Interview with Emma Rebellato, ABC News Breakfast

EMMA REBELLATO, HOST: Well, we are joined now by Environment Minister and Queenslander, Murray Watt from Brisbane. Hello Minister, you must be pretty happy this morning. MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Go the Maroons.

Very good this morning. EMMA REBELLATO: A lot of eyes were on the Origin last night, of course. Plenty of people there, but plenty of people watching on screens and they would have been seeing Pauline Hanson's ads.

Are you worried about the cut-through that she's getting? MURRAY WATT: Look, I think there's nothing unusual about political parties putting up negative advertising. I mean, you know, what this shows is that Pauline Hanson and One Nation are becoming everything like every other political party.

She's always tried to present herself as a bit of an outsider. She's now very clearly showing that she is a career politician. She's been in parliament or politics for 30 years and now she's carrying on like a political party.

So we're not particularly phased about that. And I think the real issue that came clear yesterday in her Press Club address is that her plan for Australia is one of division, chaos and cuts. She made really clear that she wants to cut people's wages, make it easier for them to get sacked by their boss, and she wants to cut health care, which means paying more for a GP.

So, you know, we're not too worried about her advertising. What we're focused on is her policies and the fact they'd make life harder for Australians. EMMA REBELLATO: I want to ask you about a couple of the things that she talked about in her speech yesterday.

One of them was, in her words, the hoax of global warming. She made a number of incorrect claims about climate change, renewable energy. How do you get your message through when so many people are listening to her message?

MURRAY WATT: Well, I think we need to keep it in perspective about the amount of support that she's receiving. Of course, she has received an increased amount of support over the last few months. The vast majority of that has come off the vote of the Liberal and National parties, with some coming off Labor, and we've obviously got to work hard to persuade people that we have a better plan for the future.

But when it comes to climate change, I mean, the reality is that I think it's well over 90% of the world's climate scientists agree that we've got a very serious problem. You know, Australia and my home state of Queensland in particular suffers more and more natural disasters and they're more intense every year and that's linked to climate change. But more broadly, what we know is that taking action on climate change, especially through investing in more renewable energy, is the best way to bring power prices down as well.

So by talking about bringing back nuclear power like she did yesterday, what she's saying is that she wants to increase people's power prices rather than decrease them, let alone the environmental issues involved. EMMA REBELLATO: You mentioned industrial relations. You're a former minister in that area too.

Senator Hanson said she wants to overhaul industrial relations. She says it's just too hard for businesses to sack workers who aren't doing the right things. Some businesses might agree with her.

Do you think the pendulum swung too far? MURRAY WATT: Absolutely not, Emma. When we came to power four years ago, we had seen 10 years of a Coalition government that had deliberately kept wages low for Australian workers.

That's one of the key reasons why people have been experiencing those cost-of-living pressures over such a long period of time. They weren't able to keep pace with inflation because their wages were being kept down. We have made a deliberate effort since coming to power to get wages moving again as part of helping people with their cost of living pressures.

And every single time we've done something to increase wages, the One Nation Party, the Liberals and Nationals have teamed up to vote against those changes. So what we know both from the record and what Senator Hanson said yesterday is if they were to form some kind of coalition government together, we'd see wages back down again, which would make life harder.

And as I say, people would have their bosses make it easier to sack them. EMMA REBELLATO: One of the other things that she talked about that's made a lot of headlines is multiculturalism. She says Australia must be monocultural and described multiculturalism as a failed policy.

How do you respond to that? MURRAY WATT: Well, I mean, it's almost a cliche for politicians to point to the fact that Australia is the most successful multicultural nation in the world, and we are. And it's something that I think most Australians are really proud of.

So I think, you know, she was making the point in her speech that we're now at a point where slightly over 50% of Australians are either born overseas themselves or their parents were born overseas. Australia is a different place to what it was when Pauline Hanson was first elected to a parliament 30 years ago. It's a good thing for Australia that we have people from so many cultures all uniting behind the Australian flag and the Australian way of life.

Why would we want to lose that? I mean, obviously, there's also economic benefits in having a multicultural community with all of those connections to our trading partners, having skills that we can get from other parts of the world. I mean, I lost track of the number of different people and groups that Pauline Hanson targeted in her speech yesterday.

She's coming after workers, she's coming after women, she's coming after migrants, she's coming after the ABC and SBS. But you can't run a country just fuelled by your grievances against different groups in our community. What you've got to do is actually bring people together for a common goal and take Australia forward.

EMMA REBELLATO: I want to ask you about the stunt by GetUp, the unfurling of that banner during Pauline Hanson's speech, because some people are saying it was amusing, some people are saying it was distraction, some people are pretty outraged about it. Are you worried though, what is it- the questions about security, is that something that worries you? What was your take on what happened?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, look I don't support the fact that occurred yesterday. I have to say, when I've spoken at the National Press Club, I've also had a protest with people with signs and t-shirts. So Pauline Hanson is not the first person to have this happen to her.

But I don't think it's a healthy thing in our democracy to have that kind of thing happen. Obviously, the message in that sign was a correct one, pointing to the fact that she has voted consistently against wage rises for workers while pocketing a $100,000 pay rise herself when she became the leader of her party. But I think there are other and more appropriate ways to make that message and get that through.

EMMA REBELLATO: You just mentioned before, when we were talking about multiculturalism and what she talked about in her speech, that you said, you know, we need to really bring people together. How do you do that when it seems Australia is pretty divided, at least politically, at the moment? MURRAY WATT: Yeah, look, there's no doubt that both the Australian and world political scene is very fragmented at the moment.

We can look for different reasons why that's happening, whether it be about frustration with cost of living pressures or, frankly, the way that some media outlets carry on in terms of fuelling that division and fuelling anger rather than trying to find solutions. But, you know, I think one of the great things about Australia is our belief in the fair go for all of us.

What we saw from Pauline Hanson yesterday is that she only wants a fair go for some of us. That is not the Australian way. And certainly, from a Labor perspective and a Government perspective, we're going to stay focused on bringing our country together, dealing with the very real challenges that we have, but dealing with them in a positive way rather than trying to turn people against each other.

EMMA REBELLATO: Minister Murray Watt, thanks for your time. MURRAY WATT: Thanks, Emma. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture.

We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.