Subjects: Visit to Ryan and the home of the Valleys Cricket Club and GPS Rugby; the Coalition’s positive plan to improve sporting infrastructure and promote female participation in sport; Labor’s cost of living crisis and home-grown inflation; the Prime Minister’s refusal to explain housing tax plans; Labor hides grim reality in jobs data; Labor’s Queensland housing sham; Labor’s Big Australia policy; childcare funding; Bruce Highway funding; UN vote; support for Ukraine; Hezbollah.
E&OE.
MAGGIE FORREST:
Good afternoon. I’m Maggie Forrest, the LNP candidate for Ryan. I’m thrilled to welcome Opposition Leader Peter Dutton back to Ryan today.
We’re down here in Ashgrove at the home of Valleys Cricket and GPS Rugby. It’s great to see so many kids out in the sunshine enjoying the school holidays, honing their cricket and rugby skills. We know that both these clubs are doing great things for our local community, providing opportunities to play cricket and rugby for men and women, adults and children.
I’m working really hard to secure extra support for the clubs. It was great to show Peter around today. He knows all too well the benefit of these sort of local sporting organisations and I’m pleased to throw it to him now.
PETER DUTTON:
Maggie, thank you very much.
Firstly, I want to say thank you very much to all the kids that we spent some time with before who are here as part of the school holiday programme, but they’re here at an amazing club. Valleys and GPS are iconic club names here in Brisbane and they provide an opportunity to literally thousands of young kids, boys and girls who want to play sport. I think sport really transforms a young life and I think the participation in school sport, or in club sport is something that we really should be getting more behind.
We’ve announced already as a Coalition that we want to put money into clubs like this to provide support around change facilities, particularly when you walk into some of the older clubs where young boys are showering alongside where young girls are or there are toilet cubicles with no separating petition wall, etc., completely unfit for purpose given the number of young girls who are playing footy, or playing whatever sport it might be. So look, it’s great to be here and really congratulate the club on the work that they’ve done.
It’s great to be here with Maggie Forrest as well who understands her community. She lives and works in Ryan. She raises her family here in Ryan and she will be a great local member representing the interests of people who come to these clubs and right across the community when she’s elected at the next election.
Today’s not a good day for Australians who have lost their jobs. A number of Australians have lost their jobs because full time employment has dropped as we’ve seen, and the Government now has presided over budgets where they could have made decisions that help people, instead they’re decisions that are hurting people.
When we’ve got an economy, as it’s operating at the moment, it’s hurting families. Inflation is sticky and it’s high. We’ve seen interest rates come down in the US, in the UK, in Canada, in New Zealand, and interest rates should have come down already here. Every month that goes by where interest rates haven’t dropped, people are paying hundreds or thousands of dollars more in their mortgage repayments. For those families, and not just those families, but small businesses as well, they’re paying more in their overdraft and they’re paying more for their loan to build a shop, or to put an extension on – those costs are being passed through, which is why people are paying more when you go to the checkout, it’s why people are paying more when you go to the butchers, or if you go to the fruit and veg market, whatever it might be.
The Government’s really created a mess. We saw another train wreck interview this morning by the Prime Minister where he just couldn’t answer basic questions. It follows on from the Prime Minister’s refusal in Question Time to state whether or not he was going to change housing policy in this country. If the Prime Minister has a proposal to change the way in which the family home is taxed, or change the way in which negative gearing works, or introduce a death tax, he should be up front with the Australian public. He should be up front because at the moment we’ve got a Prime Minister who slips and slides all over the place and Australians need a strong leader, not a weak leader. Unfortunately I just think many families can attest to this at the moment – the Albanese Government’s taking our country in the wrong direction.
I want to work with people like Maggie and others in our team to make sure that we can get our country back on track. If we do that, we can help these sporting programmes, we can help our economy get back on its feet and we can help families through the Labor difficulty that they’re experiencing at the moment.
I’m happy to take any questions.
QUESTION:
The Government has created a million jobs. Isn’t that a sign they’ve managed the economy well?
PETER DUTTON:
I think when you look at the creation of the part time jobs, what it’s an indicator of is that people are going back to get second and third part time jobs. It’s also an indicator that employers are worried about the industrial relations policies. They’re worried about putting full time employees on because it’s so rigid and we’ve gone back to a system that pre-dates even Hawke and Keating.
So, I think the jobs figures today demonstrate; firstly, that full time unemployment has gone back, and secondly, that people are taking up part time jobs because they can’t afford to pay their bills under this Government. If you’re at home with your kids and you have a 20 per cent increase in your insurance premium, you’re paying another thousand dollars a month for your mortgage under this Government. The Prime Minister promised that interest rates would come down – they haven’t gone down, they’ve gone up on 12 occasions. He promised that electricity bills would come down by $275. If you’re at home trying to manage all of that and balance all of that budget, it’s not adding up at the moment.
We’re getting a lot of women who are returning back to work who have young children, who hadn’t planned on going back to work yet and I really feel for those women because they’ve made a decision to stay at home and work part time. They’re now going back for more hours because they just can’t pay the bills under Mr Albanese – and it’s getting harder and harder.
QUESTION:
So how will the Opposition prevent people from getting or having to have two or three jobs? What policies are you proposing?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, if you look at the position that we had when we were in government, it led to an interest rate increase on one occasion. This Government’s increased interest rates on 12 occasions. So the Government can say, ‘well, here’s another $10 in your pocket through some allowance’, but people are taking $100 out of the other pocket to give to the ANZ, or to the Commonwealth Bank because their mortgage rates have gone through the roof under this Government.
The Reserve Bank Governor keeps pleading with the Prime Minister to not spend as much money in the economy because it’s inflationary and inflation drives up interest rates. Interest rates are coming down in comparable economies, but they’re not coming down here yet and they should already be down.
QUESTION:
How did the Government increase interest rates? So you said the Government increased interest rates – how did the Government increase interest rates?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, as the Reserve Bank Governor’s pointed out, you’ve got the Federal Government and you’ve got State Governments pumping money into the economy. People are spending that money, which is inflationary, and that is a very significant contributor to the economic mess that we’ve got at the moment.
You see, the Prime Minister spent the first 16 months being obsessed with the Voice, when he should have been thinking about what economic policies could they put in place to weather this storm. Instead, he came in completely unprepared. What’s happened here is that families are suffering as a result of weak leadership by the Prime Minister. The fact that he can’t even answer basic questions as we saw in the Patricia Karvelas interview this morning demonstrates that the Prime Minister is just not up to it.
QUESTION:
The Prime Minister is in Cairns today with the Queensland Premier announcing the development of what they claim is the largest social housing project in the state, ever. Do you acknowledge that’s progress in addressing the housing crisis?
PETER DUTTON:
Look, I just think when it comes to Anthony Albanese and Steven Miles, I pay on outcome, not on promise, because they continue to promise and promise and promise.
In Queensland, people have had enough of Steven Miles and the Labor Government. They’re wasting money, they are making bad decisions which have impacted negatively on Queenslanders, and if you are a Queenslander and you think that Labor is bad at a state level, then have a look at Anthony Albanese and understand he’s heading down the same track as Steven Miles.
They are a disaster for the economy, they destroy jobs, they are sending businesses to the wall. We’ve had a threefold increase of closures in the manufacturing sector over the last two years under this Government, and I just don’t believe Australia can afford three more years of the Albanese Government.
QUESTION:
Do you agree with the Productivity Commission that families need more help with childcare? What do you make of that proposal?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I just think the Prime Minister, before he commits to spending another $3 or $4 or $5 or $10 billion a year, he needs to explain where that money’s coming from, because the Government has a situation at the moment where they’ve got massive increase in NDIS expenditure, they’ve got a big interest bill, they’re spending a lot of money across government programmes – including aged care, and the Prime Minister is now promising free childcare.
Everyone’s in favour of providing support, but we need to understand where the money’s coming from. What taxes will increase? Is the Prime Minister proposing this tax on the family home? They’re already taxing unrealised capital gains in superannuation. If they’re planning on abolishing negative gearing, be honest with the Australian public. They promise all of these houses being built, none of them ever get built, and we know that in the migration figures the Government’s brought in 924,000 people since they were elected, only 305,000 homes have been built.
So what happens in that scenario? Well, we get people who are living rough at the moment, and we see them as you drive down the streets of every capital city, in increased numbers. We’ve got women and young kids who are sleeping in the back of cars, people can’t afford rent, young homebuyers have given up on buying a home under this Government.
So, I think the Prime Minister can keep promising everything that comes to his mind, but he’s got to explain where the money comes from and if taxes are going to go up, what taxes will people be asked to pay?
QUESTION:
State Labor’s spending almost as much on the Olympics as they are on the Bruce Highway. What are your thoughts on that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I think the Bruce Highway is a disgrace and it’s as a result of Labor having been in power here, effectively, with little disruption, since 1989. When you see where Labor’s spent money, they’ve wasted it. That’s what they do because nobody in Labor has ever run a business, they’ve never employed people, they’ve never been in senior management positions. They come from university like the Prime Minister, they go into a Member of Parliament’s office, then they go into politics, and we wonder why the Prime Minister’s not got a clue when it comes to managing the economy and making tough decisions.
I think the Bruce Highway is a national tragedy because people are dying, literally. There obviously needs to be more investment. I can’t wait for David Crisafulli to be elected as Premier because I think he’s going to get Queensland back on track. He’s an honest and forthright person and he’s somebody who has a great capacity to lead the state and in a few short weeks people will have the opportunity to get rid of a bad Labor Government so that we can get the problems fixed in Queensland.
QUESTION:
On the Bruce sorry, does the Opposition agree to an 80/20 funding split between the Federal Government and the State?
PETER DUTTON:
Well that’s traditionally been the funding split, and if the Government here is proposing a change to that, well again, they need to explain why…
QUESTION:
Sorry your opposition [inaudible]?
PETER DUTTON:
…And if the funding split in other states on national highways is 80/20, then that’s what it should be here in Queensland, and that’s what it was when we were in government and that’s what we believe it should be.
If there are particular projects otherwise that the Government wants to look at, we’re happy to discuss those and what the funding split might be. But the traditional arrangement, as I understand it, has been an 80/20 split, and if Labor’s trying to walk away from that, well, we’ll end up seeing more tragedy on the Bruce Highway and other highways.
QUESTION:
So if you were to form government, you would commit to that?
PETER DUTTON:
Yeah, I’ve been clear.
QUESTION:
There was a story yesterday in the Sydney Morning Herald about an apology you made to Lebanese Australians. When did you make that apology and who did you make it to?
PETER DUTTON:
Well look, there are a couple of left wing journalists who are obsessed on this issue. It’s not something I’m going to further comment on. I had a conversation and I had that discussion. I’m not going to betray that conversation with the senior person, who it was in the community at the time. The Sydney Morning Herald can obsess about that all they like.
QUESTION:
Not just left wing journalists, Mazhar Hadid, who’s a Liberal on the Liverpool Council wants to know when you made it?
PETER DUTTON:
I’ve made comment.
QUESTION:
The Government is all but certain to exceed its cap on migration numbers for the past year. They say it’s heading downwards. Is that a good trajectory?
PETER DUTTON:
It’s just not heading down. Like why does the Government say this? They keep projecting that the numbers will come off, they don’t. They keep increasing every quarter. There are 924,000 people who have come in since this Government was elected. They promised that there would be housing for people who are coming in. You can’t massively increase the migration programme and then not increase housing. This is why Australians can’t afford to buy a home, it’s why the rents have gone through the roof and it’s why we find ourselves in a position that we do today with people living without secure accommodation.
The Government is promising to bring in people that would be the population of Adelaide – 1.6 million people over a five year period – but they’re not putting the infrastructure in place; the roads aren’t being built, the capacity is not being increased in schools. I mean what is going on with the Albanese Government? Every decision they take turns out to be a disaster and they’re putting a lot of pressure on the housing market, they’ve let the CFMEU run riot through the community and that’s jacked up the cost of building a house, of building a road. Every time you’re stuck in roadworks, just ask yourself this question: Why is it that this area, this stretch of road is taking so long to fix, or to widen? It’s because of the CFMEU work practices and that in addition to the migration numbers that the Government’s committed to, have really destroyed the building sector in this country and created a housing crisis which Mr Albanese is responsible for, and he should apologise for.
QUESTION:
You’ve criticised Australia’s decision to abstain from voting on the UN resolution on Israel overnight. Canada and UK also abstained. Did they make the right decision?
PETER DUTTON:
I think when the Government makes decisions that are in their domestic political interest, over our national interest, that’s when a Prime Minister should be condemned, and the Prime Minister should be condemned. He brought in people from Gaza – a territory controlled by a listed terrorist organisation in our country, Hamas. He did it without checks. He bought people in on tourist visas – like they were coming from New Zealand, or the UK. The checks weren’t done. The Prime Minister misled Parliament, he lied about it, and now we find out that the Prime Minister has taken a decision which is not in our country’s best interest.
The Government should have been voting with the US and they should be condemning Hamas. Hamas brutally slaughtered 1,200 people and they still hold people in caves to this day. So should Anthony Albanese be praised for what he did? No. Because he’s taken a decision which is not about our national interest. It’s about winning votes in Western Sydney and trying to secure the position of Tony Burke and of Chris Bowen and others, and for that I think he’s really let our country down.
QUESTION:
Should we be sending 155 millimetre ammunition, which is produced in Queensland, to Ukraine? They’re crying out for more ammo.
PETER DUTTON:
We should be providing more support to Ukraine, there’s no question about that. I was Defence Minister when we took the decision to send the Bushmasters, and I stood with the Ukraine Ambassador at Amberley Air Base, where we loaded the first of those. They have saved Ukrainian lives, and when you’re up against somebody like Vladimir Putin – let’s be very clear about this; he is a brutal, murderous Dictator. He is slaughtering women and children in Ukraine. So, when you ask the question, ‘should we be providing support to Ukraine?’ – of course we should. The fact that this Government has gone soft on providing support, I think is an absolute disgrace. I think it’s the latest disaster in the Defence portfolio under Richard Marles, and I think the Prime Minister needs to pull Mr Marles into line and sort this latest mess out.
QUESTION:
What do you make of the attacks on the Hezbollah pagers?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I just think if you’re going to be part of a terrorist organisation, you can expect retaliation and you can expect there to be a price for your murderous conduct.
Terrorists are involved in the slaughtering of women and children. We know with ISIS, as we do with Hezbollah, they don’t care for human beings. These are people who are involved in suicide bombings and terrorist attacks, and the fact that Israel has struck back against them shouldn’t surprise anyone at all. I think it demonstrates the fact that Israel has every right to strike back against terrorist groups who would seek to destroy Israel. When they talk about the ‘River to the Sea’, they’re actually talking about wiping out every person of Jewish heritage, every Israeli, they literally want to push them into the sea to drown.
So when we see Israel strike back against it, would that come as a surprise? Well, it should come as a surprise to no one at all. I want to see peace prevail in the Middle East, but it won’t prevail when you’ve got an organisations like Hezbollah, and the Houthis, and Hamas and others, who are sponsored by Iran and other groups. I think Israel has every right to protect and to defend herself. I also think Israel has got every right to demand that the prisoners that are still held to this very day are released.
Thank you very much.
[ends]