Radio interview, Mornings with Gary Adshead

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
6PR
Mornings with Gary Adshead

GARY ADSHEAD: And welcome along to the program, chaps.

MINISTER KEOGH: Hi, Gary, great to be with you.

ANDREW HASTIE: G’day, Gary. How are you?

GARY ADSHEAD: Good, Andrew. Thank you very much. Now, obviously, Matt Keogh, you’re also the Minister for Defence Personnel, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs. The first thing I want to ask you both, your take on this panel that was put together by the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, which is suggesting we’ve got about three years to get ready for a war with China.

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, I’m not going to speculate on hypotheticals that people have put together because what we really want to see is peace and stability across our region in the Taiwan Strait and across the Asia–Pacific region. Maintaining the status quo is very important. That’s always our primary objective in all of our engagements, in stabilising and reconnecting that relationship with China and always working closely with our neighbours and re-establishing those positive relationships with our near neighbours in particular.

GARY ADSHEAD: If we get drawn into a conflict, though, Andrew, because of China’s decision to perhaps invade Taiwan and the US come to Taiwan’s aid and we get drawn in, are we ready within three years?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, these are good questions to ask, Gary, and I think we do need to have a discussion with the Australian people and so insofar as this three-year red alert that was published by The Sydney Morning Herald helps to move the discussion along, particularly about funding the AUKUS announcement, which will be made on Monday, I think it is a good thing. But I will say this. Quite a few leaders, both in the US and Australia, have made similar comments. They haven’t said three years. But we know back in 2020 when the Defence Strategic Update was announced, that the 10‑year warning time had shrunk. The former commander of the Indo–Pacific command in the US, Admiral Phil Davidson, he said that China may well try to take Taiwan within five years out to 2027. Kevin Rudd said in the next decade.

So, three years is a tighter window, but it’s sort of the consensus view that we are entering a risky phase and we need to be prepared, which is why the former Government announced AUKUS and which is why we’re going to do our best to support the current Government deliver these nuclear submarines for our Navy.

GARY ADSHEAD: Just on AUKUS, while I’ve got you both there, obviously the story today in the Australian Financial Review, which is talking about the amount of workers that would be required to get in. Have we got those workers, Matt Keogh?

MINISTER KEOGH: So, there will be an announcement about AUKUS coming very soon, but when it comes to workforce and developing that workforce within Defence and across industry, it’s a very important issue. And what we inherited when we came into Government with the defence workforce is a defence workforce that was behind in numbers, down, had been decreasing over several years and we’re doing a lot of work now to be ramping that up. And across industry as well. And it’s why the work around having fee‑free TAFE places is so very important to build that skilled workforce in industry, encouraging industry. It’s why we’re establishing a National Reconstruction Fund so that we are a country that can build sovereign capability across industry not just defence industry to make sure we have got the capability and the workforce to support whatever may come over the next decade.

We are clearly in the most perilous and, if you like, complex strategic circumstances that we have confronted since the Second World War. As Andrew mentioned, that was in a report, very important, the Force Structure Review that came out under the previous Government. And so we do need to be aware of that and preparing for it. We have, unfortunately, had to pick up, really, a decade of inaction under the previous Government in a lot of these spaces and that’s why we moved forward with our Defence Strategic Review, and that will be released in coming weeks with the Government’s response about how we can match and meet those demands that are the current circumstances that we find ourselves in.

GARY ADSHEAD: We just went into the break talking about cost of living, so here’s my question in relation to the superannuation debate that, of course, has been unleashed. Andrew Hastie, is your party going to continue to defend rich people and all their money?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, I think that’s buying into the class warfare which Labor is trying to prosecute here. As we’ve seen, and as the Labor Finance Minister confirmed earlier in the week, one in 10 Australians will be affected by Labor’s changes to super. It’s not just a couple of people with a super balance above $3 million. Fundamentally as well, the Prime Minister and Jim Chalmers, the Treasurer, before the last election said that super wouldn’t be touched. So, we’re holding them to account for promises that they made and are now breaking and that’s what we do in Opposition.

GARY ADSHEAD: Broken promise, Matt?

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, we confront a Budget circumstance where we’re looking at a trillion dollars’ worth of debt that we’ve inherited –

GARY ADSHEAD: But you knew that before. You knew that.

MINISTER KEOGH: And what the government expects – what people expect of us is to manage the economy sensibly and that means that we do need to affect a degree of budget repair as well as dealing with issues like cost of living that are affecting everyday people and this proposal, which wouldn’t come into effect until after the next election so everyone has an opportunity to consider it when they go to the next election, will not impact on 99.5 per cent of people. And when Andrew talks about the one in 10, that would be potentially one in 10 in 30 years’ time and that would assume that no Government between now and then addresses that particular level that we’ve picked in terms of the $3 million balance.

But what we are proposing is a policy that would only affect 0.5 per cent of people means 99.5 per cent of people are not affected and what the Opposition are trying to drum up is a scare campaign where still 90 per cent of people would not be impacted by this change in 30 years’ time. We think it is an equitable and proportionate measure to address proper budget repair, which is absolutely necessary to make sure we manage the economy.

GARY ADSHEAD: Yes, it is. Can I just jump in there and just say this. I agree that, Matt, budget repair is absolutely necessary. So, my only problem with what you’re doing, to be blunt, is that you didn’t just get on and do it because you’re not going to make any savings until after the next election and the situation is critical now.

ANDREW HASTIE: And that’s my point, Gary. To bring it back to the outer suburbs – to bring it to the outer suburbs of Perth around the kitchen table, how does this provide cost‑of‑living relief for working families?

GARY ADSHEAD: It doesn’t. Not now. It doesn’t, does it, Matt?

MINISTER KEOGH: No, what it does is provide budget repair and that’s really important because unlike the previous Government who did not use – where we saw increases in revenue from commodity prices, didn’t use that to pay down any of the huge debt, what we are doing – in the last Budget we used nearly all of that increased revenue to pay down debt. We’re looking at how we can best manage the budget repair task as well as cost‑of‑living pressures by reducing the cost of child care, by reducing the cost of medicine, making sure we’re relieving those supply chain pressures by making sure we have a skilled workforce with fee‑free TAFE places, with the National Reconstruction Fund to open up local manufacturing so that we can remove those inflationary pressures from supply chain risk.

So, we are tackling those cost‑of‑living pressures that we have inherited and that we are taking responsibility for fixing because that’s what Australians expect of their Government.

GARY ADSHEAD: Well, you two go have a cup of tea and get back in the chamber and we’ll talk again in a couple of weeks.

ANDREW HASTIE: Great to be with you, Gary. Look forward to it.

MINISTER KEOGH: Thanks, Gary. Cheers, mate.

GARY ADSHEAD: Andrew Hastie and Matt Keogh.

Authorised by The Hon Matt Keogh MP

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