ANIKA WELLS MP
MINISTER FOR AGED CARE
MINISTER FOR SPORT

TRANSCRIPT - TODAY SHOW NEWS PANEL - 9 APRIL 2025

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
TODAY SHOW
WEDNESDAY, 9 APRIL 2025

SUBJECTS: Leadership Debate; Gas Modelling; Donald Trump; Taxation.

KARL STEFANOVIC, CO-HOST: Joining us to discuss today's headlines is Minister for Sport and Aged Care, Anika Wells, and political correspondent at the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Paul Sakkal, who had to live blog that I feel sorry for you, Paul. Anika, the most interesting thing I heard about this clash is that Albo had shadow debating lessons from Dan Andrews, is that true?

ANIKA WELLS, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND SPORT: I don't know what you're talking about. It was an exhilarating ride last night, and I think Peter Dutton, he was most relaxed and comfortable when he was talking about buying and selling and building property. That really seems to be a passion project for him, and he was most passionate, I think, about defending the political values that underpin why he put in place the banning working from home policy that he did. I mean, I thought that was a fascinating character study. I learned a lot from it and I'm glad the PM won.

STEFANOVIC: All right, Paul, did you find it as fascinating?

PAUL SAKKAL, SMH JOURNALIST: I think I got to the bottom of the Dan Andrews thing, by the way, yesterday, or at least I think I might have. I don't think they were in a room with Dutton playing Andrews for hours on end. I think there might have been a couple of phone conversations a little while ago, with some advice on how Dutton might approach a debate from a hard political head like the former Victorian Premier, but I don't think they were doing hours of practice.

STEFANOVIC: Confirm or deny Anika.

WELLS: I genuinely don't know. I'm sorry, but I'm genuinely I'm happy to, you know, get into it with Paul later today.

STEFANOVIC: Looking last night. Almost makes me pine for some Trump ideas to make the country take notice at the moment, someone with vision to take this country forward. You know, something that can drive the world into recession.

SAKKAL: I think that's probably a fair call. I mean, hopefully not. Big ideas would drive us into recession, but I think a feature of last night was the fact that there was no one, 2 or 3 really big ideas that prompted a series of questions. A lot of the questions were general on what are you going to do for school funding? How are you going to get the economy going? Lots of rote delivered answers. I thought both leaders did pretty well, but there were clearly no huge ideas or new offerings on the table that were animating debate.

STEFANOVIC: Anika, Peter Dutton has gas. Now that's at least an idea to reduce the cost of energy. Instead of using our own money in rebates to pay for our own energy bills and calling it a revolutionary idea.

WELLS: Yeah, but I think based on those numbers they've put out this morning, the absolute best-case scenario, and given the campaign they've had so far, would you trust these characters to deliver us a best-case scenario? Is a dollar a week off your bill for households, maybe in two years’ time. But they want us to be talking about this because they don't want us to be talking about their nuclear policy, which is the other part of their energy plan, a nuclear policy that is so far off in the never never, that Sam Konstas will be accessing his superannuation by the time this rolls around, not even the speed of Gout Gout is going to get Peter Dutton to the nuclear plan he is promising Australians this election.

STEFANOVIC: So you would back that gas plan? Anything to save the consumer a dollar instead of rebates?

WELLS: We've put in place our energy plan. We've been steadily rolling that out for three years. You heard some of that discussion about it last night. Look, I'll tell you from the doors. People want actual tangible relief that they can believe in and they can see. That's not this gas modelling. That's not the nuclear $600 billion nuclear fantasy that Peter Dutton has put on the table. And you'll notice that he'd really prefer us not to be talking about the two in the same conversation, because they don't make a lot of sense.

STEFANOVIC: Paul, it feels to me like the coalition at the moment is relying pretty heavily on a cost-of-living protest vote. Is that enough to win?

SAKKAL: Yeah, I think it's probably a fair analysis. The first couple of weeks of this campaign, it's looked as if the coalition assumed there would be a bigger wave of that protest vote that would kind of coast them into power without putting forward any ideas of their own. I think they've come to a realisation that won't be enough. There will be some more policy over the next week or so. There was a policy release today, as you mentioned, on gas, and just quick shout out, that was the sports minister getting some sports stars into political lives. That's very, very sharp work there.

STEFANOVIC: I mean, that's how dull this campaign is. Hey, Anika It's a fair point. I think John Keogh made it this morning in the Fin that people are more worried about a recession than this election. The Treasurer is saying there'll be four interest rate reductions. Doesn't really help that cause.

WELLS: Well, I think the global uncertainty is playing into how people look at their options this election. I think that's fair to say. And, you know, I do a lot of door knocking. I was in Stafford Heights and Deagon and people are bringing up Trump. And I think commentators are a bit dubious about that. But people are genuinely bringing that up. They're seeing what's happening overseas. Obviously he's very dominant in the media, in our domestic media as well. And from what they see so far, they don't want those policies brought here. So they are quite keenly interested as to which leaders are mimicking those policies, which leaders are standing up to him. You would have seen last night; Peter Dutton can't even stand up for his own policies this campaign. How is he going to stand up for Australia?

STEFANOVIC: Yep. I would say this on Trump. No matter what you think of him, and obviously it's having flow on effects and some of them are going to be pretty bad, but he's just doing what he promised during an election campaign for his country. Paul.

SAKKAL: He is. But I wonder how many of his voters knew how destructive some of those policies would be to their own hip pockets. And just on this idea that Donald Trump is like Peter Dutton in any way, I do think it was important for Dutton last night to be in a room with the Prime Minister and just face him when the Prime Minister puts forward one of his oft repeated attacks on Dutton, on Medicare, on education spending, on the Morrison government's fiscal record, a huge component of Labour's campaign is negative about Peter Dutton, and it was important for him to just stand up and say, no, that's a lie. That's misleading. I think that was a kind of critical moment for just the morale in his party, for them to stand up and say, no, we're not going to cop that.

STEFANOVIC: Paul. I'm sorry about that. I just heard Sarah yawning in the background there just while you were making an important point. Is it Sarah? Look, I think she I think she's got a problem with you, bro.

SARAH ABO, CO-HOST: Paul knows how much I love him.

STEFANOVIC: Here's something that is no yawn fest. Is the spending that's going on at the moment. Anika, um, it's now looks like it's more than what we spent during Covid. Any plans to introduce some new taxes? Like an inheritance tax to claw some of it back.

WELLS: The PM set out our tax policy last night, which is tax cuts for every taxpayer compared to tax hikes under the alternative government led by Peter Dutton. And I think some of the things that came up last night in the debate was the sugar hits, the sugar hit of the fuel excise that Peter Dutton is offering this campaign. And in talking about our economic turnaround, what the coalition offered last election, so many sugar hits between Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg that there was a huge mess to clean up. And we had to go from a $78 billion deficit to a $22 billion surplus, the largest ever budget turnaround in a parliamentary term.

STEFANOVIC: And if we're talking about sugar hits, you've, put more sugar hits out there than dairy milk. I mean, come on, everyone needs to get responsible at some point don't they.

WELLS: Karlos, I have put the aged care sector on a financial footing by huge structural reform to set up a sector in crisis up for the future. The biggest aged care structural policy in more than 30 years. We have actually done grown up, maybe not as interesting as you would like for breakfast television, but grown up, sensible, structural reform that does fix our finances.

STEFANOVIC: Just before we go, Paul your favourite dairy milk chocolate?

SAKKAL: I’m a traditionalist, so just straight up milk chocolate.

ENDS