Subjects: Visit to Hughes; the Prime Minister’s cost of living crisis and energy policy shambles; Labor’s visa chaos; China’s tariffs on Australian wine; AUKUS; the Tasmanian state election.
E&OE.
JENNY WARE:
Good morning. It’s an absolute pleasure today to welcome you, Peter, back to the electorate of Hughes. We’re here in Kirrawee today with Shire Steel, which is one of the great small manufacturing businesses that we have within this electorate, within the Sutherland Shire, and in southern Sydney.
We’ve heard today from this business about a number of the cost of living pressures that’s on this business, particularly in relation to the energy costs, fuel. So, this is a big issue that we saw firsthand today.
PETER DUTTON:
Jenny, thank you very much.
Firstly, thank you very much to Russell and the team here for what was a really important discussion. You know, a small business like this employing two apprentices and tradespeople from across Sydney – it’s a really important part of the economy.
I don’t think anybody within Labor understands small business. We know that the Prime Minister has made decisions in two budgets now, which have just made it harder, not just for families, but for small businesses as well.
In a business like this, the electricity cost in April of 2022, was about $2,500 a month. Now, under Labor, it’s about $5,300 a month. So, if you think about that for a moment, that really equates to the ability to put on another apprentice, or to purchase another vehicle, to invest into capital equipment so that their businesses can grow and employ more people. At the moment, inflation is not under control under this Government, and as a result, people are paying more for their overdraft, they’re paying more for their mortgages, people are paying more now for their cars and their utes because of the Albanese Government’s family car and ute tax, and we know that businesses just can’t continue on if the Labor Party continues to apply more and more taxes on those businesses. It just becomes too hard to employ staff.
We were in a cafe this morning, we were talking there with the owner about the additional input costs – not just electricity and gas – but also food. We know that this Prime Minister promised a $275 reduction in electricity costs. He promised it to Australians on 100 occasions, and far from delivering that, the complete opposite has happened.
So, this is a Prime Minister who is weak, who doesn’t have a vision for our country, and has decided that he doesn’t have any solution to the problems that families and small businesses are facing at the moment.
There’s obviously a lot going on around the country at the moment, but I think a lot of Australians are shocked to realise that in the middle of a cost of living crisis, tradies are going pay an extra $14,000 for a HiLux ute, they’re going to pay $16,000 extra for a Ford Ranger, the D-Max is likely to leave the Australian market and there are other brands, significant brands, who will either scale back or leave the Australian market altogether.
So, it’s clear that the Labor Party is split on this issue. Whenever Anthony Albanese talks about these taxes and a tax on the mining industry, etc., what he’s trying to do is to win votes from the Greens in inner city Sydney and Melbourne. He has no regard for people living in the suburbs or in regional towns, and that’s demonstrated on a daily basis by the decisions that they’re making, which are really making it much harder for families and small businesses.
I’m happy to take any questions.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, I want to ask you about visa approvals. The Government says a technical issue which has deemed the visas issued to a cohort released from immigration detention invalid, dates back to the period of the Coalition Government. Was there oversight in the drafting of this visa class that has created this issue?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, the fact is, it doesn’t. This is a red herring. The Government has created an enormous mess here. The first charge of the Prime Minister is to keep the Australian public safe, and yet we know that the High Court ordered one individual to be released, and the Government ended up releasing 149 people in total.
Now, these people were in immigration detention, they weren’t your average run of the mill people who had overstayed having worked in a coffee shop or worked in a business somewhere. These are hardened criminals. These are people who have committed rape and sexual assault against Australians.
The Minister and the Prime Minister have no idea what they’re doing. They’re releasing people into the community who pose a risk, who have already committed further offences, and we know that for at least 10 of these people who have been charged, those charges won’t hold.
So, this is a Government that goes from train wreck to train wreck when it comes to keeping our country safe. You’ve got an Attorney-General who’s talking about changing the age of criminal responsibility, which would be a disaster across the country and would make it harder for the police to enforce the law, and this Government is lurching from disaster to disaster.
You’ve got a Prime Minister now who is more akin to Gough Whitlam. His attacks on businesses through the industrial relations law changes, the new car and ute tax that they’re applying, interest rates have gone up on 12 occasions, their energy policy of the ‘renewables only’ policy, is driving up the prices of electricity and gas, but also making power and gas more unreliable in our economy, which is why businesses are leaving and manufacturing offshore. We lose the jobs, the economic activity, and we end up just importing that product back into Australia because people still need to consume it.
It is a train wreck of a Government, and they’re strangling the economy and families know in their own businesses and their own budgets, that they just can’t afford three more years of the Albanese Government.
QUESTION:
But just to bring you back to the visas. So, you’re obviously uncomfortable with what’s happened. Have you received any briefings at all?
PETER DUTTON:
It didn’t occur under a Coalition Government, this happened under a Labor Government. Let’s be very clear about it. The red herring that they’ve thrown out there is not factually correct. Minister Giles and others shouldn’t be in their jobs. How the Prime Minister can keep Minister Giles in his job when he’s released 149 hardcore criminals into the community on the wrong visas is beyond the average Australians comprehension.
The average Australian expects their Prime Minister to keep them safe, and yet, the Albanese Government has made catastrophic errors here in releasing criminals into the community, as it turns out on the wrong visas, which means that some of the offences they’ve committed now have to be put to one side.
I don’t believe that this Prime Minister has a level of competence. He just doesn’t have the strength to lead our country, he doesn’t have the ability to stand up against the unions or criminal networks, he doesn’t have the ability to say to his Minister, ‘shape up or ship out’, and at the moment this Government has lost control of our borders.
QUESTION:
But these visas were issued during a Coalition Government, so…
PETER DUTTON:
No, it’s again, I’d ask you to check your facts in relation to that. I know what Labor’s peddling about at the moment, but the visas were issued under a Labor Government. That’s the reality. So, let’s be very clear about it.
QUESTION:
I want to move on to wine tariffs. China appears to have set a lift on its crippling tariffs on wine. Does the Government deserve credit here after years without a breakthrough?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’d be very happy to see Australian winemakers able to export their wines again. The tariffs shouldn’t have been there in the first place. I hope that it can happen as soon as possible, but it’s also lobster, and there are other commodities from time-to-time that are impacted.
So, I want to see the tariffs lifted as quickly as possible because it’s unfair on those Australian businesses who have done nothing other than work hard, create a business, employ Australians, pay taxes, and they’re being adversely impacted at the moment. This Government’s now been in office for two years, and the problem should have been sorted out by now.
QUESTION:
Moving on to AUKUS. The US is significantly scaling back its production of Virginia-class submarines. Are you confident the number of subs promised to Australia will be delivered?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, the AUKUS deal is the most significant defence pact that we’ve entered into in modern history. It will provide an underpinning of our military defences for decades to come, it will provide a significant deterrence against adversaries who might see Australia as weak or vulnerable otherwise, and there will be difficulties from time-to-time, either at the US end, or the Australian end, or the UK end, but they will be ironed out because in the end, our three countries coming together make us stronger than if we stand apart.
For a very uncertain period – as the Prime Minister rightly points out, and I agree with him absolutely – we live in the most precarious period since the Second World War. We need this capability and we’ll continue to work with our US partners and our UK partners to make sure that the capability can be delivered as soon as it can. So, we support the Government very strongly in what’s a bipartisan position on the AUKUS deal.
QUESTION:
And just finally, moving on to the Tassie election. Tasmania’s Liberal Premier says you haven’t been able to schedule a visit to Tasmania ahead of the election. Why is that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, first point, I really hope for the sake of Tasmania’s future that Jeremy Rockliff can be re-elected as the Premier there. Labor left Tasmania in a disastrous, precarious position. When you look at the work that the Liberals have done in Tasmania, it’s been quite exceptional, but it has to continue because it’s only partway through cleaning up Labor’s mess. People know that employment’s improved, they know that the economy has improved under the Rockliff Government, and I think Jeremy’s first class.
I was down with the Premier in Tasmania, in Strahan, where we met with the salmon farmers and others who are being adversely affected by the Albanese Government. That was only a few weeks ago. The Tasmanian Liberals asked me to go back only in the last week or two. I was actually up in Darwin, in the Northern Territory. I just wasn’t able logistically to get to Tasmania. So, it’s not a slight against them, it’s nothing more than just a scheduling issue for us. I had commitments in the Northern Territory, and I wanted to honour those, and it physically just wasn’t possible to get there.
So, I’d hope that Tasmanians will continue to keep their faith in the Government, because as we’re seeing with Labor at the federal level; Anthony Albanese is a disaster. A disaster for Tasmania, a disaster for New South Wales, a disaster for our country. I want to get our country back on track.
As a Liberal Party, as a Coalition, we have a strong vision for our country. I want to make sure that we can reduce energy prices, I want to make sure that we can have cleaner energy, but stable energy at the same time, and Anthony Albanese I think is demonstrating to Australians that he can’t be trusted to keep them safe, to keep the lights on and to help families and small businesses manage through what is a very difficult time. Interest rates have gone up 12 times under this Government, and an average family is paying $24,000 after tax more each year to service their mortgage, than they were when we were in Government.
As I point out, in a business like this, just working hard every day to employ Australians, to manufacture to a world standard, to be a part of a building sector that’s under pressure at the moment; their power bill has gone from $2,500 a month under a Coalition Government, to $5,300 a month under the Labor Party.
The frightening thing is that it’s not going to stop there. Under Labor, your power bills are going to continue to go up and up and up, and we’re going to have blackouts and brownouts because of the Government’s 100 per cent renewable policy, which is just not going to work for our economy.
If we see businesses close, go offshore, manufacture offshore, there’s no benefit to the environment, there’s no benefit to the economy, and we will lose Australian jobs as well. That’s what we’re against. But what we’re for is cheaper electricity, making sure that it’s cleaner electricity and making sure that the lights can stay on, which Mr Albanese can’t guarantee.
Alright. Thank you very much. Thank you.
[ends]