Doorstop Interview, Ministerial Reshuffle

E&OE

MINISTER:

Good afternoon everyone.

If you perhaps have questions for me, rather me giving statements to you, so I’ll just let you go ahead.

QUESTION:

Congratulations firstly.

What are your priorities going to be as Attorney-General?

MINISTER:

Well, obviously there are some very important transitions that are underway, particularly in the creation of the Home Affairs portfolio – some movements of responsibility into the Attorney-General’s portfolio and some transition of responsibilities of Attorney-General’s to Home Affairs portfolio. S, immediately, over the next several weeks, I’ll be working very closely with Peter Dutton to ensure that those transitions occur as smoothly as possible, and that they enhance our national security in a way that we all hope and we envisage.

QUESTION:

What have been your concerns with that structure that Peter Dutton has designed?

MINISTER:

No I have none.

I think that – and I observe this, obviously, with a legal eye from a different portfolio – I think it is a common sense structure, I think that it reverts the Attorney-General’s portfolio to it’s more traditional probity and integrity and oversight role, and it allows for the greatest critical mass of those organisations that you need to greatest cooperation from under one Minister, in one portfolio.

QUESTION:

Will one of your biggest challenges be to try and rein in Peter Dutton?

MINISTER:

I would think that this is not something that will be a great challenge for me.

Peter Dutton is of course enthusiastic, incredibly hard working, incredibly well equipped – and look at this Minister’s record – I mean his record is utterly outstanding in the Immigration portfolio, I don’t conceive of anyone to be better positioned to take on the position of Home Affairs Minister.

QUESTION:

What will you be bringing to the portfolio at a federal level? You were the Attorney-General in Western Australia as well.

MINISTER:

I’m a lawyer by trade, I’ve spent many years as a Crown Prosecutor, but what I would hope is that I bring at least a range of reasonable legal skills to the role. But also, I hope a degree of common sense – sometimes you can be overly lawyerly with some problem solving, and one of the things about the portfolio that I hope I will bring is some common experience.

QUESTION:

How do you see your portfolio working, you say it might be becoming a more tradition type of Attorney-General because of the Home Affairs Department – how is that going to work in practice?

MINISTER:

I think it is about the focus of the energies and time of any Attorney-General, and so what you see here is that there are oversight roles being brought in to the portfolio and oversight roles that are being retained, but deemed being retained with respect to a larger Home Affairs portfolio.

So I think that it’s going to require a keen eye for detail, for integrity, for probity and for oversight – and that does represent a slightly more traditional role to the Office of Attorney-General, but one that I think can be very well undertaken and, I think it’s appropriate in the structure of government.

QUESTION:

How important is this – your appointment, your promotion – and also Michaelia Cash being given extra duties as well for the West Australian Liberals who, obviously had a bit of a bad time at the last State Election?

MINISTER:

Well I think that what it reflects is trying to find the right people for the right positions at the right time.

Next years agenda for us, as a government, is utterly focussed on the economic security for Australians, on growing further the already impressive job growth that we have had, and ensuring the physical safety of Australians on a national security front.

So what you’ve seen, I think, is changes of course around Home Affairs and the way that those structures work to enhance our national security, and what you’ve seen is also Michaelia Cash coming into a role that even further enhances her very considerable ability to contribute to job growth in Australia.

So, what is in the national interest is very often, and almost always in West Australia’s interest, insofar as we have experienced some economic difficulties after the end of the mining boom, the fact that we are now in a national economy, creating a thousand jobs a day is a fantastic thing for Western Australia, and that is something that we very much want to continue.

QUESTION:

Does Michaelia Cash deserve that promotion, given that her office was involved in that whole AFP raid debacle?

MINISTER:

Michaelia Cash is the Employment Minister in a government that has produced 300 per cent greater jobs growth in last year than in the final year of the Labor Government.

So if you measure Michaelia Cash on her record, her record is utterly outstanding.

What Australians want to see, is not all of this internal stuff, they want to see jobs being created, they wat to see greater job security, they want to see competition for jobs grow wages – that is actually what we are delivering.

What they want to see is less Australians dependant on welfare. We’ve got 140, 000 less Australians dependant on welfare – the lowest percentage of welfare dependency since the 1980’s in Australia.

So this change, and these changes to the portfolio give us an even stronger team moving forward to focus on the things that matter to most Australians.

QUESTION:

Are you entirely happy with the NDIS as you leave that portfolio?

MINISTER:

I don’t deny the challenges. I think that I’m leaving it in very good shape for Dan Tehan to come in.

We have moved from 20, 000 to 120, 000 people over the two years that I have been in the portfolio – that is an incredibly difficult task at a massive scale. Anyone who underestimates the enterprise that we are engaged in in establishing the NDIS and moving it from 120, 000 participants up to over 460, 000 Australians should not underestimate that task.

We’ve moved from 20, 000 to 12, 000 in the time that I have had stewardship for it. We’ve had a full review of it by the Productivity Commission that has, in essence, said that it is on track and on budget. Now that is a very clean bill of health for a very complicated rollout.

There are always things that we want to improve, and I was constantly working to improve them and I’m sure that the new Minister will be doing that as well.

But, as I speak with Dan Tehan coming into the roll, one of the things that I will be paying particular focus on is the status of the NDIS rollout, where improvements are necessary and what we are doing to ensure those improvements occur.

QUESTION:

Do you think it’s fair for Darren Chester to lose his spot in the Cabinet, if it really is just an issue of geography and him being from the wrong state?

MINISTER:

Well I know Darren very well, I think he’s made an outstanding contribution. I don’t think that this is the end of contributions that he will make. I understand that it always a balancing process for both Parties – the Liberal Party and the National Party – in determining Cabinet ministerial positions. I understand why that balancing processes has not working in Darren’s favour in the occasion, but he is a great bloke, he’s incredibly well respected, he did wonderful things in his portfolio and this isn’t the end of Darren Chester’s portfolio career ambitions.

QUESTION:

Reacting to this reshuffle, Bill Shorten has accused the Prime Minister of having both an anti-Tasmania bias and also the Liberal’s of having a problem with the number of women in leadership positions. What do you say to those allegations?

MINISTER:

When you’re creating 300 per cent greater job growth than Bill Shorten’s government was creating in their last year, of course you would say stupid things like that.

But if that’s the best that you can say, than I think that you’re not focussing on the things that are important to most Australians.

Their physical security and national security is important. Making sure we have fewer Australians dependant on welfare, tracking back to surplus, having jobs for your kids to go into and proper job growth – these are the things that people care about, and on these issues we are performing very well and will perform even stronger in 2018.