RAY HADLEY:
Minister good morning.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning Ray.
RAY HADLEY:
Is it suboptimal?
PETER DUTTON:
Well there’s a policy that the Government’s got. The Prime Minister, like all of us, wants to see power prices reduced for businesses, for households, for pensioners and the Government’s come up with a policy and we believe that that’s the best policy available to us. We have got power prices that doubled under Labor that are starting to come down now. We want them to come down much further.
RAY HADLEY:
Mate, the AWU thinks it’s a good idea. When was the last time a Minister in a conservative government, let alone the prime minister, promoted something that the AWU is saying to the Victorian Government, look, you know, do a bit of horse trading here, but at the end of the day go with it. I mean Peter, it’s about credibility mate.
Now, you’ve got 10 of your colleagues who are prepared to be named and shamed as standing up against this. Now I know Cabinet solidarity’s everything, but as I keep telling you – and this upsets conservative voters across Australia, particularly your Queensland voters – if you people follow blindly the words of the Prime Minister, you’ll go down at a million miles an hour at the next federal election – as soon as night follows day – your worst fears will be realised Peter Dutton.
It will be replacing you, Mr Neumann; replacing the Treasurer, Chris Bowen; and replacing the Prime Minister, Bill Shorten. You have a chance here as a Party to draw a line in the sand and not follow the Prime Minister over the cliff like those little rodents called lemmings, but you’re following them mate and I’ll tell you something now; there are more and more people saying of you – and I don’t agree with it – you’re getting closer to Scott Morrison than you’ve ever been before in blindly following the words of your leader.
Now, there comes a time in history where you’ve got to have the bottle and you know another part of your anatomy, to stand up for yourself mate and this might be the time. I don’t know whether you wish to take it or not.
PETER DUTTON:
Well Ray, I stand up for myself pretty regularly mate and I’m happy to continue to do that. I want energy prices to be reduced. I’ve said that before. I’m a member of the Cabinet and I was loyal to Tony Abbot. I’m loyal to the Prime Minister…
RAY HADLEY:
Are you blindly loyal to him?
PETER DUTTON:
No, I’m not blindly loyal.
RAY HADLEY:
At 38 two-party preferred in a row, it’s a narrowing gap between that thing you cling to like a life boat, the better PM stakes. You got lapped as probably everyone thought you would in Longman – you got mate 30 per cent of the primary vote.
Now, they say polls are saying you’ll hang on to your seat, but plenty of your mates they’ll go down with the sinking ship come the federal election and you’ll be in Opposition and I won’t be talking to you – I won’t be talking to Shayne Neumann because that will be a waste of time – all I’ll be doing is blowing that bloody horn every day as the boats come over the horizon because you all listened to the Prime Minister at your peril.
I just don’t understand it and for you as a conservative politician to tell me that you can’t see the folly of this with the AWU and Mark Butler congratulating the Prime Minister for this stroke of genius.
PETER DUTTON:
Ray, if you had a blue with something that Alan Jones, Jonesy said on air, you’re not going to battle it out over the airwaves. You’d have a chat with him off-air…
RAY HADLEY:
…mate…
PETER DUTTON:
…and you know, it’s no different in my game. I’m a part of the Cabinet…
RAY HADLEY:
…let me clarify that for you. If you think that what Alan Jones says on his program is replicated here every day of the week…
PETER DUTTON:
Not at all. I’m not suggesting that.
RAY HADLEY:
Well let me just tell you that over the years Alan and I have a courtesy for each other that I respect what he says, but I say sometimes exactly the opposite.
PETER DUTTON:
Yeah, but you don’t bag him out on air.
RAY HADLEY:
Mate, I don’t bag anyone out on air…
PETER DUTTON:
No.
RAY HADLEY:
…that I work with, but I’m looking to you to actually not just simply say…I don’t say everything that Alan says is right given that you’ve drawn that comparison, that conclusion. I don’t come on air and say: well, Alan said x-y-z and you know what, Alan is 100 per cent right.
What you’re doing here today is telling me everything the Prime Minister has done with the National Energy Guarantee is right and that’s…there’s no similarity between what I do in relation to my other colleagues, including Alan Jones, no similarity in what you are doing as a Party in relation to the Prime Minister.
PETER DUTTON:
Well there is and it’s the same if you’re a part of the Brisbane Broncos; you don’t go out bagging your coach or your captain on Channel 9.
RAY HADLEY:
Mate, with all due respect to you, his is a bit more important than winning the NRL Premiership or winning ratings. This is about our country.
PETER DUTTON:
Of course it is.
RAY HADLEY:
This is about our country mate. This is about where we’re headed and we’re headed, as sure as night follows day, for Bill Shorten, prime minister; Tanya Plibersek, deputy prime minister; Neumann, the immigration minister, boats over horizon and Chris Bowen the treasurer. Chris Bowen. That’s where we’re headed.
PETER DUTTON:
So Ray, the most effective I can be mate is providing advice, which I do and I give frank advice – I can promise you that – to the Prime Minister, to my other colleagues if I don’t agree with what we’re doing or with a policy or I argue vehemently that something should be changed or dropped. I get my way sometimes, other times I don’t.
I work as a team player. I’m not going to be a part of the Cabinet and then bag the Prime Minister out – as was the case with Tony Abbott; some stuff I didn’t agree with when Tony was Prime Minister, I made my case – as I have with Malcolm, where you can have a gentle conservation, you can have a raised-voice conversation. I express my view and I am most effective as a member of the Cabinet when I can do that, but I’m not bagging my colleagues or my Prime Minister publicly.
I have the utmost respect for my colleagues and if I have something to say to them, I say it to them in private and that’s my responsibility as a Cabinet Minister.
Now, if my position changes – that is, it gets to a point where I can’t accept what the Government’s proposing or I don’t agree – then the Westminster system is very clear; you resign your commission, you don’t serve in that Cabinet and you make that very clear in a respectful way.
RAY HADLEY:
Well if someone actually did that – and I’m not suggesting you’d be the one to do it – it may illustrate to the Prime Minister as Dennis Shanahan has written so expertly today, that he’s in a very tenuous situation. If someone in Cabinet said I can’t [inaudible] this any longer; 38 Newspolls, two-party referred in a row. You’ve lost the battle mate. If we’re to have any hope against the Labor Party in the forthcoming federal election, we need to change the order.
PETER DUTTON:
Ray…
RAY HADLEY:
And if someone were to do that, maybe, just maybe Peter, you might win that election. Just maybe.
PETER DUTTON:
Well Ray, I can promise you mate, I have no intention and I never have and I never will of giving up. I will fight till election day and beyond that because Bill Shorten as prime minister in this country would be a disaster. There’s no question about that for the reasons and many others that you’ve outlined this morning.
Now, I’m going to do the best I can to turn these polls around. I do the best that I can in my portfolio. I think we kick some pretty good goals in this portfolio. We don’t get everything right, but I think we’ve done a good job and I want to make sure that I can be a part of restoring our fortunes, making sure that we’re in a winning position by the time of the next election and I’m not going to deviate from that path.
RAY HADLEY:
Okay. We move on. I’ve had my say, you’ve replied. I appreciate your candour.
Fraser Anning; I noticed this morning a member of staff has resigned – whether that’s the person who wrote the speech or not – I don’t know whether Mr Anning actually read the speech before he got into Parliament. The way he presented it would suggest to me the first time he saw it when he was on the floor of Parliament, in the Senate, but what I can’t believe is one of your fellow Queenslanders, Bob Katter, calling it a magnificent speech. It would appear that Bob is as mad as Fraser Anning.
PETER DUTTON:
Well I think particularly the reference to ‘final solution’ would have…
RAY HADLEY:
…well that’s the major problem. The other stuff is neither here or there.
PETER DUTTON:
But why not stick your hand up and say look, I made a mistake, I didn’t understand the reference – if that’s what he’s claiming – if he says he made a mistake then apologise and people can make their own judgements about that, but to keep your hands in your pocket, hold the ground, I just think he’s making a mistake. Ultimately it’s a judgement for him and obviously there were statements made to that effect yesterday.
RAY HADLEY:
Okay, have a good weekend. We’ll talk again next week.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks Ray. See you mate.
[ends]