Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash
Shadow Attorney-General
Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations
Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
TRANSCRIPT
Sky News Afternoon Agenda
Sky News Credlin
Topics: Tax/Albanese backflip, Turnbull, Dutton
6 February 2024
E&OE.
Peta Credlin
Shadow Attorney-General, Michaelia Cash. Michaelia, thank you for your time. The PM’s trying to use the Coalition changing your mind as somehow moving on from his broken promise. This is different though, you haven’t let him go on an issue, have you?
Senator Cash
Absolutely not. There’s only one liar in the Lodge, Peta and that is Anthony Albanese. This is the Prime Minister of Australia who looked Australians in the eye, knowingly and repeatedly and lied to them. It is because of the Prime Minister’s lies and broken promises that the stage three tax cuts as legislated, it’s now impossible to deliver them. And why did we say that? Because you’d need to find Peta, around $9 billion extra per year. And as you know, that is no easy feat. But what did the Prime Minister do? Let’s have a look at what he did. He took the money that was in the stage three tax cuts, he applied it to his own policy and then you’ve got to say to yourself – now why would he do that? Well Peta as you and I know because he needed a political dividend before the Dunkley by-election. That’s the decision of the Prime Minister, for a political dividend in Dunkley. He has lied to Australians and he has trashed his reputation in the process.
Peta Credlin
He said (The Prime Minister) in Mid-January on camera before the parliament returned that he was backing in those tax cuts, he would do them as legislated. Your colleague Jane Hume found out in Treasury questioning the other day – I think it was Monday, yesterday, that in fact that the Treasury officials were working on revised tax cuts way back in December.
Senator Cash
Absolutely, you cannot trust a thing the Prime Minister says going forward. This is a man who prior to the election Peter made so many promises. He’s failing to deliver on so many of them. Let’s start on the $275 reduction in your energy bill. They can’t even mention the word ‘275’. Then you have a look at the legislated tax cut – over 100 times he looked Australians in the eye up until recently Peta, and he said – My word is my bond. So Peta, when they now talk about negative gearing, franking credits and the family home, and they say we’re not going to touch them. What I say to Australians is this.
You have a liar in the lodge, don’t believe a word this Prime Minister says. If you do, it’s to your detriment.
Peta Credlin
Yeah, it’s a big call to trash your Prime Minister’s reputation for all of $15 a week and when Australians work out that all they get for this broken promise, I think that’s where the tables will turn. Let’s go to some other issues related to your portfolio, this struck me as extraordinary – the CFMEU in WA have got a 25% pay rise deal. Construction workers will go from 152,000 a year to 194,000 a year. Now I don’t begrudge workers getting a decent pay rise but this is 25%. We’ve got insolvencies, over 800 companies have gone to the wall in construction alone. And of course we saw yesterday that the massive company, St Hilliers – well, they’ve gone under. This is not going to help our housing woes, is it?
Senator Cash
Peta like you I don’t begrudge anybody a pay rise. The issue however, with the unions negotiating these types of agreements is you’ve got to ask, what’s the productivity increase? Because it’s only with a productivity increase, that you a) get increased prosperity and b) sustainable wage rises. But what does worry me is what the CFMEU is saying they want to do in Western Australia, my home state. They basically want pattern bargaining. So in other words, they want to apply to construction industry in Western Australia this one size fits all policy. Now Peta, how does that work for business? Businesses in particular in the construction industry – they are of different shapes, they are of different sizes and I really questioned the capacity of smaller and medium businesses in the construction industry to actually survive if these types of terms and conditions are actually imposed on them via pattern bargaining. And ultimately Peter, who loses out? The community. Why does the community lose out? Because they pay more. They pay more for roads, they pay more for schools, they pay more for hospitals.
Peta Credlin
Michaelia, what about reports today that Labor’s put a loophole into its IR legislation that could allow union thugs and criminals back onto work sites? They used to have to have you know an entry permit as I understand, what’s going on here?
Senator Cash
Well, you’re going to love this one, Peta. So they don’t talk about it before the election, they don’t talk about it during the consultation phase of the bill, they don’t put it in the legislation. But then they do a deal and miraculously, this clause appears. That’s transparency under Anthony Albanese. But let me tell you what it is – under this if a union official without a right of entry permit is invited onto a site by a health and safety representative they have to be given entry. But what does this mean in reality? Well Peta, a union official who’s failed the fit and proper person test, they can now go onto site. A union official who’s actually been stripped of their right of entry permit perhaps I don’t know for criminal behavior, bullying behavior, thuggery – they can now go on to site. So again, big clap for Tony Burke and Anthony Albanese, because you delivered for nothing more and nothing less – than the union movement in Australia to the detriment of employers.
Peta Credlin
Just before we go, last night on the ABC Former PM Malcolm Turnbull – he called Peter Dutton a thug, he said Scott Morrison was duplicitous, and this is what he had to say about a former colleague, Mathias Cormann.
Malcolm Turnbull
God Mathias has put on a lot of weight you know since 2018. He looks very kind of lean there sort of almost… I mean yeah I recall it well, that you know I mean that they you know… at least, Michaelia Cash looks appropriately ashamed of what she’s doing.
Peta Credlin
You know the Liberal Party rank and file better than anyone, Michaelia. How are they going to remember Malcolm Turnbull?
Senator Cash
Well Peta, I thought those comments were incredibly disappointing in particular coming from a former Prime Minister. I personally, and you will actually know this, we worked in the Coalition government, nine years. Do you know what I would have focused on Peta, I would have focused on the great achievements of the former Coalition government. I would have focused on what we achieved, in particular throughout the COVID period. In relation to Peter Dutton, I am very proud of the way Peter is leading the Coalition in particular, a united Coalition as we head towards next election. But in particular, everything that Peter Dutton is doing to expose Mr. Albanese as the liar in the Lodge and to hold this disastrous Labor government to account, that’s what I would have focused on.
Peta Credlin Alright, we’ll leave it there. We’ll both be polite and hold our tongues tonight. Michaelia thank you.
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