Subjects: Visit to Mount Isa; the Prime Minister’s homegrown inflation and cost of living crisis; AUKUS; Paul Keating’s unhinged AUKUS rant; skilled labour retention; nuclear energy; Labor’s energy policy shambles; Queensland Labor Government’s shambles.
E&OE.
BOB KATTER:
Leader of the Opposition. We have had the Prime Minister at the present moment, until the next election – I don’t mean that to be a political comment – here as well. We’re pointing out to Peter that the drifter on top of that drilling rig is a vital component when you are drilling and mining. You drill, you put an explosive in, you blow it up, you pull it out and then you do it again. That’s mining. There’s also Snowy 2.
So, drilling is at the very essence of all operations in this country. We’ve got a revolutionary design here. We want – the risk that you have to take with a new and revolutionary design is far beyond even a fair-sized company, let alone anything else. I mean, in every other country on earth, we get some government assistance, even if it’s only [inaudible]. So I’m going to stop there and hand it off to the man of the moment, Peter Dutton and to Adrian.
ADRIAN POPE:
Thanks very much, Adrian Pope. I own Popey’s Diesel Service here in Mount Isa. We do a lot of support for the surrounding mines, not just in the local area, but we’ve also got a global presence where we work overseas as well. As Bob was mentioning, through this company here, the research and development company, we’ve invented a revolutionary new drifter. We’ve trialled it underground in New South Wales and also in Western Australia. We’ve done some upgrades and we’re going back into full trials in two weeks’ time, which is extremely exciting. We’ve had some very good results, and we’re looking to go into full production on that.
We have been speaking with the Government about some form of backing on that side, over the last few months, which remains to be seen yet, but hopefully in some way, shape, or form, that’ll come. But proudest moment is that it’s an Australian made – totally Australian made, Australian designed – and that’s the biggest thing for me. We don’t do enough manufacturing here in Australia so that’s been great. This is actually one of the machines that it’ll be trialled on. This is a new machine that’s going to another mine site. But, this is a sort of drilling machine that the miners will be operating. So, it’s a very, very exciting time.
PETER DUTTON:
Adrian, thanks very much mate. Firstly, I just want to say thank you to you for having us here. It’s an amazing story. This is an Australian company. He’s employing apprentices, he’s investing into the local community here in Mount Isa, but has now a global presence. This is what Australian manufacturing is about.
But we’ve got to have cheaper energy, we need to have reliable energy, we’ve got to have workplace relations laws that make our companies work and not laws that work against the companies, we’ve got to invest in projects and provide support so that businesses can scale up – I think that’s incredibly important. So, mate, to you, I just want to say thank you for risking your own capital. You’ve started with nothing and what you’ve been able to create is a Mount Isa success story, but more importantly, it’s an Australian success story. So, look forward very much to working with you into the future and congratulate you on your success.
I’m really pleased to be here in Mount Isa with Bob Katter and with Robbie Katter as well. Obviously, icons of the North and of Queensland. It’s great to be here back into Mount Isa, it’s actually my second trip to this part of the country. I haven’t been up for a while, but when you look at what’s happening here, the Rodeo that will take place today, the investment into the town – this is fantastic. So, there’ll be lots of characters that we can meet tonight, I’m sure, over a beer or two. We’ll see how we go, but, I think this is a really good opportunity to listen to two practical men in Robbie and Bob about what is happening in the local community, ways in which we can assist. The good ideas don’t come out of Canberra, and we’ve got to make sure that we’re helping not hurting people in small businesses and helping them grow to become much, much bigger businesses.
Just a couple of other comments and then I’m happy to take some questions. It’s clear the Prime Minister has lost his way and that this Government’s lost its way. People have been disappointed in the Prime Minister but now he’s turned out to be a disaster. This Government continues to go from disaster to disaster, and unfortunately, Australians are paying that price.
There have been 12 interest rate increases under this Prime Minister. We’re seeing interest rates coming down in Canada, in the United Kingdom, in the United States, and yet, that’s not the case here. Why is that the case? Because the Government continues to pump money into the economy, which drives up inflation. Under this Government, interest rates will stay higher for longer. That’s the concern that most Australians have got.
The Reserve Bank Governor has tried to send a very specific and detailed message to the Prime Minister – but he says that she hasn’t said what she said. It just doesn’t make any sense. I think the Prime Minister’s got to start to reassess and reset here, because there are a lot of Australians who are doing it tough at the moment, a lot of businesses that are closing, a lot of people who are selling their houses because they’re forced to do so. There is a much better way, and we’ll have a lot more to say to the Australian public in the lead up to the election, but we want to get our country back on track. We want to get our economy back to basics. If we do that, we can help grow these great businesses, like the one that we’re visiting today at Popey’s. So, happy to take any questions.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, just have a few questions from Canberra. Australia has made undisclosed “political commitments” to the US and UK under a revamped AUKUS agreement, which establishes the transfer of naval nuclear material for the country’s future submarine fleet. Does there need to be more transparency on what those “political commitments” are?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it’s certainly an unusual statement and I think the Prime Minister should provide an explanation as to what Australia has signed up to. We don’t know the detail of it yet, so we’ll wait for that before I make further comment. But as you know, we negotiated AUKUS with the United States and the United Kingdom. It’s an incredibly important asset for our country. It provides – particularly as an island nation – it provides us with the ability to defend our northern and our northwest approaches. It also means that we add value to our allies in the effort to keep our region safe.
When we signed the deal with the US and the UK under AUKUS, we did it knowing that it was a safe technology and we did it knowing that we would have to dispose of the waste, particularly the reactor at the end of life. Now, the Government has signed up to that programme as well, and they’ve advanced, now, the arrangement with the United States. We welcome that. It is an important asset for our Australian Defence Force, as I say. But I’ll just make this important point: if it’s safe for our sailors to be on an AUKUS nuclear powered submarine, why is it not safe for nuclear reactors to be driving our civil need for and our domestic need for electricity?
The Government’s got us on a pathway at the moment where the power bills of everyday Australians are going to continue to go up. The energy regulator is saying that under the Prime Minister’s policies, we’re going to have scheduled blackouts and brownouts. In our economy, manufacturing can’t work, heavy industry can’t work, heavy users of electricity, like in these sort of factories, can’t work if you’ve got intermittent power. Our proposal is to use the same technology as the Prime Minister’s signed up to on the nuclear powered submarines. It’s zero emissions, you can deliver power more cheaply and you can have reliable 24/7 full time power.
So, I think there’s a huge debate to continue here but we need the detail from the Government as to what they’ve signed up to in terms of this language around political purposes or for political points otherwise. There does need to be transparency there and I think Australians will want to see exactly what that detail means for them.
QUESTION:
Paul Keating says the AUKUS agreement is the worst deal in all of history and that we’ve sold out to the United States. Do you still support the deal?
PETER DUTTON:
Paul Keating, you said? No, thanks. I just don’t think he contributes sensibly to public debate anymore. I think Paul Keating’s so far past it, and unfortunately, he’s not acting in our national interest. Paul Keating hasn’t had the security briefings that are available to the Prime Minister or to me, and I can tell you as Defence Minister it was pretty specific about the threat to our country. The fact that Paul Keating wouldn’t stand up for our country, I think reflects very poorly on him.
QUESTION:
Just more on some local questions now.
PETER DUTTON:
Yeah sure, yeah.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, what input are you hoping to get from locals today about Mount Isa and the region’s economic transition?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I mean, Bob Katter’s invited me to be here today, and I’m really pleased to have accepted the invitation. He’s got a pretty crammed schedule. So, we’re meeting with a lot of locals, the council obviously, business owners, and just locals who are in small business and dealing with the day to day issues here in Mount Isa.
So, I’m really keen to hear from them what investment needs to be made into the town and into the region, ways in which we can help grow jobs. Adrian’s raised a very important issue about skilled migration, filling the gaps where Australian workers aren’t available to fill those jobs so that we can keep production going and make sure that we can grow the local economy. So, that’s the main purpose, is to really roll our sleeves up and listen to what people have got to say and enjoy the entertainment tonight as well.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, as you’re aware, there’s 1,200 jobs that are scheduled to be lost next year, July next year – you might be Prime Minister at the time. What actions could the Federal Government take to help with skilled labour retention? Some of the issues local government have raised have been regards to zonal tax or with HECS.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I think there’s a lot more that we have to, and that we must do, for regional Australia in particular. I think the Prime Minister is just way too focussed on inner city Sydney and inner city Melbourne. We’ve got to make sure that we’re getting jobs out into the regions, and we need to make sure that we’re supporting businesses, not making it harder. If you’ve got the highest electricity cost in the world and it’s likely to be unreliable, manufacturing will close – it’ll move to Malaysia, or it’ll move to Wyoming, or wherever it might be.
So, we need to make sure that the input costs, wherever possible, are as cheap as they can be. Electricity and gas – we have an abundance of natural resource in this country, and there should be the ability, and the Prime Minister of the day should have the wit to be able to deal with those issues. This Prime minister just doesn’t.
We need to make sure that we can remove some of the regulation and the burden, particularly around approvals for new projects, so that if the projects come to an end of life, or they’re not viable because the commodity prices have gone down, in that particular sector, we need to open up more mining and development in our country.
I’ve been in the West and I’ve been in Darwin for the last couple of days, as well. There’s huge opportunity, huge opportunity, and at the moment, the Prime Minister’s priority is to put another 30,000 public servants into Canberra, which is actually just going to make it harder for people living in regions because the public servants always need more to do, and they create function and red tape which ultimately makes it harder for businesses.
So, if we work together with regional councils, and with regional representatives like Bob Katter and Robbie Katter, who know their communities so well, I really think we’ve got a golden opportunity, if we can win the next election, to really revitalise our regions and make sure that businesses, like this one, can be replicated and that people can take their products and their manufacturing prowess internationally. That’s a huge win for Australia.
QUESTION:
Are you willing to consider any changes, though, specifically to zonal tax?
PETER DUTTON:
We’re happy to have a look at taxation arrangements. There are constitutional restrictions and I’ve looked at different ways in which we can provide support. I think some of that more, frankly, needs to be tested. I think there are arguments for people who live in regional towns where you’re paying more for petrol, you’re paying more for your electricity, paying more for housing – there’s an additional cost that comes with it and you’re producing, in many cases, royalties and company tax that go to benefit people in capital cities.
I think there’s a moral argument at the moment around, particularly in regional areas, around wind turbines and what’s happening to regional communities, the way in which that’s impacting on amenity, but also, the adjoining neighbours and the lack of benefit that goes back to those local communities.
I just think they’re all common sense discussions that we should have, and it should include a discussion around whether the current taxation arrangements are fit for purpose and whether it’s through tax or other programmes where we can help provide benefit to a local community.
QUESTION:
[inaudible] – break in recording.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we’ve identified the seven sites and we’re not proposing to go beyond that. The reason we’ve chosen the seven sites is that they’re coal fired power stations that are coming to an end of life. Now, coal in those communities still has a big part to play and there are lots of jobs, but the fact is that the jobs won’t be there once to coal goes and if you’ve got a regional area, that has an end of life coal fired power station, you’ve also got the ability to distribute the power. As Robbie pointed out before, you’ve got an existing distribution network. So, you get the jobs for that local community, and as we know out of the UK about 77 per cent of those jobs transfer from the old coal fired power station into the nuclear power station.
We get the jobs, you don’t have to build the 28,000 kilometres of poles and wires across people’s productive farming land and through national parks as Prime Minister Albanese’s proposing. It gives us a chance of meeting our emissions reductions and we’ve also got a reduction in electricity price. Because under nuclear, unlike wind – where you’ve got to replace the wind turbines probably three or four times compared to a reactor, which has got an 80 to 100 year life. Which is why the electricity is much cheaper because you can spread the cost that you have to pay upfront for the reactor over all those years. That’s what makes it cheaper.
That’s why I just don’t understand the Prime Minister’s opposition, other than he’s trying to win Green votes in inner city Sydney and Melbourne. He’s leaving the rest of the country scrambling as to how we’re going to keep the lights on. But he’s in there trying to find political benefit from it. So, I just think we need to have a common sense conversation about all the aspects.
The Government’s proposing to spend $1.3 trillion on their energy transition system. We’re not proposing to spend anything like that, but we need to have nuclear in the mix because we know that out of the top 20 economies in the world, Australia is the only one that doesn’t have or hasn’t signed up to nuclear power.
QUESTION:
Nuclear has a long timeline though. What more can the Federal Government do to support the jobs that are being lost here next year?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I know that the Government’s put this line out about the timeline. But their baseload power, as their policy stands at the moment, is that they’re going to introduce green hydrogen. Now, green hydrogen is not going to happen. Twiggy Forrest has made a decision – 700 people have just lost their jobs – that was their great opportunity to commercialise green hydrogen. There’s also got to be a regard for cost. You can’t just implement a technology that is going to result in your power prices going up two or three or five or ten-fold what they are now. Australians can’t afford that.
So, you have to make sure that we’ve got an affordable system, that is consistent – that is the lights don’t go out – and that it’s greener as we decarbonise. That’s the beauty of nuclear. It’s why France has picked it up. Look at our athletes in Paris at the moment. Paris only runs, their electricity system can only run, on nuclear energy. And they’re investing more, putting more nuclear into the system in France. The big debate in the United Kingdom, in the election that just took place, was that the Labour Party were critical of the Conservatives because there wasn’t enough nuclear in the system. The Labor Party here is the only Labour Party in the world opposed to nuclear power. And why? Because the Prime Minister’s seeking political advantage against the Greens, when he really should be standing up as the Prime Minister of this country and standing up for what is right and what’s in our best long-term interests.
So, green hydrogen, if you’re talking about timelines, is not coming any time soon. Not even into the 2030s. Our proposal is that you would have nuclear into the system by 2035 to 2037.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, there are large uranium deposits in northwest Queensland. How would you work with a Miles or a Crisafulli Government, if you were Prime Minister, to get uranium mining restarted in the northwest?
PETER DUTTON:
Well look, let’s hope that in Queensland there was a change of Government at the next election and that David Crisafulli is elected as Premier because Steven Miles has got this ‘going out of business sale’ at the moment with 50 cent bus fares and now he’s talking about state-owned petrol stations, and heaven knows what will come next. They’re not serious propositions. We need to have a Government here that can make decisions about investing into the regions; Governments that can make decisions about supporting businesses like the one that we’re at today. Because that’s where the jobs will be created, the economic development of our state.
If you look back to Bob’s time as a very successful Minister in Government, if you look back to that era, the decisions were made to invest. Mount Isa was possible because of the decisions of the National Party in this state many, many years ago. We need to make sure that we can revitalise our state again. The uranium deposits that we have here in Queensland and WA, in this country – there’s an enormous demand at the moment for uranium. And why? Because all of these countries we spoke about before are developing their nuclear technologies. Look at what China, Russia, France, the United States, United Kingdom, and now Australia – all of their nuclear submarines need to be provided with that uranium to go into it their fuel process.
So, why, at a time when there’s huge global demand for uranium, wouldn’t we be taking the opportunity to meet that demand and exporting that product, creating wealth for our country, creating tens of thousands of jobs? Steven Miles wouldn’t have a clue what you’re talking about. So, I think the people of Queensland are fast making up their minds that we need to change the Government here in Queensland and to get our state back on track.
I’ve just been in Darwin for the last couple of days. Labor has been a disaster in Darwin. Law and order is out of control and businesses are moving out of the Territory. It’s a shame because there’s enormous opportunity there, it’s a great part of the country, and the Labor Party, it seems, all they’re interested in doing is pleasing the union movement.
Alright? Thank you.
[ends]