David Littleproud's interview with Laura Jayes on Sky News
Now The Nationals leader David Littleproud joins us. Thanks so much for your time. First of all, does this poll vindicate Labor, do you think?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
No. I think if you look at the question, of course, the result was going to end up that way. It's factually incorrect. It'll actually be more than 80,000 Australians that get caught up in this because once Australians understand the detail of which, unfortunately, the Deputy Prime Minister didn't understand on Friday, there'll be more than 80,000 people. The indexation of this means that particularly for young Australians, the aspirational young Australians that are out there, they're starting their journey into superannuation now, they’re the ones that are going to feel the pain on this, they're the ones that are going to get caught up in this. It's going to be a lot more than that. There's also going to be some unintended consequences to this, particularly in the agricultural sector.
There are a number of primary producers that have gone into superannuation through their property. In fact, the properties are in superannuation, self-managed super funds, and they pay them to pay themselves rent.
And the unintended consequences of a policy that seems to be rushed is going to have some unintended consequences for Australians now and into the future. But it's also the slippery slope for other tax, grabs from this government, whether it be superannuation, whether it be negative gearing, whether it be on the family home. Jim Chalmers just needs to come clean and be honest because he's looking slippery at the moment. And Anthony Albanese needs to show the leadership to look the Australian people square in the eyes and be honest with them.
LAURA JAYES
Yeah. Well, we've seen this morning, Tony Burke say, well this is really vindication for the policy. Might this spur them on? Might it give them more encouragement to do more on that list of things that we've been speaking about for a week?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
Yeah, I have no doubt. And obviously this isn't something that they've just dreamt up overnight. This is something that they’ve had a philosophical bent towards and they were moving towards this before the election, but didn't have the courage of their own conviction to put it to the Australian people before the election. I suspect we'll see further moves in the Budget, the upcoming budget in May. But just be open and honest with the Australian people. You went to the election saying that you weren't going to trash any of the principles around taxation, that you could trust them.
They've eroded that in less than 12 months. And that's not what the Australian people expect in the governments. They expect them to be open and transparent with them and tell them, if you're going to make significant changes, let us be the arbiter of that. And that's at the election.
LAURA JAYES
Well, we have also seen David Pocock this morning talk about stage three tax cuts. He's reopened the door to that and says it should be revisited.
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
Yeah, well look, David Pocock can make those claims. But the government, again, as did we, went to the election and said that these were part of the overall tax reform of making sure we put more money back into Australians’ pockets because they know how to spend it better than us. They're going to appreciate that we'd already passed on tax cuts to low and middle income earners. And this was the last phase of that. So I think the government's made that commitment that they're going to continue on with this. They went to the election promising it.
So if they renege on that again, then this whole thing is just an overall debacle that shows you just can't trust Labor. They'll say what they need to before an election and then actually change their mind straight after it.
LAURA JAYES
What about where it goes this week then? This debate, Labor certainly seems like they've got a lot of wind at their sails at the moment. We see this cost-of-living crunch happening with the RBA making another decision tomorrow. Then you have some economists predicting that they'll need to then cut hard next year. Are we on our way to a recession?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
Oh, look, I'm not an economist so I'm not going to give gratuitous advice, but all I can do is put the finger out the window every time I'm outside Canberra and smell the breeze. And the breeze is very thick in the cost-of-living pressures. The crisis that our families and households are feeling out there at the moment. It's a triple whammy. It's not just interest rates and it's going to be 10 out of 10, for the Albanese government in terms of rate increases tomorrow. It's also your food bill, Penny Wong admitted that she turned away thousands of workers for the agricultural sector from ASEAN countries because the AWU said she couldn't take in ASEAN workers, which means farmers aren't planting as much.
Supply goes down and you are paying more at the grocery store. And then it's your energy bill.
I mean, we've now got the ideology coming to the screeching halt of practical reality of what's coming out of your wallets and about how to try and keep the lights on. So the ideology of opposition doesn't match when you're in government. And what's being felt out there is that triple whammy by households. And this is where the government can take action. They can take sensible action, using common sense, to make sure they drive down that, whether it be for food, whether it be for energy, and it's about what the priorities are on spending, because some of that big debt that you're going to pay, that's pushing up rates and putting spending is on 28,000 kilometres of new transmission lines, that if you had a sensible energy policy, you wouldn't need.
LAURA JAYES
Alright. Right. Let me ask you finally, you have been traveling around the country. Obviously you spent a lot of time in WA, there's an article in The Australian talking about live sheep exports. This is something that you are really passionate about. If the Albanese government scraps it, you want to make sure that it's something you would reinstate, if you were back in power. Have you spoken to Peter Dutton about this? Is he open to it?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
He is and he's given me that iron-clad assurance and this is something that The Nationals will not fall back on. We believe passionately in live sheep trade, all we would be doing by shutting this down is not only losing 3000 jobs in Western Australia, we'd be exporting animal welfare standards to other countries like Sudan and Ethiopia. And they don't have our standards. We can actually measure the (breath) pants per minute of a sheep on a boat, the air that flows through a boat, the length of wool and how many kilos a sheep has so that we know that there isn't distress.
Other countries don't do that. And then when they get there, if we don't send these sheep from us, then the actual processes will slip below Australian standards. So for all the moral virtue signalling of animal activists in the Labor Party, do they value the welfare of a sheep above that of another sheep from another country?
You have a judicial responsibility to stay and get this right. This market will continue. The cattle industry was given a second chance. I reformed the industry when I was Agriculture Minister. They deserve a second chance. In fact, they've taken that chance with both hands and they're doing it better than anyone else in the world. And for us to turn our backs on this, we'll be turning our backs on Western Australian jobs, but we'll be turning our backs on animal welfare standards and the National party will not stand for that. And I'm pleased to say that Peter Dutton will back us on it.
LAURA JAYES
Okay, good to see you. Welcome back to Canberra.
