Subjects: Sorell Community Cultural Precinct funding announcement; Tasmania at the upcoming federal election; the disgraceful and abhorrent Ripponlea synagogue attack in Melbourne; the rise of anti-Semitism in Australia; Albanese Government abandons Israel at the UN; the Macquarie Point Precinct development; nuclear energy; doxing legislation; Spirit of Tasmania.
E&OE.
SUSIE BOWER:
Wow, it’s absolutely fantastic to be here at Sorell this morning to announce a $2.25 million commitment to the Cultural Community Precinct here at Sorell.
I’m also joined obviously by the Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton, Senator Wendy Askew and the Mayor, Janet Gatehouse. This project has been on the books for Sorell since 2018, and it’s a very proud moment for me because I actually have a community development background. So to be able to support and advocate for such a project that will actually activate this community and give it a sense of place as it’s growing as well, because we know Sorell is one of the fastest growing areas. And how do you keep that community placement and sense of community and belongidng when you’ve got a growing population? This project absolutely delivers that.
So I’m extremely proud that a Dutton-led Government will actually deliver this for the council. I think they’ve got this absolutely right with this project and I’m very proud to be here today to announce that.
I’ll hand over to Peter.
PETER DUTTON:
Susie, thank you very much. It’s great to be here today with Wendy and with Jonno. I want to say thank you to the Mayor and all of the Councillors for being here today as well. In particular, can I say thank you to the Lions Club and to Men’s Shed for showing us through their facilities. They do an amazing job in the community, people who work hard and they give back to their local community in a very generous way. They fundraise, they support people and communities in their hour of need, and they need proper facilities from which to do that work.
When we walked through the Lions area before, it’s functional, but it’s pretty crammed, and there’s a lot more work that could be undertaken in those rooms, particularly at a time of need, a natural disaster or when the community really needs the Lions Club and other not for profit organisations to roll their sleeves up. This historic shed has been transformed, and I think it’s indicative of what will take place on this site.
Our announcement today, as Susie Bower pointed out, is a $2.25 million commitment if we’re elected at the next election, to provide support to transform this site. It will allow this to become the hub, the collection point. It will mean that there can be a gathering of local community and for special occasions. This really will become a focal point here in Sorell.
So I want to say thank you very much to the State Government and also to the Council who have committed funds here. It comes on the back of funding that’s already been committed to the local region in previous Coalition Governments as well.
I’m really pleased that Susie Bower really has fought hard for this project and she’s worked very closely with the Council and listened to the local community. I think local communities want a champion, not somebody who turns up, meeting after meeting saying that they’ll do something that never happens, which is what’s happened with the local Labor Member here for a long period of time. But to have somebody as dynamic as Susie, and you’ve seen what she’s done for the irrigators already, and you’ll, I think, see a lot more of Susie Bower as the Member here in Lyons, but also as a great advocate in Canberra fighting hard on behalf of the local residents for these sorts of projects, which will really advance the amenity and the offering in the community here.
I’m happy to take any questions.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, it’s your second visit in four weeks to Lyons. Have you done internal polling that shows how close this seat will be? And are you perhaps a little bit frightened by Rebecca White’s run for the seat?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we do lots of polling — I think Franklin is a prospective seat for us. I think the Labor Party’s taken that for granted for way too long, and ultimately Susie Bower is up against Anthony Albanese. If we win the seat of Lyons, we get rid of Anthony Albanese as the Prime Minister.
I know that there’s always a bit of hype around celebrity candidates, but in the end you want somebody who can deliver, and if you look at the Labor candidate here, yes, there’s a celebrity factor, but never delivered anything for the local community, been involved in closing down industry, is part of a Government, in the Albanese Government, that threatens the salmon industry. We want to grow jobs and we want to grow the economy and community here in Tasmania, we don’t want to shrink it. Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek and Bec White and Chris Bowen, are promising to cut jobs and close down the salmon industry, which would be a disaster.
If you look to what Susie Bower has done already, she has promised and now seen the Government match that promise in relation to the request from the irrigators, which will transform their businesses and add to the agricultural output here in Tasmania.
So I think she’s been incredibly effective and impactful on the ground already, and that will continue after she’s elected after the next election, but I think there are a number of seats that are prospective for us in Tasmania. But in the end this is about the local community and Susie is a fantastic advocate and fighter for the local community.
QUESTION:
You said if you win Lyons you’ll get rid of Anthony Albanese as Prime Minister. You think it will come down to just one seat?
PETER DUTTON:
I think it’s – as any of the political commentariats are judging at the moment — that there’s zero prospect now of a majority Albanese Government after the next election. They can only govern in concert with Adam Bandt and the Greens, and Tasmanians know what a disaster that is for the local economy, the loss of jobs. We were speaking this morning with local workers who don’t have any other alternative industry if Labor closes down the salmon industry, so we have a lot of hard work ahead of us to clean up a Labor mess, but we can only do that if we get a majority in the Lower House and we do that by winning the seat of Lyons.
QUESTION:
Just on the firebombing attack on the synagogue in Melbourne; do you regard that as a terrorist attack?
PETER DUTTON:
I think it’s clear to every Australian that the level of anti-Semitism and hatred that we’re seeing in our community is absolutely unacceptable. A place of worship is sacrosanct and people should go to a church, or go to a synagogue, or a mosque, or a temple – wherever it might be — and they should be able to practice their religious beliefs freely. We’ve now got armed guards at Jewish schools, places of gathering etc. There’s a security presence there, and that just doesn’t have any place in our society.
I think what the Prime Minister did after the October 7 attacks in Israel was to completely abrogate his moral responsibility. He didn’t condemn strongly enough the actions that we saw on the steps of the Opera House on October 9, and the months and months of protest and hatred and vitriol that was expressed on our university campuses, again, gave rise to ugly incidents, and of course, now it’s escalated to a point where we’ve seen this firebombing, which very clearly is a terrorist attack.
If people are attacking a place of worship, a religious gathering point, then we know that that is a terrorist attack, and the Prime Minister hasn’t had the guts to come out and say that, but every Australian knows that’s exactly what’s happened, and I want to make sure that the Jewish community here in Australia hears a very clear message from the Coalition that we will always support them. They have made a significant contribution to our country, we’re a great migrant story as a country and we should celebrate it every day, and it’s unimaginable that we would treat people of Catholic belief, or Protestant belief, or Atheists, or Buddhists or anybody across our society the way that Jewish Australians are being treated at the moment.
QUESTION:
You criticise the PM for not labelling it as a terrorist attack, but what would that actually achieve?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it would provide support from the Commonwealth Government for a start, and it would be adhering to the rule of law. So what’s happened here is that the Prime Minister – for his own political advantage domestically – has taken a decision that he’s chasing Green votes in inner city Sydney and Melbourne, and he believes that by not taking a strong stance in relation to anti-Semitism, that somehow that will deliver him political benefit domestically, and I think it’s a disgrace.
It’s similar to what we’ve seen in relation to the attack here on the salmon industry in Tasmania. That is all about winning Green votes in inner-city Sydney and Melbourne. I think the Prime Minister is demonstrating particularly weak leadership at the moment, at a time when the country needs strong leadership and needs the Prime Minister to be standing up for our interests and not to be dividing Australians in the way that the Prime Minister is at the moment.
QUESTION:
And the Israeli Prime Minister has said that Labor has an ‘extreme anti-Israeli’ view. Do you agree with the Israeli Prime Minister’s view in laying blame for this firebombing attack at the feet of the Government?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I’ve been speaking with a lot of people from the Jewish community since October 7 last year, and it’s clear that they feel abandoned, they feel — particularly given the Government’s stance in the United Nations and the betrayal of the commitment the Prime Minister gave before the last election that there would be a maintaining of the bipartisan position on Israel — people do feel betrayed and they do feel that that has led to the level of anti-Semitism we’ve seen: the graffitiing of cars, the wilful damage, people hiding in synagogues because of rowdy gathering mobs outside. All of that has happened under the Prime Minister’s watch and he’s done nothing about it. He’s given sort of occasional comments, but I think the Jewish community here feels very strongly, as I do and as I think every decent Australian does, that the Prime Minister really has let them down, and in relation to comments by others, well, I’ll leave that to others.
QUESTION:
So, do you think there’s a direct link – as the Israeli Prime Minister has said – between Labor’s policy in the UN and what’s happened with the synagogue?
PETER DUTTON:
There’s no question in my mind that the Government’s actions or inactions since October 7 last year, allowing the protest to take place on the steps of the Sydney Opera House without proper condemnation and action by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister should’ve then stood up, as former leaders have done. It’s unimaginable that Bob Hawke, or Paul Keating, or John Howard wouldn’t have stood up to properly condemn that, to call the Premiers together and to give very specific instruction to the Director-General of ASIO, to the Australian Federal Police Commissioner and the Police Commissioners around the country otherwise, that we have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism. And what happened next? Well, it escalated onto our streets, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne. For months and months we had wild protests at universities where Jewish academics and students were hiding in their offices, or scared to go onto campus. We’ve had attacks now on motor vehicles and now a firebombing. That comes at the same time that the Prime Minister has broken his pledge in relation to the stance that the Government was going to take at the United Nations.
So I think all of that has led to where we are today. I think the correlation is very obvious and I think the Prime Minister needs to apologise to the Jewish community. It has been done for the worst possible motivation. The Prime Minister has left the Jewish community to hang out to dry and he has taken a position on anti-Semitism which has not been strong enough. He’s done it for political purposes and for that I think he should be condemned.
QUESTION:
Do you think Australia was right to vote for Israel to withdraw from Gaza in the West Bank at the UN General Assembly?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, as I said, the Prime Minister said to the Jewish community here in Australia, before the last election, that there would be no change in the position of the Australian Labor Party, and now he’s backflipped on that position. We support peace. We all want peace in the Middle East, but don’t forget that what happened on October 7 is that people, terrorists, from a listed terrorist organisation, they went into Israel, they raped women — they still have 100 people held hostage. If there were 100 Australians still held in a cave network, or in a tunnel network 13 months after they’ve been dragged from their homes kicking and screaming, the Australian public would be rightly outraged. The response from Israel is as you would expect from Australia if people had been slaughtered, if people were still held in a tunnel network.
Now is not the time to be negotiating with a terrorist organisation to provide them with legitimacy around statehood. Now is the time for the Prime Minister to be standing up for our values and what we believe in. We do want peace. I don’t want to see any loss of life in the Middle East, but in the case of Hamas and Hezbollah, they have zero regard for the lives of Israelis and probably one per cent regard to the lives of Palestinians. That’s why they put their weapons and ammunitions stockpiles under schools and under hospitals. That’s the reality — as we knew with ISIL and Al-Qaeda and others. They don’t care for civilisation.
Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and as Immigration Minister and as Home Affairs Minister and as the Minister for Defence, we received intelligence from Israel which provided us the opportunity to stop the loss of life of Australian diggers and to stop the loss of life through terrorist attacks here in Australia. Somehow the Prime Minister, for his own political reasons, is justifying the grotesque stance that he’s taking at the moment.
QUESTION:
If I could just ask a couple of local questions please, Mr Dutton? The Albanese Government has committed $250 million to the Macquarie Point Precinct, which includes an AFL stadium. Would you be prepared to throw in a bit more to help the Rockliff Government which is struggling a bit on the budget at the moment?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’re committed, obviously, to the stadium and there’ll be a debate, I think, around the GST which is ongoing with the Government. We’re at a disadvantage because we don’t have that Treasury advice or the Finance advice, but I think what we’ve demonstrated, particularly with the announcement today by Susie Bower, is that we are committed to Tasmania. We’ll do everything we can to support the people of Tassie and we’re very happy to consider any request from the Rockliff Government around the GST, or other issues.
There’s obviously an underinvestment that’s been made by Labor in Tasmania over a long period of time. We want industry to grow, we want to take care of the environment, we want the social infrastructure and we’re the only Party that can do that and to get Tasmania back on track and our country back on track. If there’s a change of Government at the next election, that’s exactly what we’ll do.
QUESTION:
You haven’t signed up to be a foundation member of the Tasmanian Football Club, have you?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I’m still celebrating the win of the Brisbane Lions, I might say. They thumped Sydney by 60 points. I haven’t had enough opportunities to say that, so thank you! But I’ll be down with bells on at the stadium having a look at those young kids who will be inspired by athletes.
It’s the same story in the run up to the 2032 Olympics as well. You’ll see young kids changing their whole training regimes and chasing the dream of representing their state, or representing their country, and that’s a wonderful thing. I think we should look forward to the day that you’ll be able to call the game ahead 60 points against the Swans or maybe against the Lions. I’m sorry to the Swans supporter here and hold that trophy up high.
QUESTION:
Just on nuclear energy – will your nuclear cost announcement include details about what proportion of our energy mix would be provided by nuclear.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’ll have the costings and the detail released this week. It’s incredibly important to understand that at the moment, with the Government’s 100 per cent renewables only policy, Labor is putting us down a pathway of exponential growth in the cost of electricity and gas. We’re talking about blackouts and brownouts now being a feature of our system. Manufacturing won’t stay in Australia if that’s the case. We can’t de-industrialise.
At the moment, you’re seeing Meta in the United States negotiating for four gigawatt contract for their AI and data facilities. That will create literally thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs in the construction phase. They aren’t having those conversations here in Australia and yet they should. We should have the ability to attract that sort of industry and to grow the existing manufacturing base that we’ve got. Smelters will close in our country, heavy users of electricity will close in our country under Labor’s policy, and when you look at the 19 of the top 20 economies in the world, they all have nuclear, or they’ve signed up to the latest generation nuclear technology. Australia is the only outlier.
So I’m not holding a candle for nuclear, or for hydro, or for gas, or whatever it might be. If the battery lasted four days or 40 days, it might be a different story, but it lasts for four hours. So we need a mix, and we’re strongly supportive of renewable energy, but it needs to be underpinned by a permanent 24/7 power.
The Government was talking about green hydrogen, which is not going to be commercially likely, and therefore, if we want to keep the lights on and we want to keep our economy growing, then that’s why nuclear deserves a mature conversation. I don’t think the Prime Minister is up to it, but I suspect his successor, whether that’s Jim Chalmers in the next couple of months, or Tony Burke, or Tanya Plibersek, I suspect they’ll probably have a different view. Peter Malinauskas and Chris Minns and others, I think are some of the adults in the Labor Party who will probably take control of this debate.
Of course the Labor Party’s signed up to the nuclear submarines, and that legislation is through Parliament already in a bipartisan way, and I think the Government should do the same in relation to the civil nuclear industry as well.
QUESTION:
So what proportion of the energy mix…
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’ll have more to say about our [inaudible]…
QUESTION:
And will your costings include the cost of however much gas and renewables will be required under your plan?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’ll release our costings next week.
QUESTION:
Can I just ask why the Coalition voted against Labor’s doxing legislation?
PETER DUTTON:
Because it was mixed in – and this is quite a deceptive approach here by the Government. We’re strongly supportive of the doxing legislation, but they’ve mixed in with other elements unrelated, that we couldn’t support.
So we’re happy for the bill to be split, but they haven’t done that and this is a Mark Dreyfus special. So there are three elements to the bill and one in particular causes us grief. We’re happy to discuss and negotiate with the Government, but I think – and as we’ve discussed with Jewish leaders here in Australia – it shows how tricky and deceptive the Government is, and frankly, they should have passed this legislation before now, but they haven’t for their own political reasons.
QUESTION:
What was the part you disagreed with?
PETER DUTTON:
We can provide you that detail.
QUESTION:
And one last question, Mr Dutton…
PETER DUTTON:
Yes.
QUESTION:
Is the Spirit of Tasmania fiasco – is that an embarrassment to Australia? It’s made international news.
PETER DUTTON:
Well look, what I know of the Rockliff Government is that they are determined to do their best for Tasmania. I think when you see the debacle of the Green-Labor Government, and the legacy, what that has done, the mess they’ve had to clean up over a long period of time, there’s I think, a desire to see the best possible outcome for Tasmania. I hope that issue can be resolved as quickly as possible.
Thank you very much.
[ends]