Gary Adshead: Let's have a chat now to Dr Anne Aly, who joins me on the line. Thanks very much for your time.
Minister Anne Aly: Thank you, Gary. And hello to all your listeners.
Adshead: And congratulations. You must be chuffed about this, I mean, because, you know, your sort of backstory, you've done pretty well.
Aly: Yeah, look, I am. I am extremely honoured, first of all, to be re-elected as the member for Cowan, and that's always an honour to represent the people in your community. And it's, you know, even more of an honour to be appointed to the Cabinet.
Adshead: Okay. How did it happen? Are you allowed to tell me? Did you just get a phone call, or how does it work?
Aly: Oh, yeah, pretty much works like that.
Adshead: "Hi, Anne, how you going? It's the Prime Minister here" – or Anthony, I'm not sure how he refers to himself. "How's your day been," that sort of thing?
Aly: Yeah. Yeah, there's a bit of a conversation and then you're told, you know, "These are your portfolios," and you say, "Thank you very much. It's an honour to serve. And thank you very much for your confidence in me. And I will give it all and do my very best."
Adshead: So this is for me and the listeners I'm doing this – so if you said, "Oh, geez, Prime Minister, really, you know, I'm just wondering whether there's something else you might be able to offer me," or is that just not a conversation that happens?
Aly: Well, I've been fortunate enough to have never been in that position, Gary, because I've loved every single portfolio that I've had. You know, in the last parliament I had early childhood education, which was absolutely fabulous, and I'm really glad that we've got Senator Jess Walsh, who will be the new Early Childhood Education Minister. And, of course, you know in terms of small business, I've run a small business myself. In terms of international development, I've had a longstanding interest in international development. And in multicultural affairs, well, I've got about 30 years of history working in that area, too.
Adshead: All right. Well, we'll tick off some of those particular portfolios in a second. Just first up, though, you're a winner. How did you feel, though, when you saw Ed Husic and, of course, Mark Dreyfus losing their Cabinet portfolios?
Aly: Look, it's always very sad when you have colleagues leave, whether they, you know, leave the parliament entirely through retirement or they lose their seats or, indeed, whether, you know, they lose their positions in Cabinet. I'm not in the right; I'm in the left and so, you know, I was not privy to any of those conversations or any of those machinations. But the fact is that we have, you know, 94, 95 – I think – of the caucus members and quite a few of them – in fact, the majority of them – are talented enough to be in Cabinet. And that's the nature of what we do.
Adshead: Well, Ed Husic, I know, on Q&A last night said some very nice things about you, so I'm sure we'll be seeing him around the place – there's no doubt about that. He'll be popping up from time to time.
Aly: Yeah, we're very close, of course, and we've worked very closely over the last couple of years. And I'm sure he'll continue to make a really great contribution as the member for Chifley.
Adshead: Okay. Just also, in a day of significance – not for the Labor Party but for the Liberal Party – a female has emerged as the leader of the Liberal Party for the very first time. Would you like to say something about that?
Aly: Look, I think it's a good move and I think, you know, we talk after every election about the lessons that we learn from an election. You know, it's good – I think it's actually good to see that the Liberals have maybe learned a lesson here. But we'll see how things go.
Adshead: Yeah, you're not going to give them too much credit just yet, I'm sure.
Aly: Well, everyone has to prove themselves, Gary. That's the one thing I've learned – every single one of us has to prove ourselves to our constituents, to the people that we represent, to the Australian people.
Adshead: All right. Now, small business, that portfolio is a part of your Cabinet responsibilities now. You know, often when we speak to people – maybe it's from the small business, Australian Small Business Association or the Business Council of Australia or whatever – they give you this sense that they're ignored to a degree, that they're forgotten about in terms of being that backbone of Australia in terms of what they bring into the economy. They quote $483 billion, for example. Is that something that you might have to win over to start with?
Aly: Look, definitely I'll be meeting with all the stakeholders. But we've also got, you know, Australia's first small business national strategy, the National Small Business Strategy, that really does, you know, put forth that argument that small business is the backbone. You know, in Western Australia alone we've got almost 250,000 small businesses and altogether across Australia they employ 5.1 million people. So it is definitely a really significant part of our economy. And also a significant part of the services that people rely on every day.
Adshead: Yeah, well, $640 million for that National Small Business Strategy. Where do you see that money being spent? They talk about red tape, I know, small business. Is that something you're looking to address?
Aly: Yeah, look, I'll go through – I'll go through that. I haven't had the briefing yet from the department, but I'll certainly go through that. But we also have a mandate to deliver on what we promised in the election campaign, and one of those being the small business instant asset write off. So I imagine that that will be, you know, the first cab off the ranks.
Adshead: So, because that's in place now until the 30th of June 2025. Does that mean you're looking to extend it beyond that?
Aly: Well, I'll have a look at what the department briefings are, but, you know, that's a mandate we went to the election with, and really my greatest mandate at the moment is, you know, looking at this National Small Business Strategy. As I said, it's the first of its kind, and looking at, you know, what's in the strategy that we can action.
Adshead: Because you, to some degree, have to help with what is being planned in that big picture by way of housing, for example. I mean, if we talk about 1.2 million, we need people on the ground, we need businesses up and running to be able to deliver on that. Are you able to say whether you are daunted by that task?
Aly: No, I'm not daunted by any task. I've overcome a lot of challenges in my life, and I enjoy – I enjoy – overcoming challenges. And I don't see this as a challenge; I actually see this as an opportunity. I met today with the economic team and that included, you know, the Minister for Housing. And, you know, our real focus here, as the Treasurer has said, our real focus in this term is productivity, and small business has a huge role to play in productivity.
Adshead: Now, international development, just take us through what you see your role is there.
Aly: Look, I've had a longstanding interest in international development, even before entering parliament as an adviser to the United Nations. You know, we talked a lot about international development and aid in developing countries and undeveloped countries and how that can contribute to political stability but also to social and health wellbeing of different communities in those countries as well. So, you know, I've, again, only been in the role for how many hours now – about 9 hours – but I'm really looking to getting my teeth into it and drawing on the experience that I bring to parliament as well in that field.
Adshead: We're pretty impatient in the media, aren't we? We're giving you 9 hours to get across all your portfolios.
Aly: I know. Like, imagine if I gave you 9 hours to get across something. How would you –
Adshead: Oh, no, I do it in about 9 minutes.
Aly: Would you now? Okay. I might make you prove that one day, Gary.
Adshead: Multicultural affairs, you know, given, you know, what we've seen in terms of the whole conflict in Gaza and, you know, the lead-up to that with October 7 and all of the conflict around that, are you sort of conscious of trying to sort of mend bridges in this country? Because we have seen some division. We've seen anti-semitism. From both sides we've seen some pretty ugly stuff. How important is it for you to get across that and try to settle things down?
Aly: It's incredibly, incredibly important. I will say, however, that multiculturalism goes beyond that. It's not just about, you know, those kinds of social harmony. It is about everybody. We are a multicultural nation. And, you know, if you look at small business in WA, for example, I'll give you this statistic, Gary – 41.2 per cent of small businesses in Western Australia are run by somebody who was born outside of Australia. So it's a real aspirational thing as well.
You know, multiculturalism is – we celebrate multiculturalism and we celebrate diversity, and that's great. But it also has a huge role to play in our economics. It also has a huge role to play around productivity and aspiration as well. So I want to look at multiculturalism from a more holistic perspective. Yes, it's about managing tensions within community. And, as you say, we've had, you know, this rise in anti-semitism that Australia absolutely should have no tolerance for, alongside also a rise in Islamophobia, again which we have no tolerance for, no tolerance for any form of racism.
But I want multiculturalism to go beyond that. I want multiculturalism to be about all of us.
Adshead: Finally, has Madeleine King given you any tips yet?
Aly: Maddy and I get on really, really well. And I'm so – she's done an amazing job in representing West Australians in the Cabinet. And I'm really looking forward to being in the Cabinet with her and the two of us working hard for WA.
Adshead: All right, well, there you go. We've got two people inside the Cabinet right now. Maybe after the next election we'll have three, maybe even four. We'll wait and see. Appreciate you joining us today.
Aly: Thank you, Gary. And thanks to all your listeners as well.
Adshead: Good on you. Dr Anne Aly there, who's got to get on a plane. I know that, so I had to be fairly quick.