Subjects: People smuggling venture; migration program; US resettlement agreement; ACCC Report; upcoming by-elections.
EO&E
LAURA JAYES:
Minister, thanks so much for your time.
PETER DUTTON:
Morning Laura, pleasure.
LAURA JAYES:
Could I first ask you; this people smuggling voyage, the first in six months. What can you tell us? Because the Navy intercepted this boat, according to these reports, outside of Australian waters and Chinese nationals were on board. Is that correct?
PETER DUTTON:
I think it's a reminder Laura that this problem just hasn't gone away and you're having a look in Europe at the moment where millions of people are on the move and we really need to be cognisant of the fact that people smugglers haven't gone away from our region.
We know that there are 14,000 people in Indonesia. We've stopped now 33 boats, either stopped or safely turned around and we've done that because had those boats got through, there would have been many hundred that followed.
So it's a reminder that boats can get very near. This one certainly did. It had Chinese nationals on board, it was crewed by Indonesian crew and we were able to intercept and return that boat. That's part of the Operation Sovereign Borders approach that we've had over the last couple of years.
LAURA JAYES:
Chinese nationals on board, is that a unusual occurrence? Is this a sign that people smugglers are expanding their customer base?
PETER DUTTON:
I think it is. It's not unusual in the sense that we have had Chinese nationals before, including across the Torres Strait. The people smugglers have an international network. They watch very closely the words of leaders within this country about border protection policy and they market on social media to the four corners of the earth. If they can get trade out of Indonesia, out of Sri Lanka, out of Vietnam – we've seen all of those as source countries – and it just shows the danger of a government that would unwind these policies as we saw with Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard because the boats are a certainty to restart.
At the moment the fight, the internal civil war that's going on between Anthony Albanese and Bill Shorten, is being heard loud and clear in Indonesia and elsewhere by these people smugglers.
We don't want these boats to restart, but as sure as night follows day, if Mr Shorten was elected at the next election these boats would restart.
LAURA JAYES:
What evidence do you have that people smugglers are looking at what's going on inside the Labor Party and using this? I mean is the timing deliberate to coincide with the by-elections this Saturday?
PETER DUTTON:
No, I think this boat is a reminder of the fact that people smugglers just haven't gone away. There's open source intelligence, in fact media coverage of some of the interviews with people up in Indonesia, within some of the immigration detention facilities up there, that people are waiting for a change of government because they believe they've got a better chance of getting on a boat and getting successfully to Australia if Labor is re-elected. History demonstrates that to be the case as well.
So I think we just need to be very mindful of the fact that this trade hasn't gone away. Whilst ever you've got disharmony in countries, whilst ever you have poverty, people will seek to come to a country like ours. So we just need to make sure we double down.
We've closed 17 detention centres. I've got every child out of detention. We've got people off Manus and Nauru to the United States and we're cleaning up Labor's mess, but it's a timely reminder that when Bill Shorten says people can go to New Zealand, the people smugglers just see that as a backdoor way to get into Australia and that would be a disaster.
LAURA JAYES:
Okay. So can I take that to mean that you will not consider any kind of New Zealand deal? Are you still holding open the option of if there was a New Zealand deal you'd be able to stop that being a pathway to Australia? Or is that too hard at this point?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Laura, the important point about New Zealand is that New Zealand is the only country in the world where a New Zealander can come to Australia and be issued with a visa on arrival.
If you come from the US or the UK or France or Canada, wherever, you need to get a visa issued lawfully before you're allowed to board that plane to come to Sydney or Brisbane or Perth, wherever it might be. And so people smugglers know that if they can get people to New Zealand then they can get to Australia and that's the marketing that's taking place right now. There was a vessel not too long ago, only a couple of months ago, coming out of Malaysia with 131 people on board, a steel-hulled vessel and their destination was marketed as New Zealand. So we need to be very careful of this.
So at some stage in the future, if we're down to a trickle of people within Manus or within Nauru, then potentially if the law was changed so that those people couldn't come to Australia, you might consider it, but it's a dangerous contemplation at the moment.
Anthony Albanese, who's trying to carve himself out a different space on this issue than Bill Shorten, as part of his leadership bid, talks about New Zealand as well as a compassionate way. Well, all it is, is a green light for those people smugglers to restart and the people smugglers understand the vulnerability – it seems that Labor's the only people in this…the only organisation and Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese are the only people in this equation that don't get that threat as well.
LAURA JAYES:
Another 22 asylum seekers were granted visas to the United States this week – this is under the deal struck between Malcolm Turnbull and Barack Obama, which is being fulfilled by Donald Trump – that brings the total that have gone to the United States at just over 300. Are there plans for another group to go soon? It does seem like an awfully slow process. Is it?
PETER DUTTON:
Well there's as you say 314 gone. Look, I didn't put people on Manus and Nauru, but my job is to get them off as quickly as possible, but the United States is the only country apart from Cambodia where we have a third country settlement arrangement.
The Iranians, in particular, are proving difficult because Tehran will not issue travel documents to Iranians – even if they've been found not to be refugees – they won't have those people back in their country unless they travel willingly.
So at the moment we've got people that have been found not to be refugees, both on Manus and Nauru, who are Iranians and they know that they can't be sent home. There's no other country in the world – we have negotiated with dozens of countries – so there's talk from Labor that oh somehow you can find a third country somewhere that'll take everyone, is a complete nonsense. People have to also volunteer and at the moment we've got a number of Iranians in particular, but others, who refuse to accept the package to go to the United States.
We want it to go as fast as we can, but we're working very closely with the US and we're very grateful for the fact that they've taken 314 of the people that Labor put on Manus and Nauru. The last thing I want is new boat arrivals because I don't want the vacancies created being filled by new people off those boats.
LAURA JAYES:
But at this rate it's going to take five years or longer to settle these people from Nauru and Manus Island. Is this a deliberate go-slow from the Trump Administration? We know Donald Trump's not happy about the deal.
PETER DUTTON:
I don't believe it is a go-slow. I've seen nothing but good will from my counterparts in the United States and at an officials level. They've been working very closely and productively with the United States, but they've obviously got their own security checks to go through. They need to find placements for people and there are some people where they've handed down negative outcomes, where they've said that they won't accept that person, either for security reasons, criminal background reasons, all sorts of reasons as to why those people won't be accepted, but as well we need to – and we've done a number of these cases with PNG to their great credit – to return people back to their country of origin where they've been found not to be refugees.
Don't forget Laura, under the plan that was struck by Kevin Rudd and Prime Minister O'Neill of PNG at the time, if people were found to be refugees then they were able to settle in PNG and already a number of people have done that, so we encourage people to do that as well.
But the last outcome that we can afford is for people from Manus and Nauru to come to Australia because that is exactly what the people smugglers are waiting for. They want to market that look, you can wait a couple of years on Manus or Nauru and you'll end up in Brisbane or Sydney or Melbourne. That would be a green light again for people smugglers and we're just not going to do it.
LAURA JAYES:
Under your portfolio as Minister of Home Affairs, we see that it's the lowest migration intake in the last 10 years. What is that final number for the last financial year?
PETER DUTTON:
It's 162,400, just over that. So we have a planning level of about 190,000. The year before last it was at 183,000. So we're managing it and Labor had 190,000 as a target. So at the next election Bill Shorten will be promising to migrate more people to Australia than what this Government is prepared to do.
We want to make sure that people who are coming, particularly through the skilled stream, have the qualifications that they claim, that they're not travelling on fraudulent documents. So we've applied a greater level of scrutiny than Labor ever did.
Labor got themselves into a position where at the end of the financial year they were ticking and flicking applications to get to the 190,000 target. We've treated the 190,000 not as a target, but as a ceiling and that's why it has come in at 162,000 this last financial year.
LAURA JAYES:
What's the economic impact?
PETER DUTTON:
Well it is a positive one because if we're bringing more productive people in, then there's more economic benefit for our country and there's also greater societal benefit as well because if people are working, if people are coming to our country, bearing in mind remember that we're not talking about the refugee and humanitarian program here Laura, we're talking about people who are coming here under the skilled program and under the family settlement, predominantly the partner visa stream. These are people that are claiming that they're in a relationship. We're finding cases where they're not legitimate relationships. We're finding cases where people don't have the qualifications that they claimed that they had or the work experience that they claimed they had. If you're bringing those people in, well clearly that is not a productive outcome for our economy.
We are an ageing population, like any Western nation…
LAURA JAYES:
…but Scott Morrison warned that when Tony Abbott was suggesting a cut of around 90,000, there would be a cost to the Budget of around $4 to $5 billion. So is there any negative economic impact on the Budget from this cut of around 20,000 on last year?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Laura my point is that we're actually bringing more productive people in because we're not bringing people in who have made false claims. We're an ageing population. I want people to come in with the requisite skills if we can't find an Australian to fill those jobs and I want those people to be paying tax as long as they can if they're of working age and have a capacity to work, because that's where the economic productivity and benefit is for our country.
LAURA JAYES:
Minister, this is a red hot issue, as you know. Are you cutting migration by stealth?
PETER DUTTON:
We're making sure that there's integrity in the program. We're a welcoming nation Laura. I mean our nation is built on migration. All of us, except for Indigenous Australians, are of migrant stock and some amazing stories, communities built off the back of the hard work and labour of migrants over a long period of time – and the migrants, I might say, are the people who are most passionate about making sure that we bring people into our country the right way, and that those people come on a pathway that means that they're going to integrate, that they're going to abide by our laws and that's why we need to have integrity in the system.
So we've secured our borders. We've got integrity within the migration program by applying extra scrutiny and we're also cancelling visas at a record rate of non-citizens who have committed criminal offenses against Australians. That's how we, I think, have public faith in the system and it's taken us a while to clean up Labor's mess, but I think we're on a good path.
LAURA JAYES:
Okay. Let me ask you about the ACCC Report. As I said at the outset there's never been such interest in 398 pages of a ACCC Report. It seemed everyone was claiming some kind of vindication out of this, but essentially, it was a very important report because Rod Sims found that the energy system, as it stands at the moment, is unsustainable and unacceptable and essentially we're all being ripped off.
Now, it made 56 recommendations, including suggesting that the Government underwrite new players wanting to provide what it described as firm power. Is that a good idea?
PETER DUTTON:
Well I'm standing in Samford in my electorate at the moment Laura and I can tell you as I move around my electorate – and I think this is true in Queensland as it is elsewhere around the country – frankly, people couldn't care where the power's coming from. They want a cheaper electricity bill and that's exactly what Malcolm Turnbull is promising. It's what we've delivered so far. We're already seeing electricity prices come off and whether that comes from coal, whether it comes from solar, whether it comes from wind, whether it comes from any source at all, I think people are concerned about the price that they're paying.
It doesn't matter whether you're a pensioner wanting to turn the air conditioner on to keep warm in winter, or whether you're a local butcher trying to keep the cold rooms running; you need to have a power bill which is affordable and the National Energy Guarantee, which has been put together by the Prime Minister and by the Energy Minister, provides certainty for people to invest.
I think this is the point that we need to make; that businesses won't invest into new technologies, into coal, into whatever it is, without certainty in the market and the NEG provides a certainty for investment and then the market can make that decision as to whether it's a particular source of energy or another, but in the end I think what we need to keep our mind on…
LAURA JAYES:
…sure, but this is not part of the NEG, this is a separate suggestion from Rod Sims that there be essentially a government guarantee to get new players into the market. It would mean that taxpayer funds need to be there as surety, but it would be a lot cheaper than a subsidy for new base load power. Is it a good idea?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Laura as I say the only thing that I am worried about is that my constituents can turn on their lights. When you flick the switch the lights come on.
Now I grew up in Queensland when we had massive blackouts and businesses went broke as a result of it. We've seen it in South Australia where there's been this blind ideological pursuit of a policy, which has meant that there's been unreliable power. So the first thing we need is reliable power. The second thing, and I think to constituents in electorates like mine across the country, they need to be able to afford to pay their bill.
The Prime Minister's said we're considering the 56 recommendations. The Prime Minister's already been looking at ways in which we can beef up support to make sure that that reliable aspect box is ticked, but Laura, as I say, people walking down the street couldn't tell you what the difference was between reliable, dispatchable, you know, all of these terms.
What they want is an affordable electricity bill and under Bill Shorten – and people will make this decision in Longman in two weeks' time, in Braddon and Mayo – Bill Shorten is promising higher electricity bills; Malcolm Turnbull is promising lower electricity bills and people need to bear that in mind when they're voting at the by-elections and at the upcoming general election.
LAURA JAYES:
Some of your Cabinet colleagues, including mostly Nationals I've got to say, are seizing on this report saying that one of the recommendations, the recommendation for the Government guarantee, would actually help new coal into the market. Do you read that report that way?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Laura the way that I read it – and I was Assistant Treasurer a long time ago, so I'm not in the Treasury portfolio, I'm not in the Energy portfolio – but I mean the basics are pretty clear: you need to have certainty for investment to take place, regardless of what energy source you're talking about. Businesses need to know that there is going to be a market for their product over the next two years, next 10 years, whatever the investment time frame is for them and at the moment there's not that scenario where people are willing to invest.
Now, under the NEG and perhaps under some of the recommendations that are being put forward by the ACCC, you can create certainty so that there can be investment, but in the end what should drive that is the fact that we want to bring downward pressure on prices.
Electricity prices are too high, they rose by 100 per cent under Labor, they're starting to fall under this Government and we want them to fall further. Bill Shorten's promising to increase those electricity prices.
LAURA JAYES:
With that investment certainty, do you think we'd see new coal, though?
PETER DUTTON:
Well again Laura, it's up to the market. I'm not opposed to coal, I'm not in favour of one energy source over the next. When I get home and have to flick the lights off because the kids won't turn the lights off, I see it reflected in my power bill each quarter. We're a fortunate household, but there are many households that just can't afford to pay their electricity bill and whether there's an investment into coal, into hydro, whatever it is in the future; I want it to be resulting in lower energy prices.
We've seen it in Queensland where the State Government here has dominated the market, and we've seen, as you pointed out in the ACCC Report, reflected it, consumers in Queensland have been ripped off because of the State Government here.
So there are many elements as to why we find ourselves in this situation, but I think we've got some answers through it and that's the best approach.
LAURA JAYES:
Now, as you mentioned the Super Saturday by-election just days away now. You know Queensland better than most. Longman's not far from your electorate. We've seen poll after poll after poll. Do you believe that the Coalition's in a winning position in Longman?
PETER DUTTON:
Well I certainly hope so. I think Trevor Ruthenberg's done a great job on the ground. I think the Government's got a number of wins on the board that people can point to, that reflect the fact that we have been able to get things through a difficult Senate. We've been able to get tax reform through which is good for small businesses, but it's always tough for a sitting government to win in a by-election, to take a seat from the Opposition. It's going to be a tough race.
I believe that we've got a great candidate and that the Government's got a good story to tell. I think the fact that Anthony Albanese's on the cusp of challenging Bill Shorten reflects the fact that people just don't get Bill Shorten, they don't trust him, they look at his background and they just see somebody that they don't believe could be a good prime minister.
So there are a number of factors in play. I was up there a couple of days this last week. Energy prices are certainly a big issue, law and order big issues and I just think that we've got a much better story to tell than the Labor Party in relation to those key issues.
LAURA JAYES:
A couple of months ago we were talking about Malcolm Turnbull's grip on the leadership. Has something shifted within the Coalition? Has the momentum shifted? Is Malcolm Turnbull more secure in his job than he has been?
PETER DUTTON:
Well I think the fact is that all of us have got behind the Prime Minister and made sure that the public knows that Malcom Turnbull will lead us to the next election and beyond that and the Liberal Party is absolutely rock solid.
We've got a tough Senate to deal with, we've got, you know difficulties in some parts of the economy that we're addressing. To get the tax cuts through the Senate was a pretty remarkable outcome. To deliver certainty around a reduction in energy prices and guarantees around reliability is important I think for people to hear.
