Subjects: Visit to Ipswich and the Blair electorate; Getting Australia Back on Track; Labor’s cost of living and homegrown inflation crisis; NBN; the Coalition’s plan to tackle knife crime and youth crime; committing to Australia Day citizenship ceremonies that Labor undermined; the Australian flag; Israel; a cheaper, cleaner, and more consistent energy plan for Australia.
E&OE………………………………………………………………………………………….
SENATOR PAUL SCARR:
It’s Senator Paul Scarr here, and welcome to Ipswich, which is in the federal seat of Blair, which is Labor’s most marginal seat in the state of Queensland. So, this is one of the battleground seats. This is where the Albanese Labor Government’s cost of living crisis is hurting everyday Australians who are battling to make ends meet. The cost of an average mortgage in Ipswich since the election of the Labor Government has increased by over $15,000 a year. So, people are hurting in this area.
So it’s wonderful to have our Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, come to us today here in Ipswich, and it’s also wonderful to have the opportunity to host our communications spokesperson, David Coleman, and also our brand new candidate for Blair, Carl Mutzelberg.
Carl and his family have lived in Ipswich for 36 years and Carl currently works as a manager of a primary producer, and for decades he’s been helping people in need in Ipswich. So now is the perfect time to have a candidate of Carl’s capability and also background in terms of helping people in Ipswich.
So, with that, I’m going to ask Carl to say a few words, then we’re going to go to David Coleman to talk about the recent NBN announcement, and then we’ll go to the Opposition Leader.
So Carl, come forward for your first press conference!
CARL MUTZELBERG:
Very good. Thanks very much. My name’s Carl Mutzelberg. I am the successful candidate for this electorate of Blair. I’ve loved, lived, served Ipswich-Somerset for 35, 36 years now.
I’m absolutely thrilled to stand here, to contend for the people of this area, and one of the reasons I stood up is because I just feel dismayed at how Labor has neglected this area, especially when it comes to infrastructure. I’m so thrilled to have Peter Dutton here today, showing his intense interest in our area and in infrastructure for the people of Blair.
PAUL SCARR:
Thanks, Carl. And David?
DAVID COLEMAN:
Thanks Paul. Well, good morning and it’s wonderful to be here in Ipswich and it’s great to be here with Peter Dutton to talk about the importance of regional telecommunications and of getting the NBN back on track and getting regional telecommunications back on track.
Under Labor, the NBN in regional Australia is in crisis. We’ve seen one in four of NBN satellite customers walk out the door under Labor – one in four Australians have left the NBN’s satellite product, overwhelmingly in regional Australia. We’ve seen since Labor was elected, 100,000 families in existing homes walk away from the NBN and they’re doing that for a range of reasons. One of them is the big price increases we’ve seen in the NBN under Labor. We saw price increases over just an eight month period of around 13 per cent for about 6 million Australian families. We’ve also seen a lack of investment in programmes like the Mobile Blackspot Programme, like the Peri-Urban Mobile Programme, like the Better Connectivity Programme, when Labor spent very little prior to an election year and it has increased the spending in an election year.
It’s a very cynical way of dealing with telecommunications. The Coalition has always been committed strongly to regional telecommunications, will always back to bush, and invest to give regional Australia the telecommunications and internet that it deserves.
PAUL SCARR:
And I should say, we’ve gotten an insight into these issues, in particular in relation to the local Ipswich region through our host, Jamin Andrews, who’s the founder and managing director of this wonderful business called Conetix, which provides web hosting and related services to companies from all over Australia. So now to Peter.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks mate, very much.
Firstly, Jamin, thank you very much to you and the staff here at Conetix for hosting us. It’s an incredible story. Your commitment to Ipswich, and to the area I think is a typical one. When you look at the demographic and the community spirit that’s alive here in Ipswich. So, thank you very much for hosting us today.
Also to Neil and Phil as well for being here, representatives of the Springfield Chamber of Commerce and also the Ipswich Chamber of Commerce, representing small businesses, many of whom, like we’re seeing across the country, are doing it tough at the moment with increased electricity costs and increases in their insurance bills, and of course all of that has to be passed on to consumers, which is why in part we have an inflation problem in this country at the moment.
I also want to say thank you very much to Paul Scarr, who, as you can see in his presentation again today, is dynamic, excitable, and has been a great supporter of this region for a long period of time.
Carl, to you, I want to say thank you very much for sticking your hand up. As Paul said, somebody with four decades of commitment to this local community, somebody who has provided support through philanthropic causes, has employed people, worked in the local community. This is really going to be a battlezone in the next election, and you’re up against not only a tired local member, but also Anthony Albanese. If Anthony Albanese wins the seat of Blair, he’ll stay on as Prime Minister. So, this is a must win seat for us and I believe very strongly that we can win this seat, and if we do that, we can get our country back on track.
I’m really pleased to be here today with David Coleman as well, who has done an enormous body of work in this field, in communications over a long period of time and does a fantastic job as the Shadow Minister.
We’re very proud to be able to commit this funding to provide support to regional areas and outer metropolitan areas like Ipswich. We want families to have faster speed broadband and to have that delivered at the lowest possible cost, we want to make sure that we can fix up the problems of Labor’s created in recent years. We know that there has been a three year sort of lost opportunity for our country. This investment should have been made by the Government on day one and they should have continued the record amount of investment that we made into broadband and telecommunications services when we were in government. But now that we’re on the eve of the election, the Prime Minister’s deciding that families can have support that should have been announced two and a half years ago.
It, of course, builds on the pressure that families already have. They’ve had 12 interest rate rises, and as the Reserve Bank Governor points out, home grown inflation is a significant issue in our country. Interest rates have already come down in Canada, in New Zealand, in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and because the Government continues to spend so much money into the economy here, that is keeping interest rates higher for longer, and that’s why there is so much mortgage stress out there at the moment.
So, really proud to be here today and I’m very happy to take any questions.
QUESTION:
Just on rates, are you concerned that the falling Australian dollar could delay a rate cut?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I just think when you look at the economic decisions that have been made over the last two and a half years, the Government’s pulled every wrong lever, and part of the reason that Australians are suffering at the moment is because of the budgetary decisions made by Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanese. If we continue to see softening in the Australian dollar, if we continue to see inflation run rampant under this Government, then we’ll see interest rates stay higher for longer. In fact, some analysts talk about upward pressure on rates as opposed to downward pressure.
Now, I want to see interest rates come down. I think they would have already come down by now if there had been a Coalition Government in place, but it is a concerning time for many families. We’ve had a three-fold increase in the number of manufacturing businesses that have closed in Australia under the Labor’s watch, and over the last two and a half years, 26,000 small businesses have gone insolvent because of the Government’s bad economic policies.
We want to turn that around. We want to get our country back on track, and the Liberal National Parties are always stronger economic managers. We prove it every time we get in, having to clean up a Labor mess, and we’ll do that after the election this year.
QUESTION:
On the NBN, do you think the Government should do a deal with Elon Musk’s Starlink to improve service and bring down costs?
PETER DUTTON:
Well look, there’s a lot of competition in the marketplace at the moment, so you need to have a product that is affordable, a product that is market-leading, and consumers will decide, as they do online now, whether they are choosing to buy an imported electric vehicle or choosing to buy a product from Amazon as opposed to a local distributor. It’s a competitive marketplace.
If you have a very strong product, as Conetix does here, which is why they’ve been so successful, then they’ll gain market share. But it is a competitive space, and as David points out, consumers have made decisions to move to Starlink already or to other third party providers, and many of them have moved away from NBN, and in good part that’s because this Government has been asleep at the wheel when it’s come to internet services and providers of those products to consumers.
As I say, this is a decision the Prime Minister could have made three years ago, but instead he’s making now on the eve of an election.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, can I ask you about a local issue?
PETER DUTTON:
Sure.
QUESTION:
A 13 year old boy was arrested yesterday over a stabbing at an Ipswich shopping centre not too far from here. What’s your assessment of that? Have you been briefed? And can I get your take on what’s happened there?
PETER DUTTON:
Well look, I’ve seen the reporting, obviously, and I had the opportunity to speak to the excellent Mayor of Ipswich, Teresa Harding, this morning, and she raised it with me as well. Obviously it’s a concern to her and to Carl and every resident here in Ipswich.
As Queenslanders, we’ve seen crimes run rampant over recent years and in good part that’s why the Crisafulli Government was elected, but this matter obviously is before the courts, so I won’t make any comment in relation to it specifically, but I would point out that the Coalition has had a policy for a long time now to introduce uniform knife laws across the country. We’ve done a lot of work in relation to Jack’s Law and working with the Beasley family, and again, one of the core strengths of a Coalition Government is law and order and making sure that we can put everything possible in place to keep people safe.
People should be safe in their homes, in their workplaces, and as we found out yesterday in Victoria, the softening of the bail laws there has led to repeat offences becoming a common occurrence.
I spoke to a lady yesterday, who would have been in the 60s at an IGA and had a machete pulled on her. Psychologically, for that woman, her life has been changed forever and her patterns of movement, of the way she goes to work, the way that she feels when she’s at work has changed forever. I think sometimes the media cycle moves so quickly, we forget about the lasting impact on those victims. I hope that the court’s able to deal very harshly upon those perpetrators of very serious crimes.
QUESTION:
Do you support the Queensland Government’s Adult Crime, Adult Time laws?
PETER DUTTON:
Yes, I do.
QUESTION:
Can I ask you about the Australia Day announcement? So, some councils have pushed back against having to do citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day. Should this be an issue that councils get to decide on rather than, say, the Federal Government?
PETER DUTTON:
Well look, part of the reason we find ourselves in the mess at the moment, where you’ve got councils running in every direction is because the Prime Minister removed the requirement for councils to have their Australia Day citizenship ceremony.
Now, I’ve attended my local ceremony for many, many years and Paul has and David and many others who are very passionate about their local community. There are millions of Australians who have made the migrant journey to our country, they have enriched this country, and for many of them, Australia Day is sacrosanct because they were sworn in, they became citizens on that day – the 26th of January.
We have an incredible Indigenous history which we should celebrate, we have an incredible migrant story and we should celebrate that, as well. I want to make sure we can tell more of the Australian story about migrants who came here in the post-war period, who came to a place like Ipswich and built – when you look at the architecture and the buildings and the history of this town dating back to the 19th century. It is amazing that those people came with nothing and built the wonderful country that we enjoy today. I think we owe it to them and I think we owe it to people who have served in uniform to defend our values, to celebrate Australia Day, to make sure that as Australians, we’re proud of it.
If the Prime Minister doesn’t have the strength of leadership to stand up to Mayors and to others who don’t want to celebrate Australia Day, then our country’s in more trouble than we first realised. I really commend the Ipswich Mayor for having the Australia Day ceremony here in Ipswich. It’ll be well-attended, it’ll be well-supported and it’ll be a day where people will become Australian citizens. It’s the golden ticket to become a member of this wonderful country and we should celebrate it.
I know that there are many people within the Labor Party and the extreme left of the Labor Party and the Greens who are ashamed of Australia Day, and in fact our country, and frankly they should be called out. That’s exactly what we’re doing.
QUESTION:
I guess the question is should local people get to vote on whether they like that decision or not by their local council rather than the Federal Government make that decision?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, the Citizenship Act is a federal act and the direction should be given by the Federal Government – and that’s what happened. The Prime Minister, as we’ve seen in a number of decisions he’s made over the term of this parliament, has made decisions which he thinks will be popular with left inner-city Green voters because in his seat, he’s most at risk from the Greens and that’s what seems to dominate the Prime Minister’s every thought.
Unfortunately for people in Ipswich and across Blair, across the Somerset region and in outer metropolitan areas across the country, this Prime Minister has forgotten them and he’s making decisions on a daily basis which are hurting people who are working hard in working class suburbs.
This Labor Party, this modern Labor Party, is not the party of the worker. They’re the party of the union boss, not the union member. The Coalition in its modern form is the party for the Australian worker and for small business and for aspiration and for confidence and for being proud of who we are as Australians. That’s what we’ll deliver when we get our country back on track after the next election.
QUESTION:
Would you legislate to make January 26 Australia Day?
PETER DUTTON:
I’m happy to look at the suggestion and happy to make sure that we continue to be proud of who we are as a country.
QUESTION:
Will you attend the National Australia Day event in Canberra?
PETER DUTTON:
No, I won’t.
QUESTION:
Why not?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it’s not the tradition, firstly, and I know the Prime Minister carries on with this, but frankly, I think the Prime Minister’s pretty unhinged in some of his comments at the moment and not much of it based in fact. So, I wouldn’t look at the political stunts, I’d look at the failures that he’s presiding over because he’s seeking distractions from the fact that the Prime Minister cannot tell you what he’s achieved in this term of Parliament. He’s talking about what the agenda might be if they get re-elected and what will happen in a minority government when they’re governing with the Greens in his mind. But the fact is he can’t tell you what this three year term has been about.
What has the Government achieved over the course of the last three years? If they’d achieved anything, then he wouldn’t have to resort daily to the personal attacks on me and my colleagues. If he had a good story to tell about what they’ve achieved as a Government over the last three years, he’d be spruiking that, but of course he has no story to tell. He divided the country with the Voice and spent $500 million, which was wasted. He has divided our country since then and the Australia Day episode, and the way in which he’s tried to walk both sides of the street is another example of that. So, I think that’s the reality for this Prime Minister.
QUESTION:
You’ve spoken about – on similar sort of lines – you’ve spoken about trying to unify the country behind one flag. Obviously there’s lots of people every year who attend things like Invasion Day rallies who might feel that the Australian flag doesn’t necessarily represent them. Why do you think, I guess, unifying people under one flag would work, if that’s the case?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it works for every other civilisation, every other western country unites under one flag and we have one national flag. I have a great deal of respect for the Indigenous flag and for the Torres Strait Islander flag, but they are not the national flags.
We live in a democracy and if people don’t want to celebrate Australia Day, that’s entirely their choice. I’m comfortable with that, and relaxed with that – that’s their decision. But I don’t want to be told by woke CEOs and a weak Prime Minister that I can’t celebrate Australia Day. I want to celebrate Australia Day and I want to stand there with those new citizens who have come from a country that they’re trying to escape either persecution or poverty, and they want the future for themselves, for their children, their grandchildren. That’s the great Australian migrant story. Why would we be ashamed of that? We should be talking more about it.
In a democracy, people should have the freedom to express their view for and against. But I’m very clear with the Australian public that as Prime Minister I will make sure that we have national pride again, that we’re proud of who we are as a country, that we celebrate our history – good and bad. We recognise the good and bad, that’s the reality. We have an incredible future if we embrace it and if we bring our country together. But we can’t do that if we’re asking people to sit under different flags and in different tribes and in different communities. We are one Australian people and we celebrate diversity, celebrate our wonderful Indigenous heritage, and our incredible migrant story. But we will not be truly united when we’re not living under one flag.
QUESTION:
There’s a Greens councillor in Sydney who said that councils shouldn’t be dragged into your culture wars. What’s your response to that?
PETER DUTTON:
I don’t know who it is, so I don’t want to really…
QUESTION:
Can I ask you a question – the Financial Review has been reporting that the Liberal Party has preselected one woman and six men for seats held by retiring members. Shouldn’t the Party be doing more to fix its gender imbalance?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, a couple of points. I mean, firstly, when you look at the quality of the candidates – and Carl is a prime example of somebody who has been immersed in these local community. Communities respond to local members who have an affinity with their community, who have delivered, who have a real passion about fighting for the priorities of that local community.
In our Party, we have a democratically-based process where our members make decisions about who the candidates will be. In the Labor Party, the faceless union bosses decide who will be the candidates. In many cases, those people either don’t live in the local area or they’re imposed against the will of the local Labor members. Ours is a much more democratic process. Yes, of course, we want to see more women running in seats, and we have some incredible candidates – Maggie Forrest, just down the road in Ryan, I was, yesterday, with Katie Allen and also Amelia Hamer. We have some incredible candidates and we have more pre-selections to take place between now and when this Parliament dissolves. So, I’ll have more to say about that in due course.
QUESTION:
Do you plan to visit Israel later this year if you become prime minister?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I visited Israel only a matter of months ago. Israel, obviously, as we know – we should remind ourselves of this fact – is our most important ally in the Middle East. They are a democracy, they’re a rule-abiding nation, they respect the rule of law. For us, and I recall very specifically as Home Affairs Minister and as Defence Minister, we stopped terrorist attacks on our own soil and against our men and women in uniform because of intelligence that we received from the Israeli Government. So, I think we should be very, very supportive of the relationship and the way in which the Prime Minister and the dereliction of his leadership has led to the level of anti-Semitism, which is up by 700 per cent over the course of the last couple of years. I think we should remind ourselves that that is an important relationship. We should seek to nurture and grow it. As I’ve said, one of my first calls after the election will be to the Prime Minister of Israel and it will be a priority for our government to mend that relationship quickly because it’s in our national interest to do so.
QUESTION:
You’ll mend that by a visit?
PETER DUTTON:
I’m very happy to visit, yeah.
QUESTION:
Can the Tomago Aluminium smelter produce aluminium by only relying on renewables or do they need fossil fuels or nuclear?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, again, let’s understand what this debate means. So, in a smelter, they need 24/7 power. It’s a high energy user. Are we going to stop using aluminium in our country for windows and for general use through the economy? Of course we’re not. So, if we don’t manufacture here in our country, and we just manufacture it in Malaysia or in Wyoming or somewhere else, and then we re-import the product. So, we re-import it at a higher cost, not just economically but to the environment as well, because generally speaking, those environments don’t have the same standards that we do here in Australia. So, why would we kill off those industries? But that’s exactly what the Prime Minister is doing at the moment.
Our economy can’t run, a full-time economy like ours, which is developed, which requires full time power, it can’t run on intermittent power. That’s not a political statement, it’s just a statement of fact. The Government has to stop pretending that a smelter or a high energy user employing people on a 24/7 basis can somehow run when the wind is not blowing or the sun’s not shining. It can’t happen, and it’s why we’ve seen a three-fold increase in manufacturing closures in this country over the course of the last couple of years.
I want to make sure that we can have a lot of renewables in the system, but they only work if we can firm them up with nuclear power as the coal assets retire. Now, at the moment you’ve got Labor Governments in New South Wales, in Victoria, in Western Australia scrambling because they’re worried about the lights going out and there being disruption to that energy supply. In that scenario we will see further job losses and closures. I want to see a bright future for Tomago, I want to see a bright future across the Hunter Valley, and across every location in the country where there is heavy manufacturing because it adds to our gross domestic product.
We were up in the Pilbara only a few weeks ago – Rio Tinto paid $10 billion in taxes and royalties last year. We don’t pay for hospitals in Brisbane or Sydney, or schools in Melbourne and Hobart, or upgrades to the Bruce Highway or investments in police without that income. If we close it down, as the Labor Party wants, our economy will go into freefall. So, we want a strong future for manufacturing in this country and that will be achieved through the plan that we’ll put to the Australian people.
Thank you.
[ends]