Transcript: Interview with Peter van Onselen, Sky News

PVO: Welcome back to the program. As promised, I’m joined now by the Major Projects Minister Paul Fletcher. Thanks very much for your company

PAUL FLETCHER:  Hi Peter.

PVO: You must be disappointed. Today you had some pretty significant infrastructure announcements by the Prime Minister, but it all gets overshadowed by these comments by Peter Dutton around asylum seekers?

PAUL FLETCHER:  Well we have had a very significant infrastructure announcement by Prime Minister Turnbull -

PVO: You’re going to talk about the first half of that question, aren’t you? I was hoping for the second half.

PAUL FLETCHER:  $150million for an improved rail connection to Townsville Port. I was up in Townsville just a few weeks ago with the very hard-working Member for Herbert, Ewen Jones, and we met with the chief executive of Townsville Port, who explained the export volumes that are going through that port and the way that allowing that rail connection will increase the capacity -

PVO: We will get to that though if I can, because I know that’s what we’re here predominately talk about, but I have to ask… the media conference by the Prime Minister was side-tracked by a whole discussion about these comments by Peter Dutton from last night. Do you endorse the comments?

PAUL FLETCHER:  Look I agree with what Peter has said and what the Prime Minister has said. It is a reality that when we bring refugees into Australia many of them will not have had the benefit of education that is common in Australian society. These are some of the complexities and realities of bringing refugees into Australia.

PVO: But could it have been delicately worded I suppose is the question?

PAUL FLETCHER:  Let’s be clear what’s going on here. Labor is desperate to distract attention from the face that it is all over the place on border protection – it has a whole raft of candidates including, we’ve now discovered, the candidate in Bradfield. Labor’s candidate for Bradfield joins a long list who are opposed to Labor’s stated policy on border protection. Of course Labor’s also desperate to distract today from the fact that it turns out that David Feeney, the Labor member for Batman, owns a property -

PVO: Which he hasn’t declared.

PAUL FLETCHER:  Which is negatively geared. Look, declaration, he said he’s going to correct the record. That’s fine. That’s not really the issue. The issue is here, that he has decided to negatively gear a property so he and his family can get ahead. Nothing wrong with that. The Liberal Party supports that. Unfortunately, Mr Feeney has signed onto a policy which says other people won’t be able to do that – negative gearing will not be permitted.

PVO: Yeah, the rest of us miss out on the opportunity he has been afforded because of the policy. I’ve been having a go at him all day about it, but I just want to finish up if I can on this asylum seeker issue, including asking about the Labor candidate that’s up against you thereafter, but Ewen Jones wasn’t impressed by the comments by Peter Dutton and took to social media to express that but then, when there was an attempt to ask him a question at the media conference that he was at as the Member for Herbert with the Prime Minister he wasn’t afforded the opportunity to make a comment to the media. So you agree with the Prime Minister and Peter Dutton, but you disagree with Ewen Jones.

PAUL FLETCHER:  The point here is that we are a generous nation which has a very high proportion – our per-capita number of refugees we accept for permanent settlement in Australia from the UN High Commission Refugee Camps is in the top three in the world. 18,000 people, an additional 12,000 people for this special intake of people caught up in the appalling civil war in Syria, the destabilisation in Iraq. Now, we’re also making the point – because it always falls to the Coalition to practically deliver bringing in refugees, getting them on their feet, getting them established in Australia is complex, it’s expensive, it needs to be done right. The commitment we made to bring in the additional 12,000 was based upon a full understanding of what’s involved and the complexities.  But what you saw Peter Dutton doing, a very effective and successful immigration minister, you saw him explaining to the Australian people some of the complexities that are involved.

POV: And the fiscal reality, if you’re bringing in people who are going to require all sorts of assistance, as opposed to, for example, skilled migration, which is the bedrock of our immigration system. Quick one though on your candidate that you’re up against in Bradfield. The Daily Telegraph had a whole series of information about comments she has made on Twitter and elsewhere. Is this a beat-up though, given that, I suppose, your seat is as safe as houses – at least until Labor’s negative gearing policy comes in – It’s as safe as houses. Why would we care what she thinks, she’s an also-ran, she has no chance of beating you.

PAUL FLETCHER:  The reason that we should care, the reason that voters should care, is because they are being asked to choose candidates on the basis of the policies that those candidates and their parties stand for. Now in fact, Labor says it has a policy on border protection but there is a growing, long list of Labor candidates who are opposed to the policy that Mr Shorten says he will deliver if he comes into government. They’re split on border protection, they’re split on issues like penalty rates, they are not in touch with the concerns and aspirations of Australian families. And so the issue really is this: as a voter, when you make a choice, you cannot be sure what outcome you are going to get from Labor on many issues including border protection – but if you look back to the chaos and dysfunction of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years you probably have a pretty strong suspicion they are not going to be able to manage border protection effectively and you also know that a lot of their candidates don’t support the policy that Mr Shorten says he is taking to the people.

PVO: Let’s talk about infrastructure. Isn’t it true that Malcolm Turnbull would like to go a lot further on infrastructure, because as a businessman – you’re a former businessman yourself – he well understands that with debt level, sorry, with interest rates being as low as they are, the opportunity to lock-in low interest rates with government bonds, use that debt to fund important infrastructure – isn’t it true that he, and probably you frankly, would love to go a lot further but you’re constrained by the politics of debt rather than the reality of it, because anyone who understands business understands well that there is nothing with going into a lot of debt when you can borrow to build high-quality, productive infrastructure.

PAUL FLETCHER:  Looks a couple of points on that Peter – and it in an important debate. The first point is we have demonstrated our appetite and preparedness to engage in innovative financing. Let me give you one example – WestConnex – the enormous freeway project in NSW will revolutionise travel from western Sydney to the inner-city, to the port and to the airport. It’ll connect the M5 and the M4 with the third stage of WestConnex running in tunnels underneath the inner-city suburbs. This will really deliver very significant benefits to lots of people around Sydney. Now, the Commonwealth Government has provided $1.5 billion in grant funding, but we’ve also provided $2 billion in a concessional loan – so that’s a loan to support this project and it’s allowed stage two to be brought forward and commence pretty much at the same time as stage one. And we’ve prepared to do that – offer concessional terms to NSW which means the project can go ahead and the repayment date is later than a commercial lender would expect, the interest rate is lower. So we’ve certainly been prepared to do that. What we don’t think makes sense is this Labor approach of a concrete bank. In fact I’ve just given a speech about this today – Mr Shorten and Mr Albanese have been running around saying they’ve got $10 billion in a concrete bank and that it’s capitalised from $3.6 billion from the Building Australia Fund. Problem number one – the money in that has already been allocated to a whole range of infrastructure projects.

PVO: Just on that, does all of this raise the need for us to move to a more independent umpire when it comes to infrastructure projects. I’m sure you would have read George Megalogenis’ comments in the latest Quarterly Essay where he talks about, in the infrastructure space, needing to have something that is the equivalent of the Reserve Bank in term of its independence on monetary policy. Do you concur with that?

PAUL FLETCHER:  Well in effect, that is what Infrastructure Australia does -

PVO: He wants it to be more significant.

PAUL FLETCHER:  Well, we strengthened Infrastructure Australia. Labor’s proposal is that Infrastructure Australia should also be handing out the money – a serious conflict of interest between being the independent advisor and then getting involved in transactions. So Infrastructure Australia is there to do that job. The rule is, if it’s a project of more than $100 million it must go to Infrastructure Australia, there must be a cost-benefit analysis. Now Labor yesterday announced money for a tram project in Adelaide which has not gone to Infrastructure Australia – in fact no business case has yet been finalised by the South Australian Government – and this concrete bank proposal that they’ve got glosses over a fundamental distinction. Yes – you can provide financing to infrastructure projects which generate a financial return – like ports, such as Port Kembla and Port Botany which were privatised by the NSW Government a few years ago. Or airports – which produce a financial from the landing fees and the other revenues. But the problem with public transport, and with roads, is that they don’t produce a financial return and yet Mr Shorten and Mr Albanese have been claiming that their concrete bank will be a means by which superannuation funds could invest in public transport projects and roads. Big problem – there’s no financial return – these would be very bad investments. Any superannuation trustee that said “great idea members, let’s put our money in there” there’s no return coming back. It doesn’t work.

PVO: Quick final one before I let you go – what do you think of Peta Credlin on the commentary trail? It’s unhelpful to say the least to the government isn’t it? And I would have thought, uniquely perhaps, the Abbott and the Turnbull camp can come together on that one because she is, in a sense, as is her right as a commentator, as someone who was so close to government so recently, and yet is now being very open and honest and as part of that very critical about the Turnbull Government’s performance in various areas.

PAUL FLETCHER:  Peter, commentary is important; I’ll leave that to the commentators.

PVO: Yeah, but one of the commentators is someone who was at the absolute heart of this government that’s seeking re-election so it means something when she then says Malcolm Turnbull did this wrong or he needs to do that or he should have done this.

PAUL FLETCHER:  Peter, what I’m doing, what everyone of the Liberal and National candidates around the country is doing is talking about our plan for jobs and growth, about the Turnbull Government’s plan for a strong, new economy. That’s what we are focussed on, that’s what this election will be decided on – we’ll leave the commentary to the commentators.

PVO: Alright, I knew that’s what your answer would be, but I tried anyway, Paul Fletcher thanks for joining us.

PAUL FLETCHER:  Thanks Peter.