Subjects: Deputy Prime Minister; Senator Jim Molan; migration.
EO&E...........................................................................................................................................
RAY HADLEY:
Minister good morning.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning Ray.
RAY HADLEY:
You probably heard the latter part of my comments about Barnaby Joyce and where we're at at the moment. I know you're going to say, as your colleagues have all said through the period of time, this is a matter for the Nationals, but without the Nationals Minister you don't govern. So given the Nationals are not going to move him, given that he's not going to move, it is going to be a little unedifying next week to see a man embroiled in the controversy he's been embroiled in as the acting Prime Minister surely?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Ray, obviously the coalition between the National Party and the Liberal Party's been longstanding and there have been lots of ups and downs in the relationship – that's been the history of it – but ultimately it's served our country well. It's served us in Government much better than Labor has and the last thing we want to see is Bill Shorten as prime minister of our country. It'd be a very dark day.
RAY HADLEY:
I've got to say to you Minister that your party's doing its best in coalition with the Nationals to see that happen.
PETER DUTTON:
Well I'm doing my best to…
RAY HADLEY:
…no I'm not talking about you generally, or specifically, I'm talking about your party generally. I mean we've had a week of nothing but Barnaby Joyce and what happened and what didn't happen.
You've got Susan Lamb sitting there illegally in Parliament and of course contradicted by The Australian newspaper and her stepmother over the course of the weekend and not a thing said or done about it.
PETER DUTTON:
But Ray, that issue is unfolding. I mean it's not going to go away. The fact is that she has a sad sorry story to tell and anyone would have sympathy for her, but she's clearly in breach of the law and she's clearly a British citizen.
RAY HADLEY:
Well it looks like she's also in breach of a sad sorry story if you believe her stepmother.
PETER DUTTON:
I mean that'll be for her family to work out and explain, but the point is that Katy Gallagher's in the High Court at the moment. That matter's due for a hearing I think within the next few weeks. That will have a direct impact on some of these cases as well and clearly the pressure is on Bill Shorten – as it was on Malcolm Turnbull over John Alexander – and John Alexander had the decency to stick his hand up and say I've got a problem and I'm going to a by-election to clear up the matter. It's a quirky way in which the law works, in which it's been interpreted in the modern age, but we abide by the law; that's the Constitution and everyone abides by it.
But at the moment, Ms Lamb is clearly in contradiction of her own story, of other accounts of the law and I think people in the seat of Longman, I think their patience is starting to stretch a bit. So this story hasn't stopped, it's not going away and I think you want to watch this space over the next few weeks.
RAY HADLEY:
Well it still means, even allowing for that reflection, that you have been basically hamstrung as a government for the last fortnight because of what did or didn't happen with Barnaby Joyce, his former wife and his now girlfriend. I mean when does it end? And please don't say when the media stop reporting it because obviously there's an appetite for it.
PETER DUTTON:
Well Ray, Barnaby's – in his own words – said that he's made a mistake and you can only feel for his wife, for his daughters and the whole situation is a mess of his making. He admits that. Has he broken the law? No. Has he acted immorally? Yes.
The other story could be that he'd been in an affair, having an affair with someone, the girl had got pregnant and he abandoned her or walked away from that arrangement.
So there's no easy way of talking about it. I feel very uncomfortable, I might say, talking about anyone's personal life because it's just none of my business, but the fact is that he hasn't broken the law. Malcolm Turnbull doesn't hire and fire the leader of the National Party, our Coalition partner.
RAY HADLEY:
Well that's the problem you see. If the Nationals support him and he's not going anywhere, to certain people that don't quite know how it works, the Prime Minister looks weak. I'm not his greatest fan, but he can't do too much about what the Nationals decide.
PETER DUTTON:
No and the Nationals will make a decision about their leadership and it's an issue for them. They will weigh up what they believe is Barnaby's – and they're right – his very great strength in terms of being able to cut through, talk how it is in relation to certain issues. He's been able to deliver a lot for regional Australia and so his Party Room will weigh up all of those issues.
But it's a tough time for Natalie, for his girls, for his new partner, for the baby of that relationship, for Barnaby himself. I mean there's a whole human aspect to this and it's difficult. I, like everybody, feel particularly for the family and for the kids involved and many families have lived through these sort of circumstances; they're not ideal, but people need to deal with the consequences. I think Barnaby's doing that as best he can in the circumstances.
RAY HADLEY:
Okay. We move on. Senator Jim Molan made his maiden speech to Parliament last night, a valuable contribution. He of course was an architect of how we stopped the boats, along with your Government. But he's got some very grave concerns about the level of legal immigration, of migration. He said: I'm concerned that the level of legal migration – we now control our borders, obviously – is in excess of the capacity for our cities to absorb both culturally and in terms of infrastructure.
Now you're the man that makes these decisions in concert with the Prime Minister. We take about 200,000 permanent migrants per year, but it does appear that capital cities, including Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, are struggling to cope. Other people, prominent people within the community, have said we have to reduce our migrant intake. Is the Government of a view that that should be the way to go?
PETER DUTTON:
Well a couple of points; I mean we've done it already. I think under Labor the number was up over 300,000; so the number's down considerably on that.
Now the migration program for our country should be operated in a way that it acts in our best interests. So we shouldn't be bringing people in that we think aren't going to contribute to society or that they're going to be a burden. We want to bring people into our country and the vast majority of people that we do bring into our country make a good contribution, make us a good country and so we need to look at both sides of the coin.
But we do have problems where people are concentrating in and around Sydney, in and around other capital cities, including Melbourne. We need to try and disperse people out. You've got some regions where the abattoirs just can't work without that foreign workforce or people coming in on a temporary basis or migrants moving into that area to staff the abattoirs – and you know if you speak to the farmers, they'll tell you sadly the local kids won't do the work and they can't get their beef processed without those workers in that community – so we have to run the program in a way that it operates in our national interests and I do my best to do that.
It's not a number that we're tied to. We need to look at what is going to be in our best interests in the long-term, interests of our country and make decisions on that basis.
RAY HADLEY:
But no one's disputing that migrants have made a valuable contribution in the history of this country – it's based on migrant intake – but if we don't have the infrastructure, haven't got the roads, haven't got the places for them to stay, haven't got the hospitals…
I went and visited a friend recently at Westmead Public. I don't know how the staff there cope – it's a very, very large hospital Westmead Public Hospital – but I mean I thought I was going to the State of Origin. I mean the queues were forming to the left, the right and everywhere in between. I'm thinking; how does this organisation operate given that it's all free? People just go there if they've got an ingrown toenail, they go straight to the emergency section, all the rest of it and we try to discourage them doing that, but that's what I thought about that to be perfectly frank.
There were a lot of people there where English wasn't their first language. You know you walk around, you hear them talking and you think they must think they've won the lottery. They come here and walk into a beautiful hospital like Westmead and queue up and say: yeah fix me up, I'm right; bung me in that bed over there.
We don't have the infrastructure Minister.
PETER DUTTON:
Well in terms of…I mean any of us that live close to a capital city, people who are sitting in gridlocked traffic in the mornings going to – as you say – hospitals or wherever it may be and people are overcrowded, I mean that's a perfectly legitimate argument.
I mean in some capital cities governments have got it right or better than they have in other capital cities and investments have been made, tunnels have been put in, bypasses, road and train networks etc and others who've been a complete disaster.
So it's a different story as you go around the country, but – as the point I made before – we have to try and encourage people out into regions, we have to reduce the numbers where we believe it's in our national interest and we've done that, as I say, by over 100,000 – from just off the top of my head the numbers – since Labor was in. It's come back considerably and if we have to bring it back further, if that's what required and that's what's in our country's best interests Ray, that is what we will do.
RAY HADLEY:
Okay. Look forward to catching up with you in relation to all of this and other matters next Thursday. Thank you.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks mate.
[ends]