Interview with Kieran Gilbert, Sky News
30 March 2022
Kieran Gilbert: Prime Minister, thanks for joining us. A difficult sell for you, it's coincided with the farewell for the great Shane Warne. It does make it difficult because everyone is focusing on that today.
Prime Minister: Well, of course, and I think, you know, we're looking forward to joining all Australians around the country to celebrate Shane's life tonight. I hope that brings great comfort to Shane's family, and so I'm looking forward to that. But the same will be true tomorrow morning about petrol prices. The same will be true about the cost of living pressures that Australians are facing, they're real pressures. They're caused by events far away from Australia. And that's why the package that we announced last night to give that immediate relief, it's real relief for a real problem, and that's what's driving the need to provide that relief what has happened and the fact that the Budget has turned around and we've turned it around by some $100 billion by growing the Australian economy, getting Australia through and out of this pandemic means that we could provide the relief we did last night and to do it responsibly in a targeted and a temporary way, and also invest in our plan for the future on skills and infrastructure in the regions in particular and unlock the wealth there. That's how you pay for submarines, that's how you pay for pensions.
Gilbert: We had a focus group last night, live to air, the first gentleman Adam Windsor in the seat of Macquarie, he said these payments look like a bribe. What do you say to him?
Prime Minister: Cost of living pressures are real and Australians need that support now. Just like when we introduced JobKeeper, it was needed then, it was temporary. It was for a particular purpose. We achieved that purpose. We have a real purpose now. We've got to give Australians a shield against these cost of living pressures that could frustrate and break up the momentum that the economy is building. We want Australians getting to their feet and they are and strongly not to be then buffeted by these strong cost of living pressures that are coming from the war in Ukraine. I mean, when the petrol price of petrol goes up, it affects everything. It affects the price of groceries. You know, it affects the price of everything you put on a truck and move around the country. So providing this tax relief, and let's remember that's what it is about. This is just letting Australians keep more of what they earn by not paying as higher an excise at the bowser and the income tax cut is the same. Australians keeping more of what they earn.
Gilbert: You could be giving with one hand and then the Reserve Bank takes with the other via higher interest rates.
Prime Minister: Well, this is why ...
Gilbert: This is potentially driving up inflation ...
Prime Minister: Well as the Budget papers and what Treasury analysis shows, it's actually cutting prices. I mean, it is about reducing the price of fuel. This is about reducing the pressures and that's what's being achieved. Standard and Poor's last night reaffirmed our AAA credit rating. And the reason why it doesn't have those longer term impacts, Kieran, is because it's, it's responsible. I mean, Labor wanted to spend $81 billion more during the pandemic because they wouldn't have been able to stop the spending. We knew it had to stop, they actually criticised us for stopping that spending.
Gilbert: So there's no risk of ...
Prime Minister: And so what it means is what it means is, is if they'd done that, they wouldn't be able to do what we did last night because they would have already blown the dough. And so when it comes to interest rates, yeah, we've got to put downward pressure on interest rates and downward pressure on inflation. And that's what we have been doing. Inflation in Australia is less than half what it is over in the United States.
Gilbert: This Budget doesn't do it, does it? You're putting, what, $8.6 billion in people's pockets in six months.
Prime Minister: And that's to do with real cost of living pressures now, but it's not permanent. It's done to deal with a specific problem, a real need and to those who are criticising these payments, what do they don't think the cost of living pressures are real? We do. We know it is. I mean, people think about politics around an election who are in the business of politics. All Australians sitting around the kitchen table understand is why petrol prices are going up. That's making it more expensive. And if the Government can support us during this time, just like we did during JobKeeper and got the economy through, this is well-designed, it's well-targeted and it's responsible because the economy has been growing.
Gilbert: What do you say to traditional conservative voters who would want to see budget repair as opposed to $8.6 billion out the door in six months?
Prime Minister: What I'd say is a strong economy is what pays for your defence forces. A strong economy is what pays for the essential services that Australians rely on, particularly those who need to pay for medicines. I mean, one of the cost of living relief measures we had last night was making medicines cheaper. 12 less scripts for those on those cards need to have to qualify for the safety net support that's going to save around 80 bucks on their medicines. So what we're doing is delivering the support Australians need and giving the investment to the economy. I know that, you know, Australians are passionate about our regions. This is the single most transformational investment in our region, particularly in places like up in the Northern Territory and up in central and north Queensland, the Pilbara, Newcastle. You know how we pay for things in the budget because we dig things out of the ground and we send it overseas and we grow things in these regions and we're investing in the wealth of the regions so those regions can continue to support all of Australia.
Gilbert: You've been critical of Labor over its treatment of Kimberley Kitching. Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has has not been preselected by the Liberal Party. Last night, she was very critical. Aren't we seeing another strong woman being marginalised by men in politics and this time by your own man, Alex Hawke? That's her allegation.
Prime Minister: I know Connie is disappointed that 500 members of the Liberal Party, which is a very large preselection, turned up on the weekend and they didn't select Connie. They selected Senator Payne and Senator Molan, and she was selected in the third position. At the last time she went, she had strong support and she was able to retain that. I mean, politics, that's how people get selected to run in these positions.
Gilbert: She says that you're a bully and with no moral compass, an autocrat is what she said. These are her words and and she says, it was your man, Alex Hawke, who drove those numbers.
Prime Minister: Oh, look, it was a pre-selection. Five hundred members of the Liberal Party made that decision. And look, I understand she's disappointed. If there are specific complaints that she would like to make about that, the party has processes and I encourage her to do that. If the issues there that she believes need to be addressed, then I'm sure she'll raise those and she should raise them with the party organisation.
Gilbert: You've got a lot of other commitments. I have to ask you about the aid budget, though. There's a real cut in aid and now we see the Solomons willing to go into China's embrace, it seems. Why don't you lift the aid budget? Isn't this central to what we're seeing with the Solomons, for example, turning their back on us and turning to China?
Prime Minister: We've doubled the aid budget, doubled it to the Pacific. We have doubled the, and that's exactly what you've asked.
Gilbert: Yeah, but to the Solomons specifically?
Prime Minister: Well, the Solomons, we've had RAMSI and we've also had the major cable project. So they've been capital items in the Solomon Islands support budget, and it still is the second largest of all of our aid expenditures in the Pacific region. And just in the letter that I had from Prime Minister Sogavare this week, talking about these very issues, very grateful for the tremendous support that Australia has always given. The Solomon Islands Prime Minister has not raised any issues about the support that Australians have given. In particular, very grateful. I mean, we have Australian Federal Police on the ground in Solomon Islands. The first ones they called were Australia to come and help them provide for their security.
Gilbert: So what are they doing this?
Prime Minister: Well, that is the issue that Pacific leaders are working through, and I've spoken to many of them and will be having those conversations. We're concerned, of course, about the security impacts. I'm pleased to hear that the Solomon Islands Prime Minister has said very clearly that under no circumstances would they be entertaining any naval base or presence on our doorstep, and that would certainly be against Australia's national interests and the region's security interests. So we'll deal with this issue as a family. A Pacific family. A Pacific family that as me as Prime Minister, we have doubled over the course of the last eight years, especially. But over the last three years, the Pacific step up over $2 billion each year, going in support to our Pacific family. No government has ever done that before.
Gilbert: Prime Minister, thanks for your time.
Prime Minister: Thank you.
