Subjects: Visit to Ryan; the Prime Minister’s cost of living and energy crisis; Northern Territory election; appointment of Abigail Bradshaw CSC as the new Director-General of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and tribute to Rachel Noble PSM; supermarkets policy; the Government’s delayed Aviation White Paper; nuclear energy; industrial relations; the CFMEU and Labor’s rackets, rorts, and rip-offs in the construction sector; the Greens’ radical agenda.
E&OE.
SENATOR PAUL SCARR:
It’s great to be here in the seat of Ryan – one of the battleground seats for the next federal election – with the Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, and also our fabulous candidate for Ryan, Maggie Forrest, a young professional mother from the local region.
What we’ve been doing this morning is talking to local residents about cost of living. There’s probably no better way to appreciate the cost of living crisis than to go to an IGA supermarket and talk to the owners of the supermarket and customers about the real impact of cost of living on everyday Australians.
So, we’ll first hear from our wonderful candidate in Ryan, Maggie, and then we’ll hear from Peter. Over to you, Maggie.
MAGGIE FORREST:
Hello, I’m Maggie Forest, the LNP candidate for Ryan. It’s great to have Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Senator Paul Scarr back in Ryan today.
As the Senator said, we’ve been talking to Sam and Rupa, who own the local IGA here in Mitchelton, about inflation and the impact that has on cost of living. IGAs like this that are the lifeblood of our local community, and only the Coalition has a plan to bring down inflation, bring down cost of living, and get Australia back on track.
It’s my pleasure to welcome Peter Dutton.
PETER DUTTON:
Maggie, thank you very much. Look, great to be here with Senator Paul Scarr and also our amazing candidate for Ryan in Maggie Forrest. Maggie is somebody who has an incredible career. She is a professional businesswoman and she is really immersed into the community. So, to be back here in Ryan with her is a great pleasure.
I want to say thank you to Sam and Rupa for hosting us earlier. Theirs is an incredible story because they see every day customers coming to their checkout, people who are worried about whether they can afford what’s in their basket of items, people are spending less on a per-sale basis, and when you speak to a small business like that, their electricity bill has gone up by some 50 per cent over the course of the last two years.
So, when you think of the pressure that Australian families are under at the moment, it’s not just your electricity bill at home, but it’s also the farmer and the cold storage of food that is going through the roof, and ultimately people are paying more when they go to the checkout to buy their groceries: their meat, their milk, breakfast cereals, whatever it might be, those costs have all gone up. We know that food’s gone up by 11 per cent, and we know that families are paying a lot more for their mortgages over the course of the last couple of years.
There have been 12 interest rate increases, and when we spoke with Amy before and her little girl, Astrid, they’re a young family and they’re really struggling to pay their childcare fees, to pay their mortgage, and just to make ends meet.
We know that families are paying much more for insurance, and that will mean some families take a decision not to renew their insurance policies, which can be catastrophic if there’s a fire or if there’s a break-in, and a lot of Australians at the moment really are struggling to make ends meet.
So, that was the focus of today’s visit, speaking to the local IGA here. They’re really hardworking people. They work hard in their local community. They want to get ahead, and as a family business, and the locals that they employ, it’s a great credit to that family and many like them across IGAs and right across the country.
I want to say congratulations to the new Northern Territory Government. Lia Finocchiaro is a wonderful person. I was up there campaigning with her during the course of the campaign. Similar issues were raised with us, not just law and order, but crime was a huge issue in the Northern Territory, particularly in Alice Springs when I was there, with Jacinta Price, but also cost of living. I mean, families in Darwin are paying more and more. Under this Government, somebody who drives a four wheel drive in Alice Springs or in Darwin or across the Northern Territory will pay about $10,000 extra for that vehicle under the Labor Government, and the costs for those families, obviously, was a big factor in Saturday’s election.
I think there are a few things to take out of the election. It’s clear that when a leader – when a Premier, a Chief Minister, or, indeed, a Prime Minister – can’t deliver on cost of living and can’t deliver on keeping the community safe, then there’s a point of reckoning. That point came for the Labor Government in the Northern Territory on the weekend.
I think the Prime Minister, if he believes that there are no lessons for him out of the Northern Territory election, it just shows that he’s not listening to millions of Australians who are worried about feeling less safe in their homes and their communities under Labor, and are also really worried about how they’re going to continue to pay the bills and to pay their mortgages and to put food on the table for their families.
So, there are a lot of issues that I think we need to deal with, and to get our country back on track, we need to change government at the next election. We need to win a seat like Ryan so that Maggie Forrest can be the next MP here. She’s enthusiastic, works hard for the local community and is a very good friend of mine, of Paul’s, and she’s somebody that can be trusted in the community.
Just finally, I want to congratulate Abby Bradshaw on being appointed as the Director-General of the Australian Signals Directorate. I want to congratulate and thank Rachel Noble for her service and wish her all the very best in the next stage of her career. Abby is somebody that I worked closely with when she was at the Australian Cyber Security Centre, she was deputy to Rachel Noble, and at a time when Australia is under constant cyber attack, the role of the Australian Signals Directorate is more important than ever. So, I really welcome that appointment. I thank the Prime Minister who reached out and engaged and consulted on that appointment, a couple of weeks ago. I wish her very well in that job.
Very happy to take questions.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, just on retail – the Nationals are alleging price gouging by Bunnings and other big box retailers. Do you think Bunnings is squeezing customers and suppliers?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, look, our first objective here is to make sure that consumers are getting the best possible value. Our role is not to ensure margins for big businesses, it’s to make sure that consumers are getting hardware items and grocery items at reasonable prices. It’s great that businesses are successful. We want them to be successful, we want them to be profitable, but we can’t have price gouging, particularly where you’ve got market concentration. A little IGA store here can’t compete with Coles and Woolworths, and we know that Coles and Woolies land bank and stop IGAs and food stores and other independents from establishing a presence in that market.
Ultimately, we want a free market to operate effectively, and a free market is not where consumers are being ripped off. We want to make sure that, particularly where Bunnings has a more significant presence than it ever has, where Mitre 10 is probably the biggest competitor, but the margin between Mitre 10 and Home Hardware and others, and Bunnings, is astronomical. So, it’s right that we want the best outcome for consumers and we’ve been very clear about that.
QUESTION:
Should Bunnings and these other big box retailers be included in the Food and Grocery Code and…?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, obviously there’s a Senate Inquiry that will look at these matters, but I want the best for consumers. At the moment, consumers are paying 11 per cent more for food, they’re paying 25 per cent more for gas, they’ve had 12 interest rate increases under this Prime Minister. The Prime Minister promised to reduce electricity prices by $275 and power prices now have gone up by $1,000. So, I want the best outcome for consumers. I want businesses to be profitable, but a free market means that businesses can operate in a competitive environment and that consumers can get prices which are reasonable. That’s the objectives that we apply.
QUESTION:
What about the proposed divestment laws that you’re proposing? Should Bunnings be included in that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, again, we’ve been very clear about the application – not just to Coles and Woolies. We want to see more competition in the marketplace, because if you have a duopoly or a monopoly arrangement, then consumers ultimately aren’t getting the best out of a free market. The Liberal Party and the Coalition stands very strongly for a free market, and we’ve been clear, not just in relation to Coles and Woolies, but also Bunnings as well. I think that is something that would be welcomed by the Australian public.
QUESTION:
The Government just handed down its Aviation White Paper, do you think consumers should get refunds if there are lengthy flight delays?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, look, a couple of points here. Firstly, it’s late, which is not surprising because I just don’t think the Government’s had its eye on the ball when it comes to airfares. Any Australian knows that you’re paying more for airfares – it doesn’t matter whether it’s an international flight or whether it’s a domestic flight. I was up in the Northern Territory recently, in Mount Isa recently, and one of the first complaints you get from consumers and from people who live in regional areas is that they feel they’re being gouged on price. We need to be careful because Bonza now has gone out of the market, and if Rex can reestablish itself, we can get better competition in the marketplace.
But don’t forget the friendship, the very close friendship, between Alan Joyce and Anthony Albanese, which reduced competition, ultimately, with the decision around Qatar.
We want to make sure that we’ve got a viable airline industry. We’re a market of only 25, 26 million people, but the fact is that we need to make sure that consumers are getting the best outcome. I think we can look at what is being provided at the moment and ask whether we can get a better deal as consumers, and I do think Australians can get a better deal than what they’re getting at the moment.
QUESTION:
On that White Paper, it proposed an ombudsman to force airlines to follow terms that include refunds, rather than the European style of ‘if it’s three hours late, you get a refund’. Do you think that will work better?
PETER DUTTON:
Well look, we’re happy to have a look at different proposals, but I think what we know at the moment is that this is a Government that has presided over the closure of Bonza, Rex being put into administration, Qantas charging more for their airfares than we’ve seen in recent years, and less competition means higher prices.
Unfortunately, Australians are paying more and more for airfares, and we should have more competition and consumers should be paying less for airfares where there are more consumers wanting to purchase those airfares than prices going up and up under the Albanese Government.
QUESTION:
There’s been two earthquakes in New South Wales near where you’re proposing to build some nuclear power plants. How do you know it will be safe to do it there?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, firstly, because we’ve said that we will appoint an expert panel to look at all of the different aspects: the engineering aspects, and the suitability for particular sites.
We’ve chosen end of use coal fired power stations, because you can distribute to the existing network through the poles and wires, so you don’t need 28,000 kilometres of new poles and wires going across national parks, across productive farming land, and ultimately just driving up the price of electricity. The cost of electricity has gone through the roof under this Government, and now the electricity ombudsman is warning that we’re going to see disruption – that is blackouts and brownouts under Labor, which I just don’t think any family or business could afford to have that disruption to their lifestyle.
What we know of nuclear power is that it is a very safe technology. The activity that we’ve seen in Newcastle, in the Hunter region, and elsewhere around the world – it is a safe technology, and it would have dealt very adequately with the recent tremors that we’ve seen.
I thought the fact that Labor was out there trying to make political capital at a time when people were experiencing the tremors was a disgrace, frankly, but the Labor Party’s always given to running scare campaigns, and I just don’t think people fall for it. People look at what’s happening with nuclear around the world, 19 of the 20 biggest economies have adopted nuclear or have signed up to it. They’ve done it because it’s safe, it’s zero emissions, it can deliver cheaper electricity, and it’s a constant source of 24/7 power. Our economy will tank if we don’t have 24/7 power, and it is needed to firm up renewables because, as we know, on a day like today we get a great yield out of solar panels. If it’s raining like it has been over the course of the last week or so, it’s a very low output of energy, and of a night-time, they don’t work at all. So, you need to be able to keep the cold rooms going in an IGA or at a local Coles or Woolies, otherwise, the economy just doesn’t function.
QUESTION:
Do you still plan to repeal the right to disconnect?
PETER DUTTON:
Yes, we do. Look, I think what we’ve seen from the CFMEU and what we’ve seen from other unions is a desire to create animosity between workers and the employers, where there’s just no animosity before. So, I hope that we can see a real consideration of the Australian economy.
At the moment, Labor is slowly destroying the Australian economy. Costs are up for everything. We’re talking about electricity blackouts, insurance premiums have gone through the roof, and most employers do the right thing by their employees and where they don’t, there are existing laws to make sure that there are penalties that apply.
But, at the moment, I think the Government’s creating an environment of animosity and tension between employers and employees where it doesn’t need to exist. Why are they doing that? Because that’s what the CFMEU and the other big unions tell them to do.
As we’ve seen with the CFMEU, they have been dancing to their own tune – and the Prime Minister has been dancing to the tune of the CFMEU – over the last few years. We’ve seen building prices escalate dramatically and we’ve seen builders go broke, which means it’s hard for young homebuyers to find a builder, and that’s all because of the Government’s facilitation of the unlawful acts of the CFMEU.
QUESTION:
Just on the NT result, with the Queensland election just around the corner, is there a trend emerging here against incumbency Governments?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, there’s certainly been a lot of analysis about what happened in the Northern Territory, but what we do know is where a Government doesn’t listen to the public and they’re making decisions which make it harder for families to pay their bills, to pay their mortgage, and to make decisions where there is more crime in the community, less penalty for the crime – those Governments will be punished. The Albanese Government has made our country less safe, and they’ve forced up the price of everything to a point where families really are doing it very, very tough at the moment. In that circumstance, you’d expect there to be a backlash against the Government.
The Albanese Government is a bad Government. Australians know after two years, they’re worse off under this Government, and they know that they can’t afford another three years of the Albanese Government. The Government’s made decisions in budgets which haven’t helped families, they’ve hurt families, and they’ve driven up the cost of everything.
When you look at Maggie Forrest and her example that she’s setting in the community, out there talking to people, listening to people about crime and law and order, about ways in which we can keep our community safe. Maggie’s been out there talking to families about the cost of living pressures that they’re under. That’s the sort of family experience that we want in our candidates and life experience, otherwise. When you look at what the Greens are doing, the Greens believe in abolishing private health insurance, which is going to kill our public system and drive up the cost of private health insurance through the roof for families in Ryan. They want to legalise hard drugs, which will just drive the crime rates through the roof, which is not supported by the people of Ryan. We know that, as we saw, when the damage was caused to monuments and to war memorials, that the Greens had no criticism of that activity whatsoever, which is not consistent with the values of the people of Ryan and other communities, particularly in other garrison communities across the country. We’re not far from Enoggera Barracks here, and this community is full of defence families, and I think they’re completely horrified by the reality of the Greens.
The Greens aren’t about the environment. The Greens are about radical change to our society and not for the better. That’s why I think Maggie Forest is doing an amazing job here in Ryan, and we’re going to continue to support her until she’s the local member, because she will be a great voice for Ryan in Canberra, and she’ll stand up for the people in this local community.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
[ends]