Topics: Polls, First Nations Ambassador,  

JAIMEE ROGERS: Welcome back. The next federal election may still be 2 years away, but the political battle lines are already being drawn. This week, One Nation's Fire the Liar campaign surged past the 3 million mark, with Pauline Hanson vowing to take the fight directly to Labor-held seats. While the same time Australians are facing record debt, soaring power bills, and growing frustration with a government that promised cheaper electricity and a better standard of living. Well, joining me now is Senator Dave Sharma. Senator, thank you for coming in tonight. really appreciate it.

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DAVE SHARMA: Great to join you, Jamie.

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JAIMEE ROGERS: I do want to start with the polling though, Dave, that has just come out, Reserve Poll. And the thing for me was the Coalition down 3 points to 20%. Why aren't the Liberal Party picking up these disgruntled voters that are going from Labor? I feel as though when it is such a disastrous budget, This is— should be the Liberal Party's time to shine.

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DAVE SHARMA: Look, I think we need to do better there, but I think we can and we will. We've got a bit of time until the next election. I think what you're seeing reflected in the polls is people's hostility towards the budget, their anger at having been lied to at the last election and having these broken promises unveiled on them, and their distrust of Anthony Albanese and the Labor government. Now, you're right, that is an opportunity for us as Liberals. I think What we need to be doing more of is saying, how will we do things differently? will we fix—you're angry at Anthony Albanese and with very good reason. How will we do things like lower your cost of living, ensure you can afford a house, ensure you pay less tax, rein in the size of government and stop wasteful government spending?

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JAIMEE ROGERS: A blow today for the Liberal Party with the announcement that Senator Jonno Duniam is set to retire by the end of the year. When I saw that news, I thought, That, that is a big loss. What's that going to mean for the party?

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DAVE SHARMA: Look, it is a big loss. I mean, Jono Addo, he's thoroughly capable, highly competent parliamentarian. He's also a thoroughly decent, kind, generous individual and human being and just a good human being. And you've heard that today. So I will miss him as much as a colleague and a friend and a companion in the parliament. But certainly we will miss him as a party and his strong performance and his capability. We have a decent depth of talent and a decent bench. I'm sure we will be able to make sure that whoever's doing that role does a good job. I think does leaves a hole in our bench to begin with, but also leaves a hole in our hearts, frankly. He's going for good reasons. Jono is someone who's devoted to his family and his children and his wife. And it's the life of a parliamentarian, and he's been doing it for quite a while now. It can be quite tough on family life. I think anyone in politics could understand how he's reached the conclusion he has.

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JAIMEE ROGERS: Well, the feedback about him on social media was all very, very positive and glowing towards him. I want to show you and the viewers a video that I came across that the Herald Sun posted, and it features you during Senate estimates. Take a look.

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[HERALD SUN CLIP STARTS]

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FA: I think it's better to understand strategy in terms of the, the direction that has been decided on So not a document as such.

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YOUTUBE CLIP: It's just the vibe of the thing.

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SENATOR SHARMA: Well, can you explain the strategy to me then? he has actually been doing?

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SENATOR WONG: I can explain the priorities that I have indicated and have determined, and they are really very, very precise.

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YOUTUBE CLIP: Jesus, Tara, I am sweating here. You're killing me, Dennis. I don't even know Roman numerals.

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[CLIP ENDS]

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JAIMEE ROGERS: So that was on the Herald Sun social media, and I saw that, and I must say it was your facial expressions that I saw that I thought, I need to get Dave on to explain what was going on here and the strategy that is, is lacking in what is a role within government.

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DAVE SHARMA: Yeah, so let me explain this. This was a Thursday night, probably about 9:30 or 10 o'clock in the evening. At Senate Estimates, and I had a— I thought was going to be a pretty straightforward and simple question. There's this role of the First Nations Ambassador that was created 3 years ago. Um, it was designed to devise a First Nations approach to foreign policy, which has always been a bit of a mystery to me. What does that look like? What does it mean? And part of the mandate of that role was to create a strategy. So I wanted to ask - where is the strategy? What does it say? So I could understand this better. But instead I was just flabbergasted that I couldn't actually get a clear answer about a strategy. Did it exist? it being written? it been written? Where did it exist? And as you would have heard, answer was it's sort of everyone knows what it is, but it doesn't actually exist anywhere. It was the vibe of the thing, as that clip from the castle demonstrates. And for a role that's been in existence for 3 years, has—

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JAIMEE ROGERS: and it's highly paid too.

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DAVE SHARMA: Highly paid. mean, it's engaged a consultant in Darlinghurst. I think they've been paid $266,000 to help them devise a strategy, but there's no strategy. The role's got multiple employees supporting it. Overall, the cost to the taxpayer is at least $1 million and possibly $2 million, and there's very little to show for it. this is, I mean, I find this frustrating— waste at any level—something like this that was announced as a personal initiative of Penny Wong with great fanfare 3 years ago seemingly has done very little since, there's no documentation of what it is actually achieving.

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JAIMEE ROGERS: Speaking of government waste and things that are coming up in Senate Estimates, I do find it interesting and entertaining watching some of the that do come out. But one of them was around our debt ceiling, that we— is legislation that our debt ceiling is $1.2 trillion, which according to the budget papers, we're estimated to hit that at sort of 28, 29. What was the response from the Labor Party when you did raise with them to say, you going to be changing the legislation to meet the growing debt? What's their plan around that?

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DAVE SHARMA: Well, this was striking again because they have no plan. as you say, Commonwealth debt is close to $1 trillion at the moment. It's forecast to exceed $1 trillion this financial year, and in, I think it's 2028-29, it's forecast to exceed $1.2 trillion. Now, This is not me verballing the government. This is in their own budget papers that the Treasury produces. So I asked some simple questions of the Finance Minister, Katy Gallagher. Well, we've got a legislated debt ceiling. Beyond that point, the bond issuing part of the government cannot legally issue more government securities, take on more debt. How are you going to fix this? Are you going to get to keep debt lower than what's forecast? Are you going introduce legislation to change it? Again, I couldn't get a clear answer. Katy Gallagher didn't want to grapple with the question. But this is something that's coming quite quickly. Yeah. And we need to find a way to deal with it. My preferred way would be to make sure debt doesn't reach $1.2 trillion, but that's not Labor's plan. And if they're going to exceed that, they need to show us how they will do so lawfully.

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JAIMEE ROGERS: Yeah. to manage that, I'm with you. Let's just cut the spending because our future generations have been paying this off for a long time. Senator, thank you so much for coming in tonight. It was great to see you.

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DAVE SHARMA: Thanks so much, Jaimee.

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[ENDS]