of the industry – the gold sector has never had it better, certainly in pricing perspective – but other sectors of the industry are doing it very tough, particularly nickel and some of the lithium producers. So I’ve invited Peter to come to Kalgoorlie to engage with the industry here today. And of course, he’s accepted that invitation.
Welcome here Peter, and over to you.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks mate. Thank you.
Well Rick, thank you very much. Look, it’s great to be here in Kalgoorlie, we’ll be back in Perth tonight. It’s been an opportunity to speak to some of the industry leaders. Already, we’ve had a number of debates, discussions around ways in which we can all agree, I suppose, that we want to see a huge surge in mining activity in WA. When Western Australia is strong, Australia is strong – and WA is the economic powerhouse of our country. The people employed, the royalties paid, the amount of company tax paid – we are international best in class in terms of what we do in mining, and we should be very proud of it. I think there’s a lot more the East Coast should take notice of in terms of what’s happening here in the West.
So it’s been a good opportunity to speak to some of the players and we’ll have further meetings this afternoon – but we’re spending the day here.
I’m going to speak later today with Mike Burgess, the Director-General of Security, in relation to the Government’s announcement, the Prime Minister’s announcement, on increasing the threat level. So I look forward to that discussion with the Director-General of ASIO.
Obviously, it’s a time for all Australians to pay attention to what’s happening in their local communities, people that they might be concerned about in their place of work, somebody who’s acting differently within in their circle of friends, somebody who might be acting differently within their family group. The ASIO hotline and the ability to provide that information will support the efforts of ASIO to keep us safe.
I think a lot of Australians just don’t obviously see, on a day-to-day basis, the work that ASIO and the Australian Federal Police do to keep us safe. We need to make sure that we support the work that they do, and I just encourage people, please, to heed the advice from Mike Burgess, because we do live in a precarious time – the national security risks that we have because of our values and what we believe in will always be there, and we need to make sure that every support is provided to ASIO and I’ll make sure that we do that.
Just one further issue then I’m very happy to take some questions. There’s obviously a huge division now within the Government in relation to this Makarrata commission. The Prime Minister gave a solemn undertaking to the Indigenous community. He stood up on election night, no less, and in his first speech to the Australian people as Australia’s Prime Minister elect, he gave a commitment in relation to implementing the Uluru Statement in full.
Now, the Prime Minister says one thing when he’s in Garma, he says another thing when he’s in Canberra, and it’s no wonder now that people within the Indigenous community are very concerned about what the Prime Minister says, what he believes in, can we take his word? Is he telling the truth?
The Government has money in the budget for a Makarrata commission. So when we now see a huge split or divide between the newly minted Indigenous Affairs Minister and the Prime Minister, you can understand why she is confused about the Prime Minister’s position as well.
So I think the Prime Minister needs to start being straight with the Australian public, because what we know about a Makarrata commission is that it’s the Voice 2.0. And on the Voice 1.0, the Prime Minister deliberately refused to provide information to the Australian public. And in doing so, he starved people of the ability to make a decision, properly informed, about what it was he was proposing.
So I think the mistake that the Prime Minister made at the time of the Voice in trying to foist that onto the Australian people – I think he’s repeating that mistake. If the Prime Minister didn’t hear the voice of the Australian people at the time of the Referendum, when they voted, then I think the people of Australia are right to send a message to the Prime Minister at this election, that they don’t want a Makarrata commission. They want practical outcomes for Indigenous Australians. That’s what he should be concentrating on.
I’m happy to take any questions.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, Australia’s official terror alert level has been raised to Probable. The Prime Minister says, Australians, including politicians, must resolve their differences peacefully, including around the conflict in Gaza. Do you think more needs to be done to make sure this happens?
PETER DUTTON:
Yes I do. I think what we saw on the steps of the Opera House only a couple of days after October 7, was a disgrace. I think the proper response is required from the Leader of our country to show strength, not weakness. The amount of antisemitism, that is now occurring on a common basis in our country in an unprecedented way.
We’ve got people who survived the Second World War, who are here as Holocaust survivors, have lived in peace in our country and contributed incredibly to our country since 1945. For the first time in 2024, they’re saying that they feel unsafe in our country and they’re talking of going back to Israel.
So, the strong leadership is required – there’s no question about that. There should have been a stronger response to the scenes that we saw on the steps of the Opera House and I think there are a lot of people within the community now who can look back on that, and I think they’re wrong in their judgement.
I think we should be very clear about the fact that in our country, we adhere to a strong set of values, we adhere to the rule of law, we have respectful debate. The scenes that we’ve seen on the university campuses that were allowed to go on for way too long, was essentially a hotbed of hatred toward people of Jewish faith. Whether it’s lunatics who are on the far right as neo-Nazis, or people who are talking about the chants of ‘from the River to the Sea’, of exterminating a race of people – it has no place in our country, no place whatsoever, and it should be condemned. We can do that in a sensible way, as we’ve done. But we support the work, very much, that ASIO’s undertaking to keep every Australian safe.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, with respect to the US economy, are you concerned it’s going to go into a recession and would have impacts on the Australian economy? And are you also concerned that the RBA might be too cautious with their rate approach, putting more pressure on mortgage holders in Australia?
PETER DUTTON:
Look, I think it’s a really good question. Obviously, Australia will always face economic headwinds because we’re a trading nation. We are very exposed to international markets as a result of that. Every Government since federation has had to deal with depression, recession, drought, flood, avion bird flu, Covid, the GFC. Every Government will face that uncertainty and that circumstance.
We know with the Labor Government they always spend too much money. This Government’s spent $315 billion, which is why we’re now facing a huge problem with inflation. Interest rates have gone up on 12 occasions under this Prime Minister’s watch and we’ll see what the Reserve Bank has to say tomorrow. Obviously, they meet today and tomorrow, and they will be looking at what’s happening in the United States, they’ll be looking at what’s happening in Canada, what’s happening in the United Kingdom where interest rates are going down. But there’s not talk, unfortunately, of interest rates coming down in the economy here because as the Reserve Bank Governor has pointed out, inflation is a home-grown problem here.
So the problem we’ve got at the moment is that the Government has had three budgets, the decisions they’ve made have actually made it harder for Australians, not easier. And the decisions that they’ve made haven’t set us up to deal with the reality of a recession, whether it’s in the United Kingdom, or downturn in the Chinese economy – obviously our biggest trading partner. So we’ve got to prepare for bad times. Like any family, you need to prepare for a rainy day and unfortunately, this Government just hasn’t done that.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, [inaudible] in trying to fix the convoluted and confusing mining and uranium policies across the different states and territories?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, if we look at what’s happening across the world in relation to uranium demand, there’s – of the top 20 economies in the world, Australia is the only one that doesn’t have or hasn’t signed up to nuclear power. So all that tells you that there’s going to be an insatiable demand for uranium. We know that the United States, France, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, now Australia, many other countries are using nuclear propulsion systems for their submarines.
So the demand is there – why would we be doing ourselves out of an export opportunity? Why would we be stopping ourselves from earning additional income for our country, creating extra jobs? We can do that through opening up uranium exports. We can help take WA to the next level. We can help in South Australia and in the Northern Territory. I just don’t understand the Government’s reluctance here. It’s ideologically based, and we’re going to do ourselves out of thousands of jobs.
As we know at the moment, with nickel and some of the other commodities, prices will rise and fall, and you need to make sure you’ve got a wide spread, and that your risk is spread – and you do that in part by taking up opportunities with other commodities and uranium is an obvious one where there will be significant demand and Australia has a natural advantage, and we should take advantage of it.
QUESTION:
Do you think that the Federal Government should then be stepping in to prevent states from setting their own policies on which commodities can and can’t be mined?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I think the Federal Government should be working closely with the state and territory authorities and trying to find a synergy wherever they can, because it’s not just in WA’s interest because of the royalties, it’s in the country’s interest because we don’t pay for schools and hospitals and the NDIS and the aged care system, our intelligence agencies without mining royalties and taxes. That’s something we should remind ourselves about.
WA is the economic powerhouse of our country and we should continue to do things that help, not hinder. The nature positive laws that Tanya Plibersek’s trying to impose on WA, would kill mining in this state. It would kill job growth, and it would stop much of the wealth that WA has known for a long period of time. So, I think you’ve got to make sensible decisions.
QUESTION:
Is Kalgoorlie a prospective site for a nuclear power plant?
PETER DUTTON:
We’ve been very clear about the sites that we’re talking about – the seven we’ve identified, none beyond that – so the answer is, no. We’ve looked at Collie obviously, we’ve looked at other locations. We want to have a look at end of use coal fired power station sites – for a couple of reasons. One is, because there’s a high energy IQ within those communities, and those communities know that when the coal fired power stations come to an end of life, that your job is going to go. We know that with the nuclear plant, heavy industry is attracted so the job and economic growth continues.
We also know that we’ve got the 28,000 km of poles and wires proposed by the Prime Minister for his renewables only policy, that aren’t required or necessary under our model because you’ve got an existing distribution network with the poles and wires that are already connected up to those coal fired power station sites.
So that’s the approach that we’ve taken. As I say, it’s the approach of 19 of the 20 biggest economies in the world. I think the Prime Minister needs to show strength not weakness in relation to the energy debate, because the path he’s taking us down at the moment is just going to be massive increases in people’s power prices and an unreliability in the power supply. That’s a disaster for the economy.
QUESTION:
Just on Woodside’s Browse project – so there’s reports today that the EPA is going to recommend a rejection. What are your thoughts on that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I just think the Labor Government at the moment, under Anthony Albanese, is using the environmental laws to throw the sand in the gears of many of the mining projects. Now, why would he do that? Because he wants to stop hemorrhaging votes to the Greens in inner city Sydney and Melbourne. That’s what drives this Prime Minister. When you look at many of his decisions that he’s made, it’s all about his own seat, about Tanya Plibersek’s seat, about other seats that are under threat from the Greens. But when the Prime Minister’s acting in his own political interests, he’s not acting in the best interests of Western Australians.
A Government that I lead will make sure that we have sensible approval processes that don’t go on for years and years. We want to condense the timelines, we want to be responsible environmentally, but we want to create the growth, the jobs, the economic success, and we want to take WA to the next level; but we can only do that if we’re not ideologically opposed to mining. The problem for Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek is that they’re trying to please people in inner city Sydney and Melbourne who are potential Greens voters. And frankly, that’s costing jobs here in WA and that’s not something that we will abide.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, just back to production tax credits. Your meetings with the resources industry here – have you changed your thinking on that…are you still opposed, completely opposed?
PETER DUTTON:
Look, I mean we’ve had a respectful discussion with a number of significant players, and different companies since the budget. There are some who are in favour, some who are against it, some to advocate for a better way for support and assistance to be provided. In the end, we’ve got finite tax dollars. I want to make sure that we can provide support, particularly through approval processes, because the one common denominator in all of the discussions, and one of the huge frustrations from the mining companies, is that they just can’t get approvals, and the deals aren’t stacking up because of the costs around the environmental processes – and not just at a Federal approval, but also at a State Government level. There are tens and tens of billions of dollars worth of projects being held up at the moment because Tanya Plibersek doesn’t like mining in Western Australia.
So, we’ll have all those discussions. We’ll have more to say about ways in which I think we can provide support to some of the sectors. I think there’s a huge difference – let’s be honest, there always has been between federal Labor and federal Liberal in terms of its support for the mining industry – and we will be a Government that strongly supports mining in WA.
QUESTION:
So you’d still vote that down at the moment, even though we’re losing jobs here, now with Albemarle moving to shut down part of its operations?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, they’re two completely separate issues. So, we strongly support projects that are in the pipeline now for expansions on brownfield sites because that creates the jobs now. If you have a disruption, as I pointed out before, because of a crash in a commodity price, or because of an offtake agreement coming to an end, or whatever the disruption might be, you’ve got the ability for those workers to move to other projects, even within their own company, or elsewhere within the sector. But if you don’t have a pipeline of projects coming online, you won’t have those jobs and economic productivity. Our Party is all about driving additional mining opportunities, making sure that we’ve got the jobs and the economic growth because our economy doesn’t function if WA is not doing well.
QUESTION:
Just on the uranium mining issue again – what did you make of the Federal and NT Government’s moves to basically reserve the land at the Jabiluka uranium mining lease, in line with the wishes of the traditional owners?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I was talking to Susie McDonald only last night about this. So, we’re talking to stakeholders in Northern Territory at the moment and we’ll have more to say in relation to that issue in due course.
QUESTION:
Can I just ask with respect to Austal – that’s been in play with a South Korean company wanting to buy it. Do you think Austal should be allowed, from a national security perspective, to be owned by the Koreans?
PETER DUTTON:
Firstly, I think Austal’s a great company, and I worked very closely with them as Home Affairs Minister and Immigration and Border Protection Minister, and as Defence Minister. They’re an integral part of a local economy, and particularly for an island nation like ours. So we want sovereign capability where ever we can achieve it, but there’ll be synergies with other companies.
So it depends on the circumstances – who the shareholders might be, who the proprietors might be, what business that brings to Australia, etc.. So, I think you’d want to have a look at the advice that was available at the time, which clearly we don’t have in Opposition, from the intelligence and security agencies and make an informed judgement at that time.
Thank you very much.
[ends]