Transcript: Interview with David Speers, Sky News

Topics: Newspoll, National Energy Guarantee, migration

DAVID SPEERS  

Well, I'm joined now by the Nationals’ Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack.  A very good afternoon to you. Look, Barnaby Joyce, as you know, says nobody wants to go to a federal election which you know you're going to lose; you have an obligation to those around you that if you honestly believe that's the case, you must do something about it, and the honourable thing: start grooming an alternative. Do you agree with him?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 Well, I'm not about to be going to comment on leadership speculation in the Liberal Party. I'm a member of the National Party. But what I will say is that we have a very stable government. We have a government which has helped small and medium family enterprise businesses employ 420,000 people, just in the last 12 months. What we've got is a government which has lowered the tax rate for those businesses to 27.5 per cent – the lowest it's been since the 1940s. What we've got is a government which is concentrating on national security, concentrating on jobs, concentrating on making sure that all the economic levers are right. That's what I'm focused on each and every day, and I know that's what Malcolm Turnbull is focused on too.

DAVID SPEERS

Okay, so Nationals should really stay out of Liberal Party leadership matters. Is that a message there to Barnaby Joyce as well?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

Well look, I say again: I'm concentrating on the sorts of things that my people are telling me that are important to them. And that is job security, making sure that infrastructure is right, making sure that all that we do is about national security and all the things that are really important to people: cost of living, bringing that down. They're the sorts of things that I'm hearing around kitchen tables.; they're the sorts of things I'm hearing at the saleyards; they're the sorts of things I'm hearing when I go to events. They're not the fact that the polls might be telling us one thing or another.

The fact is Malcolm Turnbull is the Prime Minister and doing a very good job. The fact is it's a government which is working well and working for and on behalf of people and making sure that there's jobs for them and their children and into the future.

DAVID SPEERS

But would you want to go to the election with Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK               

Yes. There's your simple answer: yes.            

DAVID SPEERS

So there's no equivocation there? It is, and no worries about what the polls might say later this year?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 Well look, at the last federal election in July 2016, 13.5 million people cast a vote in these polls; three less than 1,600 people cast their view on the government or the Prime Minister of the day. I mean, just do the mathematics. I mean, 1,600 people as opposed to 13.5 million.

And quite frankly, if we believed in opinion polls, John Alexander would be probably coaching tennis somewhere at the moment, not being the member for Bennelong.

DAVID SPEERS  

[Laughs] That's true.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 Kristina Keneally would be the Member for Bennelong, and Steven Marshall wouldn't be the Premier of South Australia, and Will Hodgman wouldn't be doing the fantastic job he's doing in Tasmania as Premier. And so we'd have a Labor Government …

DAVID SPEERS

 Nonetheless, these sort of comments from Barnaby Joyce, you well know, are damaging to the Government. You're now the Leader of the National Party, he is now a backbencher. Is it helpful for him to be making these comments?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 Well, unlike the Labor Party, we don't censor everybody's views. Unlike the Labor Party, we're not enslaved robots of the union movement, and we're a broad church, and so Liberal and National members from time to time have their say on policy areas and on various social and economic matters which might differ than what we'd all probably like them to say, but …

DAVID SPEERS

You're not going to pull him into line, in other words.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 Well look, I have some good discussions with Barnaby. He's continuing to do a good job as the Member for New England and as a National Party member and I look forward to him continuing to do that great job into the future.

DAVID SPEERS  

So, doesn't sound like you're pulling him into line at all or criticising him at all over these comments.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 Well look, at the end of the day, Malcolm Turnbull is the Prime Minister. Malcolm Turnbull, I hope, will take us to the next election, and for the sake of Australians, for the sake of all the mum and dads, the families and every young job hopeful out there. What they need is a Liberal and Nationals Government now and into the future, being led by Malcolm Turnbull, and making sure that tax rates are the lowest they can be, making sure that there are jobs there for them and their children, and making sure that national security and border protection and all those things are top of mind.            

Look, opinion polls and Newspolls are not the sort of thing that I'm hearing that people are talking. They're not barbecue stoppers. What people are telling me about is the fact that they want a job for them and their children, and certainly in rural and regional Australia, they want better roads – we're delivering them. They want mobile black spot towers – we're delivering them. They want better water infrastructure and we're doing that too. Just last week …

DAVID SPEERS

Well, speaking of the policy debate, we've also seen Barnaby Joyce join Tony Abbott and others in this Monash Forum, agitating on the energy front for the Government to build a new coal-fired power station. A number of Nationals have apparently signed up to this as well. Is that something you think the Government should be considering?

 MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 Well, what we have got on the table is the National Energy Guarantee and what that is going to do is make sure that there is reliable and affordable power going forward. We're the only ones at the moment with a reliable affordable power policy plan in place. The Labor Party, they just want to have this ideological push whereby it will cause what we saw in South Australia and Victoria in recent months and years and that's blackout after blackout.

DAVID SPEERS

But for the Government's part, for the Government's part: should the Government look at building a coal-fired power station?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

Well, we've got the National Energy Guarantee on the table. The states are going to look at that and let's hope that they sign up to that, because what they …

DAVID SPEERS  

This grouping, as you know, wants the Government to invest in a coal-fired power station. Is that something the Government should look at?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 Well, I think we let the market decide what's going to happen in that respect. The National Energy Guarantee, what it will do with Snowy Hydro 2.0, will provide base load power for 500,000 homes up and down the eastern grid.

That's important and I can tell you, being the Member for Riverina, not far from Tumut and Talbingo where that Snowy Hydro 2.0 is going to be constructed in coming years, that's delighted all the locals up there, because it's been such a boost to their local economies, a boost to their real estate, and more importantly, it's going to provide base-load power ...

DAVID SPEERS

 Nonetheless, you've got the Government quite split on whether to invest in a coal-fired power plant, and as I say, a number of Nationals have signed up to this. I mean, have you counselled them, have you spoken to them about whether this really helps the Government look united on a pretty important issue?

 MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 Well again, I say we're a broad church in the National Party and in the Coalition. We're not enslaved robots that are signed up union members who say nothing and do nothing. We talk about policy outcomes. We talk about what we can do. We talk about all sorts of things.

And at the end of the day, the most important person is the person turning on their power switch. The most important people are the voters. We're there for them making sure that when they do turn that power switch on, whether they're at a home or in a business, that they can actually afford the power, and our National Energy Guarantee is going to make sure that supply is there. It's also going to make sure reliability is there and affordability in the sector.

DAVID SPEERS  

Okay, but- and I appreciate that's what everyone wants to achieve: affordable reliable power. But it just looks like you've got your own MPs running in different directions on this at the moment. It doesn't bother you that some are out there advocating something very different to what is the Government's actual policy?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 Well again I say every member of the Coalition actually signed up to the National Energy Guarantee. That's a positive start. At least we've got a positive plan on the table. We're doing something about it, we're taking it to the states. I've got every faith that Josh Frydenberg is making sure that this is going to be absolutely a clear winner for us, but not, importantly, for us, but for the people who are running businesses who need affordable reliable power, and most importantly, also for people who want reliable affordable power in their homes.

DAVID SPEERS

 As a side note on the energy debate, one thing that would quickly bring down power prices is more gas in the markets, to certainly exploit more gas. Where do you stand as Nationals’ Leader on coal seam gas mining? It is a bit of a contentious issue in some regional areas. What's your own position?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 Well of course it is an issue and I know that certainly in the electorate of Parkes, Mark Coulton always receives a healthy outcome when it comes to the ballot box, even though there are many agitators like Lock the Gate and others.

Look, gas in Queensland, both conventional and use of fracking et cetera, has provided many jobs for regional communities, otherwise which they'd be ghost towns without it. But so long as the farmer is receiving a fair recompense for their land use …

DAVID SPEERS  

And do they at the moment?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 Well, and we can work towards even getting more money for that, and certainly I'm always on the side of farmers. But it's largely states have to be agreeable too, and we've got a situation at the moment where some states have an aversion to any form of drilling, any form of gas extraction and that's a shame.

I'm glad that the Federal Government has actually put a reserve on gas exports when domestic supply or when domestic supply is such that we need also more- more demand requires better supply.

DAVID SPEERS

 But you'd support a better deal for the farmer.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 Always. Always.

DAVID SPEERS  

And if they get that, then you're happy to see coal seam gas mining go ahead?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK               

Well look, we have to have that energy mix. We have to have gas; we have to have obviously base-load power provided by coal-fired power stations. I'm a supporter of that. I'm a supporter of digging up coal, whether it's for our own use or whether it's for export use. I am a supporter of that. I'm also a supporter of renewables, and obviously we have to have and we do have policies on renewables to make sure that we do make use of solar panels and other renewables.

Of course we have to have that mix, but we are also ideologically neutral and technologically neutral when it comes to those sorts of things, because we can't put all our eggs in one basket. That's what Labor wants to do. Labor wants to leave all the coal in the ground and put thousands of people throughout the Hunter and throughout certainly Queensland and the Galilee Basin et cetera out of work. We're not in favour of doing that. We are in favour of making sure that there's reliable affordable power, and anything that can provide that, we're happy to look at.

DAVID SPEERS  

And a final one: the population debate. It's reared its head again today. Where do you stand on this one? Do you think we should be cutting immigration?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 Well, we've got a cap on migration at a 190,000 a year. We've not actually reached that every single year, but we have to decide. We have to make sure that we do have migration. Migration has helped make this country great.

And certainly in regional areas I'm pleased that we've got a migration policy that has enabled 55 Yazidi families, for instance, to be able to come to my hometown of Wagga Wagga. Without a good border protection policy, we would not have been able to do that, because what we were doing under Labor, we were filling up detention centres. Labor provided more beds for detention centres than ever they did for hospital beds in Australia. We've closed many of those detention centres.

We've made sure that boats have not arrived in Australia. We've made sure that the 55,000 people who arrived on 800-plus boats under Labor have not happened under the Liberal and Nationals’ border protection policy.

DAVID SPEERS  

But going forward from here, you wouldn't you wouldn't argue we should lower that cap of 190,000?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

 No, I wouldn't. No, I think the cap is right.

DAVID SPEERS  

There you go. We always appreciate the short sharp answer. Michael McCormack, Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals’ Leader, thank you very much for joining us this afternoon. Catch up soon.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

Happy to talk anytime. Okay.

Ends

Shane Manning