Transcript: Interview with Chris Kenny, Sky News - 6 February 2025

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Chris Kenny: Speaking of the nation's capital, let's go there now and catch up with the Shadow Health Minister Anne Ruston, who joins us live. Anne, thanks for catching up with us. Look, good news on the antisemitism front today in that Labor are going to support the Coalition's push for mandatory minimum sentences on hate crimes. But very confusing, very bewildering as to why Anthony Albanese won't even tell us when he was briefed on this caravan of explosives.

Anne Ruston: You know, this is just a saga that just keeps on playing out for the Government. I mean, they just need to be honest with the Australian public. I mean, Anthony Albanese is looking both weak and tricky, and trickier every day. I mean, surely but surely he can tell us when he found out. Nobody's asking him to divulge any of the briefings that he's received from any of our intelligence services. Why can't he tell us when he was briefed, just the way the New South Wales Premier seems to be able to tell the country when he was briefed? It's just, it's quite extraordinary. But it was good news today or last night when the Labor Party eventually capitulated over the strong stance that Peter Dutton has been taking on antisemitism. And so, we were delighted to see that through the Parliament today, and hopefully it sends a message to our Jewish community particularly, but to any community out there, that we're really deadly serious about keeping them safe. Even if the Government did take a while to get dragged kicking and screaming to the table.

Chris Kenny: Just on when the Prime Minister was told, though, there's been a development just in the last hour in Canberra, in an estimates hearing when the Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw was asked about this and now he's dragged into the whole game of obfuscation. Have a look.

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Chris Kenny: Now, Anne Ruston, we all have sympathy for the police there. They are there in the uniform, they've got a lot to do when it comes to investigating, but no one's asking for any detail except whether or not and when the Prime Minister was briefed.

Anne Ruston: Yeah. And I mean, what you've just witnessed there is a situation where a public servant doing his job is stuck into a really awkward situation because he's trying to make sure that he doesn't cause the Government any problems, as I suppose most public servants would try to do. But he's only being stuck in this position because the Prime Minister won't answer a simple question that has got no national security implications, no security implications for the nation. The simple question that was asked, quite some time ago, was when were you briefed? You know, I would have thought that that was pretty simple and we wouldn't have wasted all this time, because it just looks like the Prime Minister's got something to hide now because he's refusing to answer a simple question.

Chris Kenny: Now, just quickly, because you're a Senator for South Australia. As you know, I focus a lot on the energy crisis in this country. On this program, we've talked about at least eight major hydrogen programs, green hydrogen programs announced with great fanfare by Labor that have fallen over because the private sector, even with government subsidies, can't make them stack up. There's a big green hydrogen project planned for Whyalla, backed by the State Government in South Australia. Questions about that now, does that look like falling over as well?

Anne Ruston: Well, look, it is a really bothersome development that we've seen. But we've known for some time that many of these pipe dream announcements that we've seen come from both the State Labor Government and the federal Labor Government support are exactly that. They're a pipe dream. I mean, we really do need to be saying to our leaders in this country, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, please focus on the short, medium and long term goal of making sure that Australians have got affordable and reliable energy. You know, going out there and throwing billions, well hundreds of millions if not more money, at projects like this, when we really should be focusing on the issue that's at hand at the moment, and that is making sure that we've got long term security. And this all-eggs-in-one-basket pipe dream that we're seeing play out around hydrogen - You know, it is a really, really serious issue up in the iron triangle around Whyalla and I think it's really disappointing that the governments are playing games with the lives and livelihoods of people who live up there, who must wake up every morning particularly worried about their jobs and their community and their families. I think it's disgraceful.

Chris Kenny: Spot on, Anne Ruston, thanks so much for joining us. She is right there.

ENDS