Topics: Polling, defence spending

E&OE.......................

PETE STEFANOVIC: Joining us live this morning is the Liberal senator, Dave Sharma. Dave, it's good to see you today as always. So what do put this fall down to?

DAVE SHARMA: Uh, look, Pete, I think we had a bad week and there's no getting away from that. We had a bad week when we were largely talking about ourselves and internal issues and not focused on the challenges and problems of the people of Australia, not focused on the shortcomings of the Labor government, not holding the government to account. And I think, look, we're paying the price in this poll. I wouldn't get too carried away with it, though. I think you have a bad week in politics, you get a bad poll result. We will regroup, regather, and move on from here.

PETE STEFANOVIC: So you're not worried about it?

DAVE SHARMA: No. I think, look, we've got some work to do as an opposition and I'm very conscious of that, but I don't think you should read too much into any bad poll result, particularly after the drama-filled, let's be honest, week we had.

PETE STEFANOVIC: Dave, I'm intrigued by not just your drop, but, but One Nation's lift. So if, if some are going to One Nation, do you have to take note of that?

DAVE SHARMA: Oh, look, I think we have to take note of wherever our votes are going, but, you know, I would make the point that, you know, even if we were to get all the One Nation votes back say, you know, we will also need to eat into Labor's votes as well in order to be able to form a government. And I think that's why, you know, it's, there's people often like to settle this into a binary debate, do we need to move in one particular ideological direction? I think we need to have policies and priorities and offerings that command a broad enough sweep of support across Australia to be able to be a party of government.

PETE STEFANOVIC: Well, where, what's the first there? Where do you start?

DAVE SHARMA: Well, I think you focus on what are the challenges that Australians face? It's, you know, overall, it's high cost of living, it's stagnant living standards, it's housing that's unaffordable, it’s too much income tax being paid, it's growth in government as a, at the expense of the private sector -

PETE STEFANOVIC: - do you go to immigration or are you spooked by that now?

DAVE SHARMA: No, I think we should have a - I mean, I think we have to be able to have a debate about immigration. I think, you know, there's polling overnight that suggests that a majority of Australians think our immigration intake is too high and it certainly is relative to our historic norm. But we need to be able to have that in a sensitive way.

PETE STEFANOVIC: All right. Let, well let's go to just some other matters, Dave. The government, just off the back of my Richard Marles chat a moment ago, the government, it's vague on, on its defence spend now as a proportion of GDP. it says it now doesn't matter after basically, after this $12 billion spend in WA yesterday. But it is keen to point out that if pensions are included, then it is 2.8% of GDP. So how do you read into all of that?

DAVE SHARMA: Well, I think it's a lot of sleight of hand by the government. I mean, a lot of the commitments they've made to defence spending are beyond the budget cycle, so they're not actually having any they're not, they're not firm commitments and they're not projected forward into our fiscal outlooks. The second thing I'd say is, I mean, this just sounds like an accounting trick that if we change the rules somewhat, we can change the percentage of our spending that's counted as defence. Now, you know I think there's an argument that if you're building defence-related infrastructure, upgrading ports or facilities, or roads that specifically serve as defence assets, yes, you could count that as part of defence expenditure. But like recurrent expenditures like, you know, I don't know, pensions, uniforms, those sorts of things, well, I wouldn't think that normally qualifies, no.

PETE STEFANOVIC: All right, Dave, we'll leave it there. Good to see you, though. We'll chat again soon.

DAVE SHARMA: Thanks so much, Pete.

[ENDS]

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