Transcript – ABC24 Capital Hill – 27 September 2012

Capital Hill – ABC24

With Lyndal Curtis and Graham Perrett MP

27 September 2012

5.30pm

E & OE

LYNDAL CURTIS:

The Prime Minister this morning Australia-time gave her pitch for Australia to be granted one of the non-permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council. In her speech to the UN General Assembly she spoke about Australia’s record as an aid donor and as a peacekeeper. She expressed concern about Syria and about Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and praised the commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. Although achieving that target for Australia was delayed for a year in the May Budget. Australia’s success in its campaign for the seat won’t be known until the middle of next month. Joining me to discuss the day are Labor MP Graham Perrett and Liberal Senator Mitch Fifield. Welcome to you both. We’ll start with the Prime Minister’s speech to the General Assembly in New York.

JULIA GILLARD (file footage):

Australia condemns violence and we work for peace. We proudly take our full part in the work of the United Nations for peace and security. We stringently observe Security Council resolutions aimed at curtailing weapons proliferation activities like those of North Korea. We take the leading role in the UN-mandated mission in Timor-Leste. We lead the regional assistance mission to Solomon Islands which operates with the UN’s endorsement. And we have been the largest non-NATO contributor to the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Australia will bring this record of service to the international community to our service on the UN Security Council should we have the privilege to be elected by the UN membership in October.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Mitch if I could start with you, I just want to clarify, what is the Coalition’s position on the UN Security Council? Do you believe Australia should be running for a seat or shouldn’t?

MITCH FIFIELD:

We hope that Australia is successful in seeking a temporary seat on the UN Security Council. We’re supportive of the bid but we have had some concerns that the current government may have been tempted on occasion to skew some foreign policy decisions and some aid decisions in light of the bid. I think it’s always important to keep the Australian national interest and decisions about foreign policy separate from our lobbying. So we have had some concerns there. We’ve also had some concerns that there’s been a lack of continuity in the bid process. We’ve had a couple of prime ministers. We’ve had more than a couple of foreign ministers. I think it has suffered a bit in terms of continuity of application by the office holders. Hopefully we’ll be successful and if we are, I think it will be more than anything a tribute to our very professional staff in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Graham, if Australia gets a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council do you know exactly what the Government intends to do with that? What value will it be to Australia?

GRAHAM PERRETT:

Well Lyndal as Mitch indicated, it is a good thing to strive for. We are a trading nation, that’s first and foremost in terms of that determining the national interest. And where are we? We’re located between the Pacific and Asia, the two growth regions of the enxt century for the world. So we are ideally placed to benefit from that growth but also as a middle power to take advantage in terms of getting into services, trading opportunities that will make sure my grandchildren and my great grandchildren will have jobs in the future. So how do we do that? By engaging with the world, the other 200 nations around the world to make sure that Australia’s influence and our national interest are being advanced as much as possible. And how do you do that? By making sure that it’s a stable area, that trade is developed rather than getting into those protected little silos.  And how do you do that? By sitting at the table with the big boys, with the big people that make the decisions about what goes on in the world and that’s what the UN Security Council enables us to do.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Mitch, you talked about Australia’s foreign policy priorities being ‘skewed’ during the bid. Is that though still a good reason to have a strong commitment to multilateralism in this world?

MITCH FIFIELD:

We’re very committed to multilateralism but we’ve also taken the view that it doesn’t mean you don’t pursue bilateral relations where that is in Australia’s national interest. Clearly there’s a role for both. And as I said we have had some concerns that the government may have faced temptation to make calls on foreign policy issues that it otherwise might not have made had they not been seeking a seat on the UN Security Council.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Graham, as I mentioned in the introduction, the Prime Minister praised the Millenium Development Goals, which is raising aid funding I think to 0.5 percent. That was delayed in the last budget. The Prime Minister didn’t mention that in her speech to the UN did she?

GRAHAM PERRETT:

Obviously in terms of pitching to the world we reiterate our commitment to those MDGs but the reality is because of those budget constraints they’ve been delayed a year. Something that I was disappointed in at the time and many people in my electorate were disappointed in. however we are stil on track to achieve those. I’m not sure what Mitch was referring to in terms of some of our policy announcements. I’m certainly very proud with my education background in terms of Australia’s education investment throughout the world. We can hold our head up high not just in terms of keeping peace but in terms of building futures in countries like Pakistan, countries like Indonesia, countries like the Solomons where we’re stabilising and investing in education to create stability and training opportunities for the future.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Mitch, at a time when budgets are constrained is it still worthwhile pursuing that goal of lifting Australia’s contribution to overseas aid?

MITCH FIFIELD:

We’ve always had a strong bipartisan commitment in Australia to making a contribution to foreign aid. We know that if we create a more stable neighbourhood, we create a more stable world, if we help build the capacity of nations, even things as simple as helping to establish contract law, things like helping establish central banks in developing nations, all of these things help to make for a more stable world and we should be part of it.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

We might go now to matters much closer to home. Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce has decided that he won’t stand against sitting member Bruce Scott for the seat of Maranoa. That was one of the seat Senator Joyce was targeting for a possible move to the Lower House. The Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has welcomed Senator Joyce’s decision.

TONY ABBOTT (file footage):

The great thing about Barnaby’s decision to stay in the Senate is that he will remain a national voice. If Barnaby was running for Maranoa at the next election, almost inevitably he would be taken out of the main national campaign.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Mitch, is this a missed opportunity for the Coalition to renew itself because Bruce Scott is a long-serving member of the parliament but it’s reasonable to expect isn’t it that he wouldn’t get a frontbench position again, whereas Senator Joyce is on the frontbench now and people talk about him as a future leader of the National Party?

MITCH FIFIELD:

There’s no doubt Barnaby is one of the most gifted political communicators in Australia today. He’s also a conviction politician who has made a major contribution to public life and has a big future ahead of him. But I guess the good news out of the announcement is that we get to keep both Bruce Scott and Barnaby Joyce. Bruce Scott is someone who has been part of the glue that has kept the Coalition together. He is an ardent supporter of having a strong federal coalition and I think Barnaby deserves credit for putting the interests of the broader coalition ahead of his own personal ambitions. Ultimately these are internal matters for the LNP in Queensland but I think Barnaby deserves credit for putting the broader interests of the Coalition and the nation ahead of his own.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Is it true though as has been reported that there are some in the Liberal Party who look on with a bit of concern about a potential move by Senator Joyce to the Lower House because of concern for positions he’s taken on things like foreign investment?

MITCH FIFIELD:

I’ll speak for myself. I don’t have any concerns about Barnaby serving in either the Senate or the House of Representatives. As a senate colleague I’m delighted I’ll still have his company and contribution in the Australian Senate. Barnaby is a person who’s got ideas. He’s got strong ideas and he shares those and he debates those. And that’s what politics should be about. It should be a battle of ideas. Barnaby engages in that vigorously and I think that’s to the benefit of the nation and to the benefit of the federal Coalition. We’re not a Stalinist outfit. We don’t demand people to think particular things. Barnaby’s a sensible guy and he’s making a good contribution.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Graham you’re from Queensland. By this decision does the Coalition maximise its position by keeping Bruce Scott, a long-term sitting MP running for that seat and keeping Senator Joyce as someone who can go around the country and help lift the Coalition’s message?

GRAHAM PERRETT:

Well firstly I just take exception to Mitch’s suggestion that the Labor Party is in any way Stalinist. Stalin was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. I hope he’s not slurring my wonderful party with that reference. In terms of Barnaby, Barnaby’s role here in the Liberal National Party here in Queensland, I will say this. He’s actually a National Party senator who has an office in the bush. My home town of St George in fact. So that gives him a big tick in my book in terms of actually some of the Nationals seem to have deserted the bush and set up office in the ivory towers in the middle of the city. That’s not how a National Party should engage with the bush as far as I’m concerned. When I talk to my Labor-leaning friends in the bush they actually have a lot of good things to say about Barnaby. Good luck to him. I wish he’d go back into the economic portfolio and do a bit of that freelancing, I think that was a more exciting time in terms of economic policie is coming out of the Liberal and Nationals parties. They seem to have hidden their light under a bushel of late and I think Barnaby should be given back the economic portfolio that he held for five minutes.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

There is one question on economic management I’d like to ask you both. We’ve seen again the Opposition Leader make what he calls an ‘aspirational promise’ this week to lift defence spending by 3% real gross although he doesn’t spell out how that can be afforded. Mitch, is there worth to aspirational promises or should people wait until they can see when a promise is going to be delivered and see it spelled out in terms of funding before they actually believe it will be delivered?

MITCH FIFIELD:

The thing is Lyndal we don’t know what our starting point is going to be when we form office if we’re successful at the next election. We don’t know what we’re going to inherit from the Labor Party. As we know, every final budget outcome is almost always worse, certainly no better, than that which was predicted in the budget itself. Tony is being upfront. We do have an aspiration to increase defence spending back to the 3% real growth but we’ve got to wait and see what we inherit as to the timeframe we adopt to meet that objective.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Graham, is it fair enough to regard some of the promises that your side is making, while you’re saying you’re committed to them we haven’t yet seen how you’ll pay for the Gonski reforms or pay for the disability insurance scheme?

GRAHAM PERRETT:

With respect we have a $1 billion on the table right now in terms of the NDIS and a strong commitment, fair dinkum dollars in the mix already in terms of Gonski. So in terms of that pecking order of aspirational versus blood oath without blood versus rock solid and iron clad guarantee, I’m not sure how they stack up in terms of where we should engage the promises of Tony Abbott. I reckon he should send his accountants out to the treasury office, to the budget honesty office, get them costed, and then the people of Australia can have a fair dinkum look at them instead of just useless words.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

And that’s where we’ll have to leave it. Graham Perrett, Mitch Fifield, thank you for your time.