185 Peter Dutton The Election Week Interview The Coalitions Policies Australias Future With Labor

Ever wonder what your lashes are destined for?

The cards have spoken.

Maybelline New York Mascara does it all.

Whether you crave fully fan lashes with lash sensational,

big, bold volume from the colossal,

a dramatic lift with falsies lash lift,

or natural looking volume from great lash,

your perfect lash future awaits.

Manifest your best mascara today.

Shop Maybelline New York and discover your lash destiny.

Shop now at Walmart.

BetterHelp Online Therapy bought this 30-second ad.

To remind you, right now, wherever you are,

to unclench your jaw.

Relax your shoulders.

Take a deep breath in and out.

Feels better, right?

That's 15 seconds of self-care.

Imagine what you could do with more.

Visit BetterHelp.com slash random podcast

for 10% off your first month of therapy.

No pressure, just help.

But for now, just relax.

I'm Mark Boris and this is Straight Talk.

Peter Dutton, welcome back to Straight Talk, mate.

Great to be with you, Mark. Thank you.

Been a bit hectic.

It's been a bit on, mate.

There's no sleep at the moment,

but we're just going 24-7 until polls close on Saturday night.

Did you ever have any concept of how,

I use the word hectic,

how sort of crazy this is,

like running for the leader of the party,

as opposed to just your normal seat.

Do you have any sense of it?

Look, I've been around, I've served four prime ministers,

so I've seen different campaigns

and I've been in the leadership group

and watched it pretty, you know,

sort of ringside for a long time.

But until you're in the ring

and you're just going round after round,

it can be exhausting, but it's also exhilarating, mate.

I mean, we've met some just amazing people.

We were up in Townsville the other day on Anzac Day,

meeting with young diggers up there in the RSL.

And, you know, they want self-examination,

using all that sort of stuff.

But you're standing there thinking,

you know what, this young bloke, 21, 22 years of age,

has such a love for our country

that he's prepared to trade his life

to keep my kids, my grandkids safe in our country.

And all of that provides you, I think,

just with fuel in the tank to think,

you know what, this is worth fighting for

and we're in a great country

and I need to step up and make sure

we protect our country and get it back on track.

You got the fight still in you?

100%, yeah.

Yeah, I never give in

and I've always had,

you know, I've always had that,

as my maximum over life,

to make sure that you just double down

and you stand up for what you believe in

and there's no sitting on the fence.

You need to tell people and be clear

about what your values are, what you stand for.

And if you try and please everyone in this job,

you end up, I think, standing for nothing.

And there are good and bad people

on both sides of politics,

but the worst ones are those

that get to the end of their career

and nobody can tell you what they stood for

or what they believed in.

What's the point of public service

if you can't stand up for,

the values that you really strongly believe in

and want to adhere to?

Anything that surprised you?

The negative campaigns and the lies

that have come from Labor in this campaign.

As I say, I've been in Parliament almost 25 years

and the, you know, I mean,

politicians can be accused of telling fibs

or lies or whatever,

but I've never seen a leader

look down the barrel of the camera like this one

and he just, he just lies.

Like just flat out tells people black is white.

And even when he's pulled up on it,

he dances around.

And I mean, I've seen different Labor

and Liberal leaders, you know, get caught out

and most of them, you know, respect the truth

and adhere to that.

But this is a different scenario.

So I've been really surprised

by the depth of the lies.

And I,

I think though,

I've got an incredible faith in the Australian people.

And I think over the last four or five days,

people are starting to say,

actually, you know what?

That doesn't add up what he's saying.

And I know that not to be true,

what I just heard him say.

And we've seen it because we've had four debates now

and people have done their research.

And I think as we get closer to the election,

momentum is starting to swing back

toward the Liberal Party.

And I think that will,

by 6pm on Saturday night,

see us in a very strong position.

One,

which I think we can win.

It's just funny.

I mean, I've been through a lot of elections too,

and not in the same capacity as you,

but as a voter.

And I don't think I've ever heard anybody

be called a liar.

I don't think people have challenged a proposition

that, you know, opposing people have put up.

But I don't really ever remember hearing anyone call anyone a liar.

And actually, one of the things that has come out of this whole campaign

from both sides is that I've actually heard you say that,

the Prime Minister is weak.

Yet he's somehow surged ahead of you guys in the polls,

so-called polls.

We'll talk about that in a moment.

But it looks as though at least the media are putting him as a winner.

I can't reconcile that stuff.

Well, I mean, a couple of points.

One is you don't lead the left of the Labour Party for 20 years

if you don't have some mongrel in you.

So there's no question about that.

But weak in the sense that he hasn't been able to stand up,

for example, to Kevin Rudd,

who demanded to go to the United States as our ambassador.

And that has been a failure, really.

Weak in the sense that he wasn't prepared to explain the detail

of the voice to the Australian people, even though it was promised,

but he never had any intention of doing that.

Weak in the sense that they've made decisions to spend a lot of money

when they should have been taking the foot off the accelerator

so that interest rates didn't stay as high as they have.

They've gone up on 12 occasions.

They've only come back once, and that's only by 0.25 of 1%.

And weak in the sense that...

that he hasn't been able to stand up and make the decision to invest into keeping us safe as

a community and people feel less safe in their communities. And I think we're less safe as a

country because the government's taken money out of defence as well in a very uncertain period.

So I think there's that element to it. If you step back though, as best I can, and I'm as I say,

in the arena, but what they've done is they have just plastered a negative campaign

against us over the course of the last few weeks. Why would they do that?

Their campaign can't be, look, vote for Labor at this election because you're paying $300 a month

less for your groceries. You're paying $200 less a month for your electricity bill or $275 less,

or you're paying $150 less a month for your insurance premiums.

Gas has gone up by 34%. Electricity's up by 32%. Groceries is up by 30%. And people know

in their own budgets that they're struggling to keep their heads above water. So they had to go

negative because they can't talk about the achievements of the last three years and how

people are better off. 30,000 small businesses have gone broke. So that's why I think we've

seen the level of negativity, the depth of that negativity and the Labor lies.

The Prime Minister talks about Medicare. Bulk billing rates are down,

by 11% under his watch. People are paying $43 out of pocket to go and see a GP. In some cases,

they're cancelling or not making appointments to go to see a doctor because they haven't got the

$43 to fork out of their budget for a doctor's visit. And if you listen to their campaign,

they've been the greatest friend of Medicare ever. It's just not the reality.

But then how does he, is it a reflection on the voting population or how is it that he's able then

to...

Swap over the national polls, which is different to seat by seat poll, but the national polls

that the media keep trotting out. How has he been able to swap that over from

the coalition being ahead, let's say beginning of January, late last year, to according to the

current position being looking as though you're behind? Is he just a good politician?

I think he's a tricky politician. I think he's demonstrated that. And the negative campaign has

had an impact on him. He's had an impact on him. He's had an impact on him. He's had an impact on

an impact. I do think though, over the last four or five days, and you can see this in the internal

track polling, it is starting to shift and people are starting to see through the negative campaign.

The campaign is starting to, and momentum starting to come back. We see it on the pre-poll as well,

talking to marginal seat members and candidates in our key seats. There's a really positive

sentiment on pre-polling since it's opened. Now that'll be some Liberal Party voters coming out

early, particularly older. I think it's going to be a really positive sentiment on pre-polling.

Older Australians who are really worried about unrealised capital gains tax. They're worried

about where the economy's going. They're worried their kids and grandkids can't get housing. So

there'll be that element to the voter sentiment at the moment. But there are still a lot of people

who are undecided. A lot of people who don't take much interest in politics at all will start to

switch on over the next few days. And I think there are a lot of people who have listened to

the Labour Party pitch and may have been taken first up.

But now I realise, hang on, that doesn't make sense. Medicare's not, you know, going to see a

doctor's not cheaper than it was a few years ago. And am I better off today than I was three years

ago? Well, for a lot of families, no. And it's not just a referendum. This election is not just

a referendum on the campaign of the last few weeks and who's held more babies and who's visited more

seats or done more flights or anything like that. This is a referendum on the last three years.

And I don't think people forget that. And it's also about, well, are you better off

in three years time having re-elected a Labour Greens government, or are you better off

with Labour being out of power and the Liberals managing the economy effectively again and

keeping us safe and realising the dream of home ownership again?

So I received a text last night, interestingly enough, and unsolicited and more random than

anything from Geoff Wilson. Which I'm going to say Clive Palmer for a second.

No, I've got a few of those. Yes, I have had a few of those. Trauma to Patriot once.

No, but I received this text from Geoff Wilson. Geoff Wilson runs a fund and he's a very successful

guy here in Sydney. And he sent me a copy of a paper about unrealised gains, capital gains,

in super funds and the proposed tax on those gains. And I thought, wow, that's,

knowing I was seeing you today, that is a really important point I need to put to you.

And I said to Geoff, I would put it to you. He's a good friend of mine. I said, I'll put it to you.

And he's actually prepared a white paper on it, or his organisation prepared a white paper on it,

which I might actually send over to you. But everyone's forgotten about this.

I think the amount is $3 million. If you have in your super fund, because you've worked hard and

you've been able to contribute over a million years, enough money to get over $3 million worth

of assets, but you haven't sold them, they're just valued at that. Under the proposal by the

Labor Party, which is what Geoff was bringing to my attention last night again, was that you'd be

paying tax on that. And I don't know how you pay tax on an unrealised gain. I don't know where you

get the money from to pay tax on something that's unrealised because you don't have the cash because

you haven't realised the gain. What's the position of the Liberal Party, of the coalition on this

stuff? So Mark, we opposed it straight away when the government proposed it. And they've tried

now, I think, to sort of push the boundaries on this. They've done research on

abolition of negative gearing and cutting out the discount on capital gains tax on the sale of an

asset held for longer than 12 months as well. So I think there is a broader issue here of credibility.

So the Prime Minister went to the last election saying, no changes to super tax. And of course,

this change then came in. And I equate it to, if you're a wage earner, if you're a tradie or you

are working for a boss, it's like charging you tax.

Having to pay the tax office the tax before you get paid your wage for that week. And if you're

in a super fund and you've got a farm in that super fund, which many rural families do,

or if you're a family, maybe second, third generation family with a block of shops or

a couple of units, or if you've got shares that have just done really well,

you've picked a couple of cracking shares that have taken off.

For that 12 months period, you might've seen an increase in value in the block of flats or in the

price of your shares. You haven't realised the gain. So if the price has gone from a dollar up to

$5, you're taxed on that capital gain. And the next 12 months, the shares might come back. There

might be a crash. The valuation that you've had to pay for again for the building that you've got

in your super fund might change. And so I think there's a lot of value in that.

Show that prices have come off or perhaps you've got vacancies and the yield's gone down in relation

to the shops that you've got. It could be a recession and all that.

It could be anything, right? You could have a development application that's approved.

You've sunk a lot of money into getting the development application and it increases the

price of the block of land that you're holding or whatever it is. You're going to pay tax

under Labor's model and it raises a few billion dollars. So they know that it's really going to

hurt. And if you're in a super fund and you haven't got much cash, you're going to have to pay tax.

And if you're in a super fund and you haven't got much cash, you're going to have to pay tax.

If you have cash in the super fund, if you are a farmer, for example, and you've got limits as to

how much money you can put on, depending on how old you are, as to how much money you can put into

that fund, you might be forced into a position where you've got to sell the asset to pay the

tax bill. And I just think it's unjust and it's unfair.

But it's also nonsense.

Well, absolutely it is. But it captures, like people might say now, oh, you know,

$3 million in your super fund, if only. But this will capture with inflation,

people over the coming years, it's not indexed. So the $3 million doesn't go up each year.

So this will capture more and more taxpayers each year. And as I say, if you've inherited some money

and you've put it into your super, or you've just listened to the financial advisors who have said,

okay, pile as much money as you can into super because it's a safe asset class,

you're now going to come within scope over the course of the next few years.

We've fought really hard against this. Labor and the Greens strongly support

it. And again, I think it gives a window into Labor's thinking. It's that we can take money

away from you because we think you've done too well. And that's sort of the socialism that's

at the heart of the operation of Labor and Greens parties, that it's wealth redistribution.

And Jeff Wilson, who I know well also, I mean, one of the smartest financial minds in the country,

he's horrified by all of this. And most financial advisors are.

Paul Keating would be. He wouldn't recognize it in terms of what the Labor Party is proposing here.

And it provides a disincentive as well, because a lot of financial advisors will be saying to

younger people, look, actually, I wouldn't be putting that much money into super now

because it's just risky. We don't know whether the 3 million is going to be bought down if Labor

needs to create more tax and more revenue. Maybe they'll drop the 3 million down to $2 million

and you'll be captured by that.

So the whole idea of-

Super, is that it's a safe place to invest and it's going to provide for your retirement.

But if you take away that certainty, younger people are just going to say, well,

actually, no, I'm not going to tip money into super. And we sold a car or a boat. Instead of

spending that money, we're going to dump it into super. Those people will stop doing that. And I

think that is a really bad outcome. Not enough people are talking about it. And as I say,

it also then says, well,

if Anthony Albanese told you before the last election that there were not going to be any

tax changes around super, he's saying the same thing now around the family home. But we know

that they've done the work on what negative gearing abolition looks like and what the

abolition of the CGT 50% discount looks like as well. So that, I think, gives a window into the

thinking of the Labor Party and that they'll always want to tax more because they always

want to spend more. But that's what puts interest rates up as well.

I hope you don't mind if I just, I don't want to labor this point, but it's quite important to

someone like me. I think about the kids, the 20-year-old kids. Let's call them even the 15-year-old

kids, but maybe they're not voting. But let's say your grandkids or my grandkids, in my case,

or I could be thinking about young people who are just turning 20, getting the first job.

They're going to work for 45 years. And they're going to be putting their money into this great

thing that, look, you know, let's give it a Keating. Great thing that Keating came up with.

In the 90s. It was a great thing. And it's about building up enough wealth so you can retire

comfortably because every Australian works their butt off and they deserve to retire comfortably.

100%.

And the whole regime about this is having concessionary, concessional tax rates on your

super fund and the money the super fund made. That's the whole premise. A kid who's 20 in 45

years' time-

Yeah.

Will probably, will have to have more than $3 million worth of assets to be able to live

comfortably.

No doubt about that.

And so that person right now want to get their act together and think about what they're going

to do. Because if this goes through, this is an existential threat to what was originally designed

by Jim Chalmers' greatest person in his life, Paul Keating. And I just can't believe that they

actually even talking about it or considering it. Is this a-

Is this a real risk of getting a pass by it through parliament?

Well, yes. And again, it wasn't, nothing was mentioned about it before the election. It's

one of the key broken promises. And to your point too, which I think is really well made,

that the reason that we've got a concessional taxation arrangement, that is people paying

lower tax in super when the money's compounding and you're earning and building that nest

egg up, is because it's your money ultimately, whilst the boss takes it out before you see

it and sends it off to your super.

It's your money and you can't access it. So the price that we as a government are saying

to you for putting that money aside, not being able to use it to buy a boat or go on a holiday

or whatever it might be, is that we're going to tax you at a lower rate because we want you to

be self-sufficient in retirement because we've got an aging population, more people on pensions.

And your point is spot on where you've worked your guts out your whole life.

We want you to be able to,

enjoy your retirement and super is part of the way in which you're going to be able to do that.

But the government just upends all of that logic and thinking that Keating first had in mind.

And it's just a tax grab. And it's even worse than that because you're saying to somebody,

okay, we're going to have to pay a valuer during the course of every financial year

to work out whether the asset's gone up or down during the course of that year.

The cost of valuers for real estate, they charge a percentage of the valuation.

Thousands and thousands of dollars. So,

the valuers will be happy because they're going to be paid to do these desktop audits or whatever.

I don't know the level of detail the government hasn't released, how much money you'd have to

spend in an average super fund to comply with the new change. And there are, as I say, you get

fluctuations in different assets that you've got in your superannuation, whether it's shares or

whether it's real property or whatever it might be. So, I think there's a real problem with the

problem here. And I think it shows the difference between the two parties. The Liberal Party will

always be better economic managers because most of us come from a business background. Most of us

know how to manage money. We've started businesses. We've worked really closely,

in my case, with Peter Costello and with John Howard. And part of the reason that the economy

is suffering at the moment is because there are now four budgets where the government

has made decisions that have just made life much harder. And people feel,

that in their own household budgets. When we talk about that tax on

assets of a superannuation fund, I feel as though I'm playing a game of Monopoly and I just landed

on the chance square. And I've lifted up my chance card and it says, pay tax. It's like a prosperity

tax. It's like, I've been prosperous for the 12 months as a result of the advice that my advisor

has given me as to what I should be buying, investing, and has done well. As a result of

that prosperity, you've got to pay tax. And I've been prosperous for the 12 months, and I've been

It doesn't mean I made the money. I didn't earn the dough. It's not too different what Dan Andrews

put into Victoria for farmers who have had their land rezoned, where the land's gone from being a

farm worth one price to being rezoned for housing and become much more valuable. And Dan Andrews

went and taxed them before they sold them. These poor bloody farmers have been forced to sell their

property to pay the tax. That's right. They haven't got the cash, the lazy cash, sitting

around to pay the uplift tax. And this is a really interesting point as well, because

if Labor's logic is that that can apply within superannuation, well, why not outside of super?

Yeah. That's scary.

Yeah. It's really scary, but it would generate them a lot of money. People would pay a lot of

tax. And again, I sort of bring it back to the basic point that if you're a tradie and you're

getting however much a week, a thousand bucks a week, you're being asked to pay the tax man

the $200 a week before you get the thousand or before you get the 800. And

it's wrong in principle. And it discourages investment and it undermines the certainty about

investing in this country. And that's exactly what we've seen in Victoria, where

businesses have just pulled money out. They've gone to Adelaide or they've gone to Sydney or

Brisbane and they're employing workers there. And the Labor Party's devastated the Victorian

economy. And a lot of Victorians are very angry about it, rightly so.

It's very interesting. I've got quite a lot of branches down in Victoria. And I used to go down

and they'd always say to me, Dan Andrews this, Dan Andrews that. And then I used to say, but how

can we keep getting in? But now what's interesting, the mood has completely swung against Dan Andrews

and his successes in Victoria in terms of the Labor Party, like completely swung.

Yes. Yeah, I think that's right.

And because people eventually worked out that Andrews was just running the joint into the

ground. And he was a big spender, like a massive spender. And now he's turned the place into a tax

government. And what I mean by that is not taxable for consumers, but government there,

like the property market in Victoria has suffered because if you own an investment,

you pay land tax after the first $50,000 of valuation. Whereas New South Wales is something

like 1.15 or something like that, 1.15 million. And people, the house price is going down.

A real estate investment down there is at an all-time low. And as a result of that,

less people buying houses, that means they're collecting less stamp duty and they're getting

into a bigger hole. And that's what's happening. And that's what's happening. And that's what's

happening. And the hole is getting deeper and deeper and deeper. Do you see that? Is that a

mentality? Is that a Labor Party mentality that eventually gets them?

It is. It's a jealousy thing. And if you have a look back through the history of this country,

where there's only so much tax that people who work hard can pay. And you get to a tipping point

where they say, you know what? I'm just withdrawing my effort. And I'm not going to build that house,

or I'm not going to build that block of units. And

it's almost what's happened in the construction sector with the involvement of the CFMEU. I mean,

the CFMEU has donated about $12 million to the Labor Party since Anthony Albanese became leader.

And so they've let the CFMEU just run riot in the building sector. Productivity is down to about two

and a half days a week, which means it takes twice as long and twice the cost to build an apartment

block. And in Victoria, all of that capital is being withdrawn and moved to other states,

to New South Wales, for example, as you point out.

And at a time when we should be seeing an encouragement to invest into, say, housing,

when we need more houses coming online, people are just saying, well, the taxes are too great.

And it's not going to be this sort of soft target any longer. And my point before about if it's

logical for Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanese to tax you in that way in superannuation, why not in

your other investments? And why not in your other investments? And why not in your other investments?

And why not on your house? If your house is worth more than a million dollars and my house is only

worth $500,000, then the logic is that you should pay tax so that I can be subsidized in another way.

I mean, that is just socialism. And it's withdrawing the encouragement, the incentive for

entrepreneurialism and for people to invest and grow their businesses. And that ultimately means

less taxes paid, more public servants.

You know, become employed. And a lot of that's happened over the last few years,

particularly in Victoria.

So someone else raised another interesting point with me, a well-known economist. I won't drag him

into the conversation, but he raised his point with me. If you look at the credit rating of New

South Wales compared to Victoria, Victorians have to pay a higher interest rate on money that

Victorian government borrows relative to what we have to do here in New South Wales. Because the

credit rating in New South Wales is higher than the credit rating in Victoria. And I see today that

stand and pause are concerned about the long series from now on, the long series of deficits we're

going to have, which means we've either got to raise the money in the markets, go and borrow

money as a country. And we keep hearing this number of a trillion or a trillion plus in debt.

And either that or we've got to tax more or both in order to fund the deficit.

Stand and pause are a pretty tough organization. They don't muck around. And once you get a downgrade

from them, it's very hard to get regraded back up. And Australia as a country, not state by state,

but as a country has enjoyed a AAA rating for a long, long time, which is a rare thing. Like not

many countries in the world have this, which means we pay the lowest as a country. When we borrow

money, we pay the lowest possible interest rate, which is great, which means we feel more encouraged

that we can borrow more money.

But if we keep borrowing money, stand and pause is going to get nervous because investors will

sue them. This is what happened during the GFC. If they don't properly rate a country, in other

words, they think you're spending too much. So I'd like to ask you this, and I know you're not

the treasurer, but it doesn't matter. You're the leader of the party and I know you understand

economics. What is the danger of running deficits year in, year out for a ten-year period?

Having to tap the markets all the time when already we have an example of what's happening

in Victoria. We have that example, but when already the stand and pause rating agency,

the global rating agency is already starting to think about this. What's the danger of that? And

what will you as a leader of your party do to try and manage this?

Well, Mark, the risk compounds each year, as you point out, because you've got a $30 billion

deficit one year.

And add that on top of the debt that you've already got. So it goes from a trillion dollars

up and this government projects it will go to 1.2 trillion. So they have deficits in every year

that they forecast. And it's like having your credit card maxed out each month and

pretending that if you get sick or you lose your job or you need to replace the fridge,

it's broken down unexpectedly, that you're going to be able to do that.

But at some stage, you can't do it. And your point is exactly right in terms of standard and

poor now, in terms of what they've said. So they're basically firing a shot across the

bow to say, look, we think the Labor government's spending a lot of money. They talked about off

budget funds. So these are all the green energy funds that they're continuing to fund into tens

of billions of dollars. Which do not appear in the budget.

That's right. So they're off budget and they're still,

though, taken into account in terms of our credit worthiness. So the point is that Australia

becomes much riskier and the price you pay for those borrowings, as you point out, goes higher

and it becomes this vicious cycle. And as your credit rating deteriorates, you're paying more

and more for the bank. No different than if a person with a bad credit rating goes to borrow

money from the bank, as opposed to somebody who's got an impeccable credit rating, you'll pay

different interest rates.

Because the risk is higher if you've got a bad track record. And this also happened with the

Reserve Bank governor, who's independent from the government, who has been warning the government

over the last few years. Look, if you keep spending money like you are, and this is the

biggest spending government in the last 40 years, you're going to end up with higher interest rates.

Well, guess what? They've gone up 12 occasions since the government's been elected, come back

by a quarter, as we said before. And I think people thought, oh, well, if it's come back by 0.25,

there'll be another 25%.

Next month and another 50 points the month after. That hasn't happened.

And there's no guarantee it will.

Well, there's not. And as we know, with what we're seeing internationally at the moment,

the uncertainty in Europe and in the Middle East and the tariff debate,

the talk of a global recession is real. And if that happens, we don't have any money in the bank

to pay for what we need to pay for to get through that rainy day. One of the things that we had

going for us going into COVID was that we'd got the budget back into balance after years and years

of labor deficits.

After Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. And it took us a number of years. And it's exactly

history repeating itself, given that it happened for John Howard as well. When he

came into government after the Keating years, they had $96 billion of debt in those days,

a lot of money in 1996. And it took them year after year to go through the budget,

find where the waste was, cut the waste out, trim down on spending where you can,

still provide the essential services, but got the budget back into balance,

and then put it into surplus. And then they created the future fund. And that future fund

still sits there today. Labor's never created a future fund because they never run surplus

budgets. They got two surpluses at the start of this term, only because of the fact that we'd put

the budget into a good position when they came into government. But then for every year after

that, as we pointed out before, there's just red ink in every projection. So it's putting us in a

weaker position. And I think that's what the credit agencies are saying now. And we need to heed that

advice and make sure that we spend a lot of money. And I think that's what the credit agencies are

saying now. And I think that's what the credit agencies are saying now. And I think that's what

the credit agencies are saying now. And I think that's what the credit agencies are saying now.

The other point, of course, is that if you're somebody at the moment who's just taken a second

job, maybe a shift at the Bottle-O or at the Servo on a Saturday night because you just can't

pay the bills, you want to know that when you're paying that tax from your second job and from your

first job, maybe your third job as well, that your taxes are being spent wisely. And if you've trimmed

back every dollar of discretionary spend in your own household budget, or as a small business,

you know, every dollar of discretionary spend in your own household budget,

every cost has gone up, your sales have gone down, and your profit margins are really tight.

You want to know when you're paying tax that the federal government is spending that tax wisely.

And at the moment, I don't think people believe that that's the case under this government. So

we have to spend money wisely because ultimately the government has no money, only the monies they

collect in taxes from hardworking Australians. I mean, for those people who want somebody to

address that or someone who has addressed that in the past, all you need to go is on YouTube and

have a look at Kerry Packer addressing the Senate and saying, you guys don't really know how to spend

the money that you're trying to raise for everybody. And actually, that's existed forever.

Yeah.

And I think that's a really important point. We should not be seduced during these campaigns

into thinking, oh, wow, there's something more in it for me. There's a bit more money for me. There's

a bit more money for me. When in actual fact, you've got to be, people have got to be very,

very careful because ultimately it's got to come from somewhere.

Yes.

And we did talk about standing pause. We did talk about,

borrowing money. You did mention something very interesting to me and I'm reminded of another

conversation with, because I'm talking to economists all the time, another economist

conversation I had the other day, and he was talking about the Howard period. And of course,

John Howard, still around today, extraordinarily, one of the icons of the Liberal Party,

but a great manager of this country, him and Costello, but he was at the helm.

And in 1996,

and just prior to that period, during the Keating-Hawke period,

interest rates got up to extraordinary heights, as did inflation. But post-96, right up until the

COVID period, the inflation number in Australia sat between 2% and 3% for 20 odd years as a result

of what John Howard did.

After that period of Keating-Hawke, that's Howard and Costello, great team. And they were in government

for a long, long time. And they didn't go right through to 2020, of course, but that momentum

carried through for that period, right through GFC. I mean, we had a blip in the GFC, but we got

under control. I worry that we're heading through, we're heading through another tumultuous,

high inflation period. We might get one or two reductions, but it could come back very,

very quickly. I'm worried about that process happening again. Does that something that goes

through your head and your parties, your senior advisors within your party, do you feel a

responsibility to sort of bring back that low inflation period to Australia like we had for

20 odd years? Because Australia is one of the few countries that have had a low inflation period.

One of the few countries in the world was able to do that. Very few countries could do it.

Well, the answer is yes. And it's instinctive because this is the reason that we've got

prices just going through the roof right across the economy. We were at Bluescope the other day,

the biggest manufacturers of steel in Australia, Colourbond Roofing, steel frames for housing.

They're paying three times the cost for electricity now and three times the cost of gas. And obviously,

they're huge energy users. They've got

furnaces and pumping out steel and products that we use to build homes and buildings.

And it's three times the cost of their same factory in the United States. Now, it's unsustainable. You

go to Brickworks, same story, three times what they're paying in the US. So those two core

elements to construction, bricks and steel, we're paying the highest cost really in the world. It's

not sustainable. And so inflation's everywhere across the economy and it's being driven by a

number of things.

Core inflation is twice that of our G7 countries. Now, just spend a moment on that. When you think,

why haven't interest rates gone further down when they've gone down in the United States and down

in the UK and down in Canada? And Europe.

Absolutely. And New Zealand.

And New Zealand as well. Why have they dropped there and they started to drop six months before

here? Why have we had the biggest drop in living standards in our country's history over the last

three years?

And why are we living with the lowest living standards compared to comparable nations at the

moment? Well, there's a bit to unpack there, but one of the reasons I think is because the government

has been running an inflationary budget. They've been fueling inflation, which is why that core

inflation rate is still held very high. And that's why interest rates aren't coming down. And this is

what the Reserve Bank governors warned about. But also the energy policy, which has just been a

train wreck. It's actually just been a wrecking ball through the economy.

I'm going to say something from Chris Bowen.

No, he's in witness protection. He's not allowed out.

I'm serious. I wasn't trying to be funny, but I don't think I've seen Chris Bowen pop up anywhere

for three months.

No, they've had him out of the public eye because when people see him, they just know straight away

he's the bloke along with Anthony Albanese that's driven my power prices up by over 30%. Now,

again, we were talking with, we're down an hour today with Anthony Albanese, who's the

Andrew Constance. And we went to a small business owned by two brothers, started it from scratch.

And it's a pretty big footprint. They've got fruit and veg, but they also do grocery lines,

and they've got meat and dairy, et cetera. They were saying there that they're just about to

negotiate their contracts, et cetera. And their power prices are up by about 40%.

Wow.

Now, if you're-

Your power bill goes up by $6,000 or $8,000 a month, and your wage bill's gone up, your rent's

gone up, the cost of every other input, you're running delivery trucks around, et cetera. All of

that is either consumed by the business, absorbed by the business, which is more and more unlikely

because the profit margins just aren't there. What's happening is the cost increases are being

passed on. And it's not just there on the shop floor. If you go back through the supply chain,

the farmer,

the farmer is paying a lot more for fertilizer now because there's a lot of gas used in

the generation of fertilizer. And the jars that they're buying to put the fruit in ultimately that

end up on the shelf, the glass manufacturer under the renewables only policy of Chris Bowen and

Anthony Albanese, they're paying more for the manufacture of those glasses. So every point in

the supply chain, the farmer, the cold storage, the processing plant, the energy that's used to

provide the processing or manufacturing.

Yeah.

The manufacturing of food or clothing or motor vehicles, whatever it is, all of that has

increased under this government and that's applied across the economy. So a few of the things that

we've said, okay, well, what do you do about that? Well, I think the way in which we can

fix the problem up as John Howard did with the Keating problem is the 25 cent a litre cut in fuel

tax. That means straight away across the economy. So the delivery truck drivers, the fishing charter

business, the pensioner, the uni student, the tradies running three or four trucks around,

the mums and dads, you come down by about $14 a tank. And if you're a two-car family,

that's saving you money straight away. So it removes-

Every week.

Every week. And it removes some of the cost pressure out of that family budget or that

small business budget. Then we say, okay, we'll give you $1,200 back of tax that you've paid,

$1,200 tax rebate for people on incomes up to $144,000.

So it is means tested?

It's means tested. And it means for a two-income average household, $2,400 back. So that's the

immediate relief to help people now. What do we do then to fix up the broader problem that Chris

Bowen and Anthony Albanese created? We have a huge export market for our gas, for our natural gas.

Fantastic, because it creates revenues and royalties and taxes being paid. But we can

divert some of that which is being exported now.

Or reserved.

The reserves of it. And increase the amount of gas that we're producing. Flood the market,

flood the domestic market with that gas and bring the price down. And we cap the price.

And we say to those companies that you're going to be required to sell that into the Australian

market. Now, the independent analysis that's been done by Frontier Economics, probably the

best economists in the country on energy policy, they say that that'll bring gas down by 23%,

the wholesale price. So that means Blue Scope paying less for their gas.

It means that the local Chinese shop paying less for their gas. It means

the gas used in the production of electricity comes down in cost as well. So the cost of

electricity can come down for households, but for businesses as well. And if we fix up that energy

disaster that they've created and ultimately bring in our baseload power, which we believe

should be nuclear, zero emissions nuclear, that on the analysis brings our electricity cost down

by 44%. And that's how we can be competitive.

And how we can reduce the cost of groceries and reduce the cost of all of those household

budget items at the moment that are just crushing families.

So that's a good point. You're doing, it's all very well to say we will reduce the cost of living,

but you've got to actually have some policies and you've just announced a number of policies there

that they all make sense to me, particularly the fuel excise. I mean, I just can't believe that

25 cents a litre. I mean, if for some reason, if you're going to reduce the cost of living,

the price of oil dropped by 25 cents and petrol at the bowels have become 25 cents less.

If for some reason that happened, people would be sort of cheering and going crazy. And they say,

it's only going to be there for two weeks. Everybody would be trying to work out how to

store the petrol up. But this thing is an ongoing thing, or are you saying for a year?

We do it for 12 months and then we assess it, which is exactly what we did during COVID with

JobKeeper. We said, okay,

we need to address the economic circumstances that we now face. But we didn't legislate

JobKeeper forever and we're not still paying that because that problem has passed. And so

our argument is, what's our vision for our country? Well, it's to help people right now,

get them through the next 12 months, the next 24 months. With the gas solution, we believe that

that can have a big impact by the end of this calendar year. So that can start to relieve some

of the pressure of the costs in businesses by the end of this calendar year. And if we need to extend

the fuel excise, well, we can assess that at the time. And if petrol's at $2, under us, it comes

down to $1.75. If petrol, the oil price drops and the petrol price comes down to $1.20, $1.50,

it's $1.25 under us. And the fixed cost of the excise, which is at 50.4 cents now,

that applies whether petrol's 50 cents a litre or it's $5 a litre. But the problem is because it's

been indexed, it's not going to be as good as it used to be. So we're going to have to look at the

growing off a bigger base each year. So it actually grows at a much faster rate as the

years go by. This is the argument in relation to beer excise as well, I might say. And it grows

off a bigger base because it's growing off 50 cents, not 30 cents each year. And so it becomes

a bigger tax each and every year. And it's the one way in which you can help across the economy,

as I say. And it's targeted. It helps the uni student. It helps the pensioner. It helps the

funder retiree. It helps the small business owner. And that's the thinking that we've

applied to it. But you need to fix the problem up. And part of our solution, part of our thinking,

as it was for the Howard government, was what changes can you make to modernise and to actually

provide some relief to the cost pressures? Because what Australians don't want, but what they're going

to get if we end up with an Albanese-banned Labor Greens government, they're going to spend more

money.

The interest rates are going to go up higher. And the 34% increase in gas now, that's just going to

continue to go up over the next three years because their system is going to become more

and more costly as you need to roll out the 28,000 kilometres of new poles and wires,

which is their energy policy. That's just going to be tens of billions of dollars, which you'll end

up, you're starting to pay that now in your power bills. You look at the breakdown of your power

bill now. You look at the charges and look at the network charges. You're already paying the

electricity bill. You're already paying that as a big part of your electricity bill now.

So just explain to us, because none of us know, how it works in parliament if it's an Albanese

band or Labor and Greens sort of, let's call it a coalition government going forward.

In practical terms, how does that work? So let's say the Greens have got something they're really

desperate to push through. What do they walk up to, Albanese?

Or Chris Bowen and say, listen, we're here supporting you. Can you get this through and

we'll do a deal? What's the paddle look like down there in the mothership down there in Canberra?

What would happen sort of thing? Well, the Greens have already been

transparent in terms of what their shopping list looks like, at least the first couple of items.

One is they want an end to fossil fuels. So that means no gas, no coal. A company like Rio Tinto

last year paid about $10 billion worth of company tax.

Royalty. So without that money, we're not paying for schools and hospitals, but that's the first

issue. Our biggest taxpayer are mining companies.

100%. Yeah. And there's insatiable demand for our product, for our commodity, whether it's iron ore

or whether it's coal or whether it's critical minerals, et cetera. Otherwise, there's insatiable

demand for that around the world, but they want to close that down. That's their first want.

And they've been very open.

I mean, Adam Bandt, I don't give him credit for much because I don't believe in the Greens

philosophy, but he's been very clear that their next request is an abolition of negative gearing.

What? Oh, sure. And they've been upfront about that. Now,

that will be on the table with the Labor Party. Jim Chalmers has already done the research himself

to ask Treasury to model it and how much money would they get back if they abolish negative

gearing. So we know that they're open to it.

But how's it work then, Peter? What happens is Bandt go up to knock on the door of the

Prime Minister.

Yes. Yeah. They'll sit down in negotiations. And if there's not a clear decision on Saturday

night, then... And remember back to what happened with Julia Gillard when Anthony Albanese was

a senior minister and negotiating with the Greens to find a compact between Julia Gillard

and the Greens. That's exactly what happened then. And this is why the Prime Minister,

even in his own seat,

is putting the Greens number two. And the Greens have put him number two as well. I'll always

preference the Labor Party ahead of us. Is this what you mean by when you vote

Labor, you're endorsing Greens and effectively voting for the Greens?

Correct. In other words,

you are voting for the Greens policies? Yes. And if you're voting one for the Green,

two for the Labor candidate, three for the Liberal candidate, well, that will only ever

go to the Labor candidate. And that's how they win.

So, Peter, one of the things that I've been surprised about, and somewhat disappointed

to be honest with you, is that there has been a bit of a personality game going on in this

campaign. And you're a hardened ex-copper and businessman, so I don't know what you

did wrong in your life to have to do both, be a policeman first and put up with all that,

and then have to become a businessman.

A small business owner and have to put up with all that. But, you know, you get fairly

hardened after all that. But irrespective, I sort of know what it's like because you

worry about your family. You do have wife and kids and stuff like that who aren't part

of all that. Yeah, of course.

And never asked to be either, by the way. And how do you feel right now about the personal

attacks on you? Because I actually thought, you remember the old Mr. Potato Head and all

that sort of stuff? I mean, I have whatever. Yeah.

Big deal. But it's got much more personal from every level, nearly. How do you feel

about that?

It does. And this, back to the earlier point about the negative campaign, the personal

attacks, because they haven't got a good track record to talk about. And that's so their

campaign can't be how well you've done under Labor over the last three years. So in a two

horse race, their objective is to try and kill off the other horse. And that's why they've

run the personal attacks against me.

If I'm being honest, it puts fuel in my tank because it just makes me more determined to

succeed. And I mean, in business and in life as a police officer, I've been in some pretty

tough situations and I've delivered death messages to parents of kids who have overdosed

or have been killed in a car accident. And all of that really pales, makes what I'm going

through and the pressure that I'm under seem pretty manageable.

And I've responded to domestic situations where women are within an inch of their life

and kids are screaming. And you think back to those circumstances, a detective taking

statements from rape victims and people have been exposed to terrible, terrible crimes.

And part of the motivation for why I got into politics was to protect people like that and

to make sure that we had less victims and not more.

And yes, maybe that sort of makes you hardened because of those experiences, but it makes

me more determined to succeed for our country because we do live in the best country in

the world and we beat ourselves up over it. And we're told at school now, our kids are

told, you know, be ashamed of our history and our place in the world is not legitimate.

And all of these people who are teaching our kids that within the education system, which

you know, there's a small proportion of teachers, but still the ones that we've seen out marching

out on the university campuses, attacking Jewish kids, et cetera. And then they're turning

around and lecturing our kids, you know, in a business course or something. It's a bit

of a screwed up world at the moment. But what, for me, not that it's water off a duck's back

because you, you know, you do take the attacks and you're only human and all of that. But

it does mean to me, you know, it's worth fighting for because you want to stand up and fight

for what you believe.

I don't need to tell lies to achieve success at this election. And I'm happy to run on

my track record. And yes, there is a huge price that your family pays. And I'm really

conscious of that because my kids, my wife, you know, they haven't put their name on the

ballot paper, but they've got the same surname as me and they suffer, you know, the attacks

online. Harry, he's a, you know, second year chippy, came with me on the campaign a couple

of weeks ago and, you know, just gets bombarded with crap online. But again, I think it's a

good thing that they're being able to, you know, they're getting off and he's good.

I'm happy to, you know, get that because you can get the faith out of them, but you've

got to be very conscious of the big picture and to, you know, you know, they need to be

able to keep saying, you know, so, you know, I'm going to be there for you.

And, you know, I'm really proud of what they've been able to, to put up with as well, but

it shouldn't, it shouldn't be the case, but it is. And that's the reality of it. And I'm

just, I'm fortunate that they're, you know, they're, they're strong characters, see them

through it as well, and, and they're proud of what I do and, you know, and, and I'm,

I've got a lot of money.

of what I do and they know the person that I am

and they know the crap that they read online is nothing

like the person I am and I think that makes them more passionate

about making sure that they help me to succeed

because they know that the lies that are being told just don't equate

with the dad that they know or the husband that they know.

It's funny.

I've got to know you a little bit.

I'm fortunate enough to have a dinner with you

and my good friend David Coleman some time ago

and then I've had you on podcasts and one of the great things

about podcasts is I get to know people without having

to spend 20 years with them but I get it on pretty quickly

and you come across as that quite sort of quite stoic defender style person.

You might not be the huge personality and smiling

and so you're not Hollywood but.

That's an understatement but.

You're not Hollywood.

I'm not the flashy guy.

You're not but you are, there's a sense,

it seems to me that.

There's a sense in you and maybe it could have been the reason

you became a policeman perhaps or you worked as a police person.

Not too long ago, running a business looked a lot different.

A good location and a solid reputation were enough

to keep a customer base happy.

No websites, no social media, no SEO,

just old school networking and persistence of course

but times have changed.

In today's digital world, your business needs more

than just a great product.

It needs visibility.

That's where Squarespace.

comes in.

Whether you're just getting started or expanding your brand,

it's the all-in-one platform that makes building

and managing your online presence simple.

With Blueprint AI, creating a professional,

customized website takes just a few clicks.

Plus, powerful tools like automated client invoicing,

online courses and memberships help you generate revenue effortlessly.

So, you can focus on growing your business

instead of juggling logistics.

Head to squarespace.com

forward slash mentored for a free trial

and when you're ready to launch,

use offer code mentored,

M-E-N-T-O-R-E-D

to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain.

The old adage goes,

it isn't what you say, it's how you say it.

Because to truly make an impact,

you need to set an example.

You need to take the lead.

You need to adapt to whatever comes your way.

And when you're that driven,

you drive an equally determined vehicle.

The range of your business is so vast,

that you can't even imagine how far you can go.

You can't even imagine how far you can go.

You can't even imagine how far you can go.

You can't even imagine how far you can go.

You can't even imagine how far you can go.

The Range Rover Sport.

Blending power, poise, and performance,

it was designed to make an impact.

With a dynamic drive, refined comfort,

and innovations like cabin air purification

and active noise cancellation,

the Range Rover Sport is built to be as uncompromising as you.

Explore Range Rover Sport at rangerover.com slash us slash sport.

Because you seem like you have a protective element around you,

like you want to not protect us in a silly way,

but you want to make sure that our rights are well observed,

all of our rights are well observed,

and manage whether they're economic rights

or whether they're personal rights.

When you're a policeman, they're personal rights,

but now as a leader of a party,

it's economic rights, personal rights,

social rights, every other right, there's a stack of them.

It seems to me that you have that as an underlying theme

in your DNA, in your personality,

but not in a flashy way.

It's just,

you've got to get the job done.

I think that's right.

It's sort of a right and wrong thing,

and justice or not.

I have a, again, you know,

sort of influenced by what you've seen in life.

I worked in the sex offender squad as a detective for a period,

and when you see young girls who have their lives destroyed,

or you see them later in life,

and maybe they didn't make a complaint

about being sexually assaulted when they were 12 years of age,

but you're now talking to them and they're 30 years of age.

And,

I remember it clearly in many of those cases where

they hadn't been able to form proper relationships.

They changed their patterns of life of going to the car a different way,

or not going out of a night time.

And I saw the impact on people in that way.

And I've been a strong believer all of my life that,

particularly for kids growing up,

that you should be able to enjoy the sanctity of your childhood.

You should be able to enjoy that freely.

And,

and not to be encumbered with that weight of having been poorly treated.

And whether it's sexual assault or whether it's physical assault,

or just brought up in a very difficult circumstance.

And so that's sort of the moral compass for me.

And similarly in life,

it's probably a good part of the reason I joined the Liberal Party.

My old man was a bricklayer,

a builder,

and worked his guts out his whole life.

And in those keening years that you'd spoke about before with the high interest rates,

I mean,

we'd sit around the kitchen table of a night time,

and I'll probably tell you the story before,

but I'd write out the cheques,

mum and dad had signed them,

and you'd write paid on the invoices and staple them to the statement and file them,

et cetera.

So the discussions around that kitchen table some months where we don't have money to pay those bills,

or we don't have work over the coming weeks to bring money in.

And,

and dad worked hard and so did mum,

and they did well later in life when we were older,

but only because of their hard work.

And so for me now,

you know,

a guiding principle,

I suppose influenced by that time was it kills me to see a small business person who's working seven days a week,

going home,

doing book work of a night time and just being smashed.

And 30,000 small businesses have closed over the last three years.

More small businesses have closed in our country under Anthony Albanese,

in the last 12 months than at any 12 month period in our country's history.

And I just think it's completely unfair.

So I want to do anything I can to,

to help turn around the economy and to manage the economy well so that there can be a better environment where people can work hard and be rewarded for it.

And it's,

you know,

a similar approach that we've taken in relation to the 25 cent a litre cut on fuel,

as we discussed,

and the $1,200 back and then providing the change around the energy,

around the energy system that that's all in my mind designed to to do the right thing and to provide a productive environment.

And I've been heavily influenced by John Howard in my political life.

And I think he adopted that same that same principled approach.

And and that's that's what would guide me as prime minister.

You some of the things you talked about then gave me one word I can think of that sort of describes a lot of those things that you have a view against unfairness.

Yes.

Or or the system should be as fair as possible.

Yes.

And that means in a broader sense for everybody,

the broader community,

but also in depth,

it should be real actually fair.

Like it shouldn't be you shouldn't be out of order.

In other words,

you know,

and that's sort of not a principle that's always been associated with liberal.

Although,

as you said,

Howard was very much that type of person.

Yes.

It's more the more a little bit more towards the labor.

Actually,

you know,

that's how they that's their DNA originally,

you know,

because I grew up in the west suburbs of Sydney,

where,

everyone voted for labor and but over time,

I think labor's lost its way.

I don't think labor is the same labor party as it was when I was a kid where they were looking after the working class or the and working class.

I don't mean someone who's just earning a living just enough to get by.

I'm talking about people who work to earn the money.

I have to actually go to work and work.

Working class is someone who goes to work.

I consider myself still working class.

I might have assets,

but I go to work every day and I still work and working class has lost a lot of its,

um,

respect and fairness and everybody,

whether you're someone with a $3 million of assets in your superannuation fund,

which you worked your whole life as part of the working class to accumulate,

it is unfair that you have to pay tax on that at a higher rate than it was originally envisaged when they first,

uh,

seduced you into putting money into super.

Yes.

Which you can't take out.

You can't take out.

Yeah.

So it's unfair.

So sort of that,

that theme of unfairness is that something,

and as you're the boss of the party,

is that something you look for in terms of all your party members?

You want to have that sense of fairness for all Australian citizens,

whether it's being safe,

walking home from school to your home,

young girl,

young boy,

whether it's,

uh,

being concerned about someone sort of,

you know,

lobbying a,

uh,

a missile over the country,

you know,

in relation to our border,

whether it's the amount of money we pay for our own gas,

which is crazy,

uh,

whether it's the interest rate you pay in your mortgage after you were encouraged to go and borrow as much money as you possibly could during COVID.

And you know,

when interest rates are extraordinary low,

now it's extraordinarily high.

Is that,

that unfairness something that perhaps you guys stand for?

It looks like it's nearly a,

a new position for the Liberal Party under your leadership.

It goes back to the Howard days.

No,

I agree with that.

And I made the point when I came into the leadership of the party,

that I didn't see us as the party of big business any longer.

Coles and Woolies and others can take care of themselves.

Our,

our task,

I think,

as a Liberal Party is to take care of the small business person and the,

uh,

you know,

the,

the mum who's working part-time at home in a micro business in a back bedroom or in a garage.

And that business,

you know,

the aspiration is to take that business to,

to be listed one day,

or how do we help the cafe owner,

uh,

who wants to buy a second cafe or how do we help the person who's worked really hard,

sacrificed,

bought a rental property,

has three kids,

wants to end up with three rental properties so that they can leave one to each of their kids or to their grandkids,

whatever it might be.

Uh,

it's,

it is that fairness as immigration minister,

you know,

I get a bad rap sometimes about,

uh,

being too hard as immigration minister.

But the approach that I took there was that I cancelled about 6,000 visas of people who are here as non-citizens.

Who had committed rape and pedophilia and had been involved in bikey gangs and distributing drugs.

And I allowed in 12,000 Yazidi women,

for example,

who were being slaughtered by ISIS and ISIL.

They've become amazing Australians.

And for me,

that was how the migration system should work.

You should say to people who are,

you know,

taking the piss,

frankly,

uh,

that you're not here,

uh,

to commit crimes against Australian citizens.

And if you do that,

out you go.

But we bring in good people.

And in my mind,

that is about fairness.

And I think to the point you made before that the Labor Party at the moment under this prime minister,

given that he's so far left,

is to how do you please inner city green voters in Sydney and Melbourne?

And they've forgotten about people in the suburbs.

And that's why at this election,

I think there's a big move going on in the outer metro areas,

in regional areas where people feel forgotten.

And it also bleeds into the housing debate as well,

because one of the things that,

and again,

it is a fairness thing.

Like,

and I feel a guilt that our generation had to work hard and save,

but got into housing.

Housing was much cheaper.

Interest rates were much higher,

as you pointed out,

uh,

uh,

you know,

uh,

depending on when you were born.

But,

um,

but I want young Australians to get into housing and I want them to be able to climb that property ladder and,

you know,

renovate a house or,

uh,

build an extension and,

and sell that house for a profit down the line,

or use the house as an asset to,

uh,

start a small business and,

and get a loan from the bank.

And we're locking people out of housing at the moment.

And a big part of that is-

And that's unfair.

Well, it's,

it's completely unfair.

And it's actually,

I think it generates over time,

a lot of resentment between homeowners and non-homes.

And division.

Absolutely.

And the government,

the,

the prime minister's happy for people to rent for life,

right?

Because that's what happens in parts of Europe and in parts of the United States.

And unless you are left at home by your family,

uh,

in parts of Europe, you've really got problems.

You've got a bugger all chance of home ownership.

And I don't want that for our country.

I want people to have a choice.

And I want them to have stability because if they buy a house,

it gives them a stable environment.

And they don't,

you know,

they're not a prospect of being kicked out if they're,

they're tenants.

They,

they'll start a family then,

and they'll start a small business if that's their choice,

or they'll use the increased value in the house to,

to then buy some shares and secure their,

their margin loan.

Or to,

uh,

purchase a,

another property or whatever it might be.

It gives them choices.

And,

and if they've paid the house off by the time they've retired,

or their mortgage has been paid down,

it gives them the,

the sort of retirement that we spoke about before,

where they've got dignity after having worked all of their lives.

Uh,

it gives them options to travel and,

and maybe help their kids or grandkids out,

uh,

if they're in need.

And the government's brought in a million people over the last two years,

which is a 70% increase on any two year period in our country's history.

So we've,

we've just flooded the market with buyers for homes.

And,

and of course all of those people want a house for their kids and their

grandkids,

and they're locking Aussie kids out of housing at the moment.

And that's why we're saying that we want to cut migration for two years

until we can get on top of,

uh,

the housing problem.

Uh,

we've also said that for interest on,

uh,

the first $650,000,

uh,

dollars of your mortgage.

The interest you pay on your loan.

Correct,

correct.

That,

that's five years.

And that'll help,

uh,

you know,

average wage earners around about a thousand dollars a month.

So it helps with your application to the bank because you can service your loan.

And it also helps you service the loan when you take the mortgage out after you

settle a property.

And,

uh,

it takes just a bit of pressure out.

It also increases supply because it's only for new homes and that will drive

the,

the market to build more homes to meet that demand.

And we put $5 billion in on the supply side.

So,

we're trying to create 500,000 new homes,

um,

so that we can bring more houses into the market,

uh,

so that we're not just increasing demand for,

for houses as Labor's done over the last couple of years.

So,

you know,

if,

if I think about it,

um,

the,

the principle behind that is,

is about,

you know,

equity and,

and fairness and,

and allowing people the opportunity and,

and the option.

If they choose not to buy a house,

fantastic.

But I don't want people to be locked out of housing as they are at the moment.

It's,

it's funny,

you,

um,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the Liberal Party or the Coalition becoming the,

the party of fairness.

I mean,

who would have thought,

um,

that Labor would abandon that position and that Liberal would move into that position?

Um,

who would have thought?

And,

uh,

I know there's nothing,

this had,

no one's really talked about this,

but,

you know,

the,

because it's been a bit of a personal attack on you,

most of the narrative,

um,

unfortunately,

um,

has tendened us to what drives him,

and I actually,

I think that's the one word that comes out of talking to you.

You're not flashy.

You're not Peter flash.

You know,

you're not Hollywood.

Um,

you're not,

you know,

polished and that you haven't been through two or three election cycles.

You haven't been the prime minister,

you,

you know,

you're sort of new to the show in that regard.

But at the end of the day,

that whole concept of fairness is a pretty critical one for every cohort of voter on

bone,

If you're 20 to 30, you want a fair go.

Yes.

If you're 30 to 40, you want a fair go.

40, 50, 50, and it goes on.

There is not one category that doesn't want a fair shot at it.

And it doesn't matter what it is they want to achieve,

whether they want to have a small business,

they don't want to have a small business,

whether they want to travel, whether they want to pay less tax,

whether they want to earn more money, they want to work three jobs.

Fairness cuts across every category in every single cohort.

And, you know, I think that's – I'm glad we talked about it.

I'm glad I had an opportunity to talk to you a second time

because I didn't really get that the first time.

But the second time, the more you talk, the more I'm getting that out of you.

I think it's important.

I think we should just cover this off, Peter, if you don't mind.

The narrative right now is Labor are going to win.

There's no point even turning up.

Put your vote in.

There's going to be a Greens-Labor sort of coalition,

let's call it that, after the election on Saturday.

And the polls, the national polls seem to be indicating

that.

But what are you seeing when you go to the various electorates?

Are you seeing something different?

A very different picture on the ground.

It really is.

And I think you'll see this turning up in the papers over the next few days

because Labor has started to retreat back to defending some of their seats

that are at risk.

And there are a number, particularly in Victoria and New South Wales,

in WA and even in Queensland now as well.

So you watch where the Prime Minister visits seats over the next few days.

They're defending.

They're defending seats.

The feedback from our marginal seat campaigners and people who have been

around the block a few times through a few elections is that the mood

at pre-polling has been much more positive than it was at the 2022 election.

Remember what happened in 2019?

The bookies paid out on Bill Shorten to be the Prime Minister before Election Day

on a Friday and he ended up, even though the national polls were showing

that he would win, he ended up losing.

And the coalition won that election.

And Chris Bowen was a big part of the loss.

Well, he was told people-

Of course, you're talking about negative gearing, capital gains tax

and franking credits going.

Exactly.

And this, again, this is a long-held view of the Labor Party in relation

to negative gearing and capital gains tax discount, et cetera.

They see it as the rich getting a benefit off renters.

It's the same reason they've got contempt for small business people

or for employers.

They've got a militant union thinking that you employ people

and you're the one that's going to get the benefit.

You're there to exploit them, not that you're there employing people

and you're giving them a wage, which is helping them put their kids

through school and pay off their mortgage.

And you're taking care of your employees, which is the case

for most employers.

That's the thinking.

So in some of those seats now, and I think you'll see this play out

over the next few days, there is a change in sentiment

and there is a momentum that's coming back to the Liberal Party

over the course of the last four or five days.

And it comes up in the seat-by-seat poll.

And which the national polling doesn't pick up

because you've got a really popular local member who's sitting

and has really worked hard.

In the next seat, you've got somebody who has just been lazy,

hasn't worked hard, and you've got a candidate,

a Liberal candidate who's door-knocked 10,000 homes.

And they've got a real following.

And so when you look at it seat-by-seat,

there is a pathway to victory for us by Saturday night.

And I honestly believe that that's where it's tracking,

that's where it's trending.

And there's also...

There's also the question people have to ask.

And, you know, this has been asked at elections

and been a famous campaign theme over a long period of time here

and other parts of the world.

Are you better off today than you were three years ago?

I don't know any Australian that I've met over the course

of this campaign who says, thumbs up, absolutely.

In fact, the opposite.

People just say, look, it's really tough and we've gone backwards.

Everything's gone up and everything will go up even further

if there's another three years of labour.

And particularly if they're in, you know,

in cahoots with the Greens as well.

And I don't want that for our country.

I want a better way forward.

We are better economic managers.

We have the ability to manage money and to spend it wisely,

to bring pressure down on inflation so we can bring interest rates.

If we can bring interest rates down by a couple of percent,

that will create a lot of headroom for families pretty quickly.

But if Labour spends money like they've spent over the last couple of years,

particularly...

With the Greens urging them on, then that will see inflation stay higher for longer.

And even if interest rates stay high without going up compared to what they could come

down under a Liberal government, then that's going to really put a lot of families to the wall.

I was talking to a bloke yesterday up in Robertson where Lucy Wicks is running for us.

He's got a mate of his who didn't want to speak to us, but wanted his story conveyed.

He reckons he's 25 points, 0.251% away from losing his house if they go up by another

25%.

He's done.

He won't be able to meet the payments.

He just won't be able to meet the repayments and they'll have to sell the house.

And that, I think, is a more common story than what the bookies and others are picking up at

the moment.

And I think a lot of those people say, you know what, I may not like every part of the

Liberal's policy or I may not like Peter Dutton for this reason or that reason, but I know that

he'll be a strong leader and I know that he's got the business experience and the

experience in the defence portfolio and the health portfolio and the immigration portfolio

and home affairs to make the decisions that need to be made for our country to fix the

economy and get inflation down and help address the cost of living standards and also to keep

us safe.

We live in a very uncertain time and we have to invest in defence and also into protecting

our borders.

I've been really big on this over the course of the campaign.

We've announced a $750 million plan to set up task forces to crush the bike and bike

gangs and other gangs who are involved in the tobacco wars and the illicit tobacco,

the gangs who are buying the cars off kids who steal them out of your house and the kids

who are buying drugs off the bikies and to fuel that, to pay for that drug habit they're

breaking into your house.

So I'm going to reduce crime across communities as well as keeping us safe in the regions

and we've got the ability to be able to do that.

It's interesting.

You mentioned hardworking Liberal members in some of the various electorates you've

been visiting and I immediately thought of three.

I thought of, first off I thought of Scott Young, well Scott Young in the suit of Ben

Long.

I mean my God, like the guy and I did have him on the show but he did work for me many

years ago but that's irrelevant.

I got him because I wanted to highlight what type of person he is even though he's been

sort of...

He's been harangued as a Chinese, whatever, he's more Aussie than anybody that I've met.

Of course he is, great bloke.

And he, but the guy when he was working for me he was in a ridiculously hard, he probably

would have been the longest hour, spent the most hours working in my organisation of any

other person of his equivalents in our organisation and he's doing that right now in his electorate.

Ro Knox who was on here today and Ro's incredibly talented and unbelievably bloody hardworking.

And you mentioned Andrew Constance who's always been a favourite of mine.

Andrew's an incredibly hardworking guy like and supremely decent and good.

Yes.

Like really good, high, good values like a, I mean for those sort of people to be in government

for me anyway and I don't, I don't know the other people who they're going against.

I'm not having a crack at the people they're going against.

I'm just talking about those individuals.

Yeah, three Liberals got it but there's three people I know and I can say genuinely,

say I've known them for a long time, they are brilliant and hardworking.

I mean Australia is about hard work and you work hard and you get paid well and you pay

some tax but you shouldn't get penalised for your hard work.

A hundred percent.

And that's part of our DNA.

Yeah.

And that's fair, that's fairness and that's, those three people are exactly, I mean David

Coleman's another good example.

Yes.

But they're exactly the types of people we want, we want, I would like to see in government

and they're exactly the types of people we want.

And they're in your team.

Mate, look, I'm so proud to have them in my team and there are many more but you look

at somebody like Scott, mum started with nothing, great migrant story, again just worked

hard, has built himself up, would be like he's just door knocked on literally thousands

of doors and the people he speaks to just say, wow, what an impressive young guy and

he has a real shot in Bennelong.

It's a tough seat but I think he can win.

Roe Knox is, I mean she's…

Smart, talented, a great intellect, has been successful in business.

Unbelievable credentials.

Like exactly the sort of person you'd want in a seat like Wentworth and in the parliament

and Andrew Constance, you look at what he did over, you know, bushfires and…

Amazing.

He is, like he bleeds for his community and he's really passionate about helping people,

particularly, you know, people who are in their darkest hour and he's proven that, like

he's just, he's got those runs on the board.

And he's a great candidate in Gilmore and similarly, David Coleman, who's now our shadow

foreign affairs spokesman, he would represent our country on the world stage like very few

people could.

He's got a great talent and he's worked hard in his local community.

He's respected by all the multicultural groups and he's built up his margin over a period

of time, which reflects the fact that people locally respect him.

So you've covered off your policies and, you know, you've magically weaved it into your

discussion, which is, you know, that's your job and you've done a good job at, you know,

every opportunity you had to weave into the discussion, you know, those ideas.

One of the things I, you know, I expected you would.

So one of the things I thought I'd do is ask you to comment on some of Labor's policies.

But, you know, I don't want to look like I'm, you know, a flag-waving liberal.

So I went into artificial intelligence, went into AI and I don't mind telling you, I went

into co-pilot.

Co-pilot's my favorite AI.

AI, pleased to go.

And I asked co-pilot, what are the five main policies of the Labor Party that Anthony Albanese

has espoused over the past three months?

And I'm going to put the five to you because he's not here to put them to the audience.

So I'm going to put them to you and if you like, you can make a comment on them.

And this is our last part of the discussion.

The first one is housing.

And it goes, the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund aims to, it's a future fund.

It aims to build 100,000 homes for first-time buyers over the next decade.

The initiative is part of a broader housing strategy, including the Help to Buy Scheme

and the National Housing Accord, which targets 1.2 million new homes in Australia by 2029.

Would you care to comment?

Well, just if you look at sort of the actions as opposed to the words, their signature housing

policy, whilst it's got some houses under construction at the moment, not one has been

completed in three years.

So not one house has been brought to market.

They've fueled demand.

As we said before, they've just put a million buyers into the market, a million renters,

and they've made it harder for Australians.

Their focus is on community housing as opposed to providing support to first-time buyers.

They talk about the 5% deposit policy.

It was actually introduced by the Liberal government and we want to continue that policy.

So there's common ground between the two parties now on that issue.

In relation to the fund that you spoke about, this is in part what Standard & Poor's talked

about.

These off-budget funds, and that's in part what's contributing to the risk of our credit

rating at the moment.

And the government's talking about putting $100,000 into building a home.

You can't do a renovation for $10,000, and you don't get much of a renovation anymore

for $100,000 with the price that-

The bathroom and kitchen goods cost that.

Well, that's right.

And so I don't know what sort of homes they're going to build for $100,000, but it obviously,

and I haven't outlined the detail, but it's obviously some sort of subsidy that they subsidize

the construction of a home.

So I don't think, frankly, I just don't think it'll ever happen.

But it sounds flashy when you've got a $10 billion future housing fund.

I just think look at the reality of the last three years and the housing crisis is just

really, I think it's been devastating for a lot of young Australians.

Yes.

Young Australians are putting off having kids.

And older Australians, parents and grandparents, even though they've worked hard, provisioned

for their own retirement, are staying in the workforce longer now because they're either

going to help the kids with monthly repayments or with a deposit.

So that's the, you know, that'd be my critique of their policy.

The second thing that AI come up with, there's cost of living, and it says labor's modest.

This obviously is about as unbiased as you can get because it's, unless the AI is hallucinating,

which it can do from time to time.

But-

It says the cost of living, labor's modest tax cuts start in 2026, 2027, that's next

year.

And they're designed to provide gradual relief, doubling in value by 27, 28.

What would you have to say about labor's cost of living measures?

Well, the contrast here is that labor's saying 70 cents a day by way of a tax cut, starting

in 15 months' time.

So let's say, you know, $4.90, let's say $5 a week, $260 a year, that's what they're

promising you by way of tax cut.

Our alternative is to say, starting from day one, we want to lower petrol by 25 cents

a litre.

So you're saving $14 a tank, $28 a week for a two-car family, $1,400, $1,500 a year.

And that then is followed up by the $1,200 tax rebate.

If there are two of you in the family, $2,400 for the year.

So you end up with a net benefit over that period of, you know, depending on the family

circumstances, but let's say $3,900.

It takes you a lot of weeks at $5 a week under Mr. Albanese's plan to match what we've

got on the table.

And as I say, we then fix the system up so that we can bring the prices down.

Mr. Albanese's promising the $150 energy rebate, but not fixing the root problem.

So he promised before the last election, energy costs had come down by $275 and they've gone

up by $1,300.

So we want to fix, you know, it's a bullet on a band.

A band-aid on a bullet wound.

We want to fix the underlying problem as well as provide immediate relief.

And the $0.70 a day, $5 a week in 15 months' time, I just think if you're out there talking

to families at the moment who are, you know, deciding not to insure their car because they

just can't afford to pay the premium, I think they'd say, you know what, I'll probably take

the help now.

And the third point that AI gave me was on energy.

And it says the Labor Party wants to continue to invest in renewable energy projects and

this aligns with Labor's climate goals, focusing on reduction of emissions and transitioning

to cleaner energy sources.

Have you got a comment on that?

Well, we're all in favour of zero emissions by 2050 or reducing our emissions and being

responsible.

And we're an exporter and we export to Europe and other countries and there'll be a requirement

ongoing for us to have sensible policies in place.

But as I said before, like it has been a wrecking ball going through the economy.

And have a look at what's happening in parts of Europe or what happened when Ukraine was

attacked by Russia, Germany and France and other countries were all of a sudden worried

about energy security.

There are reports out of Spain at the moment, I don't know the cause of those blackouts

there.

But no economy can function without reliable power.

And the Prime Minister and Chris Bowen want to pretend that solar and offshore wind and

green hydrogen.

That'll keep the lights on, it just won't.

And this is why people have got solar panels at the moment starting to find that they're

being penalised because the sun shines during the day and they can pump energy into the

network and they were paid a reasonable tariff not too long ago.

But now the battery technology hasn't got to a point where it can store energy to keep

the fridges running or the air conditioning unit running overnight.

And we have to have a base load power.

And we have to firm up the renewable power.

We need 24-7 power.

The hospitals need it.

Cold rooms need it.

Mining needs it.

Factories.

To pay the taxes.

Every part of our society.

Energy is the economy.

And so yes, they signed up to a renewables only policy, but it's killing the economy.

And if you ask me what's the biggest single factor as to why grocery prices have gone

up by 30%, I think it's the energy policy.

And as I say, it's not just your power bill at home that's going up.

It's the farmer.

And it's the cold storage provider.

And it's a transport operator.

And it's everybody who's paying more and more for electricity and gas.

And that's why we want to address gas and electricity costs and bring them down.

The fourth one it says is education.

So AI says education.

It says expansion of free TAFE programs is set to benefit over 600,000 Australians addressing

skill shortages and boosting workforce participation.

Got a comment on that?

Well, as we've discussed before, nothing the government does is free.

So for...

For example, if you want somebody to be paid to go to do a course, another taxpayer is

paying that.

So somebody who's just finished their degree or just finished their apprenticeship, they're

the ones who are paying for it through their taxes.

Now, I'm a really strong supporter of young Australians deciding what is best for them.

If that's uni, that's great.

But you're not a failure if you don't go to uni, which is sort of the labor ethos.

You should be encouraged to do a trade.

If that's what's important.

What we've said is we're going to set up and invest further into the Australian trade colleges

instead of the TAFE model.

It allows kids in year 10 and 11 and 12 to start their apprenticeship and get some of

that underway by the time they leave school.

They can get paid for part of it, they're developing skills.

And in addition to that, we're putting $12,000 into a wage subsidy for trainees and for apprentices,

so that employers see them as more attractive.

And we'll employ more apprentices, particularly in the construction sector as well.

And the final one is health.

Labor has committed, and this is going to rank all years of Medicare, but Labor has

committed $8.5 billion to Medicare, aiming to have 90% of GP visits, that's visits to

the doctor, bulk billed by the end of the decade.

I presume it means 2030.

This includes funding for urgent care clinics and women's health initiatives.

That's great.

Thank you.

What do you say about that?

Well, some of the government's claims at the moment in relation to health, as it pointed

out before, are just completely overblown.

So when I was health minister, the bulk billing rate was 84%.

It went up, and the prime minister makes this point, that it went up over the course of

COVID because more people were doing telehealth consults, et cetera, getting vaccinations.

It went up to 88%.

Today it's at 77%, so down 11 points.

And Australians are finding it hard to get into a doctor.

So as a dad, as somebody who used to be a doctor, it's hard to get into a doctor.

But as a dad, as somebody who uses the health system, obviously myself, I want to make

sure that we can have a really strong primary care network because that stops people from

going to hospitals and presenting at emergency departments.

It means that there's early detection of cancers, and it means you can be treated much earlier.

And blokes in particular, I might say, should go to the doctor more regularly.

Women are much better at going to the doctor more regularly.

And we need to invest in training of GPs because we've got an aging workforce.

More GPs.

More GPs are getting older and retiring.

And also, it's less attractive as a specialty compared to obstetrics or gynecology or to

other specialties where people can make more money.

So we've got to properly pay the doctors.

So we support additional investment into Medicare, and we've been very clear about that.

We've doubled the number of psychology sessions, which labor cut in half because particularly

for young kids with complex psychological needs, we need to get them with more support,

not less.

And we've made a big investment into GP training.

We've worked with the Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australian College of General

Practice to come up with that plan.

So a very strong supporter of general practice, and there's probably some similarities between

where labor's at at the moment and us.

I just think we can manage the economy more effectively, which means that we can ultimately

invest more into health, and that can help keep people healthier and detect particularly

those cancer types earlier, which means the survival rates are much higher.

But just so anyone listening or watching can get it clear, you're not going to smash Medicare.

No.

Where's that coming from?

But it's their scare campaign.

And remember, they ran it before Tony Abbott got elected, and they ran it before Scott

Morrison got elected.

They ran it before John Howard got elected.

And before Malcolm Turnbull was elected, there was this Mediscare campaign that we were going

to privatize Medicare.

I remember older Australians coming up.

They were coming up to us on the booth crying, saying, I voted for you for all of these

years.

Why are you going to sell Medicare?

And it proved to be a complete and utter fabrication.

Like they were misleading and lying to elderly Australians, scaring them.

And that is part of their campaign again now.

I just think Australians realize it's a con job.

And the prime minister is saying all of this because he can't get reelected on his track

record and throw the mud.

Throw the mud, run the scare campaigns, tell the lies.

That's how you get elected.

And that's what this election is about.

And I intend to make sure that that's not the case.

And I want to stand up for our country.

I want to make sure that we're safe and secure.

I want to make sure we can get our country back on track as well as the economy and help

people live their lives again.

We've had seven consecutive quarters, so 21 months of negative household growth.

That is, households have been in recede for almost two years under this campaign.

And as I said earlier, the biggest drop in living standards that Australians have experienced.

And people know it.

And they're the stories we've heard, the tears that we've seen when we've spoken to families

who are working their guts out and just going backwards at the moment.

And people aren't better off today than they were three years ago.

And people can't afford three more years of a bad government.

It will end up like Victoria, but at a national level.

When you get a second term, the first term looked bad.

But the second term, it was bad.

But the second term is when they really consolidate the bad decisions and lock in the debt that

might be paid off for a generation.

And let's change the government now and get things sorted.

Just as you could help me out, because you're a political scientist, and I don't mean in

terms of academia, but you are a political scientist and that's the game you work in.

Just an observation, and maybe you could help me out, though, it seems to me what most people

are thinking about is for this election is that labor is about big government.

Working in the money market, you learn pretty quickly that good platforms matter, whether

it's trading, banking, or managing your portfolio.

If the tech behind it isn't solid, it shows.

SwiftX is a crypto platform designed with that same mindset.

It's not just another exchange.

It's a proper platform built with the user in mind, an intuitive interface, real security

measures, and an actual customer support you can talk to.

They've taken what can be a premium platform.

They've taken what can be a premium platform.

We've made it a pretty overwhelming space and made it accessible to the everyday punter.

Whether you're taking your first step into digital assets or already have some skin in

the game, SwiftX makes the whole experience smoother.

If you're looking for a crypto platform that is built to work for you, not to confuse you,

check out SwiftXswyftx.app.

Mark Boras for more info.

You were made for taking care of your dog's every need.

and Farrah Pets was made for taking care of their digestive needs.

Farrah's probiotic supplement is made with innovative ingredients,

herbs, and botanicals specifically formulated to help your dog thrive.

Because when it comes to your dog's gut health,

we were made for going above and beyond, just like you.

Visit farrahpets.com slash dog to get 20% off today.

That's F-E-R-R-A-H-P-E-T-S dot com slash D-O-G.

Farrah Pets. We were made for this.

Because they take the view, and rightly or wrongly,

I know what my position is, but everyone will have a different position,

but big government movements like Labor take the view

that government make the best decisions for everybody.

So how you live your life, I'll sort it out.

I'll build the rules around how you live life.

COVID's a good example, which is what happened in Victoria.

We as a government are better making decisions about how you live your life.

Therefore, as a result of that,

we will build government out bigger and bigger and bigger if you vote us in.

But you're going to have more rules, more regulation.

If you're in a small business, you're going to have to buy more.

Many more rules as to how you're going to administer your business.

You've got to collect the tax. You've got to do this. You've got to do that.

Whereas the liberal program has been obviously government.

You've got to have rules, but smaller government.

And the vote for Labor, in my opinion,

and if you are someone who's going to vote for Labor,

in my opinion, you are voting for big government.

And by voting for big government,

the job of someone in working government is to make more rules.

That's what governments do. They govern.

They make rules.

And they make more rules and more rules and more rules.

And when it comes to working out whether I'm better off today

compared to what I was, say, three years ago,

I just know there's a whole lot more rules around than there was three years ago.

Just take economics aside.

Yes.

And is the Liberal Party still standing?

Is the Liberal Party still standing for, let's call it smaller government

relative to what Labor does?

The short answer is yes.

And I think you're right in your analysis.

It's just a philosophical, ideological difference between the two parties.

And everybody can make their own decision about this, but they should know.

Of course. Yeah.

So look, the Liberal Party approach is to knowing that we're spending

taxpayers' money to pay the wages of public servants in Canberra

is to make sure that the money is spent efficiently.

So let's get the best bang for our buck and let's,

let's make sure that we're employing people who are making it easier for you

to navigate government services or get the services that you are relying on from government.

One of the reasons I think that we've established a lot of inefficiency

and why we're passing a lot of cost onto the end user,

say in the construction sector, I think is a good example,

that the Labor government will always try and please the unions.

So the CFMEU has donated $12 million since Anthony Albanese became,

Labor leader, they've let the CFMEU, you know, largely go untouched.

The CFMEU workplace now is at about 2.4 days a week.

So, and as we said earlier, we discussed this, you end up paying,

you know, twice the amount to construct a building.

And it's why the cost of a two bedroom unit has gone up so dramatically

and why it's cost a lot of people additional holding costs.

So the developer buys the block of land, the government,

used to approve that development application in say three months.

It now takes three years or six years.

And so the costs of that interest ultimately get paid by the young couple

who's buying the two bedroom unit.

And the reason why that's blown out is because government has expanded.

And when you bring new public servants on, they look for new things to do.

That's their job.

Exactly.

And they don't find efficiency.

They find reasons.

They find reasons to prolong the discussion.

And we need to consider more factors and we need more reports

and you need to pay the consultants more and more.

And that's what's driven up the cost.

And the Labor government's employed an extra 41,000 public servants in Canberra.

And to put that into perspective on a per capita basis,

and it's a really interesting graph, I think it was in The Economist just recently,

but Australia has the highest number of public servants per capita

compared to any other country, including European countries in the world.

Wow.

And that means that it's grown at about three times the rate under this government

compared to when Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd were in government last.

So that is a pretty phenomenal growth number.

Now, if you're talking a wage bill there of over $7 billion a year,

you think what you can do for that?

You can drop petrol by 25 cents a litre.

It costs you $6 billion a year.

You can provide-

Permanently.

Permanently.

You could provide more support to defence.

You could give more funding to roads.

You could provide more support in aged care.

There are a lot of things that you can do for that money.

And if you can deliver a more efficient service

and you can make it easier and less costly to deal with government,

you end up reducing the overall costs that have to be complied

or paid for to comply with the government regulations.

And that's a big difference between the two parties.

The Commonwealth Public Service Union, of course,

applaud the Albanese government for employing more public servants in Canberra,

because they get to clip the ticket and they get to collect the union fees.

And then the CPSU pay the union fees to the Labor Party to help them campaign.

That's their business model.

I want an efficient public service and I want a smaller government

and I want people to be able to make decisions that are right for them

and right for their families and right for their businesses.

And I'm not interested in having to tell you whether you turn left or right

coming out of your bedroom or whether you-

whether you're allowed to serve up that cereal in the morning

or whether you're allowed to do this or that in your life.

I want you to make those decisions.

And that's the big difference between the two parties.

The Labor Party believes in a command and control model and that's-

They believe they're better off at making decisions than we are as individuals.

Yes, and again, because it's a trust thing.

They don't trust business owners because they think they're there to exploit workers,

as we said before.

They want to give-

a model where people can rent for life because that means that, you know,

you've got-

you're not empowering a landlord who's got that subservient relationship.

They want the super funds to own the houses that people live in

and give them, you know, a rent for life model.

And I-

they're just-

they're fundamental differences between the two parties.

And that sort of takes us around sort of that territory of socialism

because that's sort of the philosophy of socialism.

Yeah.

And all these things, apart from being efficient, end up costing us more money.

So, it makes the whole business cycle inefficient.

Just so I'm clear though, any public servant who's listening to this doesn't mean that

if Dutton gets in, he's going to go and fire everybody.

No, I mean, look at what we did again when we were in government.

We found efficiencies and we did reduce the overall number of public servants,

as we're proposing at this election as well.

But we're at a sensible, sustainable market.

We're at a stable market.

We're at a stable model and trying to get that balance right.

As I say, where people are working harder and paying more tax,

they want to know that it's being spent efficiently.

And if they think we're just employing public servants in Canberra to please the union

as the Labor Party has done, well, that's not an efficient use of your money.

If you're making an application to be, you know, a pensioner,

or if you're working in the Department of Defence,

you want to know that they're the most streamlined processes going.

And we should be encouraging the state governments and the councils to do that, as well.

And encourage them to be efficient in the taxes that they're applying

and the public servants that they're employing

and the way in which they spend their taxes as well.

And sometimes the Commonwealth government can incentivise state governments

to try and cut waste and try and condense timelines for approvals, et cetera.

Not abandon environmental considerations, et cetera.

But it takes 16 years in our country now for a mine to be approved.

What's happening there?

Well, those companies like Rio,

they're just taking money, they're putting it into Africa,

they're putting it into Asia, North America.

We lose the jobs, we lose the taxes,

and we would end up being more environmentally responsible

in that mining operation than what would happen in Africa.

And so we don't improve the overall emissions, you know, across the world.

And we do ourselves out of huge revenues.

And we could be building more schools or we could be providing, you know,

more GPs.

They're the fundamental differences I think, between the two parties.

So Peter, the election is on in three to four days from now,

it's the last run home.

We've got like 100 meters to go.

It looks like there's a, you know, you've got to really put your stride out.

What are you going to say to Australians now?

Why vote for the coalition?

We're gonna work hard right up until election night

because I believe we can win the election.

And I believe we can,

win it because not just of the track record of the last three years and how hard that's been for a

lot of families, but probably more importantly because of what we've got on offer. And that is

a positive plan. It's about providing immediate assistance and it's the 25 cent a litre cut. It's

the $1,200 back. It's fixing up the energy system straight away and it's fixing the economy so that

the economy can be working for people, not that people are slaves to the economy. I want to

create an environment where we can support families and help small businesses grow again,

where we can bring inflation down so that we can bring interest rates down and we can be a safe

society as well. I want people to be safe in their own homes. I want them to be safe in their

communities. And I want us to be safe as a country in a very uncertain century. And we have the

experience to be able to do that. And we have the capacity when you look at the front bench and

Angus Taylor and Jane Hume and others who are

very accomplished people in their own business lives, et cetera, they bring a lot of experience

to the table as well. And we have the ability to clean up this mess of the last three years

and help bring down the cost of petrol, of power, of electricity and gas. And we can help

rebuild the economy. And that's exactly what liberal governments have done after

bad Labor governments before. Peter Dutton, thanks for giving our audience a better sense

of who Peter Dutton is.

My pleasure, Mark. Thank you very much.

Not all that long ago, money was simple. You earned it, saved some, spent some,

and maybe invested in a house if you were lucky. No apps, no online banking,

no thinking beyond what was in your wallet. But times have changed. In today's money market,

growth can come in many ways. And the way we think about cash is continuously evolving.

Enter Australia's highest rated crypto exchange, SwiftX. Whether you are just starting to explore

the crypto market or are already a crypto enthusiast, you can find out more about SwiftX.

Already deep in the game, SwiftX makes it easy to acquire, sell, and trade digital assets

all in one place. So if you're someone who's thought about dipping your toes in the crypto

market, but isn't sure where to start, this might be for you. Visit swiftx.app

forward slash Mark Boris to check it out. If you've been listening along for a while,

you'll know I'm all about staying sharp physically and mentally. As I get older,

staying on top of my head, I'll be able to do a lot of things. So if you're someone who's

being smarter with how I support my body and mind day in, day out. One product I've already

added to my routine from the bulk nutrients range is their NMN Extend. It's a science-backed blend

of 10 powerful ingredients, including NMN, resveratrol, and hyaluronic acid. Now this

is designed to support everything from energy and muscle recovery to skin hydration, joint health,

and even mental clarity. And by the way, I need all those. Whether I'm powering through a busy

week or just investing in my long-term health, NMN Extend helped me stay ready for whatever's

next. And believe me, it tastes pretty good too. Head to bulknutrients.com.au and see why NMN

Extend might be the edge you've just been looking for.