TRANSCRIPT - TODAY SHOW

E&OE TRANSCRIPT 

Topics: Election; USA relationship and tariffs. 

SARAH ABO, HOST:    The Liberal Party is at a crossroads. Faced with not only finding a new leader, but it would seem new donors as well. Joining us to discuss today's headlines is Minister for Social Services and the NDIS Amanda Rishworth, and former LNP Queensland Minister Scott Emerson. Good morning to you both. Scott, whoever gets the top job at the Liberals will have a task ahead of them. They'll have to lure some new donors to. It would seem. What a mess. 

SCOTT EMERSON, COMMENTATOR:   It is a massive job about whoever gets this. You'd have to think that they're out of office for at least three years, if not six. And, you know, there's a lot of work to be done. And we're seeing this morning donors saying that they don't want to donate to the party. Again, they've given millions of dollars. And they think that the campaign itself, the policies were wrong. The campaign was flawed. This is going to be a tough job. Angus Taylor is probably the favourite at the moment to get the top gig, but it's going to be a tough whoever gets the job.    

SARAH ABO:    I mean, there's people sniping on him as well, but who would want it? I mean, it's probably six years in the doldrums. You've got a reduced majority. It is going to be an uphill battle. No, thanks. 

SCOTT EMERSON:   Yeah. No, I don't think anyone realises how tough this job is. Opposition leaders are always got it tough. But given we only got 40 seats or so and need to get double the numbers next time around to get the chance of being majority government, it's going to be tough. 

SARAH ABO:    It's a far cry from the Labor Party swept back to the corridors of power in Canberra. Amanda, congratulations, of course, to you as well. Must be nice not having an opposition at the moment. You don't even have the Greens in your way. 

AMANDA RISHWORTH, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES:   We've obviously had a very strong result at the election, but it's not a result that our Prime Minister or we as the Labor Party are going to take for granted. The Prime Minister's back on the job straight away, and we've got a really bold agenda that we have to implement. We made our policies and our proposition very clear, and that's what we've got to get on and deliver now. 

SARAH ABO:    The PM had a bit of swagger about him yesterday, didn't he, when he was strolling through Canberra in the sunshine with those cool sunnies on. He seems very, very calm. And of course, maybe that came right after he got that call from the US president. He finally called you back. Amanda. 

AMANDA RISHWORTH:   The Prime Minister has reported on the warm conversation, that he had with the President. But I think it actually goes to the fact that our Prime minister had a lot of warm conversations with world leaders yesterday. I mean, Anthony Albanese has made it a real focus of building our relationships across the world. 

SARAH ABO:    It didn't stop him, though, Amanda. It didn't stop President Trump giving us a bit of a whack. Another whack. I mean, along with the rest of the world, those movie tariffs will put thousands of Aussie jobs at risk. How's the PM going to get a carve out on that? 

AMANDA RISHWORTH:   We have an excellent film industry that makes world leading films. We'll be putting forward very clearly that these tariffs are unjustified. The Prime Minister said yesterday that there was a discussion about tariffs. I know that our whole team, including the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Trade Minister, will be making a very strong case that these are just unjustified tariffs. 

SARAH ABO:    Yeah, that's going to hurt a lot of the industry in Brisbane isn't it. 

SCOTT EMERSON:   Queensland's got a multi-million dollar industry here and this is a devastating blow. And the problem is that it might have been a warm conversation with Donald Trump and Anthony Albanese. It's great that they had the conversation, but we've seen this before. Nice words coming out of the American president. But it doesn't stop him imposing tariffs on a long-standing friend like Australia. This, if it was imposed, would be devastating for industry across Australia, but particularly here on the Gold Coast. 

SARAH ABO:    All right, just very quickly Amanda, in Adelaide at the moment. You will eventually get to Canberra. There'll be a reshuffle likely Penny Wong, Jim Chalmers, Katy Gallagher and Richard Marles keeping their portfolios. Do you know whether you'll keep yours? 

AMANDA RISHWORTH:   It has been an absolute privilege to serve as the Minister for Social Services and the NDIS But there's a process underway and it's absolutely the prerogative of the Prime Minister to choose those portfolios. And I am happy to serve in, whatever he chooses for me.