Getting energy prices down; Tony Abbott; Liberal Party; Wentworth;
Prime Minister
RAY HADLEY: He did a fantastic job as Immigration Minister and one of the architects of Border Protection. He’s now the boss, número uno and he’s on the line. Prime Minister, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER: G’day Ray, nice to be talking.
HADLEY: It’s been a while.
PRIME MINISTER: It’s been a while mate.
[Laughter]
HADLEY: I was only thinking about you the other day. You know the stunt you pulled with the coal in Parliament?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah?
HADLEY: You weren’t channelling me at that particular stage, with stunts? I’ve pulled a couple of stunts, including one with you one day. You weren’t thinking about me when you produced the coal illegally inside Parliament, were you?
PRIME MINISTER: Mate, it was a while ago now but my view hasn’t changed. It’s a big part of Australia’s energy future.
HADLEY: I’m glad you got to that because there’s a story on the front page of The Financial Review and I know you’re pressed for time so this is just a short catch-up. Your Minister for reducing prices, Angus Taylor, on electricity, has slammed greenhouse gas reduction, the policies as “corporate greed dressed up as saving the planet” while a key ratings agency warned the Government-created a vacuum on energy policy was putting it all at risk. Now, let’s cut to the chase. Andy Vesey is gone, AGL, a bit like your Government, is now unharnessed. Can we have any action on Liddell sometime in the foreseeable future? The former Prime Minister said if we have to acquire it, we will. What’s going to happen there?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, Angus is bringing back a package of things for me right now.
HADLEY: Right.
PRIME MINISTER: To see how we can get greater investment in what I call “fair dinkum power”; that’s the stuff that works when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. So I’m waiting on Angus to come back to me with those options. One of the things we will be moving to do is creating a divestment power, which is something I initiated when I was Treasurer. The ACCC didn’t recommend it, but I thought it was necessary because the only thing I’ve ever seen make those big energy companies move is when you’ve got a big stick. So you know, we’ve got to create the power to have that big stick. So Angus is working away on that. I think you’ve got a pretty clear indication from him and me about how we think things should be done.
HADLEY: So, you’re as one in relation to this matter?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, we want to see more fair dinkum power generated in Australia. We want to see more investment go into it and that’s a big part of getting electricity prices down. I’ve always said that.
HADLEY: Okay, you’ve had a couple of brush fires to put out since you came in.
PRIME MINISTER: That’s true.
[Laughter]
HADLEY: You might need someone from the Royal Fire Service, apart from Tony Abbott. But I noticed Julie Bishop has now confirmed she won’t cross the floor to support some sort of motion against Peter Dutton. So common sense has prevailed there?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah it has, it has and I’m also pleased that Tony took up my invitation to work on something he’s massively passionate about and that is getting young indigenous kids in school. I mean, Ray, you’ll be aware of the work that Clontarf does both in AFL and rugby –
HADLEY: Yeah, yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: They do a great job. I’ve been involved with them for a long time, but getting indigenous kids to remote and regional area schools is a big part of the answer and you know, Tony is just going to do a great job on it.
HADLEY: Well, as you know, I talk to him regularly and I was very happy that when the offer came and I almost pleaded with him on air to take it.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah.
HADLEY: Because I thought, apart from the fact that he’s got the expertise and will do a great job, I just thought it was a way of indicating to the electorate the things that the things that have happened in the past, are the past and you move forward.
PRIME MINISTER: That’s exactly it, mate. That’s exactly it, I mean, we’ve got one focus and that is keep our economy strong, we’ve got to keep Australians safe and we’ve got to keep them together too. I think people have had a gutful of all the sort of nonsense that goes on in Canberra. I have and I know my team has and that’s why we’re just focused on delivering for your listeners.
HADLEY: Now, there’s a lot, mate, about your MP Ann Sudmalis and the fact that she’s not going to sit at the next election. There’s much made today about bullying and the like. But yesterday, it’s not a federal parliament matter.
PRIME MINISTER: No.
HADLEY: She accused a Liberal MP in New South Wales, Gareth Ward, of bullying. Look, I would think that, you know, you’ve got Craig Kelly and Kent Johns and you yourself were involved in a rather infamous, you know, pre-selection battle.
PRIME MINISTER: It gets a bit willing.
HADLEY: Well, it does. What I’m saying here is – and I don’t know what Ward did or whether he bullied her or not - but he’s organised the numbers down there and there’s a real estate agent, I think his name is Schultz and he looks like he’s going to be pre-selected. I guess she just thought it was insurmountable odds, that if Ward rallies as a powerbroker in that region to get other people to cross to his way of thinking, that she wouldn’t be preselected. So I mean, it’s the robust way that politics operates, isn’t it? Either in Labor or Liberal.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it does work both ways on both sides of politics. But she was going to be endorsed as the Liberal candidate that had been made pretty clear, so it wasn’t about that.
But you know sometimes State Members of Parliament stick their nose in the business of Federal Members’ areas. I don’t think that’s a particularly good look, that’s not how we do it around my part of town. We both focus on our jobs and try to work closely together, which we’ve been doing together with Mark Speakman and Eleni Petinos, Craig Kelly and the local councillors there, Carmelo Pesce down in southern Sydney. We all just work together. But, clearly there has been a couple of issues down there and Ann has decided to retire at the next election. That’s her call and I wish her well. We’ll pick another great candidate for Gilmore and the South Coast area where I have got a lot of family and I know very well. It’s usually where I go on holidays with family and have for a very long period of time. It’s a beautiful part of the country. So we’ll just get on with that. I’ll leave those issues to the Party organisation.
What it’s turned out, all the issues that have been raised around these things over the last few weeks, they actually, at the end of the day have related to the Party organisation, not the parliamentary Party here in Canberra. That’s why I have asked the Party organisation to come up with a rigorous and confidential process to deal with these things. But I’m not going to get distracted by it. I’ve got to focus, look through the dust and make sure we’re focusing on the things that make a big difference, like getting people’s electricity prices down.
HADLEY: Well, if the alleged misogynistic behaviour doesn’t happen inside Federal Parliament, do we lead to the next thing that there is still a culture hanging over from decades gone by within the Party itself? The Party organisation as you so aptly describe it as opposed to the parliamentary Party?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, that’s true and we’ve got to do better. I want to see more Liberal women in Parliament, but I always want the best candidate. At Wentworth, we got the best candidate. So I can’t complain about that, I think that’s the right outcome.
But I do want to see Liberal women going into pre-selections, being well prepared, getting good support, getting the right sort of training to go and do these jobs. It’s like in any job, if you want someone to go a good job as a chief executive or head of HR or head of planning or finance or something, well you’ve got to get them trained and well-supported to be able to perform and secure those jobs. So that’s where the Party organisation I think has a big job to do to get more women in Parliament. I want the best people for the job every time there’s a preselection. In Wentworth, that’s what we got and he’s up against what it turns out to be – I mean, look, I’ve known Kerryn Phelps for a long time, she’s not a Liberal and we know that because a former Labor staffer is running her campaign.
HADLEY: I dealt with that before I started talking with you and Trent Zimmerman made the point, as has I think it’s in The Australian today. The point is being made that all of a sudden a bloke who has a Labor pedigree that some people within the Labor Party would absolutely clamber for, is now orchestrating her campaign?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that’s right. It raises two questions; are they doing it to just get the Labor candidate up at the end of the day? Which is often what Labor do, they’ll run an independent like they did down in Braddon and effectively support an independent to knock out a Liberal candidate. We know what that’s all about. So the only way you can ensure we continue the continuity and stability of what’s happening here for our economy as a nation, is to vote for Dave Sharma. He’s the only Liberal candidate in that field and anyone pretending to be or thinking they might be; “Oh, I won’t cause too much mischief.” Well, we don’t want any mischief. We’ve got to get on with the job.
HADLEY: I know you’ve got other things to do and I appreciate your time this morning. But Paul Murray, my colleague from Sky News, had one final crack; a one-seat majority or Cronulla into the grand final over Melbourne? You said that’s the end of the interview and I’m sure that’s what you’ll say again today?
PRIME MINISTER: That’s what we’ll do again today. Up, up, Cronulla. Sadly, I would love to be there on Friday night, but I’ve got other commitments here in Sydney so I’ll be checking it out with some locals at a local pub in southern Sydney. But I wish Flanno and Gal and all the boys, all the best. I think it’s going to be a great game, it really is going to be a great game. Two tremendous sides, it’ll be a great clash.
HADLEY: Well, if it replicates what happened last Friday and Saturday night with one point victories – incredible. I called that game on Saturday night, I don’t think I’ve seen a final ten minutes as we saw as South Sydney overcame the obstacles placed in front of them by St. George Illawarra. So will this be the first of chats we continue to have?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, mate of course, Ray of course. I know you speak regularly to Pete too and you know I’m giving him 100 per cent support.
HADLEY: Good, good.
PRIME MINISTER: We’re not going to be intimidated by the Labor Party and following their agenda. We’ll follow ours and get on with the job.
HADLEY: Thanks, Prime Minister. Talk soon.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks, Ray, cheers.