Senator Dean Smith – Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury – Transcript – ABC Drive with Gary Adshead
Senator Dean Smith Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury Liberal Senator for Western Australia TRANSCRIPT – ABC DRIVE WITH GARY ADSHEAD Topics: WA election, Chinese warships, work from home policy for public servants, Roger Cook comments, Tony Burke citizenship tour E&OE GARY ADSHEAD: And joining us in the studio right now is the Labor Resources Minister Madeleine King. MADELEINE KING: Good to see you, Gary. GARY ADSHEAD: And the Federal Liberal Senator, Dean Smith. G’day. DEAN SMITH: G’day. Fresh off the pre poll, Gary. Madeleine and myself, we’re down in Rockingham getting a feel for it. GARY ADSHEAD: Alright, we’re getting a feel for it. Now… MADELEINE KING: You even got a bit of sunburn, Dean. DEAN SMITH: Actually a little bit. GARY ADSHEAD: Yeah, you need one of those big hats. Big Panama hat. DEAN SMITH: I got the sunburn in the northern suburbs supporting Liam Staltari and Scott Edwardes. MADELEINE KING: I didn’t get sunburnt supporting Magenta Marshall. GARY ADSHEAD: All this is brilliant. It’s just brilliant. I could just go now, leave them to it, because there is a state election, of course, on Saturday and you’ll be joining us, Madeleine, with the coverage here on ABC radio. So, thanks very much for doing that. MADELEINE KING: Looking forward to it. GARY ADSHEAD: Give us a bit of a sense though, because, I just wrote a column that would’ve been published yesterday for Business News magazine and I started looking at all the numbers, the margins and so on, and came up with things like, you know, impossible, improbable, implausible, and so on for the Liberal Party to be able to win this state election. But a lot of those margins, they just can’t be taken seriously given what happened in 2021. I mean you’d both agree with that, that there were artificial margins? MADELEINE KING: I mean, I don’t think anyone’s witnessed that kind of election where the margin for the Labor government was so large and called so quickly and that no matter who was in government, that can’t last forever. It shouldn’t last forever really. We need to have strong oppositions as well. DEAN SMITH: I’d agree that we need very strong and competent oppositions, particularly when governments have such huge majorities like they’ve had for the last four years. But, I mean, every election builds on the next election and I’m confident that we’ve got some great candidates across some important seats, and I think that Saturday night will turn out to be much more interesting for people than they might have thought. GARY ADSHEAD: What’s a win for the Libs? Is it 10, is it 12? Is it 15 seats back? MADELEINE KING: Must be at least 12. DEAN SMITH: I think there’s Madeleine trying to set the expectations. Look, success, there are many elements. There are many elements to success. One is how the campaign’s been conducted, and another is how individual seats look. I will not be so presumptuous as to as to make a statement about what looks good, bad or otherwise. GARY ADSHEAD: If you don’t get Nedlands back, if the Libs don’t get Nedlands back, then you would call that a… DEAN SMITH: Well, we don’t want to take anything for granted, there’s been a strong Nedlands campaign. There’s been a great Cottesloe campaign, there’s a great campaign in Churchlands. So, we’re hoping that voters there will elect Basil and elect Jonathan Huston… MADELEINE KING: Cottesloe’s one of the seats you hold already… GARY ADSHEAD: Only by 7.6, I think, something like that… DEAN SMITH: But with good, fresh candidates. GARY ADSHEAD: Can I just say Anthony Green’s in the building, so, you know, if he hears me and I say something that I think’s brilliant, he’ll come in and check me on it. But I have a view that if Churchlands, Nedlands and Carine haven’t fallen to the Liberal Party, back to the Liberal Party within two hours of the counting started, that it could be a long night for the Libs. DEAN SMITH: I don’t think it’ll be a long night for the Libs. I think that in Carine particularly we’ve had an excellent candidate, excellent campaign in Liam Staltari. Jonathan Huston’s done an excellent job in Nedlands. I was out with Sandra Brewer earlier this week and she’s doing a fantastic job. And what’s important for the Liberal Party, those seats are very important for the Liberal Party, because when the Liberal Party is able to restore itself in core Liberal seats, then the whole Party benefits. So, I’m very confident. GARY ADSHEAD: Well if the swing’s on…we’ll see it early in those three. That’s why I sort of pointed to it. MADELEINE KING: There has to be a massive swing of some sort. GARY ADSHEAD: It’s got to be… DEAN SMITH: But I think there are two things to look for, Gary. GARY ADSHEAD: It’s going to take a massive swing… DEAN SMITH: Two things to look for. The first, I think, will be the swing across regional Western Australia… GARY ADSHEAD: Yeah, I think regionally you’re right. DEAN SMITH: Really rude shock. Secondly, I do think that Labor has, and people won’t be surprised to hear this, I do think that Labor has taken voters for granted in traditional Liberal seats. And it’ll be very interesting to see the strength of anti-Labor sentiment in some of those seats. MADELEINE KING: On the same side of that though, Dean, but the Liberal Party took those same voters for granted and therefore lost all those seats. DEAN SMITH: I think the argument that Libby’s been making vey competently is the last four years have demonstrated complacency on the part of Roger Cook and Labor. This state has benefited from GST windfalls, good commodity prices. And I think many West Australians are saying what can they see for it? And where’s actually the vision for the future? Roger Cook has, you…