Interview with Kieran Gilbert, Sky News

KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: Welcome back to the program. Let's go live now to Labor frontbencher, the Assistant Minister for Climate and Energy, Jenny McAllister. Jenny, thanks so much for your time. As we go to air today, it's one week on from that attempted assassination on Donald Trump. He's speaking as we go to air again today. He's in Michigan, one of those swing states. But I just want to ask you your thoughts on this election race. It is our most important ally, our security guarantor, and yet there is so much uncertainty over that presidential election race right now. What's your read on it?

SENATOR JENNY McALLISTER, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE & ENERGY: Kieran, thanks for having me on. I think the first thing to say, of course, is that we are so pleased to see that President Trump, the former President Trump was not harmed in that really terrible incident last week. And our thoughts remain with the people who were harmed and killed in that incident. It is a reminder that violence is never ever acceptable. And I think the whole world was shocked to see this attempt to derail a genuinely democratic process in the United States. This is, of course, of great interest to people in Australia and all around the world. The United States is a really significant partner to us and a significant influence on global affairs. Our approach as a government is, of course, to make sure that we are in a position to work with any United States administration. We have long, deep relationships with the United States. The alliance is key to our security arrangements. We enjoy very strong relationships across a range of policy and portfolio areas. That is always the focus for us. We tend not, as a consequence, to engage in commentary about presidential elections and vice-presidential candidates. But, you know, we, of course, are always interested to see the trends and ideas coming through the US system.

GILBERT: Indeed. But I guess in terms of Australia's relationship, our alliance with the United States, do you see that as almost separate to the circus? Is that a fair way to put it?

McALLISTER: You can characterise it as a circus. I think a vibrant democracy is a terrific thing. What I would say is that our arrangements are very, very deep. We have relationships into the Congress. We have very strong relationships with the current President and his administration. And in the past, we've seen governments of both flavours in Australia work with administrations of both flavours in the United States. It's a core partnership for us, it's an important one. We'll always advocate for our interests, but I think we can always be confident that the reception to that advocacy will be in a context of respect and trust, because there is deep respect and trust between our two countries.

GILBERT: We saw the nature of the global economy highlighted again on Friday, with the digital tech supply chain really exposed in a way. The National Coordination Mechanism, it's meeting again this morning in about half an hour from now. Although this wasn't a malicious act against the Crowdstrike and causing this outage, what are the lessons, what are the vulnerabilities that can be learned from this episode?

McALLISTER: Well, you're right to make the point that this was not a cyber attack. This is an error of some kind, but a major error and a very, very significant IT outage. In the first instance, our focus, of course, has been on restoring services to Australians. We were keen to make sure that those key essential services, like the Triple000 services, were functioning and that was able to be secured through cooperation across all of the actors in that system. We've worked closely with a number of key businesses in that supply chain over the last period to make sure that their services, transport, logistics, food, health, are all in place and functioning. We are still in recovery stage. You note that the National Coordination Mechanism Group are meeting again this morning. There is still more work to do to make sure that the residual issues arising from this outage are able to be addressed. I think there will be opportunity in time to reflect on what's occurred over the last couple of days, whether it exposes vulnerabilities that we are able to address. But the key thing at the moment, and the focus for the government is restoring services. I will add this. There are obviously some actors out there trying to take advantage of this situation, and we are urging Australians to be incredibly careful at this point in time about scams. There are people out there phishing via telephone, via email. People should think very carefully before providing any information, any personal information at all, to anybody requesting it. Think about whether this makes sense. If you are in any way uncertain, just stop. And if you do make an error, if you do provide information, make sure that you move immediately to notify your financial services provider or whatever the relevant authority is so that we can start to deal with the challenge.

GILBERT: Indeed, that is good advice, just to be ultra cautious right now. On the CFMEU, you're a former ALP President of your party, of course, for our viewers, who might not be aware. So you know the way the machinery of the party works and relationships with unions. Peter Dutton says if the Prime Minister had any backbone whatsoever, he would deregister the CFMEU. Why haven't the government? Why hasn't Labor done that?

McALLISTER: It's pretty difficult to take lectures from Peter Dutton about this. Most of the alleged behaviour that's been reported over the last week occurred during the period when the Coalition was in office and the ABCC was in operation. There were plenty of opportunities for the government he was part of to deal with some of the issues that are now being addressed by a Labor Government. So, we're not going to take lectures from Peter Dutton about how to handle this. I will talk a little bit about this solution that we are pursuing. The number one job of a union is to look after its members. Plainly, from the allegations that we've seen over the last week, this is not the focus of the CFMEU. In fact, it's the opposite. We need strong action to return this union to its core purpose. Now, the Fair Work Commission general manager has indicated that they are seeking advice about what legal options are available to them to put in place administrators into this union where they see fit. And the Minister, Minister Burke, has made it very clear that when such application is brought forward, he will support it. And he's also made the point that deregistration is not a solution. Deregistration would allow this same group of people to continue the same things that they are presently doing without regulatory oversight. It's hard to see how this helps the situation. We are taking strong action using the legal powers available to us and we've indicated that if there is any impediment at all, we are willing to bring legislation to the Parliament to remove that impediment to the Fair Work Commission exercising its powers.

GILBERT: In 2019. Peter Dutton as Home Affairs Minister said that the outlawed bikie gangs, this was the quote, he said, “they've got their fangs into the CFMEU”. If the then Home Affairs Minister knew this, is it hard to accept that the government Labor figures didn't know this was going on within that controversial union?

McALLISTER: I don't know the basis for Peter Dutton making that assertion at that time. But it asks the question, doesn't it? If he knew about it, why didn't he do something about it? We are not talking about this issue. We are acting on it. The general manager of the Fair Work Commission is expecting to seek advice. We expect an application to be brought forward. And we have been as clear as we can be that not only will the Minister intervene to support that application, if there is any impediment or problem, we will bring legislation to the parliament to deal with it.

GILBERT: Should Labor hand back the donations received? I know Labor is suspending donations, but what about the millions received in recent years?

McALLISTER: The suspension is broader than donations. So, in fact, the suspension that's been imposed by the National Executive, in fact, suspends all of the rights of the CFMEU to be part of the state branches in Victoria, in NSW, in South Australia and Tasmania. We don't want them to be involved in our party until it's been – until it is clear that there are no criminal elements at all involved actively in the union. And suspension means a number of things. It means not being able to participate in decision making, and it also means not participating in campaigns and not making donations. That's the right thing to do. It's been made very clear of the approach that we'll take as a party. We think that this is the right thing to do, to put them outside the organisation until there is clarity that all of the problems in that organisation have been resolved.

GILBERT: On the Energy Ministers’ meeting, the Federal and State Ministers gathered on Friday, agreeing to what's called a Consumer Energy Roadmap. Can you explain to our viewers what – what is that? What does that amount to?

McALLISTER: Kieran, we are moving into a really different period in terms of the way that the energy system is organised. So, in the past we had a very big generator sending electricity into a home. These days, homes themselves are the source of energy generation. Australians have the highest per capita installation of solar in the world. There's more on the way. And increasingly, homes have other things in place too. Batteries on the wall, a heat pump outside to provide cost-effective hot water heating, sometimes an electric vehicle. And all of these things potentially either generate or store electricity and have the capacity to help a homeowner manage their energy demand in place. But we need some really good standards here. We need consumer protections and we need to make sure that the products that are going into homes perform really well for consumers. And so the package that was agreed by Ministers on Friday really seeks to set up the policy architecture for this huge change that's going to roll through the economy.

GILBERT: Yeah, it's already well and truly rolling, though, isn't it? It's fair to say you just look around your suburb and see people putting in batteries and solar grids and so on.

McALLISTER: That's right. So, the devices are starting to be installed in homes. What's important though, is that we do it in a way that maximises the benefits for households and for the grid. That means having good standards in terms of data sharing, it means having good protections against cyber intrusion, it means making sure that things are fit for purpose and safe, and it means removing any impediments because it's always challenging to introduce a new technology. And sometimes our old planning laws or our old rules don't suit the new technologies that are coming online.

GILBERT: We're almost out of time. I just quickly want to get your thoughts on this campaign launched today by the Albanese Government to combat the abuse of older people. It's quite concerning, when I was reading this, how widespread are we talking about this sort of scourge in our community against older Australians?

McALLISTER: This is a really upsetting thing to come to terms with. But one in six Australians surveyed, older Australians said that they had experienced elder abuse in the last twelve months. That's a really high level of prevalence and as a community, we need to start to respond to that. And so the campaign that's being rolled out from next weekend seeks to start a conversation about it, makes the point that if you're feeling a little uncertain, if you think something's wrong and you're an older Australian, you should speak up about it. You should talk to your friends or your family. You might want to call 1800 ELDERhelp, which is the hotline that's in place. Or if you are, of course, in an emergency, you should ring triple zero. But more generally, this is something that the community needs to start thinking about. It's a scourge, we need to eliminate it. And the place to start is with conversations with the people that we love and care about.

GILBERT: Yeah, and create awareness of it, too, I guess, because that one in six number is just crazy. Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Jenny McAllister. Appreciate your time today. Thanks.

McALLISTER: Thank you, Kieran.