20 August, 2012
Sky News AM Agenda
With Kieran Gilbert and Nick Champion MP
20 August 2012
8:45am
E & OE
Subjects: Prime Minister, Julian Assange, Gonski Review
KIERAN GILBERT:
With me on the program now, Labor MP Nick Champion and Liberal frontbencher Senator Mitch Fifield. That was quite a clash.
NICK CHAMPION:
Well I think the Prime Minister was asked questions and she answered them and you’d expect her to be forthright.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Do you think it was defensive?
NICK CHAMPION:
I don’t think it was defensive at all. I think it was forthright. She’s answered questions about this over and over again and the same questions keep on being asked. And Slater & Gordon have released a statement and if you look at the Fairfax press today it says case clear, nothing to answer here. And of course, Mitch will say that there are more questions to be answered because this is all part of the sort of, you know, smear job that’s going to be done on the Prime Minister. I think it’s very sad and what Richo just said is that every minute detail of people’s lives is now going to be sort of, pored over in public life. If we have a situation where every aspirant for higher office has to have their lives pored over with a magnifying glass and then they have to go make statements to the Parliament about this or that might have happened, you know, twenty-five, thirty years ago.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Do you think that this is off limits then?
NICK CHAMPION:
I don’t think that this is off limits but questions have been asked and questions have been answered. It’s a question about how much time you devote to it in the public sphere and we’ve devoted enough time to it.
KIERAN GILBERT:
I’m not entirely sure about questions being answered. When the questions arose on Saturday, the Hedley Thomas report on Saturday, front page of the Australian, that was a new element.
NICK CHAMPION:
We have the Slater & Gordon media release which went out yesterday and is in the Fairfax press today.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Ok. Senator Fifield, your thoughts?
MITCH FIFIELD
Well Kieran I thought it was extraordinary that the Prime Minister accused Paul Kelly of being someone’s patsy and then, on top of that, accused Peter Van Onselen of grand naivety. I mean it’s a pretty strange reaction for a Prime Minister. But what I completely reject is something that I think Nick might have been suggesting, that somehow the Liberal Party is involved in a smear here. All of this is coming from the Labor movement. This is coming from former union officials. This is coming from former partners of Labor law firms. These questions are being asked by former Labor cabinet ministers like Graham Richardson. These questions are being asked by former federal Labor Attorney-General Robert McClelland. Every question, every bit of information in relation to this matter is coming from the Labor movement.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Do you really think that the Prime Minister has done something wrong? Because no one is suggesting that she would have done something knowingly that was wrong.
MITCH FIFIELD:
I’m not making any allegations. No one in the Coalition is making any allegations. All of this material and all of these questions have been posed by the Labor movement. And so we’ve indicated that we would be very happy if it would assist the Prime Minister to facilitate the opportunity for her to make an explanation to the Parliament.
NICK CHAMPION:
That is not what happened. Mitch is saying, “oh well, what us? We haven’t done anything.” Yesterday or the day before that you had Christopher Pyne and Tony Abbott out there pushing this thing along. And now you’re saying you’ve got nothing to do with it. Either make an allegation, either put up or shut up.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Well if you shut up, in the nicest possible way, I’ll speak. What we’ve said is that we will provide the opportunity for the Prime Minister to make an explanation to the Parliament. None of these questions have originated with the Coalition. Every one of them has originated with the Labor movement. So don’t sling this at us.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Graham Richardson thinks the Prime Minister should make a statement. Why not?
NICK CHAMPION:
Firstly, all the questions have been answered and they have been answered in the public domain and they have been comprehensively gone over in the public domain. The Prime Minister has answered those questions. One begs what she might say in a public statement except to reiterate what she’s already said. And the second thing is, look are we going to really have a situation where anybody can go out there and make allegations and then the Parliament has to spend its time answering them. If that’s the test, we’re not going to get much done in this building are we? Spend all our time going through, what happens in twenty-five years or so?
MITCH FIFIELD:
Important point. These questions are being raised by her own side. Not by us.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Let’s look now at Julian Assange’s comments to his supporters from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
JULIAN ASSANGE (file footage):
We must use this moment to articulate the choice that is before the government of the United States of America. Will it return to and reaffirm the values, the revolutionary values it was founded on or will it launch off the precipice, dragging us all into a dangerous and oppressive world in which journalists have the fear of prosecution and citizens must whisper in the dark?
KIERAN GILBERT:
With me on AM Agenda, Nick Champion and Senator Mitch Fifield. Nick Champion, should the government be doing more? The Greens say their needs to be diplomatic, political intervention and a diplomatic, political solution, not just consulate support. Should the foreign minister try and be the honest broker between Ecuador and the UK?
NICK CHAMPION:
Well look, Australians overseas charged with criminal matters get consular support and that’s what Mr Assange has got. Sixty interactions between consular officials and his legal team. And I believe that’s the correct way to go about things. One wonders, you know, what diplomatic, political solutions there are to criminal allegations and charges. It seems to me to be a pretty straightforward extradition matter.
KIERAN GILBERT:
There is an argument that Swedish authorities could have questioned him in London, I mean couldn’t you put some pressure on them to do that?
NICK CHAMPION:
Well there are pretty complex and I would have thought well thought out, well sort of grounded extradition procedures in the United Kingdom. People who are charged in other countries have to, that’s why we have extradition laws, so that all those questions can be answered there and then.
KIERAN GILBERT:
This is a bizarre impasse, isn’t it and it’s hard to see how it will be resolved, Senator Fifield. As far as Tony Abbott is concerned, he is of a similar view to the Labor Party that Mr Assange should only get the same support that any other Australian would receive.
MITCH FIFIELD:
It is a pretty unusual set of circumstances, but I don’t think there’s an argument for Mr Assange to get more help or assistance than any other Australian who finds themselves in difficulty. I mean I saw Senator Scott Ludlam say that consular assistance is what you get when you lose your passport and Mr Assange deserves something more. That’s not right. Consular assistance is the full range of supports and advice that the Australian Government provides to an Australian citizen who is overseas in difficulty. It doesn’t matter whether we like him or not, he should get the same assistance as any other Australian.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Let’s move on now and look at this move by Andrew Leigh today in the Parliament calling for an apology from the Parliament to Peter Norman, who won the bronze medal in Mexico. The Australian sprinter who stood there and famously, I should say he won the silver medal, stood beside the gold medallist Tommie Smith and the bronze medallist John Carlos when they gave the Black Power salute. He stood there in solidarity with them wearing the Olympic Project for Human Rights badge. Should there be an apology to this man? Apparently he was blacklisted by the Australian authorities and didn’t make the 1972 team even though his times suggested he should have.
NICK CHAMPION:
Well I don’t know about apologising but I do think he should be recognised. It seems to me that he was a pretty good athlete and that he made a stand for human liberty, and those things should certainly be recognised by the Parliament. And where we can provide redress for any wrongs that were made at the time and perhaps excessive behaviour on the part of officialdom, I think we should.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Senator Fifield, what do you think?
MITCH FIFIELD:
You’ve got to respect anyone who wins an Olympic medal and I think if he was punished merely for wearing a badge, that’s unfair and it would be appropriate that be acknowledged. I haven’t seen the wording of Andrew Leigh’s particular motion but I do think that it would be appropriate to give some sort of recognition.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Do you think that he is a hero for showing solidarity for these gentlemen who exercised a campaign for civil rights?
NICK CHAMPION:
Well he probably is a hero and it’s just that we’re waiting around for the Parliament to recognise it, probably more to the point.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Dawn Fraser liberated a flag, I think, when she was in Japan and she remains a national icon and was forgiven. It might be time.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Let’s look at the education funding issue just quickly, we’ve only got a minute or two left. The Prime Minister has moved from the position that private schools will not be a dollar worse off to increasing funding. That’s her commitment this morning to obviously try and get the debate back into something where you believe it is the government’s strength.
NICK CHAMPION:
Well some of the top systems in the world are in our region and we’re not part of it. We need to be part of it, which is why we want to increase our funding. It’s an economic argument and not just an education one. And I go to poor schools in my electorate all the time and find them starved of resources and what this is all about is making sure that the kids in poorer areas get the resources they need to be skilled, to get high wage, high skilled jobs.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Senator Fifield, your thoughts to wrap up.
MITCH FIFIELD:
The Prime Minister should release the government’s full response to Gonski, including the modelling. I don’t trust her that there won’t be a schools hit list. She said that she wouldn’t means test the private health insurance rebate. She did. She said she wouldn’t introduce a carbon tax. She has. I don’t think she can be trusted or believed on this.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Senator Fifield and Nick Champion, gents good to see you. Have a good day.