Subjects: Visit to Parramatta; the Prime Minister’s new car and ute tax; Labor’s cost of living crisis; working from home; rushed Gaza visas; Labor’s border security chaos; Paul Keating’s comments on the Prime Minister’s divisive Voice referendum ‘mistake’; tax reform.
E&OE.
KATIE MULLENS:
Well, welcome everybody. My name is Katie Mullins and I am the Liberal Candidate for Parramatta.
It’s great to be here today at Toyota Parramatta joined with Peter Dutton and Senator Maria. We’ve just come out of a roundtable discussion with different people working in the car dealership industry, and what we’re talking about is Labor’s proposed car tax. Now, what we’ve heard inside is that this car tax is going to be hurting all parties involved. What it means is that families, small businesses, and tradies, are going to have to pay more for new vehicles in circumstances where they’re already struggling under Labor’s cost of living crisis.
I’d just like to welcome Senator Maria up to give some comments on this, and again, my name is Katie Mullens and I’m the Liberal Candidate for Parramatta.
SENATOR MARIA KOVACIC:
Thank you, Katie. It’s wonderful to be in Parramatta and it’s wonderful to welcome our Leader, Peter Dutton, to Parramatta as well. Thank you, Katie, for that intro and for being here today. What we have in Katie is somebody who is a Parramatta local. Katie is someone who works and lives in Parramatta – not because she has to or somebody’s told us she should – but because this is her home, and this is the kind of representation that we need for our community. So, I look forward to working with Katie and ensuring that she becomes our next Member for Parramatta.
What we’re dealing with here in relation to this car tax, is something that will have a massive flow-on effect to all families and small businesses – in particular, to tradies. The cost of this car tax will be passed on to the consumer. This is something that’s very important, this is something that we need to understand. We all want to see us get to net zero, that’s really important, but not at the expense of individuals, families, and small businesses.
With that, I’d like to introduce the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton. Thank you.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks very much, Maria. Well firstly, thank you very much to Meon and the team here at Parramatta Toyota. I’ve really appreciated the engagement, the discussion which we’ve had in relation to the new car tax and the new ute tax that the Government’s proposing.
I want to say, Katie, thank you very much for the invitation to be here today. As Maria pointed out, Katie Mullens is a local, she understands the local community, she will be a great representative for this area, and she’s passionate about making sure that we have policies which help, not hurt, families who are suffering at the moment under a cost of living crisis created by this Government.
Over the course of the last two budgets, the Government’s made economic decisions which have damaged our economy, damaged family budgets, damaged small business budgets and driven up inflation, which means that your interest rates have gone up as well.
The Prime Minister promised that electricity would come down by $275, instead, it’s up by 23 per cent and gas is up by almost 30 per cent. Food is up by 10 per cent under this Government, and now we find out, that the next broken promise from the Albanese Government is in relation to new motor vehicles.
I don’t know any tradies in the country at the moment who can afford to pay Albo’s $15,000 tax on a Toyota HiLux, and there are many families who are struggling to pay their bills at the moment, and how out of touch can the Prime Minister be that he’s proposing to jack up the price of new cars and to drive down the choices that people have when they go to a Lot like this, to dealerships around the country, who are really, genuinely worried. If new vehicle sales come down, it means that jobs are lost, in an industry that employs north of 400,000 people. It means that you’ve got a situation that drives up the price of a RAV4 – a very popular car, a hybrid car – but under the Albanese Government, that goes up by over $10,000.
It is inconceivable that the Government can go ahead with this new tax on cars and utes, and I think the Prime Minister has to reconsider the position that he’s taken, because what happens is, if the tradie is forced to pay $15,000 more for the HiLux ute, your price goes up when he turns up to quote for a bathroom renovation; or when the farmer faces a $25,000 increase for a Toyota LandCruiser, what happens is the price of his goods goes up when he’s selling wheat or whatever commodity it is that he’s got for sale. That’s just the reality. That’s exactly why we’ve got a problem with inflation at the moment, because this Government keeps passing costs on, at a time when we can’t afford it.
Every decision this Government’s made has damaged the Australian economy, and we should stand up as a country against the Prime Minister’s proposed great big new tax on cars and utes, and that’s why we’re here today.
I’m very happy to take any questions.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, you’ve obviously raised concerns about the price impact on utes and higher emissions vehicles. The Government argues this fuel efficiency standard will bring down the price of electric vehicles because more will enter the market. Do you believe that that will happen over time?
PETER DUTTON:
I think overall, if you look at say last year’s sales, if it was replicated this year, you’d be talking about a tax of $2.2 billion that would be levied against motor dealers. Now, the thought that they’re going to absorb that cost, or that they can absorb that cost is a nonsense. They’re going to have to pass it on through higher costs.
Now, Chris Bowen says that no car will go up in price. It’s just a lie, and it’s another lie from the Albanese Government. The fact is that car prices will go up and go up dramatically under what the Government’s proposing and some other vehicles in the market, for example, a D-Max, is near certain to leave the market. So, that is a lower entry point for tradies, for young apprentices, etc., that choice is taken away from them.
The Liberal Party is about providing choice for Australians. If you want to purchase an EV, that’s fantastic. If that’s the right decision for you and for your family, that’s great, and we support that, but we don’t think that you need to drive up the price of a HiLux to encourage somebody to buy an EV. I just think that’s the reality of it.
QUESTION:
The Fair Work Commission is looking at whether millions of Australians on awards should get the right to work from home. Would you support that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I just think this Government is presiding over a wish list of the union movement, which is driving down productivity, it’s driving up unemployment, and as we know, under this Government, real wages are down 7.6 per cent. So, it is no wonder that every time you go to the supermarket and you’re paying more for your groceries under this Government, you’re feeling it doubly because not only has the prices has gone up, but your wage effectively has gone down. I think the Government has all sorts of problems when they’re putting the union bosses ahead of workers – and that’s exactly what’s happened under this Government.
Ultimately, the economy is going to suffer a significant downturn, because we continue to lose productivity in the economy. Flexibility is fine for workers, and we encourage that. But, in the end, we have to be careful that the Albanese Government just doesn’t side with the union on every occasion, because all that happens is if the price of wages go up too dramatically in an inflationary environment, you’ll end up with much higher prices for consumers.
QUESTION:
So, just to confirm – and to get rid of that – so you don’t believe those people should be able to work from home?
PETER DUTTON:
Let’s look at what the Government’s proposing, and as we’ve seen with legislation that the government’s brought forward before on industrial relations, it’s clear that there’s always devil in the detail. We support flexibility, but we don’t support driving down productivity and therefore an increase in prices that consumers pay. Every decision the Albanese Government’s taken so far has made it harder for consumers because the prices of everything have gone up. I think Mr Albanese is so far out of touch with the Australian people when he proposes, in the middle of his cost of living crisis, to jack the price of a HiLux up by $15,000. It’s not a sign of a Prime Minister who understands the pressure that families are under.
QUESTION:
What’s your message to Liberal members who want to expel Alex Hawke and to reopen preselection for Paul Fletcher?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, they’re matters for the Division.
QUESTION:
The Coalition has accused the Government of fast-tracking visas for Palestinians coming into Australia on visitor visas. They’ve granted more than 2,000 since October 7. When you were Home Affairs Minister, didn’t you grant 500 visas a week to Syrians, so that worked out to 12,500 in total? How is this different?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, a couple points. So, firstly, we know that the Government has now had their 12th boat arrival, maybe 13, we’re not sure. We know that a large whole vessel made it onto Australian mainland, in North Western Australia with something like 40 people on board, and it was undetected. The first the Prime Minister knew about it was when he was asked the question by a journalist, which is a catastrophic failure in our border protection. We know from the Border Force Commissioner that surveillance that’s been conducted across the northwest, and that approach to the mainland, that has been dramatically ramped down. So, in one sense, it should be no surprise that boats are getting through on the watch of this hopeless Government.
Next point is we know that the Government has released 149 criminals: seven murderers, people who have committed sexual offences against Australian citizens, people who have committed domestic violence offences, who are non-citizens, they’ve been released from migration detention into the broader community. We know that a number of those people have already committed additional crimes against Australian citizens. So, if you think I’m going to take a lecture from the Albanese Government on how to manage borders, it’s not going to happen.
When we were in Government, we closed down detention centres, we got all of the children out of detention, we got women out of detention, we stopped people drowning at sea, we had an orderly migration programme – including in relation to the Syrian intake, and women that we took in from the Yazidi community who were being slaughtered by ISIL. We took a decision in relation to those individual cases based on information – particularly from the United States, who hold the most significant intelligence holdings in relation to biometrics and the like – but, in the middle of a war in the Middle East, where Hamas is running the Gaza Strip, the Government’s taken a decision to bring 2,000 people in from that region into our country, and they’re approving people with one day consideration of the applications.
We don’t know about the authenticity of the travel documents, we don’t know whether these people are Hamas sympathisers, and I think the Government needs to tread very cautiously here, because if you bring people in and they claim protection, they are likely on a pathway to permanent residency and therefore citizenship, and as we’ve seen with the level of anti-Semitism in our country, we don’t want to be fuelling that disgraceful activity.
So, we can bring people in in a responsible way, but during the course of a war, when we’re bringing people in, we don’t know about the travel documents, the requisite security checks that we did when we were in government are not being conducted by this Government, and they’re approving people out of a warzone in one day to come here, potentially, on a permanent basis.
It’s no wonder that people and right across the community, Australians, don’t trust the Prime Minister when it comes to managing our borders and keeping Australians safe.
QUESTION:
What was the average approval time in the Syrian situation?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I’m sure that was disclosed at the time. I’m very proud to stand by our record, and if you look at the threat that those people have provided to the Australian community, given that we made those decisions a couple of years ago. We made the right decisions, and there were many people that we excluded.
The problem is that this Government can’t accept people out of a war zone quickly enough, and I worry about the threat that that poses to the Australian community. I’m sure there are many good people that are within that cohort, but I want to make sure that the Australian public is kept safe, and you don’t do that by bringing 2,000 people in from a war zone in record time like the Albanese Government is doing at the moment.
QUESTION:
Paul Keating’s called for the top tax rate to be lowered from 45 per cent to below 39 per cent. Is that something you’ll look at as part of your policy?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, Paul Keating’s had a number of interesting things to say. He’s spoken about the mistake that Prime Minister Albanese made in relation to the Voice – it cost Australians $450 million and it divided our country, and it has not improved a single life in Indigenous communities, when that is what every Australian wants to see as the outcome.
So, I think he’s right to point out that the Prime Minister divided our country, that he wasted half-a-billion dollars, money that could have been spent providing support to families, pensioners and others on fixed incomes as their electricity prices go through the roof under this Government, and I think he’s right to say that we do need tax reform.
He’s been very critical of the Government in relation to their union-funded industrial relations push. Paul Keating had the guts as Prime Minister to stand up to the union leaders. He helped modernise the economy, and he was supported by John Howard in opposition. The Albanese Government is not like the Keating or Hawke Government, it’s more like the Whitlam Government, and it’s more like the Rudd and the Gillard Government – and that’s why families are really struggling at the moment, and that is why they cannot afford a new ute and car tax, at a time when they can’t afford to pay their electricity bill.
A Prime Minister who is proposing to jack up the price of a Toyota HiLux by $15,000 is completely and utterly out of touch with where Australia’s tradies are, and families and small businesses are at the moment.
Thank you very much.
[ends]