TOM CONNELL, HOST: Tim Ayres will tell us where they're really struggling. Tim, what's keeping you awake at night? When you look at those marginal seats.
SENATOR TIM AYRES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR A FUTURE MADE IN AUSTRALIA AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TRADE: What's keeping me awake at night?
CONNELL I should introduce Tim Ayres, he is the Assistant Future Made in Australia and Trade Minister, and he joins us now.
SENATOR AYRES: I do feel like I'm on the election night panel, not a political panel.
CONNELL: That means you can be honest. They're the night's politicians, they just tell us everything.
SENATOR AYRES: I'll tell you what's keeping me awake at night. I watched that interview on Sunday that Peter Dutton did on another channel, where he made it clear they have a plan for cuts to public services for Victorians and people in NSW and Queensland and Western Australia and South Australia. But they're not going to tell people what those cuts are until after the election. This guy's very loose, very reckless. That is the biggest risk for if you're a veteran. The work that Matt Keogh and the team have done. I’ll just use this example, rebuilding the Department of Veterans affairs, delivering those services for veterans. And now this bloke said he's going to cut it.
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CONNELL: We've got Tim Ayres in the studio. Interesting hearing from the voters of Chisholm there. A couple of them saying, “Anthony Albanese, he's not the strongest leader”. We look at the mandatory sentencing again. This is something Labor have sort of taken to rather than took the, if you like, you know, made your own priority. Is there an issue there for Anthony Albanese and his leadership?
SENATOR AYRES: Well, it's not the way I saw what happened in the Parliament today. Of course we have adjusted the Bill. We've included firm penalties in there, mandatory penalties. It's not a new development. That's what's happened in relation to NZYQ and a range of those sort of propositions.
ANDREW CLENNELL: You've caved. You've caved to Peter Dutton's policy.
SENATOR AYRES: It's very interesting to see the Liberals, who before the election were saying every Australian's got a right to be a bigot now signing up for hate crimes legislation. That is a good development. We've worked across the Parliament and working across the Parliament does actually involve changing your approach to questions.
CLENNELL: If you hadn't have agreed to mandatory minimums, was none of it going to get through? What's, you know, kind of behind it?
SENATOR AYRES: That’s a counterfactual that we don't know the answer to. But we think—
CLENNELL: Or is it because of the pressure of the issue?
SENATOR AYRES: We think that what happened in the Parliament today is the right outcome. That is, there's a very clear signal sent from across the Parliament. Very firm penalties for all of this conduct, but also a broader set of reforms. Let's not forget that on hate crimes and social cohesion more broadly. So, it's a good outcome. But we, in our view this was the week to do it, and it's got done.
CLENNELL. So, we've got to the point that basically if an 18-year-old idiot stupidly spray paints a wall with something highly offensive, they should get used to jail, no questions asked. That's where we're at?
SENATOR AYRES: We want to send a very clear signal in 2025 that this kind of conduct has consequences.
CLENNELL: That's a pretty clear signal.
SENATOR AYRES: Let's not make any bones about it. This matters for social cohesion. This is the government sending a very clear signal. Some people might not like it.
TRUDY MCINTOSH: Tim it is not part of the Labor Party platform.
SENATOR AYRES: It’s the right thing to do.
MCINTOSH: What do you say to the Labor rank and file who would say following the platform, it says it undermines the independence of the judiciary, leads to unjust outcomes. How, as a Labor government, can you say to your own rank and file this is fair?
SENATOR AYRES: Well, as I said before, this is not a new development. There are some other areas of policy where the Government has taken the same approach. No doubt future Labor Conferences will debate these issues. But times change and the circumstances change. And we're a government that's determined to act in the national interest and in the interests of all Australians. And I understand some people might not like it, but we are sending a very clear and unambiguous message to the Australian community that we are for social cohesion. There are consequences for this kind of behaviour. You know, it is a good thing to drag the Liberals and Nationals to that position because that is not the position that they've historically held. It's one of the rare occasions where we've got them to lift their sights and actually act in the collective interest.
KIERAN GILBERT: Should the Prime Minister have a quick investigation into why he wasn't told at the same time as Chris Minns about the caravan terror plot? That's what Peter Dutton is saying.
SENATOR AYRES: Well, two points about this. Tom's intro was right. For them it is entirely a political question, a sort of partisan question. For us it is a national interest question. I don't think anyone wants to see AFP resources that right now should be allocated to finding out who is organising this activity and making sure that they are all in prison, that they are all charged, that that threat is dealt with. That's right, I want to see AFP resources not engaged in some sort of, you know, political stitch up that Peter Dutton, you know, clearly wants to pursue. Remember, this all started from a leak from the NSW Police that they say compromised the investigation. We've taken a consistent position over the course of the last few weeks that has been about not commenting on the operational questions. Peter Dutton's taken an entirely different approach which has been about hyping it up, hyper-partisanship, no prizes for guessing why.
CLENNELL: Peter Dutton’s claiming that if police had told PMO, they mustn't have told him because they were worried PMO would leak it, or the PM would leak it. What do you make of that accusation?
SENATOR AYRES: The only leak here is the one between Peter Dutton's ears. That is an extraordinary claim with no foundation. That is just part of the sort of partisan beat up and just shows how loose they've got. Oppositions in the Australian Parliament used to act on security questions in the national interest. Peter Dutton is only acting in Peter Dutton's interest, and it's been a pretty shameful fortnight for that bloke.
CONNELL: The Prime Minister has said, though I can't talk about it for operational reasons. He has previously said the date on which he's been briefed. I just don't get what day you're briefed gives away in any sense.
SENATOR AYRES: Well, I would say these judgments are made for the right reasons about what is discussed. And remember what's happened a caravan has been discovered with explosive material on it and Peter Dutton and James Paterson and some sections of the media want the Prime Minister to be running a daily partisan commentary on this. His job, he said very clearly, his job here is to back the security system unequivocally.
CLENNELL: Why can't he just say, I got told on January 28, the police tell me they didn't tell me because there was no detonator, blah, blah, blah.
SENATOR AYRES: It is not about doing the easy thing, with the greatest respect, to please the people who are asking questions.
CLENNELL: But it looks like he's hiding something or evading.
SENATOR AYRES: Well, you know what I think it looks like? I think it looks like the Prime Minister is acting in a clear and consistent way, not in a partisan way, and acting under the advice that he gets.
CONNELL: It's inconsistent with naming dates on other occasions.
SENATOR AYRES: Yeah. I'm saying those are judgments that are just made from time to time. And I am very confident this Prime Minister, not like Scott Morrison, who would hype these issues up all of the time. This is a Prime Minister who's doing things in the national interest, not the part of it.
GILBERT: Did Chris Minns breach the operation of this inquiry by saying to the media when he was briefed?
SENATOR AYRES: That's entirely a judgement for Chris. And of course, the NSW Police, remember, held that press conference because the material had been leaked. It would be much better if it had not been leaked and the covert investigation that we understand was going on was able to continue without all this public scrutiny that Peter Dutton and James Patterson have been adding to.
CONNELL: Got 30 seconds left. But Future Made in Australia. It was announced with a bit of fanfare. Does anyone come up to you on the street and talk about it and the jobs it will create? Or is it fair to say it's sort of sitting in the background?
SENATOR AYRES: I'll tell you what, in blue collar and regional communities, this is a frontline question. In Western Australia for the resources sector and adding value to the economy in Western Australia and creating manufacturing jobs, not just exporting iron ore, but exporting iron and steel products. This is a frontline issue. It is big in Western Australia, it's big in Central Queensland because people know that it's in the interests of the region and good jobs. It's also in the national interest.
CONNELL: Got to leave it there, Tim Ayres. Appreciate that.
SENATOR AYRES: Good to see you all.
ENDS.
