Senator Dean Smith – Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury – Transcript – Interview with Gary Adshead, ABC Drive
SENATOR DEAN SMITH SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMPETITION, CHARITIES AND TREASURY LIBERAL SENATOR FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA TRANSCRIPT – INTERVIEW WITH GARY ADSHEAD, ABC PERTH DRIVE Topics – Leader’s debate; polls, early voting; defence spending; EV subsidies E&OE GARY ADSHEAD And we have in Canberra Dean Smith, the Liberal Senator firebrand, as we like to call him. DEAN SMITH G’day to you, Gary and Madeleine. MADELEINE KING Why don’t you put that on a t-shirt, Gary? DEAN SMITH I thought you might ask me what I’m doing in Canberra when I should be somewhere at pre poll? MADELEINE KING Well, I was going to just let that slide by. GARY ADSHEAD Well, I just thought it must be sort of secret business. I wasn’t going to ask, Dean. But you’re not going to tell us. DEAN SMITH I’ve been participating in a debate with Andrew Leigh, who is Labor’s charity spokesman, at the National Press Club. And, of course, the flights don’t line up. But I’ll be back in town tomorrow. So, you’ll see me out on the pre poll in the Northern Suburbs. GARY ADSHEAD Excellent. Alright. How’d the debate go? Did you have a win? DEAN SMITH Debates are so hard to know when you’re in the thick of it. I think there is one rule of thumb, though. If no one comes up to you after the debate, you haven’t performed very well. If people do come up and introduce themselves, you think, okay, I didn’t do too badly. But people came up and asked me some questions. GARY ADSHEAD Well, there you go. Now this was last night. This was the debate that was on Nine, of course, between Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese. I’ll get your reaction to what was said here. (RECORDING) ANTHONY ALBANESE You ripped $80,000,000,000 out of those two items in February 2014. (RECORDING) PETER DUTTON Prime Minister, you couldn’t lie straight in bed, honestly. This is unbelievable. (RECORDING) ANTHONY ALBANESE Well, you can go to abuse, you can… (RECORDING) PETER DUTTON Well, it’s just the reality. It’s just the reality. (RECORDING) ANTHONY ALBANESE That’s a sign of desperation, Peter, frankly. As is lying. That’s a sign of desperation. (RECORDING) PETER DUTTON Go to the February 2014 budget papers. People can do that online. It’s all available for all to see. (RECORDING) ALLY LANGDON Okay. I feel like we’ve given a fair bit of latitude here. I mean, let’s see what’s – I think we’re done with this one. GARY ADSHEAD Ally Langdon there finding out what it’s like to sometimes control politicians who are either face to face or not. Now listen, Dean Smith, is the Prime Minister a liar? Is he? DEAN SMITH Well, last night’s debate was a clear win for Peter Dutton. We saw strength of character. I thought that Peter was very quick off the blocks, drawing attention to Labor lies around nuclear costs, power prices, Medicare. I thought it was great to hear Peter populating his arguments with cost-of-living statistics, with some important data. So, I thought it was a clear win for Peter Dutton. Some of the commentary in today’s papers reinforced that view as well. It is the third debate. I think there’s one more debate on the fourth Sunday. So, I think, certainly, someone like myself was really encouraged by it. GARY ADSHEAD Right. Okay. I think that might have been the fourth, to be honest. But, Madeleine, who won that debate, do you think? MADELEINE KING Well, I mean, I, I can’t really tell how Dean judges the winner of the debate. So, who chats with someone after? It is really difficult to tell. But from that, what we heard then is, it did sound a little bit unhinged, a little bit desperate from Peter Dunton. But what I would say about these debates, and especially this level of debate between a Prime Minister and someone hoping to be Prime Minister, is the enormous amount of pressure both of these leaders are under. And I don’t know about you, Dean, and you’ve been in a debate at the Press Club today with Andrew Leigh, who’s also a very competent Member of Parliament. You can hardly imagine the level of pressure both of these men are under. So I have a lot of respect for both of them for doing it, but I think the Prime Minister is clearly much better prepared and well-practiced in in debates because he’s been in front of the media consistently, openly and honestly for much longer than Peter Dutton. I think it shows in the past debates and again last night, but, you know, I would say hats off to everyone who participates. DEAN SMITH But there was a very interesting part of the debate, Madeleine, when the Prime Minister was asked to talk about whether people will be better off in the next three years based on what he said in Perth back in May 2022, that people would be better off under Labor. And his response was, we certainly want people to be better off in three years’ time. Hardly a vote of confidence. GARY ADSHEAD Well, out of interest… MADELEINE KING I would say everyone knows that they will be better off under a Labor government because… DEAN SMITH But he said we want people to be better off – hardly a vote of confidence. MADELEINE KING Cheaper medical care and cheaper medicines are going to be put on the chopping block… GARY ADSHEAD Are you worried about the polling, Dean Smith? Are you worried about it? Because, I mean, the, the Australian’s front page has got another news poll that says that one of the interesting factors at the moment is the switch off of women from Peter Dutton. DEAN SMITH You’ve heard it said, Gary, but we will know the outcome on Saturday, the 3rd of May. There’s a lot of business to be made, lots of papers to be printed speculating about…