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

3 December 2024

Kieran Gilbert: We're joined now by the Manager of Opposition Business, Paul Fletcher. Let's return to federal politics. And Paul, I was just reading the speech you gave this week on the Teals at the last campaign and suggesting that every aspect of their campaign was carefully designed to dupe traditional Liberal voters. Is that the message you need to send to those voters to say that they were conned last time around? 

Paul Fletcher: Well, I think it's important to make the point to people what was done here, that we had a New York based progressive ad agency, Populares supporting the Teal campaigns we had Kos Samaras, the former assistant secretary of the Labor Party in Victoria. We had a very carefully limited range of issues on which they announced policies based upon research and these supposed genuine community based campaigns, by some remarkable coincidence, only turned up in seats that had traditionally been Liberal or National seats. So this whole exercise was designed to attract Liberal voters who were disenchanted with us after the tough period of Covid. And what we now know is how the Teals have voted in the parliament. They were an unknown quantity at the time, but now we know their voting record, and between 74 and 81 per cent of the time, they voted with the radical Greens party on substantive bills, on second reading votes and so on. And that includes, for example, instances where Kylea Tink and Sophie Scamps voted with the Greens to accuse Israel of war crimes. That includes advocacy for removing negative gearing. With both Sophie Scamps and Zoe Daniel on the record on that matter, so I'm simply making the point that the Teals should be held to the same scrutiny as everybody else in politics. And this was a very sophisticated, big money exercise designed to attract Liberal voters to vote for a Teal candidate. 

Kieran Gilbert: And you are pointing out, as well in the speech to the Sydney Institute, that it's not a coincidence that a third of the Teal candidates were the daughter or niece of long serving former Liberal MPs. You believe that's part of the con so to speak? 

Paul Fletcher: I think it was all part of the plan to you to have as your candidate somebody who is the daughter or the niece of a former long serving Liberal member of Parliament, all part of a plan designed to attract votes from people who traditionally voted liberal. And as I also point out in the speech, if you look at where their votes came from, the Teal candidates, a lot of it came from a reduction in the Liberal vote. But you also saw it coming from Labor and Greens voters who voted tactically because they saw this as a way to get rid of the incumbent Liberal MP. So the whole thing, very big money, $2.1 million spent in Kooyong, $2.1 million Wentworth, almost $10 million spent across those six seats. These are unprecedentedly large amounts of money to spend on campaigns in individual seats and I'm simply saying that the Teals ought to be subject to the same scrutiny as other politicians. And I'm also making the point that the Teals are a threat to majority government. Australia has had majority government for 80 years. The only exception was the 2010 to 2013 Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, which was chaotic. And so a key question the Teals should be asked. Every candidate should be asked is, well, if you were elected, which major party would you support to form government if neither major party achieves a majority.

Kieran Gilbert: Your primary vote fell by 15.3 per cent at the 2022 election. Do you think that we've seen there was that wave obviously at that election? Do you think it's reached its peak and that will abate that threat at the upcoming election? 

Paul Fletcher: Well, look, I don't want to engage in commentary. The observation I'd make, though, is that as I get around my electorate, you know, whether it was the Artarmon Street Fair a couple of weeks ago, the Wahroonga Village fete, a whole range of other events that I go to up and down the electorate. I find people are very unhappy with the Albanese Labor government. They're very concerned about 12 interest rate rises in a row. Business people are very concerned at demand dropping off. They're also very concerned, we had a forum with the Chatswood Chamber of Commerce together with Michaelia Cash, the Shadow Minister for Workplace Relations. As we explained to the business people assembled there that the CFMEU and other unions now have rights of entry into your business premises that are greater than the rights of entry that police have, that there's now a new definition of casual employees with nine or more different factors, and you could well find that the person who you think you're employing on a casual basis actually will be determined to be a full timer. These are all things that are causing a lot of angst, and I'm getting that consistently right across my electorate. 

Kieran Gilbert: It's three years since the federal government made that infamous promise to reduce power bills by $275. It's been anything but that. Is the Coalition though, ready for this campaign from the government, from the Prime minister saying that things would be a lot worse if the Coalition had its way and a lot of the cost of living relief wasn't able to flow?

Paul Fletcher: The solution to the cost of living problem is to have sound economic management, get government spending under control, therefore remove inflationary pressure from the economy and bring interest rates down. The reason that the RBA is having to keep interest rates up so high is because Jim Chalmers is busy spending money, $316 billion so far under this government, inflating, expanding, stimulating the economy, on the one hand, whereas the Reserve Bank is trying to slow the economy so as to bring inflation down and interest rates down. There is a complete disconnect between fiscal and monetary policy. We need to get those fundamentals right rather than these on Budget subsidies, which the government is doling out to try and paper over the cracks. It's not fooling anybody. The energy subsidies are inflationary. Economist after economist has said that. And without those subsidies, the true underlying rate of increase in the price of electricity, some 30 per cent since the election and gas 33 per cent.

Kieran Gilbert: Without those subsidies, people would be hurting a lot more, wouldn't they?

Paul Fletcher: If we didn't have the chaotic economic mismanagement of the Albanese Labor government, then those trigger factors causing people to be hurting could already, in many cases, have been addressed.

Kieran Gilbert: Paul Fletcher, great to chat. We’ll catch you soon. Appreciate it.

Paul Fletcher: Thank you.