Liberal’s Simon Birmingham and Labor’s Tony Burke have their final say

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: To mark election eve, we return to the campaign spokespeople for each party. Senator Simon Birmingham for the Coalition, and Tony Burke for the Labor Party.

Thank you very much to both of you for coming in on the last night where you probably just want to kick back with a beer or something.

SIMON BIRMINGHAM, COALITION’S CAMPAIGN SPOKESPERSON: Leigh, great to be with you.

TONY BURKE, LABOR’S CAMPAIGN SPOKESPERSON: Hi, Leigh.

LEIGH SALES: Firstly, Senator Birmingham – we know that the Coalition has an issue with Scott Morrison’s unpopularity. The big question for you is are voters going to draw a distinction between their dislike of him and what they think of the Government overall?

SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Leigh, I think as the election has drawn on, people have really come to focus on the choice and the choice is about policies, it’s about performance, about the future of our country and about the competence of leaders.

And so, if you look at performance, Australia has come through some of the most troubled times we’ve seen in our lifetimes, and yet, we’ve come through very, very strongly.

In the United States, there’s 1.5 million fewer people in work today than pre-COVID. In Australia, there’s 400,000 more people in work today than pre-COVID.

Unemployment is at the lowest level since 1974 and this has been achieved under Scott Morrison’s leadership and working right across the country to get these outcomes.

We’ve outlined plans and policies to keep growing, 1.3 million more jobs, 400,000 plus more small businesses and the policies to achieve those goals.

And indeed, in terms of competence, you’ve seen with Scott Morrison, a leader who has got a grasp of detail and of policies versus Anthony Albanese, who hasn’t demonstrated a clear economic plan and has stumbled and fumbled his way around key questions in this campaign.

LEIGH SALES: Okay, Tony Burke, that’s the Coalition case. What’s your case for change?

TONY BURKE: The choice is between more Morrison or a better future.

Scott Morrison won’t change. Even Scott Morrison now is promising that he could not be Scott Morrison.

When I went to the Liberal Party booths, when I went to polling booths, the pre-polls today, there’s no Liberal signage there at all of Scott Morrison who is running to be Prime Minister.

People have seen the failures of this Government. They’ve lived them and the cost of living with their real wages going backwards gives us a cost-of-living crisis.

Against that, there can be a better future where we do act on secure jobs, where we do act to get wages moving. Where we have an Albanese Labor government finally acting against corruption in this country, and also a situation where we make major economic reforms like the commitment to make childcare more affordable for people.

LEIGH SALES: Tony Burke, with the Opposition Leader making some errors about basic facts as Simon Birmingham pointed out, like the unemployment rate, like Australia’s borders this week. Can you see why to some voters, that might suggest a lack of preparedness?

TONY BURKE: There’s nothing more important for voters than what they are seeing happen in their own lives.

When Anthony Albanese made the comment, answered the word “absolutely” when he was asked whether or not Labor would support a 5.1 per cent increase in wages, in particular for the case that’s running on the minimum wage at the moment. Scott Morrison saw that and thought oh, that must be a mistake and tried to blow it up.

He didn’t understand conviction when it was looking him in the eye.

What people have seen with Anthony Albanese is someone who is authentic. Someone who has conviction. Somebody who has a plan and importantly, somebody who understands what’s happening in a country where there’s a full-blown cost of living crisis which has happened under Scott Morrison’s watch, and he doesn’t seem to care.

LEIGH SALES: Simon Birmingham, we heard the Prime Minister say earlier this week that he can be a bit of a bulldozer. He knows it’s a problem. He thinks that he can change.

But then later in the week, it’s like he’s changed again to say, you know what, it’s been great that I’ve been a bulldozer, that’s been really good for the nation. What is going on there?

SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well, Leigh, I think with Scott Morrison, what you’ve got is a leader who knows how to get things done and has demonstrated that he can and does when it counts, and particularly to get the country through a global pandemic and the challenges that we faced that I spoke about before.

The challenges we face internationally now where we’ve got real spikes in inflation right around the world – 9 per cent we saw recorded in the UK this week.

In Australia, we’re holding that down at 5 per cent doing far better than most comparable countries, and indeed, wages performance also doing far better than most comparable countries.

But these are huge international pressures and Scott Morrison has shown the capacity to deal with those pressures and to keep our economy strong and to keep Australians in jobs.

But he also wants to make sure that Australians understand that he has other passions. We’ve seen that over the last week as he’s had the chance to shine the spotlight on our housing policy, the ability to help get young Australians into homes with a bigger deposit, that can save them around $400 a month in reduced interest payments, can ensure that they’re paying rent for less of their lives. He’s passionate about that topic.

That’s why the at last election, we took a housing policy that has worked and seen 160,000 young Australians get into their first home in the last year – an increase above the 100,000 average that we’d seen previously.

So the policies are working and that’s the passion from Scott to focus on homeownership.

Suicide prevention and mental health – issues that perhaps haven’t had the attention because of the dominance of COVID but where I’ve seen behind the scenes how much he really wants to get those policies done.

LEIGH SALES: Alright, we’ve got one minute left so I’m going to give you 30 seconds each.

Senator Birmingham, starting with you. What is your first legislative priority if you win Government on the weekend?

SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Leigh, it will be to make sure that the housing policy I was just talking about gets implemented. But also that we do it in a way where we keep the budget under control for all areas, and that’s about making sure that we don’t have a worse deficit, which is what the Labor Party is proposing and more debt, which will put more pressure on interest rates.

We’re going to make sure that we keep working to repair that deficit and implement policies like that housing one which can help Australians on key issues.

LEIGH SALES: Okay, Tony Burke, Labor’s number one legislated priority if you’re elected on the weekend?

TONY BURKE: Look, one of the things that we have to put through the parliament is to implement all of the recommendations of the Respect at Work report.

I am still stunned after everything that has happened in this country over Scott Morrison’s tinea when it came to the treatment of women that we were debating in the parliament, that when we moved to implement all of the recommendations of the Respect at Work report, every member of the Liberal and the National Party filed into parliament and voted against it.

I don’t want those amendments to ever be defeated again. We want to make sure that we actually have a positive obligation that you have a right to a safe workplace.

It says everything about Scott Morrison that he refused to support that.

LEIGH SALES: Tony Burke, Simon Birmingham, thank you.

SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Thank you.

TONY BURKE: Thank you.