Subjects: Coalition break-up
E&OE
STARTS 11.48am
Ends Noon
JOSH MARTIN
Are you good to start, Michael?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Yep.
JOSH MARTIN
I guess of the last two weeks, what’s disappointed you most about how things have played out?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
I think from the public’s perspective, they would have looked on and seen how messy it was. People are enduring floods in Northern New South Wales, drought in Southern NSW and right across the country they have cost-of-living pressures, they’re juggling household budgets, and they see Canberra just talking about themselves when they should be listening to the people who sent them there to do a job. And I think for me that’s probably been the most unfortunate thing, so, I think what we need to do now is get this sorted and get on with the job of representing Australians as they would expect us to do.
JOSH MARTIN
Was it disappointing that party’s elder statesman, like yourself, Darren Chester and Barnaby Joyce had to extend the olive branch to Sussan Ley? And was it a letdown of David Littleproud’s leadership that you guys had to sort of show the leadership of the party?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, David did reach out to Sussan to be fair, and of course those negotiations are ongoing. But look, I did reach out because I think the Coalition was too important to let go. And whilst I respect the party room’s decision to go a different way, I could see the consequences and having spoken with a few colleagues who, well, put their vote one way and then sort of thought I wonder why I chose that path given what was unfolding, because, you know, hindsight is a brilliant thing, I thought it was necessary for me to, yes, reach out. But Sussan and I are neighbouring colleagues so, we talk all the time at any rate, so, there’s nothing unusual to see there, but given the fact that we were going to see potentially a split in the Coalition for the first time for decades, this wouldn’t have been good, I don’t think, for quite frankly Australia, we don’t want to see a split in the Opposition. What Australians need right now is a credible alternative government, a credible Opposition that is going to over the next three years, keep this Government accountable because if we’ve seen in the first three years just what Labor is capable of, and given the fact they’re now talking about an unrealised capital gains tax and lots of other measures that they’re going to impose upon Australian people already suffering from financial hardship. Then what we do need, is a united front opposing that, and that’s what Australians would expect us to do and I didn’t think a split at this time, even if it was just for a matter of one or two years, was going to be something that Australians needed at this juncture.
JOSH MARTIN
Since the story broke yesterday that Barnaby’s dissatisfied with The Nationals’ leadership, have you had any other colleagues reach out and tell you they’d like to see you run? Has Barnaby talked to you in the last 24 hours?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Barnaby spoke to me very briefly yesterday, very, very briefly, all for about for about 10 seconds and haven’t heard from him since. But that wasn’t a conversation about too much at all, it was just a quick, g’day, how are you going? But no other colleague has. I haven’t spoken to other colleagues, I’ve been busy doing what I would normally do in my electorate over the past 24 hours and haven’t spoken to any colleagues. I’m not running for the leadership anytime soon, David is the leader, of course, a lot can go on in politics, they say a week is a long time in politics, but we’re not meeting as a group, in person, until, I would imagine, Parliament goes back, Parliament doesn’t resume until the 22nd of July, I’d imagine we’d probably have a party meeting the day before that, but that’s yet to be seen. We’ve only just appointed a Whip, and that’s Michelle Landry. She’ll make sure that we get together at the necessary time. We’ll probably meet via telepresence to discuss what the Liberal Party met via telepresence yesterday, so the Liberal Party having, in principle, agreed to the four policy areas, universal service obligation, the Regional Australia Future Fund, the nuclear peace and divestiture. So, we will meet again very soon over telepresence to discuss that and what we need to do going forward as far as getting the Coalition back together.
JOSH MARTIN
If between now and July 22nd, you had a heap of colleagues call and say they would like to see you run, is that something you’d consider if momentum built behind that up until that in person party room meeting?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Good try, Josh. It’s very hypothetical. And look, I’m supporting David, I want The Nationals to be united, I do, I want the Coalition to be united, that that’s my focus and of course representing the people of the Riverina. So look, you know, you never put a red line through your name because that’s that would be silly, you don’t know what’s going to happen in politics, but at the moment what I want to see is the Coalition getting back together first and foremost and The Nationals continuing to represent the people as we always do. We had a good result at the election, we won all of our Lower House seats for the sixth election in a row under the under the fourth leader. So that’s something that we should be very proud of, and we are, but it shows that people trust and rely on us to go to Canberra to do a job. I think over the past week it has been messy, there’ no question, and probably, perhaps you know some might think that we’ve taken our eye off the ball. We haven’t, we wanted to push very much determinedly for those four key policy areas. But I think the way that it all transpired and the way we went about it wasn’t perhaps as constructive as that could have been.
JOSH MARTIN
Just for someone who doesn’t know all the machinations of the Coalition, what has to happen now before the Coalition deal can be reached? So, the Liberals have met and agreed in principle, Sussan and David will discuss the agreement then David will call you guys back together on a zoom call.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Very soon. So that that will happen … yeah you go …
JOSH MARTIN
And then after that, do David and Sussan, then sign an agreement. Is that how …
MICHAEL McCORMACK
I would imagine that would be the case. I would imagine that once The Nationals agree with what the Liberals have agreed with in principle, we smooth everything over, David and Sussan get together and sign a piece of paper that that goes forward.
JOSH MARTIN
Excellent, and that any indication yet on when the National Party room will meet?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, I’d imagine that will happen over the next 48 hours, but that would be up to the Leader and the Whip. They will determine the timing of that, but I’d imagine if it’s not today, tomorrow, it’ll probably certainly be Monday, but sooner rather than later, I’d like to think.
JOSH MARTIN
And get the old marriage back together.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Get the old marriage back together, get the rings back out, put them on the fingers, hold hands, kiss and make up and move on.
JOSH MARTIN
And then you can sit together in a joint party room in July.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Yeah, and look, I think that’s important and I think we just need to form a credible Opposition because what Labor is about to foist on, particularly regional people, is not going to be fair. Labor always needs to remember that it’s regional Australia, that produces the food and fibre, it’s regional Australia that produces the resources that keep the lights on. They haven’t put any money in for regional infrastructure, they’ve denied and deserted regional Australians from what they from what they would expect, and I think the regional Australia deserves better. That’s why we took this position in the first place. Thankfully it looks as though it’s all going to be resolved, and we can all move on and do our jobs as we as we should.
JOSH MARTIN
Yeah. Are the super changes troubling for a lot of your constituents are you hearing that from them, I know a lot of farmers…
MICHAEL McCORMACK
I’ve been hearing about this for months and I couldn’t believe the number of people who come up to me at pre-poll and come up to me on Election Day. They’re very worried not just about superannuation but about the increased prices of farmland. So if a farmer has farmland that increases in value, that farmer could well then be, under proposed legislation, charged a tax on property he or she hasn’t even sold, and this is just nuts, I mean, our farmers don’t need that and who knows what the legislation, when it’s finally put into the Parliament, might indeed hold, but it contains grave dangers for people with superannuation accounts above $3 million and, of course, increased value in farmland. With farmers, I mean, they can’t just cash in a paddock just to just pay a tax bill, they need that paddock to be able to produce for them the following season and farming is such a volatile caper. They will, in any given decade, there’ll be three good seasons, three moderate seasons, three really, really bad seasons where they don’t earn an income at all, and indeed one other season, who knows what that’s going to produce? But if in the three bad seasons their farm increases in value for whatever circumstances, and then they can’t produce an income, and yet they’re still being taxed Senate tax bill because of an unrealised capital gain, that’s just not right. It’s not fair, and it’s not sensible. It’s quite frankly, it’s un-Australian.
JOSH MARTIN
And a lot of them have gotten pretty hefty mortgages.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Oh, they do, they’re very much indebted to the to their banks and Labor will say this isn’t true, this isn’t how the legislation’s going to work, but, you know, don’t believe what Labor says, believe what Labor does and our farmers and people with the superannuation accounts are very, very worried, they are. And the number of people who came to me during the election campaign and said that, I don’t think we’ve prosecuted that argument well enough, it was franking credits 2.0, and I can remember in 2019 when all the pundits were writing us off, but Scott Morrison and I knew that franking credits was such a disastrous policy by Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen at the time, and of course, as we saw, we won the election on the on the back of, I think what was the fact that we prosecuted that case and made sure that that never, ever happened, but unfortunately we didn’t prosecute the case with unrealised capital gains, this tax, this insidious tax, that Labor is now proposing and what we’re going to see is it implemented and it’ll hurt people with superannuation accounts and indeed farmland, which increases in value.
JOSH MARTIN
No worries. I think that’s all my questions. Is there anything you’d like to add?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Thanks, Josh. No, no, all good.
JOSH MARTIN
Thanks for taking the time on a Saturday, mate. It’s very helpful.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Pleasure. Alright, you too. See you. Bye.