TRANSCRIPT - SKY NEWS NEWSDAY WITH KIERAN GILBERT

PAUL FLETCHER MP

Shadow Minister for Science and the Arts

Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy

Manager of Opposition Business in the House

TRANSCRIPT

SKY NEWS NEWSDAY

30 MAY 2024

KIERAN GILBERT: Back to Canberra now and the Manager of Opposition Business, Paul Fletcher, joins me live in the studio. We don't really have to guess where you're going to go in Question Time this afternoon; it's back on the Detainee question and the Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, who was on this program earlier. He's adamant he is cancelling visas, he's overturning decisions made by the tribunal, and he's getting on with the job.

PAUL FLETCHER: Well, Kieran, we have been focusing on this in Question Time on Tuesday and Wednesday, and yes, again, we'll be asking questions about it today because we have a truly bizarre situation where a minister issued this notorious Direction 99, which made it very clear to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal that when it was dealing with appeals from visas being revoked, that it had to take into account additional factors that it previously did not have to give the same weight to, such as length of connection with Australia. The result of that has demonstrably been that many criminals who would previously have been deported from Australia were not deported. We now know that the minister was given advice to that effect by his own department—that's emerged in estimates. This is a minister who is clearly not up for the job, and that is why it's utterly appropriate that we're using Question Time to focus on his failings and, critically, his failings and those of the Prime Minister to keep Australians safe.

KIERAN GILBERT: Well, he says that the advice from the department, the advice prior to this direction being implemented, was that it wouldn't be counterproductive in terms of some of those high-risk detainees where he wanted people deported, that it wouldn't see those overturned.

PAUL FLETCHER: Look, he's clearly casting around looking for any possible excuse. He gave a direction that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal is required to follow, and they have diligently followed it and have been clear this has been a significant factor in decisions. And yet, he's now been going around saying, "Oh, well, you know, they haven't made common sense decisions." He made a direction; they followed it. And, of course, made that direction following the Prime Minister meeting with then New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern shortly after the election. She pressed him on this point. The Coalition never yielded on this point, but she pressed him, she pressed Anthony Albanese, and as a consequence of that, the Australian government, the Albanese government, took a decision to change the policy, which has demonstrably led to Australians being less safe.

KIERAN GILBERT: Do you think that the opposition should also be turning its attention to the inflation question? Because if there are rate rises, as some economists think there should be over the coming months, that would dwarf everything else as a political issue. So, why don't you head there in Question Time?

PAUL FLETCHER: There's no doubt that inflation is a very important issue. The numbers that came out yesterday, with the core inflation rate of 4.1%—core inflation being what the RBA tracks most closely—make it clear that the Panglossian statements from the Treasurer and his department forecasting a reduction in inflation and in due course in interest rates—I'm sorry for them, but reality is not conforming to their models. What we are seeing is that inflation is staying stubbornly high. Now, we've been warning about this for months. Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor has been banging the drum on this. We warned against...

KIERAN GILBERT: But in Question Time, you've gone on the Detainee issue, Giles, uniformly this week. Why not also look to that other massive issue for most households?

PAUL FLETCHER: What we seek to do in Question Time is address the range of issues that are rightly before the Parliament. And every day, you can make the case that there's a lot of other things that could also have rightly been asked about. And inflation is certainly a very significant issue. We are continuing to press that point, and we do make the point that the budget that was brought down—we warned against a budget that would fuel inflation. We said the budget needed to focus on fighting inflation. They brought down a budget that has fueled inflation. And what we now know from the statistics that came out yesterday, today, is that inflation appears to be stuck, it's not moving down. And it's against that backdrop that the decisions taken in the budget will now feed through to the economy. That is very troubling.

KIERAN GILBERT: Manager of Opposition Business, Paul Fletcher, thanks. We appreciate it.

PAUL FLETCHER:Thanks again.