Chris Kenny:
Michael Sukkar, thanks for joining us. I wonder if I could ask you first about this tweet from China. It just seems to be such a bass, abusive level at which to conduct diplomacy. It shows that the relationship is in real strife.
Minister Sukkar:
Well Chris as the Prime Minister said, this false depiction is repugnant and I think that the PM sent an appropriate message that I think conveys the feelings of most Australians and that is that that uniform means so much to Australians and to denigrate it in that way, as you said, is unprecedented in diplomacy certainly, and not the way that we would expect anyone to engage with us. We revere that uniform, the men and women who have served in that uniform have fought for extraordinary causes and it is repugnant and to come from an official account in the way that it did, I think, rightly angers all Australians.
Chris Kenny:
I think that there’s no doubt about that but the other aspect is that it just shows how toxic the relationship between Canberra and Beijing has become. Now we know about the economic consequences. We’ve seen the tariffs on barley, the doubling of tariffs or more on wine, we’ve got coal ships stranded off the coast of China. How worried are you about the continuing trade implications and economic implications for Australia?
Minister Sukkar:
Well Chris there’s no doubt that all of those issues – particular the trade and economic implications – are things that we think about very deeply and are always actively engaged in trying to ensure are in the best possible position. But at the end of the day, we are not going to cede our sovereignty. We are a very proud country, we are a nation who will always stand up for our own best interests and as a Government, the Morrison Government will always stand up for the national interest of Australians and Australia more broadly. So in the end, we believe that our relationship with China through these difficult periods, can only get better with engagement. We’ve obviously been very open to that, we have been happy to engage at a leader level, at a ministerial level, that’s how these sorts of issues are dealt with. They are certainly not dealt with by really repugnant tweets from official accounts that are so highly offensive and one can only imagine was designed to be highly offensive.
Chris Kenny:
Don’t we need to see more interventions from other nations? The US has a bit of a leadership vacuum at the moment but other European nations, developed countries around the world standing up to this sort of bullying behaviour from China both in the tweet but also, of course, in these trade sanctions?
Minister Sukkar:
Well Chris I think that what we’ve already seen and what we’ll continue to see is proud countries will react to this level of assertiveness, in a way similar to ourselves. We have no interest in having any form of confected fights or arguments with China but at the same time, Australia is a proud country and we will always stand up for our own best interests and our national interest and as a Government, we’ll always stand up for the Australian national interest. In the end, we all have an interest in working co-operatively. We’re obviously very different countries, our political systems are very different. We are an open, free democracy, extraordinarily different from China but the way that we engage with one another has to be respectful. I think that the PM did the right thing by calling it out.
Chris Kenny:
If we come back to our domestic economy and the fact that all levels of government, federal and state, have gone into really unprecedented post-war levels of debt because of the pandemic response. Are you particularly worried about your home state, Victoria, where there seems to be some messages coming from the credit rating agencies that it could lose its triple-A credit rating?
Minister Sukkar:
There’s no doubt that levels of debt are concerning. At a state government level, particularly state governments who don’t have the taxing and revenue collection powers, shall we say, that the Federal Government obviously have, it is concerning when you see those levels of debt spiralling often without any broad plan on how they seek to address that and I don’t think that I could see any obvious pathway or outline from the Victorian State Government on how they proposed to – over time – reduce that record level of debt. So of course it is concerning. At a Federal Government level we’ve obviously stated very clearly that our pathway back to recovery is what takes precedence and then once unemployment is below six per cent, we look at the fiscal recovery and getting the Budget back into good shape. I think that Australians expect to see that you chart the pathway back to budget management understanding that now is a time when we do have to use that fiscal firepower to ensure that our economy remains strong and that in the Morrison Government’s case, to make sure that people can get back into jobs. I think that what gives Australians comfort from a Morrison Government perspective is that they’ve seen us undertake budget repair. We’ve levelled with the Australian people on what we propose to do into the future as far as fiscal repair once unemployment is below six per cent and I think that not seeing that sort of pathway being discussed by state governments, understandably particularly the Victorian people, makes them very nervous about the debt that the Victorian Government is taking on seemingly with no plan for repaying it.
Chris Kenny:
Just finally though, Michael Sukkar. One of the things outside the Federal Government’s control is the way that states react to the pandemic. You had Victoria in that brutal, long-term lockdown. You had South Australia with a precipitous lockdown that they pulled out of just a couple of weeks ago. You need to have states that can deal with outbreaks without any more severe shutdowns because the whole of the country then suffers economically.
Minister Sukkar:
Yeah Chris, there is no doubt about it. Obviously the hotel quarantine disaster through the obvious failures that were there but as well as the contact tracing failures that were then present in Victoria plus border closures, have a huge economic impact. By and large the Federal Government, who has had direct measures of over $257 billion to support the economy, has borne the brunt of picking up those economic consequences. But over time, Chris, I think the ability for states to just do that in a wanton fashion will reduce. Hopefully, over time, they have capabilities as far as dealing with outbreaks and the political will to deal with it in a mature way means that we don’t have this stop-start, open-closed mentality that has happened to date because in the end, we want to work ultimately for the benefit of Australians. It can be at times frustrating to deal with these sorts of wanton and arbitrary decisions but we only have one focus and that’s how we support Australian people and we have to do that in the face of difficult decisions made by state governments from time to time and just accept it and move on. That’s the frustration but the reality of being in the Federal Government.