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 PERTH DRIVE WITH GARY ADSHEAD
Topics: Federal election; cost-of-living under Labor; DeepSeek and AI; Greens hospital policy
E&OE
GARY ADSHEAD:
I’ve got in the studio with me a couple of guys that are probably glad to get out of the heat when it comes to door knocking. Dean Smith, WA Liberal senator, thanks for coming in.
DEAN SMITH:
Great to be back Gary.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Good on you. And Patrick Gorman, o f course, the Labor member for Perth and also Minister Assisting the Prime Minister. Patrick, welcome to the ABC studio.
PATRICK GORMAN:
Good to be here Gary.
GARY ADSHEAD:
I bet you look at the forecast and think can we just park a bit of door knocking today and maybe do it next week when it cools down? What’s the sort of program that goes through your guy’s mind when you’re having to do that?
Patrick?
PATRICK GORMAN:
I do a fair bit of door knocking and I like getting out there. But you always want to know, are people going to think that I’m a little bit mad if I’m out door knocking in this heat? And I reckon that sort of at about 37, 38 degrees. That’s kind of the threshold where people start to think that y ou’re a little bit too obsessed rather than passionate.
GARY ADSHEAD:
It’s probably a bit uncomfortable standing at the door having to talk to people as well, isn’t it, Dean?
DEAN SMITH:
Well Gary, if Patrick was to knock on my door, I’d invite him in for a coffee.
PATRICK GORMAN:
Brilliant! It would slow me down.
DEAN SMITH:
Slow you down, exactly right!
GARY ADSHEAD:
Ok well thanks for coming in. Alright, let’s just start with inflation. That’s starting to get to the sort of figures now that surely the RBA will move on it. Is that a concern for you Dean Smith? That we’re down around 2.4% headline figure and that might be the springboard that the Albanese government needs to call the election.
DEAN SMITH:
That’s a very interesting point, because I thought you were going to ask me what the RBA might choose to do when it meets on the 17th or 18th of February. I’d say this. There are two figures that the ABS released today. First is the figure that the government is talking about. But then what we call the trimmed mean inflation rate, that’s the inflation figure that the RBA is guided by and the RBA prefers to talk about. And it’s important because it strips away some of the rebate relief that people might have seen through energy relief measures of the government.
And that figure points to not much change at all. It still sits outside the 2 to 3% band that the RBA is looking for. The key point here is one of sustainability. We have not yet seen sustainable falls in the inflation rate in that 2 to 3% band, and until that happens, unfortunately, I doubt there will be sustainable rate relief for mortgage holders. And it’s interesting, I think the government has been very measured today in not celebrating this too much, being pleased with themselves but not celebrating too much because I think we still have a long way to go.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Tracking the right way though, isn’t it Patrick?
PATRICK GORMAN:
Well, I’m not celebrating for the government, but I do think this is good news for Australian households. We know that inflation ultimately attacks those on low and middle incomes. Inflation erodes the living standards of the Australian people and that’s why one of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s jobs is to fight inflation. It’s also why we’ve had two budgets that have done exactly the same thing, working to put downward pressure on inflation. And what we know is that for people in my community and across this state, when you’ve had inflation at six percent under the Liberals when they left office, people were really starting to feel that pain. And it was really, prices were really going up rapidly what we’ve been able to do over time in a careful measured way – because you can’t stop inflation one day to the next. You’ve got to work at it over time. We’re going to do sensible things to make sure we take pressure off inflation and it’s an achievement of the Australian people.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Interesting. I mean so we are now where most Western countries are in terms of inflation, some are actually lower than us already and of course the banks have moved in terms of interest rates. It would be seen as extremely stubborn of the RBA to hold the line come February when they meet again, wouldn’t it?
DEAN SMITH:
Not necessarily. And Patrick and I are not going to start to run a commentary about what the RBA should do. But this is one data set in a number of data sets that the RBA will consider when it next meets. But it’s not as if West Australians have woken up this morning feeling much lighter about the cost-of-living challenges that they are experiencing. Not at all. And when we think about the macro-economic conditions, not much has changed. Productivity has fallen by 5.7% under this government. Annual GDP growth has slowed to 1991 levels. We’re in per capita negative growth in terms of GDP. So, the broad economic figures are nothing for the government to –
PATRICK GORMAN:
What’s happening with real wages Dean, tell people real wages.
DEAN SMITH:
Real wages in Western Australia increased by 13.9% but the annual inflation rate for Perth over that same period increased by 18%. That’s the comparator and I know that because that was research that I did, supported by the Parliamentary Library, released in the newspapers over the Christmas break. So real wage increases matter only in the context of inflationary pressures. What we have seen is wage growth not keeping up with inflationary pressures. That’s why West Australians feel poorer and when they look around them, they know that they are poorer now than they were two and a half years ago.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Alright. Now, clearly, Western Australia, I mean what we saw on the weekend with the Prime Minister and of course Peter Dutton here. I don’t know if you can say launching the campaign, but certainly paying a fair bit of attention to WA Where does it sit now in terms of your Coalition getting the keys to the lodge right now, Dean?
DEAN SMITH:
We’re not taking anything for granted. The election’s not been formally called yet. Every vote will matter, and we’ve got some fantastic candidates spread out across Western Australia. Tom White in Curtin…
PATRICK GORMAN:
Can you win that?
DEAN SMITH:
I think we are working very hard because Tom White is the right person to be the next Liberal member for Curtin. First class individual, and he comes to the role with a tremendous amount of experience. Six hundred people came out and supported him on Monday afternoon in very humid conditions down at the Claremont Showground. So, we have done very well in endorsing the right candidate at the right time for seat like Curtin. And I think people in Curtin will understand that if you want to change the government then you need to elect Tom White.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Alright. Can I just ask you Patrick, how does it feel for you this election campaign, compared to Scott Morrison, when you were up against Scott Morrison and the sentiment that was there then. I’m still sometimes figuring out whether it was about him when we saw what occurred with the Teals, or whether it was about climate change largely. But how does this one compare to three years ago so far?
PATRICK GORMAN:
Well, I think in 2022 people had figured out Scott Morrison, they knew that he wasn’t on our side. I’ll accept that people are still having a look at Peter Dutton trying to figure out, okay, if this guy’s got a chance of being prime minister, what’s he actually going to do? And then when you kind of look at the playbook of what they’re planning, you’ve got nuclear power sometime in 25 years, you’ve got cuts for about 1700 public servants from Western Australia, out on the unemployment queues. You’ve got closure of Medicare urgent care clinics across the state. And I think when people take a closer look, and that’s what I’d encourage all of your listeners to do, and take a closer look at us too. But I think it’ll be very hard for anyone who thought Scott Morrison shouldn’t be Prime Minister. It’s very hard for them to come to the conclusion that Peter Dutton would be better. I mean we even had, I remember back when they were fighting it out over the leadership you had Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull and those two didn’t agree on much.
GARY ADSHEAD:
He’s very good on message, isn’t he?
DEAN SMITH:
I agree. A gentle reminder, 2025 is where we are now. 2025 will be the election year. I’m confident people are looking at Peter Dutton now because they’re hugely disappointed that Anthony Albanese has not lived up to their expectations. In addition to that, Peter Dutton has been a very competent leader bringing to some very real challenges in our country the experience of his leadership. And I’m encouraged that Western Australians are looking at Peter Dutton, and I think many of them must see all of the skills and competency of an alternative Prime Minister. And indeed, we hope the next Prime Minister.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Might come back to that. I’ve just got Patty on the line now to question. I think it’s about forests here in Western Australia. Hi Patty.
CALLER:
Hi and thanks for taking my call. Yeah, my question is that Australia has, with 139 other countries, changed at the United Nations to end and reverse deforestation by 2030. And in WA we have the most biodiverse temperate forest in the world, the jarrah forest. Will there be a plan to transition Alcoa out of that forest who haven’t in the 60 years they’ve been there rehabilitated even one hectare to government standards?
GARY ADSHEAD:
Well that’s the Green’s policy, isn’t it, in terms of Alcoa and, phasing out the strip mining that we’ve seen up in the hills around the Darling Scarp and others. I mean I know that it’s been a state matter in terms of dealing with some of the concerns about Alcoa, but is strip mining at all on your radar in terms of ending either of you.
DEAN SMITH:
Patty, I’ll have to answer in the broad, my apologies. But you know, I’m someone who believes ,and the Coalition believes that we can find sustainable management between forest conservation and mining. When we travel across the southwest of our state and as someone who travelled around the state as a kid a lot and around there as an adult now, I think we have managed our state forest very well, while at the same time, also ensuring that there’s a strong and prosperous mining sector that generates wealth for our state and jobs for West Australians. I think we are always looking for the better balance and I think that we can maintain that careful balance.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Patrick, I mean is it something on your radar at all? I mean, it’s just that issue, that Alcoa for 60 years given state agreements to go all the way back to before we were talking about climate change, before we were talking about tree canopies, et cetera. They just continue strip mining up there.
PATRICK GORMAN:
Well I’m conscious that when you’ve got a number of these companies and they have proposals in front of government, it’s not for me to sort of put a view out there when you’ve got ministers at different points in time assessing different applications from various companies. What I would say is, it was Labor who ended old growth logging in Western Australia. It was, when it comes to sort of protecting our environment and our climate, it was Labor that introduced a net zero commitment in law by 2050. We did that just two years ago. I’ll always look for practical ways to make sure that we can protect our environment but also give, and when it comes to our Alcoa and other mining companies here in Western Australia, give the world the minerals and the resources they need to do the transition to net zero. And I think we always have to be really careful about saying, well we don’t want to do any of it here in Western Australia. That’s not a sustainable proposition and neither is it sustainable for us economically, but it’s not sustainable for the world environmentally. And so I think we’ve got a role to play in sort of bringing forward those resources that people need. But also, what I see from a range of companies when I speak to them in Canberra and Perth, is that they are looking at ways of decarbonizing and making their operations much more sustainable, including much better replanting and decommissioning responsibilities than we’ve had in the past. And I think that’s a good thing.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Now, one thing that’s happened in WA that you would’ve seen in the last few days was, you know, we had the hot weather then we had some drizzle rain. We had pole top fires left, right and centre. We had lots of outages. We’ve seen agriculture crops just gone. What was in cold storage, gone, because they couldn’t keep the air conditioning and the cooling systems on. It’s 2025, we’ve got both the Labor and the Coalition coming into town with $350 million or whatever the case may be to widen a freeway and blah blah. What about a federal commitment to try and help end this bizarre thing that happens in Western Australia all too easily. And that is that we get a slight bit of rain after a dry period and the power all goes out, and people lose their stock in their fridge, their business livelihoods. Why can’t we put some money into that? Because clearly whatever’s happening with Western Power, it’s not keeping up the maintenance.
PATRICK GORMAN:
Alright, well firstly for small business owners who are listening today, Gary, I’d say there are federal programs that help small businesses who want to get a federal grant, a competitive grants program, to help them go to forms of energy and self-sustainability when it comes to batteries and their own forms of power. That is one of the things we’re seeing more and more businesses do and that’s a good thing. When it comes to the big infrastructure stuff that we are doing, we’ve supported through the capacity investment mechanism, further battery investments that are based down in Collie to make sure that we have more redundancy in our grid. Because that is what we need when we are going to have these greater variations in energy demand. That’s one of the solutions. And then there is the $3 billion commitment that we’ve made to the state government, that we put in our first budget, which is for rewiring Western Australia. That’s all about investing in energy infrastructure. Now is that going to change what’s happened over the last two days? No, because transforming our energy grids to make them more resilient is going to take…
GARY ADSHEAD:
We should have done that a long time ago, we’ve been knowing about these pole top fires that seem to cause mayhem, you know, intermittently over the years for a very long time and it doesn’t seem like we’ve really got on top of it. There might be some money to be thrown at that. I know you are big on not wasting food at the moment in terms of a charity organisations. I know it’s a bit of a weird segue but I mean it’s true isn’t it? You’ve, you’ve got some points you wanted to make on that, I know.
DEAN SMITH:
Absolutely Gary. Next week when we return to the Senate, the Senate will be debating my Private Senator’s Bill. It’s a tax incentive Bill that will give businesses and agricultural producers who want to make food donations to food charities a tax incentive.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Oh right. So, like to OzHarvest or a Food Bank or whatever the case?
DEAN SMITH:
We’ve just gone through Christmas, lots of publicity in regards to the stress that many charities were experiencing. Many charities not having enough food to give to families. So, this is an initiative that’s been floating around for, I’ve got to say for a couple of years, supported by over 60 organizations including Food Bank and the National Farmers Federation. So I’ve taken that idea, worked it up into let some legislation and we’ll debate it in the Senate next week.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Haven’t got long. So do you reckon you can get on board with that do you think – from the outside looking at that?
PATRICK GORMAN:
Food relief and food support for people is incredibly important. We know that too many people are relying on those services right now and I want to give a shout out, as I’m sure Dean does, to the OzHarvest crew who are just around the road, around the corner from here at the ABC Perth studios. The Government’s taken the view that the best way to support those food relief programs is to give them cash. That’s what we’ve been doing for the last two years. So they can get the food and supplies that they need for the customers that they serve.
DEAN SMITH:
So Gary, just in case you didn’t hear that, Patrick is saying that the Labor Government will not support my Private Senator’s Bill that is supported by FoodBank and Oz Harvest and Second Bite and the National Farmers Federation.
GARY ADSHEAD:
It wouldn’t cost the taxpayer much would it?
PATRICK GORMAN:
Dean, if you want to go through all the bills that you haven’t supported – you’ve opposed legislation to give aged care workers fair pay. You’ve opposed…
GARY ADSHEAD:
Alright, well it sounds like a good idea on the surface to me.
PATRICK GORMAN:
You opposed fee free TAFE, you guys opposed, for a while, opposed tax cuts for people on less than eighty thousand dollars, cheaper childcare.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Maybe you guys can have a chat off air about that one and see whether there’s a compromise. Now then of course you are listening to ABC Drive, Gary Adshead. In the studio I’ve got Dean Smith, Liberal Senator, I’ve got Patrick Gorman, the Member for Perth and we’ve still got some time for maybe a one or two calls. 1300 222 720. What I wanna ask you though is, I mean can we move on from this sort of stuff where, obviously the Prime Minister is asked by an FM radio station to draw an image that he sort of sees in Peter Dutton and he draws literally a, I don’t know, a rock or a potato with eyes and that’s it. And then the, sort of the, the comeback from Peter Dutton was a picture of Albo’s retirement home somewhere on a clifftop in New South Wales with a message saying enjoy your retirement. I mean come on, doesn’t the public deserve better than that you two?
PATRICK GORMAN:
I don’t know Gary, are you just angry that they’re talking to FM radio stations rather than AM?
GARY ADSHEAD:
Oh, hang on, we get our fair share. I tell you what I wonder why they talk to FM radio stations as much as they do though.
PATRICK GORMAN:
I just say for anyone who saw that coverage either on TikTok, Instagram or the West Australian, aren’t we lucky that we elect people based on their policies rather than their artistic ability? Because I think our country will be in a lot of trouble.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Are you a good artist by the way? Either of you two, because quite frankly the two leaders are rubbish.
PATRICK GORMAN:
I can’t keep up with my 4-year-old.
DEAN SMITH:
I do think electors deserve a bit of theatre in their politics. A little bit. We don’t want it on the front page of the West Australian every day. I hope that doesn’t get me into trouble, but a bit of theatre is important.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Last question from me because we’re running out of time. Are you downloading the Deep Seek app on your phone, Patrick Gorman and Dean Smith?
PATRICK GORMAN:
No, I’m not, definitely not. Not going on my phone, not coming anywhere in my household.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Do you envisage, you know, politically that that becomes taboo in terms of politicians? What do you think?
DEAN SMITH:
I think that’s where we’re heading. This is an important opportunity to say to your listeners, your personal information is really, really valuable and it’s very important to you. So, exercise, great caution when you are putting it into devices. I think the government has been very clear that people should act with great caution when it comes to DeepSeek. I was talking to my team about this this morning. I said but why don’t we use Perplexity…
GARY ADSHEAD:
I’m Perplexed – go on.
DEAN SMITH:
Well for those who haven’t used it, it’s an interesting tool I discovered in the United States a few months ago and it’s really powerful and impressive.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Well, I think when you’ve got an open source AI and you can’t ask it what happened in Tiananmen Square, we should all be concerned about it. So there you go. Hey gentlemen, thanks very much for coming in.
ENDS