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 what voters may or may not be thinking, what the polls may or may not be showing, but let’s be pretty upfront with your listeners about this. A poll is a point in time reference. The poll may or may not be asking people who have already voted. We are now in the most important period of the campaign, I would argue, because the pre polls opened yesterday, and we saw huge numbers. 540,000 already. Unprecedented. So I think an interesting question, not one that I’m going to answer, but an interesting question, is what does that say? What’s the psychological effect at play here when people go and vote early? Does that mean they’ve made up their minds? Does that mean, or particularly in the case of Western Australia at the moment, do they just want to get it off their list of things to do because they’re in the school holiday period? They’re enjoying three days between Easter and Anzac Day. So I think there’s great caution to be read into people making predictions on the polls. And, of course, we know in not too distant history that the 2019 federal election outcome was said to be going Labor’s way. Everyone thought it was a Labor victory, and, of course, the rest is history. Scott Morrison, secured an important win in 2019. So I don’t think much comes from speculating about what’s in and what’s out of polls. People will make up their minds for a whole variety of reasons.
GARY ADSHEAD
So that surge in people voting so early, do you think, Madeline, that is literally a situation where we are between two long weekends and people have joined them up with three days off and so they’ve got the time to get it over and done with, or is it something about people have made up their mind?
MADELEINE KING
I mean, I’ve just been up to Perth, and I’m down in Freo at the moment where it’s blowing dogs off trains, quite frankly. But I think a lot of people are away. They just are, and you know what Perth’s like on a holiday, so the freeways are pretty easy to get around on, other than the Fremantle Traffic Bridge, the traffic’s good around here. So I actually think a lot of people are away, and those that are coming in are just by myself not on holiday or have made up their mind. And judging by what I’ve seen on the pre polls in Rockingham there and Port Kennedy or Kwinana, they’ve got their mobile phones or they’ve already decided. A lot of that, more than there ever has been, I think, where people don’t take all their how to vote, and that’s fine, or they’re just going up to one or the other and grabbing their how to vote. And I confess in Brand that’s mostly for me, and I’m glad about that.
GARY ADSHEAD
Oh, nice. Nice.
DEAN SMITH
Oh, there you go. There’s that hubris again. We’ve still got nine or ten days to go.
GARY ADSHEAD
I reckon, I reckon Madeleine’s pretty safe, Dean.
MADELEINE KING
Just about the polling, the polling thing. The actual polling that is important has started as Dean has said. And that will continue, of course, until the big day in May. But there’s some pretty funny push polling going on around the place, the Climate 200 stuff that we’ve read about in the paper today, and I don’t know what else is going on. I rarely get any of these calls as you’d imagine, but I think, if you are getting polled, a lot of people get polled a lot, and so there’s a bit of fatigue on it all. I think we all know the actual important poll, which is your vote, that is what really counts. So I have my doubts about the polls too.
DEAN SMITH
Okay. I just make the final point that I’d be interested if Madeleine agrees. When I’m talking to campaign workers and doing some training with them, my view’s always been that Australian voters are generally very polite. They’re always courteous. If they want to, they’ll take all of the how to vote cards irrespective of the decision they might have made. So people can often read too much into the reaction at the polling booth. I was at some important and marginal polling booths for the state election. The response for our local Liberal candidates was really strong, and, unfortunately, they didn’t get across the line. So I think there’s caution in in people reading too much into these things.
GARY ADSHEAD
Alright.
MADELEINE KING
I agree with, I agree with Dean on that. And could I say my own mother would take every single how to vote. I’m like, surely, mum, you’re going to vote for me. But who knows? And that’s the thing about the private ballot. Yeah. The you know, it is up to the person, each individual voter in this country
GARY ADSHEAD
I take them all, you two, except for the Cannabis Party, of course. Couldn’t possibly accept one from them. Now it’s quarter past the five. I’ve got Madeline King, the Federal Resources Minister, on the line and, of course, Dean Smith, the Federal Liberal Senator. If you’d like to call and you ask a question, feel free. Don’t let me ask all the questions. They get bored with my questions. Trust me. 1 300-2720. I do have to put this on the record, though, just in case I look like a genius, alright? I have to do this. I have been made aware of Dean Smith, and you can, you can probably scoff and whatever when I say it, of some internal polling that Libs who are at a certain level would have seen. And it has the Liberal Party losing, and I’ll read them out, Menzies, Casey, Sturt in South Australia, Deakin, and Moore. What would you say to that?
DEAN SMITH
I don’t want to be unkind, Gary, but how would an ABC Radio presenter get hold of that?
GARY ADSHEAD
Oh, you’d be surprised who calls.
DEAN SMITH
Look, no. I don’t pay any attention to it. The whole purpose of a campaign is to change your electoral fortunes or improve your electoral fortunes. So whatever a poll says at a particular point in time is really a valuable source of information for the campaign because then it knows where it has to work next. It knows if it needs to apply itself in a particular area or on a particular issue. This idea that, here’s some secret research, it says this and has said this on that day, and therefore, that means that is going to be the outcome. It’s not really worth the paper it’s written on these days because there are so many variables. And as Madeline reminded listeners, we have a compulsory voting system, so everyone has to go and vote. We have a full preferential voting system, so that adds a degree of complexity, and that’s why we have so many volunteers out there with their how to vote cards, giving them to voters. And, of course, the weekends are very important in campaigns. We’ve got another weekend. Polling day is still very important, so I wouldn’t be reading too much. And if I could just run through those. So Menzies has a great Member of Parliament called Keith Wolahan. He’s been working hard for three years. Deakin is Michael Sukkar and incumbency is a really powerful factor.
Moore we’ve got a great candidate in Vince Connolly. And I will, I’ve been out campaigning with Vince, and I would totally expect him to win. But that doesn’t mean the rest of that survey is accurate. I only know that because I’ve been out on the ground.
GARY ADSHEAD
Are you selling nuclear energy well enough, do you think, as a as a party?
DEAN SMITH
Well, we’re clear on nuclear. We’re committed to nuclear. I’m going to make a very bold prediction. I think that we will have a bipartisan commitment on the importance of nuclear energy, nuclear technology, in coming years. I’m very clear of that. The coalition is not changing its position. I totally expect people like Malinauskas, who’s the South Australian Premier, to be more emboldened about his attitudes in favour of nuclear. This is a debate that’s not going away. We are on a trajectory, and it’s necessary for the country because it will bring down energy costs, and it will improve our sovereign capability.
GARY ADSHEAD
Madelin, are you prepared to be on a bipartisan ticket on talking about nuclear energy?
MADELEINE KING
Well, I’m a bit astounded because the Liberal Party have backflipped on nearly every issue, so I can’t imagine this is going to be one they’d stick to. But I would comment on one of the seats you mentioned, and I agree with Dean. These polls that go to good journalists like yourself, Gary, you know, very interesting and titillating, but they’re neither here nor there. But Ian Goodenough in Moore, we know, is a sitting member. He’s been dis-endorsed by the Liberal Party. He’s putting his shoulder to the wheel to try and get re-elected, and he wants to be re-elected. And by all accounts he’s a popular local member.
GARY ADSHEAD
Well, the Labor man might get up.
MADELEINE KING
Well, yeah. Tom French is another great local candidate and, he’s tried before and he’s trying again. And hats off to Tom. He’s got a great story in his life.
DEAN SMITH
Madeline, when you were driving around the streets of Moore –I don’t think you have been – if you were to drive around the streets of Moore, you would see Vince Connelly on street corners. You’d see his campaign team on street corners. You’d see lots of signs. He’s been door knocking really well. He’s got a great list of fighting for projects. He’s very deeply connected to the community. If anyone deserves to win that seat, then that is Vince Connelly because he’ll be an outstanding member for Moore.
MADELEINE KING
Alright. Vince Connelly has gone through a number of seats at his own convenience.
DEAN SMITH
Madeline, Stirling was abolished. That’s not fair. It was abolished by the independent Electoral Commission. And then he contested Cowan, which was half of the abolished seat of Stirling.
GARY ADSHEAD
Now then, now then let’s just change back to today’s big announcement. Of course, that was, and by the way the Prime Minister’s in town as well, by the way, folks. If you didn’t know that. The PMs down in Collie and did a battery announcement. But let’s just talk about the defence announcement by Peter Dutton. Twenty-one billion dollars more, promising 3% of GDP spending within the next ten years.
GARY ADSHEAD
Is that achievable, really, Dean, without outlining how you’re going to pay for it?
DEAN SMITH
It’s achievable. It’s necessary. It’s critical, Gary. Everyone knows that our global circumstances are changing and changing very rapidly. That is bringing an increased level of risk. And what’s important here is what is this announcement relative to? And it’s relative to the fact that Labor will only spend 2.3% of GDP over the next ten years. So in the Coalition, Peter Dutton, Andrew Hastie, myself, others, argue that that puts our country in a very vulnerable position when just 2.3% of GDP expenditure will be spent on defence. We’re saying it needs to grow to two and a half percent over the next five years, and that’s how we get to 21 billion. And then we add to that by saying there needs to be a further growth of up to 3% of the GDP over the next ten years. Because everyone knows, particularly in Western Australia, where we have a very heavy reliance on defence industry, that defence investment is important. It’s important for tanks and planes and those sorts of things, but it’s important also for industrial development. It’s important for innovation in areas like space and rocket deployment and communications. And if we are to be a credible force in our own region, if we are going to deploy for peace or deploy for conflict, then we need to prepare for that.
GARY ADSHEAD
So Madeleine, just on that, I mean, have they upped the ante on you there in terms of going, further in terms of that spending over the next, uh, till 2030, so only over the next five years, twenty one billion dollars.
MADELEINE KING
Well, Gary, I want to be really clear. Defence spending and defence procurement is a very serious matter and the Liberal Party in their aspirational, kind of wishy washy smoke and mirrors announcement are not taking it seriously. We have no idea what the money’s going to be spent on. We have no idea where it’s coming from other than to make sure people don’t get the tax cuts they deserve. Now what I would point out is the budget papers do not lie. Like, we have made commitments. We have increased defence funding to record levels right now, not some dream in the future from the Liberal Party.
DEAN SMITH
So that’s What percentage of GDP is it currently, Madeleine?
MADELEINE KING
I’m not, I’m gonna tell you,
GARY ADSHEAD
Roughly about?
MADELEINE KING
I’m going to tell you what the actual amount is, Gary. Not a dream from the Shadow Defence Minister and Peter Dutton. There’s 57.6 billion committed across the decade. And it’s not on wishful thinking, it’s on the basis of a defence strategic review, the national defence strategy, an integrated investment program which sets out the ten year defence spend. Now, and everyone who well, not everyone knows this, I’m sorry about that, but Parliamentarians would know that the defence procurement is not a closed shop. Like, it does have to be open and open to scrutiny. We have a joint statutory committee on public accounts and audit that knows everything about how can we find out all the money in which…
DEAN SMITH
I was the chairman…
MADELEINE KING
And I was, and I was on that too with you, Dean, and it’s a very good committee, I might add, that does really good work. But the thing is there’s no reason to keep what you’re going to spend an aspirational amount on hidden from public and that’s what we’re going to do with the government.
DEAN SMITH
The contrast here is clear. The Coalition is saying that defence spending, well, the Coalition is saying two things. That defence spending needs to grow to 2.5% over the next five years to a value of 21 billion extra dollars. The coalition is committing to that because we need to increase our capability. What Madeleine is saying is that the status quo is enough in what is a rapidly changing region.
GARY ADSHEAD
Well, are you are you comfortable with this? And you’re giving us strength. And, Dean, are you comfortable with the fact that Peter Dutton says that to pay for that 21 billion dollars that was announced today he’s comfortable with giving away the tax cuts that the Albanese government is planning, which I think was about 17 billion dollars over the forward estimate. So you’re comfortable with telling people, look, no tax cut, but we’ll give you a a bigger defence force or a faster, stronger defence force?
DEAN SMITH
I think Australian electors will put a high priority when it comes to spending taxpayers’ dollars to meeting the national defence interests of this country. Yes. And I also think those very same people know that the regional situation is changing so quickly that our security is at risk, our trading partner security is at risk, and this has now become a national priority.
GARY ADSHEAD
Okay. Uh, Andrew Hastie was, of course, alongside Peter Dutton making that announcement today, which is all a bit funny because, of course, there were two articles sort of back to back suggesting that Andrew Hastie had disappeared from the campaign, and then he emerged. What do you say to that, Madeleine?
MADELEINE KING
Well, it is a bit, is a wonder where Andrew Hastie has been, and, obviously, I should try to…
DEAN SMITH
To be fair…
GARY ADSHEAD
Maybe can we, and I will just let Madeleine finish. I mean, because I know that there’s been criticism around whether he should be out and about more, or is it just that he should be knocking on doors in Canning, you know, given that it might be a little bit more precarious than people think?
MADELEINE KING
He is the Shadow Defence Minister. One would have expected him to be out and about more, but clearly he is very worried about his seat. And you can tell that. By the way, he has completely deserted the Liberal Party on all of his promotional materials around Canning, and parts of Canning have gone into what is my seat right now, and I’m the member for Brand over those suburbs where Andrew’s face minus the Liberal Party logo is prominent. And I think that speaks to Andrew’s concern about the reputation of the party and its standing in the community in Western Australia. So, I mean, I don’t know what else you’ve heard, Gary. You’ve mentioned those five seats, but maybe Canning needs to sit on those.
DEAN SMITH
Gary, you had Andrew on your show yesterday.
GARY ADSHEAD
Yesterday. Yeah, I did. Yeah.
DEAN SMITH
To be fair, Andrew said he had been traveling the country attending defence forums with candidates, and we know that to be true because it’s on his Facebook. Secondly, Andrew also said that because of boundary changes his margin is not as comfortable. Andrew is someone who takes great pride in representing his electorate and will want to perform the best he possibly can in his electorate. And he’s an earnest person. He’s an earnest person, so he has been door knocking, has been working hard. Andrew is someone who has a very big future in the Coalition, particularly if we win government, which is our ambition. Even if we don’t win government, Andrew’s got a very bright future. So Andrew’s not been missing in action. He’s doing everything that’s been required of him as a member of the shadow ministry, but also in what is effectively a marginal seat.
GARY ADSHEAD
Okay, now we’re coming down to the sort of pointy end of this campaign. We’ve already acknowledged that 540,000 have voted, it would be more than that because that’s yesterday’s figure. Are there any surprises from either of your political parties that people will find out about after they’ve cast the vote? Can I go first to you, Dean? Because there was some criticism around the defence announcement whether that should be made earlier, for example.
DEAN SMITH
I’m not sure I understand the question.
GARY ADSHEAD
Well, I mean, is everything out in front now? Do we know?
DEAN SMITH
Oh, the Coalition will release its costings in the normal way. And on this point, it’s worth reminding people that the government, when in opposition, released its policies on the Thursday before the Saturday poll. So, the Coalition will release the costings of its policies. I suspect there probably are a few other policies to be announced, but we don’t want to leave them too late because as you say, already half a million Australians have gone to vote. Australians will go to vote over the next coming days and early next week as well. So we want to make sure that Australian voters are fully informed of the full suite of options, the full contrast between ourselves and Labor at the next election. So the campaign is not yet finished. We still have a few more days in this week. Anzac Day, we will attend commemorative events, which is absolutely necessary and right. And then next week, we’ll have a few more days campaigning, and then we’ll be at the at the end of the 2025 campaign.
GARY ADSHEAD
Okay. Can I just, uh, finish off with something that’s just emerging? We talked, we know that, uh, there was definitely a change of heart in relation to work from home by the Liberal leader on the campaign trail. That was obviously not going down well, and so there was a change of heart there, and they pledged not to interfere with that. There’s something else that’s just coming through now. It is that, on Monday, Peter Dutton was asked whether or not he would be scrapping EV subsidies, electric vehicle subsidies in and around FBT, fringe benefits tax, and so on. He said that they have no, and I’m quoting, “no proposals to change those settings at all”. But a media statement’s just gone out saying that, yes, they will. They’ll scrap them. Do you know anything about that, Dean?
DEAN SMITH
No. Not at all. I’m here in the ABC studio. I’ve only been in my Parliament office briefly. I’m not aware of that at all. I’m not familiar with that. Sorry, Gary. No.
GARY ADSHEAD
Alright. Okay. Well, that’ll be interesting.
MADELEINE KING
More backflips than Cirque du Soleil, Gary, as I’ve said before.
GARY ADSHEAD
Well, it could be.
DEAN SMITH
We’ll trust and verify.
GARY ADSHEAD
It’s been, it’s been reported by Isobel Rowe on the campaign trail is what I can tell, with the Leader of the Opposition, uh, right now.
DEAN SMITH
Must be very busy. Okay.
GARY ADSHEAD
Okay, well, not long to go now, folks. Thanks very much for joining us again. I really appreciate it.
MADELEINE KING
Thanks, Gary.
GARY ADSHEAD
Take care. Yeah. Madeleine King there, the Federal Resources Minister, and, of course, Dean Smith, the Liberal Senator, on the campaign trail.
ENDS