26 November, 2012
Sky News AM Agenda
With Kieran Gilbert and Nick Champion MP
26 November 2012
8:45am
E & OE
Subjects: AWU slush fund, asylum seekers
KIERAN GILBERT:
Joining me now Liberal frontbencher Senator Mitch Fifield and Labor MP Nick Champion. Gentlemen, good to see you. This is going to be a torrid final week of Parliament I don’t think there’s much debate about that. We saw it already with Mr Albanese and Mr Pyne. Would it be easier if the Prime Minister just came out and made a statement and cleared the decks as she did in August, because there does seem to be a lot of speculation around this issue once again?
NICK CHAMPION:
Well the only reason it’s going to be torrid Kieran is because the Opposition are deliberately making it so. And rather than debating policy which is what my constituency wants, they want to know about the car industry and about broadband, and about health and jobs. Instead, we’re discussing events that happened seventeen years ago. The Prime Minister has already had an hour long press conference and she exhausted all the questions that were to be made. On Friday she took every question, every question at a press conference until they were all done. You know, at some point the Opposition just has to let go of this and accept that there’s nothing there and get back to the real job that we’re elected to do, which is to talk about policy.
KIERAN GILBERT:
We’re seeing these former union figures coming out, Ralph Blewitt last week and then Bruce Wilson’s counter intervention. Isn’t it just better for the Prime Minister to take on the issues, the questions that are being raised by the Coalition and deal with them? Deal with them forensically, categorically and be done with it.
NICK CHAMPION:
Well sure you’ve got people coming out and talking about this matter but as I said before, the Prime Minister had a press conference, answered every question. She answered every question on Friday when she had a press conference. Journalists are free to ask her questions and she has answered them. And I just think the Opposition are clinging to this and trying to make it into something that it’s not because they haven’t got any policies and what policies they do have, their industrial relations policy, is kept in a locked draw so we can’t have a debate on it.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Senator Fifield is there a point where the Coalition does need to say ok enough with that issue, people do want to focus on the bread and butter issues education, schools, disability insurance which I know you’re very close to.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Absolutely. And we’re talking about all of those things. But it’s important to recognise here that this story, these questions are being driven by the Labor movement. It’s Mr Styant-Browne and it’s Mr Blewitt who are posing questions. This isn’t the creation of the Liberal Party. This comes from the Labor movement. I certainly haven’t been following this as forensically as Julie Bishop, George Brandis and Eric Abetz but just as a regular member of parliament, one of the questions which hasn’t been answered as far as I’m aware, is why the Prime Minister, who by her own admission says that she established a slush fund. And that’s her description slush fund. Why she established a slush fund where the account title, the AWU Workplace Reform Association, was at odds with the intended purpose of the account. Now the Prime Minister has not answered that.
KIERAN GILBERT:
You don’t think that that was a valid answer that she gave, because that was one of the things put to her in the news conference in August, where she did respond to it that she had seen that as part of the aim of getting these people back into their roles?
MITCH FIFIELD:
She has not answered why the intended purpose of the account, a slush fund to get union officials re-elected, was at odds with the account title. AWU Workplace Reform Association is very different to a slush fund. That is intended to make the account look like it is a legitimate bona fide account of the Union. It was not. She has not explained the discrepancy between the purpose of the slush fund and the account title. And the other thing that she hasn’t come clean on is that she, again by her own admission, says that she was a little unsettled by some of Mr Wilson’s activities and they parted ways. But she has never said what she knew. She has never said when she knew it. And she has never said what she did with that information that she had. She needs to answer those questions. They’re legitimate questions. And it’s not just the Opposition who are asking them. They’re primarily being driven by figures in the union movement.
KIERAN GILBERT:
This gentleman Bruce Wilson yesterday spoke and it was in the Sunday papers saying that categorically, the Prime Minister knew absolutely nothing. Ministers came out and said that that was it, story over. But isn’t that a bit rich given that last week when Ralph Blewitt spoke, ministers were questioning his credibility because of his involvement in the whole scandal and the other chap is also a central figure in it. And yet you’re willing to take his word and not the other?
NICK CHAMPION:
Well I’m not sure of what was said to whom and which journalists talked to which minister and what not but all I can say is the Prime Minister had a press conference, answered all the questions there, had one on Friday and all the Liberal Party can do is like a dog returning to its own vomit. They keep coming back to this. That’s all they do because they haven’t got any policies or haven’t done the policy detail around the NDIS and a whole range of issues. And Eric Abetz, you mentioned him before, he should be having an industrial relations debate, which we all know the Liberal Party are desperate to have but they want to have it at a time of their advantage so they can get stuck into workers overtime rate, their penalty rates, their job security.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Not true. Not true.
NICK CHAMPION:
That is the whole reason that we haven’t seen their industrial relations policy because they want to do it in government and they’ll be cutting an onion, slice by slice. And that’s what they’ll do to worker’s wages, slice by slice by slice.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Do you think that there is a point though, going back to an earlier issue, where people do want a focus on the policies? That this argument that something that happened two decades ago is just beyond many people, they’re over it and they want to talk about things that affect them?
MITCH FIFIELD:
I think the Australian people want an opposition that walks and chews gum at the same time. That fully does both parts of its job. That holds the government of the day to account, which we are seeking to do, and that also presents an alternative vision for the nation. And we’re doing both of those things.
KIERAN GILBERT:
What do you think about the argument that on the TPVs, on the temporary protection issue, that if the Coalition is going to introduce legislation along those lines, why not allow the Government to adopt its full suite of policies? If you’re demanding that on the one hand, why not say ok, let’s try Malaysia as well, let’s try everything because the system is broken.
MITCH FIFIELD:
We know what works. We know that a combination of temporary protection visas, offshore processing and turning back the boats where it’s safe to do so works. We’ve seen over the past five years the Government try things their way. We’ve seen them dismantle systematically our policies and we saw the effect there. We’ve now seen this Government fundamentally introduce those elements of the Houston package which they decided to embrace. They back-flipped on many things. We’ve seen them try a number of different things. They’ve had their way and it hasn’t worked. It’s time for the Government to adopt our policies that they know work.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Why not try them and be done with it, because clearly at the moment the whole thing is dysfunctional.
NICK CHAMPION:
Well what we’ve just heard Kieran is a history lesson, not a policy discussion.
MITCH FIFIELD:
You’ve got to learn from history.
NICK CHAMPION:
I’ll answer the question. Last week the Opposition Leader was out there calling these arrivals illegal. And it beggars belief that you would use that language and then propose to give these people working rights, which is what you would do under TPVs you would give all these people the right to work. And I think what is becoming apparent, what is a new thing that is becoming apparent, is that people smugglers are telling these people to go to Australia, you’ll get to work for a couple of years and you can send that money home. And that is a very big problem because the money that they send home might fund their families and stuff but it might fund the next wave of arrivals. So we’ve got to be very, very careful. It’s an evolving picture and I think you have to be careful about TPVs, and that’s one of the reasons why you have to be careful of them, but what we need to do, what we need to get back to is to have the Malaysian transfer agreement put to the parliament and the Opposition should just vote for it. It’s got a sunset clause in there; it will expire in a year. Let the Government try its policy.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Tony Windsor says that all parliamentarians should be ashamed with the nature of the debate, that it’s veiled with racism. Do you agree with him?
NICK CHAMPION:
Look I’m not sure I agree with him that it’s veiled with racism. I think politicians have to be careful about this debate because we don’t want to throw out the very good things about multiculturalism and the good things about the people who have come here as refugees and gone on to contribute great things to this country. But we do have to stop this trade in people and we do have to stop boats sinking, because it’s dangerous not just for the people on those boats but for our defence forces and our customs officers.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Senator what do you say to this view of Tony Windsor that MPs should be ashamed of the nature of this debate?
MITCH FIFIELD:
I’m completely over the sanctimony of independents in this parliament. This is a pretty clear cut case. We didn’t have, essentially, boat arrivals in Australia until this Government dismantled our policies.
NICK CHAMPION:
That’s not true.
MITCH FIFIELD:
We’ve had 30,000 people arrive in the country illegally, because it is contrary to the law to arrive without a valid visa. That’s a fact. 30,000 people arrive, 500 boats and these guys want us to trust them. These guys want us to trust them.
NICK CHAMPION:
Back to the history lesson.
MITCH FIFIELD:
No, we’re saying introduce the policies which are proven. Which we know work.
NICK CHAMPION:
Why don’t you just answer the point I just made about TPVs giving these people working rights and these working rights funding remittances.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Sure. Many of those people would end up becoming permanent residents in Australia. Do we really want them to spend one, two, three, four, five years sitting on their butts being welfare dependent? I don’t think that makes for good citizens.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Senator Fifield, Nick Champion, thank you for a robust discussion as always. Appreciate it. Have a good day.