ABC 891

SUBJECTS: Asylum seekers; Farrell pities Wong; Weatherill’s Murray stunt

E&OE……………

Journalist: Mark Butler Minister for Mental Health and ageing joins us every Wednesday.

Journalist: Good morning Matt and Dave and Christopher if he is there.

Journalist: Yes Christopher Pyne, Liberal MP for Sturt and Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Reps. Good morning Christopher Pyne.

Pyne: Good morning gentlemen and Mark, I’m a hard man to keep down, I’m definitely going to be here.

Journalist: Yes, yes I know. Mark Butler, how does … how do you from the left now manage this big somersault on excising Australia for the purpose of immigration laws when you launched such an outraged assault on John Howard for doing precisely the same thing.

Butler: Well I wasn’t in the Parliament then but I very clearly remember the debate and it was a very vigorous debate around the excision of territories and the mainland for the purposes of legal protections or legal avenues people seeking asylum might have but I think the point to make and the point Chris Bowen has made is that the world is different now. We have learned a lot, the people smugglers operations have changed quite dramatically.

Journalist: Well you’ve learned a lot. You’re Government have been slow learners.

Butler: But we’ve all learned a lot but the people smuggler operations have changed dramatically over the last ten or twelve years. Every time any government whether it’s the Howard Government, Rudd or Gillard Governments have tried to take a measure to stop the boats, the boat, the people smugglers have changed their operations and gotten around those measures.

Journalist: If that’s changed so much, why are you going back to a solution that’s ten years old?

Butler: Well we’re not going back to a solution that’s ten years old we’re going in a path recommended by the panel headed by Angus Houston and that panel, a very diverse panel, recommended that very clearly, the Government and the Parliament should adopt all of their recommendations as a package. That to cherry pick recommendations would run the risk of diluting the efficiency, the effectiveness of the package. This was one recommendation and also, I think it’s important as Chris Bowen said yesterday that if you are taking measures around the off shore islands, particularly Christmas, you don’t want to set up an incentive that the rickety boats particularly coming from Sri Lanka and Indonesia will try and chart a path or a course to reach the mainland and put themselves in even more danger than trying to get to Christmas.

Journalist: Chris Pyne, Mark Butler is now relying on you in his defence.

Pyne: Well the only thing that’s changed …..

Butler: I think I relied on Angus Houston ….

Pyne: The only thing that’s changed in the last few years gentlemen is that the Labor Party abandoned the Howard Government’s policies on border protection and there’s been a massive influx of illegal arrivals bought by people smugglers since and it’s killing the Government in the electorate and they know it and of course it’s also led to over a thousand deaths of people who would otherwise have not have died because they came to get to Australia in order to get permanent residency. Mark Butler and his Government created these weasel words around the concept that the people smugglers model has changed. The only thing that’s changed is the Government gave them a green light to come to Australia and the Government can’t cope with it any longer.

Journalist: Do you intend to support, does the Coalition intend to support excising the entire mainland from the Migration Act?

Pyne: Well the Government is implementing one of the Howard Government’s policies I mean the Labor Party have totally somersaulted. Yes well I assume we will have to go through our Party processes and that hasn’t been completed yet but the Government is rushing this through the Parliament. I assume …

Journalist: How many people actually make it to the mainland?

Pyne: I assume given that they are implemented one of the Howard Government’s policies we would not be opposing it.

Journalist: So that’s a yes. Next question, how many people actually make it to the mainland?

Pyne: Well I don’t know the exact figures on that. Scott Morrison the Shadow Minister for Immigration would know exactly.

Journalist: Well the Coalition and the Labor Party are going to support this, it’s going to have bi-partisan support oughtn’t we to know how many people actually make it to the mainland?

Butler: Well I can answer that. It’s not a great number. Only a couple of hundred have so far but the point is they have been charting a course towards Christmas which is a lot closer. What we’re concerned about is that if particular arrangements recommended by the Houston panel are put in place in relation to the off shore islands that the people smugglers will change their operations to try and chart a course for the mainland. So what we’ve done is follow the recommendations of Houston that we need to treat the mainland and the off shore islands equally otherwise there will be an incentive for the couple of hundred who have reached the main land so far in the last few years to increase dramatically and as your listeners would appreciate the journey from Indonesia for example to the mainland is a far more perilous journey, even than the journey from Indonesia to Christmas.

Journalist: Mark Butler are you saddened or delighted that the vote of the rank and file of the Labor Party to put Don Farrell at number one on the Senate ticket is going to be over turned?

Butler: Oh well, I don’t feel either of those emotions. As I think I said to you last week I intended to go to a convention on the weekend and vote for Penny Wong for a host of reasons including her performance, her outstanding performance as a Minister. I also as you know have a very high regard for Don Farrell I think they together are a great ticket. I think what Don did yesterday on your programme and congratulations on what became a national scoop. I think what Don did yesterday was extraordinarily graceful and very much something in the interests broadly in the Party and that’s consistent with the Don Farrell I’ve known for 15 years.

Pyne: If I might comment on that briefly on that, I think Don Farrell has had the best week of his political life. He has consumed an exquisitely delicious dish, that being Penny Wong’s political career. He’s humiliated her twice in one week.

Journalist: How so?

Pyne: He humiliated her Saturday in the vote where he defeated a Cabinet Minister for number one on the ticket and then out of pity, out of pity for Penny Wong, stood aside to allow her to take the first spot. I think Don Farrell’s had the most marvellous week of his political life.

Journalist: It wasn’t out of pity.

Pyne: Of course it was out of pity.

Journalist: It wasn’t out of pity. It might have been out of pressure because it was a bad look but he didn’t do it out of pity.

Pyne: Penny Wong lost on Saturday. Don Farrell and the Right would have known she was always going to lose.

Journalist: You think he felt sorry for her.

Pyne: He would have known before Saturday the impact that would have had, given the Labor Party has been running this confected outrage about sexism and yet he went ahead. He always planned to stand down by Wednesday.

Journalist: And Chris Pyne, you’ve got Cory Bernardi number one on your ticket over a Coalition frontbencher in Simon Birmingham and he’s been relegated to the backbench because of a speech he gave, where he’s concerned recognising and legalising gay marriage could lead to recognising relationships between humans and animals.

Pyne: When Cory Bernardi won the first spot on the Senate ticket, he was the senior person on that ticket. When Penny Wong was defeated by Don Farrell on Saturday she was a Cabinet Minister and he was a little known Parliamentary Secretary and then on Tuesday he out of pity for her because he felt sorry for her he stood aside and let her have the job.

Journalist: Just before you leave us, Jay Weatherill’s turning up to your electorate office in Adelaide when you’re in Canberra putting the hard word on you. He makes a valid point though doesn’t he? Will the Coalition back in the Murray Darling Basin plan or are you going to fracture?

Pyne: Well honestly, if Jay Weatherill wasn’t such a weakling, he’d turn up to my electorate office when he knows I am not in Canberra.

Journalist: You think he’s scared of you?

Pyne: He talks tough in the locker room but he’s a weakling on the field.

Journalist: Are you saying he’s scared of you?

Pyne: He knows I’m in Canberra, he knows I’m in Canberra and he scurries off to my electorate office when he knows I’m not there he walks in and picks on my poor old electorate office staff!

Journalist: Are you going to tell him to ‘put up his dukes’?

Pyne: It’s so pathetic. He should save his stunts for the Christmas Pageant. He should go across the blue line and join the Pageant.

Journalist: Is the coalition going to fracture on the Murray Darling Basin plan or are you going to support it?

Pyne: We will not fracture because the Coalition’s always supported more water for the Murray Darling Basin. I was talking about a National plan for the Murray Darling Basin before Jay Weatherill was even elected to Parliament!

Journalist: Christopher Pyne thank you for your time, Liberal MP for Sturt, Manager of Opposition Business and before that Mark Butler Labor MP for Port Adelaide and Minister for Mental Health and Ageing.

ENDS