Andrew Hastie says he does not ‘resile’ from previous comments about ADF and gender
Hastie is challenged again on his views on whether women should serve in the defence force.
The shadow defence minister, who has previously served in the ADF, said back in 2018 that the “fighting DNA of a close combat unit is best preserved when it’s exclusively male”.
This morning he said that he did support women in combat roles, and just said it again:
The Coalition policy is that all combat roles are open to women. It’s been our longstanding position.
The one thing that we’ll, one thing that we will insist on is high standards because, in combat, there’s no points for second place.
Pushed on whether those “high standards” mean that there are currently lower standards for women, Hastie says “hardly”, and has accused the government of using the issue as a “political prop”.
I’m saying we have one standard, all Australians, regardless of your background, your race, your sexuality, your gender, your religion, every single role in the ADF is open to you, and we want more Australians to join … He [Marles] uses women in the ADF as a political prop.
Hastie says he won’t “resile” from his past comments but confirms “nothing is changing”.
I am not going to resile from what I have said in the past … I said what I said but the thing that the Australian people need to know, under a Dutton-led Coalition government, we will have a policy that is open to all Australians for combat roles. Nothing is changing.
Key events
Chalmers and Taylor facing off in second treasurers’ debate
Aren’t you lucky because we have yet another policy debate today – between the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, and shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor.
There’s not a huge amount new that’s been said so far in the debate. There’s been a big focus on the uncertain global economic environment and what either party would do about it.
Chalmers focuses on wages increasing and taxes decreasing, while Taylor repeats the “are you better off than you were three years ago” line and promises to restore household budgets and the government’s budget.
They’re in a room full of mostly business people – so unsurprisingly there’s also a focus on productivity and cutting red tape for businesses. Taylor also adds that he thinks that regulators like Apra and Asic should be focused on regulation but shouldn’t be “overreaching”.
Natasha May
Butler ‘talking to other operators’ to minimise possible Healthscope fallout
Circling back to the health minister’s debate, Butler was asked about the viability of one of the nation’s largest private hospital providers, Healthscope, and said he is talking to other operators in the system to ensure there are contingency plans if Healthscope’s 38 hospitals nationally were to close.
Butler said:
We’re watching very closely what is happening between Healthscope and their lenders and their landlords, because that could have a very serious impact on some parts of the private hospital market, where the health scope hospital is strategically very critical.”
I don’t want to get into a judgment about ownership. I will say, though, that … we’re talking to them and to other operators in the system to ensure that if something goes askew, that patients aren’t impacted.”
Pressed further on what he meant about talking to other operators, Butler said, by way of example, that when Healthscope withdrew its maternity services in Tasmania, because it was a very significant part of the market and private births accounted for one in three births in the state, he started a discussion with the state government and another operator, Calvary, to fill the gap by an injection of commonwealth funding.
There’s no one single discussion. Healthscope is the second largest private hospital operator. It’s got some hospitals in markets that have a large number of private hospitals, and it’s got some hospitals in markets where it’s strategically very critical. So of course, particularly in that second category, we’re watching very closely.”
Coalition promises national security strategy
Peter Dutton has promised a new national security strategy, to respond to increasingly complex strategic circumstances across the globe.
The Coalition says the strategy will help provide certainty to security agencies, government and industry.
It will provide an overarching vision for Australia’s security, core objectives, detail key risks, provide an assessment of the global threat environment and outline Australia’s national security priorities.
In a statement, Dutton said:
It has been more than a decade since Australia had a national security strategy, and the world looks very different today than it did back then.
It is past time we confronted our new strategic reality, and our strategy will serve as a roadmap to guide the difficult decisions we will need to make to protect Australia’s interests in the years ahead.
Butler and Ruston trade barbs about Coalition’s public service cuts
Unsurprisingly, the public service cuts policy has come knocking on the door at the NPC, and Ruston is asked what impact the cuts will have on the health department.
The opposition has said (and Ruston repeats) that the cuts will have no impact on frontline services.
We have a crisis in workforce. It’s the biggest crisis, I think, that is facing healthcare at the moment, because without the workforce to be able to deliver the outcomes in healthcare, we cannot possibly deliver them. So what we want to see is – we want to see an efficient investment in frontline services … We need to make sure that we are focused on delivering services to Australians – not public servants sitting behind desks in Canberra.
Butler retorts that by leaving out frontline services and national security workers, there will be just 60,000 jobs left to cut from.
That leaves on the analysis of the Public Service Commission a little over 60,000 jobs in the frame for 41,000 jobs going. That includes all of the Department of Health.
Butler rejects Coalition’s bulk-billing figures; Ruston accuses Labor of sending health system backwards
As always in these debates, the debaters next get to ask each other a question.
Anne Ruston asks Mark Butler when will he recognise that Australians are experiencing a “very, very difficult” time getting affordable access to a GP.
Butler says he’s recognised that fact from day one in government, and also takes the opportunity to push back on the Coalition’s bulk-billing figures.
I think I’ve recognised that from the first day I became health minister. The first thing I’d say is that 88% figure that the Coalition continues to use has been completely rejected by doctors’ groups. The College of GPs said it was misleading and highly skewed.
Butler then asks Ruston why Australians should trust Peter Dutton on health considering his track record.
Ruston says she’s “quite amazed” Butler wants to talk track records, and accuses Labor of sending the health system backwards.
Every single metric that’s before Australians suggests that our health system has only gone backwards under your reign.
Instead of talking about something that didn’t happen a decade ago, I think we need to be focusing on what’s happening right now … I think Australians deserve better than their politicians fighting and lying and scare campaigns.
Butler and Ruston asked about putting dental into Medicare
Natasha May
Back to the press club, Mark Butler and Anne Ruston are asked about the Greens’ push to put dental on Medicare, and whether there is any possibility of either party pursuing what the Australian Dental Association have proposed – a seniors dental benefits scheme, like the one that exists for children.
Butler says the idea of a senior scheme is “interesting” but “expensive”. He says he’s “tried to be honest” that his focus is on rebuilding general practices. However, he acknowledges that:
I think over time it would make sense to bring the mouth into our universal health insurance system. Logically, it doesn’t make sense in the longer term to continue to exclude that part of the body.
Ruston says her focus is on primary care and strengthening the economy so people can better afford essential services:
There’s absolutely no doubt the focus right now of the Coalition is to make sure that we deal with the crisis that is primary care … First and foremost, that has to be addressed. But also the other really big piece of this puzzle is making sure that we’ve got a strong economy, because a strong economy affords us to be able to provide the essential services.
Circling back to Peter Dutton’s press conference for a moment, Sara Tomevska asks Dutton whether he still plans to introduce questions on anti-semitism in the citizenship test, re-vet the 2000 people who have come to Australia from Gaza, and whether the Coalition would move to recognise the capital of Israel as West Jerusalem.
Dutton says the Coalition won’t move the capital, but says yes to the citizenship questions and to re-vet people from Gaza.
Pushed back on whether this means Dutton doesn’t trust the current vetting process, he just said again, “we’ll conduct proper security checks”.
Natasha May
Do the Coalition’s claims about bulk billing stack up?
Anne Ruston has gone back to the line Peter Dutton has also used that bulk billing nationally has fallen by 11% since Labor came to government.
Lucky for us my colleagues have already factchecked the Coalition’s claims and found:
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says the bulk-billing rate peaked in 2020 and 2021 at 89% after the Morrison government doubled the bulk-billing incentive for six months and required bulk-billing be applied to a number of services.
In 2022 it fell back to 85% before dropping to 77% in 2023 and 78% for the first 10 months of 2024.
Between 2021 and 2024 the fall was 11 percentage points, but that includes more than a year under the Morrison government.
You can better understand the numbers around bulk billing here:
Labor have been plugging the line that the Coalition will cut funding from Medicare and close urgent care clinics.
Earlier Ruston said the Coalition “rules out any cuts to Medicare” and promised to keep all clinics open.
Natasha May
Ruston accuses Albanese of ‘behaving like a political vulture’ in Mediscare campaign
Today in the latest of the National Press Club’s election debates, the health minister, Mark Butler, is going head-to-head with the shadow minister for health, Anne Ruston.
Going first, in her opening statement, Ruston continues the line Dutton ran in the leaders’ debate last night accusing Albanese of mounting a scare campaign over Medicare funding. Ruston says:
Australians rightly are proud of Medicare, which is why it has been so disappointing to see the prime minister, the leader of this country, behaving like a political vulture, preying on hard-working, elderly, sick and vulnerable Australians, using this as a campaign to fuel his Mediscare campaign. Prime minister, Medicare is not a plaything of yours. It belongs to the Australian people.
Butler, going second, says “Australians aren’t mugs” and won’t believe Dutton’s promises there won’t be cuts on health.
When Peter Dutton was health minister, he looked Australians in the eye and promised that there would be no cuts to health. And then in his first budget, he cut $50bn from public hospitals…
Australians aren’t mugs. Australians know that Peter Dutton needs to find $600bn to fund his nuclear power plant. They know that when Peter Dutton says no cuts to health, he also says he will make cuts to fund that power plant, but that Australians will only find out after the election where that axe is going to fall. Peter Dutton also says the best indicator of his future action is his past performance. Well, his past performance as health minister was truly abysmal.
Our reporter Sarah Basford Canales, who is with the opposition leader, gets the last question and asks why he hasn’t visited a community slated to host one of the Coalition’s seven proposed nuclear plants.
Dutton has been critical of Labor, saying they haven’t done adequate consultation with communities in the NSW Illawarra region where offshore windfarms have been earmarked.
Dutton lays down those criticisms again and, despite pushback, says he’s been to Bunbury and the Hunter.
We’ve spoken with the community, we’ve made our decision and we’re happy to consult with people in government.
Telling journos that the costings will come later isn’t flying with the press pack today.
Several reporters have asked Dutton exactly where the money is coming from to pay for the defence commitment and other promises.
Dutton says again that the Coalition hasn’t promised recurring spending like Labor’s top-up tax cuts – so as one journo puts it to him:
What you are saying is that you are paying for this policy by repealing income tax cuts, you are paying it through bracket creep and slugging ordinary taxpayers rather than spending restraint and finding cuts elsewhere.
Dutton answers, but again won’t say where any savings will come from:
A great Coalition government will always be better on national security and economic management.
After several more questions, Dutton says:
We will find savings as we have been clear, as John Howard did in ’96, where Labor has invested into programs, where that money is not being spent efficiently. We have given guarantees in relation to health and education and other areas of commonwealth expenditure.
Dutton says he is still opposed to sending peacekeepers to Ukraine
Would the Coalition stand with allied forces as part of a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine?
Anthony Albanese has spoken to the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and other leaders about the prospect of sending a “small” team of peacekeepers to Ukraine.
Dutton has previously said the Coalition would not support that.
Dutton says he’s still opposed to the idea, and says the previous Coalition government provided more help “than any other country”.
I’m opposed to us sending in, in an ill-defined way, to an ill-defined mission, our troops on the border with a nuclear powered country like Russia, with a lunatic in charge of Russia, not knowing what would happen next.
We provided more than any other country when we were in government.
Andrew Hastie says he does not ‘resile’ from previous comments about ADF and gender
Hastie is challenged again on his views on whether women should serve in the defence force.
The shadow defence minister, who has previously served in the ADF, said back in 2018 that the “fighting DNA of a close combat unit is best preserved when it’s exclusively male”.
This morning he said that he did support women in combat roles, and just said it again:
The Coalition policy is that all combat roles are open to women. It’s been our longstanding position.
The one thing that we’ll, one thing that we will insist on is high standards because, in combat, there’s no points for second place.
Pushed on whether those “high standards” mean that there are currently lower standards for women, Hastie says “hardly”, and has accused the government of using the issue as a “political prop”.
I’m saying we have one standard, all Australians, regardless of your background, your race, your sexuality, your gender, your religion, every single role in the ADF is open to you, and we want more Australians to join … He [Marles] uses women in the ADF as a political prop.
Hastie says he won’t “resile” from his past comments but confirms “nothing is changing”.
I am not going to resile from what I have said in the past … I said what I said but the thing that the Australian people need to know, under a Dutton-led Coalition government, we will have a policy that is open to all Australians for combat roles. Nothing is changing.
Dutton says Coalition’s defence spending not just due to China
Dutton says the Coalition’s increase in spend isn’t solely to do with China.
He says China, under its Communist party, has “ambitions” in relations to Taiwan but that’s not the only reason for this announcement:
China, under the CCP, is a very different country and has ambitions in relation to Taiwan and a naval blockade in the region is not out of the thinking of the defence experts. Let’s be frank about it but it’s not just that.
It’s the fact that when you look at what’s happening in Europe, the prospect of Russia emboldened going into countries beyond the Ukraine and Europe like that has Nato countries deeply concerned at the moment.
Dutton fails to specify where defence funding will come from
Moving to questions, the first goes to Mark Riley who points to Hastie’s comments on RN Breakfast this morning that theres always a “trade-off” when making an announcement. He asks where that trade-off is going to be.
Dutton doesn’t answer exactly where the funding will come from.
His goes first to how the former Coalition government provided temporary support during Covid for jobseeker and jobkeeper, and says that unlike Labor’s permanent tax cuts the Coalition isn’t “baking in” spending.
We have no commitments in relation to that recurrent spend. And the reason in part that we’ve left to a later point in the campaign the announcement is to get a better understanding of where the finances are and how much money we can put into defence.
The Coalition has said they will release their costings before 3 May.
