David Littleproud interviewed by Laura Jayes
TRANSCRIPT WITH SKY NEWS HOST LAURA JAYES; NSW ELECTION, THE VOICE.
LAURA JAYES
Welcome back. Well, The Nationals did pretty well at the New South Wales election. Looks like they've held all of their seats in New South Wales, all but one. So let's get to The Nationals party leader, David Littleproud. At a national level, of course, you must be pretty happy with that. Why do you think The Nationals were able to hold on?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
Because we just talk common sense. I think we've been able to cut through at a local level with the local issues, but delivery of the infrastructure that The Nationals, as part of the Coalition government, were able to deliver. Now, we haven't given up on Monaro just yet, but we've got to be honest, it's going to be a tough fight. The early indications are that we're behind. But, the first of the pre-polls came through on Sunday night in a booth that we normally lose, that we did win. So that's giving us some hope, a glimmer of hope that we may come back, along with postals, that normally go very strong in The Nationals way.
But overall, I think we are very proud of the fact that The Nationals, we've been able to stick to our values and our principles as Nationals, looking after regional Australia and regional New South Wales.
And we had a record of delivery, so, while the tide went out, it went out very heavily. And we've got to be honest about that and we've got to learn the lessons. There's still lessons for The Nationals to learn in this as well.
LAURA JAYES
What are they?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
We've got to listen. Well, I think, it came down to a tired government in the eyes of the electorate and the vision that we were proposing moving forward as a Coalition, I don't think cut through. And that's where I think Dom Perrottet eloquently said this on the night, is that this was a respectful campaign one on one, issues, and on ideas.
And this is where I think that Labor was able to cut through for a fresh start. I think privatization didn't help. We've got to understand that Australians and New South Welshman obviously love their assets and want them preserved by the governments owning them. So you've got to learn those lessons. But obviously now we've got to reflect and move forward and hopefully the Liberal party can do their bit and we'll obviously work and continue to work as Nationals to focus in on regional New South Wales and from my perspective, regional Australia.
LAURA JAYES
Yeah, for sure. It, it seems that that was a good tactic though. I mean, the central campaign, Dominic Perrottet wasn't talking a lot about the regions, but that's a beauty of the Coalition partnership, isn't it? That you divide and conquer, The Nationals, being able to concentrate on the bush in those seats and it seems to have worked even though, you know, we weren't talking, they weren't talking about the bush in kind of a central campaign sense. So look, is there any evidence in these results do you think, taking into account the result of One Nation as well, that shows that the Liberal party Dominic Perrottet, was too left in its policies?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
Oh, no. And I think that the New South Wales Nationals backed much of the policies that Dom Perrottet and the Liberals put forward. This is about making sure that we acknowledge the challenges that we're facing with respect to climate, but making sure we have practical solutions that respect traditional industries that are invariably in regional areas. And that's the responsible thing to do. No one is sitting here denying what's happening. We're just saying, and we're saying in Metropolitan areas…
LAURA JAYES
I don't know about no one understands, I don’t know about no one, there's some people actually saying that the majority, the majority, the Liberal party and I appreciate that you're not in the Liberal party, but I want to ask you this. There's some saying that the Liberal party, you know, every time there's a loss of an election, whether it be federal or state, and the Liberal party doesn't do well, there's always this kind of complaint. There's this point made before results even come in, by the way, the Liberals have gone too far to the left or they've forgotten their conservative base. Is there any evidence of that? What do you think about that claim?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
Well, well look, I'd be very careful to comment on that because obviously we don't run in metropolitan seats. So I don't actually go over the data worrying about seats in Sydney. What I worry about are the regional seats where we represent, our constituents and where we are trying to win seats. That's the purity of purpose that the National Party has, is that we don't compromise on our values of beliefs because we have city members. We simply focus in on regional Australians. So 30 per cent of Australians that live outside capital cities, I think there'll be a lot of analysis done over the coming couple of days about what went wrong in Sydney. But I think it's important you do that with clear air and a clear head.
LAURA JAYES
Yeah, fair enough. Let me talk to you quickly about the Voice. You would've just heard Anne Twomey on this program a couple of moments ago. You didn't support the Voice before we saw the wording. Now we have the wording, we'll go through a committee stage. Is there anything that would change your mind on this?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
No, there isn't. And we are now seeing lawyers at a hundred paces. In fact, you know, Greg Craven and others are now deviating from, and I think you even saw the Attorney-General admit yesterday, in a news article, that there will be High Court challenges. And this is what we'd feared and knew and what would help is that the government would be honest with the Australian people, bring them into their trust and release the Solicitor General's advice. That may help the case to be able to articulate all the legal conundrums that seem to be lying ahead of us.
But on principle, there are clear principles why we won't support this.
LAURA JAYES
But even if you saw the Solicitor General's advice and it didn't say that you wouldn't support it anyway?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
No, because we're predicated on our lived experience of what happens out in regional and remote areas. So we're just asking city people to understand that's where the most disadvantage is. And we've been down a representative model before and that's why we were able to make a decision very early because that is the model that the Prime Minister and the working group put forward. We've had that before under ATSIC. It didn't close the gap. And so what we're saying is we don't need another layer of bureaucracy. So there's over a thousand Indigenous groups giving advice to government and adding another one way it works. We don't need bigger bureaucracy. We need a better bureaucracy.
And that can be done without actually having to enshrine that in the Constitution. And we live by other simple tenant as well, Laura, that no matter your colour, your creed, your religion in this country, everyone's equal and everyone gets the same voice to Parliament. And that's through the 227 members that are elected in the Senate and the House of Representatives. I take that seriously and proudly, our nation has elected 11 Indigenous Australians, and they don't represent Indigenous Australians. They represent all Australians. That's our responsibility. That's the beauty of our system.
And those are guiding principles I think we shouldn't change for any reason whatsoever.
