Manly Observer sat down with Federal MP for Mackellar, Dr Sophie Scamps, as her first , and potentially last, term in government comes to an end.
Questions from us have been abridged for clarity and because we tend to go on a bit…
Manly Observer: Dr Scamps, the last time we met it was at Girdlers in Dee Why before the election and I was heavily pregnant. You were then an outside chance to win a seat that had been pretty well been ‘owned’ by the Liberal Party since the seat was created in the 1940s. Despite the odds, you won. How have you found it?
“It has been incredible. And I can’t believe three years is nearly out…It is as much about what happens inside Parliament House, with, you know, debating the legislation as what you’re saying outside in the national conversation, and trying to lead that conversation as well. So one of the biggest things before the last election, the two really big issues that people were talking about a lot, was climate change and integrity. Of course, things have moved and changed a lot because of the cost of living crisis and the housing crisis, but they were really big, and trust in government was at an all time low, and trust in our political system was at an all time low. And that is a really alarming place to be, because when that, when you lose trust in your government, people start to detach from their democracy.”
Dr Scamps, or Dr Sophie as she’s branded herself, said her early work introducing the ending jobs for mates bill – and the negotiations with Labor that came with that, was one of the jewels in the crown of her tenure.
“It was mostly around the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which had been heavily, heavily stacked with political appointments, so much so that it was a compromised body,” she said.
“But when that body was being re-established by the Labor Party, they weren’t fixing the flaw that had allowed it to be politicised in the first place. So in the end, I put forward my amendment. It didn’t pass. It went through the house, but it didn’t pass the Senate. And so the Attorney General came back to me and negotiated with me on what this independent selection panel should look like, and we got in this incredible piece of legislation, independent selection panels are now mandated and legislated in that place, and that is one of our key democratic institutions. So it’s really set a precedent on that whole ending jobs for mates culture.”
You have put quite a bit of attention in what some people would consider the smaller things, like unhealthy food, which is obviously part of a bigger thing, but you know you have gone into particularly targeted areas, is that because of your lived experience in healthcare?
“So, yes, my role as a GP and emergency doctor, I’m sure, very much influences the way I think, but I did see that role as a GP as looking after a cohort of people in that community. And I always did have in the back of my head that actually there’s a lot more you can do at the policy level to make healthy environments that could really help a lot more people across Australia. Health is a federal issue, and there’s a lot of money that goes into the really high end treatment, tertiary end of things, but there’s very little that goes in prevention. And actually, there’d been very little being talked about the overweight and obesity epidemic. I had worked in that, and that’s now the major cause of chronic disease in this country, so it’s the biggest cost burden for our for our nation when it comes to health.
Even my very first conversation with the with Mark Butler was what’s happening? What are you doing about that side of things? About prevention? This is a huge issue. We need to be doing something about it. And so what can I do as an independent so I pick something that’s almost doable and then drive a campaign on that as well, and that’s the ending junk food advertising, I won’t say it solves all the problems, but it’s a big start, and it’s something that really resonates with families as well, because everyone wants the best for their children.”
What are your thoughts on criticisms that fighting junk food ads is a rich white privilege issue when many struggle to put any food on the table for their families?
“That’s a legitimate question. But the thing is, is that you do more than one thing as a politician, you do many things. So of course, I’ve been trying to do whatever I can in this term, to, you know, on cost of living, relief, lots of different things.
So although somebody might see an article on junk food, doesn’t mean to say that I’m not working on, you know, 17 other issues and going hard on them as well.
Like up in this area small businesses have been struggling and they have been telling me this for 18 months when I go door to door. I’m trying to come up with a long term change that will support them not just right now, but permanently. So that’s why I came up with the small business tax free threshold, where you don’t pay any tax. The small companies won’t pay any tax up to $20,000 so it’s an extra $5,000 that stays in the in the company.”
There are a lot of multinationals that are not paying tax. Could you explain why a government, the Australian Government, would see that as appropriate?
“There is a move on around the world to try and deal with offshoring so that companies that are active within a country do actually pay tax in that company in that country. Something like gas exports in Australia is a big problem.
We export 90% of our gas and we give away 56% for free without tax and no royalties whatsoever. We’ve got one of the lowest corporate tax rates on gas and one of the lowest petroleum resource rent tax.
In a country like Norway they’ve had a long term vision. They have a sovereign wealth fund that is now worth, I think, a couple of trillion dollars, to set them up for the future. We have major debt.”
Why haven’t we been able to set something up like that?
“We’ve made bad contracts.
And we now are in this position where we may end up with a shortage, just because we export so much that we might, you know, be in this ridiculous situation where we would have to re import,”
Now, we have limited time but I want ask you about your future generation bill. My understanding is that it is looking at political decisions needing to have a vision longer than the next three years for re-election. I see that’s the crux of that. But if you are going to be, you know, the devil’s advocate, would you agree a bill looking at the wellbeing of future Australians sounds a bit wishy washy?
“So again, before the last election, we did a lot of sitting down and talking to people, and people just felt short term politics is just getting us nowhere. We need people with a long term vision who can really steer the country towards our particular goals.
So a place like Wales, they have this well being of Future Generations Act, and it all started with a conversation where people, they called it the big conversation, I think, and everyone got to talk about, what were the issues, or what type of Wales they wanted to hand down to their children and future generations.
We keep hearing the word crisis, and got so many of them happening. It’s sort of dulled the meaning of the word. We have cost of living that a lot of that came from what happened overseas, we’ve got environment, climate, we’ve got mental health. We’ve got housing. We’ve got gambling pervasion everywhere. We’ve got junk food, that’s, you know, all this advertising. We’ve got growing intergenerational inequality, growing inequality.
These are all things that have been developing over decades, and yet our governments and our political system has been unable to prevent it, or hasn’t prevented it or stopped them from getting worse, and that’s because we’re stuck in this short term cycle. We just have to keep thinking about how politicians get themselves re elected. So if you embed long, a long term lens in the way you think, and this is what Wales has done, then you get much better outcomes.”
“I’m sure they would like me to pipe down everywhere, but they can’t tell me to pipe down. And I won’t.”
Your main contender for the seat, James Brown, he appears to be a strong challenger. He’s articulate, and he’s a war veteran. I’m interested to know whether you agree that they’ve put a pretty strong contender up against you because they want that seat back.
“Oh yes they are very serious about trying to take Mackellar back.
What I would say is that the candidate they’ve put up is somebody who’s a career politician who’s tried in other electorates, who’s recently moved to the area, and who will toe the party line, be a backbencher and always do what Peter Dutton tells him to do, so isn’t really able to genuinely represent our community.
He will need to follow the party line. Being an independent there’s no one telling you what you can and can’t say. You know, I don’t get told to pipe down. I’m sure, I’m sure they would like me to pipe down everywhere, but they can’t tell me to pipe down. And I won’t.”
Curious about Dr Sophie Scamps Liberal rival, James Brown?
Dutton returns to the Beaches with Howard in tow
Military man is Libs pick for Mackellar
Get to know all your Mackellar and Warringah candidates in our federal election feature.
