Topics: Australia should oppose UN motion; Labor’s bad housing policy; Business worse off under Labor; US political violence;
07:45AM AEST
17 September 2024
Pete Stefanovic: Now the US is pressuring Australia to vote down a UN motion demanding Israel withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank. The draft legislation proposed by the Palestinian Authority also calls for sanctions against Israel. All right, let’s bring in the Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, Simon Birmingham. Your response, please, sir.
Simon Birmingham: G’day, Pete. Well, this motion is not specific to a ceasefire. It is a motion that would be deeply counterproductive to long-term peace efforts. And it’s an entirely one-sided motion that makes no mention at all of Hamas of the horrors and atrocities committed back on October 7th last year, or of the hostages who have now continued to be held for almost a year. So, with such a counterproductive and one-sided motion. The decision for the Albanese government should be clear cut. That should be to oppose it, to stand with friends and allies, and to continue to support long-standing bipartisan policy in Australia about how we ultimately negotiate a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian people.
Pete Stefanovic: The problem is, it’s not so easy for the Labor Party, is it because they’ve got the different flanks arguing different things?
Simon Birmingham: Well, we’ve seen enormous division in the Labor Party to date, and we have seen them indeed upend parts of that long-standing bipartisan policy over the course of the last year. But this is an opportunity for them to do the right thing. They will enjoy bipartisan support from the Coalition if they oppose this motion. We see it as being very clear in terms of the counterproductive, one-sided nature of this resolution, and Australia should be strong enough under the Albanese Government to stand by our values and principles when it comes to how we vote on it.
Pete Stefanovic: Okay, no bipartisan support when it comes to housing. We’ll get to a couple of local policies now. Local stories. So, the Prime Minister, he’s on the sell in Sydney today over those dual housing policies. He says it should have sailed through Parliament but was ultimately stopped by the Coalition and the Greens, calling it the no-alition. So, what are your thoughts on this and why stop it?
Simon Birmingham: Pete, our position on this has been clear since before the last election. We’ve always thought that the idea that the Albanese government should co-own somebody’s home with them was not the right approach to solve home ownership challenges in Australia. There are fundamental challenges that need to be met in terms of increasing supply, dealing with population pressures to help with that. And indeed, we have an alternative policy that has equally been out for a long time, enabling Australians to have their own superannuation fund co-owned part of their home with them. It’s a much better way for them to be in total control of home ownership, rather than having the government as a co-owner.
Pete Stefanovic: Okay. The BCA has launched an attack over the government’s stifling business policies today, and some have already asked here what took the Business Council so long to do this. But here we are. And are they right to do it finally?
Simon Birmingham: Well, they are absolutely right to do it. Business across Australia, not just the larger employers represented by the BCA, but so many small businesses who those companies rely on and our entire economy relies on are feeling the greater weight and pressure of particularly the industrial relations reforms the Albanese Government has rammed through the parliament. But in addition to that, they’re feeling the weight of additional regulation, additional red tape, additional costs and of course, the huge inflationary pressures across the economy. And what we’re seeing, indeed, the question you asked me before about the legislation in the Senate this week. There’s a huge risk that this week and going forward, were we ever to see a Labor-Greens government of the type of multi-billion-dollar, huge public spending, economy destroying, productivity sapping type measures that Labor and the Greens together may embrace, that will really just hurt the economy even more, business even more. And that, of course, flows through to jobs for Australians and their incomes and household finances.
Pete Stefanovic: Okay, let’s close with a thought on political discourse right now in the United States with our eyes on this second attempted assassination of Donald Trump in as many months. What are your thoughts, fears of where this is all heading and going, Simon?
Simon Birmingham: Pete, I’d make two points. The first is we should continue to have confidence in US democracy. The US has seen many troubled times before, and we can think back particularly to the 1960s and the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, the type of discord that has gotten out of control before. We have seen and we hope not to see a repeat of that in the current era. But the other point is that, again, this just shows that if there’s one big difference between our two great countries and best mates that we are, it is the gun culture, the accessibility to guns, including of people who have track records where you look at it and say, how on earth, why on earth would this person have access to a guns and to weapons? And that obviously poses threats not just to President Trump or indeed to Vice President Harris, potentially or current President Biden. But, of course, as it manifests itself in school shootings and supermarket malls and all manner of other tragedies that happen all too often, sadly, in that country.
Pete Stefanovic: All right. Simon. Birmingham. We’ll leave it there. Thank you though. We’ll talk to you soon.
[ENDS]