THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SUNRISE
MONDAY 29 SEPTEMBER 2025
Topics: PRIME MINISTER VISIT TO THE UK; PRIME MINISTER MEETING WITH KING CHARLES; ELECTRIC VEHICLES.
NATALIE BARR: For their take, let's bring in Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce. Good morning to both of you. Tanya, if the PM criticised Scott Morrison for attending a Trump rally when he was PM, is it fair to level the same criticism at Anthony Albanese this time?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: No, it's a really childish criticism. In fact, the Prime Minister also met with the UK Opposition Leader, the head of the Conservative Party, while he was there. He's just come from the United Nations, a very successful visit where Australia led the way, particularly on the social media ban for under 16s. Very successful visit to the UN. He's gone to the UK. He's met with the British Prime Minister at his invitation, gone to a conference where the rest of the UK Cabinet were. He's also met with the Spanish Prime Minister, the Canadian Prime Minister, King Charles, a range of other leaders in the UK, as I said, including the conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch. It's been a successful visit, and I think the PM's stopping off at the UAE on the way home as well, to talk about our free trade agreement. So, we've got an enormous number of important issues to discuss with the government of the UK, including AUKUS, including the continuation of the strong trading relationship between the UK and Australia. The UK is the second largest investor in Australia. I think this was a successful and sensible visit.
BARR: Barnaby, was he really campaigning for Starmer if just the whole Cabinet were there and he was meeting with them?
BARNABY JOYCE: Yeah, he can't- look. The Prime Minister should look at the flag on the side of the plane. It's the Australian flag, not the ALP flag. And he should reflect on who pays for that plane to go to that conference. It's not the Labor Party, it's the Australian taxpayer. This is a partisan conference and when he goes there, he's not representing all of Australia. He's representing the little bit better than a third of the people who give the Labor Party their primary vote. And you can't do that. Because I'll tell you one person he didn't see, it's Nigel Farage, who's actually leading in the polls. He seemed to avoid seeing Mr. Farage, but he seems to be seeing everybody else. Now, if he wants to go to a Labor Party conference, no problems with that. But you do it on your own dime and on your own time. When you're over there, you're representing all of Australia. I don't vote Labor, so I don't want to see my Prime Minister at a Labour Party conference in another country. Just doesn't stack up.
BARR: Ok. Speaking of the UK, the Prime Minister has said he's hoping Prince William and Kate and the kidlets will soon make an official royal visit here to Australia. Anthony Albanese had discussed a potential trip with the King. It's understood the PM walked away confident about the visit Down Under. Tanya, when are they coming?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Oh, well, whenever they come, they would be very welcome, of course. There was a very successful visit from King Charles and Queen Camilla recently. I was lucky enough to meet them and show them around the Australian Botanical Gardens in Canberra, where the King wanted to learn about biodiversity in Australia. And, you know, if Prince William and Princess Catherine come, and their kids, they'd be very welcome, I'm sure.
BARR: Finally, both Federal and state governments are being lobbied by electricity networks to charge all taxpayers for the rollout of new electric vehicle chargers, not just EV drivers. The campaign pitches changing market rules to allow networks to recover the cost of installing and directing, owning new EV chargers by slugging all households with extra fees. Tanya, how serious are you about this one?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, this is a story about the government being lobbied to do something. We get lobbied to do a lot of things-
BARR: Yes. So, would you consider it?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We are, well, actually, we've just put $40 million on the table as the government to roll out more extensive EV charging networks. We're already doing that as a government. This is a proposal from the electricity companies. It's a, it's a very long way from something that we're contemplating. There'd be a whole lot of discussions with state and territory governments, with electricity companies, with consumers and others before anything like this happens. And, I mean, I did read the story. What it's proposing is that sometime in the 2030s, a charge of $1 to $2 a year per household would be levied. So, I think people can just take a chill pill on this one. It's not happening anytime soon and-
BARR: Barnaby?
JOYCE: My turn! You can't start. Are we going to start rolling out money for petrol stations to open up new petrol stations? I mean, ultimately they're going to be making money out of this. Why is the taxpayer being lumbered, suggested to be lumbered with yet another charge for this massive scam which is apparently supposed to be the cheapest form of energy, but we're having to subsidise it. Subsidise the swindle factories, subsidise the transmission lines. Now we're subsidising the actual spots which they are selling electricity to us-
BARR: I think it's $2 a year. Barnaby, would you pay that?
JOYCE: No, I wouldn't. It's not because-
BARR: To save the planet? Is it worth that? No?
JOYCE: We're not saving the planet, we are saving- we are earning billionaires billions and billions of dollars. If we were saving the planet, China would be participating, Indonesia, you know, our Southeast Asia, as I've said ad nauseam, this is a self-indulgent vanity trip by Australia which is doing nothing but de-industrialising Australia and making pensioners poorer. It is not changing the climate whatsoever.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You wanted to spend $600 billion on nuclear. Barnaby wanted to spend $600 billion on nuclear.
BARR: Tanya, how are you going? Tanya, there is an issue here. Tanya, there is an issue on how you're going to get 50 per cent of EVs being car sales across this country in the next 10 years. It was 9 per cent. I think we're down to 5 per cent because fewer people are buying them because of range anxiety. This is an uphill battle for you guys, isn't it?
JOYCE: That works.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, I think. Look, I've got an EV and I really enjoy it-
BARR: Well, there's one.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I think it's quite-
JOYCE: I’ve got one on the golf course too.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You know, you charge it up once a week or less and while I'm charging it up-
JOYCE: [inaudible]
BARR: But not if you want to go long distances in the states. Yeah, like Barnaby, like WA. They're not selling second-hand EVs in states where you have to drive long distances. It's- the market's crashing.
JOYCE: Yeah, they don't work in Australia.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It's horses for courses, Nat. Like, nobody's talking about getting rid of petrol or diesel vehicles. Right?
JOYCE: You kind of are.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Nobody's saying that. Horses for courses. What we're saying-
JOYCE: You kind of are.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: What we're saying is that for people who want to buy an electric vehicle, we brought the price down as a government-
JOYCE: Subsidising it again.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -we're investing in public charging infrastructure so that we can reduce that range of anxiety that you're talking about. If people want to stick to their old vehicles-
JOYCE: But taxpayers are paying for the price to come down.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -that's up to them.
JOYCE: Subsidising it again. Subsidising yet another private business with taxpayers' money. I mean, they should stand in the marketplace with everybody else. And you are kind of getting rid internal combustion engines because your vehicle standards are driving internal combustion engines out of the market.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Barnaby you wanted to spend $600 billion on nuclear energy. You're talking enough subsidies, how about the $600 billion nuclear policy you had?
JOYCE: [inaudible]
BARR: I think we're talking about three different things here, so we might have to wrap it up. But we are going to talk about this after 7 o'clock. About how this country can get 50 per cent of car sales being EVs in 10 years. Thank you very much. We'll leave it there. We'll see you next week.
END
