I’m really proud to have been here to launch Andrew Barr’s election campaign for ACT Labor. Canberra is a growing, thriving city, and under Labor’s leadership, it has seen this city improve, grow, become more interesting, improvements in infrastructure, growth in housing, growth in population, growth in activity. This is a great national capital, and we are working with ACT Labor and the Government of Andrew Barr to make sure that our national institutions have the investment that they need. Whether it’s the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Gallery, the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Museum, the Australian Institute of Sport – they’ve been neglected for a long period of time by the former Coalition Federal Government. My Government’s investing because a national capital should have national institutions that are worthy of our great nation.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what’s your response to Elon Musk calling your Government fascist?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, social media has a social responsibility. If Mr Musk doesn’t understand that, that says more about him than it does about my Government.
JOURNALIST: We’re breaking records in renewables uptake across Australia. In Queensland, one in two are using rooftop solar. Does this put a dampener on Peter Dutton’s plans for nuclear in his own state? And, you promise that renewables will bring down power bills. But why aren’t Australians feeling any better off if the uptake is so high?
PRIME MINISTER: Nuclear energy is the most expensive, the slowest to roll out, and Peter Dutton is relying upon technology that doesn’t even exist anywhere in the world. What we need to do is to make sure this transition looks after people here and now. And what these figures show is that Australians know that the cheapest form of energy is renewables. That’s why they’re putting it on their roofs. And just as they’re putting it on their roofs, we need to put it around our nation, make sure that we get that battery storage backed up by firming capacity. That’s how we will transition in a way that creates jobs, that lowers our emissions, improves our efficiency, and makes a difference to people’s power bills as well.
JOURNALIST: Just to follow up on that, do you think that Peter Dutton has any hope in even winning over the voters in his own state when they’re clearly turning to renewables already?
PRIME MINISTER: What these figures show is that voters themselves are rejecting the idea that nothing should happen until the 2040s and sometime in the future, Peter Dutton will have this investment of taxpayers’ funds into the most expensive form of new energy, which is nuclear. People know that renewables is the cheapest form of new energy. That’s why they’re putting it on their roofs.
JOURNALIST: On the New South Wales elections finally, how unfair do you think it is for New South Wales voters that they’ve been you know, left with less democratic choice because of the administrative failure?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the Liberal Party are showing that if you can’t govern yourself, how can you possibly govern the country? And the New South Wales Liberal Party, in failing to put in 150 nominations, are showing that they can’t even govern themselves. But what Peter Dutton is showing as well, with this intervention against Mark Speakman, the Leader of the New South Wales Liberals – wanted two moderate women to be a part of a committee of four to run the New South Wales Liberal Party. Peter Dutton has rejected moderates, and he’s rejected women playing a role in that committee to control the New South Wales Branch. Under Peter Dutton’s Liberals, there’s no role for moderates, there’s no serious role for women, and there’s no proper representation of New South Wales people. He’s got two Victorians, men, running – of the three of the people running the New South Wales branch, two of them are Victorian men and just one woman from New South Wales because he wasn’t prepared to have equal representation of women or equal representation of moderates. Under Peter Dutton, the Liberal Party becomes more and more right wing each day, and this intervention into New South Wales just confirms that. Thanks very much.
