THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SUNRISE
MONDAY, 27 OCTOBER 2025
Topics: SELF-DRIVING CARS; AUSTRALIAN MADE PRODUCT LABELLING; NET ZERO.
NATALIE BARR:Let's bring in Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce. Morning to both of you. Tanya, do we need laws to cover self-driving cars because they're here.
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Well, the first thing to say is that there's no fully autonomous vehicles on Australian roads yet. But of course our Commonwealth Minister is working with the state and territory ministers to make sure that as this technology evolves globally, we're right up with it, making sure that all of our laws and all of our standards are kept up to date. We are absolutely determined to make sure that Australians are safe on our roads, and we'll continue to do that in partnership with the states and territories of course.
BARR: Ok, so the Teslas are here that are capable of downloading the stuff that you need but they haven't allowed them to download yet, is that right?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: There's no fully autonomous vehicles on the roads and I noticed in that article that you need $10,000 to upgrade-
BARR: Or $150 a month.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: - in any case. So, I think, yeah. And so I think that obviously this technology is around the world. We need to be up to date whether the state and territory ministers are working with Catherine King, the Transport Minister, to make sure that we are kept up to date with technology as it evolves. But just to reassure people there's no fully self-driving vehicles on our roads right now.
BARR: OK, Barnaby, are you ready to get one?
BARNABY JOYCE: Well, I know they can buy the technology to make them-
PLIBERSEK: Self-driving tractor.
JOYCE: We actually have them already. So, buy the upgrade for $10,000. Is there- I don't know whether there's a law to stop people buying it. Of course, we have a lot of safety mechanisms in cars already that judge your distance from another car, keep you in the lane. So, it's, we've been evolving down this way but what we have to work out is how this works on country roads because we have things like people hitting roos and cattle and other things that are, that are different, even how the computer sees the road. So, yeah, when it comes in you're going to have to work out where it works and where it doesn't work and you probably, like that's why we use the cars we do, internal combustion engines with a bull bar that can get around the areas that we live in.
BARR: Which you can still choose to get obviously. Moving on. 40 per cent of Aussies say they now don't know how to identify Australian made products. It's all part of the News Corp campaign called ‘Back Australia’, where nearly three quarters of us say we have a strong desire to support local products, but many of us are confused by labelling. Tanya, do we need better Australian made labels? There's so many different ones, half of them you can't see, you can't read. There's made in Australia, made in Australia with imported products. Do we need to revamp that?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I think the first thing people should do is look for the green and gold kangaroo. There's an Australian made logo and if you've got that Australian made logo as a business you've gone through all of the steps that you have to take to prove that what you're selling is actually made in Australia, properly made in Australia. People can also look for the ReMade in Australia logo which is it's made in Australia from recycled content. And we've spent about $25 million as a government to make sure that people better understand in Australia and around the world that Australian made logo and what it represents. And there's also an online directory, if you are confused you can look up online to see which products are made in Australia. I think this is a fantastic story. We know Australians want to buy Australian made and making sure that there's trust in that logo, that if it's got that green and gold kangaroo, it is properly made in Australia. It's a really important first step.
BARR: Barnaby, are the labels easy enough to read and do you think a lot of Australians will redirect $100 a week or so to an Australian made product to sort of save the country?
JOYCE: Well, Nat, they'd like to have the choice, and I think that's important. It's funny how it's a fantastic idea but back in the Abbott government when I brought in country of origin labelling so that people could identify how much of a product is made in this nation. The people who fought against me was the Australian Labor Party who said it would be an outrage because it makes things so difficult. Well, it's, it's there now and you know I haven't seen any Coles or Woolworths go broke because of it. But I think what else you're going to have to have on that label is how difficult it is to make things in Australia by reason of our excessive costs. I think that's going to be an important thing because it doesn't matter. You have all the wishes in the world, but if your energy prices are through the roof and naturally enough, your labour prices are high, but we accept that that's what we want, a higher standard of living, you're not going to have things made in Australia as much as you may wish they were.
BARR: Okay, before we go, Barnaby, you going to the party room meeting today?
JOYCE: No, I'm sitting with the National Party in Question Time. But as I said, if you believe in Net Zero, I can't be part of it. This Net Zero is just doing too much damage to Australia for the benefit of a very select, very affluent, small group of people who are just creaming the system at the expense of pensioners and poor people and it's got to stop.
BARR: Ok, so you're not going to the Nationals Party room meeting today?
JOYCE: That's exactly what I said.
BARR: Even though you were elected as a National?
JOYCE: I've said, I've said exactly what I've said. And I don't want to sort of go through all the reasons that obviously why people in some instances aren't comfortable with my position on this, on Net Zero. We've got to do something about it.
BARR: Okay. Okay, thank you very much. We'll see you next week.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Thank you.
ENDS
