MATT ‘MACCA’ MACCARTHY, HOST: Might have been able to see Cold Chisel doing their 50th anniversary thing. Wow. There you go, Barnesy has been going for that period of time. Most people generally lose their voice and sound husky after 50 years. Barnsey started that way. One bloke that was there was Senator Tim Ayres. He joins us this morning. Tim, how are you?
SENATOR TIM AYRES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TRADE AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR A FUTURE MADE IN AUSTRALIA: I am good Macca. Good to be on the show.
MACCA: Yeah, absolutely. We thought we might have lost you there for a second, but you've been out enjoying concerts and a fair bit of parliamentary business as well.
SENATOR AYRES: Yeah, absolutely. I got up to Armidale for the Cold Chisel concert. I'm really glad I did. We packed up, wife and the kids in the car, boyfriends and girlfriends, you know, six, sort of four young adults, and then two oldies up the front of the bus and headed up the New England highway. And I'm glad, I'm really glad I did. It was a fantastic, fantastic concert. They were in really good form too.
MACCA: Good to see him coming back. Great to see him coming back after the little medical turn, actually a pretty serious medical term that he had, and back on stage bigger and better than ever.
SENATOR AYRES: He was as fit as a fiddle, and it was an effortless performance. Nobody would have left that disappointed. And I think it just shows that Cold Chisel really value their time in Armidale and in New England, where they lived, I think, in Kentucky for a year, and in Armidale, and did all of that hard work doing paid and unpaid gigs in country pubs, including in my hometown of Glenn Innes, where it sounds like they had a real impact locally, but it created a sense in them, a real nostalgia for New England, and that's why they had the first concert there. And it was fantastic, but there wasn't a dry eye in the house where they played Flame Trees, that's for sure.
MACCA: There you go. Certainly, reminds me of my hometown at Wee Waa, when you come over that levy bank and just trying to catch up with people that you just forget, because life gets in the way. And that's what Flame Trees is all about.
SENATOR AYRES: It doesn’t matter what country town you come from, Flame Trees, even for country towns like Wee Waa or Glenn Innes that don't have any flame trees, it somehow evokes that sense of nostalgia that all of us who grew up in country towns have for the town that we grew up in. It is a perfectly written song, perfectly delivered. It is a piece of musical magic and there were about 80,00 people there, I reckon, who all experienced it standing in the paddock outside Armadale. It's fantastic. I'll never, never forget it.
MACCA: A couple of things happening, probably more seriously, around two-hundred missiles fired since you and I spoke last overseas. Government support, definitely towards Israel by the looks of things, how much federal government support, both fiduciary, I guess, and in thoughts and prayers, have we given to Israel at the moment? What's happening? What's Australia's involvement here?
SENATOR AYRES: It has been over a year now since that atrocity on October 7th, and we have to pause for a moment and think about what the human cost has been of this terrible conflict. It started with Hamas' absolutely- you struggle to find the words to describe the atrocity that was committed on October 7th. Of course, hostages still in captivity, being kept by Hamas, which is a terrorist organisation that runs the West Bank, sorry, that runs Gaza like a dictatorship. And then, of course, we've got the human toll of Israel's response, 40,000 people killed thus far in the conflict, many of them, many of them civilians. Now the conflict has broadened to include Israel's response to Hezbollah firing, as you say, hundreds and hundreds of rockets every day. People say rockets. Have to remember, these things are missiles that are designed to blow up buildings and to kill people. This conflict has gone on and on and on.
And you asked, what is the Australian Government's approach to this? We have remained consistent all of the way through because, what's important here is that we act in Australia's national interest. There's a lot of passion, of course, in the community about this question. Many Australians passionately support the right of Israel to defend itself. And many Australians passionately support they may have family in Lebanon or in Gaza, or passionately support the right for the safety of Palestinians and the long-term argument for Palestinian statehood, and many Australians who just see this conflict and see the horror of this conflict and want it to stop. But it's really important that Australia adopts a position that recognises we're not a participant in the Middle East. We are not a power in the Middle East. What we have to do is act to do three things, to protect Australian citizens who may be engaged, you know, who may be in the region, and ensure that when conflict and risk comes to them, that we're in a position to support them coming back home. The Australian passport means something Macca, having that Australian passport. We have been doing that as diligently and as assiduously as we can. The second is to project Australian values and Australia's interests into the region as a middle power. We're a respected voice, but as I said, not a participant in the conflict. Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese have been out there calling for peace, calling for a two-state solution, and calling for a ceasefire and demanding that the countries engaged in the conflict recognise the rules of war and that civilian casualties are minimised. Finally, of course, Macca, the most important thing for Australia is for politicians like me, political leaders, to exercise what they say carefully, considering the importance of social cohesion here in Australia at home, not to bring the conflict here to Australia, but to reinforce our democratic values, the right of Australians to engage in this discussion, but to do it respectfully and peacefully. So sorry, it was a long answer, but it is a very challenging set of issues, and it's really important that Australian Government act in the national interest on these questions.
MACCA: Obviously, we're playing in some playgrounds, for want of a better word, with a lot of oil in and around the area. Do you think this will bring petrol prices up? We've looked at resource costs with Ukraine and Russia, and now, obviously I know these wars have been going on for about 4,000 years, but this escalated tension, we're likely to see fuel prices go up in Australia?
SENATOR AYRES: We have seen some impact on fuel prices as Iran has supported the Houthi rebels who are in Yemen, adjacent to supply routes for shipping, who have targeted commercial shipping, and that has had some impact not just on fuel prices, but also on container movements, because containers have had to divert around that area, and that's created some of the inflationary pressure that you're seeing come through into prices that households and businesses see is related to the conflict. One of the reasons that governments around the world want to see a de-escalation, not an escalation, of this conflict, is because of its potential impact on prices. Of course, there are other concerns as well in terms of the human impact in the region and the broader destabilisation. The best is to say, destabilising influences, Iran in particular, engaged in this conflict. It is very important for Australia's interest, including our economic interest, that we're engaged in this in a really deliberate and thoughtful way that is in the Australian national interest. And that we're not just trying to drive a partisan or political response or looking for an argument or looking for the conflict which has really been too much of what's happened in the Australian Parliament on these questions. We got to the stage last week where the day after October 7, the government had a resolution in the Senate that failed. It represented the government position all of the principles that I'm talking about. It failed because the Liberals and Nationals on one hand couldn't agree, and the Greens political party on the other couldn't agree to the basic principles of a two-state solution. You have the sort of extremes of politics, we're there in the middle, charting the course that is in the Australian interest, and you've got to our left and to our right, the sort of extremes of politics who found a way to agree to defeat the government's legislation, that's actually not in the national interest. It's really important for social cohesion, at the very least, that Australians see the parliament charting a course that's in the national interest, that reflects Australian values. And I was very disappointed to see that failure on Tuesday of last week.
MACCA: You would have thought if there was bipartisan support for anything it would have been for that. The Hills of Gold project out here. 163,000 average Australian homes, apparently, this is supposed to bring renewable power to that many dwellings. Now, this question was for Barnaby Joyce last week. I just want to put it to you. Apparently, it's been approved out there. Now, Tim, you might be able to give us a bit of an update. This question, as I said, was for Barnaby from our listeners. But there's some interesting points in this one. I wouldn't want to get you to comment on.
LISTENER: I've been away, but I've come home to the Nundle community, and is it true that the wind turbines have got all clearance to go now, are they going forward with this? Because I know a lot of people in Nundle fought it, I am guessing people at Woolomin with the transmission line fought it, people at Dungowan have fought it. It seems to me like our government are really good for nothing if they can't stand up for the Australian people against these global corporations, why are we even paying them? Why are they in government? Barnaby Joyce, can you answer some of these questions? I'd appreciate that. All right, have a good day.
MACCA: Tim Ayres, can you answer some of these questions? I'd appreciate that.
SENATOR AYRES: I can do my best Macca. I'll check in and just see exactly where the approval is up for up to for that project. But I'm of course, aware that there's been mixed views in the community about whether it's wind projects or solar projects or transmission lines, but they have to go through the same approval processes that a factory or a coal mine or a supermarket or a warehouse does in Australia. These things are built from time to time and the truth is, it is necessary. All of these projects have to go through their approvals properly. Some of them approved, and some of them aren't.
MACCA: This project is approved Tim, sixty-two turbines.
SENATOR AYRES: It is necessary for us to build the cheapest form of reliable power for Australia, and if that means wind and solar projects, and it does mean getting the transmission grid up to speed, modernising the transmission grid so we can keep costs down and build the reliable energy infrastructure that we need for households, but also for industry. The whole Future Made in Australia agenda, the work that I'm working with the Prime Minister and my colleagues on, relies upon cheap, reliable power as Australia's comparative advantage. These projects bring significant benefits to the region. I was in Uralla the other day. One of our largest solar projects is there, providing 400 megawatts of solar energy to Queensland and to New South Wales households power in hundreds of thousands of homes. That project is on agricultural land. It's land that's been grazed at the same time. It has been utilised for two purposes at the same time. For energy generation and for agriculture at the same time, there's an enormous amount of investment and jobs and innovation. Small and Medium Enterprises around that business, engaging in new technology, new investment opportunities, and there's a lot of growth and opportunity in the Renewable Energy Zone for the New England, but I recognise not everybody supports it, and every time you build something the neighbors of any project, whether it's a coal mine or a renewable energy facility. Of course, you have difficult challenges working out through with neighbors. That is a fact of life. It's part of development. That's part of industrialisation, but we've got to make sure we continue to work with communities.
MACCA: Yeah, that has been approved 372-megawatt wind farm, according to the New South Wales Independent Planning Commission, on the 9th of September of this year.
SENATOR AYRES: Your Google is faster than mine Macca. There you go.
MACCA: Just a really quick one, because we're going on for a while. The Coalition looking like they're winning the polls this morning on the latest in Nine News at the top of the hour, interesting results.
SENATOR AYRES: The polls go up and down. Honestly Macca, I don’t spend any time at all reading polls or worrying about them. We have a full-time job, working for the Australian people, delivering good government, delivering on the here and now issues, on the cost-of-living questions. We have halved inflation since we took office. Inflation was very high when we were elected. We've got it down to half, heading in the right direction, but a little bit more work to do. We have delivered tax cuts for every single Australian taxpayer, every single one, much more than the old Morrison stage three tax cuts would have delivered. We have done that because we want Australians to earn more and keep more of what they earn. We have delivered additional cost-of-living, relief and back-to-back surpluses, the first time in a political generation, any government has delivered surpluses. The old lot produced coffee mugs saying that they were delivering a surplus, but they didn't deliver it. We have delivered back in black, back-to-back surpluses, and that's all about driving inflation down. And in the long run, we're planning for Australia's future, for a Future Made in Australia and more manufacturing. I'll worry about polls when the Prime Minister calls an election, and of course, then people will have a choice between a government that's working carefully and assiduously in Australia's interest, putting the country before partisanship, and Peter Dutton, who's the most extreme leader of the Liberal Party in its history wandering around the history around the around the country, looking for an argument all the time, just when Australians need the country to be pulling together. I would not worry too much about the ebb and flow of opinion polls. They go up and they go down. That is life and politics.
MACCA: And they are community feedback. Maybe looking at polls, Tim, probably, if you get five minutes isn't a bad thing at the moment, whether they go up or down or whatever. I'm going to have to let you go. Thank you, Tim, and I look forward to hopefully catching up with you next week.
SENATOR AYRES: Good on your Macca. Catch you soon.
ENDS.
