Scott Morrison has sought to defend Australia’s mining industry, saying the sector wasn’t heating the planet when it came to climate change.
Speaking at a Q and A session at a business lunch while campaigning in Perth on Friday, the prime minister said the sector would still face supply disruption driven by global factors, but would lead the way when it came to climate innovation.
“It’s Australian miners that are solving the problem with their own capital,” he told the West Australian newspaper leadership matters event.
“Australia has a major opportunity to crack this technology and be the energy and technology exporter into the world.”
During the event, the prime minister also took a swipe at Anthony Albanese, who has come under fire after he failed to remember the six points to his party’s NDIS policy.
The opposition leader blamed brain fog after contracting COVID earlier in the campaign, but the prime minister dismissed the excuse.
“If that’s what he wants to believe, if it helps him get through the day, good luck to him,” Mr Morrison said.
“The campaign is nothing compared to running the government.”
The prime minister also said interest rates would not reach the highs in decades past, despite the Reserve Bank this week raising the official cash rate for the first time in nearly 12 years.
Earlier in the event, the prime minister announced a $1 billion boost to special forces units as part of Project Greyfin.
“This will ensure our special forces, particularly the SASR here in Perth, have the cutting-edge, world-class kit they need to support our national interests and keep our nation safe,” he said.
The project funding will be spent over the next decade whenever upgrades are required for the units.
Mr Morrison also spruiked GST reform in the state, while launching a broadside against Mr Albanese.
“I don’t subscribe to the small-target philosophy of leadership that others do,” he said in the speech.
“You can’t as prime minister, you can’t hide behind someone else when you don’t know the answers, you’ve got to know the details.”
While Labor Premier Mark McGowan won the 2021 state election in a landslide, the Liberal prime minister stressed he had worked closely alongside him.
“The premier and I agreed on a single-touch model for environmental agreements to make it work better and avoid state and Commonwealth duplication while maintaining high environment standards,” he said.
“We got all the premiers to agree, Labor and Liberal. I took it to the parliament, and Anthony Albanese and federal Labor sided with the Greens and not Premier McGowan and myself.”
