Murray Watt says Pauline Hanson should apologise for remarks

0:00Now, Mary Watts is the Federal Minister for Environment and Water. Minister, welcome back. Good day, Sally. Good to be with you. One nation is unveiling its migration policy today. When will the government do the same? What's happened? Well, we've obviously been working through the detail of this unlike one nation who've put out this policy today that would clearly just destroy regional economies and probably drive the Australian economy into a recession. But we do recognise that despite the work we've already done to reduce the numbers of migration in Australia and we have reduced it significantly, there's more that needs to be done. But we need to do this in a way that balances the economic needs of Australia as well. I mean, one nation can come out with these kind of policies slashing by hundreds of thousands, the number of migrants. Today, we've already seen the National Farmers Federation President on a different network saying this is a terrible policy that would hurt farmers badly and would drive up food prices for Australians. I mean, this is not an easy issue to deal with it.

1:01That's why it does take a bit of time. But I don't know when Pauline Hanson or Barnaby Joyce last worked into an abattoir in regional Australia, full of migrant workers, when they last worked into an hospital and aged care facility. Those industries would be decimated if we didn't have some form of migration into Australia. We know the numbers need to come down, but we need to do it in a sensible way and we don't rob Australians of the services they need and drive up food prices. Has there been disagreement within government ranks about how to handle migration issue? No, I wouldn't put it that way, Sally, but I think all ministers who have been involved in this discussion recognise that there's a range of factors we need to balance. As I say, we recognise that we need to build on the work that we've done so far to bring down the numbers of migration, but country pubs rely on migrant labour, those hospitals and aged care facilities in our suburbs and our regions rely on it. We need to do this properly. I mean, I'd be very interested to hear, for example, what David Farley has to say about this one nation policy. We know that he has balked at previous policy announcements by one nation on migration

2:03because he understands how relied his electorate and the regional economy relies on migration. South Australian Labour Premier Peter Malinowska says cuts to skilled migration would be economic self-harm. He's also argued that the correct political response to anti-immigration politics and populism was not a piecement. What reassurance is your government giving to state premiers on this right now? Well, again, we've been in discussion for some time with state premiers about changes that we might make at the federal level to migration and what impacts that would have on state economies. The state premiers are right to be concerned that if you slash migration willy-nilly in the one nation kind of way, that their economies would suffer, that they wouldn't have the traities to build the homes that we need, that they wouldn't have the doctors, the nurses, the orderlies in our hospitals that they need. We all, I think, well, apart from one nation, we all recognise that we do have some already serious labour shortages in some industries. And that's why just coming out with these knee jerk remarks, like one nation have done, can be a real economic problem.

3:06I mean, their policy is like a magic pudding. They think that they can cut the numbers by hundreds of thousands, but they can still have this and they can still have that. It doesn't work that way. If you're going to cut numbers, they've got to come from somewhere. And what we now know is that one nation would take them from the industries that prop up Australia. The government's policy is it weeks away or months away? I'm not going to put a particular time frame on it, Sally, but we understand that there is a higher degree of interest in settling this policy. Australians want to know the business community wants to know, but we would rather take the time to get this right, rather than with all due respect, meeting a media cycle. The Australian reports that one nation MP Barnaby Joyce has defended his party leader, Pauline Hanson, after calls for her to apologise for a mark she made about the Prime Minister's late mother, earlier this year, Senator Hanson criticised the Prime Minister's mother for living in public housing. Mr Joyce says he doesn't think there's any suggestion, Senator Hanson was saying that Mr Albenese's mother was quite a bad person.

4:08Is that fair as an apology needed? I think an apology is absolutely needed from Pauline Hanson for yet another remark that she makes punching down on people in our community who deserve our support. Last week we saw her, recently we saw her taking on Andrew Hastie, a Distinguished War veteran, and all the other people who gave evidence in that particular court case that she's complaining about. She's now moved on to social housing residents, and the idea that you would pick on someone's late mother who died more than 20 years ago is cruel and despicable. I mean, I'm starting to lose count of the number of groups within our community who Pauline Hanson is picking on. She thinks workers are lazy, she doesn't like migrants, she says parents who use childcare aren't doing the right thing. Women experiencing domestic violence, she says that's a two-way street. I mean, we started to run out of groups in the community that she doesn't pick on, and at a time when Australians are doing it really tough, is a government led by someone who wants to punch down on them and make life harder the way to help people get through? I don't think it is.

5:09You're listening to Radio National Breakfast. My guest is the Minister for Environment and Water, Murray Watch. Minister over the weekend, the SA government announced H5 Bird Flu had been detected for the first time in an Australian sea lion. How concerned are you for this species in particular? Yeah, this is a worrying development, Sally, but I have to say not unexpected. You will be aware that for some time now Julie Collins, the Agriculture Minister and I have been warning that we are going to see more of these fatalities as a result of bird flu. I think most Australians now realise that it doesn't just impact on birds, it impacts on mammals as well. The Australian sea lion is an endangered species, and so of course we are concerned about the transmission of bird flu to that population. The information we have at this stage is that only one sea lion in that colony has been affected, and that's a good thing. But this is why over the last couple of years, Sally, we have been investing in building the resilience of these kind of populations. One of the things we have funded for example is hookworm injections to ensure that we have a larger population of young sea lions and young seals, so that if we do see bird flu impact it will still have populations there.

6:19Just finally, anthropic boss Adaria Amadez called on the artificial intelligence industry to slow the development of the powerful technology over risks of super intelligent computer systems. Is the Australian government also worried about the speed of AI development and this technology causing harm either on its own or in the hands of bad actors? Yes, we do have a concern about that, Sally, and I think most Australians have a concern, and that's why over the last few months we have been introducing an AI Safety Institute, those standards that the Prime Minister has brought in, and of course most recently the digital duty of care. I think it's really surprising that the opposition and one nation have opposed the digital duty of care. I think they're massively out of step with where Australians are at, because Australians want to have some control over this technology rather than just let it rip. Minister, thank you for coming in this morning.