Transcript – Joint Doorstop with Mr Ted O’Brien, Mrs Melissa McIntosh and Ms Carmen Lazar, Erskine Park

Subjects: The Coalition’s plan to deliver Australian gas for Australians; the Coalition’s plan for cheaper, cleaner and more consistent energy for Australia; major fuel price relief for Australians under the Coalition; Labor’s cost of living, energy and housing crisis; getting Australia Back on Track.

 

E&OE.

 

CARMEN LAZAR:

 

Good morning, everyone. My name’s Carmen Lazar and I’m the Liberal candidate for McMahon. Welcome to this wonderful city. Thank you so much for your attendance. We also welcome Minister Dutton, hopefully soon, to BlueScope. I will now hand over to him.

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

No, you go first.

 

MELISSA MCINTOSH:

 

Thanks very much, Carmen. It’s wonderful to welcome Peter and the team back to Western Sydney again, the manufacturing heartland of Australia. I’ve seen that the Prime Minister has been out talking about gaslighting today. There is no one that is gaslighting the Australian people except this Prime Minister. On 97 occasions, he promised Australians would be paying $275 less, as of this year, on their energy bills. Today, here in Western Sydney, they are paying $1,300 more. That is not fair for everyday Australians that are struggling so much right now, and manufacturers across Western Sydney that rely on gas are paying 38 per cent more. In New South Wales, that means manufacturers, small businesses, are closing their doors at rapid rates like never before and that’s why we’ve got exciting news today and Peter’s going to tell you all about it. Thanks, Peter.

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Ted, you go first.

 

TED O’BRIEN:

 

Well, thanks very much Carmen, and thanks very much Melissa. It’s wonderful to be here today at one of Australia’s largest manufacturers and indeed one of Australia’s largest users of natural gas. We are, of course, here in the seat of McMahon. Now, the Energy Minister needs to report to his own constituents as to why they have seen the highest increase in gas prices across the entire country here, locally. Why it is that they are paying over $1,300 more than what Chris Bowen had promised them only three years ago. We know that Australia’s energy system is a complete and utter mess. Labor has no plan. They’ve only recently thrown out their economic modelling, which pretended they were able to get prices down, keep the lights on, as industry powered ahead. But as we know, Australia now is suffering from the biggest drop in standards of living across the developed world. We know that 29,000 businesses have gone insolvent. We know that families are on their knees, the highest proportion of Australian families ever going to their energy retailer needing assistance because they cannot pay their bills. Why? All of this is a direct consequence of bad public policy.

 

Now, there is an alternate approach and that alternate approach is about a balanced energy mix. In the short term, the priority is that we pour more gas into the system and we are delighted to have announced our National Gas Plan. A plan that will see us getting more gas out of the ground, prioritising for Australians and getting it to where it needs to be. Independent analysis done by Frontier Economics estimates the impact of this gas policy to be immediate and to be profound. We are looking at a drop in the wholesale gas prices, which will flow through to Australians in their homes who might use gas for cooking, might use gas for heating. It will flow though to all of us who go to a shopping centre and buy fruit and veg because the farmers use gas. At least the fertiliser that they use comes from the use of gas. We are talking about building materials being cheaper, whether it be bricks or steel, because it uses gas, and when you have industry looking at the possibility of a 15 per cent reduction in their gas prices, this is good news for all Australians because that does mean more industry, more jobs, cheaper products for all Australians. Delighted to be here today with a company which will benefit and when companies like this one benefit, well, all Australians benefit. With that, I’ll pass on to Peter Dutton.

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Ted, thank you very much.

 

Firstly, I want to say thank you to BlueScope for hosting us today. Every Australian knows BlueScope to be a great brand. It provides building products that young Australians are relying on to see their own home ownership dream realised. It’s used in roofing, obviously, fencing and steel framing for houses and a company like this relies on a big use of electricity and energy. When you look at the paint process that was going on in the factory behind us, it’s really energy intensive and gas is used, natural gas is used to generate electricity, it’s used to make sure that it can drive furnaces and there are many manufacturers like this. We were at Brickworks the other day, another main essential ingredient, obviously, to housing. They’re paying about three times the cost for electricity and gas in this country compared to their exact same factory in the United States and it’s just not sustainable. So, what we’re outlining to the Australian people is our plan to deal with the cost-of-living pressures right now and that is through our 25 cents a litre reduction in unleaded and diesel and that’s going to help families right now. The Prime Minister’s proposal is to provide 70 cents a day, in 15 months’ time, which is just a band-aid on a bullet wound. We’re going to provide economy wide benefits through reducing the cost of that petrol and diesel, so it’s going to be of benefit to pensioners, it’s going to be of benefit to tradies, running around work utes, it’s going to be of benefit to delivery truck drivers taking the produce from the farm to the local IGA, it’s going to be of benefit right across the economy, including in households. That’s the first step that we’re taking under our plan.

 

The next step is to make sure that we can address the root cause of the problem, which is the energy policy that is a train wreck under Chris Bowen, and Carmen is doing a fantastic job here, as Mel McIntosh is and Ted as well, in highlighting what has been a disaster for our country. But Australians already know that. The renewables-only policy that Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese have designed, it’s wrecking, it’s destroying our economy and it’s driving up the cost of everything. So, it’s not just your power bill that’s gone up by 32 per cent and your gas bill that has gone up by 34 per cent; it’s also the local IGA store, it’s the farmer, it’s the manufacturer, it’s the cold storage operator, it’s the transport company, and that’s why you’ve seen a cost increase across the board. Grocery prices, for goodness’ sake, are up by 30 per cent. That’s not happening in comparable economies. At the moment, Australians have lived through a household recession over the last two years under this government and in big part, it’s because of the energy policy – it’s inflationary, it’s driven up the cost of everything – so, with our Gas for Australians plan, for our Natural Gas for Aussies First plan, this is about bringing more gas that we own, as a people, into the market; it’s about reducing the cost of producing steel here; it’s about reducing the cost of bricks; it’s about reducing the cost for farmers and for manufacturers across the economy. If we can do that, and I believe absolutely we can; the independent analysis demonstrates that we can, then over the short to medium term, we can bring prices down across the economy, so the reduction in petrol price applies across the economy. The tax policy that Mr Albanese’s thought about and won’t start for 15 months is not going to provide the support, the structural change, that we need to fix this problem and the Gas for Australians policy is going to provide that short-to-medium-term relief.

 

The next part of our plan, as you know, is to bring in a zero-emissions technology being used by 19 of the top 20 economies in the world. The only reason the government’s opposed to nuclear energy is because they’re worried about green voters in inner-city Sydney and Melbourne and they’re happy to hang the rest of the country out to dry. So. we have a short-term plan, we have a medium-term plan and we have longer-term plan which will get this country back on track. It is about economic management and it’s only through good economic management that we can deal with what is coming at us from the United States, from China, from the rest the world in relation to tariffs. All of that is going to be a huge economic shock. The Treasurer’s already talking about a recession under Labor in this country. I want to make sure that we can help families and, unfortunately, the bad decisions of this government over three years have really left people in a very difficult position. Australians can’t afford three more years of Anthony Albanese and a big-spending Labor-Greens government would mean higher interest rates for Australians, as well as higher electricity and gas prices and that’s not something that we’re going to tolerate.

 

We’ll start over here and then we’ll work our way around.

 

QUESTION:

 

Mr Dutton, when is the earliest people will see retail gas and electricity prices go down under your plan?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

So, under our plan, we bring more gas in straight away because we speak to the…

 

QUESTION:

 

But when do prices start…

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

…we speak to the companies from day one. Now, some of the big gas companies aren’t happy but I’m fighting for families and I’m fighting for small businesses and for bigger manufacturing businesses so that we can bring costs down across the economy. I want the price of steel to come down and the price of bricks to come down and they can under our policy, so we do, in the first 100 days, speak to those companies and work our way through our plan, we decouple from the international price and we can see more gas coming into the system by the end of this calendar year and that’s when you’ll start to see a reduction in those prices.

 

QUESTION:

 

Retail prices? Retail prices this year?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

 

QUESTION:

 

Mr Dutton, the factory inside was a bit of a microcosm of modern multicultural Australia. We saw, in the debate last night, a couple of the questions were framed in a way that was critical of your cuts to the migration intake. Are you concerned that talking of cutting migration might hurt you in these Western Sydney multicultural seats that you must win?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Andrew, I actually think the opposite’s the case. When I speak to young migrant families who have teenage kids now, they’ve been here for a few years, they’re desperately worried about whether their kids can find a house and they’re worried, in their own circumstances, of being locked out of housing and, under Mr Albanese, rents have gone up by 18 per cent. Young Australians, it doesn’t matter whether you come from a young Indian family or a young Chinese family or you’ve been here for generations, you’re… as grandparents, as parents, you’re worried desperately, under Labor, because they’ve created a housing crisis. That’s what Australians are feeling and our decision to cut the migration program by 25 per cent is all about getting young Aussies into homes. Mr Albanese has a plan to lock Australians out of homes. I’m going to be the Prime Minister for our country who can see young Australians achieving that dream again. I want young Australians to be able to own their own home, I want rents to be affordable, but, under Mr Albanese and Mr Bandt, it is going to a nightmare for housing. We’ve got a plan to bring construction costs down and a $5 billion plan to build 500,000 new homes and under our migration cuts, we create 40,000 homes. They become available for Australians in the first year and, over five years, we’ll create about 100,000 additional homes and I think that’s really powerful.

 

QUESTION:

 

Sorry to hear about your dad, how’s he doing and were there the moments during the Sky News debate that you were thinking of him?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Look, I spoke to Dad this morning, and thank you for the question and asking about him, he’s doing well, he’s stoic, he’s a tough bugger, he’s worked hard all of his life and he’s been an amazing dad, so, yeah, of course you think about him but he’s fine and he’s doing well, thank you.

 

QUESTION:

 

On US relations, you’ve said the Coalition will keep continuity in Washington with Kevin Rudd. Given the market turmoil, how relations are going, would you reconsider that position and how is your approach different from Labor?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Look, I think what Australians are worried about at the moment, is who is better to manage our economy and bring down the cost of living, who can deal with the economic headwinds, if we have a recession in the United States, if there is a global recession, if there’s a broader war in Europe. A Labor-Greens government with a weak and incompetent Prime Minister is not going to be able to deal with that. I have served as the Defence Minister, as the Home Affairs Minister, as Health Minister; I’ve worked for four Prime Ministers; I’ve watched closely seven Prime Ministers in action; I was around the Cabinet table with my colleagues when we dealt with COVID and we made decisions which brought Australians economically through COVID in a much better shape than many other countries around the world. I have the experience and my team has the experience to deal with whatever comes at our country. The Prime Minister has demonstrated that he’s always weak, always late to the game, and the lies just roll off his tongue and I think, as the Prime Minister points out…

 

QUESTION:

 

Why … [inudible] … Washington?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Well, we have the contacts and we have the ability, we make sure that we work on relationships. We were able to negotiate with the Biden Administration the AUKUS agreement which is underpinning our national security for 100 years and we can deal with any administration in the United States and I believe very strongly that only a Coalition government can deal with the economic headwinds, the uncertainty, the prospect of a global recession. Labor has demonstrated all they do is tax and spend. This is the biggest-spending government in 40 years, the biggest-spending government since Gough Whitlam, and it’s actually even worse than the Whitlam Government and Australians know it. When the Prime Minister’s out there saying ‘oh, look, you know, you’ve never had it better off, be grateful for what’s happened over the last three years,’ he’s not able to talk about his track record, because, over the last three years, it’s been a disaster for many families and I want to make sure that we can help get our country back on track, help manage the cost-of-living crisis that Labor’s created and our gas plan is about getting Australian gas for Australians – that will bring the price down if we bring more supply, between 50 and 100 petajoules, into the market and the Prime Minister is not promising to fix any problem. All he’s doing, he’s got a $150 part-time rebate in place but people know that their power prices have gone up by $1,300 so…

 

QUESTION:

 

The question was on US relations.

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Yeah and I’ve dealt with that, yes.

 

QUESTION:

 

Mr Dutton, you just talked about your 25 per cent cut to migration. Now, that’s to permanent migration and it means people who are already here. You initially had a target to cut net migration, which is really the figure that matters, by 100,000 more than Labor. You last, or earlier, I can’t remember when, announced thirty thousand 30,000 more on students. Are you still committed to that 100,000 deeper cut?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Yes.

 

QUESTION:

 

And, if so… yes?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Yeah, so, in relation… your question is…

 

QUESTION:

 

So what is your net overseas migration…

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Your question is in relation to the NOM. We can reduce the NOM by a hundred thousand (100,000) and we…

 

QUESTION:

 

When will that happen?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Well, straight away, once we get into government, we can deal with Labor’s mess. This is the issue…

 

QUESTION:

 

So is that going back to 160,000…

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

No, well, it depends on what the NOM figure is at the moment, because, if you have a look at the Prime Minister, all sorts of wild projections, in relation to NOM, and none of them achieved. They always blow out, and their migration targets always blow out so, from the figure that we are bequeathed when we come into government, the figure that it is when we change government, we can reduce it by 100,000 – that’s our position.

 

QUESTION:

 

Okay, so if the figure stays at 260,000, that means you’ll go down to 160,000, which was your initial figure from the budget in reply speech?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Correct and, if it goes up under this government, which you would expect it to… I mean, they’re talking about 1.8 million people coming in over a five-year period. Don’t forget that that is, over a two-year period, a million people, which is 70 per cent more than at any two-year period in our country’s history. And you wonder why we’ve got a housing crisis, when they’ve stopped the supply of housing, they’ve allowed the CFMEU to run riot through the building sector, which has driven up the cost of constructing a house. I want to make home affordability a reality for Australians again and we can do that by putting in place our two-year ban on foreign buyers, to stop those foreign buyers from competing against young Australians in buying Australian homes.

 

QUESTION:

 

There was a big business backlash to that 160,000 number. Are you worried about that?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

I’m not worried about that. I’ve got the first and foremost interest in mind and that is to get young Australians into housing. I’m not going to tolerate Labor’s policy, where they’re happy that Australians and young Australians can’t get into housing. We’ve got older Australians, at the moment, who are working longer and harder, because they had planned wisely and saved their whole lives to provide for their own retirement, they’re pushing out their retirement date now because they know their kids need help either with rent or with a house deposit or to help chip into the repayments that their kids are making each month on their mortgage. Now, that’s not something the Prime Minister’s talking about but that’s the reality of what Australians are going through and I don’t want that to be the case. I want young Australians to be able to afford housing. Young Australians are putting off having kids, at the moment, under this government, because they can’t afford to rent and to save for a deposit at the same time and pay for child care, so this government has created a real mess and, when the Prime Minister says ‘well, everything’s okay’ and vote for him and Adam Bandt and another three years will be better, well, that’s what he promised on 97 occasions in relation to bringing the price of power down. It just, it hasn’t happened.

 

QUESTION:

 

Mr Dutton, will you be going to visit your father today and a question for Mr O’Brien, if I may: can he guarantee that gas exporters won’t scale back production to essentially avoid having to pay the export tax or sell to the local market at lower prices?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Well, I’ve spoken to Dad this morning and I’ve got amazing siblings and my sisters are with Dad at the moment, so I’ll just monitor that and see how we go, and then Ted might want to answer that question.

 

TED O’BRIEN:

 

Our plan is to ensure that we have more Australian Gas for Australians First. As part of that broader suite of policies, we will be supporting more investment on the part of the gas industry so we get more gas out of the ground. Ultimately, when you look at the full suite of policies, it’s all about increasing the supply of gas. Now, domestically, that translates into cheaper prices – higher supply, cheaper prices. Now, the sorts of policies which will lead to an increase in investment and production of gas include the fact that we will be halving the approval process time. We will have a $300 million Strategic Basin Plan. We’ll be scrapping any funding to the likes of the EDO – I mean, an Albanese Government-funded group of legal activists fighting against gas projects. We will ensure that gas is included in the Capacity Investment Scheme. We will have a $1 billion Critical Gas Infrastructure Fund. Now, when you look at all of these policy measures together, what you see is a carefully calibrated plan to ensure we get more gas out of the ground. Now, that means gas which will be used first and foremost for the Australian market but also for export. One of the conditions that we put on our Australian Gas for Australians First policy is that we will honour all the volumes under the foundation contracts to our trading partners. That’s absolutely key. Under the Albanese Government we have seen Australia get a bad reputation for sovereign risk. I mean, our key trading partners have looked at the Albanese Government and started to question the reliability of Australian supply. We’ll be reversing that, which is why we’ve been very upfront, from the very beginning, that the plan that we’ll be putting in place will honour those relationships and the volumes under those contracts. You see, the more gas we can get out of the ground, that means more gas for export but, first and foremost, it means more for gas for Australians so we can get prices down and that means households pay less for the gas they use at home and, for all of us, when we go shopping, whether it be for food produce, whether it be for materials, then the cheaper gas prices paid by industry flows through. It’s a laser focus. Everything’s about cost-of-living ease, and that’s what this policy is about.

 

QUESTION:

 

Mr Dutton, just further to Andrew’s question on Western Sydney attitudes here, you were accused earlier today by the Education Minister of demonising voters here in the West and he was referring to those 2016 comments you made and later apologised for around the Lebanese community. What is your reaction to Mr Clare’s claim today and can you also clarify who exactly did you give that personal apology to?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

I’d just say this. When you see the Labor Party throwing mud, whether it’s in relation to their ‘Mediscare’ campaign, the lies about – bulk billing rates have actually come down under this government. When you see them out there talking about our energy policy, the lies that the Prime Minister roll out and the mud that they throw in relation to me, to my colleagues, why are they doing that? I mean, they’re doing it because they don’t have a good three years to talk about, so that’s what I think people are focussed on. I’ve said repeatedly that we are a great beneficiary of the migration programme in our country. Look at Carmen’s family story, look at many other candidates that we have running at this election, people who have worked hard. The migrant story, particularly, I think we’ve pointed out on many occasions, of people who have come here since the Second World War period, people who have started with nothing, amassed a fortune, or people who have come here as builders and bricklayers and tilers and the rest of it, we are a net beneficiary of that but I think the concentration, at the moment, is on ‘how can our migration program work best for us?’ It doesn’t work best for us when you see an escalation in numbers to a record high. This whole ‘big Australia’ policy that has led to Anthony Albanese’s housing crisis and the reason young Australians can’t get into housing is because of the decisions the Prime Minister’s made, so they can throw mud, you would expect it, but I don’t think it’s what…

 

QUESTION:

 

[inaudible]

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

No, I’ve already commented on that.

 

QUESTION:

 

What is your response to concerns that you’re not taking a comprehensive economic manifesto to the election or laid out how you’re going to tackle structural deficits and spending?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

I just think the Labor Party should stop pushing that rubbish around. What you’ve seen under this government is the biggest-spending government in 40 years. They’ve locked in structural spends into the budget and they have committed to wasteful spending, some of which has been highlighted, we’ve been opposed to it, and, if you ask why we have had the biggest downturn in living standards in our country compared to any other comparable nation, go to the US, go the UK, go to Canada, they haven’t experienced what Australians have been put through over the last three years. 12 interest rate rises under this government haven’t happened because of what we’ve seen in the Middle East and the government’s position keeps changing on that. What has happened is this government has spent and that’s why the Reserve Bank Governor has pointed out that there’s a home-grown inflation problem. Now, our plan is for a short-term support package in the form of 25 cent a litre reduction which is going to have an economy-wide benefit, it has a downward pressure on price structures, not just for families but for tradies and for everybody else across the economy. The short-term plan and the medium-term plan is to bring more gas into the system so that we can reduce the cost of building homes, we can reduce the cost of groceries. That is a structural save in the economy. We also, obviously, put forward plans which we believe, in the longer term, will underpin economic success, because don’t forget that energy is the economy and Labor’s policy is all about pleasing inner-city Greens; it’s not about benefiting Australians and that’s why the Coalition will always be better economic managers.

 

QUESTION:

 

But, Mr Dutton, these concerns have come from within your own party, as well?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Well, where? From where?

 

QUESTION:

 

Just… it’s been reported in The Australian.

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Yeah. Mark?

 

QUESTION:

 

Mr Dutton, looking at your gas announcement in cost-of-living terms, you’ve said again today that the government’s $5 a week tax cuts in two years’ time is a band-aid on a bullet wound. From the information you’ve given us today, you’re talking about less than $1 a week cut in gas prices in about two years, so, if $5 is a band-aid on a bullet wound, what’s less than $1?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Well, Mark, if you compare that to a 34 per cent increase under Labor now, which has been the experience of the last three years, you put another 34 per cent on top of that, over the course of the next three years, or whatever it blows out to be under Labor, then the difference between the two parties is quite phenomenal. So we are talking about flat-lining and reducing prices. Labo is talking about cost escalation, which is going to be felt not just in household bills, but also in the cost of the builder who’s buying steel, the farmer who’s buying fertiliser. Natural gas is a key ingredient in our economy and, if we can bring that cost down for every part of the economy that relies on gas and the use of gas to create and generate electricity, the difference between the two parties is quite staggering, so Mr Albanese is promising further price rises beyond the 34 per cent and beyond the 32 per cent that electricity has already gone up. Our plan is to bring that down. It’ll take time to clean up Labor’s mess, there’s no question about that. But what is on offer at this election is a plan for the short, medium and long term to get our country back on track, to support families, to support the construction sector, to support farming, food production, manufacturing. There’s been a threefold increase in the number of manufacturing businesses which have closed under Mr Albanese’s watch. 29,000 small businesses have collapsed, the biggest number of business failures in our country’s history has taken place in the last 12 months, so the difference between what we’ve got as addressing the core at the heart of the problem, over time, will be very significant but I just don’t think Australians can afford three more years of the cost increases that Labor’s got…

 

QUESTION:

 

Can you say how significant, because it’s only, less than a dollar in your information today?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

But Mark, let’s look at the cost of cars. So a Ford Ranger goes up by $14,000 under Mr Albanese. That’s a $14,000 saving if you’re buying a car every five years. Put that over, let’s say $3,000 a year. That’s a savings under us. If you look at somebody who’s going to buy a home, a first home. The cost of electricity and gas for this business here over the last 12 months has gone up by tens of millions of dollars. That cost is being passed on under Mr Albanese’s plan. A young home buyer will see the builder charging them less because of our gas plan, so it’s not just what you’re paying for gas at home; it’s the fact that, when you go to the supermarket, the cost of groceries, the cost of fruit and veg, the cost of canned products, the cost of cereals, it’s all gone up by 30 per cent under this government because the cost of gas and electricity has gone up. Under us, the cost of food will come down – that’s a direct result of our gas policy and that’s what will add to the savings for families and I think families know that. They can’t afford three more years of Mr Albanese and a big spending government is just going to push up the cost of everything, including people’s mortgages, and there’s a much better way for our country and that’s what we’re outlining to the Australian people.

 

QUESTION:

 

Mr Dutton, the way I understand it, your plan slaps a levy on LNG exporters to force them to put gas into the economy. Does that apply to WA LNG exporters and if the answer’s no, is that constitutional?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Well, Andrew, it applies to our east coast market reservation and we’ve been very clear about the fact that we don’t believe that we book any revenue out of that measure, so I’ll just make this point: what we’ve looked at is, and you’ll see this in the Frontier Economics report and we’ve done a lot of work on this, we’ve been working on this for a long time, we want to get it right. And what we do is we take away the advantage in exporting that gas and we oblige those gas producers, who otherwise would have sold our gas to foreign markets, to put that gas into the market here. Now, by removing the advantage that they have in exporting the gas, we increase the supply here by 50 to 100 petajoules, we reduce the cost. Now, what Labor’s demonstrated is that their gas plan has been a joke and the companies have ignored it. It hasn’t resulted in anything other than a 34 per cent increase in the cost of gas, so our policy, as has been pointed out by Frontier Economics, a company that the Labor Party uses, the most, I think, pre-eminent economist in the energy space in our country, demonstrates that we can bring down the cost of wholesale gas by about 23 per cent and that means that there’s a big positive impact for builders, for anybody who uses electricity, because gas is a big component of generating electricity, for everyone across the economy. We have the ability, under our plan, to use our gas for our people, to bring prices down, and that’s the whole design feature of what we’ve got on offer.

 

QUESTION:

 

Australian Energy Producers say your policy risks reducing domestic gas production because there’ll be no incentive for gas companies to produce more than they’re required to under those long-term contracts. The gas industry has also said it’ll make the supply and pricing issues worse. These are obviously the producers who need to get on board, so what are you going to say to them and how are you going to get them on board? And, just quickly, to Andrew’s question earlier, isn’t the gas security charge just another name for a levy?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

No, what, again, what we’ve looked at here is, are we here to line the pockets of big gas companies? No. I’m here to support consumers and I want to bring the price of gas and electricity down and the cost of groceries down and cost of construction down and that’s what we’ve done, so look at BlueScope’s reaction to our announcement. They are a huge user of energy, as is Brickworks, two big ingredients and inputs into construction of a house. BlueScope says that this is a great policy because it’s going to bring down the cost of their production here and the cost of steel, as you know, has gone up dramatically over the last couple of years under this government. So I want to make sure that our policy is designed to support those consumers but it doesn’t damage the investment prospects for those companies, because, as Ted pointed out before, we respect the foundation contracts, the exports that are going to Japan and to Malaysia and to Korea and to China et cetera, but we’re not going to allow the gas that’s beyond that to go, and the reason that we will see more investment is because we are going to extend the life of those contracts, some of which come to an end in the 2030s, which is exactly what the international partners want, because they want certainty but there is no certainty under Labor because Tanya Plibersek is trying to stop these applications from proceeding. We’re going to fast-track the applications, to bring more natural gas into the market here and to provide support to our exporters, and so, under our policy, you’ll see an increase in investment, you’ll see more export and you’ll see more domestic consumption and more domestic supply, which is about bringing down the price of gas here.

 

QUESTION:

 

Isn’t it just a levy?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

No, it’s, what it is, and you can get into, you know, all sorts of definitions but what it is, is a clear signal from us that we want Australian Gas for Australians First and, if we do that, we can bring the cost of groceries down, we can bring down the cost electricity, we can bring down the cost of steel and bricks and everything else that goes into the construction of a house or a hospital or a bridge. This is going to have economy-wide benefits. The Labor Party is pretending that, by giving you $150 until they run out, that somehow that’s going to address the fundamental flaws in their energy policy. It’s just not.

 

QUESTION:

 

When did you receive this modelling?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

We’ve gone through a few iterations of this modelling and it’s obviously been the case that we’ve been speaking to Frontier Economics for the last couple of years about gas, about gas even before we were speaking about nuclear.

 

QUESTION:

 

When did you receive this report?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

We’ve released the report now and I’m not providing…

 

QUESTION:

 

Did you receive it after your budget in reply announcement?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Well, again, I’m not getting into who received what when.

 

QUESTION:

 

Mr Dutton, you said at the top of this press conference that the savings would flow through this calendar year but the modelling actually acknowledges that there’s a lag, both for industrial and households, on both electricity and gas savings. This morning, Ted O’Brien said, and I quote, ‘we should be seeing, after 12 months of operation, an impact on bills.’ So what’s the basis for you claiming that that benefit will flow to the industrial users to make things like building materials and groceries cheaper, as well as households, much sooner than what your modelling and your energy spokesman are saying?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Well, Clare, the point is, and I think Ted’s pointed this out, as well, we start negotiations with the companies from day one. It’s part of our hundred-day plan and, if you’re in the market, as I think BlueScope probably is at the moment, you’re negotiating with companies right now or in the run-up to the period after the 3rd of May. Now, our policy will have an immediate impact, because those companies will enter into good-faith negotiations with us, because many of them will say privately, of course they want to extend the foundation contracts, they want new supply coming on, and so there is an advantage in what we’re providing here, because, under Labor’s model, they shut down, they choke the supply of gas and I know that some of the companies are, you know, foxing and positioning, at the moment, but our plan is to get more gas into the system, it’s to work with those companies from day one and I think we can see an impact very quickly and I think we can see an impact not just for households but for industrial users, for commercial users and right across the economy and I think there will be a very significant impact from day one, because the market will know that we are serious about getting Australian gas for Australians and that will have an impact with the companies and we’ll enter into those discussions with them straight away.

 

QUESTION:

 

Just in terms of that 3 per cent and 6 per cent discount on gas and electricity prices, exactly when will households be able to see that? Will it be like, six months, 12 months?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Well, again, we’ve said by the end of this calendar year and we start negotiating…

 

QUESTION:

 

[inaudible].

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Well, it depends on when people are contracted and what their individual arrangements are but, across the economy, we reduce the cost of gas and we’ll start negotiations with the companies from day one. And what we’re doing is we’re saying that we want to address the structural problem, the real foundational problem that’s in the economy at the moment, and that is Labor’s renewables-only energy train wreck. It’s driven the cost of everything up but the Prime Minister wants to pretend that gas hasn’t gone up by 34 per cent under his watch; it has. He wants to pretend that he’s going to deliver a $275 cut each year in electricity; he promised it on 97 occasions; it’s never eventuated. The cost of electricity has gone up by $1300. We are going to help consumers. We’re going to the industrial users like BlueScope and Brickworks and others bring their costs down and consumers not only benefit in their own households but they also benefit because they’re purchasing products in the economy. Everything that we eat, everything that we consume, everything that we wear relies on energy somewhere in that supply chain and it doesn’t matter whether it’s moving the clothes to a store, it doesn’t matter whether it’s taking the produce that’s been grown with the use of fertiliser, which is very gas and energy intense, all of those things benefit from our policy and that’s it. Tim, last one.

 

QUESTION:

 

Just to close, great to know your dad is okay. Campaigns are pressure events for candidates like yourself, but they’re pressure events for families of candidates too. Do you worry your dad is not being helped and might even have been harmed by the fact that he’s worried about you?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

Oh, I’m sure he’s been worried about me for 50 years, Tim, so maybe it’s been a long…

 

QUESTION:

 

Yeah but more now, right?

 

PETER DUTTON:

 

No and look, I think we have, you know, our families take a big toll in this business, there’s no doubt about that, and our spouses, our kids, our parents, you know, they all watch and they look on. Dad’s had pre-existing health conditions for a long time and, as I say, he’s in the best of care, I love him very much and he’s a great dad to me and to my four siblings and an amazing grandfather, lives for his grandkids, and that’s what I think gives him a great spirit every day and I’m glad that he’s in good care and I’m really grateful for the thoughts and the well-wishes that we’ve had from literally thousands of people who have texted and emailed overnight. I’m very grateful for people’s thoughts and I know that he will be very grateful and appreciative, as well. Thank you very much.

 

[ends]

 

 

 

Related