Live from Dixon with Peter Dutte and this is the Paul Murray Pub Test Can I Australia and welcome to beautiful Brisbonds. Got some hardcourse in the room, hard dog viewers and for Murray Live. They are here to fire up and we have got an awful lot to get to have very special guests tonight is none other than Peter Dutton, the Opposition leader. He'll join us up front in a moment or two time. He's just walking through with his family right now. Thank you to him for
being here for this hour. The whole point of this is to see what you think and the questions that you have for a person who in just about a month's time could end up being the Prime minister of the country. Now, for those that are half watching, for those that are half watching, this is a room of people who watch our program. They have for as long as we've been around, for fifteen years, or maybe just for fifteen days. But I want to say at the start, thank you to all of you for your support of
the show. And it was by their own nomination to put up their own hand to be in the room. And that is the first one hundred and fifty people who send an email to us are the people here, and we've got plenty of people with questions to get to before we get to anything else, and before we have the great thrill of a little bogan's life, which is to be able to have this forum, to be on TV, to talk to a person who, as I say,
may will end up being a prime minister. I want to send strength and love to people that are doing it very tough, and of course those are the people out west and those floods. Before we get into anything else, there has been a huge amount of rain. Expectations are again the year's worth in a very short period of time. These are some of the latest pictures. Here are some of the people who we've been able to talk to in the past couple of days.
Our biggest priority now that everyone in town has sort of safely accounted for, is we've just got to get to our livestock. But resources are just so stretched. Our local authorities have just been completely inundated, and we're just trying to do what we can for ourselves and to help our neighbors. And we really need adgas to keep coming in if we're to continue our recovery.
Efforts. Here's the mayor speaking on behalf of how they're helping the community on afternoon agenda here on Score News.
Sending all our water down the river to the next town who are just absolutely getting inundated and now suffering this similar thing as aid of our being being that they're evacuating their homes and at a.
Time when every citizen needs leadership. Peter Upton turned up today to those people to try to speak to as many of them as possible. Here is part of what was said, buy those floodwaters today.
You've saved many houses and many businesses from that. Some obviously haven't been able to be saved, but the rebuild will be incredibly important. But make the plan now and have a look at the maps and coeen zone and help these great coin Zoners recover from what is is a really traumatic event.
So thanks for having this really much o. Thank you.
Now, let's compare the pair as the Union's superannuation funds would like us to do. Tropical Cyclone Alfred ext Tropical Cyclone Alfred, which apparently delayed the election, caused a huge amount of change to the budget. It had at a tide about four hundred and sixty five meals in Brisbane. We learn via the bomb tonight that the rain in this area is anywhere between three hundred and five hundred meals.
So could somebody please tell me why the Prime Minister and the Treasurer hasn't been out there yet or is it just because there's not enough people and we are in an election. To me, that's a sign of values and about taking valuable time off the campaign trail to be with even the smallest group of people when they
are having trouble. Now tonight, I wanted to frame before we have our conversation here tonight for those who may be watching for the first time, those that are watching on, or those who need a little reminder about the things we have talked about for the past three years. Over the past three years, it has become harder to pay off a house. Right now, near record numbers of people are anything called financial stress, meaning they don't have enough
money to pay off a house. They don't have enough money to be able to afford the rent when it comes to the rent. In cities like Brisbane, a little further up, a little further down, and a further in, there are fewer places to rent than ever before, a story which no one seems to be interested in the election, but I know you care about because we talk about it every couple of nights. There are more than three million households in Australia that will run out of food
this week. That's the reality of Australia in twenty twenty five, far from what was promised in twenty twenty two. Will there be a question about that at any press conference at any time in the next little while, You and I both know probably not, because it doesn't serve for whatever reason, the purpose of clickbait that so often is the case. Three million people are this close to homeless in Australia because of a whole series of things that they can't control. That is a change, and a change
for the worse. Over the past three years, Chinese warships have circled our country and a spy vessel is towards the south of it as we speak, and it has the capability to have submarines in it that can cut the cables that connect to Australia to the rest of the world. Our schools are now at a stage where one in three students are not meeting their minimum standards. These are not numbers made up by a far right wing think tank or pulled out of my significant backside.
These are numbers that come from the same source of information that the federal government gets. As a child of parents of small business, I care a lot that business insolvencies are out a four year high. Tens of thousands of people who made a decision to sit outside the triangle of dependency, the people who don't want to work for the government. They don't want to be dependent on the government, and they don't want the government to be
their biggest client. They know the only way to get a pay rise, just like my father and my brother, is to get up earlier and go to bed later. That has an effect on their families. In the federal budget, the instant accent right off, which was up to twenty thousand dollars for these people, has now been wiped to just down to one thousand dollars. All of this matters because we live in a country that is better than what it is right now. And if that seems overtly political,
bloody oath. Because we care about our country and we think it's in the wrong place. The man who's promising to try to put it back on track. Is none other than the opposition leader and the Member for Dixon. Please welcome Peter.
Dunny thinking great to see it, right to see.
It, so Peter, thank you very much and thank you to everyone who is who is here. Look, I paint a picture that no doubt people will say, oh Jesus, just reading off an ad But the reality is that all of that stuff isn't made up. That is the actual lived experience of somebody whose business has fallen apart about people who were promised in three years ago that everything would get better, and that people who have had to pay tens of thousands of dollars more to pay
off a house. So I love when the Prime Minister turns around and says that you've painted a dark picture, Well you're using the brush that is the numbers that come from his own government.
Or to just take one number, Paul, twenty nine thousand small businesses have closed over the last two and a half three years.
And it's a number that just rolls off our tongue.
But the reality is that behind each one of those business vlues, somebody's lost their home, somebody's lost their life savings, their dream and their aspiration. And that is a record number of business closures in our country's history, and the Prime Minister doesn't utter a word about it.
And that's just one example.
I think of the reality for many Australians at the moment, the seven consecutive quarters where households have been in recession to this government, again without precedent in our country's history, and the Prime Minister wants people to believe that everything's okay, be thankful, to be grateful for the three great years he's delivered, and that's not the lived reality for many many Australians.
We've heard in the past week or so about what the apparent values of each political party is and you're on the right side of this or they're on the wrong side of that. It was your budget in reply speech that focused on food bank. Now again with three and a bit minion people households, so it's more than those people don't not know where the food's going to
come from. You decided to elevate that right. I mentioned it right now, not because I'm rolling out the red carpet, but because the reality of that is, people who should be doing better are doing worse, and this government has spent more money advertising itself than helping out those sorts of charities.
I just think the argument's compelling.
And when we've moved around to different food banks and different charities and church groups and others who are dispensing food providing support to families, what they've told us is that people who are coming through the door now are.
The working poor, people who are working.
Full time jobs and yet turning up having to turn up to ask cap in hand for a food package for their children, people who are living rough.
This is a big issue in our electorate here in Dixon.
Where people are camping out, they're intense, they're living in the backs of cars. That doesn't have any place in our country where we have the ability to help people. And unfortunately the government's taken decisions which do hurt people.
And so we announced fifty million dollars in the budget to provide support to food bank and a couple of other well hopefully many others across the country that we can provide that support to and hopefully provide an opportunity and a pathway forward for those families who are really really struggling.
Let me leap on the elephant in the room and get everyone from the assembled media you're interested in particular. A month ago, there was a poll that said that you were a couple the sheets seeds short of the majority. One month later, those polls are different. However, you would know that when you entered the Voice debate, the polls were sixty forty in favor of Yes. How do you get to do in a few weeks what took a few months?
Well, Paul, I think there are a lot of Austrains at the moment who couldn't even tell you there's an election coming up because they're busy running their kids around, they're busy with school, they're busy at work. And I think people will tune in when we get closer to the election. I don't think a lot of people have heard our budget and reply message, which was to reduce the fuel tax by twenty five cents a leader, so that people are saving fourteen dollars every time they fill up their team.
And there is life outside of the can re bubble. Let's do it.
But that's the relet I mean.
We're in Thargaminda today, as Paul pointed out before, and
it's heartbreaking to see what people have gone through. But when the mayor there was asked by one of the journalists traveling with us, what would you prefer seventy cents a day by way of tax cut in fifteen months time or the cut in the fuel tax by twenty five cents a lead and without hesitation, he said, but I've got to travel four hundred kilometers to Chinchilla to go to go and see the dentist store, to pick up provisions, et cetera.
It's a no brainer.
So it helps people, particularly in our original areas, out of metropolitan areas, and that's been a deliberate design of that feature of that announcement that we've made because people particularly in out of metro areas and particularly in regional areas I think have been hit hardest by this government and have been forgotten most by this government as well.
All right, let's get to some questions here, Stephen, thank you very much for joining us. What's a question you'd like to ask?
It's great to see you know the scenes on TV.
Yes, I'm sure, and fatter in real life. I understand. I get it. I get what you're saying. Good body, double, what's that? What's your question.
To many hopeless on first hand or for the rank, so that's their useless and people out of.
Here are really struggling.
So I really want to see you get stuck in everything they say.
I want you to recoff that.
I want you to get right into the grip and tell them that they're useless and also tell people at the useless. But the firsas on I've got really is is early voting is also coming up. Do you have any policies in place you can tell us before the early voting starts so we can.
Get some sort of plans happening.
But certainly we do. I'll go through a couple of days. We've obviously got some that we're about to announce as well, and they'll be out before people turn up to vote.
But a couple of important areas.
Other Housing is one of the biggest issues confronting our country, and I want young people to believe again that they can own a home.
The government's brought in about a million people over the.
Last two years, and all of those migrants, of course want housing for their families as well. But the trouble is for a lot of young Australians they've been locked out of how people find it hard to find rental accommodation and not just younger Australians, but older Australians as well, So how can we provide support to them.
We've said that we need to build more houses.
So if we can put five billion dollars which is the pledge that we've made into councils and into infrastructure to try and get the sewage and the water built so that the next phase of or the next block of land can be brought on, that creates about five hundred thousand new homes. We've said for two years that we want to ban foreign residents from buying Australian homes
and that will allow young Australians to get ahead. And by doing all of that, by reducing the migration program, which is what we've pledged to do by twenty five percent, all of that creates about forty thousand homes in the first year and one hundred thousand homes over five years. So that will bring on six hundred homes which will be available to Australians. But if the government keeps bringing people in at the rate that they have, which is
again the highest migration intake in our country's history. In fact, the last two years there's been seventy percent higher than any two year period in our country's history.
And you wonder why there's a housing crisis.
And we need to have a managed migration program, but one that works for our country and one that serves our best interests. And I'm just not going to tolerate a situation where young Australians are locked out of housing and the Prime Minister will bring in about depending on whether you believe the figures, but I think it's going to nudge over two million, bring in two million people over five years, which is a population bigger than the
size of Adelaide. And they've pulled money out of infrastructure, so it's not just housing, it's other infrastructure, medical hospitals, it's schooling.
It's the fact that people are sitting in gridlock.
Now on their way to work and on their way home in the afternoon. One of the I think the most egregious things. And I don't think the Prime Minister has been called out for this, but it was never mentioned before the last election, this big Australia policy that the government's now delivered.
All right, got another question here, Stephen, your question for penning Uton tonight.
Thanks thanks very much for being here tonight. My question is, as this nation heads towards a trillion dollars in debt, how will you and your party show some physical responsibility and restraint but at the same time provide direct support to families who are really struggling and need hope.
And bring down everything by way of expense at the same time. It's like it's a difficult I think your point is that we have to undertake services and we need to defend ourselves as a country. We need to provide support to the essential services. But what's happened over the course of the last three years is that the government spent an extra four hundred and twenty five billion dollars, which is what's fueled inflation and the cost of everything the schooner of beer, the meal that you go out
to purchase, the rest of thirty percent higher groceries. That inflationary impact has been felled across the economy. So we need to get the basics right. The economy needs to be better managed. And I just make this point. When John Howard came in in ninety six, he had an enormous debt that labor had bequeathed to the Income and Coalition government they paid that debt down and they ran.
Our economy successfully.
When Tony Abbott came in off the back of the rud Gillard years, we put in place measures which helped us get back to a balanced budget position. And this government has racked up now as you point out the trillion dollars of debt over the next twelve months, and it goes to one point two trillion dollars, and that is about one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars per household.
So it's our.
Next generation who's going to be saddled with paying that debt off. So as a liberal, I pride myself on the fact that many of us have come from a business background. Many of us have employed staff, We've made investment decisions, and we know how to manage the economy. I was assistant treasure in the Howard years and I've been part of expenditure review committees for a number of years as well, so I know how to put a budget together. And Angus Taylor and Jane Hume and the
rest of our team have that experience. We can provide a good budget outcome if we cut the waste and if we make sure that money is being spent efficiently, and that gives us the ability to invest into defense, which we need to, and to provide support to families to recover from what's been a pretty horrible three years.
For many families.
You talk about the next generation, and I can't help them say, this is the moment to say it. You've given lots of big speeches, they're lots of big interviews live. Your kids are in the front row tonight, though, and you talk about that next generation. It get slightly nervy when they're watching you this close.
They're actually just out of shop. But now I am nervous because I can see this, I see them sitting there. So I was looking at this young man here before and thinking he's the one that's going to be.
Startled with Labour's debt. And that's exactly what happened.
When I mean part one of the reason that I was attracted into politics was as a kid growing up, the conversation around our dinner table was probably not disimilar to many families now, where the question is how do
you pay the bills? And you work harder and harder, but you're going backwards, or for many families now, they're just not keeping their head above water, and I want to make sure that we manage the economy well, which coalition governments do, and that will allow us to make better choices and allow the next generation to make choices for themselves.
Good answer. I just wanted to get guys on the telling. Take it as sums up for dad.
There we are, we're in the front row.
I hope we're going to keep running soon. Run all right? Thank you? You a free tender here you goo guys. All right, Sue, is that the next person to ask? Pet? It up in a question here? As we're live doing a pub test from a pub here in Brisbane, what's your question for the man who may be PM?
Thank you Peter for doing what you're doing. Really appreciate it. My question is what is your position on the Paris Agreement in regard to net zero missions by twenty fifty.
Well, so we've it.
It's a good question and it's on the minds of many Australians. I think what we need to do and what we've announced it will do in relation to the energy policy, is that we need to have cheaper electricity. First point, we're paying three times the cost of electricity compared to Wyoming or Tennessee or Ontario to other comparable cities and nations around the world. So the first thing is price, and at the moment there's no regard for price. It just seems that people are expected to pay more
and more. And under this government, electricity has gone up by about thirty two percent and gas has gone up by thirty four percent. We need to make sure that power is reliable. And the Independent Energy Regulator at the moment is warning that there will be blackouts and brownouts under the government's renewables only policy. And we've got trading relationships, and we've got a position in the world where we've signed up to an agreement where we commit to reducing
emissions into the future as well. And we've got to get the balance right. We've got renewables that are in the system. We can't pretend that renewables are running this pub now of a nighttime, or running the hospital, or running the cold rooms at Coals or Wallers or the Ida store. So we've got to get the balance right. Now we say that we need more gas in the system. Chris Bowen won't mention the word gas because it's a
fossil fuel. The Labor Party in Victoria is signing up to extend the life at coal fire power stations because they know the lights are going out without it. And we've said with the East Coast Gas Reserve we can bring in about an extra fifty to one hundred pedadules. It'll reduce the price from fourteen dollars a giga duel down to ten dollars and that will have a very
significant impact for businesses. And don't forget that gas is a big component in the generation of electricity, so it will help not just the commercial and industrial application, but households as well, and we'll release more detail in relation
to that. So we've got to get the balance right and I think the views of Australian's my sense is that this debate is evolving and I think it'll be a very different debate in the coming years as well, because people are looking at their power bills each month.
The Prime Minister promise they'd go down by two hundred and seventy five dollars and they've gone up by thirteen hundred dollars and Australians are now being told, well, you just have to factor in blackouts and brownouts, and I just don't think that's acceptable to our country.
Also, I mean, inevitably if we'd end up in this minority government scenario. We know this legislated cuts forty three percent to one percent of the world's problems. However, many of the Teals community independence sorry, they have said that they want seventy five percent. The Greens suggest seventy five percent and above much sooner than those things. How important is it to you that, again, there are going to be lots of people that are going to say I'm
not going to go team Red team Blue. But the people who are thinking outside of those two things, that your preferences matter because there are consequences to it.
With things like that, preferences will matter at this election more than any recent election. Let's be clear about it, the rise of independence.
Even in our own electorate.
Here we've got somebody who is a Green pretending to be a community representative, funded by a billionaire out of Sydney and not being honest with the electorate about where the money is coming from.
But the reality is that the Teals, let's say.
Minik Ryan in Victoria, or Zoey Daniel in Victoria or Kate Cheney in Western Australia. These people have voted with the Greens on seventy plus percent of the occasions where they had to vote in the Parliament. And it's this complete and utter sort of fraud in terms of they on the one hand say that they're all about integrity and honesty and openness, but the reality is that they
would only support a Labor government. And that much should be clear to voters when people turn up, because if you're voting for a teal or if you're voting for a community independent, that vote ultimately is going to end up with either the Liberal Party or the Labor Party in most circumstances, and in that circumstance you have to put Labor last if you're not putting the Liberal Party first. And I think the reality for a lot of people is it, let's you know, we don't like either party.
Let's just vote for somebody who seems innocuous, somebody who says that they're a disaffected Liberal in the case of
some of the tills. But the reality is that their agenda is a really hardcore green left agenda and the Prime Minister can only form a government after the next election in concert, in collaboration, in partnership with Adam Bant from the Greens and with the Green Teals, and that to me is going to be a recipe for higher spending which will mean higher inflation, which will mean higher interest rates again and a lot of debt that we just can't afford as a country.
And just to that extension, right, I was noticing today in one of the press conferences the old question comes up about Prime Minister are you Green's references? Well, of course the National executive of the Labour Party are the ones who decide that. And guess who happens to have the casting vote on the national executive. But he was trying to make it seem like it's other people somewhere
else that make a decision. Where does the LMP, the Liberal Party, the National Party, all the versions of what it will take to build your coalition. Where are the Greens going?
Well, let's have a think about the Greens and should we as a party support the Greens or preference the Greens. Well, the Greens believe in defunding the Australian Defense Force, they believe in the criminalization.
Of hardcore drugs.
They have a radical agenda otherwise, which is about everything, but the environment. So no, they will go last for us. And that's the principal stance that we've taken.
Now.
Now, now the Labor Party can't survive without the Greens preferences. And that's why the Prime Minister, who has used his casting vote on the Federal Executive to appoint candidates in multiple seats, overriding the wishes of local Labor Party branch members. He's exerted that power, exercise that power in that circumstance. And so this whole I don't know anything about the preferences.
That's for somebody else to do. The Prime Minister, as each of his predecessors has done, will take the preferences, will give the Greens preferences ahead of us. And I think Australian see that it's a giant conjob because the Greens and the Labor Party are joined at the hip and left of the Labor Party now run by Tanya Plebisek and others, Chris Bowen and others.
I mean, you see the results already.
And Tanya Plimasek has tried to close down the salmon industry in Tasmania, tried to stop gas exploration in Western Australia, has tried to stop the agricultural industry in Western Australia, all because she's trying to please a Green voter in inner city Sydney and Melbourne. Why has the government taken an anti Semitic stance and abandoned the Jewish community in the last period, over this last couple of years. Well, because they're worried about greens inner city Sydney, in Melbourne.
And I think it's been one of the most shameful demonstrations by the Labor Party in relation to each of those issues, the environment, the anti Semitism and a number of other issues. And I think the Prime Minister has been caught out in that regard.
All right, Mark's got another question for you, So I clean it up in here.
Mark's here, everyone's working at home. What's it question?
City? Topeat it on?
Hey, Peta, thanks for being here. You're actually answered by question pretty much earlier before. In housing, but I just wanted to extend that a little bit. Six hundred thousand houses, but where do we get the guys to build them? It's a real issue in this country. Everyone wants to go to university and not do a trade or something like that.
We really need to bump that up. It's a great question, mat So a few things.
One is that we've announced support for apprentices and for trainee ships, providing twelve thousand dollars worth of support to make sure that that young apprentice can have a choice and provide support to the employer. We want to bring that number up to four hundred thousand and give young people the choice. People want to go to university, that's fine, but going to do a trade I think is something
to be encouraged by parents. Harry will be embarrassed to hear me call him out, but Harry's just gone into his second year of apprenticeship as a carpenter. He's got a boost in his pay, which means you can start to pay some board.
At home as well.
Well I'm not holding my breath for that, but I'll see.
And he loves it, and he enjoys the work.
Environment enjoys, you know, as my dad did as a builder, that trade and that work, and I'm incredibly proud of him. And so I think we need to encourage more kids, as you point out, to embrace the opportunit unity and to make some good money as a paid or as an electrician or as a plan or whatever it might be.
And secondly, we need to.
Make sure that the skills list, which is trying to prioritize what we want in terms of skills for people coming in through the migration program, to put at the top of the list trades of people who can go into the building industry, because we've also got an aging workforce with builders who are retiring and it's tough work. And one of the most amazing things was that the CFM you dictated to this government that the trades should
be pulled off that list. And so we had yoga teachers and many other professions who were above and were prioritized on the list over and above bringing people in through the trades because of the CFMU was trying to choke off that supply of worker and it just didn't make any sense. The next thing we'll do, of course, is make sure that we restore the rule of restore the rule of law to building sites. We're not going to allow the CFMU you to run right and to drive up cost and construction in the.
Company's up keep you around of the poor skying. We're off to a break more with Prenter Dunt in a moment here live in Brisbane, thanks for watching spine News and a Paul married part test for a second welcome back to Brisbane were a pup test. We're here in credit Dunton forts the leader of the opposition and we are here too. Well here from me. You want to hear from people like your good self who are viewers of the program with questions to the alternative Prime Minister.
I think we've got a letter here, isn't it? Here we go, Hi, what's your question?
Hi?
Paul?
Hi, Future Prime Minister. A question for you tonight is what would you do to immediately ramp up our domestic offense defense against our country for potential invaders given the rise of the international unrest instability at the moment.
Well, I think this is going to to be one of the real issues that people focus on coming into the election. And the reason I say that is that the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister of the Defense Minister I've been going around for the last few years saying that we live in the most precarious period since the end of the Second World War. So I mean, just think about that and unpack it for a second, because they don't say anything beyond that.
So since nineteen forty five, all.
Of the conflicts in the Middle East, the Cold War, everything that's taken place, the instability, the terrorist attacks on nine to eleven, this is the most precarious period now.
And if that's the case, what are we doing about it?
Well, the government's taken eighty billion dollars out of defense, and our argument is that you need to put money into defense to make sure you can pay for ORCUS, not just the submarines, but Pillar two of UCUS as well, and you need to provide support.
To defense in their acquisitions.
And we've announced a further squadron of the F thirty five's, which I think will be of significant benefit to our country.
And so no country, no country of our.
Standing in the history of the world, has ever been in a position of strength through having a weak defense force. Any adversary looking at us over the course of the next century, we'll look at the capabilities that we've got, which is exactly the reason why we negotiated so hard with the United States and the United Kingdom when I
was Defense Minister to negotiate the Orcret submarine deal. The ORCST submarines, particularly for an island nation like us will underpin our security for the next century, but we need to invest in more than that, and that's exactly what we advocate going into this election. There's a big difference on national security in an uncertain time and the most precarious periods into Second World War where the Prime Minister makes that statement and then does nothing about it.
And our argument is that you.
Need to make proper investments into defense, and that's what we're committed to doing.
Are there things that we should have progressed by now in our defense system that better pick up these Chinese warships, these Chinese surveillance ships. Obviously not going to show your hand about what you know, but have we dropped the ball in three years about the capacity to see what they're doing, to be able to know that a ship like the one flowing through the south right now may well have the capability of having a craft on it that could cut a cable that cuts us off from the world.
I just think it's amazing when we need to rely on a virgin pilot to tell the Prime Minister that there's a problem off our coast and the Prime Minister shruggs your shoulders and just says, oh, well, you know the Australian Navy, does you know circum navigate to different different ports and seas and sea lanes, et cetera. I mean, there's no equivalence with the Australian Navy, and I think.
We need to be very clear about it.
When you're starting to track where pipelines and cables are positioned, and when you're surveiling in the way that has taken place, the penny should be dropping for Australians that we need to make sure that we can protect and defend ourselves. And you do need the capabilities, the underwater capabilities, the
autonomous vehicles. There's a lot of money when we're in government that we put into autonomous underwater capability so that you can project your capacity and your capability further than the surface fleet. So talking in sort of normal language, where you've got ships or if you've got underwater capacity with the submarines, that you can send underwater drones further out. They might have explosive capability, they might have surveillance capability.
That these are all assets that are required.
People talk a lot about drone capability, which is important, but we don't We're not a landlocked country, so there's a type of drone which will be a benefit to us, and others don't have the distance or capability that that
would be of benefit to us as a continent. But the Guided Weapons Enterprise that we established when we were in government, this government essentially put it on pause, and yet we should be acquiring that capability because any adversaria that's looking at us should be saying, you know what, not today we're not thinking about Australia.
We're worried about Australia.
And the retaliation that could come, and that's what will that's what will maintain peace. We will only maintain piece, as you know, many people have said through the course of history, through a position of strength, not weakness, and that's exactly the approach that we were taking government.
Now you mentioned the Virgin pilots before it was my colleague Queen Cherry Markson, who of course had the story today about this new boat. Was an announcement from the Defense Minister, the Prime Minister or anyone else. It came through her great reporting. More details up at Skytews dot com dot a, which of course should be all of your homepages. Please all right, Wayne's got a question for Peter Dutton here in Brisbane.
What is it mate, Abel Peter nice of the opportunity to talk pleasure? What do you think a little bit of already said on immigration?
Peter?
But what would be you are planned to deal with immigration? Now that last week and Andrew Bolt, one of his contributors, mentioned that there'll be one point eight million more immigrants coming to Australia over the next four years with this government apparently, And how are we going to deal with that sort of thing, with the quality of the people that come in here, as you've seen in the Sydney Opera House and that.
Sort of thing.
Well, I know, the government, as I said before, talks about a figure of one point eight million, but each of the predictions they've made so far have blown out by hundreds of thousands, and so that is likely to go over two million people. And that's the reality. As I say, If the Prime Minister had told the Australian public before the election that this was the plan, well people could have voted accordingly or supported them or voted against them. But it wasn't detailed. So we have to
have a properly managed migration program. We have said in terms of the permanent migration program, which is running at about one hundred and eighty five thousand a year now, that we will reduce that to one hundred and forty thousand, so by twenty five percent in years one and two, and then that will allow housing to catch up and we can gradually build it back up according to the needs of our country at the time. We need to
encourage people to move out into regional areas. For instance, in the Northern Territory, they're yelling out for people to move to the territory, to Darwin, to Alice Springs and to be a part of the economy there. But in many parts of the country, people as I say, living in cities and in suburbs where there's just no capacity to expand the road network the public transports that capacity,
and we just haven't had the planning take place. And so I do think you need to have a manage migration program and that's again exactly what we've worked up and our plan, I think is more effective. It's going to serve the purpose of our country well. And Australia's got some you know, I mean, some of the young people you meet and some of the Australian success stories of migration to this country.
We live in the best country in the world and.
There are millions and millions of people who want to come here. There are millions of people who want to come here, and we shouldn't be ashamed to say that we want the best of those people to come here. And if you do the wrong thing when you are here, well, at least under our government, whilst this government's not doing it, but you can expect to have your visa canceled if you're not doing the right thing.
I don't want to bore everyone with how the sausage is made, but obviously we've got all of the people in here, and then there's all of the media that's traveling with you outside. When that question came up, I noticed a few of them picked up their pens, waiting to see, well, is there a secret dog whistle? I mean, the reality is that you have talked for a lot long time about the privilege of Australian citizenship, and therefore you know, if you thrive in this country, we're happy
to have you. If you do the wrong thing, then see you later. But also, I mean, we've seen and I was noticing again, the people that are observing what you're doing about some of the places you've been in this campaign, and you've been into deep multicultural communities. It's part of the path about how you might get yourself close to government. That is the Australian immigration story that really from where you come doesn't matter. Who you are and how you adapt and want to grow the joint that's.
What matters, right absolutely. I mean, if you I'll explain it this way. I think we.
Should be proud of our Indigenous heritage and I think it's a good thing that we have the language and a celebration of Indigenous heritage.
But it's one part of our story.
And when we live in our country, we've got an expectation at the moment under this government that people identify under different flags or different tribes believe that we are the best country when we come together as one. Whether you came here you can trace your family tree back thousands of years, or whether you can trace your family tree back thousands of years or or thousands of minutes, we are equal Australians.
And I think we need to unite as such.
And as part of that, I want us to celebrate more the great migration story, people who have come here from Europe, people who have come here from Asia, people who have come here from all parts of the world, the great migration movement to our country post World War Two, where people came here with nothing and they've worked hard as Italians or Greeks or Chinese, Indians, whoever it might be.
We don't talk anything about it in this country, and we should be talking about it because second third generation down people are massed of fortune, or their doctors or their kids are bilders, and it's a huge part of our story. You never hear a word of it from the Prime Minister, and I think we should celebrate that, but at the same time say that we're not going to divide people on the basis of race. And this
was the point about the referendum on the voice. You come to Australia, and that's exactly what ninety nine percent of people do. You come to our country. You've come here with an opportunity presented to you. And for many people, particularly those who have come out of a war torn region, they come here, they are incredibly passionate about our country because they realize the opportunity that's before them and that's been the history of our country in many circumstances as well.
And again I think we should spend more time on restoring our national pride and making sure that our kids at school are being taught the basics, not being indoctrinated at the school.
And again, all of those people that have learned new languages, I'm just looking at a mat of mind who's onto a third language now in English, and a beautiful numb as well, have become wonderful parts of our community. All right, Ashley, your question for peddat thanking you, mister Murray and mister Dutton and all. How close to the buying are you prepared to cut the wasteful spending by politicians and bureaucrats.
Well, actually, I think at the moment, if a family or a small business is expected to really cut back, and they've got no choice in many circumstances, but to cut back, cut back on discretionary spending, cut back on a holiday, cut back on whatever they might have been thinking about buying as just a bit of an added.
Extra for their kids for Christmas.
If families are being put in that position by this government through bad economic decisions over the last few years, and as I said before, we've lived through seven quarters of negative growth in family households, so a household session the longest in our country's history. And if that's the circumstance, then why wouldn't government be expected to live within its means and to make sure that the government spent money wisely.
Government only has money that they take from taxpayers, and people at the moment are working over time, people are working harder, people are saving as much as they can, or they're just barely keeping their heads above water with their family budgets. And so my argument is that we have a special responsibility, and that is that we should be cutting back on waste, and we shouldn't accept that where waste arises, they just turned a blind eye to it.
But we've pointed out numerous examples over the course of last three years where the government has wasted money and you will have read some of that in the papers,
but no regard for it. They don't do anything about it, and don't do you know, don't make the decisions that are necessary so that you can take the waste and you can either pay down debt, we can provide support to families and get the economy going again, we've got to get we have to get confidence back and we need to make sure that we can make the economic decisions to grow our economy again so that people can be helped up and supported.
What does it say about how far off track we are? And again majority of people according to the public polling, so we're in the wrong track, right track even on the turbul times the Guardian of course, which is where
that pole appears, that's the majority position. But what does it say that there is now a full time job in Senator juicingto Nampa jimper Price to be able to confront this stuff, that there's so much of this that it is eight hours a day, five days a week, and then some trying to keep up with it.
Well, I think a lot of it just becomes layer upon layer and it becomes built in and the bureaucracy is a big beast in Camera and it's continued to grow the Prime Minister's employed public servants in Canberra at about three times the rate that even the regular government did. And that's all to please the Public Service Union that no one across the country can tell me that their services have improved.
Coming out of Canberra. That's just not the case.
So again, I want to make sure that we can provide support to frontline services to get more GPS out into suburbs like bray Park or Launton.
Here am I Electric.
I want to make sure that we can pay down debts so that we can deal with the next rainy day that's coming. I want to make sure that we can continue to provide support to families through the twenty five cent a liter cut to fuel and diesel.
That's how we can help people.
Look stuff, Thank you very much.
All.
We've got another question here. This one is from John John Giddy good Eating.
My question is would you see the complete reform of the tax system as a necessary component to restoring economy to a healthy state.
Well, John, look, I do think there's a lot of a lot of duplication. Give you one example, Northwest Shelf extension, which is a big debate in Western Australia at the moment. The government's put off the decision on that to the thirty first of May, just conveniently just after the election. So what does that look like. Well, it's one of the biggest projects in our country's history and it will
be a huge windfall for the economy. The royalties and the taxes that will be paid will fund hospitals and roads and infrastructure. It's been in a six year process in the wa state government, so it's taken six years to get an approval, and now it's then referred to the federal department where it needs to go through approval
processes presumably for a similar period of time. We've said that we would approve it when we come into government within the first one hundred days, because the environmental assessments have already been done. I just give that by way of one example of the duplication between three levels of government the way in which the Federation operates at the moment. We need to reduce that duplication so that we can
reduce cost. If a company is holding an asset, say a block of land that they want to develop into new house blocks, and they're forced to hold it for another six or eight years, the cost of holding that ultimately is not borne by the developer. It's passed on to the young couple wanting to buy the house and land package. And we can't just say that that's acceptable. We need to make sure that our tax system is fit for purpose, that we're getting the most efficiency out
of it. And as I say, people are working harder than ever for their tax dollars and we should be making sure that the tax system is working for us and not against us.
And that's the approach that we would take good stuff.
All right, Brad, You've got a question for Peter Dutton tonight here in Brisbane, Yes.
Or do Paul Paul good to see it? Peter, you touched on industrial relations policy and the construction industry more broadly, but I just like to drill just a little bit just to ask them some questions. The CFMU, they're the most fined union in Australian history and leading to the last election, a key plank of the alber Easy government the policy was to dismantle the Australian Building and Construction
Commission and they did that from day one. What does the coalition propose to do if it gets government to bring back law in order to the construction Commission, like tendering and so forth.
Brad, it's a great question.
And I think if you look at what the Christophully government's done already in relation to knocking out a few of the CFMAU friendly arrangements that have really boosted the cost of construction in Queensland by well over thirty percent, and it's the same experience in Victoria and New South Wales and elsewhere around the country. So the CFMU donated
over eleven million dollars to the Labor Party. The Labor Party abolished the Cop on the Beat if you liked the Australian Building Construction Commission when they first got into government. That was their commitment. And of course the cfmars run riot. They're acting alongside members of biky gangs who were turning up and as we saw on the Sixty Minutes episode, turning up being paid a fortune in some cases not.
To turn up, but don't even have to turn up to work.
And again, all of that means that for every hospital that we're building at the moment, we could build fifty percent of the next hospital for the money that we're having to spend because of the CFMAU practices. So we're going to restore the Cop on the Beat, the Australian Building Construction Commission.
We're going to.
I was amazed that when we saw that footage on sixty Minutes of that CFMU official kicking literally physically kicking a CFMU female official.
The Prime Minister had nothing to say.
About it, which I found quite astounding, but it shows what they've allowed. It shows the influence that the Labor Party is allowed to be exerted.
Over the whole organized from the CFMU.
I think it really is a huge distortion in our economy because construction cost affects so many parts of our lives. So we're going to de register the CFMAU because the corrupt culture can't be SIPs and we're going to make sure that building sites are safe and productive places. At the moment, the CFMAU has the work week down to about two point nine days, so that means we're paying for two point nine.
Days with a five day wage.
And we wonder why to try and buy a two bedroom apartment, or to try and buy into an age care facility, or to try and buy into a commercial development that we're paying some of the highest costs in the world. It's not sustainable and we have to make sure that we've got a system that operates according to the law, and.
At the moment we don't have that.
Now, I'm going to make a captain's call here, which is one more round of questions after this, we'll keep it going. Let's keep going to sky and then we'll do plenty more after the break, including one that I'll give you a little bit of time to prep for, because you've got to pick among about one hundred different things. All right, go for it.
Scott Hamersterdatin, thank you for putting this time aside to come and chat with us this evening. I think you've touched on this briefly earlier. But my question is really just what is the coalition's plan to reignite some patriotism in the young Australians and to just get them feeling proud about being Australian and have pride in their country again.
But I really do think it's a fantastic question, so thank you, and I really hold it near and dear to my heart to make sure that we can prioritize restoring pride in our country again. And I think, as I mentioned before, there are and you've seen, I mean, some of the teachers who have been part of the protests on university campuses or on the streets of Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane over the course of the last
couple of years. The indoctrination that's taken place in some parts of our education system, on university campuses, I don't think has been conducive to what's in our country's best interests.
And we should restore pride. We should be.
Proud of who we are. We are the best country in the world without exception. And if we don't stand up and defend if we don't stand up and defend that,
then you know, more fool us. And it should be noted that And I detected a slight accent, but do you know when I go to a multicultural gathering, the people who are most passionate about keeping us safe as a community and addressing crime and law and order and worried about what threats might come to our country in the future, many of those are recently arrived Fagrance because they've come from a country where there's been violence, and they know what we have in our country.
And I'm going to.
Say this point as well, because I think again it's an important point that crime and the ability for people to feel safe in their own homes and communities, I think is a bigger issue, and I think it's a sleeper issue in this election.
And I promise you, I promise you.
I promise you that as Prime Minister, it will be a priority to make sure that we address knife crime. We've said that we're there's no excuse for a twelve or thirteen year old to be carrying a long bladed weapon or a machete at two o'clock in the morning down a moor or in a public place, and we've seen young people die.
As a result of that.
We've seen the ridiculous bail laws here in Queensland, in Victoria as well, and we're going to work with the States and we're going to roll out a lot of support to try and quash that instance of crime and make our community safer again as well as our country safer,
as I say, in a precarious period. So that is a deliberate focus and I know I've been criticized for it, but as Immigration Minister and Home Affairs Minister, I had a real focus on protecting women and children and I deported about six three hundred people.
Now we were talking about.
When I looked at some of those cases, some of them had offended against three and four and five and six different women or young girls sexually offended against all pedophiles who had a string of victims. And my assessment wasn't I believe that this is the view of millions of Australians. That person was here on a visa, not a citizen of our country, a guest into our country. They signed an undertaking that they would abide by the
law when they came to our country. They didn't do that, and I think it was a perfectly reasonable position to take to cancel their visas and to deport them. Now and one of the things that this Prime Minister I think has failed on has been the first charge of a prime minister, and that is to keep our country safe. Three hundred people were released from migration detention, one of them shot by the police in Melbourne earlier this week.
And those three hundred people had been involved in serious crimes. Many of them have repeated offenses since they've been released from immigration detention. Under our government, they were deported under this government, they've been released into the community to commit more crimes.
Now.
I deported three hundred of the most significant offenders, people who were importing drugs, which is part of the reason that kids are breaking into homes because they're feeding a drug habit.
The bikes are the biggest.
Distributors of drugs in our country, and I stopped some of those networks and canceled countless feess of Bikis and deported them from our country. This government has done nothing like it and nowhere near that number. It's not anything they talk about. But again I think it's an issue that Australians should consider when they voted this election. Who do you trust to keep our country safe? Who do you trust?
We'll do.
About it? All right? Plenty more with Peter Dutt't here in a moment we'll go another round of questions and a couple.
More from me.
Well we're going a little pass on the top of the hour with the Lake debot. She's got to get a drink more in a second year only.
Welcome back to who's.
From the Eden Dealers Hotel And I've got to say that the Komeski family who are up the back and the owner's box, I want to say thank you to then. The Edenhill Hotel is spectacular venue, lots of great stuff and a great family who support this this read and provide this venue to us. Thank you very much. Give them around them of course for all their help. They're very good. That family do appreciate it mentioned my name
paid full price. All right, We here with Peter Dutton, of course, the leader of the Opposition, the member for Dixon, which is this part of Brisbane, and we've got one last question from the audience, So no pressure, Hello Virginia, isn't it hello, Dunna.
Good evening, Paul, and good evening, future Prime Minister. Having watched your reply speech budget reply speech, my question is probably been preempted, but what will the coalition do to to tackle the woke agendas that are being pushed through our education systems.
Well, the cob Wealth government doesn't own or run a school, and which is why people ask why I've got a department of thousands and thousands of people in Canberra called the Education Department if we don't have a school and
don't employ a teacher. But we do provide funding to the state governments and we can condition that funding and we should be saying to states, and we should be saying to those that are receiving that funding that we want our kids to be taught the curriculum and we want our kids to be taught what it is that needed to take on as they face the challenges of the world and not to be guided into some sort of an agenda that's come out of universities.
And I think.
There's a lot of work to do, but that's the way in which the government can try and influence the New South Wales government, or the Queensland government, or the Victorian.
Government, whatever it might be.
And I think that's again a debate that we need to hear more from parents on. I think there is a silent majority on this issue right across the community. And when the government at the start of this term of parliament tried to stop independent schools and religious schools from deciding on who they could employ or what they were going to teach at their school, I think there was an uprising then, not just from the religious leaders but from parents as well who pushed back on that.
And I think that was.
Something that the government dropped fairly quickly thereafter, because I knew they were going down the wrong path.
But again I think it's a big difference between the two parties.
My final question is my favorite one. I ask at every pub test, lots of different candidates, lots of different places, state federal politics, what's the biggest lie that the other mob was saying about you.
Where do you start? Where do you start?
You can shouting them out if you'd like. It's like wheel of fortune, you know, Hila.
I have a great deal of faith in the Australian people and I do think that as a country, we have so much to achieve together. The Labor Party has failed our country over the three years. If they'd achieved, if the outcomes had been there for families, if businesses were prospering, if our country was at its best, that it could be the Prime Minister and Chris Balen and Tenure Plebisek and others would be telling you about their achievements.
They're not able to do that because it has been a period that many families will never forget and many kids will see their families suffering through very difficult times. Therefore, they're throwing as much mud as they can pa. That's what they're doing.
That's their strategy, and some of it sticks. That's the reality.
Because people are vulnerable, not really tuned into politics, they listen to the one liner. I would just ask people to do their own research and to look past what the Prime Minister's saying or the ads that you see on television. So I think the biggest lie to answer your question is in relation to health and to what we achieved when we're in government. When I was Health Minister, the bulk building rate was eighty four percent. By the time we'd left government under Greg Hunt, it had climbed
to eighty eight percent. And the Prime Minister at the moment won't tell you this, but the bulk billing rate in our country is at seventy seven percent, right, so he'll say we were a disaster in relation to health. As it turns out bulk billing is down by eleven percent under this government. They'll say that we took money
out of hospital's. Hospital funding increased every year that I was the Health Minister, and we only did that because we cleaned up labour's mess and we managed the economy well. And at this election I think people will see through that, and ultimately the election is going to be about who do you trust to manage the economy, Who do you trust to address cost of living pressures.
And to bring inflation down? Who do you trust in.
This election to keep us safe and to keep our country secure.
In a very uncertain time.
Who do you trust to provide young Austraians with the hope of home ownership.
Again and restoring that dream.
And I believe that we can win that contest, and I think for the future of our country we must.
So thank you very much, Paul, and thanks for being letter.
Thank you.
Let Peter Dunnon leaver at the opposition like we'll mabe here in Dixon. Thank you again for the night A seam makes its way around, he says, a game to a few people again. I just want to say thank you to everyone as part of the Sky News team, part of the local pub team as well, and I look forward to this promise of course, which is where you get the chance to continue going right around the country.
We're going to Western Australia, Victoria, plenty of places to get you to have the opportunity to ask questions of all sorts of people. But again one more time for the alternative Prime Minister, Peter Dutton.
That's it from Blucebant.
Thank you very much the.
Late debate again. Thanks thanks pre thank thank you for again up there you again