Prime Minister – Transcript – Interview with Chris Kenny, Sky News

CHRIS KENNY: Well, we are now almost halfway through this
six week election campaign leading up to the May 21st federal election. So
let’s cross down to Hobart now and catch up with the Prime Minister, Scott
Morrison. He’s been kind enough to join us. Thanks for joining us, Prime
Minister. I wonder if I could just start off –

PRIME MINISTER: G’day Chris.

KENNY: Where I left off with Pembo. I don’t know whether you heard it,
but he was write, he’s been writing and talking about how vicious and nasty and
personal politics has become. And we’ve got people basically arguing that you
shouldn’t be Prime Minister because you don’t care about people being burned
and injured in bushfires or you don’t care about an alleged rape in Parliament
House, or you don’t care about people’s cost of living and being swamped in
floods. And and there’s a bit of vitriol goes back the other way to Anthony
Albanese. Does it worry you? I mean, you’re essentially two good blokes leading
political parties with different philosophies?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, I saw Pembo’s piece on the
weekend and actually sent him a note saying I thought he sort of called that
pretty well. I mean, of course, all those sort of character assaults that have
been levelled at me over the last few years. I mean, I think people know me to
be someone very different to that. But what really matters when you’re in
politics, I mean, we all have thick skins and we get on with the job. But for
those who aren’t in politics, I am very worried about how the social media
world is actually making life pretty intolerable for just people going about
their business every day, going to work every day, you know, people hauling
over everything they do and say. And this is counting against what I think is
sort of civil and positive debate in this country. That’s why we’ve taken such
strong actions against the big social media players. So, look I do think social
media has really produced the level of a discussion and political debate in
this country. But, you know, that’s not for me to sort of complain about. We’ve
got a election on and we’re almost three weeks down. I’m down here at Nyrstar
in Hobart where we just announced $50 million to support the construction of a
new electrolysis plant here. Now, this is a company that employs 1,600 people
here in Tasmania. There’s 200 construction jobs. We’ve combined together with
the State Government here with Jeremy Rockliff. They’re putting in $20 million,
the company’s putting in $330 million. That’s also supporting another 5,000
jobs across Tasmania. This is how you get things done.

KENNY: All right.

KENNY: This is what this election is about. It’s about making things in
Australia, the strength of our economy and who can do that best.

KENNY: All right, you’re in Tasmania. Now, I spoke to Pauline Hanson at the
top of the program. She is livid, as you would know, about the Liberal Party
preferencing Jacqui Lambie’s Candidate ahead of One Nation in the Senate race
down there and she’s now gonna preference against you in North Sydney and in
Bass in Tasmania and in Sturt in South Australia. It could cost you seats. It
could cost you Government. Why have you done this? Why has the Liberal Party
done this to One Nation?

PRIME MINISTER: Look, we’re just focussed on what
the Australian people are focussed on in this election. All this discussion
about preferences. It’s just politics, Chris. It’s just a lot of politics.
That’s not changing what people do for a job. It’s not changing what they earn.
It’s not keeping downward pressure on inflation and interest rates. That’s what
we’re focussed on in this election. Everyone else wants to talk about politics
and what all that means. Fine, knock yourself out. But that’s not what I’m
focussed on. What I’m focussed on is ensuring that we have a strong economy
because you know, if you don’t have a strong economy then you can’t do anything
else. You can’t fund the essential services Australians rely on. You can’t put
$50 million into this plant right here, which is saving 1,600 jobs.

KENNY: But Prime Minister, to go on doing that, you need to be
re-elected. You need to actually win at politics, to remain in Government. And
this is where, the reason that you can’t get re-elected.

PRIME MINISTER: I’ll tell you how you don’t get
re-elected.

KENNY: The reason you can’t get the primary vote high enough –

PRIME MINISTER: You don’t get re-elected running
around the – sorry, Chris.

KENNY: Sorry. I just want to make make that point. The reason your
primary vote isn’t high enough is because you’ve got people fracturing off to
Clive Palmer, to One Nation, to Liberal Democrats. You’re losing votes on the
right.

PRIME MINISTER: And this is why I keep telling
Australians and asking them every day, you know, we’ve got a big choice at this
next election about whether we’re going to have a stronger economy or a weaker
economy. And voting for Independents does not make a stronger economy. You
know, a Government that has to negotiate for its existence every single day of the
week is not going to make Australia stronger. It’s going to make it weaker.
Now, we’ve had a difficult time as a country over the last three years and I’m
sure there are plenty of things that Australians don’t necessarily agree with
me about or wish this had done differently or whichever. But it’s about the
future. And so you can support a Liberal National Government that has got our
economy through one of the most difficult times. And we’re keeping investing to
make things here. To ensure we have reliable, affordable energy. Electricity
prices are down 8 per cent and we’ve got unemployment to 4 per cent and going
further down and we’ve got 300,000 Australians into their own home directly
through what we’ve been doing. That’s the stuff that matters, Chris.

KENNY: It sure is, but –

PRIME MINISTER: If people want to talk about
preferences and politics, they can. What I’m appealing to Australians to do is
vote for the Liberal National Government because that will make the economy
strong. That’s what will ensure that we can have a stronger future.

KENNY: Will you talk directly with Pauline Hanson to try and sort this
out to negotiate your way around this?

PRIME MINISTER: The party organisation negotiates
preferences. I get on and do the job of the Prime Minister, which is about
making our economy strong and ensuring we’re delivering Australians with the
economy they need into the future.

KENNY: I’ve given some praise to Rebekha Sharkie over the past couple of
days because in her interview with David Penberthy she said she recognises that
Mayo is a traditional Liberal state. She recognises as an Independent she
shouldn’t be turfing governments out. That’s something for voters to do. So
she’s saying she would, her first preference, if it came to a minority parliament
would be to negotiate with the Coalition, to negotiate with you. She’s, of
course, got a shopping list, but that’s her inclination, reflecting the
expectations of her electorate. I say good on her for being so honest and
upfront. How can you force the so-called Teal Independents who obviously exist
to deliver a Labor-Greens Government, how can you force them to actually reveal
or put on the record their intentions?

PRIME MINISTER: Well that’s, that is the job of
the Australian media and the public to be asking them. If you’re interested in
voting in that direction, I mean you’ve got to ask yourself the question, how
does that make Australia stronger? How does voting for someone in those seats
that don’t even have an economic policy, let alone have an economic plan? I
mean, why would you trust the country to the chaos of that type of parliament
at a time when we have great global insecurity, when it comes to national
security issues and tremendous pressures on the economy?

KENNY: Are they attempting –

PRIME MINISTER: I mean this is a very serious
time.

KENNY: Yes, it is and –

PRIME MINISTER: Very serious time.

KENNY: And I –

PRIME MINISTER: And so the choice that people are
going to make, don’t make the choice for a weak parliament, make the choice for
a strong government, which means a strong economy.

KENNY: Are those so-called Teal Independents attempting to deceive
voters?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, they’re anti-Liberal.
That’s what their job is. I mean, they’re not running against the Labor Party.
They’re only running against the Liberal Party. And some of them used to be
members of the Labor Party. They make no secret of that. This is an anti-Liberal
Party funded by big money with Simon-Holmes a Court. I mean, that’s what it is.
I mean they have no plan for Australia. They have no plan for the economy. They
can’t even be up front with that support in a Government. So the only way you
can ensure that we have a strong economy, that you have a Liberal National
Government, is to vote for Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney, to vote for Dave
Sharma there in Wentworth, obviously to the vote for Josh Frydenberg, there in
Kooyong, and Katie Allen in Higgins.

KENNY: So are they, are they fake –

PRIME MINISTER: If you want a Liberal National
Government to keep our economy strong. Then don’t vote for the anti-Liberal
candidates, because they’re anti-Liberal.

KENNY: Therefore, they are fake Independents and they’re deceiving
voters.

PRIME MINISTER: Well, of course they are. Of
course they are. I mean, this idea that they’re Independent when they’re all
networked and knitted together with funding, backing coming from the big end of
town. I mean, this idea that there’s some sort of community representative
group. I mean, this is just one big financial push from a couple of people with
a lot of money trying to run the Liberal Party out of town. That’s what it is.
Now, as a Government, I say, that we have ensured that the Australian economy
has come through one of the biggest challenges, in fact the biggest challenge,
we have seen since the Second World War and the Great Depression. And we have
the economic plan to keep that going. Even now, when you see those inflation
figures and yes, they are concerning, we do know there is upward pressure on
rising costs of living and we do know there’s real pressure on interest rates.
So people have got to ask themselves, who do they think is going to be able to
keep downward pressure on those things? Liberals and Nationals, as we’ve
demonstrated it, proven in one of the toughest times we’ve ever been through,
or Anthony Albanese who’s never done a Budget, a Labor Party who with Wayne
Swan just took our economy off the edge, or the Teal Indepen- well they’re not
Independents – the anti-Liberal Independents in those seats, throwing the
Government and the Parliament into chaos. I mean, this is a time when we need
strength, not weakness.

KENNY: When it comes to the economy and interest rates, it’s been obvious
for some months that interest rates are going to have to start the climb back
to something approaching normal. Yet you’re going to be faced with an interest
rate hike next week, probably a small increase. We’ve already seen how a lot of
the media in politics is going to portray this. Are you disappointed that the
Governor of the Reserve Bank didn’t act earlier? That we should have seen some
incremental increase in interest rates before this election campaign even
began?

KENNY: Well, Chris, I’m a former Treasurer and I respect the independence
of the Reserve Bank. And you have never found me, whether as a Treasurer or as
a Prime Minister in any way, casting any doubt on the independence of the
Reserve Bank by offering a commentary on the monetary policy. They set monetary
policy, we set fiscal policy. And over the course of this pandemic, we have
worked closely together and I think those two arms of policy have aligned well
to ensure we’ve brought Australia through this terrible crisis. Now I respect
the Reserve Bank, but let me tell you this, the cash rate is at 0.1 per cent.
Back when the Reserve Bank put up interest rates in 2007, it was at 6.5 per
cent. Today we have a war in Europe and we have massive disruption of global
supply chains caused by the pandemic, which we’ve seen, and global security
issues. And we’ve seen bigger lockdowns now occurring in China, which further
disrupts. So we’ve got a lot of pressures in the system. And so I think the two
scenarios are quite different. See –

KENNY: They are indeed.

PRIME MINISTER: …managing the economy is not a
straightforward thing. You can’t take it for granted. That’s why you can’t
trust at such a critical time as this in taking a risk on Anthony Albanese, the
Labor Party or the chaos of a parliament populated by left-wing anti-Liberal
candidates in what they call themselves as the Teal Independents.

KENNY: Two quick questions we might be able to get in before we run out
of time. Firstly, Katherine Deves. I’d love to interview her.

PRIME MINISTER: I’m sorry if I’m speaking a bit
loud, Chris, but sorry, I’m sorry if I’m speaking a bit loud and to your
viewers also, I apologise.

KENNY: No, no, it’s all fine.

PRIME MINISTER: There’s a lot of noise where I am
here at Nyrstar.

KENNY: Indeed. All right.

PRIME MINISTER: Sorry about that.

KENNY: Well, I’ll be loud and clear. Katherine Deves, I’d love to
interview her. It seems like the New South Wales Liberal Party have got her in
hiding. You have no problems with her turning up for an interview with me,
would you?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, I look, that’s a matter for
the campaign teams to sort those things out. I mean, what I do every day is set
out very clearly what our government is doing. But as you know, I’ve stood
strongly to ensure that Katherine continues on as our Candidate and to be our
Candidate. She’s talking about a very sensible issue about women and girls in
sport. That’s it. That’s the point. I think it’s very sensible.

KENNY: Indeed.

PRIME MINISTER: I wasn’t going to stand there and
let people pile on and try to cancel her. I think it’s important the point
she’s making and I check in on her pretty regularly, particularly after I saw
those terrible reports about the threats and she’s okay. But obviously, we need
to take a bit more care given those threats.

KENNY: All right. We’ve got –

PRIME MINISTER: I think it’s appalling that that
should be necessary, absolutely, that that should be necessary. We’ve got to
stop walking on eggshells in this country.

KENNY: We’ve got 30 seconds before we run for foul of Peta Credlin. So
Anthony Albanese –

PRIME MINISTER: Oh, well I don’t want to risk
that!

KENNY: Has he used his COVID isolation to duck out of the campaign? Do
you think we should have seen more of Albanese while he was in isolation?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, I do know there must be a
lot of questions waiting for him when he comes out of isolation. I do hope that
he’s well and that his symptoms weren’t too difficult. I remember when I came
out, that’s when I went straight up from isolation directly to the floods in
northern New South Wales. That was where I went immediately. I didn’t go to
other states. That’s where I went. And it’s important, that I hope that he
comes out and he’s well, because this is an important campaign. And for the last
week he’s done a couple of interviews, I suppose. But there’s a choice and
people need to see there’s a choice. I’ve said there’s two debates. We had the
Sky Debate. It was a good debate. We should have two debates next week. He said
he’d debate me any time, anywhere. Well, Thursday night, Channel Seven, I’ll be
there.

KENNY: Well, all right.

PRIME MINISTER: Sunday night, Channel Nine, I’ll
be there.

KENNY: Great stuff we’ll resolve the debate debate. Thanks for joining
us, Prime Minister. I appreciate it.

PRIME MINISTER: Good on ya, Chris. Nice to talk
to you.