Dutton says he ‘accepts responsibility’ for loss of Aston
Dutton is asked a second time whether he failed his own test for the Liberal party leadership. He says that he “accepts responsibility” as leader of the party for the loss.
I was there last night to do that. I agreed to come on to the show this morning knowing that if you win, lose or draw, you need to front up.
Speers asks Dutton a third time whether he had failed his own test.
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Again, by not winning the election, we’ve failed that test, have been set for us by the Victorian people. That’s the reality. Now, the question is how we rebuild from here, the policies that we have, the brand rebuilding that we need to do in Victoria and it is a very significant issue for us.
Note the shift from “I” to “we” in that answer.
Key events
Andrews is providing details of the trip and the various arrangements that were struck and says the trade mission was important as China opens up after strict restrictions were put in place with the pandemic.
It’s sending that reminder that not only do we have a strong relationship and a strong partnership, but it’s growing.
So a very, very successful trip.
That’s an extra “very” that’s been added since we started.
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, has begun what will no doubt prove to be a sensible and dull press conference about his recent to China by declaring the visit “very successful”.
Andrews says members of the state’s university sector met with Chinese officials to find ways to work together.
He says arrangements were made for students to not only travel to Australia to study but for Victorian students to spend time in China.
Those linkages are important for all the relationships we have and China is one of those.
Andrews said China was “not the only” relationship, but it is a significant one for the state.
Latham to be frozen out in new NSW parliament
NSW’s Labor government will not work with One Nation leader Mark Latham at all and will begin a process that could again ban independent MP Gareth Ward from parliament.
With vote counting all but ensuring Premier Chris Minns will rule in minority, attention has turned to how the new NSW parliament will manage the re-elected pair.
Minns told Sky News on Sunday said he would not support any claim by Latham to chair an upper house committee and would not work with One Nation, which holds another two seats in that chamber.
It comes after Mr Latham refused to apologise for posting a homophobic and graphic tweet about independent MP Alex Greenwich that drew widespread condemnation, including from conservative commentators and One Nation matriarch Pauline Hanson.
We’re not going to work with him.
I’m not sure who’s going to lead the Liberal Party in the next few months, but I’ll call on their organisation to make a similar commitment.
Latham was trying to import a “US-style Trump-style approach” into NSW politics but was having much less success, Minns said.
The party slightly grew its vote in lower house contests but went backwards from its 2019 result in the upper house, its main avenue to influence.
The parliament was unable to discipline Latham as he had used a loophole allowing him to resign before the state election and run again for election, Labor’s upper house leader Penny Sharpe said on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Minns confirmed Labor would try to send the re-elected Gareth Ward to a parliamentary privileges committee, which considers matters of ethical standards.
Ward, a former Liberal minister, was re-elected as the independent MP for Kiama while fighting five sexual assault charges.
The committee would need to consider whether the parliament was brought into disrepute and the impact of voters choosing to again elect him, Minns said.
We believe that’s the due process and appropriate response, given what is a pretty unprecedented set of circumstances in NSW.
Ward could appeal any suspension to the Supreme Court, the premier said.
Ward was suspended from the last parliament after a motion was passed days after he was charged in March 2022.
He has since formally pleaded not guilty to all charges and is due to stand trial in the NSW District Court.
Ward has consistently maintained his innocence and said in a statement released last week he looks forward to getting back to work.
– AAP
WA premier to head to China on trade trip to ;reconnect; after pandemic
Western Australian premier Mark McGowan will lead a five-day trade mission to China to reconnect with the state’s largest trading partner, and unlike his Victorian counterpart he’s taking the media.
McGowan said on Sunday that the 17 April trip will be the first trade mission since the start of the pandemic and will include high-level meetings with key central government and industry leaders in energy, resources, science and innovation, international education and aviation.
WA’s economic relationship with China is crucial to the strength of our local economy, supporting thousands and thousands of local WA jobs.
Developed over several decades, our economic relationship with China is a mutually fruitful one.
This mission is a great opportunity to reconnect with Chinese leaders – from government to industry – and progress new trade and investment opportunities in a range of sectors.
Led by iron ore and other resources, WA accounted for more than half of Australia’s total trade in goods with China in 2021/22, worth $143.6bn.
A key feature of the WA mission will be the premier’s fifth annual WA-China Strategic Dialogue on 19 April, when up to 30 key business leaders from across Australia and China will gather in Beijing to discuss investment and trade opportunities.
Industries represented at the dialogue will include mining and resources, renewable energy, advanced manufacturing, financial services and banking as well as primary industries, the government said.
– AAP
A few more snaps from the prime minister’s photo op in Aston this morning – Albanese is now reportedly on his way to Perth.
Fantastic to welcome Mary Doyle into the team. She will be a strong local representative for Aston. Today the work starts on delivering a better future for her community. pic.twitter.com/6O0OtyQurX
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) April 1, 2023
Malcolm Turnbull weighs in on Liberals’ Aston byelection loss
Looks like former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull caught Peter Dutton’s interview on ABC Insiders this morning and has a few notes for the opposition leader.
jeez Peter – just tell the truth. Victoria is a small l liberal state and the Liberal Party egged on by the Murdoch media has moved further and further to the right. The last time the Liberal Party went ahead in Victoria was 2016 when Julia Banks won Chisholm #InsidersABC
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) April 1, 2023
Benita Kolovos
Coalition searches for answers after election loss
I’m hearing from a lot of Victorian Liberal MPs who are reeling following the party’s loss in Aston.
Federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton has put some of the blame on the Victorian division, which for years has been embroiled in factional infighting between socially progressive and more conservative members.
One state MP from the moderate camp said the loss proved the Liberal party needed to shift to the centre in an effort to grow its base.
Everyone is obsessed with keeping the base happy but the base is not reflective of the wider community. And let’s be frank, our definition of the centre is probably not reflective of the wider community either.
Victoria, whether we like it or not, is a progressive state so we need to consider that and reflect that in our policy offering. I don’t see how we will be able to pull that off though with some of the MPs and branch members we have in our party.
Another moderate MP said the party needed to get rid of “barnacles” in the state parliamentary party.
We did a bit of that at the election and brought in some great MPs but there’s more that need to go.
Others blamed Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto’s failed push to expel MP Moira Deeming from the state parliamentary team after she attended an anti-trans rally that organisers say was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis. The saga dragged on for nine days and was raised by Dutton in the federal party room earlier this week as a distraction from the Aston campaign.
We were talking about ourselves and no one likes [that]. If I were Dutton I’d be ropeable that was what was on the front pages of the papers for two weeks leading up to the byelection.
However, one MP said the Aston result “vindicated” the move by Pesutto to expel Deeming.
Sooner or later she has to go. People with very fringe, extreme views are turning people off from our party.
A final note on the proposed referendum before Dutton wraps:
We are happy for Australians to have a say, we have been very clear about that. We don’t hold the majority in the upper house or lower house. We will work with the government, despite all the rhetoric coming out of the prime minister, there are many bills we’ve supported the government, we will continue to do that, but when you are talking about constitutional change, you need to ensure that it does deliver to the community, particularly the Indigenous Australians, as the prime minister has said.
And that’s a wrap – what a doozy.
There’s another tense exchange about the detail on the voice – I’m going to provide it here in full.
Speers: Would you back it if…
Dutton: In fact, the government has gone against the solicitor general’s advise on this issue.
Speers: No, they say the solicitor general supports where they’ve landed.
Dutton: The solicitor general and attorney general went into the committee with advice to take out “executive government”.
Speers: They deny that, Mr Dutton. I need to be straight with our viewers. They’ve denied that.
Dutton: That’s what happened,
Speers: How do you know?
Dutton: Well, I have a better understanding, I suspect David. than…
Speers: Were you in the room?
Dutton: No, but I have a very clear understanding. I think some of your panel and others have written on this, with multiple sources out of the room and it has been the advice to the government consistently.
Speers: Regardless if they took that words out, you still may not back it, right?
Dutton: Well, we will have a look at the wording, but the government has been clear they won’t take it out. It is a deal-breaker with them and the prime minister has sided with the committee over the solicitor general.
Speers: When will you make a decision?
Dutton: Well in due course. Our party room will meet to have a discussion…
Speers: You won’t stop the referendum going ahead, would you?
Dutton: Well, David, we will meet as a party room and look at the options on the table.
Again, this is the opposition leader “fronting up”.
Dutton continues to express doubt about the Indigenous voice
Dutton will not confirm whether the Coalition will repeal the changes to the safeguard mechanism if re-elected – only that “in good time” his party will “go through the process to cost it properly”.
On the voice, Dutton again raises his concerns about the scope of the voice – before pointing to Alice Springs and saying “the women up there are screaming out for support. They have a voice now and it is not being listened to.”
Do I think that the voice is the panacea or it is going to create change for those people? Well, the prime minister needs to explain that.
Dutton is asked whether it is alarmist to say the voice will be “gumming up the works for the Reserve Bank or the defence force”.
David, this is the biggest change proposed to the Australian constitution since federation and the prime minister can’t answer basic questions as to how it will apply, ho you it will work. You can’t out legislate constitutional change. You need to ensure that it will be for the best, not a layer of bureaucracy, that the voice will reflect the views of people on the ground so we can get the outcomes we are talking about.
For the record, the RBA is an independent entity and the prime minister has repeatedly said the voice is not going to be advising on defence or national security issues.
Speers and Dutton have heated exchange about the cement industry
Speers then pulls up Dutton on why he would say the cement industry is leaving – which leads to another exchange – I’ve reproduced it here as best I can.
Speers: Why do you say that?
Dutton: Because we’ve spoken very clearly with the industry.
Speers: And they are leaving, are they? They’ve told you they are going to go?
Dutton: They have grave concerns about their sector. There are issues around steel.
Speers: The chief executive of Manufacturing Australia, the way the safeguard mechanism have been designed, they won’t have to pass on increases for steel, aluminium, bricks – are they telling you something different?
Dutton: If you have a company that has costs imposed on them, they will take a cut to the bottom line and pass cut the profit or pass it on to their consumers. There are a lot of consumers out there who are trying to build a house or renovate, realise that the costs are through the roof.
Speers: That is not what they’re saying publicly.
Dutton: Well, where we’ve spoken to people, it causes grave …
Speers: They are telling you something different, are they?
Dutton: I think there are a lot of people in this country saying different things publicly than they are in private. Well,
Speers: Why?
Dutton: Social media…
Speers: So they are lying to the public.
This, by the way, is the opposition leader “fronting up”.
Dutton says Coalition has been the ‘worst salespeople in terms of what we’ve done for the environment’
Speers and Dutton then have an exchange about whether the Coalition under his leadership is willing to change at all. Dutton says the party has to go back to its “fundamentals” but otherwise the answer appears to be no.
If we have policies to take to the election, David, we will do it in good time. We are not rushing out with policies at the 10-month mark that people will have no recollection [at the] three-year mark. It is about timing in this business and now is not the time to be putting out costed policies and changes to taxation policy or social policy or otherwise.
Speers then canvases various issues that are currently alive within Australian politics: climate change, the voice, the modest tax to super.
On climate change, Dutton says the Coalition have been the “worst salespeople in terms of what we’ve done for the environment” (a note there, that the opposition leader was asked about climate change, not the environment). He is then asked by Speers whether he accepts what the IPCC says:
I’m happy to accept it but we need to be realist why about what we can do as a country and driving businesses offshore will only increase emissions into the global environment and it will lose Australian jobs and lose productivity. The cement industry is one such industry that is at risk of leaving our shores.
‘The Liberal party has allowed itself to be defined by our opponents’: Dutton
Speers asks Dutton what the Coalition stands for in 2023 which leads to an interesting exchange:
Dutton
Well, we stand for aspiration. We stand for entrepreneurialism, so small businesses, we stand for national security obviously, and we always stand for cleaning up a Labor mess when we get back into government so that people can make their own choices.
Speers:
So much the same thing as the Scott Morrison-led Liberal party.
Dutton:
Well this goes back to the tradition of Menzies. I grew up in the Liberal party under John Howard, assistant treasurer to Peter Costello. We make decisions that, for example, people can keep more of their own money, so they can support their own family and there is a lot that we can put together by way of policy before the next election, but we are not announcing that at the 10-month mark.
Speers:
But is there a need for philosophical renewal, given where you are at?
Dutton:
Again, some of the attributes of the Liberal party frankly are timeless and worth us re-prosecuting. I think in recent years the Liberal party has allowed itself to be defined by our opponents and I think it’s time for us to take that back.
Dutton grilled on transgender rights stance
Dutton says he won’t tolerate discrimination on the basis of “their gender, sex, colour, anything” when asked where he stands on trans-rights issues.
I think I’ve demonstrated over my period of time in public life, I think people should have respect and the debate runs two ways. There are very strong views within many parts of Australian society, maybe not right here in inner city areas of our country, but in the outer metropolitan areas this is an issue in terms of women’s rights and the gender issue that has parents and others very worked up.
Dutton is asked whether he might have a problem with his MPs going to an anti-trans rally.
I don’t think MPs should be going to anti-anything rallies, to be honest.
There is one exception though, saying the only rallies his MPs should be going to “are anti-Labor rallies”.
Dutton acknowledges Coalition has ‘a particular problem in Victoria’
Speers asks whether the loss is because Dutton needs to “appease” the Nats and conservatives in your ranks.
Dutton says “not at all”.
I have a leadership style which I believe they appreciate which is why people very strongly are expressing their support to me and no doubt to you in relation to the mood in the party room at the moment. But we have a particular problem in Victoria. There is no question about that. And we have to learn the lessons and we build.
Speers then shows Dutton a map of metropolitan Melbourne with the various federal electorates. It’s a sea of red. He asks Dutton to explain why his party only now holds two blue seats.
If you go back to 2013 when we had a landslide Victory tri-. Victoria was still held by the Labor party. It has been going backwards for us since 1996, before I got into the parliament. No Liberal Leader before me has been able to rectify the situation in Victoria at a state level.
Speers asks if he can explain why, Dutton says “this is what I need to assess”.
There is an exchange now where Speers presses Dutton to offer some kind of analysis or insight – about why this state of affairs exists, about two or three times. Dutton responds:
That’s what we need to assess.
Peter Dutton says he is ‘determined to rebuild this party’
Dutton says “of course” he should stay as leader.
I can tell you it makes me more determined to rebuild this party and be in a winning position by 2025. I have been in a marginal seat the last two years, won by 22 votes, won by 9% and low and high-water marks. That is the nature of politics. Ours is now an opportunity to rebuild. We will do that over the course of the next couple of years and we will go into the next election in a position that will see us win it.
Dutton is asked about his comments at the byelection concession speech where he said the “one test of my leadership is whether we can keep the party together”. Dutton says that “parties always tear themselves apart in opposition”.
It is exactly what Mr Albanese was a part of when Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd lost the election, so we haven’t gone through that period of self-destruction.