25 June, 2012
Sky News AM Agenda
With Kieran Gilbert and Nick Champion MP
25 June 2012
8:45am
E & OE
Subjects: People smugglers, Polls
KIERAN GILBERT:
Joining me now on the program, Labor MP Nick Champion and Liberal frontbencher Senator Mitch Fifield. Gentlemen, it’s good to see you both. The events of last week were tragic; there is a call for some sort of compromise this week. Nick, first to you. The signs of a compromise look very, very unlikely at this point.
NICK CHAMPION:
Well every time Tony Abbott says no to the government, no to the offers we’ve made and we’ve made Malaysia plus Nauru plus a review of temporary protection visas, which is a significant shift for the government every time Tony Abbott is saying no to the government, he’s saying yes to people smugglers and yes to more boats and it’s an incoherent position for Tony Abbott to do this. Two years he’s been banging on about boats, and now when push comes to shove he invents some new found commitment to human rights and the UN, and uses that as way to hang further opposition on, he just can’t help himself saying no, and it’s about time he starts listening to Judi Moylan, who was on radio this morning saying Nauru wouldn’t work, and he starts listening to Mal Washer, and he starts listening to the counsel of Phillip Ruddock behind the scenes, who’s been saying they need a suite of options. But my, look I think the Liberal Party if they were to win Government, would be back here in the Sky studios arguing for the Malaysian transfer agreement and arguing that they need it on top of Nauru. That’s the reality of the situation and it’s about time he started compromising.
KIERAN GILBERT:
We’ll come back to you in a moment Nick, and the implications for the government, because it’s a government in office and eventually you’ll be accounted for the failures of this policy. But to you Senator Fifield isn’t it incumbent upon both sides of politics now to sit down and come up with something that at least is a change in policy? Your colleagues Mal Washer, Liberal MP, and Liberal MP Judi Moylan I’m sure others agree with them, but they’ve said openly and publicly that there needs to be a recalibration of the discussion on this issue.
MITCH FIFIELD:
There is no innate virtue in compromise in and of itself. There is no innate virtue in change for change sake. You want to change to policies which will work. We know what will work because when we were in government we put in place offshore processing, temporary protection visas and a government that had the strength of its convictions. The current government set about systematically dismantling those effective policies.
KIERAN GILBERT:
We know that.
MITCH FIFIELD:
I’m not sure we do.
KIERAN GILBERT:
I think most people in Australia recognise that the Labor Government, dismantling those policies, have certainly had an impact. And we’ve seen the flow of boats, it’s the reality. Let’s move on. Let’s talk about today. There was a tragedy last week on the high seas north of Christmas Island, how about the parties sit down and talk about some sort of change, because the status quo is ridiculous. Both major parties back offshore processing and it’s not in place.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Not all offshore processing is equal. That’s the important point. To your other point Kieran, the current government haven’t yet admitted that we are in this situation because of the changes made.
KIERAN GILBERT:
We know the changes made a big impact. Now we’re seeing the boats still come. The point scoring on the past, I think most people would recognise that the change has had a damaging impact at least on the flow of boats. How about a change now to fix it?
MITCH FIFIELD:
It’s not point scoring to say that the government of the day needs to recognise the reasons that we’re in the predicament that we are. It’s not unless the government of the day recognises the reasons that we are where we are, that they will actually be prepared to focus on a solution. And the solution is a return to offshore processing at Nauru and temporary protection visas.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Why don’t the government just do that, be done with it. The Coalition has been calling for this, put it in place, and surely something has got to improve the current status quo.
NICK CHAMPION:
Kieran, I’m happy alright, if it makes Mitch and the Liberals feel better, I’m happy to say that Labor and the country has traversed an interesting path on this. In 2007 we did change the laws, and the Liberal Party in the Senate went along with it, they could have disallowed it, they could have opposed it, but they went along with it as well. I think most people in the country hope that we can be compassionate and that we can have an, if you like, not lenient, but a more decent system. Unfortunately what we’ve found is that there’s been this organised people smuggling trade and they’ve taken advantage of that. And we have significantly changed our position, significantly changed our position, Nauru in combination with the Malaysian transfer agreement and a review of temporary protection visas. Now that review doesn’t need to be long, it can be a quite short review. It seems to me that these are significant policy concessions for us to offer, and we offer them in goodwill because there are people floating in the water to the north of this country. Because I went to Christmas Island and stood on the cliffs there and saw the situation, you know, that border protection forces face. This is a terrible situation. I don’t think anybody would have predicted that we would end up in this place but we have. And parties have to, when the facts change, change your position. We’ve changed our position, it’s about time you changed yours. It’s just simply not good enough to come in here and reel off these crap lines straight out of Mark Textor’s focus groups. It’s not good enough to do that.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Listen to this. You guys caused this problem, you guys created this situation and it’s about time you guys fixed it. And the way you can fix it is by putting in place the policies we all know worked.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Let me interject there, because I do want to ask you that point. Senator Fifield made the point earlier in the debate about the Coalition having a suite of policies that were effective. Now whether or not you think they’re going to work again, or Andrew Metcalfe of the Immigration Department thinks they’re going to work again, that’s basically Tony Abbott’s stance. He doesn’t show any sign of wavering on it. Why not adopt it, because surely it’s got to be better than the status quo?
NICK CHAMPION:
Well listen to what we’ve offered. The Malaysian transfer agreement, which is tougher again than what John Howard introduced in 2001. It would be part of a suite of options. The Malaysian transfer agreement, Nauru on top of that, plus a review of temporary protection visas. That is as close as you’re going to get to Liberal Party policy isn’t it, and it’s a pretty good suite of options. And Phillip Ruddock behind the scenes is offering, you know saying to the opposition leader, you should take this up. You know, Judi Moylan, Mal Washer. How many people, who are decent conservatives, like my grandfather’s conservatism, are offering goodwill, and Tony Abbott keeps on saying no to the government because it’s in his political interest. And every time he does that he says yes to people smugglers.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Senator Fifield’s response to that. To the likes of Mal Washer and Judi Moylan directly, what do you say to them this morning, your colleagues in the Liberal Party room saying there needs to be some sort of shift?
MITCH FIFIELD:
We’ll have a Liberal Party room meeting, I assume if people have views they will put those at that meeting. Our view is, as it always has been, that there are pretty simple and pretty straightforward solutions which work. It is the Government’s pride, more than anything, that is stopping the reintroduction of the policies which we know were effective. We don’t think Malaysia should be part of the solution because it’s taking only 800 people and we’ve had 12,700 people arrive since Julia Gillard became Prime Minister. In return, Australia would have to take 4,000 people. Malaysia doesn’t have the UN protections that would be in place in Nauru.
NICK CHAMPION:
Well neither does Indonesia and you want to turn boats back to go back to Indonesia. So you can’t really hide behind that, Mitch.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Nick, the Newspoll today before the long winter break, the last one at the start of this parliamentary week, the news gets no better.
NICK CHAMPION:
Well look I think people look at polls and you know, I won’t say that I don’t look at them, I take some regard to public opinion. But look I guess we have to get past the July mark and get some of this very big legislation and very controversial legislation behind us, and then we’ll sort of see where we’re at in a couple of months time.
KIERAN GILBERT:
So you’re hoping that beyond July 1 and the carbon tax that things aren’t as bad as what they’ve been made out to be?
NICK CHAMPION:
Well look I think inevitably in this scare campaign people tend to give the benefit of the doubt against the government I think in the first instance. And I think this is found in the GST and then post the change, people become more comfortable with it and it becomes the status quo. The question it will be is how you unscramble an egg. I think that will be the question for the opposition, and of course that they also want to get rid of pension increases, they want to get rid of the tax free threshold increases. So if you like, it will become a different argument for both the government and the opposition as we move into the next period.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Do you think where the polls are at, Senator Fifield I’m interested, Phil Coorey in the Herald today says that given how far ahead Tony Abbott is, he may as well reach a compromise on a few different things? It’s not going to hurt him politically; if it does it’s hard to think it would be that damaging given the dominant lead and it might help you start solving issues like the asylum seeker issue that you’re going to face when you hit office anyway.
MITCH FIFIELD:
We’re not afraid of working with the government where there is genuine goodwill and a good policy outcome will be achieved. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is a good case in point. We don’t fear working with the government of the day. But I think what we’ve seen in the polls is that it doesn’t matter how much money the Government is splashing around in household assistance packages, or how much money is spent on government advertising, the Australian public don’t look at just what the government says, they actually look at their actions. They don’t like what they see. They don’t want a carbon tax, and that’s coming through clearly.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Tony Abbott’s personal rating, it’s about the same as Prime Minister Gillard isn’t it? What do you put that down to, is it the fact that he’s had to be so negative in attacking the government? That’s the general school of thought when it comes to Tony Abbott’s personal rating, that it doesn’t really matter, given how strong the primary vote is,
MITCH FIFIELD:
What matters is the two-party preferred vote. Opposition leaders are seldom people who have their posters on bedroom walls in people’s houses. John Howard was never ahead of Paul Keating but we did well in the polls, that’s what matters. We’re not into the popularity contest, we’re into delivering policies that people want and I think the polls reflect that the public is seeing that.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Gentlemen it’s good to see you both this morning. Senator Fifield and Nick Champion, thank you for that.