Subjects: Visit to Bennelong; Scott Yung – Liberal Party Candidate for Bennelong; Labor’s cost of living crisis; Labor’s energy policy shambles; nuclear energy; visit by the Premier of the People’s Republic of China; John Setka’s extraordinary CFMMEU rant about Stephen McBurney and the AFL – which the Prime Minister has failed to condemn; the Coalition’s plan to get Australia back on track.
E&OE.
SCOTT YUNG:
Thank you so much for being here today. I’m Scott Yung, I’m the federal Liberal Candidate for Bennelong in the upcoming federal election. I’m really grateful to be in this position today.
My parents are from overseas – my mum’s from Shanghai and my dad’s from Hong Kong – and I’m born here in Sydney. My first home was in public housing in Waterloo, and I’m so grateful for what Australia has given me – and I want to give back.
Bennelong is a great electorate where 75 per cent either have one parent or both parents born overseas. I got into politics because I wanted to make a difference through the principles that my parents instilled in me. I’m so grateful for Australia because in Australia we have – and we should continue to have – the equal opportunity to get ahead. I’m thankful growing up in my childhood, to be able to go to a quality public school, and to work hard, and I’ve seen my parents work hard to build their small businesses right across their years in business.
I’m also grateful for the fact that it’s important to have compassion, but compassion always needs to be combined with wisdom, and I think that’s what our leader, Peter Dutton is doing.
So, I’m very grateful to welcome our leader, Peter Dutton, today to Bennelong. Peter, thank you so much for being here.
PETER DUTTON:
Pleasure, Scott. Thank you very much. Thank you all for being here today.
I firstly want to say thank you to Scott for taking us around to a number of small businesses. We’ve been talking to people on the streets here of Bennelong, we’ve been talking to families, and there’s a lot of pain in the community at the moment – not just here in Bennelong, but around the country.
The Government’s had three budgets where they’ve had the opportunity to make it easier for Australians, except the outcome is that they made it harder for Australians. There are people who are working more hours and they’ve ever worked before. Their interest rates have gone up on 12 occasions under this Government. They’re paying more for their groceries. They’re paying more for their insurance premiums, and they’re paying more for every item in their family budgets – and it’s not just families, it’s small businesses as well.
Some of the small business owners we’ve spoken to today here in Eastwood, they’re talking about people spending less when they’re coming into restaurants. Their customer count is down, and this is what happens when Labor starts to wreck an economy. The Prime Minister has a ‘renewables only’ policy, and they’ve had other economic decisions that they’ve taken, which has had a very negative impact on the businesses that we’ve spoken to today.
The Labor Party is slowly wrecking the Australian economy. Their ‘renewables only’ policy is a wrecking ball through the Australian economy and Australian families know it because it’s harder in their own budgets, it’s harder for manufacturing in our country because we know that the energy regulator says that we’re going to have blackouts and brownouts. People know that there are double digit increases in their electricity and gas bills, and what we now know from the Prime Minister is that in another train wreck interview this morning with the Premier, we saw the Prime Minister at his very angry state that he was in, telling people that he couldn’t really explain what a 65 to 75 per cent target looks like.
In February of next year, the Government’s going to have to sign up to a new target by 2035. Now, what does it mean for families who are struggling at the moment? Where Anthony Albanese promised at the last election that there would be $275 decrease in your power bill, instead, there’s been a $1,000 increase in your power bill. But how much higher will your electricity prices go under this Prime Minister? We know that they’re going to explode, we know that they’re going to grow exponentially, that people will pay more and more for their electricity bills under this Government – that’s just the reality. But what we don’t know is how much higher they will go.
We have had a sensible approach, a measured approach. We want to get our country back on track. We want to make sure that we’ve got an energy policy that’s working for Australians, not against them. I’m not going to sign up to an arrangement that destroys our economy and sends families and small businesses into bankruptcy. I’m just not going to do that.
I lived through the 1991 period, this recession that Paul Keating delivered for us, and that period of economic ineptitude that we saw from Labor last time. Australian families are struggling under this Government at the moment, and I think we have a better way forward, and we’re laying that plan out to the public.
The next issue, obviously, I very much welcome the visit of the Chinese Premier to Australia. I’ll be attending the lunch with the Premier. I have a bilateral meeting with the Premier. It comes off the back of my meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi. I look forward very much to that discussion, because we want to build the relationship, and we want to make sure that we have a stronger trading relationship with China. That’s a very important part of the manifesto that we’ll take to the next election.
Finally, it’s very disturbing in our country when you see the bullying of anyone, but what we’re seeing at the moment is unprecedented, where you’ve got a union in the CFMEU and John Setka, who’s very well known to the courts, very well known in the building industry as a thug, and frankly, we’ve now got him standing over the AFL. Has the Prime Minister condemned this conduct? It’s completely and utterly unacceptable.
When you’re paying through the roof for anybody who comes out to your house at the moment to renovate or to price to build a new home for you, you know that, in part, the high wages are because of the work of the CFMEU, which is crushing our building sector, and the CFMEU is out of control here in New South Wales, in Victoria, in Queensland. It’s driving up the prices of housing, it’s making it more difficult to meet the demands that we need in the housing market, and we’ve got a Prime Minister so weak that he can’t stand up to a union bully boy. I think the Prime Minister should condemn the actions of the CFMEU here.
Intimidation has no place in the workplace, and yet you’ve got a union leader who gives $4.5 million a year to the Labor Party through the CFMEU, and the Prime Minister, of course, has nothing to say about it. Well, I think all it demonstrates is how weak and inept the Prime Minister is, and I think most Australians are starting to see that now, as well.
I’m very happy to take any questions.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, Hollie Hughes has described your Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor, as incompetent and accused him of undermining your leadership. Do you think she has a point?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, Angus is not incompetent, he’s a very capable Shadow Minister and obviously a very significant contributor to our team.
Hollie has lost a preselection, which is unfortunate because she is a great member of our team and she’s a very close friend of mine. So, I’m sorry that she’s gone through a preselection loss. These internal matters are always difficult, and I understand the emotion attached to that, but that matter has been commented on, the preselection has been resolved, and I hope that we can find a pathway back into the party somewhere else for Hollie Hughes, because she’s been a great contributor. But ultimately, we’re a democratic process where the preselection body has its say, they’ve determined the outcome of the preselection, and I’ll leave it at that.
QUESTION:
But in backing another candidate, has Angus Taylor undermined your leadership?
PETER DUTTON:
I’ll leave it at that.
QUESTION:
On 2030 targets, do you think that not having a target going into the next election will help you win voters in seats like Bennelong?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, again, there are two very different approaches here. The Prime Minister has a ‘renewables only’ energy policy, which is a wrecking ball going through the economy. When people go home and look at their electricity bills and see 20, 30 per cent increases in their electricity bills, they know it’s not just their family: it’s the local butcher, it’s the local IGA, it’s the local farmer. That’s why the prices of fruit and veggies have gone up, and that’s why the price of everything has gone up under this Government when you go to the supermarket. It’s because of their energy policy. It’s adding to inflation, because the farmer now has a much bigger bill when they’re turning their cold room on to keep their fruit and veggies stored until they can go to market. We know that the IGA, or even in your own situation at home, you’ve got freezers that run 24/7, or a fridge that runs 24/7. That is costing more and more for those businesses, and all of that cost is being passed on.
The great restaurant we’re here at today will have extra costs in keeping the lights on, keeping their cold rooms running, keeping their kitchen operating, and all of that expense gets passed on in higher prices to the consumers. That’s what Anthony Albanese is promising people.
Now, the Prime Minister needs to sign up to the 2035 target in February of next year. It’s between 65 and 75 per cent – we don’t know what that means yet. So how can the Prime Minister sign up to something where there’s been no economic modelling?
There are many people who are worried about our economy going into recession by the end of this calendar year. There was only 0.1 per cent growth in the economy in the last quarter, we’re up to the fifth consecutive quarter of a per capita recession in our country. Australians are struggling to pay their power bills, and yet the Prime Minister is wanting to sign us up to an arrangement that’s going to massively increase the price of electricity.
I don’t understand how the Prime Minister could be so out of touch with families who are really struggling under this Government. They’re paying more for everything under Labor, and nobody can afford three more years of Anthony Albanese. Nobody in Australia today is better off than they were two years ago when he was elected, because he doesn’t have a clue about economics, he doesn’t have a vision for our country. How can you have a vision for our country when you can’t manage the Government on a day-to-day basis? And that’s where the Prime Minister’s at at the moment, and unfortunately, it’s mums and dads and families and small businesses who are paying the price of Labor’s economic incompetence.
He promised a $275 decrease in your electricity bill, you’ve had $1,000 increase, and that’s just the start of what this Prime Minister is signing up to. So, we’re going to meet our net zero by 2050 target – that’s absolutely essential, and we’re committed to that – but I’m not going to sign up to a Prime Minister’s policy that is really going to further harm Australian families. I’m not going to be a party to that.
QUESTION:
Did you take that decision to Shadow Cabinet?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, as you know, we opposed in the Parliament this measure. So yes, it’s gone through Shadow Cabinet, we had that discussion, and we were very clear about that at the time.
QUESTION:
So, do you have any policies then to reduce emissions before 2035 rather than 2050? And how are you going to sell this message to teal seats, for example, who asked for stronger climate action on emissions at the last election?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, a couple of points. I mean, one is that we’ve signed up to the Paris Agreement. We’re not proposing to exit that. We’re committed to our net zero by 2050 target, but I think if the economy’s going into recession, people are already paying 20, 30 per cent more for their electricity bills under Labor. Will it be another 20 or 30 per cent, or beyond that, if it’s going to 65 to 75 per cent? To achieve their 43 per cent target, the Government is proposing to increase the price of cars by $10,000. I don’t know any family that I’ve met as we’ve gone around the country over the course of the last 12 months who says that they can afford to pay another $10,000 for a Toyota HiLux or a Toyota RAV4 hybrid? I mean, nobody can afford these prices under Labor.
The Prime Minister might want to please his friends on the global stage. He loves a good trip, we know that. But my job and his job should be to provide support to the Australian public, not to make life harder. At the moment, if they’re saying that we should sign up to a policy where we haven’t seen economic modelling, we haven’t had the advice from Treasury or from the central agencies, and we sign up to it sight unseen, not understanding the impact of it, why would we do that? It would be reckless.
I think we’ve got a sensible, measured approach. I want to help families get their power bills down. I want electricity costs to be cheaper in our country. I want businesses, in particular, but families as well, to have consistent or reliable power, and I want greener power. But at the moment, the Government is slowly choking the Australian economy, and Australian families and small businesses are feeling it in their hip pockets, and he’s proposing to jack electricity prices up more and more, and they’re going to be unreliable, as the energy regulator points out. We’re just not going to be a party to that.
QUESTION:
But what are your alternative policies for the short term to reduce emissions and to bring down electricity prices?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, you need more gas in the system because you’ve got 90 per cent of baseload that goes out of the system by 2034. So, if all of that comes out, as we’re seeing in Victoria and New South Wales now, you’ve got Labor Governments who are signing up to extend the life of coal fired power stations.
You’ve got a Government that doesn’t know what they’re doing. I mean, this is the important point: the Prime Minister promised that he had a plan for Australians when he came into government. What is that plan? He’s got a wrecking ball going through the economy, he’s making it harder, not easier, for families and small businesses. I think there is a better way to get our country back on track. The Liberal Party, the Coalition, is always better at economic management than Labor, and unfortunately, after three budgets, Australian families are really hurting under Anthony Albanese.
QUESTION:
By not signing up to the 2030 agreement, wouldn’t you say that’s contrary to the Paris – the 2030 target – isn’t that contrary to the Paris Agreement?
PETER DUTTON:
But look, let’s look at the expert analysis. I mean, the Grattan Institute says that the Government’s got no chance of reaching 43 per cent. They’ve rushed through this legislation, adding $10,000 to the cost of a car to try and meet the 43 per cent reduction – let’s see if they do that. We’ve got a situation where the United States, the United Kingdom, other comparable countries are not meeting their targets, and in many of those countries they’ve got nuclear power already, and that’s helping bring their emissions down. In Ontario, where they’ve got 60 per cent nuclear power, they’re paying 25 per cent the cost of electricity that we are here in our country.
So, let’s be realistic about what it means for Australians. If the Prime Minister is signing up to targets of 65 and 75 per cent, what’s the economic modelling? These figures are plucked out of the air and he says, ‘well, you should support it, because if you don’t, then you don’t believe in climate change action’. It’s a complete nonsense.
I’m not signing up to something that is going to have a negative impact on Australians, that’s going to destroy jobs in our economy, and see power prices go through the roof. I want to understand what it is the Prime Minister is committing Australia to, and we can’t do that from opposition, so we’ve been very clear about it.
QUESTION:
Politically, can you win lean back though, former Liberal seats…
PETER DUTTON:
Yes, of course we can.
QUESTION:
…Without a 2030 target?
PETER DUTTON:
We can win back those seats because in many of the seats – Monique Ryan, for example, in Kooyong. Monique Ryan is a Green. She’s not a disaffected Liberal, she’s a Green. I think she’s completely disconnected with where families are in Kooyong at the moment. People have got big mortgages, they’re paying school fees, they’re paying much more for their groceries and electricity and gas and insurance under a Labor Government. It’s absolutely certain that Monique Ryan would support Anthony Albanese in a minority Government. So, a vote for Monique Ryan is a vote for Anthony Albanese, and similarly in a number of other teal seats as well.
So, I think we can win those seats back. We have to, for the sake of our country, because I don’t believe Australians can afford three more years of the Albanese Government.
QUESTION:
You’ve talked a lot today about multiculturalism and the importance of voters from families that haven’t necessarily been born in Australia. Last election, we saw a significant swing against the Liberal Party in seats like Bennelong and Reid with large Chinese Australian populations. What is your plan for winning back those voters?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’re here today with Scott Yung, who’s an incredible young Australian. He is accomplished, obviously highly-educated, speaks three languages. He has the ability to work hard, to connect with the local community, and when you see the respect for Scott here in Bennelong, you know that that is because of his hard work and because of the opportunity that he represents for this local community.
If we win Bennelong, we win government, and that means an Albanese Government is no longer making it harder for families and small businesses here. When you speak to many people of Chinese heritage that we did this morning, those people are small business people, they’re hard workers. They want more for their kids, they want to exercise that entrepreneurial flair, and they’re wonderful Australians. Scott represents them. They want a strong economy, and they know that only a Liberal Government can deliver that to them.
There are many reasons why the Chinese community and many other multicultural communities across the country will support us by the time of the next election, and we’re working very hard to make sure that people hear the message that we’re the greatest country in the world, and, in good part, that’s because of our multicultural story. We’ve welcomed people from the four corners of the earth, and we are the beneficiary of that migration.
I’m very proud to have Scott as part of our team. He’ll be a great member for Bennelong, and I think it sends a very clear message to lots of young kids out in the community that you can aspire to be Scott Yung in Parliament. You can be, not only a great Member, you can, I think, go on to be a Minister and higher. I think Scott has a wonderful pedigree, and when people look at Scott Yung, they see somebody who is somebody who’s worked hard. He started in public housing, and he sees the Liberal Party as a great vehicle to help all Australians, and I think he should be commended for that.
QUESTION:
David Littleproud says you’re looking at around 12 sites for six power plants, are any of those in Liberal seats?
PETER DUTTON:
I think the point that David made today was that there are about a dozen sites or so that coal fired power stations coming to end of life. We’ve been very clear about the fact that we’re looking at 6 or 7 sites, and that’s what we’re looking at. The reason that we’re doing that is that if you put a zero emissions nuclear technology onto an end of life coal fired power station, you’ve got poles and wires that already exist, so you can distribute the energy that’s created into the network.
What we know is that under Labor’s ‘renewables only’ policy, when you generate wind and solar energy, it can’t be distributed on the existing poles and wires. So, they have to roll out 28,000km of new poles and wires, including through national parks and across pristine farming land. So, we want renewables in the system, we’re going to have to have gas as we transition, but the end of life coal fired power station sites, make a perfect opportunity for us because we have zero emissions, and as we know for the 20 biggest economies in the world, Australia is the only one of that 20 that doesn’t have, or hasn’t signed up, to nuclear power.
We can underpin nuclear energy and security and deliver electricity at a cheaper cost for decades to come. That is part of our vision for our country, and unfortunately, we’ve got a Prime Minister at the moment who is fumbling from day to day and making bad decisions for our country, has no vision for what the future will hold, and at the time of the next election, we will make sure that we can get our country back on track.
We can do that with a wonderful candidate like Scott Yung in Bennelong here today.
I’m very proud to be here with him today.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
[ends]