Wed 30 Apr
This blog is now closed.
Dutton then dodges the follow up questions on how much nuclear would actually cost, where the water would come from, what the tech is planning to use…
Again, there is a habit within the media to claim that Dutton is more approachable and faces more questions in his (campaign) press conferences but the truth is, he has just been better at dodging them. It is day 33 now, things aren’t going his way, so he’s no longer even pretending.
Q: On nuclear energy, with your criticism of Anthony Albanese’s $600 billion claim for your nuclear program, you said in fact it will cost around $116 billion, just to build the plants… (That’s a CSIRO based figure of the upper level of the plan)
On Frontier modelling with the specification of using A P1,000 reactors made by Westinghouse, relatively cheap compared to other models. Your frontbenchers David Littleproud and Ted O’Brien have said repeatedly the Coalition will not build those types of reactors in locations where there is no water. They’ll use dry-cooled reactors perhaps and they cost up to four times more according to the World Nuclear Association. How can you say that you know the specific cost of your nuclear plant when you haven’t finalised the models you’ll you use?
Dutton:
Frontier Economics, as you know, is the most accomplished and most credible economist in the country when it comes to modelling the energy market. They’re a firm used by Labor, including Premier Malinauskas in South Australia. What does their analysis say about the offerings of two parties? Firstly, they say that Labor’s renewables-only policy will cost an additional $263 billion on top of what our policy will cost.
They conclude that our policy will be 44% cheaper than Labor’s. So that means electricity costs will go down. And in relation to our east-coast gas reservation, they say the whole sail price of gas will come down by 23%. Now, Frontier has assumed costings, as you made reference to the CSIRO, as they have, in relation to the cost, which will be averaged out. So you’ll have a look at the different sites and the point in relation to the policy is that we’ll take expert advice on the best fit for those seven sites.
Q: This is a sect which treats women as second-class citizens and doesn’t tolerate homosexuality at all. Surely you don’t think those are shared values with the government?
Dutton:
The point I make is people will support parties for different reasons and people of Islamic faith are involved in this election. People of no faith, people of the Jewish faith obviously feel particularly aggrieved, as they should, by the anti-Semitism that we’ve seen in our society over the course of the last couple of years and they’ve seen anti-Semitic Jew-hating Greens party (this is a lie and frankly grossly irresponsible. Opposing genocide and the actions of a nation state is not anti-Semitism. Israel is currently in front of the ICC on allegations of collective punishment over its denial of food, aid and medical supplies into Gaza, which has been ignored by the Coalition) and the conduct of that party, but some people will be out supporting the Greens and that’s the reality. For our party, the plan that we’ve got as we go into the election is to cut fuel by 25 cents a litre, to give $1200 back by the way of tax rebate, to help people deal with the cost-of-living pressures they’re under and to make sure that we can get our economy back on track so we can deal with the cost-of-living crisis, bring inflation down, bring interest rates down and cut Labor’s taxes.
Dutton again defends the Exclusive Bretheren sect coming out in droves to hand out for the Liberal party as freedom of religion.
He then attacks Clare O’Neil and Monique Ryan over their volunteers. It’s all going very well.
Dutton avoids another question on consultant spend, falling back on the nonsensical ‘we’ll manage the economy better’ line.
Public servants are workers. They are people. It is cruel to pretend they don’t have families, or bills, or financial constraints like everyone else. And you want to know why public service employees find consultancy work so attractive? It’s the same work, with less responsibility and more money.
Dutton also avoids questions about action against his candidate in Fowler for the second day in a row:
Q: I asked you yesterday whether keeping a candidate who would blame someone’s mother for their daughter experiencing domestic violence squares with your plan to tackle the issue. I want to check again while we’re at a charity if you still think an apology is enough for someone to stay on as a candidate. When the Liberals are not likely to win Fowler, why not dump that candidate?
Dutton:
I’ve made it clear that I don’t endorse or accept the comments.
Q: You do endorse the candidate. He’s apologised for it. Would you call the Prime Minister weak if he did the same thing?
Dutton:
There’s a question at the back.
Q: Will the consultant spend be higher under the Coalition than it is under Labor, given the plan to cut the public service?
Dutton sidesteps this one too:
What we’re going to do is spend taxpayers’ money wisely and that’s exactly the approach that the Howard Government had. We want to make sure that we respect people’s money. At the moment, people are working second and third jobs. You’ve heard the stories as we’ve moved around the country. People who are working full-time but taking an extra shift at the servo or the bottleo on a Saturday night.
The number of people who care about the ‘Howard’ approach to things is rapidly diminishing in Australia. Not sure if the Coalition have worked that out yet.
Peter Dutton has walked away from recession claims though
Q: Mr Dutton, CPI figures are out today. If inflation falls, is that a vindication of Labor’s economic success?
Dutton:
Let’s hope that CPI comes down because interest rates have risen on 12 occasions under the Government. They’ve only come back once. And a big-taxing Labor-Greens government will be a disaster for the economy. I want to deliver our positive plan which will bring interest rates down because we’ll be able to bring inflation down because the Liberal Party is always a better economic manager and interest rates have been higher for longer under Labor. They’ve come down in the US and the UK and Canada and New Zealand before they’ve come down in Australia and that’s because the Government here has spent more than they have in 40 years and that’s kept up inflation. A Liberal Government will be better for the economy, better for inflation and better to help you with the cost-of-living pressures you’re feeling.
Dutton is back in the big dumb utes! We are in sandbagging, protect what’s left territory for the rest of the Coalition campaign, as the AFR’s Paul Karp observed this morning:
Q: Anthony Albanese told News.com.au that voters see you as aligned with Donald Trump and that’s not something they want in this country. What’s your response to that? And do you think Mr Trump has hurt conservative candidates in this country the same way he did in Canada?
Dutton sidesteps the question:
This is an election between three more years of Labor under Mr Albanese, which I don’t think Australians can afford, or our plan – which is to cut petrol by 25 cents a litre, to give $1200 back by way of tax rebate, to help families with the cost-of-living pressures now, axe the ute tax and make sure we can help families, young families, young home-owners get a home sooner. And Mr Albanese doesn’t want to talk about the last three years because he can’t tell people that they’re better off. He can’t talk about the achievements of the government, which is why the negative stuff continues to flow. But there’s a positive plan that we have and that’s what we intend to implement.
There is a lot of independent new media who are doing excellent work this election campaign, looking into issues which legacy media isn’t looking at.
Alex McKinnon has done an incredible deep dive into the Minority Impact Coalition, which is running astro-turf (a polite way of saying propaganda) campaigns in inner-city electorates which you can find on his newsletter.
Declassified Australia has been examining exactly what has been happening with some of Australia’s defence spending and also the weapon ‘parts’ supply chain that ends up in weapons for Israel
That’s just a few – but there is a great emerging trend of journalists doing incredible work outside of the mainstream – it’s what we have been seeing in the US and Europe (Dropsite News is an amazing outlet for anyone looking for US stuff) and it is really good to see good journalists start to break away and do the same thing here.
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