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 know, characterised himself during this state election campaign, highly focused on the negative when he more than anyone else could have been talking up a better story for Western Australia.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Made in WA. That’s the future isn’t it?
MADELEINE KING:
When you say negatives. There’s a lot wheeling around in trailers out the front of the pre-poll in Rockingham, which is one of the first times I’ve ever seen that before…
DEAN SMITH:
We would call that holding Labor to account.
MADELEINE KING:
Oh, I don’t know about that. You have your brand on it
GARY ADSHEAD:
It’s 17 minutes to five. Dean Smith and Madeleine King in the studio with us. 1300 222 720. If you got a question ahead of the state election or anything else, feel free. Do you think this will help Roger Cook or hinder him come Saturday? And of course I think you know what’s about to hit you.
(RECORDING) ROGER COOK:
(JD Vance is a) knob. Sorry, you’ve got to have one unprofessional moment, don’t you? That was it.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Well do you have to have one unprofessional moment?
DEAN SMITH:
Not if you’re the Premier of this state. You shouldn’t have unprofessional moments and you shouldn’t sort of seek permission to have them either. I think just demonstrates my earlier point, Gary, about high level of complacency and taking things for granted when you’re in the top job.
GARY ADSHEAD:
That was Leadership Matters Breakfast, I was there, and of course in that room were a lot of people from the mining and resources sector. There was a lot of applause for him. Is that his kebab moment that Mark McGowan had during the pandemic?
MADELEINE KING:
Well, I hope it doesn’t go on a t-shirt or a tattoo or anything like that. Or with the kebab. But, I mean, the Premier has apologised. He said it was wrong and I think that’s a, a very good thing and I wouldn’t choose to speak for the Premier on any matter, but I, you know…
GARY ADSHEAD:
Would you have, I mean, given an opportunity where someone’s asking you to finish a sentence. JD Vance is, and you know, would you ever think for a minute that you would, would use something like knob?
MADELEINE KING:
No, I would hope not, you know, he’s an elected representative.
DEAN SMITH:
Well, to be fair to Madeleine, over the last few weeks when we’ve been here in the studio and on the phones talking to you about these sorts of things. Madeleine has treated with great care and caution questions around the Trump administration. Which has been the correct thing to do. And when we think about Western Australia, export orientated state, when we think about the importance of AUKUS, I think many West Australians would expect their state leader to express himself more diplomatically with greater caution. But there was something else I think he said that I thought was really unfortunate and that was he undersold himself and undersold Western Australia by calling himself a sub jurisdictional CEO. Wow. Really? And the man wants to be the Premier for the next four years. That’s not good.
GARY ADSHEAD:
He’s done that twice actually.
MADELEINE KING:
Sub jurisdiction of the Federal government. And and he knows, like you know, and everyone knows, that the state governments right around the country don’t deal directly with our foreign…
DEAN SMITH:
I’d be talking up Western Australia if I was the State Premier, not talking it down.
MADELEINE KING:
Premier Cook, you know, naturally, as many of us did, you know, we, we reacted quite, I would say the unexpected scenes we saw in the White House recently. That was pretty unexpected. I know Roger, I’ve known him for many years. He thinks about the world deeply. We have discussions about various international affairs, but he knows what state government’s role is and it’s about managing the state and managing it well and it, and you know, it is unfortunate he said that, and he has apologised. And he gives it to – the federal government has the role of managing that relationship and he understands that.
GARY ADSHEAD:
That’s true. But I’ll just say this. And I think, Madeleine, you would agree that in Western Australia right now, in terms of AUKUS and all the things that are going to be happening in relation to that, there would be times even quite recently where Paul Papalia, of course the Defence Industries Minister might have to sit down with US officials and others even this week maybe. And suddenly he’s got to deal with the fact that his premiers just called the vice President a knob. Doesn’t help.
MADELEINE KING:
Well he has apologized for that. He apologized very quickly, as you know, Roger was pretty quick to realize he’d done the wrong thing. But I don’t think that detracts at all from what he has done for the state, how he is acted in the interests of all the industries of this state, but particularly the resources industry. And you heard from the cheers in that audience. And I don’t know if I would’ve cheered –
DEAN SMITH:
Oh I wouldn’t.
MADELEINE KING:
But they were –
DEAN SMITH:
Well, I was not in the audience.
GARY ADSHEAD:
I was heard there was applause. There was quite a lot of, I think it was just because it was a reaction that people laughed at.
DEAN SMITH:
Well perhaps think they were laughing at him.
MADELEINE KING:
I think they were laughing at the unexpected nature of recent events in the White House.
DEAN SMITH:
This is a pattern of behaviour because the Premier did have some unfortunate remarks about President Trump during the election campaign as well. So huge cautionary tale now for Roger Cook.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Alright. Okay. Now then let’s move on then. What’s Peter Dutton got against working from home? Here he is, in relation to a plan to tell all of those public servants that have some sort of new deal where they have their opportunity to work from home, to come back to the office.
(RECORDING) PETER DUTTON:
I think Australian taxpayers who are working harder than ever under this government and barely keeping their head above water. I think they expect the government and government employees to be working as hard as they are and people refusing to go back to work in Canberra is not acceptable.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Yeah. Now is this out of the, the Trump playbook, this one where, you know, you pick on the public service and you appoint someone to be an efficiency boss and czar and all that sort of stuff? Or what’s it really all about?
DEAN SMITH:
Absolutely not. So, what’s important to understand here, I’d say, is that there were some previously existing sensible arrangements that existed for public servants who to work from home. Those arrangements have been changed. We are arguing that those new arrangements put a bias in those employment relations and it also disempowers the new arrangements, disempowers managers because managers are no longer able to stipulate minimum days of work in the office.
DEAN SMITH:
So, we argue that there were some sensible arrangements in place not too long ago. Those sensible arrangements have now been abandoned. And I think this statistic is important. Almost 4 out of 10 public servants are working from home regularly. Now thinking about this, this is not an opportunity that the small business owner has. This is not an opportunity that the mother who’s working three or four part-time jobs has.
So, what we’re saying is that we would like Australian taxpayers to have much higher level of confidence that they’re getting good service from public servants. We also argue that we think there are productivity gains and improvements to be achieved. So, I think what we’re saying is we would like a reset. We are post pandemic now, we are operating in a different environment, and we argue that this is the right time to have a reset. And by letting people know what our expectation is prior to the election.
GARY ADSHEAD:
What do you think is going on here, Madeleine, in terms of Peter Dutton saying that that’s one thing they’ll look at is the work from home benefits that public sector workers have?
MADELEINE KING:
Well, Gary, I think this is Peter Dutton engaging as he does regularly on a misinformation campaign. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that any public servants are refusing to go into the office. There are work from home arrangements as there have been across many industries. It happens in the resources industry, it happens across hr, it’s everywhere. Obviously, there are instances where it can’t happen and you know, we understand that and they have other conditions as well. Flexibility at work is important and it is an attack on the public service. Just like cutting 36,000 jobs is –
DEAN SMITH:
Let’s stay working for home for second. I think I’ve got an interesting question for Madeleine if I may. Does Madeleine believe that a manager in the Australian public service should be able to say to his or her staff, I would like you to be in the office for a minimum two or three days. They cannot do that anymore.
MADELEINE KING:
There is absolutely no evidence that public servants are refusing not to work from home. That’s not what Peter Dutton said –
DEAN SMITH:
That’s not the question. That’s not the question.
MADELEINE KING:
What did Peter Dutton say? Do you want to replay it?
GARY ADSHEAD:
Well, in terms of the refusing, he did say that. I thought that was his way of trying to wind it back. To be honest, I thought he was now saying, look, it’s only really those that are refusing that will be going after –
MADELEINE KING:
No one’s refusing. That’s the thing.
DEAN SMITH:
185,000 public servants across our country. And Madeleine is saying not one of these, now she might be true, but I’m saying it’s a very big call for Madeleine to say that of the 185,000 Australian public servants that we have at the moment, four, almost four in ten, who are actually working from home regularly.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Who has the power? Does the employee have the power balance here in terms of saying, I want, I want to enact what’s now there for me under the Fair Work Commission or whatever, where it came from, at least from Labor still. And I want to stay home still,
MADELEINE KING:
Does the Liberal party want to cut 36,000 Jobs? Is that from Veterans Affairs? Is it from social services? Is it from the Department of Industry Science and Resources? Is it from the ABC, heaven forbid?
DEAN SMITH:
The Australian Public Service has grown by 16% under Labor. Peter Dutton’s point, and I think it’s a fair one, is are we getting a productivity dividend from that increased level of numbers of public servants? And the answer to that will be no. In addition to that, these are public servants that are being paid for by Australian taxpayer dollars. What we’re saying again is that this is a prime time to have a reset to make sure that 16% increase on 185,000 Australian public servants is heading in the right direction. That is what Peter Dutton is saying.
MADELIN KING:
Gary –
GARY ADSHEAD:
Yeah, quickly, because I’m going to put Lawrence on.
MADELEINE KING:
One Billion Dollars worth of consultants’ fees. That’s what went on out to build the palaces of Barangaroo in Sydney under the Liberal Party. Well, that’s what happens when you sack public sector employees and bring in consultants.
That’s what they did because they had the cap on appointments and all it meant was that, and God bless the accountants, good on your accountants, but I mean, do we really need the four big, you know, EYs and so forth to have those palaces because we don’t want to invest in the public service? Well, I don’t think we do. I think we need to invest in the public service, not least of all for environmental approvals, which we have halved the time of since coming to government.
GARY ADSHEAD:
What do you think Lawrence?
(CALLER):
Well, I think the thing is that are they refusing to go back to the office or refusing to work? There is a difference. And I think the other thing is that are they working more from home than they are from the office? And also, I work for a an NDIS service provider and over the last number of months I’ve had reasons to call the NDIS to get something. Those people are working from home, and I have still got perfectly good service. So I don’t know what the problem is.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Alright, thank you for that, Lawrence. There you go. I’ll allow Dean to respond. I mean, it does seem like he’s picked a fight to try and sort of send a message out there that he’ll, you know, have a crack at the public sector ahead of an election. It’s popular isn’t it?
DEAN SMITH:
Well, we’ll know whether it’s popular or not in the not too distant future, but no. To fair –
GARY ADSHEAD:
What date is that by the way?
DEAN SMITH:
Well, you and I think it’s the 12th.
GARY ADSHEAD:
That’s right, we do!
DEAN SMITH:
To be fair to our Queensland friends who are going through a very unusual circumstance now. Who knows? Who knows. But just on this point, I think if Madeleine and her Labor party colleagues are going to throw the Trump excuse out of every idea that the coalition brings forward in attempt to sort of find a better balance. I say to that to find a better balance or else it is going to make for a very boring campaign.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Are those Chinese warships, can you see them from your home or not? You’ve gone down to the foreshore at Rockingham. Are they, are they off into the distance now?
MADELEINE KING:
What I can see is our navy presence there at the moment.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Is that sort of, is that passed now? Are we, is that discussion over and done with, do you think, in terms of the Chinese warships that appear to now be sailing away?
DEAN SMITH:
The point is that’ they have sailed around.
MADELEINE KING:
They’re allowed to sail through international waters. Everyone agrees to that.
DEAN SMITH:
They did cross into our economic zone.
MADELEINE KING:
Last week, we had one of them. We have over 350 sailors across three different ships as well as members of the Royal Australian Air Force monitoring these three ships out of China. So, and I want to thank the women and men on those ships and on those planes that are doing that work. That’s their job. And they’re doing their job. I mean, you go out to sea, it’s a hard work and it’s a harsh environment. But –
DEAN SMITH:
To recap Gary on the most important point, live fire exercises from Chinese naval vessels between Australia and New Zealand, identified by a virgin aircraft reported to Air Services Australia before the Australian Defence Force was advised. Wow. We, and it goes back to the Vance comments, we are operating in a very different environment now. And it’s very important that Australians understand this Chinese military buildup is real. This I think was the Chinese government’s way of demonstrating its military presence in a soft way to begin with.
But I think we can start to expect more of this. And the key point here is, was Anthony Albanese on top of his brief? And after almost two weeks of this, I think the clear answer to that is he was not on top of his brief, Virgin aircraft were on top of their brief, but they’re not paid to do this.
MADELEINE KING:
The Royal Australian Navy also goes into areas that China might not necessarily agree with to do exactly the same thing.
DEAN SMITH:
Madeleine’s now making excuses for Chinese aggression.
MADELEINE KING:
Is that Chinese aggression? They’re sailing around the coast. And we are monitoring them.
DEAN SMITH:
Not the Minister of Defence.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Now how’s the Pied Piper for citizenship going? He’s been traveling around the country.
MADELEINE KING:
It was a wonderful ceremony.
GARY ADSHEAD:
3,500 and something eligible voters. Now here is it just in Western Australia? I think according to the West it’s around the country. Right. So –
DEAN SMITH:
Madeleine said it was wonderful. Guess what Gary? I would’ve liked to have been there. Guess what? I wasn’t invited.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Oh no. What have I done?
DEAN SMITH:
And I –
GARY ADSHEAD:
I didn’t know that!
DEAN SMITH:
I’m a regular attendee at citizenship ceremonies. I get invited.
MADELEINE KING:
Maybe other Senators were invited.
DEAN SMITH:
No, I don’t know. This is the core of the issue. Dai Lee the independent member in Fowler, she wasn’t invited.
MADELEINE KING:
She was invited –
DEAN SMITH:
And the Labor MPs got to make speeches.
MADELEINE KING:
So did Ian Goodenough. He was one of your MPs once, remember?
DEAN SMITH:
He is not a Liberal. Just in case people are wondering, he is not a Liberal.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Where was it? Where was the ceremony you are talking about?
MADELEINE KING:
I’m talking about the large one that was in Perth, right? Yeah, it’s a series of them.
GARY ADSHEAD:
You would’ve been invited to that one Dean.
DEAN SMITH:
I was not invited to any of them. Gary, none of them. And then Tony Burke says, oh, we’re dealing with a backlog. Well, on the immigration website it makes it very clear that almost 90% of citizenship applications get dealt within the first three months by the city of Belmont, by the city of Mandurah, etc. This was the politicization of something that should be very sacred. Citizenship should be sacred.
MADELEINE KING:
Why would anyone be upset with people voting?
DEAN SMITH:
If there’s nothing to be ashamed about you would’ve had Senator Dean Smith, there watching over proceedings with you.
MADELEINE KING:
Why be upset that someone gets to vote in this wonderful democracy?
GARY ADSHEAD:
They will on Saturday. And I’ll see you on Saturday. Madeleine, thank you very much for that Dean Smith, it’s been an absolute pleasure.
DEAN SMITH:
Thanks Gary.
ENDS