Interview, 6PR Mornings with Liam Bartlett

E&OE transcript
Radio Interview 
6PR

LIAM BARTLETT, HOST: And a very good morning, Matt Keogh. Hello, Minister.

THE HON MATT KEOGH MP, MINISTER FOR VETERANS AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE PERSONNEL: Good morning, Liam. Good to be with you and everyone listening out there.

BARTLETT: And you too. And, unfortunately, Andrew Hastie can’t join us in the studio, but he is on the other end of the line. Andrew Hastie, good morning to you.

ANDREW HASTIE: Good morning, Liam. Good morning, Matt, and I note that you’ve changed the introduction. You’ve refreshed it.

BARTLETT: Well, we had to jazz up the music because as you two both know, if you get stale, it’s certain death.

KEOGH: Morning, Andrew. Clearly, we’re not providing enough biff or entertainment. They’ve had to give us a better soundtrack instead!

BARTLETT: Yes.

HASTIE: Yeah.

BARTLETT: I did say to the production team, “We need a few more horns or something. Jazz it up. These guys are getting a little bit too friendly.” But we’ll keep you on the line, Andrew, so you can interrupt or you can join the conversation any time you like.

HASTIE: Sure. Thank you.

BARTLETT: Now, where to start, because we changed the schedule slightly this fortnight because of the last couple of weeks and we had a problem with the bells last week with sitting. How do you think those two weeks of Parliament went, Matt?

KEOGH: Well, it was the first sitting of Parliament since the election. I think it was very successful from the Government’s point of view. It enabled us to kick off on getting our agenda through the Parliament, getting on with important legislation around domestic violence leave, aged care reforms, implementing recommendations from the royal commission, the climate change legislation, but also, from my point of view, some critical veterans’ affairs legislation supporting veterans and Defence personnel and their families. So, there was a range of legislation that we were able to bring forward and start getting through, and one of the aged care legislation pieces actually went through the entire Parliament in those two weeks because we’re getting on with the job.

BARTLETT: How are you going to putting a nurse in every single aged care home?

KEOGH: Well, it’s going to be a challenge, right, because we’ve got huge workforce shortages around the country, and it’s something we’re really focused on and working with the states as well, and it’s why the Jobs Summit we’ve got coming up in a couple of weeks’ time, at the beginning of September, is really important, unlike the Opposition’s claim that somehow it’s a stunt, you know, your point goes straight to the heart of why having a summit like that is so important, to make sure that we’re addressing skill shortages and working out how we can get them filled as quickly as possible.

BARTLETT: Well, your leader, Andrew, Peter Dutton has called this summit a talkfest.

HASTIE: Well, yeah, that’s right and he got the interview after it had been dropped to the media. So, let’s see what happens. Bob Hawke did one very successfully back in the ‘80s and let’s see what happens, but I think more concerning is the fact that Labor has stopped talking about the $275 pledge, which is the promise to remove $275 off people’s power bills. That was repeated almost 97 times since early December, 15 times during the campaign, and as Parliament’s returned, nothing has been said about that at all. They’ve set an emissions target of 43 per cent. They’ve legislated it without any safeguards yet, and I’m very concerned about what that he knows that means for industry down in Canning, Alcoa particularly, but they haven’t set a price target. They haven’t demonstrated how they’re going to look after working families and get those power bills down, which on the east coast are really biting hard at the moment.

KEOGH: I do find this quite rich, Liam. We had not only nine years, 20 energy policies or draft policies, none of which landed, complete uncertainty in the energy market for a decade under the previous Government, but also they deliberately changed a regulation in the lead up to the last election so that they could hide from the Australian people that there was an energy price rise under the existing systems, not under what we’ve got going forward, under the existing systems, it was coming and they hid it. They hid it by changing a regulation so it wouldn’t be revealed until after the election. A massive energy price rise that kicked in from 1 July across the eastern seaboard.

BARTLETT: It was a booby trap for you.

KEOGH: Absolutely it was a booby trap for us if we were successful and very happy that we were successful, but, you know, this sort of approach by the new Opposition to say, “Oh, you know, we’re not doing” – look at what you did and look at what you completely failed to do after a decade. We’ve come into Government now. We’ve had the first sitting fortnight and we’ve got on with the mandate that we were given by the Australian people.

BARTLETT: You failed that, Andrew?

HASTIE: Look, I don’t think the Government has a mandate to increase power bills. As you know, over the last decade we were in Government, and we meet – we met and beat our targets for reducing emissions. In fact, we’re ahead of New Zealand, ahead of Canada, ahead of USA, Germany. We did really well. And one thing that we have to maintain is national flexibility and by legislating a 43 per cent target without any clear safeguards yet to preserve our industry, to make sure working families, businesses don’t go under, it’s very concerning. And I am concerned about what this means for our energy security long term. And as I’ve said over the past four or five years, I’ll always fight for industry in this country. We’re trying to revive our industrial base and we need affordable and reliable power to do that and I’m not sure that Labor understands this. They can’t just bend the law of economics.

BARTLETT: Picking up the point that Andrew makes though, Matt, about the promise, I mean, he is right until the sense that it was a mantra. It was a mantra. Electricity will be cheaper. Electricity will be cheaper and supplementary electricity will be cheaper. Here’s a text message from Robyn. It says, “Hey, Matt, where’s my $275 saving on my electricity bill?” What do you say to people like that because Anthony Albanese did say time and time again it will be cheaper?

KEOGH: And it will be cheaper than it would have been if we’d kept with the same policy settings as the previous Government. So, yes, they signed off on and allowed this massive increase on the eastern seaboard. That price increase didn’t apply in Western Australia. But it will still be cheaper across the country under the new settings because what are we doing? We are bringing on –

BARTLETT: Cheaper than otherwise would have been. I mean, that’s a bit of a cop out, isn’t it?

KEOGH: That’s all you can ever do. The key thing is by bringing on these renewable energy sources, it makes the price of energy going forward less expensive because the cost of generation is so much lower. So, when Andrew talks about, “Oh, we’ve got to make sure we’ve got cheap energy for industry”, absolutely we’ve got to make sure we’ve got access to it, but what the previous Government did was provide no certainty to industry whatsoever when it comes to energy. When we look at what’s happening in terms of access to gas on the east coast, the previous Government did nothing. It’s taken this Government to issue the notices that we may use the provisions to restrict the export of gas because we understand that making sure that we have got a reliable supply to our own gas is vitally important, but the previous Government did nothing about that. So, they talk a bit of a game about, “Oh, we’re going to protect industry”, but they didn’t. And they’ve got to get with the program. They’ve got to read the memo. The climate wars are over. People want to move on. Business wants to move on. Agriculture wants to move on. It’s – everyone wants to move on.

HASTIE: The climate wars – the climate wars, as Labor says, are over and I would say the war on working families and businesses and industry is just beginning. And just to talk about the lack of gas supply on the east coast, you need not look any further than Dan Andrews who stood in the way of gas exploration in Victoria. So, these are the kind of Green left Labor governments who are opposing development in our country. We are a rich, rich country when it comes to energy, coal, gas, uranium, of course, wind and solar. But wind and solar is part of the mix. You can’t just go completely wind and solar, and that’s the reality here. I mean, if you look at – 

BARTLETT: All right. Sorry, Andrew, I want to move on. I want to ask you, we’re talking with Matt Keogh and Andrew Hastie, 16 minutes to 10, “Behind Party Lines” on the morning program. Andrew, just coming back to that Jobs Summit, because this goes to what will be in a couple of weeks’ time also talk about immigration and mass migration and big migration numbers and this big Australia concept. This will all lead to that. All roads lead to Rome and we’ve been talking about that today from an Italian who’s been here for eight years who’s been trying to get as a skilled worker been trying to get a decent residency and other people who have been phoning in. We’ve got people lining up. We’ve got queues of them. Now, will Peter Dutton go to that summit? Will he accept the invitation or not, Andrew?

HASTIE: It’s a good question. I haven’t asked him personally. He has been invited and that’s up to him to go. My concern is that this will be just a talkfest where unions demand more from the Government. We’ve seen the relationship between the CFMEU and Labor, and I’m concerned that this won’t actually be a summit where all of society’s involved, but it will be a two-way conversation between a Labor Government and the unions –

BARTLETT: Sorry, go on.

HASTIE: The point about migration – look, migration is part of our story and if we’re going to realise projects, nation-building projects like AUKUS, we’re actually going to need to up our migration of skilled and talented people across the sector that we have identified, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, nuclear technology.

BARTLETT: Well, let’s not even worry about that brain drain. Let’s talk about things closer to the ground. Let’s talk about nurses and people working in cafes. That’s what we’ve been talking about this morning. So, here’s my question to you, Matt: will this Jobs Summit look at the bureaucracies, the Home Office, the visa offices, these visa processing things actually doing the right thing and allowing these people, making it easier for these people to actually be here?

KEOGH: Yeah, and what people are experiencing and it’s certainly, you know, people in my community have been talking to me about the whole time I’ve been in Parliament, and it’s got worse and worse and worse over the time I’ve been in Parliament – 

BARTLETT: It has –

KEOGH: – is the atrophy of workers in the visa processing area of the Department of Home Affairs. The previous Government really stripped that out and then we got to COVID, which meant, basically, no visa processing was happening at all because there was exemption processing necessarily and other things going on. But if you look at the massive decline over the term of the last Government, and especially in the last six years, and the number of people in the department just doing that job, what it has done is held up the opportunity for people to go from temporary, you know, working visas into permanency, which obviously we want to encourage, and the opportunity to make sure we can get those skilled workers into the country as we need them.

BARTLETT: So, not enough staff there. But this is a repeat of the veterans’ affairs processing department.

KEOGH: Yeah.

BARTLETT: But on top of that, doesn’t there have to be some examination of the actual boxes that need to be ticked?

KEOGH: Absolutely, and that’s what part of the summit needs to be looking at. We’ve got the opportunity coming out of COVID now as a bit of a reset for how that migration system works, but we need to make sure that the systems are fit for purpose. That is absolutely important. And as, you know, all your callers and texters have been identifying they’ve been held up where you think, hang on, you know businesses need these workers. We’ve got record low unemployment. We need to get people in. And that is something we’re prepared to examine and do but also to make sure that those departments are resourced appropriately which as I say they’ve been stripped out for almost a decade now.

BARTLETT: We’ll take a quick break and come back in just a moment. 12 minutes to 10. 13 38 82, our talkback number.

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BARTLETT: And gentlemen, here’s a quick text message. That’s what I was looking for, the word I was looking for, “text”. Steve says, “Liam, what do your panellists think of the $10 billion profit “ – Steve’s rounding it out. I think it was nine point something billion dollars, wasn’t it? – “gouged from Australians by CBA?”, by the Commonwealth Bank? “Is it acceptable to be taking more and more money from working Australians with no conscience?” What do you think of that, Matt?

KEOGH: I think it’s complex, and I saw this when I was on the Economics Committee in the lead-up to the Royal Commission into Banking and certainly where banks make profits at the expense of doing the wrong thing by customers, that is an absolute travesty. But I’m also aware that most of the shareholders of CBA are the superannuation funds that we all hold, so a lot of that increase in value is actually our retirement savings as well. The key thing is making sure they’re not gouging customers. Interest rates are going up. We don’t want to see them going up faster than interest rates are already going up. I think that’s something that we should all be keeping an eye on, and customers should be keeping an eye on as well to see if there’s better deals out there, because we know times are going to be getting tight.

BARTLETT: That’s the thing, isn’t it, Andrew, you want the interest rate going up on the savings accounts as well as the mortgage?

HASTIE: Exactly right, and so transparency is critical here. And I think, you know, we’ve got to keep an eye on things, but banks can do a better job of communicating those things. I watch my mortgage closely and it’s been ticking up, that interest rate, so I encourage your listeners to do the same, and also make inquiries about interest rates for their savings accounts too.

BARTLETT: Yes exactly. Andrew, look, I’m well aware that, unfortunately, you have to attend a rather sombre service, so do you need to take off?

HASTIE: I do. I do need to take off and a lovely couple down here in Mandurah, Irene, we’re celebrating her life today. She almost got to 100 years old. Her husband, Ray, passed away in May and he was a long-serving Western Australia Police officer who every year read the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23 at the memorial service down here for fallen policemen. So, we’re going to miss them and it’s a good opportunity to celebrate their lives. So, I’ll leave it there, Liam and Matt. Thanks very much for having me.

BARTLETT: Good on you, Andrew.

KEOGH: Our condolences to the family.

BARTLETT: Yeah, well done. Thank you, Andrew. We’ll talk to you again in a fortnight’s time. That’s Andrew Hastie. Federal Member for Canning and Shadow Minister for Defence, Matt Keogh. Let’s take another call. Have we got time?

KEOGH: Yeah.

BARTLETT: Steve. Steve, good morning.

STEVE: Hi, how are you?

BARTLETT: Good thank you. Matt’s listening.

STEVE: How are you going, Matt?

KEOGH: Hi, Steve. Good to hear you.

STEVE: Matt, we’ve had people and we’ve got a person who’s been doing the same thing with the actual employment thing with the visas and everything for over eight years helped out in the regional area too, mind you, and helped out all the way through COVID, helps everybody left, right and centre, cannot get an answer and the excuses they use as a Government, continuously, “Oh, the COVID, we can’t get staff. We can’t get this. We can’t get that.” All we hear Matt Keogh say and the politicians is talk. It’s, basically, talking about excuses, excuses, excuses, about COVID, about no staff. Why don’t they hire more people, number one? Number two, why don’t they answer their phones? Actually answer their phones not turn and leave messages? Number three, why don’t these people actually realise that some of these people – I was just down at Margaret River attending something down there last weekend, and the people down there have actually turned around and are saying it’s been great not having backpackers because we can actually get local jobs. And that’s another perspective of the factor that the local people when the backpackers are there get shunted aside for cheaper labour, so they are the issues that are not being addressed by the actual Parliament. But these politicians that are going in there and saying, “I’m going to do this and that for the area and get voted in”, they soon forget, as soon as they get that big pay cheque and they get moved over to the eastern states, they soon forget the local area. Just like Matt forgot Kelmscott and Clifton Hills.

BARTLETT: All right, Steve. Let Matt have a say on that.

KEOGH: I haven’t moved anywhere. We don’t go over east. I’m here. And I’m certainly not forgetting Kelmscott and Clifton Hills. You know, it’s where I grew up as well. But, you know, when I talk about the lack of staff over the last decade, it wasn’t under our Government. What I’m doing though is recognising that yes, you are right. We need to have more staff processing these visas. We need to have a system that works by putting people first and – 

BARTLETT: Yes, the processing system needs to be changed.

KEOGH: – gives people information, and it has been a huge frustration as a local Member of Parliament trying to help people with these visa applications where we would not get responses out of the department. We could not get information. Now I can get some better information. That’s a great thing. That’s what a change of Government can bring, that you can get – provide more assistance to people. I think the issue you raise about backpackers is an incredibly important one, and it is something that actually my side of politics and the union movement have been talking about for some time, which is whilst there may well be a need for backpacker labour and additional support and labour across particularly the agricultural region, it cannot undercut people’s wages, working conditions across that sector, and it has absolutely been doing that, the use of backpacker labour and other temporary labour and that’s something we are getting on top of.

BARTLETT: Who’s the Immigration Minister?

KEOGH: So, the Immigration Minister is Andrew Giles.

BARTLETT: Andrew Giles. All right. We’ll put a call in to him for tomorrow.

KEOGH: Absolutely.

BARTLETT: Because it’s unfair to pin you with an immigration issue – full stop. Matt, thanks for coming in.

KEOGH: No, it’s been a pleasure to be with you again and look forward to joining you and Andrew again in a fortnight.

BARTLETT: We’ll see you in a fortnight. Matt Keogh, the Shadow Minister – sorry. Freudian slip, wasn’t it? Matt Keogh is the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and the member – Federal Member for Burt, on the morning program, “Behind Party Lines”. We’ll come back in a sec.

END

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Authorised by The Hon Matt Keogh MP.