Transcript – ABC Afternoon Briefing with Stephanie Dalzell

Angie Bell MP
Federal Member for Moncrieff

TRANSCRIPT

ABC Afternoon Briefing with Stephanie Dalzell

19 May 2025

Subjects: Coalition agreement, Labor’s factional fighting, Childhood immunisation

E&OE…………………………………………………………………………………………………

STEPHANIE DALZELL:

For more, let’s bring in our political panel, Liberal MP Angie Bell and Labor MP Mike Freelander. Thanks to you both for joining us.

To you first, Angie Bell, we just heard from Kevin Hogan. Do you think the Coalition should keep its policy to reach net zero emissions by 2050?

ANGIE BELL:

Well, what I think is important is that there’s certainty and stability around our environmental policies and on a personal level, I think that’s so very, very important, particularly for business that have made investment based on that net zero policy. But as our new leadership has outlined, we’ll be revisiting our policies and that is a wide range of policies across the board, including energy policy. And it’s clear that the absolute renewables only policy of the Labor Government is not working and is costing Australians more when it comes to their power bills as well, because of course, energy policy and environmental policy are certainly intertwined. So I would like to see some certainty around this moving forward for industry, for all of those stakeholders, which actually is Australians across the board, in this very broad policy area.

STEPHANIE DALZELL:

And Mike Freelander to you, we saw internal fighting from the factions of the Labor Party last week. You labelled the decision to shift former Attorney General Mark Dreyfus and former Science Minister Ed Husic out of the frontbench as “pathetic”. What do you think will be the lasting impact of that move?

MIKE FREELANDER:

Well, what’s done is done and we move on. It shouldn’t take off what was a fantastic election victory by the Prime Minister and the Labor Party, led by the Prime Minister. He didn’t waver one bit from the very beginning of the campaign. What he predicted came true and I think he and his team did a great job and I’m very proud to be part of a Labor Government that will move forward with some very positive things for the country. I didn’t agree with what happened to Ed Husic and Mark Dreyfus. I have the highest respect for both of them. But what has happened has happened and we now move on and look at doing some really good things across the country.

STEPHANIE DALZELL:

And so Mike, you don’t think there’ll be any lasting impact of that, as a result?

MIKE FREELANDER:

No, I don’t. And I think you can see by the election victory that we have a very inclusive victory across the country. The Coalition is in absolute, complete disarray. They don’t have any idea on climate policy. They’re arguing amongst themselves even now, and they still haven’t got the message yet. We are pushing forward with policies that will benefit the country in the long term.

STEPHANIE DALZELL:

As part of that factional jostling, Sam Rae was promoted to the frontbench. Angie Bell, you’ve previously clashed with him in parliament. Do you have any concerns about his promotion?

ANGIE BELL:

Well I would say at a personal level, I do prefer the manners of Ed Husic to Sam Rae, who was indeed, incredibly rude across the parliament to me on a family, personal matter, in the last parliament. So commiserations go to Ed Husic, who clearly has been bumped from the Industry portfolio for Labor’s factional fighting.

STEPHANIE DALZELL:

Angie, I also wanted to ask you, you’re one of only a handful of Liberal women left in the Lower House. Would you support the Liberal Party introducing gender quotas to bolster female representation?

ANGIE BELL:

What I’ll say around this is I’ve been supporting women in politics ever since I joined the party, which is over 12 years ago now. I was the Women’s President in Queensland for the LNP, and I had a great program for women called “Recruit Ready Raise to Represent.” And it was a program that helped bring more women into the pipeline of the party which I think is so very, very important. We need of course, more women in the party. We have some great women in our party already, but we need to promote through the ranks into parliament as well. I’d love to see more women coming into preselections. At my own preselection here in Moncrieff, we had five women and four men, and of course I was the successful one who is now sitting in the parliament and going now into my third term. I’m very proud to represent the women of the LNP here in Queensland, including Senator McDonald and of course, Michelle Landry, who sits in the Lower House for Queensland as well. So I think it is a very important issue and the party really needs to shake the bag on this. We did have a lot of women who unfortunately were not successful at this last election. There were a very high number of women who were preselected to run at the last election and my heart goes out to them. We’ll be doing a lot of work in engaging those women around the country to make sure they have another run when we’re ready at the next election, with a new offering for Australians, after listening very deeply and also reshaping our party for the future.

STEPHANIE DALZELL:

So is that a no to quotas?

ANGIE BELL:

Well, that’s a matter that the party will move forward with. Certainly, I’d like to see firm targets in place and I’d like to see firmer targets when it comes to preselection as well. We certainly need more women in the Liberal Party. It’s a pretty clear message.

STEPHANIE DALZELL:

Environment Minister Murray Watt has pledged to revisit shelved environmental reforms, including the commitment to create a national Environmental Protection Agency. Mike, how confident are you that he’ll be able to stare down WA Premier Roger Cook and the mining industry and get this done?

MIKE FREELANDER:

Look, I’ve got the greatest confidence in Murray Watts. I indeed had the confidence of Taya Plibersek who did a fantastic job in the environment portfolio. We do need the Environment Protection Agency, there;s no question about it and it will be a matter for negotiations, of which Murray is very good at, and I look forward to the whole party moving forward to back him in what he decides. I certainly will be backing him. The environment in my own electorate is under threat after the Coalition Government at the State and Federally did nothing to protect our local wildlife and in particular our iconic koala population. And I know Tanya did what she could and I’m looking forward to Murray doing the same, but across the country with an Environment Protection Agency.

STEPHANIE DALZELL:

Angie, Murray Watt’s also called on Sussan Ley to back the government’s push to fix these laws. Is it time for the Coalition to join forces with Labor and get this seen through?

ANGIE BELL:

Well look, I think the Coalition has a very strong history when it comes to environmental protections. Let’s not forget the billion dollars that was pledged to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park…

MIKE FREELANDER:

Well, I don’t think that’s true.

ANGIE BELL:

…that was in the last, under the Morrison Government, we had a pledge of $1 billion to preserve the Great Barrier Reef. And there are very many other policies, environmental policies, that we have undertaken. So we have a strong history in this area.

STEPHANIE DALZELL:

I also wanted to get your response, Angie, to the latest results. The AEC has declared Nicolette Boele has defeated Gisele Kapterian in the seat of Bradfield by 40 votes. It’ll trigger a revote, but what’s your response to that?

ANGIE BELL:

Well Steph, I know Gisele and she was a very strong candidate in the seat of Bradfield. She worked extremely hard for the good people of Bradfield and I hope to see her sitting in our parliament in the next term. There will be a recount and so I think to declare the Independent or the Teal 200, Climate 200 candidate, the winner is probably a little bit premature. We’ve seen a couple of seats around the country where you’ve seen some Independent candidates, so-called Independent candidates, put their hand up and say they’ve won. And then of course, on a recount they haven’t in the likes of Goldstein, for example. And so I think it’s putting the cart before the horse to say that one candidate has won over the other at this point in time. But I hope to see Gisele Kapterian sitting in our Liberal Partyroom.

STEPHANIE DALZELL:

I also wanted to move on to vaccination rates given Angie, you were Shadow Minister for Early Education in the last term and Mike, you’re a paediatrician. We’ve seen rates steadily decline for a range of illnesses. Mike to you first, what do you think is behind that and how concerning is it?

MIKE FREELANDER:

Well, I think it’s very, very concerning. Australia’s childhood immunisation rate are very good, but before the pandemic we’re heading towards 95% or above for our full immunisation at age 5 years. And we’ve now dropped down significantly below that to 93.2 I think was the last figure I saw. So since the pandemic we have had gradual, small but definite decreases in immunisation rates. And I think that’s due to a lot of misinformation and disinformation. And I think that we need to listen to the science. Australia has really led the world in our immunisation rates and we need to listen to the scientists and we need to seek the truth in what is a very important public health measure. In my own lifetime, I’ve seen absolutely dramatic improvements in health, public health in children because of the immunisation program successive governments have supported across the country, and I wouldn’t like us to see back us go backwards. It’s very concerning that some countries around us, like Papua New Guinea, their childhood immunisation rates have dropped down below 40% and they have detected things like polio virus in the community, which is very, very concerning. I’m very concerned about the possibility of a measles outbreak in countries like PNG and Solomon Islands. And it is vitally important that we all work in a bipartisan manner to make sure our immunisation rates are as high as they possibly can be. That means everyone needs to work together. Our GP’s, our public health nurses, our local government, our schools, our preschools, our politicians and our health professionals, to get our immunisation rates up there. The pandemic did a lot of bad things in terms of the disinformation that was being spread. There are still people that are talking about immunisation in a very negative way. It’s not. It’s a huge public health benefit. Because of it, it’s a victim of its own success with the eradication of things like smallpox, polio, measles, Ian Frazer [sic] developed of course, the HPV virus and that’s putting us on track to eradicate cervical cancer. So immunisation is a vital public health measure and we’ve all got to work to get our immunisation rates up.

STEPHANIE DALZELL:

And Angie, just quickly, we’ll also ask you for your response, what more you think could be done?

ANGIE BELL:

Well, Mike Freelander and I were both on the health committee together in the 46th Parliament and I think we can agree on this, that we both understand how important vaccination rates are, and this was one of the biggest fears coming out of COVID that other vaccination rates would drop and we’ve seen that now. And so there needs to be a concerted effort, indeed a bipartisan effort, to make sure that particularly young families, I had a look at the numbers and the geography of the numbers around Australia this morning, but certainly I think it’s important that we educate young families so that they understand the value of vaccination when it comes to things like rubella, measles, chicken pox, those sorts of things. It’s so very important that we get those diseases under control and we can only do that with a very high degree of vaccination rates across those diseases. So, very, very important. And Mike and I on that one, we can agree.

MIKE FREELANDER:

Absolutely.

STEPHANIE DALZELL:

Some bipartisanship on Afternoon Briefing. We love to see it. Thanks so much, Mike Freelander and Angie Bell for your time.

ENDS.