EDDIE MCGUIRE:
The Prime Minister of Australia, joining us on Triple M. Plenty of things to talk about; the energy companies, marriage equality, the Korean Peninsula, even the faux-outrage by some people yesterday in a ridiculous situation with the Prime Minister, in a photo at the football with his granddaughter.
But before we get to that, the Prime Minister of Australia has even more serious topics to discuss and that is the hijacking of the pinball machine from Triple M’s Hot Breakfast studios up to the Hit Network-
LUKE DARCY:
-it goes straight to the core values of this country I would have thought.
EDDIE MCGUIRE:
I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but good morning Malcolm.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Eddie.
EDDIE MCGUIRE:
You’ve got thoughts on this, have you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look it’s a dreadful decision by management. I’ll give them a call myself after this and encourage them to return your pinball machine.
MICK MOLLOY:
Thank you Prime Minister. It means a lot coming from you.
PRIME MINISTER:
I’ll request Pinball Wizard too.
[Laughter]
MICK MOLLOY:
We know you normally take the position of big business but we appreciate on this instance you’re going in for the rank and file workers, the worker ants, so well done.
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s it, don’t worry look I’ll do my best to get it back for you.
LUKE DARCY:
Prime Minister we loved seeing you at the footy, beautiful shot. You’ve got a little granddaughter, I think, in your arms.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah little baby Alice.
LUKE DARCY:
Little baby Alice and a glass of beer, just a very nice moment at the football.
MICK MOLLOY:
Nothing more natural in the world.
LUKE DARCY:
Can’t believe people are getting outraged by that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I couldn’t either, I don’t think many were actually but I think it’s in the sort of craziness of social media that you see things like that.
EDDIE MCGUIRE:
Does that make it hard to actually run the country at times Malcolm, when you do – as you said – the craziness of social media – and then the follow up from traditional media just always looking for clickbait and hysteria?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think you’ve just got to be yourself Eddie. As long as you’re comfortable in your own skin and you’re just being yourself, being natural, I think that’s all you can do, anything else and you end up being as crazy as some of the trolls on Twitter, if you do anything else.
EDDIE MCGUIRE:
Well we saw you in your natural habitat, it was - the photo in the paper with your granddaughter Alice is a beauty – but also yesterday, you stepped up and said you were going to be voting ‘yes’ in the marriage equality referendum or plebiscite.
The ballots arrive tomorrow I understand Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
They’ll be posted tomorrow so people will start getting them. They’ll go out, as I understand it, they send out about 600,000 or a bit more every day. So people won’t get them all at the same time.
EDDIE MCGUIRE:
Okay.
PRIME MINISTER:
But I encourage everyone to fill in the survey and return it. I’ll be voting ‘yes’ as will Lucy. So I encourage others to vote ‘yes’ and I’ve been a strong supporter of legalising same sex marriage for many, many years now so.
EDDIE MCGUIRE:
Can you take us through your rationale? Particularly for those who are a bit on the fence and also a bit worried about traditional marriage type?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well let me deal with that first point – second point about traditional marriage.
EDDIE MCGUIRE:
Yep.
PRIME MINISTER:
Look Eddie, the enemy, the things that threaten marriages are lack of commitment. I mean marriage is all about commitment, so what threatens marriage? It’s neglect, it’s abandonment, it’s adultery, it’s basically losing that commitment -it’s a lack of commitment.
So if two gay people down the road, who are living together decide to get married, how does that threaten my nearly 38-year-old marriage to Lucy? Of course it doesn’t.
If lack of commitment is the problem, then people showing commitment should be a positive, it actually would encourage other people to do the same.
I mean I know I sound like a very conservative person when I say this, but it’s very heartfelt. I sincerely believe we would be a stronger nation if more people were married and fewer were divorced.
Throughout all my life, I’ve always encouraged, you know the ‘singles’ to get married, the ‘marrieds’ to stay married, you know, people who are straying to mend their ways, and those who have been wronged to forgive. I passionately believe in marriage and I think it is the bedrock of society.
So if two gay people who have got a commitment to each other and are living together and are supporting each other through life’s ups and downs and tribulations and successes and everything else, why shouldn’t we recognise that - the state, the government - recognise that as a marriage?
So it is a question of fairness, but in terms of traditional marriage, if you want to support traditional marriage you should be focused on supporting commitment.
LUKE DARCY:
Prime Minister thanks for that and thanks for sorting out our pinball machine, that means a lot to us. Can you now sort out the energy bill so we can afford to turn it on? Because that’s a big issue at the moment, have you got a solution?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it sure is a big issue and we’ve got a number of solutions. We’re working through it as you know. We’ve got the energy companies to make sure that people are on the right deal. Many people are saving hundreds of dollars a year now because of our initiatives.
We’re also taking action to ensure that gas is affordable. Gas prices are coming down, I’ve taken some pretty heavy-handed action to limit gas exports. So again, that’s making up for a mistake in ages past.
And just as you’ve seen recently, we don’t want to have a repeat of the Hazelwood situation, where a big power station has shut down and then there’s nothing to put in its place and you get a big increase in prices. So I got the energy market operator to analyse what the impact on the market is going to be over the next immediate term, medium term, longer term and the closure of another big power station in New South Wales called Liddell in 2022 will result – so they say – in a big gap in baseload power in that year. So we’re looking at all the options to plug that gap and the obvious one, the most obvious one, is to keep it running for a few more years and that’s what we’re talking to the owners about today.
EDDIE MCGUIRE:
It would make sense wouldn’t it, to just keep things going, but with a plan to the future, with a definite plan to the future to clean things up as we go.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yep.
EDDIE MCGUIRE:
But not at the expense of having the energy that’s required at this particular moment in time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Eddie you’ve nailed it, that’s exactly what it’s all about. I am very committed to ensuring that we meet our international obligations and lower our emissions, we all like clean energy. But you’ve got to make sure the transition is done responsibly. You look at the longer term plans going out to six years or so into the future, you look at Snowy Hydro 2.0, that’s what we’re going to build. That’s the biggest renewable project built in Australia since Snowy Hydro 1.
But you can’t snap your fingers and have, you know, new power generation in place in a few weeks. So this is a complex issue which has been very poorly managed. Now I’m bringing engineering and economics and a very hard-headed, businesslike approach to it, and that’s why we will get the outcomes we need, which is affordable and reliable power.
EDDIE MCGUIRE:
More strength to your arm on that one Prime Minister, because it seems as you said, finally we have a bit of a plan going forward on this, to get the green energy up but not without having to turn the lights off in the meantime. Good luck with all that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks Eddie.
EDDIE MCGUIRE:
Enjoy the footy.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah thanks Mick.
EDDIE MCGUIRE:
We’ll see you in the next couple of weeks, Mick’s ready to go, the Tiger Army are waiting for you to come down.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, what’s the mood like in Richmond Mick?
MICK MOLLOY:
It’s not too bad.
PRIME MINISTER:
You must be excited.
MICK MOLLOY:
Everyone has risen to my level of excitement.
[Laughter]
We’re on tenterhooks at the moment, I might see you on the big day sir.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, we’ll see.
MICK MOLLOY:
We’ll sit together, we’ll have a beer.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, we’ll have a beer.
MICK MOLLOY:
Done.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good on you, take care.
EDDIE MCGUIRE:
Thanks Malcolm, Malcolm Turnbull.
[ENDS]