ABC 891

SUBJECTS: Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse; Newspoll

E&OE…………

Journalist: Mark Butler is Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, good morning to you Mark Butler and thank you for waiting.

Mark Butler: Morning. How are you?

Journalist: Very well and Christopher Pyne, Liberal MP for Sturt and Shadow Minister for Education. Welcome.

Christopher Pyne: Good morning gentlemen.

Journalist: And Christopher Pyne if we can start with you, we’ll come to Mark Butler in a moment, but picking up on this question of the confessional. You are now courting the suggestion that the confessional should be not off limits to the law.

Pyne: Well I’m not courting the suggestion and it’s not now. I’ve always been of the view and I assume most people would be of the view that as a Member of Parliament I would advise anyone, whether they are a priest in confessional or a friend over the kitchen sink, who becomes aware of a crime and especially a crime against a minor, to report it to the appropriate authorities.

Journalist: But should it be against the law if you don’t?

Pyne: Well in some state jurisdictions, of course, it is. It’s both a legal obligation and a moral obligation so New South Wales for example…

Journalist: And federally? Should it be consistent legislation?

Pyne: Well the federal government is not responsible for the Crimes Act in each state. So just dealing with it entirely factually, I believe it is a moral obligation on anyone who becomes aware of sexual abuse of children to report that to the appropriate authorities. Whether it is a legal obligation, and in some jurisdictions it already is…

Journalist: OK but do you think that each of the state jurisdictions should change the law to make it illegal not to report child sexual abuse or any sexual abuse that has emerged during a confession?

Pyne: Well that is a matter for each state but it would be a very hard crime to, of course, police because if a priest is told in a confessional about a sexual abuse of a minor and decides not to report that I don’t think the person telling them is going to report it either.

Journalist: Mark Butler do…

Pyne: Just one other point. I also think it is utterly intolerable quite frankly to expect priests who do find out about the sexual abuse of a minor to not report that to the police and to somehow keep that to themselves. I mean, that is an intolerable burden on both parties.

Journalist: Mark Butler, what’s your view on this?

Butler: Look I agree with Christopher. The immediate question I guess before us is not really about what the State Parliaments do about their Crimes Act but it’s what is going to happen with the Royal Commission that the Prime Minister announced this week and this is going to be a live debate. There are principles like the separation of Church and State but I lean towards the fundamental principle that the rights of a child and the interests of a child must be paramount in this. I think the fundamental principle is we approach the development of the terms of reference for this Royal Commission have got to be no more secrets. No more cover ups. You know, there is work to do talking to victims groups and the churches and the states and territories in developing these terms of reference. But the driving principle of this Royal Commission has to be no more secrets.

Journalist: Are you concerned that this Royal Commission while it remains an open-ended thing, we haven’t got the terms of reference, is going to raise all sorts of expectations and the Prime Minister needs to act swiftly in order to set the terms of reference so that people don’t have expectations that can’t be met?

Butler: Well look, we could probably have drafted some terms of reference this week but she thought and I agree that it’s important that particularly we talk to states and territories, most importantly to victims groups but also to the institutions that will be the subject of this Royal Commission. We are going to do that fairly quickly, the Prime Minister has committed to that being done by Christmas and I think it is important that we be realistic about what the scope of this Commission is going to be. I think inevitably and probably justifiably there are going to be expectations that victims and their families have that they’re going to have, so to speak, their day in court, that they’re going to have justice, that they’re going to have the capacity to talk about things that have been covered up for years and in some cases decades. And I think we should be very open about that. I think the Mulligan Inquiry proceeded on that basis in South Australia which is why it was such a successful inquiry.

Journalist: Chris Pyne Liberal MP for Sturt at 5 minutes to 9, the latest Newspoll shows that Julia Gillard’s attack on Tony Abbott has taken its toll and it’s particularly interesting to look at the dissatisfaction rating more so than the satisfaction rating of Tony Abbott, I think it’s 63%. That’s very high even for an Opposition leader. Is there talk that A: Tony Abbott should have a long rest and get out of the media a bit over Christmas or B: time for a change?

Pyne: Well in the last three months, Matthew, the Labor Party have done two things, they have pursued a relentlessly negative campaign against Tony Abbott trying to vilify his personal character in a most vicious, sort of UK/US style political campaign which would have an effect there’s no doubt about that and secondly of course they have tried to create a blizzard of distraction with every issue under the sun other than cost of living, job security, border protection, economic management and the Prime Minister’s integrity and so of course that has shifted the political debate. But I think the real story of course is that the Labor Party thinks it has gotten away with the carbon tax. They’re congratulating themselves about the implementation of the carbon tax. Now there’s a saying of course that killing the first time is hard, killing the second and third times is relatively easy and so of course now Labor is in a situation where Labor thinks they’ve got away with introducing one tax after the election, whatever they say before the election, one will assume they’ll introduce more such taxes to fill their revenue black hole.

Journalist: Mark Butler?

Butler: Ah the latest scare campaign. I don’t agree with your characterisation Matt and Dave that the drop in approval rating was a result of the Labor Party having a campaign against him. I think what it is, is that the public have seen through now 24 months of relentless negativity and have seen that there’s no policy behind it. That’s really what’s been driving the approval ratings of Tony Abbott, but we’re not celebrating the latest polls, we’re still behind in the polls. We have got a lot of work to do…

Journalist: Well its 50-50

Butler: Sorry?

Journalist: Well at 49-51 at the last one

Journalist: So the margin for error, you’re basically 50-50…

Journalist: …has been for 2 months now.

Butler: Well some polls are saying we’re closer to 47/48 per cent two-party preferred. We’ve got a lot of work to do which is why we’re focussed on some very serious policy developments to work through in the next twelve months.

Journalist: How are people going to believe Julia Gillard when she is inevitably asked the question in the next federal election are you going to introduce anymore taxes, any new taxes and she’s going to say no, no and people will say why should we believe you?

Butler: Without trawling over history, Julia Gillard was very clear in the 2010 Election as we were in 2007 that we would introduce an Emissions Trading Scheme and that is what we have done, is have got a fixed price for a period of time…

Journalist: She said no carbon tax…

Butler: It will then move to an Emissions Trading Scheme with a floating price which is the policy that John Howard had in the 2007 election, the policy that Malcolm Turnbull had before Tony Abbott cut him down and replaced him as leader. This is an unremarkable thing.

Journalist: Alright Mark Butler, thank you.

Butler: Thank you very much.

Journalist: As we all know the test will be in the election campaign. Mark Butler Labor MP for Port Adelaide and Christopher Pyne Liberal MP for Sturt, thank you Christopher Pyne.

ENDS