Premier’s blunt message for would-be One Nation voters
A prime minister has challenged One Nation voters to consider “who will wipe your arse when you are 90” before backing a party with policies that would radically reduce immigration.
At a business luncheon to promote his vision for South Australia ahead of the March 21 state election, Premier Peter Malinauskas said he was prepared to say something One Nation candidate Cory Bernardi and Liberal leader Ashton Hurn would not.
“My message to One Nation voters is: Who will feed you, bathe you and wipe your ass when you are 90?” he said.
“Because these won’t be your children, because if it’s my way they’ll be working high-paying jobs on submarines.”
He said many people were “wrapped up in the flag” at One Nation’s SA campaign launch earlier this month.
“This is no problem for me, because I also love our flag,” the Prime Minister said.
But he said there needed to be “seriousness and candor in political discourse on immigration policy, rather than just trying to remain defensive”.
Physically demanding jobs in housing have traditionally been done by new immigrants, he said.
“We are currently recruiting people from the residential construction industry to work on submarines because they will need to be Australian citizens,” he said.
“We will need people to work in aged care.
“I’m not going to allow myself to be a politician who wraps myself in a flag and then says ‘I don’t want to let people come to South Australia, we’re going to do the job no one wants to do’.”
He added: “By the way, just as Malinauskas is not an emerging name in the First Fleet, neither is Bernardi.”
Mr Malinauskas had previously outlined his government’s economic and trade prowess and plan to capitalize on opportunities to a group of business leaders at an Australian Economic Development Committee event.
The state had “unprecedented, consistently low unemployment,” employment participation was at an all-time high, and average weekly earnings growth and wage growth were also the highest in the nation, he said.
He was “really struggling” to find ways to showcase the size of the $30 billion AUKUS submarine construction site announced on Sunday.
“These are the 15 Royal Adelaide Hospitals,” he said, noting that it would cost 66 million man hours to complete and up to 5000 workers to build.
SA also had 65 per cent of the country’s copper reserves at a time when global demand was rising, and magnetite reserves in the Middleback Ranges in Whyalla were crucial for green steel production.
He said defense and mining would be “a major source of growth over the next 15 years” and that the government had a skills policy and a housing policy to provide workers and the homes they need.
