TRANSCRIPT
JOINT DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Friday, 21 November 2025
Topics: Visit to NextDC; bulk billing rates; affordable and responsible: the Coalition plan for affordable energy and lower emissions; Labor’s cost-of-living crisis; Labor’s energy policy shambles; COP-31; G20; Prime Minister wearing a Navy cap; South Australian Liberal Party.
E&OE……………………………………
ANNE RUSTON: It's fantastic to have the Opposition Leader back in Adelaide again. And also the Shadow Minister for Skills and Training, Scotty Buchholz. Thank you very much to NextDC for having us here at this piece of critical infrastructure for South Australia, and we've had a fantastic tour.
But before I hand over to Scotty and the Leader, I just wanted to quickly touch on something that's a real issue in my portfolio area of health at the moment, something the government doesn't want you to know, and that is that for the first time the average out-of-pocket cost to see your GP is now over $50 a visit. So that means Australians who are going to see their doctor are paying ever increasing out-of-pocket costs in order for them to be able to get primary care and this is completely unacceptable.
We also found out yesterday, even though the government didn't want us to know, that over 900,000 less people went to see their GP in the last three months in comparison to the same three months last year. That's 10,000 visits every single day less. That's 10,000 people who aren't getting the care that they need. That's 10,000 people that quite easily and potentially will end up in our overburdened hospital system. This is something the government doesn't want you to know, but it's something that is truth for every single Australian when they go to see the doctor.
So Scotty, over to you.
SCOTT BUCHHOLZ: Thank you, Anne. And it's always good to be in South Australia with South Australia's number one senator. And Sussan Ley, thank you so much for doing a powerful work right around the entire country.
This is an exciting block of land right in the heart of Adelaide, yet another, the newest data centre where businesses will park all of their information which we carry around on our mobile phones. But interestingly enough, when these types of projects come out of the ground, they only come out with that skilled labour force that Australia requires not only today but into the future. Skilled electricians, skilled fridgies, skilled sheet-metal workers, cyber security analysts, all of those skills we are short of in the country. And we're short because this Labor government is asleep at the wheel when it comes to skills and training.
In contrast, when we left government, there were 427,000 apprentices and trainees in the system. Today there is 100,000 less. Providing incentives for the employee is one solution, but providing incentives for the employer is critical. And next month this government is going to be reducing the incentives from $5,000 back to $4,000, the exact opposite of what the employers are asking for around the country. Wake up, Labor government. Wake up, put your arm around the employees of this country and help more DCs like this get out of the ground.
Sussan, welcome to South Australia. It's always good to be in your company.
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Thank you very much indeed, Scotty. It's good to be with you here. Thank you for your advocacy for the next generation.
Senator Ruston, thank you for your passionate determination on behalf of the people of South Australia and for showing us, along with David and the team, this critical infrastructure not just for this state but for the country.
Data, AI, computing, and digital infrastructure is indeed critical infrastructure. Now to power these centres for today and the future, we need affordable, reliable, baseload power. This isn't just an abstract concept. This is the economy. Whether it be air traffic control, the services you expect to get from your government, your Microsoft Office application, Netflix at home, payment systems, banks, we need data and we need it to be reliable and we need the premises that deliver it to be affordable. And this government has got it all wrong. That's why we've released this plan for affordable energy and responsible emissions reduction, because what Labor is doing is setting targets they can't meet at costs that Australians cannot afford. Since 2005 our emissions reduction has almost doubled compared to the developed world, and if we're going to meet Labor's 2050 target it will have to almost double again. That's pushing up electricity prices by 40%, and unfortunately there's no indication that they're going to come down.
So our plan is about leaving reliable generation in the system for longer until affordable alternatives are ready at scale. It's about a technology-agnostic approach so that we remove the moratorium on nuclear, we get more gas into the system and we bring down the cost of energy for struggling households, struggling businesses, and indeed manufacturers who've left Australia, who no longer make things in Australia anymore.
A couple of words on the Energy Minister, who has been appointed to some international roving summit exercise with the United Nations. Australians don't need a part-time energy minister. They need an energy minister who's focused on their bills. So while Chris Bowen is managing an international schedule, globe-trotting around the world, Australians are trying to manage their household bills in the lead-up to Christmas. This is a part-time energy minister delivering a part-time energy grid, and that's just not fair.
Happy to take your questions.
JOURNALIST: Should Chris Bowen be sacked if he can't do two jobs at once?
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Chris Bowen should focus on his most important job, which is bringing power prices down for ordinary Australians, because in the lead-up to Christmas I'm hearing from families and small businesses in South Australia the same thing I'm hearing across the country, which is, it is a struggle. And with all of the costs that come with Christmas, with presents for the kids, with worrying about back to school next year, with trying to have a family holiday, those costs are spiralling out of control, and energy costs are built in to everything you buy and everything you do, because when energy is unaffordable, everything is unaffordable.
I know Australians would be incredibly disappointed with a minister who has turned his back on their needs for lower prices, electricity bills they can afford. And I will keep asking the Prime Minister, when we go back to Parliament next week, the one question that I've been asking all week: Prime Minister, when will power prices come down?
JOURNALIST: The Prime Minister is in South Africa at the moment for G20. Without Xi and Trump there, what do you hope he'll achieve?
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Whenever Australian leaders travel overseas, they should always do this with our national interest front and centre. So when the Prime Minister meets counterparts in the G20 in South Africa, on the table will be discussions about access for our agriculture sector.
Today is World Agriculture Day. It's a day to say thank you to our farmers for what they do, producing food and fibre to feed the nation and the world. And the test I would set for the Prime Minister is more access to those international markets, particularly in Europe, for our amazing agriculture sector.
JOURNALIST: The Coalition has been critical this week of the Prime Minister making comments and political points about the opposition while wearing an Australian navy cap. Do you think he needs to apologise for doing so?
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: I think the Prime Minister needs to focus firmly on his one job, which is letting Australian families know when he's going to bring power prices down. Because just remember this: this Prime Minister stood there for two elections telling Australians he was going to reduce their energy prices. He was going to bring down the cost of energy by $275. In fact, it's gone up by $1,300. And this week we’ve had electricity generators and retailers make these comments that what we're seeing now is the calm before the storm. Well, if this is the calm before the storm, what on earth are we going to expect power prices to do in the near future? That's why this Affordable Energy Plan is so vital. What is in here are the ingredients, the policy direction we need to take this country to bring energy prices down for struggling Australians. That has to be a priority.
JOURNALIST: It's Phil Thompson who pointed out these actions by the Prime Minister though. Do you think it is appropriate for him to be making comments and attacking the Coalition while wearing Navy uniform?
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Well, I don't so much watch what the Prime Minister is doing as much as listen to what he is saying, and what he is saying makes no sense. How can he be a Prime Minister who promised to show leadership, promised life would be cheaper under him, and has failed to deliver or explain why electricity prices are going to come down. This is what families, communities, and our amazing Australians who are working hard every day. And this is a small business, well, it's getting to be a bigger business, that's a good thing. The Liberal Party I lead and Senator Ruston and Scotty Buchholz are part of will always back Australian businesses. We're going to back aspiration, enterprise, choice, because that's what builds this country and builds a future for our families and for the next generation of young people who deserve the opportunity for a future in the exciting AI and data technology industries of the future.
JOURNALIST: Can I get your thoughts on the bulk billing issue that Ms Ruston raised? The government's obviously throwing a multi-billion dollar program to raise bulk billing incentives, but we might not see the benefits of that for four years. Do you still support that incentive program for GPs?
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Well, I'm going to ask Senator Ruston to add to these remarks in a minute, but what this data clearly tells us is that families can't afford to go to the doctor. We've heard examples where mums with two or three children are choosing which child to take to a doctor in a particular week because their household budget does not allow them to get the medical treatment their children deserve.
ANNE RUSTON: And I think the point here is that the Prime Minister quite clearly lied not just to us but to every Australian during the election campaign. When he wandered around waving his Medicare card around and telling everybody all you need when you go to see the doctor is your Medicare card, he knew that wasn't true at the time and, subsequent to the election, it's now been proven by his own department coming out and saying that not only will we not see the results of their so-called promises in relation to the increased funding to Medicare and bulk billing until sometime into the future, well past the next election. The government department, also the Department of Health, has advised us that not only are the out-of-pocket costs the highest that they have ever been, and today we found out they're more than $50 on average, but they're expecting them to continue to go up. So what we've got is a Prime Minister who is prepared to lie to everybody, to the opposition, but most importantly to the Australian public, about what he was doing in relation to Medicare before the election and immediately following the election, we find out that actually he knew himself that what he's telling Australians was actually a lie.
JOURNALIST: But specifically, that $3.5 billion incentive program, do you think that should be continued or what else should they be doing?
ANNE RUSTON: Well, I mean, the government actually needs to have a proper look at how they're going to get affordable and easy access to primary care for Australians, and they've got to be honest about what the measures are that they're putting in place to do that. They were quite clear before the election that this investment was going to make a real difference to bulk billing rates. We've seen them completely flatline. As we stand here today, 77.6%. That is no improvement whatsoever. And all we've seen since this government came into power is an 11% decrease in the level of bulk billing. Of course we want to see Australians getting easy access to affordable primary care. No person in the Parliament would not want to see that. But what we want is the government to be honest about what they're doing, when they're doing it, and what the outcomes are going to be for Australians.
JOURNALIST: Sussan Ley, you're standing up today without the Liberal leader in South Australia, Vincent Tarzia. Why is that? And is it because you disagree on net zero policy? Are you planning on meeting him while you're here? And are you planning on staying the night here as well?
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: My state counterparts are doing an outstanding job, no matter what state I find them in. I'm here with my federal team to promote alternative federal energy policy, and right now there's nothing more important than our affordable energy plan, because households in South Australia and businesses in South Australia pay some of the highest energy prices in the country, and that's because the over-reliance on renewables has caused unreliability and escalating prices. Remember, you have to build the electricity grid for the worst day, not the best day. And unfortunately there's been a misunderstanding and an over-reliance on renewables which are, well and truly, in the right place at the right time, part of our plan.
As to where I will be tonight, well I'm on my way leaving South Australia to work my way back to Canberra for an important sitting week where the Prime Minister will be asked over and over again: when will power prices come down for Australians?
JOURNALIST: Will you be meeting Vincent Tarzia while you’re here?
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: On this visit, I shan't be meeting anyone other than the colleagues and the businesses that I'm doing…
JOURNALIST: Don't you think that's important to give you at odds on Net Zero?
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: As I said, my state colleagues are doing an outstanding job and I'll leave their decisions for them. I won't be distracted for a moment from the most important thing at this point in time, which is our affordable energy plan.
JOURNALIST: A quick one that's just come through. So three National Socialists have been arrested for threatening MPs. Are you concerned about that? And are laws tough enough about threats on politicians?
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Well, I haven't heard that news, but I'm always concerned when Australians are threatened, not just MPs but anyone, because the rise of some of the neo-Nazi groups that we're seeing and the nature and threats to national security that those groups bring about is something we're all concerned about. I don't have the specifics of the question you asked me, but it is important that we keep Australians safe in an era of rising threats around national and transnational terrorism.
JOURNALIST: Mark Speakman placed blame for the New South Wales Liberals' polling on your team and the results of the May election. Do you think your party's performance is dragging down the states?
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Well, I don't agree with your characterisation of that question. I want to thank Mark Speakman for his leadership of the New South Wales Liberals and say that Kellie Sloane will do an outstanding job with the team there. And it's important that state Liberal parties go about their business as they do every day of the week.
It's important for us, it's important for me, as the federal Liberal leader, to talk to Australians about our serious, compelling, credible policy alternative in the lead-up to the next election. And central to that is the cost of energy. Affordable energy is our priority. It's vital for households and businesses. It's just too important for this government to ignore. I look forward to the next parliamentary sitting, holding this government to account.
[ENDS]
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