‘I will never, ever, ever wear one of those orange lanyards’

Por Amanda Copp — POLITICO – TOP Stories

Coalition immigration spokesperson Jonno Duniam is hanging up the boots after 10 years as a Senator for Tasmania and a 25-year career in politics.

He will see out next week’s AI committee hearings in his position as deputy chair, as well as attend Senate Estimates in late October. He will officially retire in early to mid-November.

He spoke with Amanda Copp about family, his favorite Liberal leader, and life after politics.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

How are you feeling?

It’s bittersweet. There comes a point in time where enough is enough. If you haven’t achieved what you need to achieve in 10 years, then there’s something very wrong. I’m proud of what I’ve done. I’m very much looking forward to what comes next, whatever that might be.

Why are you leaving?

It is, if you take it seriously, an all-consuming job. I’ve got three young boys. Well, they’re not so young anymore – 18, 15 and 11 – but they’re at a point in their lives where they do need their dad. For the last 18 years, it’s fallen to Anisa, my wife, to manage everything. Every time it goes wrong when I’m away. And this is why I’ve made this decision because my boys need all of the help they can get to transition from childhood to adulthood. I want to give them the best start in life, and that’s why I’m making this decision.

Do you think that you’d stay if the Liberals had more chance of winning the next election?

Well, I hope they have a very good chance of winning. But my answer is, emphatically – no. The idea of going into government, being a cabinet minister, as much of an honor and a privilege as it is, the weight of that responsibility, the time that would hoover up. I’ve made a decision based on reprioritizing my life, putting my family first and my work after that. So I would probably have even greater desire to leave if we were in the box seat to form government.

My hope is the polls do turn around — I know that my colleagues will do everything they can, and I’ll be supporting them. I’ll remain a Liberal, even though I may not be a Liberal senator, to help them put their best foot forward ahead of the next election.

How do you think politics has changed since you first started?

The media that people access and consume is not the same as it was back in 2016 in Australia. That vociferously hungry beast that is the media in all its forms is something that has emerged, evolved and adds to one’s exhaustion. This is not like it was back in the Howard days. Talking with people like John Howard and others, who sort of say: “Gee, I don’t know how you guys do it, how you do 10 interviews in a day, and you’re on social media, and you’re interacting with people on podcasts.” That is a massive change.

You’ve worked under five Liberal leaders, have you got a favorite?

Well, of course, my favorite is my leader Angus Taylor.

But let me say, all of the leaders I’ve served under have all presented something different. I was reflecting not so long ago on Malcolm Turnbull. He and I have perhaps some ideological differences, some might say, but I’ve never met a leader of a political party who was more effective when it came to dealing with an issue. If I texted him, a lowly backbencher senator-nobody from Tasmania, and said “we need to talk about this,” within a nanosecond, I would have a response on text from him. He took seriously everything I said. He listened to my advice. He didn’t always take it, and that’s what leaders do. Sometimes they’ll agree, sometimes they’ll reach different conclusions. But every one of the leaders had different qualities that meant they approached issues and dealing with colleagues in different ways. But I genuinely don’t have negative reflections of them. They’re just different.

Have you got a best friend across the aisle, or someone that you really liked working with?

This could very well be the kiss of death. There’s a range of reasons for this one, but Katy Gallagher. I’m a conservative Liberal senator, she’s a left-wing Labor senator, so you could say we’re diametrically opposed. I forged a relationship with Katy through needing to deal with her on chamber management. Being able to deal with someone honestly, who will tell you the truth up front and say “no, we can’t work with you on this. We’re going to have to do something else” is a rare commodity. Not because people in politics aren’t trustworthy, but because often people are guarded. We found a way that we could make our working relationship benefit not only our personal friendship but also the working and operation of the Senate. And so, Katy’s someone who you can have a laugh with at the end of a very robust sitting week, and have a trusting working relationship with.

But above all, despite our personal differences, she’s a top individual, and she’s someone I will miss very much working with.

People sometimes change their views on policy areas post-politics. Do you think we’ll see that from you? 

I generally say what I believe and make sure I don’t say things I don’t believe. So to that end, I don’t think you’ll find me being inconsistent with my views expressed publicly as a senator. And Jonno Duniam, private citizen, I reckon will probably be pretty consistent in his political afterlife.

I might provide more free advice than I do right now. You might see a bit of that. But I offer my views internally now, as you do through the party room processes and shadow cabinet. When I’m outside in the real world, it’s important for people to give their successors and former colleagues clear air, and I don’t want to be unconstructive.

Given house prices are falling across the country, what is the problem you’re actually trying to solve when it comes to migration? 

Of course, cheaper house prices are good for those who want to enter the market. Cheaper rent is good for people who want to try and find a rental property. But again, it doesn’t address the structural underlying issue, which is we are not building enough homes for the people we need to house. If we have a net overseas migration intake of 220,000, which is sort of where Labor are tracking to — whether they meet that target or not is another question. At the moment, it’s around 300,000, and we’re only building 170,000 homes.

Let’s say those economic problems we as a country are facing sort themselves out. Government spending is under control. Inflation goes down. Interest rates start to drop off. Then we won’t have caught up with supply caught up with demand, and that’s why we still believe, regardless of those other factors and what might be happening in the housing market at the moment, we do need to catch up. So reducing the NOM, allowing us as a country to catch up with demand when it comes to housing, is important.

Is your migration policy actually about trying to get votes back from One Nation?

Any politician that tells you that politics isn’t about being in the business of winning votes is a liar. In order for me to give effect to the policies I believe are important for our country, that Angus Taylor and our entire team believe are the right approach for our country, we need to win an election. In order to win elections, you have to win votes. So, of course, every day of the week, we want to convince Australians to come back to us.

Those who left us in 2022 that didn’t vote for us in 2025, we want them to vote for us. Sure. There’s another saying: good policy is good politics too, right? We have announced a good policy. We have announced a well thought through, credible policy when it comes to immigration. If we do that job of actually getting out there and selling the policy, then maybe people will vote for us.

So, is it about One Nation? No, it’s not. One Nation has a policy that they can’t explain. It just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t add up. They don’t explain it. So, our policy is about having a credible alternative to the government and a pathway to fix a broken system. Hopefully, people read my policy, see what we’ve got to say about it, and therefore vote for us.

As deputy chair of the committee on artificial intelligence, does the future of AI worry you?

There’s a lot of unknowns around AI. I think Australia has everything it takes. And I genuinely hope that we can reach a bipartisan position where we support proper regulation around AI and data centers.

We’ve got to get the settings right, and that’s what this committee is going to do in record time. This committee knows that we don’t have time to waste. AI is coming at us, whether we like it or not. It’s here already in many respects, but it’s coming more and more and faster and faster, and it’s coming in ways that we cannot control unless we get the settings right.

So, am I worried about it? Yeah, sure. There are things that do worry me. Are they impossible to manage? No, they’re not. We have to be dynamic and out of the box as a country, as a government, as a parliament, in how we handle these things,

We are going to have to have a new way of governing what is a fast-changing emerging technology, which does have immense risk attached to it. I know my side is up for the challenge. My sense is the government is very much up for the challenge. What we need to do now is get those settings right quickly, and get on with the job of making Australia home to a stable, secure AI ecosystem. Then those fears can be managed, those risks can be managed, and we can actually have a positive outlook on what AI, and all that comes with it, presents for our country.

What are you most looking forward to?

I’m looking forward to not being a politician. There are three parts to being a politician, I’ve decided over much reflection on this. One is the travel. There’s a lot of travel. Then, as I mentioned before, you spend a lot of time out away from home, even in your own home state, as a senator.

The other part is, of course, politics. One of the worst parts of politics is politics — and internal politics. It is not fun. A lot of it you never read about, and there are lots of choice words I could use to describe some of my experiences over time with internal politics, but they’ll be reserved for another day. They are two of the three parts of politics I don’t enjoy.

The best of being a politician, which more than offsets all the crap that you get, is problem-solving. At their most basic form, a politician is supposed to be a problem solver. Whether the prime minister, the backbencher, communities, whether it’s the entire country, a portion of our economy and industry, for example, an individual in your electorate — they will present a problem, and you need to help find a way to resolve that.

That is the one thing I’ve loved about what I do, and that is what I hope to be able to do into the future. Before you ask, no, I’m not going to be a lobbyist. I will never, ever, ever wear one of those orange lanyards round Parliament House and open doors for people.

That disconnect between the real world and Canberra often means that problems go unresolved, because the outside world doesn’t understand Canberra and Canberra doesn’t understand the outside world. It is important that we continue to find ways to ensure that government can resolve problems, not be the solution. They don’t have to be the solution. Sometimes not doing stuff or doing less is the solution. But having that capacity to problem solve is the one thing that will keep me getting out of bed in the morning and finding purpose in life. It is the one thing I’ve loved about this job, and it’s the one thing I hope to continue to be able to do.

Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories