Minister Plibersek TV interview on Seven Sunrise
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Topics: Resumption of Parliament; Newspoll results; Productivity Roundtable; Governor-General Sam Mostyn’s Pre-Parliament Barbecue.
MONIQUE WRIGHT: Well, the 48th Parliament will officially open tomorrow with Labor entering with a supersized majority of 94 seats while the Opposition holds 43, the crossbench 13. This morning, the first Newspoll result since the election is spelling bad news for the Coalition, which dropped to its lowest primary vote in 40 years. Labor also increased its lead on the two-party preferred metric and Anthony Albanese holds a wide margin over Sussan Ley in the preferred PM result. For their take, let’s bring in Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce. I like you two together, so it’s great to see you both. Thank you. Barnaby, we’ll start with you. Gosh, they’re brutal numbers, aren’t they? How long do you see it taking the Coalition to come back from numbers like that?
BARNABY JOYCE: Yeah, well, they are brutal numbers, and I think the first thing you do is you be honest about them. Obviously, this is going to be a hard time in that joint question time. You just got to be diligent with what you’ve got. Let’s be frank, any person in a lower house seat, in your House representative seat, wherever it is. Watson, Farrer, New England. If you had a three in front of your number on your primary vote, you’d be very, very worried. You’d be thinking that things are not looking good. And if you had a two in front of your vote, you’d basically kiss yourself goodbye. So, let’s be honest about it, it is not good. And I think the Coalition’s role, I hate to sort of preach here, is you have to find issues which are binary, which you are fully for and the Labor Party is fully against. If you try and work on nuances and ameliorations and sort of views of a different issue, that’s not good. And that’s why such issues such as net zero, I say, look, find a point of division. You don’t believe in net zero. They do believe in net zero. You believe in looking after pensions and power prices. They believe in abiding by a Paris agreement. But if you’ve got another way about it, they’re your numbers.
WRIGHT: Yeah, okay, Tanya. On the flip side, of course, Labor’s Newspoll numbers are absolutely soaring. Labor’s Milton Dick has warned that everyone needs to show respect despite the super-sized majority. Of course, hubris could be a major issue here. How do you possibly make sure that everyone comes back to Parliament without being overconfident?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Well, the Prime Minister has made it very clear that we are there to deliver what we promised the Australian people. And that’s our 100 per cent focus. So, our first pieces of legislation will be reducing student debt, making sure that childcare centres have higher standards and protecting penalty rates, because that’s what we promised to do. I’m a bit alarmed that Barnaby thinks that the lesson from the last election was that they weren’t negative and combative enough. I think the Australian people are a bit tired of that sort of fighting politics where, you know, Members of Parliament look around for things to disagree on. I think the exact opposite is the case. What the Australian people want us to do is work together to serve them to the best of our ability. Well, you didn’t do it, Barnaby. You were so combative in the last Parliament. It was the Noalition last time. Actually, getting on board and working together for the Australian people is what they want from us.
WRIGHT: I like it how we’re having a disagreement on conflict.
JOYCE: Well, it didn’t work for us, did it? I mean, the point is we, we did agree with a lot of things.
PLIBERSEK: We didn’t do it.
JOYCE: We went through the campaign basically agreeing on the crucial issues, crucial policies such as net zero, such as trying to get down the price of power. You believe in it; we believe in it. And they voted for you.
WRIGHT: Yeah. Okay. All right, let’s move on now. And a group of unions from the manufacturing, nurses and midwifery sector are pushing for the Prime Minister to prioritise shorter working weeks and more holidays in order to boost productivity. Now this group says that four-day weeks or reduced hours are key to a healthier work life balance. Tanya, what do you think? Are you going to try and keep the unions happy here? Could we be seeing a four-day working week?
PLIBERSEK: Well, we listen to all views respectfully and the Treasurer’s roundtable on productivity, I think, is a great way of bringing unions and business and other groups together to discuss how we make our economy stronger and more productive. What we won’t be doing to improve productivity is ask people to work longer for less. That was the policy of the previous government. We want to invest in our people, boost training, invest in technologies and new ways of working, make sure that we’re playing to our competitive advantage as a nation. That’s how we boost productivity.
WRIGHT: Okay, all right. We want to finish on maybe a high note. Political rivalries were set aside yesterday when the Governor-General Sam Mostyn hosted a pre-Parliament barbecue. We understand this might be one of the first ones that has happened of these, MPs and their families were at Government House on the weekend. Tanya, we understand that you couldn’t make it yesterday. Is it cooler not to go to these sort of events, you know, say, oh, I had a thing.
PLIBERSEK: No, I did have a thing. I had some previous engagements in Sydney. But I think this is a lovely thing that the Governor-General’s done. I know that, particularly for new Members, inviting their family to Canberra, actually being invited to the home of the Governor-General, the official residence. It’s a really special day. And doing that in a bipartisan way, bringing people together, making sure that people understand that all of us, even if we share different views about how to make the country better, actually are there because we want to make the country better. I think it’s a really nice thing that the Governor-General’s done. And I’m sure that Members of Parliament and their families enjoyed it very much.
WRIGHT: Yep. Enjoy a snag together. Barnaby, before we let you go. How exciting is a gathering of politicians at a party?
JOYCE: Well, we’re on a unity ticket here because neither Tanya nor I were there. Look, it’s really important for people, I believe, who are starting politics to get to Government House to take their families. That’s important. But let’s be honest, Tanya had something else to do and I had to split firewood and check the cattle before I headed off for a while, make sure the house had firewood. But look, it’s really important. It’s an incredible honour to come in the door here. It’s an incredible honour to work here. And you’ve got to understand, it’s a part of the ritual is Government House. And it’s an incredible honour to go there. But it’s, let’s be frank, it’s more important for people who are starting in politics than people who’ve been here for a few terms. So, good luck to those families and I hope they enjoy watching their partners or their friends, whoever they are, have their first day in Question Time. What an incredible honour that is. Never, ever lose sense of that feeling you get when you walk into that building.
WRIGHT: Maybe we’ve got to do one here at Sunrise so you can both make it. You wouldn’t want to have a thing if there’s something that we’re putting on.
JOYCE: We have a thing every Monday morning. Right?
WRIGHT: We do have a thing.
PLIBERSEK: All right.
WRIGHT
: Thank you, Barnaby. Thank you, Tanya. Nice to see you. Good luck this week.
PLIBERSEK: Morning.