Transcript – ABC24 Capital Hill – 21 December 2011

Capital Hill – ABC24

Julie Doyle and Michelle Rowland MP

21 December 2011

5:30pm

E & OE

JULIE DOYLE:

Hello and welcome to Capital Hill. I’m Julie Doyle. The Government and the opposition are still at loggerheads over asylum seeker policy. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says he’s willing to meet the opposition over Christmas if that’s what it takes. But he won’t give in to the demand to put up a written proposal first. Joining me today to discuss this and other issues, we have Liberal Senator Mitch Fifield in Melbourne, and Labor MP Michelle Rowland in Sydney. But first, before we get started today, the former Howard Government immigration minister, Philip Ruddock, is wading into the debate. He says the Malaysia deal could be revived if there is some flexibility. Let’s hear some of the reaction to those comments.

ANDREW MOORE (file footage):

Philip Ruddock who says the Malaysian Solution could still go ahead if Malaysia formalised its promise not to return refugees to the country that persecuted them. Do you agree with that?

TONY ABBOTT (file footage):

Well, effectively Philip is restating our position. Our position is that we didn’t like Malaysia because Malaysia hasn’t signed the UN Refugee Convention and the essential provision of the UN Refugee Convention is you can’t refoul people to their country of origin. So, that’s what Phillip’s doing. He’s saying if Malaysia didn’t refoul, in effect subscribed to the convention, well, then it would be a different situation.

MOORE (file footage):

What do you expect or hope or want Chris Bowen or the Acting Prime Minister to do today? Something’s got to happen. There’s got to be some sort of development today.

ABBOTT (file footage):

They should put forward a specific proposal.

CHRIS BOWEN (file footage):

I’ll make a few points about Mr Ruddock’s suggestion. Firstly, I think it’s good that he’s being constructive in making suggestions in the first place. Secondly, we do have a formal agreement with Malaysia in writing that they will comply with those conditions. Thirdly, on turning the boats around, all our advice is that it’s unsafe to do so, it risks people’s lives. And we don’t think temporary protection visas work. But I make this point again – I’m happy to talk the issues through with the opposition and see if there is an area where we can find common ground on this. I don’t think it’s useful for me to sit in my corner and lecture the opposition about why I think we’re right and they’re right, or for them to do it back. I think there is room for a genuine, good-faith discussion.

DOYLE:

That’s the Immigration Minister Chris Bowen there. Mitch Fifield, do you agree with Philip Ruddock that there could be some room to move here on the Malaysia deal?

MITCH FIFIELD:

Philip was offering some thoughts, and essentially what they boil down to is that the Malaysia solution is a dud. This Government keeps pursuing proposals which never come to anything. We heard the East Timor solution put forward. Nothing came of that. The Malaysian solution – nothing has come of this. But it’s important that we remember why we’re in this situation in the first place. When the Howard Government was in office, we had a package of measures – temporary protection visas, offshore processing, turning back the boats where it was safe to do so – a package of measures which together saw the end of the people smuggling trade. This Government said that package was immoral, and that if they won office at the 2007 election, they would set about systematically dismantling that package of measures. And that’s exactly what they did.

Just getting back though on the Malaysia deal – getting back on those specifics from Philip Ruddock. He was talking about if Malaysia formalises the agreement not to send people back to a country where they could be persecuted, that that would be good enough. What do you think of that?

FIFIELD:

The fact of the matter is that that’s not the case. That is not the case in relation to Malaysia at the moment.

DOYLE:

But if they did sign it, though, if they did sign some kind of formal agreement in place?

FIFIELD:

What we have said all along is that we think that a nation which Australia charges to undertake offshore processing should be a signatory to the Refugee Convention. Malaysia is not. We moved an amendment in the Parliament that only nations which were signatories to that Convention could do offshore processing. That’s not the case in Malaysia.

DOYLE:

Michelle I’ll bring you in here. Philip Ruddock talked about the need for the Malaysia deal to be more open-ended. That it has to be more than 800 people. Does that make sense given the number of boat arrivals that we’ve seen recently?

MICHELLE ROWLAND:

I think what would make sense is for the opposition to agree to a conversation on these issues. I’m not someone who’s about to set parameters on what that conversation should be or what those details should be. The Minister, Chris Bowen, is under very clear authority to be able to determine these matters. He’s made the offer, the Prime Minister has made the offer, and I think that in the history of time, we haven’t had any successful negotiations where one party has come to the table and said ‘these are my parameters and I will not move from this.’ What we need is a reasonable, sensible conversation to occur, and until that does occur, until the Leader of the Opposition agrees to actually sit down and determine these things, then it’s purely speculative. I would say to the Leader of the Opposition that the offer has been made bare. My constituents want an end to the impasse that is going on. They do realise that the end to the impasse will come when the Leader of the Opposition stops saying no.

But isn’t Chris Bowen equally to blame here though? Chris Bowen is being just as stubborn by refusing to put out a written proposal.

That is not correct. The fact of the matter is that we have offered to have clean and open negotiations on the table, anything to be put on the table. The Minister has set no parameters around that. The fact that the Leader of the Opposition is calling for a written proposal to be put on the table I think is simply disingenuous, and I do believe that people genuinely want the parties to sit down and negotiate something that stops taking people’s lives.

Mitch Fifield, the opposition could put politics aside here and agree to sit down without this written proposal.

We have put politics aside. Let’s not forget, the reason we are in this situation is because the Government dismantled the border protection arrangements we had in place, including offshore processing. So the first thing that has to happen is for the current government to say, ‘we got it wrong. We made a mistake when we dismantled offshore processing, when we got rid of temporary protection visas.’ That’s the first thing that has to happen. The next thing that has to happen is that the Government should give us a written proposal. If they think that our policies our wrong, which I don’t think they are, but if they do, let them put an alternative proposal down in writing. Once they do that we can have a serious discussion.

DOYLE:

Michelle, this doesn’t reflect very well on either side of politics, does it, that we’re seeing this stalemate where you can’t reach an agreement to at least even sit down and have a discussion?

What I would say is this – when we turn on TV this morning, we saw President Obama talking about the House Republicans failing to come to the table and do a deal on very significant economic policy. We saw Christine Lagarde talking about the failure of European nations to come together to determine a reasonable solution to the problems they currently have. Australians expect their politicians from all sides to be able to sort matters out without being in the public glare, without looking at opinion polls, and actually doing what’s right. And that is what we are choosing to do on this occasion. If only the opposition would take that choice, then I think Australians would have a much better sense of confidence that this issue is going to be resolved, and we won’t see another Christmas where we have a Christmas Island like last year or the events that have happened in the last few days.

Moving onto another issue, and that’s gambling. The Greens have released a discussion paper on ways to deal with problem gambling, and one of the ideas is to treat problem gamblers with the drug Naltrexone, which is used for drug and alcohol addiction. Here’s the Greens Senator Christine Milne.
 
CHRISTINE MILNE (file footage):

The study shows that there has been some success using a drug to control or to help assist addicts not get the satisfying rush, if you like, that they get from binge drinking. And the suggestion is that maybe it would work in terms of stopping the satisfaction compulsive gamblers get as they stand there feeding the poker machines.

Michelle to you first, what do you think of this idea? Any merit in it?

ROWLAND:

I think there’s a reason why we leave medical determinations to the experts, including things like the committee which oversees recommendations for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. And that’s because we should rely on the experts in this area. The Labor Party is choosing to rely on the expert advice we’ve been given by the Productivity Commission. I know that Senator Di Natale has put this forward as a former GP, but I would say that I would leave those medical determinations to the experts.

Mitch Fifield, your colleague Kevin Andrews has put out a statement saying the only people who might need medication are the Greens members putting forward these ideas. Now that’s not very helpful is it, that kind of talk?

I’m sure that was tongue-in-cheek. But I think what the Greens’ policy represents is a growing tendency to seek to medicalise all social ills. The idea that if a social ill has a medical basis, that there’s a medical solution. But I think the worry about that is that that can lead people to abandon responsibility for their own actions. Whether it’s gambling, whether it’s smoking, there is still freewill. People do still have a say in whether they partake in these activities. People should get the appropriate help, but I certainly don’t see medication for people with gambling problems as any sort of a silver bullet. I think it is, sadly, just another kooky Greens’ policy.

Michelle, looking at the issue of problem gambling more generally, in your electorate in Western Sydney, how strident is the opposition to mandatory pre-commitment technology?

ROWLAND:

I would tell you that despite what the clubs are doing, and there are intense vested interests here that will seek to distort the facts on many occasions, I do believe that the community recognises at least two things. Firstly, that problem gambling is a problem in our local communities – the number of constituents who I’ve had tell me stories about broken homes and broken lives as a result of problem gambling is intense. The second thing is that people want something to be done about it. We’ve had expert advice, as I mentioned earlier, from the Productivity Commission, advice which also includes a trial of course, a trial which has always been part of Labor policy, despite what some of the vested interests would have you believe. And I would also say this – that although the club industry has a lot of money and a lot of backing behind it, there is very strong community feeling for reform to occur in our local communities.

DOYLE:

So you think you can win over support of your electorate? You think your electorate will actually support this, will come to the party on this one?

As I’ve said all along, both to the clubs in my electorate and to constituents who raise the issue with me, I’ve believed all along that the clubs should be in the tent in formulating a regulatory response to this issue. My offer has always been there to the local clubs, I said it at the rally I went to in Blacktown, I’ve said it on many other occasions – what we need is the club industry to come together with government to actually do something constructive about this. Because constructive action is what our community wants.

DOYLE:

Mitch Fifield, is this as much of a hot issue in Victoria, where the club industry perhaps isn’t so entrenched, with that huge reliance on pokies?

It’s certainly a big issues in Victoria. I think it’s fair to say that there’s a greater intensity in New South Wales and Queensland, where you have a longer history of club culture. But it’s important to be in favour of responsible gambling, to do everything you practically can to help people who have issues with gambling, and also to be in favour of a vibrant club industry. The Government seem to want to king-hit the club industry. They want to go for what you might call the politics of conspicuous compassion – be seen to be doing something, even if it doesn’t result in a positive effect for people with gambling issues.

But won’t mandatory commitment have some effect? Won’t mandatory commitment at least force people to put down a betting limit before they start?

FIFIELD:

People can put a betting limit as high as the moon I guess. I don’t think that mandatory pre-commitment is the answer. The Coalition has put out a discussion paper with a range of practical options to help problem gamblers. We’re seeking public comment on that. And that closes at the end of January. 

DOYLE:

Well that’s where we’ll have to leave it today, we’re about to run out of time. Mitch Fifield in Melbourne and Michelle Rowland in Sydney, thank you both very much for joining me today.

FIFIELD:

Thank you.

ROWLAND:

Thank you.

DOYLE:

And thanks for joining us on Capital Hill. We’ll be back again at the same time tomorrow.

ENDS