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2 days ago
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Peter Dutton has admitted he made a mistake by wrongly claiming the Indonesian president had announced a proposal for Russia to base military aircraft in Indonesia, and declined to state whether the impacts of climate change were getting worse.
The opposition leader has also confirmed his plan to reduce the size of the federal public service by 41,000 positions by 2030 would not pay for the entirety of the Coalition’s policy platform, suggesting further cuts to government spending may be necessary.
The comments were made on Wednesday during the second leaders’ debate with Anthony Albanese hosted in the ABC’s Parramatta studio in Sydney, where the prime minister repeatedly declined to state when electricity prices would come down under a re-elected government.
Dutton seized on the noncommittal answer, noting that Labor told voters before the last election that electricity prices would decline by $275 if an Albanese government was elected.
“They are making no commitments in this election other than if you vote Labor, your electricity and gas prices will go up,” Dutton said.
When the leaders were asked by the ABC debate moderator David Speers whether they trusted Donald Trump, Albanese said “I have no reason not to”, while Dutton distanced himself, saying “I don’t know the president. I’ve not met him.”
In the hours before the debate, senior Labor ministers accused Dutton of making “reckless” comments about Indonesia, with the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, saying Dutton had “fabricated” a statement from the Indonesian president, Prabowo Subianto.
Dutton acknowledged he should not have claimed the Indonesian president had made an announcement about a Russian proposal to base Russian aerospace forces aircraft on Manuhua air force base on Biak island in Indonesia’s easternmost Papua region – about 1,400km from Darwin.
“The reference I was making should not have been to the president, it was in relation to sources from the Prabowo government,” Dutton said. “It was a mistake and I am happy to admit [that].
Albanese described Dutton’s comments as “extraordinary” and argued they demonstrated he had “no understanding of the need for diplomacy”.
The pair also clashed over the Coalition’s plan to reduce the size of the federal public service by 41,000 jobs by the end of the decade, through a mixture of natural attrition and voluntary redundancies.
When asked whether “cuts” to the public service would cover all of its election commitments, Dutton said “the short answer is no”.
“We won’t achieve all of the savings we need to achieve through our changes to the public service,” Dutton said.
Dutton also declined to state which departments the 41,000 jobs would come from beyond front-line services, which the opposition leader has said would be ring-fenced.
“It’s not something you can do from opposition, to redesign the public service in the way that works,” Dutton said.
In response, Albanese accused Dutton of not being upfront with the Australian public.
“He won’t say where the cuts will be but says vote for me, trust us, we will tell you after the election,” Albanese said.
When asked whether the impacts of climate change - including in his own state of Queensland – were getting worse, Dutton said “I’ll let scientists pass that judgment”.
“I don’t know because I’m not a scientist and I can’t tell you whether the temperature has risen in Thargomindah because of climate change or the water levels are up.”
“There’s an impact. The question is what we can do about it as a population of 27 million people. We should be good corporate citizens, good international neighbours. But at the moment China is building two coal fire power stations a week.”
In his closing statement, Albanese accused Dutton of not accepting the science of climate change.
“We’ve heard tonight no acceptance of the science of climate change,” Albanese said. “We accept it and we’re acting on it.”
Both leaders were asked whether their initiatives to address housing affordability would increase property prices, as many economists have claimed, but both said measures to increase supply would offset any increase in demand.
Albanese denied claims his government had modelled the impact of any change to negative gearing, before later clarifying that the modelling did exist and that it wasn’t commissioned by his team.
“It was modelled by the government,” Dutton said. “That’s publicly available. This prime minister has a problem with the truth”.
The next leaders’ debate will be held next Tuesday, and will be hosted on Nine. The final leaders’ debate will be held on 27 April, just six days before Australia heads to the polls.
