TRANSCRIPT - Sky News NewsDay with Kieran Gilbert

PAUL FLETCHER MP

Shadow Minister for Science and the Arts

Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy

Manager of Opposition Business in the House

TRANSCRIPT

SKY NEWS NEWSDAY

25 November 2024

Kieran Gilbert: Let’s return now to Canberra. It’s the final sitting week of 2024. The Manager of Opposition Business Paul Fletcher joins me live in the studio and a lot of talk around this building. Is it the last week of the term as well as the last week of the year? I know the Prime Minister scheduled in a Budget for March, but there’s an expectation that he might go straight after Australia Day and try and catch the Coalition on the hop.

Paul Fletcher: Well, whenever it comes and it’s the Prime Minister’s decision, of course we will be prepared. Of course, this week we’re focused on what’s going to be a pretty chaotic sitting week. This government has left a lot of things to the last minute. It’s spent, you know, much of the first half of its term, this term of parliament, thinking about the Voice and not doing much else. In government. you’ve got to keep a lot of things going at the same time. And so in area after area, there’s legislation backed up. Of course, we’ve made it clear that we support the social media age verification Bill, and we’ll work with the government to get that through. We’ve called for that to be legislated this week.

Kieran Gilbert: What’s the feedback you’re getting in Bradfield as a local member on that issue?

Paul Fletcher: I think it’s clear mums and dads are very concerned about the impact of social media on their children, on their children’s mental health, on the distraction factors, and I certainly get support from the parents I speak to, and they recognise that the Coalition has really led on social media. We established the eSafety Commissioner going back as far as 2014. We passed the Online Safety Act in 2020. We have led on this, and of course, it was Peter Dutton who called for this age limit for access to social media. 

Kieran Gilbert: It was in June, wasn’t it? 

Paul Fletcher: Yes that’s right.

Kieran Gilbert: So it’s a quite a while back. I think a lot of voters, whether they’re swing voters or Labor or Liberal, I think would welcome the fact that there’s some progress on this before Christmas. I think that it’s a positive way to finish the year.

Paul Fletcher: We support it. We’ve been clear we want to work on a bipartisan basis with the government. Look, I congratulate Peter Dutton and also David Coleman, our Shadow Minister for Communications, for the leadership they have shown on this. And let’s hope we can get it done this week. Not entirely within our control, but we’ll support it.

Kieran Gilbert: On the other areas, so that’s an area of bipartisanship. There are areas where you disagree, like on the production tax credits for critical minerals. It’s a very important issue in WA. It’s a big risk isn’t it?

Paul Fletcher: We were very clear when the Budget, when this measure was included in the Budget, that we didn’t support it. We support businesses of all kinds, including the resources sector. The way to boost business, the way to get more resources investment is to get inflation down. So businesses are not seeing rising costs. To their energy costs down. To not have a more expensive, more cumbersome, more intrusive industrial relations system. These are all the things that are holding back business and for government to be making specific choices, targeting tax relief to one particular area, not another. We think those are decisions best made by private sector investors. The thing to do is to create the right conducive conditions for investment and for business activity.

Kieran Gilbert: You have been accused, the Coalition, of blocking the cost of living measures at every turn. It’s going to form part of Labor’s advertising as well. It already has. Is that a vulnerability given the cost of living is so central to the next election?

Paul Fletcher: We will be making the point that this government has created this inflation problem. Core inflation 3.5 per cent, we above the RBA’s band. Australia is, I think, of 42 countries, has the second highest predicted inflation next year, according to the International Monetary Fund. This is, this government is following the same pattern we saw under the Whitlam Government 50 years go. Loss of control of the economy, inflation running rampant and that is creating a lot of misery for millions of Australians.

Kieran Gilbert: Have you been too obstructionist with the Greens, as the government will argue?

Paul Fletcher: Not at all, not at all. But what we will be putting to the Australian people is our clear plans for how we will focus on getting inflation under control. We won’t be spending money on 36,000 additional public servants at a cost of $24 billion. We made that very clear after the Budget, and there’s a whole range of other ways in which we will offer people a clear choice so we can get inflation under control.

Kieran Gilbert: Paul Fletcher, thanks. Talk to you soon.

Paul Fletcher: Thanks, Kieran.