Subjects: Visit to Gilmore; Andrew Constance – Liberal Party Candidate for Gilmore; Kiama Surf Club upgrade; the disgraceful and abhorrent Ripponlea synagogue attack overnight in Melbourne; the rise of anti-Semitism in Australia; Albanese Government abandons Israel at the UN; Labor’s energy policy shambles; polling; Labor’s cost of living crisis; the Coalition’s plan to revive the home ownership dream across Australia; regional media.
E&OE.
SENATOR ANDREW BRAGG:
It’s a great pleasure to have Peter Dutton here and Gilmore today, back on the beautiful South Coast. Peter is providing the leadership that Australia needs by fashioning a policy agenda that is going to get the country back on track. So, it’s a really great pleasure to have Peter here in Kiama.
Andrew Constance, as you know, is our candidate in Gilmore. Most people know who he is, which is a great thing, and he’s working incredibly hard and he will be a Member, if elected, that will put Gilmore first.
I’ve been around with Andrew quite a lot in the last few months, and Gilmore is really stagnating here, and so Gilmore will benefit greatly from having someone like Andrew, drawing on his great experience in State Government and as an advocate for the local community. So, it’s a really great pleasure to be here with Peter today, and Andrew will say a few words.
ANDREW CONSTANCE:
Thanks, Senator Bragg.
Well, first of all, it’s great to have the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, in town today. Peter, thank you for coming, and it’s great to bring you straight to a surf club which, of course, is filled with wonderful volunteers. I do want to thank Phil and Tash, the team, Dave, our juniors – thank you guys for being here. To our Mayor, Cam McDonald and Deputy Mayor Mel Matters, thank you also for being here.
The upcoming election is about the community. There is no doubt in a regional area like ours, elections are purely about the community and typically in relation to our community, we are a community based on volunteerism, and that means making sure that our volunteers are supported with the best equipment, the best facilities, to make sure that they can continue their great work keeping us all safe.
In the case of the surf lifesaving movement, we know the work that they do tirelessly to keep our tourists safe, our communities and beaches going, and surf clubs are the heartbeat of the community. So, it’s great to be able to show Peter Dutton what our community is doing, knowing his focus on our community, particularly as we head into the next election.
Pleasingly today we’re able to announce that an elected Dutton Liberal Government will deliver $512,000 to Kiama Surf Club, to provide the facilities that they need to keep people safe, to continue their great volunteerism, in the true tradition of the surf lifesaving movement here on the South Coast.
Can I pay my respects to the club and in particular the volunteers under Phil’s leadership, who have been advocating strongly to improve the facilities here. Phil, well done, and ultimately now we will go out and get elected and get you the money and happy days. But I would say to our community, as we head into summer – stay safe. We know it’s a tough summer because of the cost of living. We know the pressure that people are under up and down the South Coast of New South Wales, and we’re in there fighting for you to make sure that you can continue to live in the best part of the world without the financial pressures which are currently being delivered to you by an Albanese Government that’s lost its way.
I’ll now hand over to Peter Dutton to say a few words, and again, thanks to everyone for coming this morning.
PETER DUTTON:
Andrew, thanks very much. Phil, to you and Dave, and to Tash, to all of the team here at the club, I just want to say, firstly, thank you very much for hosting us this morning. You give an incredible amount back to the local community here. You save lives. You provide an opportunity for people to enjoy a day at the beach, to bring their kids down, to take a bit of pressure off them and just enjoy an Australian way of life, and it’s right that we give back to clubs that provide that support to our community. Australia is the greatest country in the world and a big part of that fabric, that culture, is the surf lifesaving network.
I think for the young nippers that we’ve met this morning – a couple of whom have been involved in rescues – they have saved lives themselves, and they have really changed their lives for the better because of their involvement in the surf lifesaving club movement.
So, our announcement today of $512,000 to help address some of the ailing infrastructure here, the concrete cancer, and just the need to establish a fit for purpose facility for young kids to train in and to spend their social time in, that’s a really important thing.
If we’re elected at the next election, that will be a priority for us, and we’ll work very closely with the club and many others across the country to make sure that we can give that opportunity to more young people to enjoy a surf lifesaving club experience, and for Australians to be able to experience a safe visit to the beach with their kids and grandkids, etc.. I want to say thank you to Cam and to Mel, the local council here obviously is a very important partner and a very respected partner, and I know that Andrew values that relationship very much.
I also want to say thank you to Andrew Bragg for being here. Andrew’s one of our strongest, brightest voices in the Federal Coalition, and is passionate about Gilmore and is working very closely with Andrew.
What we know about Andrew Constance is that he is an incredibly powerful voice for his local community. He has provided leadership in times of adversity. He’s provided the leadership to community to get the infrastructure projects and to get the community moving, and to have that sense of pride in somebody who has in his heart, the local community’s best interests. So, I think he’s going to be supported at the next election in a very significant way, but we’ve got a lot of work to do between now and then.
I wanted to make a very important statement in relation to what we’ve seen in Melbourne overnight.
It’s absolutely abhorrent to see any place of worship attacked. I want to pretend that this wasn’t expected, or that it couldn’t be predicted, but I can’t do that to the Australian people. We have seen the rise of anti-Semitism in our communities since October 7 of last year in an unprecedented way. Everybody knew that anti-Semitism, that hatred and that vilification, that racism was lurking beneath the surface, but what we’ve seen on our university campuses, what we’ve seen online, what we’ve seen against people of Jewish faith in the community, has been completely and utterly unacceptable, and it should be totally condemned in our country.
To see the firebombing of a synagogue – a place of worship – is something that is not welcome and has no place in our country whatsoever. Today we should double down on our support of the Jewish community, who will be feeling this very acutely.
There are armed guards who are protecting kids at Jewish schools this very day, and that is unacceptable in our country. There is a lot of work and a lot of leadership that needs to be provided to make sure that people of Jewish faith and people right across the country can be given assurances around safety, basic safety requirements, when people go to a synagogue or they go to another place of worship, when they go to school, when they go to a supermarket, they should do so safely in our country, and that has been a very, very sad and a shocking turn of events in Melbourne overnight.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, is Australia still a key ally of Israel’s following this week’s vote in the UN?
PETER DUTTON:
We are an essential ally of Israel. As Defence Minister, I was provided intelligence from Israel which saved the lives of Australian Defence Force personnel. We’ve averted terrorist attacks on our own people because of our close partnership with Israel.
Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and they are a key partner to us, and the Jewish migration story to our country has been an incredibly successful one, and one of which we should be incredibly proud.
I will always stand up for people of Jewish faith because they should be treated equally with every other Australian, and the way in which they’ve been ostracised in our country and the way in which that’s been condoned, frankly, by the Prime Minister and others, just has no place in our society.
QUESTION:
Do you believe that Australia’s changing position at the UN will invite more terrorism as suggested by the Israeli Prime Minister’s office?
PETER DUTTON:
I think the Prime Minister, frankly, needs to give a very detailed explanation of the Government’s stances in relation to Israel. It’s a complete departure from the promise that the Prime Minister made to the Australian Jewish community before the last election. He said that he would adopt a bipartisan position, as has been the case for his predecessors. It’s impossible to imagine that Bob Hawke or Paul Keating or even Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard would have taken the path that Prime Minister Albanese has. I think it’s left our country less safe. I think it’s created an air of uncertainty and, frankly, a lot of people in the Jewish community don’t only feel uncertain, they feel unsafe – and that’s something the Prime Minister should explain to the Australian public about why have we allowed since October 7 of last year, months and months of violent protests to take place, the vilification of people of Jewish faith, the defacing of cars, and now the firebombing of the synagogue. It’s unacceptable – totally unacceptable in our country – and the Prime Minister needs to stand up for our values and he needs to do that not just here at home, but also in the United Nations and elsewhere around the world.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, [inaudible] embrace of teen extremism and radicalisation…
PETER DUTTON:
Sorry, just start that question again?
QUESTION:
… the Five Eyes report on the teen extremism and radicalisation. Is it possible social media laws make it harder to track potential threats, as teens will use alternative means to get their message out?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, what we know about social media is that it has the ability to deliver a message of hate, and for young children in particular – young, impressionable minds – we need to make sure that we adopt the same laws in the real world as we do online. We wouldn’t allow our kids to go down and speak to a hate preacher or somebody who’s going to talk to them about the virtues of conducting a suicide attack if the person was down in the local park or at the local shopping centre, so why would we allow that environment online?
So it’s a simple approach of adopting the rule of law, and the media companies shouldn’t be held to a different account. We wouldn’t allow the publication of messages of hate in our national newspapers or to be broadcast on our television screens, why would we allow that content to be delivered online? So I think it’s incredibly important that we operate a safe environment online.
As the Director-General of ASIO has pointed out on a number of occasions, it takes a very short period of time of detailed and consistent messaging and videos penetrating young minds before they’re prepared to act in a way that their family could never have imagined. You remember the attempted Mother’s Day bombing a few years ago. From memory, the parents were both doctors in a household where the young individual is alleged to have received those messages online and videos and other propaganda, and it does have an impact on a young mind, as it does on older people.
As we know, we’ve had people travelling from our country as foreign fighters to fight in the Middle East in the not-too-distant past. We should be very conscious of what’s being listened to online and we should make sure that our kids have a safe environment where they’re interacting with complete strangers.
QUESTION:
Will your nuclear plan be cheaper than Labor’s renewable plan?
PETER DUTTON:
Yes, it will.
So what we’ve demonstrated through Frontier Economics – which is, I think, the most competent economic modeller in the country when it comes to energy – is that the Government’s 100 per cent renewables only policy is not only driving up people’s electricity and gas prices, but it’s now making the electricity network less stable. That’s why we’re seeing manufacturers go offshore, and we lose the jobs, we lose the economic productivity, and the Government’s policy that Chris Bowen’s put together is not costing $122 billion, as the Government claims: it’s now costing more than $550 billion more than that. Some people say that that figure is too conservative and that it could cost over $1 trillion and there’s nothing for free here. People listen to the Prime Minister and hear him say that the wind’s free and the sun’s free. Well, why are your power bills going through the roof?
The Prime Minister before the last election promised that power bills would go down by $275. He’s never mentioned that figure since he’s been elected Prime Minister, and yet we know that for most households, on average, prices have gone up by about $1,000.
QUESTION:
Can you confirm when you’ll be revealing the costs?
PETER DUTTON:
Next week.
QUESTION:
Can we go local for a second? The Federal Government says the Illawarra offshore wind industry would create more than 1,700 jobs during construction and 870 ongoing jobs. You say you want to scrap the offshore wind zone, how does the Coalition propose to replace those opportunities for Illawarra workers?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I’ll just give you the example of what’s happening in the United States at the moment. So you’re looking at Meta and other companies who are, in the case of Meta, are wanting to sign up to a power contract to deliver four gigawatts – which is an enormous amount of power – that’s to power their AI and data storage needs. Now, Australia is not having that conversation, but we should be.
What we know from what’s happened in Wyoming, what’s happened in France, what’s happened in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, is that where you have the latest technology, small modular reactors, or nuclear reactors – of which there are more than 300 around the world – you attract those sort of heavy energy users and with it, the thousands of jobs come.
With offshore wind, you’re looking at a lifespan of about 19 years. At the end of that, they go into landfill. The Government can’t explain where that big hole will be dug and what the impact will be on the environment. So, a more sustainable way and I think a more thoughtful way in terms of how we treat the environment, is to act in a way that 19 of the top 20 economies are acting around the world. Australia is the only one that’s not adopting or hasn’t signed up already to nuclear power, so I think if there’s a bipartisan position, as we’ve seen on the nuclear submarines, the legislation can pass very quickly, we can provide the 24/7 baseload power through nuclear and that allows us to firm up the power that we want through renewables.
We’re very strong supporters of renewables, but we can’t pretend that the lights here work of a night-time without a baseload power, and if coal is coming out of the system, we certainly need more gas. The New South Wales and Victorian Labor Governments at the moment are signing up to extending the life of coal-fired power stations, and that’s the reality of what we’re dealing with at the moment.
We know that nuclear is a zero-emissions technology, which is why people like President Biden and people like Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron and others are saying that we can’t achieve our net zero by 2050 targets without nuclear energy.
QUESTION:
If the Federal Government issues the feasibility licence before the election, but then you’re successful in the election, what happens next?
PETER DUTTON:
We will not be proceeding with it. I’ve been very clear about that, and I’d say that to the proponents. It’s obvious that some of the companies now don’t see the projects as financially viable, which is…
QUESTION:
We still have one in the region…
PETER DUTTON:
…well, there’s one sort of hanging on by a thread at the moment, and others, including Origin, have decided that it’s not an economically-feasible investment.
One of the things that is most important to me is that we can help families who are seeing their power prices under Mr Albanese go through the roof, that we can help them with their cost of living pressures. If we’re going to get our country back on track, it means that we have to help – not hurt – families, and at the moment the decisions of the Government over three budgets have just driven the power costs higher and higher and higher. Under Mr Albanese and Mr Bowen’s plan, electricity costs for families and small businesses are going to keep going through the roof. That will not happen under a Government that I lead.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, a new poll shows that the Coalition has a chance of winning a majority. How confident are you that you can win this race?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’ve worked hard over the course of last two and a half years. We have a very united team. We have an experienced team. I’ve had the great fortune of serving four Prime Ministers and having served on the frontbench in a number of portfolios since 2004, so for about two decades. I’ve got an incredibly experienced team, when you look at people like Andrew Bragg and others, and Andrew Constance, who we want to be in the Parliament after the next election.
I believe that we can form a stable Government that can get Australia back on track, but we’re well and truly the underdogs in this campaign. The Prime Minister has all the resources of the unions, they’ll run their negative scare campaigns because they haven’t got a good story to tell about their time in government, and what I know is that Australian families are hurting and I want to help them. I want to make sure that we can manage the economy successfully.
The Reserve Bank Governor has been pleading with the Prime Minister to stop the reckless spending, because the reckless spending is feeding inflation, which is why interest rates are high and we know that interest rates have already come down in the US, in Canada, in New Zealand, in the UK, but they haven’t come down here yet, and I want interest rates to come down in our country so that families could afford to pay their power bills and their rego and their insurance, and all the other costs that are stacking up and that keep rising under Mr Albanese.
QUESTION:
Andrew, can I ask you just a question on the polling that’s come out, that Gilmore will flip to the Coalition. How does that affect your campaign? How do you feel about that?
ANDREW CONSTANCE:
Well, I’ve been in politics long enough to know to not pay too much attention to a snapshot view. At the moment, we head into Christmas, and we’ve got families struggling with their bills as it is, and it’s not a happy time. So, we want to get the confidence back up. I want the election campaign to be a positive experience here in Gilmore because we have to be positive for our future, and that’s what we’re offering.
I’ll be showing Peter later today, projects which were promised by the Labor Member, the Labor Government – not delivered; several road projects – Bay and Basin, the Nowra Bypass, Milton Ulladulla Bypass – none of this is coming to fruition. There’s an emergency operation centre that was promised after the Black Summer fires – not delivered; a radiation therapy centre – not delivered. So, I’ll be prosecuting the case that Labor hasn’t delivered, but then the same time, with my delivering record, making sure that we get on with the job of regaining the confidence, building the roads, building a future for our entire community and making sure that we get our country and our region back on track. We’re off track. Everyone knows it. You go and knock on the door in any village or small business right now, they’re hurting. They’ve had enough, and they feel abandoned by the Albanese Government. They won’t be abandoned by us.
As I said, we’re going to make sure that we run a positive campaign, keep them to account and make sure that every day counts in the lead-up to the poll because the country is heading in the wrong direction, and we need to make sure it’s heading in the right direction.
QUESTION:
And if I can just ask another question? Just staying locally. Shoalhaven is one of the areas set for massive population growth in the future, as is Wollongong. How will the Coalition’s housing policy tackle that? How many more homes will we see in this area?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, as we’ve announced, we’re proposing a $5 billion fund which will help build 500,000 new homes.
There are a lot of councils – and I’m sure it’s the case here in Gilmore as well – where they just don’t have the balance sheet, they don’t have the cash to be able to build the sewerage infrastructure or the upgrade to a road or a water treatment plant. We can help with that and that will help the land come online more quickly.
We do need more supply, because, as we know, the Government’s brought in a million people over the last two years – which is unprecedented – and it has put pressure on a very tight housing market. The cost of construction has gone through the roof, we’ve got an ageing population with our trade workforce, and the reality of the CFMEU pricing structures have made it very hard for people to afford to build a home.
So, if we can help councils and help the State Governments and developers get land online more quickly, we can get families into homes. As we know at the moment, there are a lot of Australian families who are putting off having kids because they can’t afford to buy a home and that is just not acceptable in our country.
The great dream of home ownership has been lost by a generation of Australians and we’re going to restore it, and we’ll restore it by responsible economic management and putting money into those programmes, and we’ll have more to say about housing policy in the run-up to the next election as well.
QUESTION:
Can you give an idea of how much of that $1.5 billion will be coming into the South Coast?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’ve said $5 billion across the country and we’ve said about $1.5 billion of that into regional areas. I think the South Coast here is an obvious investment opportunity for us, but we need to look at the individual projects because we want to make sure that we’re building additional capacity and not just providing support to that which was already going to be built anyway. That’s how we’ll get the most efficient spending of taxpayers’ money, because people work hard for their money and they pay their taxes, and they expect that money to be spent wisely.
QUESTION:
I know we’ve heard from Andrew, but I just wanted to hear from you. Gilmore’s the most marginal seat, Andrew only missing out by a couple of hundred votes. What do you think will get the Coalition over the line for this electorate?
PETER DUTTON:
I think people will look at the difference in what’s on offer at the next election – not just at a federal level between the Prime Minister and myself, but also very importantly, in a local community like this, between Andrew and his opponent.
I think what people will see in Andrew is somebody with experience, somebody with compassion, somebody with an understanding, a deep understanding, of the priorities within the local community. He has a real connection with people and he has a sincerity and a decency around him, and I think people warm to that. They’ll see somebody in Andrew Constance who will fight hard for them on their behalf in Canberra, and he will always put the local community first. I think they’re the attributes that people look for in local candidates. I think we’re incredibly fortunate for Andrew to have made the sacrifice and to want to come back into public life. He could quite easily have gone off into other pursuits, but he loves his local community, and I think people will…
QUESTION:
But if it didn’t work last time, what would be different now?
PETER DUTTON:
I think the conditions are always different in every election. I think what people know locally is that they’ve got a local Member who can’t deliver for them, who promises a lot but doesn’t deliver anything, and you’ve got a contrast with Andrew Constance, who has proven himself as a person who can deliver on what he promises, and that’s exactly what he’ll do when we win the next election. We will win it because we’ve got to get our country back on track.
QUESTION:
Just quickly, on the election victory, do you support local media and will you scrap spectrum fees if you’re elected?
PETER DUTTON:
Do we support local media? Absolutely, and we support a vibrant local media because that local content, I think, is really important. We’ve had a conversation with a number of the companies and CEOs and others in relation to licencing and what’s happening with spectrum. We’ll have more to say about our communications policy in due course.
QUESTION:
So you can’t [inaudible] now whether you will scrap them?
PETER DUTTON:
I think we’ll speak to your bosses first, see what they want, and we can talk about what’s in our country’s best interest. But I just make this point: I think it’s really important to have a strong local media market. I think it’s great for journalism because it provides opportunity for young local journalists who then will go on to become household names. It’s really important, I think, that that grassroots journalism is supported and we’ve certainly been supportive of local content in the past.
Thank you very much.
ANDREW CONSTANCE:
Thanks guys.
[ends]