SENATOR THE HON ANNE RUSTON
SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE
DEPUTY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE
SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS KENNY, SKY NEWS

24 March 2026

Topics: South Australian election, One Nation

CHRIS KENNY: Let’s head back down to Canberra now and get back into federal politics with Shadow Health Minister Anne Ruston who’s been kind enough to join us again. Good to talk to you again, Anne. We last spoke on the eve of the South Australian election. It’s all transpired now. It’s been brutal for the Liberal Party in South Australia. I’m wondering what you and your federal colleagues have made of it over the past couple of days. What are the key messages and actions, more importantly, that need to come out of it?

ANNE RUSTON: Yeah, well, look Chris, the result on Saturday was pretty sobering for us in South Australia and there’s no doubt that we have to take some pretty strong lessons from it. As I said to you when I spoke to you last week, the one shining light out of the entire election campaign was our leader in South Australia Ashton Hurn, and I think there’s a lot to be drawn from in the way she behaved in the short 100 days she had in the lead up as the leader into the election. But most particularly, the fact that she’s had an 8.4% swing to her in her own electorate. I mean, I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned from how Ashton has campaigned over the last four years, because let’s not forget Ashton has only been in the South Australian Parliament for one term. And I think the key message out of all that is, Ashton focused on the people of her electorate in the last 100 days, the people in her state and the things that were important and mattered to them, and the result was really clear. She had a great result and I think that there’s a lot of lessons to learnt from an incredible leader who did an incredible job, and I think we all need to take a leaf out of her book.

CHRIS KENNY: See, my impression was that there was next to nothing available in policy difference. People were being asked, how would the State be different next week if the Liberals were in government? The answer is, I don’t know, really. The answer is we’d do pretty much what Labor are doing, but we’d do it better. And isn’t that a problem with the Coalition parties nationally in some of the recent election failures, that you’ve got to put up some sort of sharp difference, tell people that if you vote for the Coalition, there is actually some change coming?

ANNE RUSTON: Look, and I think Ashton tried really hard in the last 100 days, the 100 days that she was the leader, to put out a suite of policies that said, we actually know and we’re hearing and listening to what South Australians were saying, and I mean we know right across the nation the fact that people can’t pay their bills, their mortgages, their power bills, and now what we’re seeing at the bowser are the number one concerns — the health crisis in South Australia, the promise to fix ramping that hadn’t occurred. I mean, Ashton had some really good policies when it came to cost of living relief, when it came to health and also when it came to the safety and security of South Australians. She just didn’t have the runway in which to be able to communicate that. It was a very crowded environment with Bondi, with all the stuff that was going on here in Canberra, as well as what happened in the Middle East. So, I think she did an incredible job, those things included in that debate.

But I also think you’re absolutely right. We have to give Australians a reason to vote for us and we do need to make sure that we’re communicating better about not just what we stand for, but what we’re going to do for Australians. I think we’ve been too inwardly focused and we’ve now got to stop that and we’ve got to tell Australians - we’ve got to give them a reason to vote for us, and the reason to vote for us comes in good policy that differentiates us from the Labor Party.

CHRIS KENNY: Spot on. We’ve got to have more of that. Absolutely. This is my point. I want to show you what I showed at the top of the program and that is your colleague Maria Kovacic and what she had to say about the result and the lessons from it.

[Clip plays]

MARIA KOVACIC: Let me be very clear as to the singular outcome of that election result on Saturday night, and that is that a vote for One Nation is a vote for a record Labor majority. If you want to change Labor governments across this country, you need to vote Liberal.

[Clip ends]

CHRIS KENNY: Now, my point about this is that’s just commentary and it’s the worst message for the Liberals. You’re basically blaming the One Nation voters for Labor staying in power. The point is that they don’t care about that. They see the parties as - they use the term, you hear it from Corey Bernadi all the time, of uniparty. They say there’s no difference between the majors. They want to hurt the majors. So what are the key policy areas where the Coalition, federally in particular, needs to heed that call from One Nation voters, needs to give them something to come back to?

ANNE RUSTON: Well, first of all, Chris, I think the point that Maria was making was a very clear one and we saw it play out on Saturday. If you’re dissatisfied with the current Labor Government and you want change, the way to change it is to vote Liberal. Because splitting the vote that is on the right side of politics is not going to deliver you a more right-leaning government that’s going to respond to the - quite frankly, that I believe is in a position to respond the problems that Australians are facing at the moment when it comes to cost-of-living.

But I think there’s some very clear policies that we need to be looking at. We need to be making sure that the taxation regime in Australia is favourable to Australians being able to get ahead, so there’s work to be done there. We need to make sure that our migration policies are not just talking about the numbers of migration, but we need to make sure that there is a planned migration coming into this country, not the reckless stuff that we’ve seen from the Labor Party. So, there are so many places. We need good, strong health policy so Australians can get affordable and timely access to healthcare, which they’re not getting at the moment. And right now, I think the fact that Australians despair about whether their children will ever be able to afford to own their own home - these are the kinds of policies that I think nobody would dispute that Australians want us as the alternative government to come up with strong policies so that they’ve got a reason to vote for us.

CHRIS KENNY: Spot on. Those are key areas and I would add energy affordability into that. There’s so much to work with, if you get the right policies out there quick smart. Thanks so much for joining us, Anne.

ENDS