THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SUNRISE
MONDAY, 17 JUNE 2024
SUBJECTS: RESOLVE POLL; PREMIER LI’S VISIT TO AUSTRALIA.
MONIQUE WRIGHT: Voters have turned away from the Prime Minister and given the Opposition Leader a slight edge, that's according to a new poll out this morning. The latest Resolve Political Survey has revealed that Peter Dutton now has a narrow lead over Anthony Albanese as preferred PM, with 36 per cent of the voters' support compared to 35 per cent. The Coalition also ahead of Labor on the primary vote holding steady at 36 per cent while the Government fell one point to 28 per cent. And joining us now is the Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, and Nationals MP, Barnaby Joyce. Morning to you both. Good to see you.
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Morning.
BARNABY JOYCE: Good morning. Morning, Mon, morning Tanya.
WRIGHT: Tanya, look, I know no politician looks at polls or pays any attention to them, but this isn't great, is it?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, you're quite right. We're not focused on the polls, we're focused on doing the right thing for Australian people, and I'm really focused on the fact that in two weeks' time every single Australian taxpayer will get a tax cut, all 13.6 million of them, and 2.6 million low‑paid workers will get a pay increase.
We are absolutely focused on making sure that Australians earn more and keep more of what they earn. Plus you get the electricity bill relief; if you've got a HECS debt or a HELP debt, you get that relief, free TAFE, cheaper childcare, cheaper medicines, more investment in Medicare, more investment in housing - $32 billion right across the country, more homes built more quickly. That's what we're focused on, taking the pressure off people's cost of living in real and practical ways; that's how we'll make a difference.
WRIGHT: Yes. Tanya, we've heard a lot of that from the Labor Government in recent months, but it doesn't seem to be getting through.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, well ‑‑
WRIGHT: Whether the perception is right or not, according to this poll, not doing well at all.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, and in two weeks' time people are going to feel it in their hip pockets, and I think ‑‑
WRIGHT: That will make the difference there?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: ‑‑ it becomes real when people are taking home more dollars in their pay packet, they see their wages go up and they see their tax go down, I think that makes it real for people.
WRIGHT: Okay. Let's see. Barnaby, let's talk about Peter Dutton now, because he only holds a very tight lead over Anthony Albanese as preferred PM. Is he the man to lead the Coalition to victory at the next election?
JOYCE: I'll tell you the first bit of rubbish; they don't watch the polls, my oath they watch the polls.
WRIGHT: You all do, of course.
JOYCE: What's happening here is we've got ‑ of course they do, I've said we do when they go against us, and what you've got then is a sort of desperate reading of the talking notes from the Prime Minister's office, "Well, come on, get out and say all these things, how wonderful we are".
But what the issue is, is that Mr Albanese's concentrating on Paris and climate and these things, and the issue out there, the rest of the world is they can't pay for their groceries, they can't pay their power bill, and they've got Minister Bowen dancing and prancing around saying he's going to put in more swindle factories and more transmission lines, and "That's the solution, and you don't realise, and it's all better". See when they say all that, it's almost like they're saying, "It's better, and you should recognise it and have more support for us".
Now Peter Dutton started way behind, and now he's just in front, and the trends, my friend, my friend, but what it says is the underlying issues, the Labor Party have lost sight of it. What they're concentrating on is how they're recognised in Paris and whether they're a jolly good bloke when they go to climate change conferences and what we're concentrating on is making sure that people can pay for their groceries, pay for their rent, pay for their power bill ‑‑
WRIGHT: Okay.
JOYCE: ‑‑ the power bill underwrites all of it, and that is the number one issue.
WRIGHT: Okay. All right. Let's move on to the other big issue this morning. There are fresh warnings this morning that Chinese cyber-attacks and meddling in Australian institutions has never before more prolific. Shadow Home Affairs Minister, James Paterson, has declared a State‑sponsored hacking group has been targeting Australian power, water, transport networks, for the purpose of future sabotage.
It all comes as the Government looks to repair that relationship with Beijing, with the Chinese Premier who is here at the moment holding high‑level talks. The PM's going to be there, Foreign Minister in Canberra today. Tanya, how concerned are you about the possibility of cyber-attacks from China, and will that be brought up with the Premier today?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, Director‑General of ASIO in his threat assessment earlier this year made it very clear that foreign interference, including cyber-attacks is something that we need to guard very closely against, and that's why since coming to government we have been doing that.
We've put an extra $600 million into making sure that Australia's defences against cyber-attack are strong; after almost a decade of neglect by the previous government, we are strengthening our defences.
You've asked about the visit of Premier Li. We are very pleased that we've been able to stabilise the relationship with China. This is worth $19 billion so far in extra trade for Australian farmers and for Australian businesses.
But we have consistently said, while we want to stabilise the relationship, that doesn't stop us from raising issues of concern, including things like cyber-attacks, including human rights, including the cases of individual Australians who are in detention in China. We have to be able to do both.
WRIGHT: All right. Well, as you mentioned there, trade, which is worth about $20 billion in exports. Barnaby, you'd be very conscious of that being from the bush, and with the farmers. How much can this relationship and this visit be derailed by bringing up things like cyber-attacks?
JOYCE: Well, we've got to bring it up. I mean it's not a myth, it's a fact that they were throwing flares out the front of our Seahawk helicopter; it's not a myth, it's a fact that they put sonars out for the divers at HMAS Toowoomba, which could have killed them; it's not a myth, it's a fact that they locked their military lasers on our planes from our economic exclusive zone in North Australia; it's not a myth, it's a fact they put out shards in front of a P‑3 Orion plane, which could have got into the engines and it crashed; it's not a myth, it's a fact they've taken over the South China Sea, which was not their area; it's not a myth, it's a fact that they're persecuting the Uyghur people; it's not a myth it's a fact that journalists such as yourself were just whipped off the streets in Hong Kong after, you know, when they said there's nothing to worry about, and if you've got a choice between us leasing two pandas or having a more peaceful world under global rules, under the proper rules, well, I think I'll take the latter, you can take your pandas back. And we don't even get them for free, I found that out, we've got to pay for them. You know, it's a hell of a deal, but, you know, we have got to stand up for ourselves, because otherwise people say, "You're weak" and if you're weak you get walked over, and the biggest issue for your kids in the future, your kids, your grandkids, is not a war against the weather, it's how we can sustain ourselves with a military superpower that's run by a totalitarian regime.
WRIGHT: Yeah. And how we can possibly keep that conversation going without offending too much. Tanya, Barnaby, we're out of time. Thanks so much for being with us.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Good to talk to you.
WRIGHT: You too.
JOYCE: You're welcome.
END
