LAURA JAYES, HOST: Joining me now is Assistant Trade Minister Tim Ayres. Tim, thanks so much for your time. Let's stick in Victoria. Labor's brand is not as strong as it used to be there. Why would Labor voters continue to vote for Labor and give Anthony Albanese a second chance? What have they done for them?
SENATOR TIM AYRES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR A FUTURE MADE IN AUSTRALIA AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TRADE: Because we're for lower taxes, so the people earn more and keep more of what they earn. If the Liberal Party was really interested in engaging with the kind of voters who your reporter was talking to there in Bruce, they wouldn't have voted for higher taxes yesterday, and they wouldn't have promised that— the only cut that Peter Dutton doesn't believe in his income tax cuts. They wouldn't have promised if they were elected, to come back into the parliament and vote to lift taxes for ordinary Australians.
HOST: So, you think five bucks a week, five bucks a week in 15 months’ time, you're in a winner there?
SENATOR AYRES: As it's been described, a top up tax cut on the back of decisions that the government made over the course of this election that will deliver ordinary Australians on average, earnings north of $2500 a year. That's the kind of practical measure that this government's undertaken. All of that at risk. I mean, we haven't seen a first term opposition in Australian political history represents so much risk as the Dutton Liberal National Party does.
HOST: Tim, you know this week was a stunt. Why did you need to rush through a $5 a week tax cut when it doesn't come in for 15 months? Do you not back yourself to end the cost-of-living crisis by then?
SENATOR AYRES: Australians know whose side we're on. That's why I was very proud in that very late-night Senate sitting to be there, voting to protect jobs in Tasmania, to deliver an additional, modest, but an additional tax cut on top of our income tax cuts that we delivered for every Australian and other reforms there that put women at the center of our economic story. That is what we delivered in the Parliament this week--
HOST: You did it five minutes midnight on the eve of an election. Don't you think that?
SENATOR AYRES: It's Budget week, Laura.
HOST: It's an election Budget though, don't you think that makes for a cynical voter? Shouldn't they be?
SENATOR AYRES: We're in Budget week. We've focused on budget measures. There are two very different economic stories for Australia, two very different alternatives, one where we continue to build on the cost-of-living focus that we've had in government like real, transformative measures that have supported Australian families through these cost-of-living—
HOST: What's transformative?
SENATOR AYRES: Well, cheaper childcare is transformative, Laura. It's transformative in terms of workforce participation. It's transformative in terms of household budgets. Lowering the cost of PBS medicines is transformative for Australians, particularly Australians with a chronic condition. So, it's good in terms of broader social, economic and productivity participation benefits.
HOST: Wouldn't lowering the cost of energy be transformative, particularly in your portfolio? You want to get the manufacturing base back; you're not talking about bringing electricity prices down anytime soon.
SENATOR AYRES: Yes, we are building the electricity system of the future, and it is true—
LAURA JAYES: But we're paying for it in between, aren't we?
SENATOR AYRES: Well, there's two starkly different plans. One, a $600 billion nuclear reactor plan that will mean that people are paying $1,200 more every week. Sorry, every year. That will—
HOST: Well, they're paying $1,300 that is for a week since you promised a $275 cut. Let's put that to bed for just a moment. Why won't you talk about the gas reservation policy and why didn't you do it?
SENATOR AYRES: Two observations, one on the nuclear thing, $600 billion that's why they're savage cuts to public services and Medicare are self-evident that they can't deny.
HOST: What are they cutting from Medicare?
SENATOR AYRES: Massive cuts for services—
HOST: There are no cuts to Medicare.
SENATOR AYRES: Well, they are going to have to. $600 billion Laura, it doesn't come from nowhere. Money doesn't grow on trees. These guys have decided, Peter Dutton, that they will embark upon this course that will lead to more expensive electricity, drive manufacturing offshore, because that's in the core of their plan, and lead to public service cuts at the same time. On gas. I'm very glad that you've asked about gas. I mean, this is a perennial promise that they made. They said they'd do it in 2017, they said they'd do it in 2018, they said they'd do it in 2021 they have never done it. Their record in gas prices, is that gas prices rose when Angus Taylor was in charge of gas prices, they rose by 727%. Now we've taken practical action in government, including this week, that has provided six times as much gas, secured for Australia six times as much as Peter Dutton promised last night.
HOST: It's not enough, Tim. Electricity prices have gone up $1300 to $1,600 on average. You said they'd be coming down $275.
SENATOR AYRES: The devil is in the detail, Laura.
HOST: We talk about this a lot you and I. It's important to talk about this, though, because this is central to cost-of-living. And for three years, you've been telling people that their electricity prices are going to come down, that renewables are the cheapest and most reliable form of energy. I ask you, where is the evidence, when you must artificially recirculate taxpayer money to give back a rebate to bring the electricity price down? That's not giving households money, that's recirculating their taxpayer dollars.
SENATOR AYRES: Electricity prices will always be lower under an Albanese government than they would be under Peter Dutton—
HOST: That is a lie.
SENATOR AYRES: Give me the opportunity to explain why.
HOST: But they're not, that's not a fact.
SENATOR AYRES: Well Laura, because nuclear is the most expensive form of energy, and it will deter investment that is needed now in the Australian electricity system. Electricity prices—
HOST: How can we sit here and say that electricity prices will always be lower under Labor, when they gone up $1,300 on average, really?
SENATOR AYRES: They will always be lower under Labor than under the alternative. We are facing some challenges in the electricity sector that are driven by the legacy coal fired power station outages. That is what is driving performance and price and market issues in electricity. The solution to that is to keep building. We've backed up renewables, backed up by gas and storage. We must secure and have secured enough gas for peaking capability. Now the alternative is nuclear.
HOST: No, the alternative is gas. That's what's been laid out in the budget reply.
SENATOR AYRES: Gas is an expensive form of electricity generation.
HOST: So are renewables.
SENATOR AYRES: It is utterly appropriate for peaking capacity, like you need it in the system just the right amount to make sure that when renewables generation capability isn't there, we've got something to keep the system moving along. Storage, utterly important too. Like no argument about that. I'll just say Peter Dutton’s gas measures. The devil is in the detail. There is no detail. Gas industry is already out there saying this will deter future investment in gas mining capability. I’ll just say we have generated six times more gas in the Australian system than Peter Dutton's detail free announcement last night. And gas [prices] rose by 727% when they were in government. Like the record speaks for itself. We are supporting families through this. That's the right thing to do, and we're building the electricity system of the future. The only thing that would kill that stone dead is the riskiest proposition that we have seen for a first term opposition that didn't learn its lesson from the Morrison period.
HOST: I look forward to tangling with you on many of those issues over the next couple of weeks Tim.
SENATOR AYRES: I'm really looking forward to it. Thanks.
HOST: We'll see you soon.
ENDS.
