SunriseSunrise is joined by Education Minister Jason Clare and Deputy Liberal Leader Sussan Ley to discuss an alleged terror plot targeting Liberal leader Peter Dutton.
Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton is alleged to have been the target of an elite school student's terror plot. A Brisbane private school student has been charged with buying bomb making ingredients and testing homemade explosives. Australian reports that the teenager was allegedly planning to attack Peter Dutton at his home using a drone. The sixteen year old boy was arrested and charged last August and was committed to stand trial just yesterday. For more, I'm joined by Education Minister Jason Clare and Deputy Liberal Leader Susan leg and wanting to both of you. Obviously this is before the courts. We can't talk specifics, but Susan, how concerning is it for Peter Dutton that this has happened.
This is incredibly concerning, Madam. I can only wonder, as I'm sure Jason would, how Peter's family is feeling with difficult personal news this week about his dad and now this. But this is Australia. This is the best country in the world. We're a free, fair, open democracy. We expect this sort of thing to happen overseas, but never hear And when I think about how our courts and our police systems work hard to protect us. I trust they will do the right thing in this case. We can't let this become the new normal in Australia. We need to be strong against this radicalism, strong every single day.
Yeah, Jason, we were warned by authorities that there would be an increase in terror plots. I guess when it's steering us in the face. It's scary, though, isn't it. Has security increased for politicians during the election.
Yes, it has and this is before the courts. So I won't comment specifically on this case other than to say, as you've said that this person was arrested last year, detained and is now before the courts. But in Australia, in a democracy, you make your arguments with words, not weapons. And we've been very, very lucky, Susan says. We are the best country in the world and we've been lucky that we haven't seen in Australia what's happened in the UK or in the US. And in an election campaign, as politicians we're out there talking to people. Want to hope that if people want to come up to us and have a chat, that they can If they don't like us. Then they might mumble something under their breath or cross the road, but you never want to see the sort of threats of physical violence or real physical violence happen like we've seen overseas.
So has security increased for most politicians during the election. I have noticed there's not as many sort of massive school visits or of supermarket visits that type of thing. Has that happened, Susan, You increase security.
Look that we always make the authorities aware of what we're doing. But I love the fact that in Australia, I can walk into a supermarket, I can walk down the street, I can stop and chat to people. I treasure that it is very special about this country. But politicians and their families probably never been under more scrutiny and more threat than they are right now. I always want to say thank you to the people that in the background protect Jason, protect me, protect our colleagues, because it does allow us, in this the very best country in the world, to be able to do what we need to do, which is to be with the people that we care about out in public and talking about the things that matter to them.
Yeah, let's move on. Donald Trump has flagged that pharmaceuticals his next target for tariffs amidst his global trade war. The US President has blatantly said we are going to tariff our pharmaceuticals, which would directly hit what is our second largest export to the US. Jason, how concerned are you about this? CSL, I think fifty percent of their sales go to the US. They would be concerned. That employs a lot of people, a lot of Australians in the biotech.
Industry, and what it would do would be to increase the cost of life safe medicines that we make here for American patients. So we just jack up the cost of these medicines for Americans. Know, Medicare is not for sale. Our pharmaceutical benefit scheme is not for sale either, and we've got to make it very very clear that we're not going to be bullied by American pharmaceutical companies into increasing the cost of medicines for assi's here in Australia.
Susan, what do you think we do about this? Because this is a big industry, many people may not understand how big this is for our people into the US.
We say back off nat our PBS, our healthcare system is the best in the world and it's the envy of the world. I'm not surprised that multinational big Farmer is coming after our PBS, but I want to remind your viewers of what it does. It lists life saving medicines, cancer treatments for kids, medicines for pregnant women that change their lives. As a former health minister, I know how vital it is. People would otherwise have to pay sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars for life saving drugs and the PBS means they can get them for the cost of a script. We're very proud of it. Under repeated Dutton government, the PBS will always be protected and the cost of medicines will always come down.
Okay, well, thank you both. You'll continue on the campaign this week. We'll see next week. Hesh Ever,
