Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash
Shadow Attorney-General
Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations
Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
Senator for Western Australia
TRANSCRIPT
6PR Perth Radio with Oliver Peterson
TOPICS: MYEFO, cost of living, GST, Labor’s scare campaigns, nuclear energy
18 December 2024
E&OE
Oliver Peterson
Federal Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has today, handed out the mid year budget updates. And over the next four years, deficits are forecast to increase by $22 billion with the Government blames on unavoidable spending. Here’s a bit of what the treasurer has had to say a little earlier today;
Jim Chalmers
When our opponents, or others, including people in your line of work Jack, they say that there is too much spending here that they should nominate which of his spending on Medicare or medicines or pensions do they think is inappropriate? Because that is the main driver of this spending that we’re seeing in the budget. And we’ve got this free advice before really, at every budget, we’ve got this free advice that we should slash and burn and have some kind of austerity budget. And we now know from the economic data that we’ve received subsequently, that that would have been diabolical for our economy, which is barely growing as it is.
Oliver Peterson
That was the Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers, earlier today. Joining us now is WA Senator Michaelia Cash and the leader of the Liberal Party in the Senate. Congratulations first and foremost on that new appointment.
Senator Cash
Good afternoon, Ollie and good afternoon to your listeners.
Oliver Peterson
You must be proud of being elevated to that position after the resignation of Simon Birmingham.
Senator Cash
Look, I am very humbled that my colleagues have placed their trust in me. But we have one job, Ollie, and that is to hold the Labor government to account. Because, quite frankly, after today’s numbers, it’s very clear Labor’s plan for Australia isn’t working. And as I go out and about talking to people, they are now very upfront with me, they cannot afford another three years of an Albanese Government, or worse still, can you imagine an Albanese Greens government?
Oliver Peterson
Well, the Treasurer just there has blamed, as I said in the introduction, there’s the budget blow out here on unavoidable spending, and he’s posing the question, and he’s obviously asking you in the opposition as well, what do you want to do cut? The government payments to the age pension, the disability pension, job seeker? Is it just a set of circumstances that would be unavoidable, even if you’re in power today.
Senator Cash
I love the excuses. But Jim Chalmers, reality is this. He’s taken an economic and budgetary boom that was bequeathed to him by the Coalition – we had strong employment, we had a strong resources sector, we had a strong business sector, and he has driven the budget off a cliff. And today’s budget update has shown the enormous cost of Labor over the last two years. But more than that, Australians just can’t afford three years of Labor running our economy. I mean, as Angus Taylor said, you know, as the Reserve Bank Governor, says every time she stands up, Jim Chalmers and Labor, they’ve lost control of spending. You look at the immigration numbers today, Ollie, they’ve lost control of immigration. A decade of deficits going forward. They’ve lost control of the economy. But what does it all add up to? It adds up to families in Australia are hurting, and they know this because after nearly three years of Labor, families have seen a record collapse in disposable income. What’s worse for them is this, the Budget update today, it actually downgraded Australian living standards, and what that means is it’s going to take even longer now for household budgets to get back to where they were before Labor was elected.
Oliver Peterson
Do you think this is going to be a Federal Election on the economy? I asked the Federal Resources Minister, Madeleine King, when she was on the program yesterday. And it boils down, to, as some would say, all elections, regardless if it’s here in Australia, Western Australia, the United States, the UK, for that matter, is the economy stupid?
Senator Cash
Absolutely, there is one issue at the next election. Australians need to ask themselves, am I better off today than I was two and a half years ago when Mr. Albanese was elected? And as I go around Australia, the overwhelming answer to that, Ollie is no. Why? Because you’ve seen food go up. You’ve seen falling real wages and living standards. I mean, the front page of The Australian newspaper today, Ollie, it was heartbreaking. This is a government that now presides over a record number of business insolvencies since they were elected. 26,000 businesses across Australia have become insolvent. That means that people have lost jobs. They’ve lost control of immigration. You’ve got more people than houses. You have unaffordable energy, but more than that, the private sector, which we need to be booming for us to be prosperous as a country, is in recession, and what’s propping up our economy is public sector growth. That’s three years, or that’s almost, almost going on three years in May of Labor being in office, that’s now the legacy they’ve left Australians. You just mentioned energy before.
Oliver Peterson
I did ask about Peter Dutton’s and your party’s nuclear plan to the Federal Resources Minister yesterday. Here’s a bit of what Madeline King told me on Perth live:
Madeleine King
Excluding Western Australia, the powerhouse of the nation, is not included in Peter Dutton costings on nuclear. I mean, it’s an absolute joke, and he’s taking Western Australians for fools. I mean, I get really quite worked up about this because the Premier ss pretty annoyed about this because Peter Dutton doesn’t want to include WA in his costings on nuclear plans. You can see he’s coming for the GST. You can see that like joining the dots on a kid’s puzzle.
Oliver Peterson
So are we fools here in WA and are you coming after the GST?
Senator Cash
Well, the answer to that is no. And look the GST scare campaign is so ludicrous now as to be amusing. It was the WA Coalition team who fought hard for the GST changes, and I can assure you, and Peter Dutton has assured Western Australians, there will be no changes under a Dutton Coalition government. But as I said, I’d expect nothing less from a minister that is desperate and will do and say anything to distract Western Australians from her hopeless record. But I need to pick Madeline King up in relation to the modeling that we have done, because clearly Madeleine is not over her brief and she clearly does not understand Labor’s plan, because our model replicates Labor’s plan, and that’s the one that you’ve seen the pm waving around to the parliament. We wanted to compare apples with apples, which is why, as I said, we replicated Labor’s plan. And guess what? Labor’s plan doesn’t include Western Australia either, because, as your listeners would know, Ollie our state is on a different transmission network. So Madeleine King was either scare campaigning when she said those comments yesterday, or worse still, as a Cabinet minister, doesn’t understand Labor’s own plan, which, as I said, doesn’t include Western Australia, because our state is on a different transmission network. As I would have thought, all Western Australians other than Madeleine clearly know.
Oliver Peterson
The green iron ore. Now, what are your thoughts on that? The plant that they’re wanting to construct in Kwinana. I thought it may have been actually constructed in the Pilbara, seeing as though that’s where the iron ore is coming from. So it’ll come from the Pilbara to Kwinana, then eventually be on a ship overseas.
Senator Cash
Well, I would have to say in the first instance, the companies involved would best know where such a plant is needed. But I think the bigger issue for these companies is the over regulation and the interventionist government that we have under Albanese as our as our federal government. I mean, this is one of the things when I sit in rooms with people who want to get projects off the ground, the first thing they say to me is you need to wind back Labor’s intervention. You need to remove regulatory roadblocks which are suffocating the economy and are stopping businesses from getting ahead.But you also need to condense approval processes and cut back on Labor’s red tape. I mean, that is killing mining. It is killing jobs, but more than that, it is killing entrepreneurialism in this country. And just on that, I would have thought if Madeleine King wanted to stand up for WA why isn’t she picking up the phone to her cabinet colleague in Tanya Plibersek and saying, Tanya approve extending the life of Karratha’s North West Shelf gas hub before Christmas. The Western Australian Government, they’ve given it the go ahead. There is no reason now for Federal Labor to delay the process any longer. I mean, if we could continue with the North West Shelf, this will mean protecting hundreds of jobs, mostly here in Western Australia. But more than that, we also know that the ongoing supply of gas, it helps to keep energy prices down, and it is vital to the future prosperity, not just of our State, but of Australia. So if Madeleine King really wants to make a difference, get on the phone to Tanya Plibersek and tell her approve Karratha’s North West Shelf gas hub extension before Christmas.
Oliver Peterson
Merry Christmas. Thank you very much for your time.
Senator Cash
Great to be with you Ollie.
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