THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SUNRISE
MONDAY, 21 APRIL 2025
SUBJECTS: FEDERAL ELECTION, ENERGY PRICES, FAVOURITE CAMPAIGN MUSIC.
NATALIE BARR: Well, with less than two weeks until the May 3 election, voters have had their say on what is making them most hesitant to vote for either Labor or the Coalition. According to new polling from Resolve Strategic, 47% say their top concern when considering voting for Labor is a lack of action on the cost of living, but that's down from 52% in February. For the Coalition, 45% say their biggest hesitation is Peter Dutton's personality as leader, which is actually up by 10% - that's from February. For their take, let's bring in Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce. Good morning to you. Tanya, we'll start with you. Your lack of action on the cost of living, or the Government’s, is people's number one concern when voting for you guys. How do you overcome that and get people to make sure they vote for you on May 3?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Well I think, the really interesting thing about this polling Nat is about 30% of people still haven't made their minds up, and early voting starts tomorrow, so the election is pretty close. We will have to continue right through this campaign to remind people of the difference between Labor and the Liberals. We want your wages to go up and we're bringing taxes down. Peter Dutton wants your wages to come down, and he wants to push taxes back up. Of course, we've acted on cost of living - cheaper childcare, cheaper medicines, free visits to the doctor, fee-free TAFE, university debt relief, electricity bill relief - but obviously we want to do more. And that's why we've got two future tax cuts already planned, Peter Dutton is against those, and it's why we support wages going up. We’re right before the Fair Work Commission at the moment, this case is being argued. The Government supports an increase in wages, the Liberals don't. We want to protect penalty rates when people are working on weekends like this, the Easter long weekend, Peter Dutton doesn't want to do that. So, it is a very clear choice, and the clear choice sees us supporting higher wages, lower taxes, cost of living relief. And Peter Dutton, who's got nothing on cost of living relief, wants to see wages go down and taxes go up.
NATALIE BARR: Yeah, it's still people's number one concern, and nearly half the population say you're lacking on it, though. Barnaby we’ll go to you, if voters are most hesitant about your leader when it comes to voting for you, people's biggest hesitation when voting for the Coalition - Peter Dutton’s personality, and it's skyrocketed since February. What do you say about that?
BARNABY JOYCE, MEMBER FOR NEW ENGLAND: Well, I'd say that that's unfortunate, because Peter Dutton is a very decent human being, a very decent man. He's trying to do the right thing by his nation. And you know, your perception through television is not the perception I get when, by actually know him, and I don't think it's perception you get from Parliament, to be quite frank, he's a very decent human being. With what Tanya said, I agree with the first part. There's a lot of people out there who haven’t made up their mind, and any person who thinks that this election is in the bag on either side is sadly misled. There are a lot of people struggling with the cost of living like Tanya brought up, everything she mentioned about cost of living help is just taxpayers getting taxpayer money back. It's all - basically it's going to be borrowed money or come from overseas. She didn't talk about the fundamental problem, which is the price of power. Yet they continue on with an intermittent power policy of 82% renewables by 2030 and that underpins your cost of living crisis. Unless you want to address that, you're not addressing cost of living. You're just handing people back some of their own money.
BARR: You're handing back a lot of money too.
PLIBERSEK: Nuclear will make power more expensive.
JOYCE: We’ve had this discussion.
PLIBERSEK: Nuclear will make power more expensive. That's Barnaby's only choice. $1,200 added to your power bills.
JOYCE: Have a look at your power bill, have a look at your power bill, have a look at your power bill - that’s the Labor party’s power policy.
BARR: Okay Barnaby, let’s talk about power just for a second. When will the Coalition bring down power bills? Because I know the Prime Minister was asked this repeatedly last week, when, if you get in in two weeks, when will people's power bills come down?
JOYCE: Well, I'm not going to start giving a date of exactly when power bills will come down. What I can say is we start to try and turn around the trajectory that the Labor Party has put us on with intermittent power. Immediately, we’ll no longer need the 82% intermittent power by 2030 as ludicrous as that idea is. So immediately you have the capacity for the market to do have a greater propensity towards base load. What we're actually even seeing in New South Wales, the Labor Party, the Labor Party themselves, keeping open coal fired power stations, because they've come to the epiphany that intermittent power doesn't work if you want a reliable system. And we're seeing also now in Queensland, where they're basically backing out of the intermittent power lunacy as well. So, what we'll see is a Coalition that has a more sober and realistic view of how you actually get more affordable power.
BARR: So you’re not going to answer either.
PLIBERSEK: I think the answer is the first of never Nat, the first of never.
BARR: To be honest, neither of you are saying it. You know, people are at home and they know their power bills are high, and you're saying his is crap, and you're saying hers is crap. But no one's saying when, are they?
PLIBERSEK: So all of the modelling on nuclear is it's the most expensive new form of power. Internationally we know that.
JOYCE: What modelling? Where’s the $275?
BARR: And all of your modelling is what people are living and their power prices are going up too. So, we’re in the middle.
JOYCE: Where’s the $275?
PLIBERSEK: That's why we give electricity bill relief. We know that people are having a tough time, and that's why we've given electricity bill relief.
BARR: Yeah, but it's not fixing the problem. That's what people are telling us. Anyway, let's, let's talk about songs. I think have we got time to do the this next one? Yep, okay, the Coalition - no, look, we're going to go to something lighter I think because it's public holiday Monday. Both of you have revealed your top songs on Spotify, on your playlist during the election campaign. And interesting choices. Because, you know, people are sitting around, it’s a public holiday, and I want to, and I want to get people's opinions on these. Tanya, this is yours. Hilltop Hoods – The Gift. Take a listen. What are we thinking? Is this yours Tanya? Okay, sing along.
PLIBERSEK: It is. I’m not gonna sing along because that will really make all your viewers turn off Nat, I don’t want to do that to your ratings. I love the Hilltop Hoods, this is a nice new one, and he's singing about how his family introduced him to all different types of music when he was a kid, and how that's absolutely changed his life. I think that's lovely. And it’s good to listen to.
BARR: Okay, Barnaby, let's have a look. Yours is slightly different. Radiohead - Weird Fishes. Barnaby, do you want to give us a little tune? Can you sing to this?
JOYCE: I can’t hear it through my audio. I don’t know, I know it’s a bit melancholy and stuff like that. People say you either like Radiohead or you don’t. It helps me chill when I’m driving, I do a lot of driving. I think it drives my kids crazy actually, the girls in there feel like they’re about to jump out the door, it’s suicide music.
BARR: Right. Okay, okay, well, that was not the description I had thought. But look, you know, everyone does the Spotify playlist on public holiday, so it's good to get your views on both of them. We'll leave it there. We thank you very much. Happy Easter everyone, and happy campaigning.
PLIBERSEK: Happy Easter Nat to you and your viewers.
JOYCE: Happy Easter Tanya.
PLIBERSEK: Happy Easter.
ENDS
