Radio Interview - 6PR Perth Radio Mornings with Gary Adshead

E&OE TRANSCRIPT  
6PR PERTH RADIO  
MORNINGS WITH GARY ADSHEAD  
THURSDAY, 14 NOVEMBER 2024

SUBJECTS: Cost of Living; Wages; Labour Force; US Election; Speculation on Election Dates.

GARY ADSHEAD, HOST: Good morning, Andrew. How's that? How's that?

MINISTER FOR VETERANS’ AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE PERSONNEL, MATT KEOGH: We're bereft of a sparring partner.

ADSHEAD: Matt Keogh, welcome to the studio.

MINISTER KEOGH: Gary It's great to be with you. I'm missing Andrew.

ADSHEAD: Can we pre-empt it, though? Can we pre-empt the conversation that's going to happen and when he comes flying through the door?

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, look, if I know his style, I can read his press releases and then I can give you my argument against them.

ADSHEAD: So, I could basically say, Andrew, what do you think about this? And you could answer it.

MINISTER KEOGH: I could probably give you his lines. I reckon I know him, I hear them enough. Look, here's what I think is going to happen, Gary. Andrew's going to come in, he's going to have a big crack at the State Government about the state of the freeway. And the thing I've learned, everything's about planning. And what we've learned here is this is why Andrew was in the infantry and not logistics.

ADSHEAD: Oh, no, no. That could start a war. That could. That comment could start a war. He was a Captain in the SAS, for goodness sake. All right. Why don't I just ask you, at this point in time, the unemployment rate staying stable at the moment, and it's a good sign, isn't it? Despite, you know, all the headwinds that are supposedly coming up.

MINISTER KEOGH: So, I think we've got three things that have, I think in the stats that have come out, not just today, but over the last week or so, that are looking positive. So, we've seen that inflation has now fallen so that it's in the target band. So, that's a good outcome. We've seen that wages are growing, so inflation's going down, wages are going up, so people are actually getting more money in their hip pocket. That's a great outcome. And we're not seeing an increase in unemployment as a result. So, I think this shows that the work that we've been doing in trying to help people with cost of living pressure, but also keep that downward pressure on inflation whilst investing in things that help grow the economy, Supporting manufacturing, supporting the resources industry here in WA, are paying the dividends that we need to see.

ADSHEAD: How do you win it though? Because it seems to me that that cost of living, those three words have become ingrained in our psyche just day to day now. Cost of living crisis, cost of living crisis. Is that going to wear off? Because I got to be honest, you know, the term is sort of, it gets people depressed. They hear it every day.

MINISTER KEOGH: Yeah, it does. And I think it's the term gets people depressed and we're talking about it a lot and then they also get, you know, their next rent payment or their mortgage payments and they know they're significantly higher than they were a few years ago. But what they're now also seeing is they're not continuing to increase at the same rate. So, I think people feel better about that, but it doesn't make it any easier for them to pay bills. And that's why things like tax cuts that we've been delivering, making childcare cheaper, making medicines cheaper, providing Fee-Free TAFE, having those credits on power bills so that at least when people get a power bill, and for some of the people I've been door knocking Gary, you know, their bill's gone into credit because of that credit that they've received from the Federal Government and the State Government. So, that helps. But downward pressure on inflation, because that's the thing that really kicks along people's mortgage repayments. Rent, that's really important.

ADSHEAD: That's the missing piece of your puzzle right now though, isn't it?

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, inflation's now down to two - it's in the target band between two and three -

ADSHEAD: Interest rates, interest rates falling before an election.

MINISTER KEOGH: I think everyone would love to see that. I think absolutely. So, we would all. Anyone who's paying a mortgage would love to see interest rates start to fall. And what we are seeing there with inflation starting to fall significantly and being in the target band is that that's the next bit, but it's also outside the control of Government. But we're doing what we can, running budget surpluses, helping people with those paying those bills, doing the work to see inflation fall so that the Reserve Bank's able to do what it needs to do as well.

ADSHEAD: What I'll do, because, you know, I'm a fair and balanced kind of guy, is it's quarter to, we'll reset, we'll take a break and we think Andrew Hastie might be able to make it through the door by then in the next three and a half minutes, so we'll give that a crack. If not, you and I just have a lovely chat up until 11 o'clock.

MINISTER KEOGH: Love it.

[Ad break]

ADSHEAD: And Andrew Hastie joins us. Welcome, mate. I hope it wasn't too stressful for you getting up here. And I do appreciate, I actually genuinely appreciate the effort you make to get here because I know it's tricky in the morning sometimes.

SHADOW MINISTER FOR DEFENCE, ANDREW HASTIE: No, no worries, Gary, thank you. Good to be here.

ADSHEAD: Ok, just quickly, should Kevin Rudd be packing his bags from the United States and coming home?

HASTIE: That's a decision for the Prime Minister and it's a decision for Kevin Rudd. My view is that as politicians, we have to always work towards Australia's interests and that means sometimes you withhold your inner thoughts from social media or from public comment. And I think Mr. Rudd has demonstrated, or Dr. Rudd, I should say, has demonstrated poor judgement in this instance with making pretty disparaging comments about Mr. Trump President elect back in 2021. And I think that showed a lack of strategic foresight, because in the end, I'm prepared to work with Vice President Harris if she'd won the election. I'm prepared to work with the Trump administration. We should always be focused on securing our national interest. And I think that's the failing here from Mr. Rudd.

ADSHEAD: Alright, Matt Keogh. I mean, yesterday I interviewed Senator Dean Smith and he was much more equivocal. He said Kevin Rudd should pack his bags and come home. Where does Labor stand? This is becoming a problem, every day there’s another little video, a little tidbit of what he said about Trump and I mean, he's never said anything nice about him.

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, I think it's important to contextualise that the comments in 2021 were not comments when Kevin held any particular Government role. So, that's important context. But I think what's also important is that we believe in a diplomatic system, Australia picks who its Ambassadors are and who its High Commissioners are, and we back them. And we should be backing them from Government and Opposition because it should be a Team Australia approach. And I was a bit concerned that we've seen that approach fray a bit with Senator Smith's comments yesterday and some of the more recent comments from Mr. Dutton about that.

ADSHEAD: I've got that. Have we got that, James? This is this morning. It was actually interesting because he seems to have changed his tune a bit. Here's Peter Dutton this morning.

[Excerpt begins]

LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION, PETER DUTTON: My view is that if you can't have a functioning relationship with the Government where you're the Ambassador, then your position's very difficult.

[Excerpt ends]

HASTIE: Yeah, I mean, that's true. My whole point is that, you know, ambassadors are there to deliver for our national interest. And so the test for them is whether or not they can establish a good relationship with the administration. And if they can't -

ADSHEAD: Buthow could he? I mean, he's called him a traitor, an imbecile. I mean, I mean, I got. Here's another one. Here's another one of what he said in 2022, not that long ago. This is Kevin Rudd on Trump.

[Excerpt begins]

AMBASSADOR OF AUSTRALIA TO THE UNITED STATES, KEVIN RUDD: For all the American predisposition for episodic craziness, look at Trump. How did that happen? Okay, the - that was a walk on the wild side for all of us.

[Excerpt ends]

HASTIE: I can tell you right now. These guys are oil and water as a, you know, episodic, blah, blah, blah. You know, the guy talks like an academic and Donald Trump talks like a cabbie sometimes. You know, like, that's why he gets on with security guards and people in the working economy. So, they're not going to gel as it is. And then you throw a bit of fuel on the fire with Rudd's comments. I think he's got an uphill battle.

ADSHEAD: Matt Keogh, it's important that we get this right, because if Trump follows through on the tariff threat that he has and we get caught up in that, then that sets back your economy, our economy, a long way. So, what are you doing? Isn't it just easier for Government to say, come on, Kev, we blew it, mate, you got too lippy in the lead up to this. Come on home.

MINISTER KEOGH: Absolutely, very important relationship, being able to have those, that discourse, very important. I think it's also important to look at Kevin's record. I mean, you know, we've discussed this plenty of times before really important legislation about AUKUS went through the Congress last year. Kevin was a key player in promoting Australia's interest in having that legislation passed. It was legislation that was supported Democrats, Republicans, Trump Republicans. Kevin's demonstrated he can work with Trump Republicans and have them on board in things that are in America's interest and in Australia's interests. And I think that's important when we're thinking about being able to work with an administration. Kevin's actually got runs on the board working with the congressional members that are part of the Trump Republican Party. And I'm sure he can continue to have those relationships and to work closely, collaboratively and productively in Australia's interest. And what's important is that everyone, including Peter Dutton, need to stay on Team Australia.

ADSHEAD: Alright. All I'll say is that there's obviously a Trump ally who's put out a tweet saying, you know, with an hourglass saying, the time's running out for you, Kevin Rudd. So, we'll wait and see how that one plays out.

HASTIE: And on that, always in the national interest. I just want to make that clear. I'm not here to run down Kevin Rudd this morning you asked me a question. Will it be tough for him? Yes, it will be.

ADSHEAD: Now the other thing that to me is becoming a little bit bizarre at the moment is the fact that it's clear that the Prime Minister and our Premier have had a conversation about an election date. Okay. We've got the Premier saying, you know, oh no, well, our date's March 8th. That's when we're having a State Election. Until we're not. That's what he said yesterday. Until we're not. What, what does that, what's going on? I mean, are you aware whether the PM said, Can we please have March 8th as our election date Premier, can you move it, please, please, please, please?

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, the Prime Minister hasn't spoken to me about when the election, the date of the election. But I think it's important to put some real context around this, Gary. Like, does the Prime Minister speak to leaders of the Labor Party in states in the lead up to an election about, about their election? Like in the Northern Territory earlier this year, like in Queensland earlier this year. Obviously we've got Western Australia’s State Election coming up early next year. It would be surprising if they didn't discuss the upcoming elections in 2022. We had all of this same speculation running wild. Oh, will Scott Morrison call the election to coincide with the South Australian State Election because their State Election was March 2022. I think everyone's got themselves in a pickle running around, oh my god, this is what's going to happen. The Premier has, quite rightly, as a prudent Government would, made sure that it has a proper understanding of how the WA electoral law works. If there was to be a clash. No one's saying there's going to be a clash. And what we're concentrating on is governing, dealing with, as we were discussing before, cost of living, pressure on ordinary Australians, making sure that we're delivering for people across the country in the national interest. That's what we're concentrated on. I can understand why people like Andrew might be a little worried, you know, is he going to have Libby Mettam as the leader of the Liberal Party? Is he going to have Basil as the leader of the Liberal Party? That would be quite confusing, in preparing, from Andrew's point of view.

HASTIE: I get, mate, my fortunes are not tied to Basil or Libby. I don't really care. I've always run my own race and I'm always seeking to look after my constituents.

ADSHEAD: Do you think Albo, do you think let's go one way or the other. Do you think that Roger Cook would prefer that the Federal Election was out of the way before March 8th so we can see what happens to Federal Labor or the other way around? And what do you think? What do you think is going on here? Because I'll just say I've said it yesterday to the Premier, we have a fixed date, the Feds don't, that's their problem -

MINISTER KEOGH: And we would like to change that. We would love to have a Federal fixed date.

ADSHEAD: But right now it's not our problem in WA, it's a Federal problem that you can't, you can't kick our date out because it suits Albanese's chances of re-election. That's just wrong. That's what I think. What do you think?

HASTIE: I think the reality for the Prime Minister is he knows that the trend is not his friend. Every day goes by he grows less popular and Labor's primary vote and two party preferred vote continues to drop. And I think you know, you're never going to see a big as majority as the State Labor team has now. And they've got offices dotted throughout all the Federal key seats that Labor needs to hold. And I think Anthony Albanese thinks he's got a better chance probably with more red shirts in the field and that means going potentially before the State Labor team.

ADSHEAD: Just referring to the Corruption and Crime Commission report this week. Yes, nice. No, but -

HASTIE: That's the reality.

ADSHEAD: You don't know - this is the problem. We don't know. Everyone goes on about oh you always speculate in the media, well, what else should we do? You know, when you've got an argument going on or a discussion going on between a Premier and a Prime Minister about what date and can we have that date and maybe you can move and all that sort of stuff, what should we do? Of course we speculate, elections are something that we should take very seriously as a democracy, and so we therefore should have a right to know when the Federal Election will be.

MINISTER KEOGH: And you'll find out when the Prime Minister calls it, because that's how the system works. But I agree with you, Gary. It would be far better in our country, and I think Andrew will probably agree as well, if we had fixed Federal terms as well, that'd be a much better outcome for governments, oppositions, the public service, for business, for the economy, broadly, much better outcome. But you got to go to a constitutional referendum on that. I know how they -

HASTIE: I think the Australian people are open to constitutional referendums, you know, so only, though, if the question isn't divisive, as we found last year with the Voice.

ADSHEAD: The real reason I'm talking about this is because it might clash with my birthday and that's, you know, we can't have that clashing with my birthday.

MINISTER KEOGH: I'll just let the PM know Gary.

ADSHEAD: And my dad's birthday. I mean, it's outrageous. We have the same birthday. Hey, guys, thanks very much for coming in, again Andrew, I know you made it through the traffic. I don't. You didn't crash anyone on the way, you just calmly got through it.

HASTIE: Mate, I'm Formula One level.

ADSHEAD: It's three. Thanks, guys. It's three minutes to 11.

MINISTER KEOGH: Thanks, Gary.

END

Open Arms – Veterans & Families Counselling provides 24/7 free confidential crisis support for current and ex-serving ADF personnel and their families on 1800 011 046 or the Open Arms website. Safe Zone Support provides anonymous counselling on 1800 142 072. Defence All-Hours Support Line provides support for ADF personnel on 1800 628 036 or the Defence Health Portal. Defence Member and Family Helpline provides support for Defence families on 1800 624 608.