Subjects: Ray Hadley’s retirement from radio; US election results; Mr Albanese’s 2017 comments on President Trump; Labor’s Big Australia policy; Labor’s continuing immigration detention and visa shambles; High Court decision in YBFZ; Labor’s cost of living crisis.
E&OE.
RAY HADLEY:
The Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is on the line.
Peter, good morning.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning, Ray Hadley. How are you?
RAY HADLEY:
Good, good.
PETER DUTTON:
Hang on – you’re only 70 years of age! President Trump just got elected – he’s 78. What excuse have you got?!
RAY HADLEY:
Well, I haven’t gone as hard as the Trumpster, but he might be a bit more intense than I am.
I’ve got to thank you, because I made Peter – I made him know what was happening this morning in a text exchange – and I said, ‘I’ll be doing something about a quarter to 11, so please don’t say anything’, and he kept his word because his Chief of Staff contacted Olivia and said, ‘what the hell’s going on with Ray?!’. So you didn’t even tell your Chief of Staff. You’re rock solid!
PETER DUTTON:
No, I didn’t. Well, it was a private conversation, and I was – as I said in the message this morning – I was shocked to hear your announcement. At a personal level, I’m very happy for you because you’ve got a demanding job, and to spend more time with family and doing things that you love outside of radio will be important, and you deserve that after a lifetime of hard work. But devastated in terms of the fact that you contribute so significantly on behalf of your listeners to the betterment of our country and you’re a true patriot, mate. You’ve fought for a lot of good causes, you’ve supported a lot of people across many sectors, in many aspects of Australian society, and you really are part of the Australian culture. It’ll be difficult to tune into 2GB and not to listen to The Ray Hadley Morning Show.
So, it’s really a big day in that in that regard, and to go out, as Deb said, on your own terms, is something you deserve and I wish you every continued success.
RAY HADLEY:
We’ll catch up, of course, over the Christmas-New Year period as I get into Queensland, but let’s get back to business, because we’ve got six weeks to negotiate.
Was there a line in the sand drawn yesterday by the United States of America that wokeism – and I’ve said before I think wokeism will last a generation, maybe two, but it will go, as other trends come and go – but was there a line in the sand drawn by the people who voted for him in such large numbers overnight and yesterday?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I think that’s certainly part of it. I think when I see a Government that is more interested in pronouns than they are people, it starts to become a real problem. If you can’t pay your mortgage and you can’t pay your electricity bill, and there’s uncertainty at work, or you own a small business and numbers are down by 30 per cent, and you hear the Government talking about the Voice and all of these sorts of issues, well you get angry and you respond. I think that has happened in the United States and I think there’s a big likelihood that it happens here in Australia as well.
RAY HADLEY:
I think about the position that Anthony Albanese has left himself in, when he said, you “scare the whatchamacallit (sic) out of me”, in reference to the now American President, and he’s referenced the American President when he wasn’t President, to the Ambassador, Kevin Rudd, who describes as a ‘nasty’, nasty man. Do you think ’07 should be dusting off his résumé and heading towards the airport sometime after late January?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I think you know K-Rudd as well as I do; he’ll be down at the tie shop, he’d be buying up red ties, he’d be buying red hats, he’ll be ordering those MAGA hats. He will do everything he can to ingratiate himself with the Trump campaign. So, he’s indefatigable, as we know.
But look, the Prime Minister made the disparaging remarks about President Trump when he was the Shadow Transport Minister on the eve of the 2019 election, and there was a huge prospect that Bill Shorten was going to win that election and that Labor would be in power.
So, I think Anthony Albanese just showed terrible judgement then. I think he’s showing it right up to this very day, but there’s a lot of repair work to do and I think more than ever we need America to be strong and there’s a great deal of uncertainty in the world and I think that’s part of the reason people voted Donald Trump in because they saw him as a stronger leader, not as a weaker one.
I think there are a lot of people in Australia who’d really see the Prime Minister as being very weak, the country heading in the wrong direction, and that will all feed into the next election.
RAY HADLEY:
I would think that Anthony Albanese, Tony Burke, Andrew Giles, Clare O’Neil, will be delighted with the front page and extensive coverage of the US election because it keeps them off the front page in relation of the High Court decision yesterday. I mean, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, and today [inaudible] talks about the decision they took via legislation which was a replica of what they did in the first instance, which saw the High Court rule against them, and the High Court ruled against them yesterday, in relation to monitoring devices and also curfews.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, look Ray, Labor just don’t believe in a strong border protection and migration programme. They have brought in a million people over the last two years, they’ve only build 350,000 homes, they’re bringing in 1.67 million people over five years, a city the size of Adelaide, and the houses aren’t being built, the roads are congested, the schools are full, and there’s been no planning for it.
So, when you look at what they’ve done in relation to this High Court case, there wasn’t any reason for the High Court to find the way they did, it only happened because now disgraced Minister Giles cut off the opportunity the Government had to introduce the evidence that would have stopped the court from releasing these people.
Now, they’ve put the Band-Aid solution in place and they hadn’t thought through it properly, and you’ve got these people out committing more crimes. There’s no wonder people are angry at the Albanese Government because they’re making us less safe.
RAY HADLEY:
I mean we are, as you’ve said, talked about murderers, rapists, child sex offenders, we’re talking about drug dealers, we’re talking about the worst of the worst, and now, I read today that reparation may be part of the next process?! I mean, can you believe that? The Commonwealth’s going to pay money to these people?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it’s a disgrace – and whatever law needs to be passed to stop that should be passed, because people are working harder than ever for their money, and to see their money wasted in that way is an outrage. All it does, it creates a further pull factor.
To be honest, when the people smugglers tell these stories to some of these people who want to pay money to get onto boats, I think they’d scarcely believe that it was true. What, you could get paid out money, cash, by the Australian Government for committing a crime as a non-citizen and you get to stay in Australia and become an Australian citizen? ‘We’ll pay our money and get on the boat straight away’ – that’s what the Government’s creating here.
I just think Australians deserve a migration programme that acts in our country’s best interest, not against our best interests, and again, I think that was a big issue in the US and it’ll be a big issue in our election as well.
RAY HADLEY:
I spoke to James Paterson, your colleague, earlier this week, about the fact that people are coming here from parts of the Middle East as refugees, but not being included in the refugee intake. So instead of the mandatory number that we will accept, it gets increased by 11, 12 or 13,000, because for some reason, even though they’re refugees allegedly, they come here, but they’re not counted as refugees.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, that’s right. Then you’ve got this other problem of the Government’s creation where people are refusing to go home, even if they’re on, say, a student visa in some cases, they apply for protection onshore. The matters aren’t decided for seven years by the time it goes through the courts, but you get work rights, in some cases you can get welfare and housing, and these people are making application in record number. Again, they’re treating Australian taxpayers like a cash cow and treating our country as a joke, and the Prime Minister just doesn’t have the ability or the strength to stand up to it.
RAY HADLEY:
And the other thing that I noted was 120,000 people – not students, but coming here as relatives of students on another visa, and I suppose I do exactly the same as what you just said – the visa holders who are students do, because they’re family members of those people holding that original visa?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, this is the issue about the boat arrivals that happened under Labor last time, that once people are onshore, once they’re on Australian soil, it enlivens more rights than it does if they’re in Indonesia or in Sri Lanka or if they’re in Tehran or in Iran or wherever it might be. So that’s the situation, but again, you’ve got people like Tony Burke and Minister Giles and Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek and Chris Bowen, they don’t believe in strong border protection policy and we end up becoming a laughing stock of the world.
RAY HADLEY:
Now finally, the Treasurer directly contradicting Michelle Bullock, the Reserve Bank Governor, on inflation. I mean, look, with all due respect, I would just have a guess that Michelle Bullock might know a bit more about the caper than Jim does.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, that’s a very wise statement to make, Ray, and you didn’t have to be on radio for the last 60 years to make that statement.
I think Michelle Bullock is not going to be bullied. I think Michelle Bullock is acting in the country’s best interests and we shouldn’t be shooting the messenger here. Interest rates should have come down in our country by now because they’ve come down in the US and the UK and Canada and New Zealand. They haven’t come down here because of the Government’s inflation problems and the reckless spending. They’ve just wiped off $16 billion worth of debt from HECS repayments which is inflationary and it’s going to hold interest rates higher for longer. I just don’t think Jim Chalmers, Dr Chalmers, has as a clue and I don’t think he’s got credibility, certainly not in a fight against Michelle Bullock.
RAY HADLEY:
Alright, we’ll talk next Thursday. I appreciate your time and your best wishes. You take it easy.
PETER DUTTON:
Thank you, mate. Take care.
[ends]