ABC 891

SUBJECTS: National security; Indonesia. DAVID BEVAN: Every Wednesday we talk to two significant men in the Federal Parliament and in the life of this country’s national affairs. Mark Butler is a Labor MP for Port Adelaide and shadow spokesman for the Environment and Climate Change… senior person in the Federal Opposition. Good morning, Mark Butler… MARK BUTLER: Morning, David. DAVID BEVAN: … and Christopher Pyne, Liberal Member for Sturt, Education minister and manager of government business in the House… good morning, Christopher Pyne. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning, David and Mark. DAVID BEVAN: Gentlemen, we’ve had a lot of text traffic this morning and a few calls, quite a few, regarding this spy scandal with Indonesia and some people… well, I’d say the majority of the calls that we’ve had are from people saying ‘we shouldn’t apologise; in fact, we should start getting a bit tough with Indonesia’, which some of our listeners think is being a bit precious here. How about withdrawing some of our aid, something like $500-$600 million of Australian aid goes to Indonesia. Christopher Pyne, how do you respond to those people? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I think we should respond very calmly and sensibly to this current situation. The Prime Minister’s made it perfectly clear that our approach will be not to comment on intelligence issues and national security issues, that we will always protect Australia’s national interest and respect Indonesia, of course – they have a very important relationship with us which we both value – and the Labor Party agrees with that bipartisan approach. The issues that are being discussed, of course, occurred in 2009 but that hasn’t made any difference to the way that the Coalition Government has responded because intelligence and national security issues are above politics. DAVID BEVAN: Although Bill Shorten says you should apologise and move on in the same way that Barack Obama apologised to Angela Merkel. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I’m not sure exactly what Bill Shorten has said. I mean, apparently in the Parliament yesterday… well, I was there… in the Parliament yesterday he said we should do the same things as the Americans did but then his office… I heard this morning, on Fran Kelly’s program on the ABC, his office backed away from that and said he hadn’t meant that at all, so I’m not quite sure what Bill Shorten’s position is. DAVID BEVAN: Mark Butler, what is Bill Shorten’s position? MARK BUTLER: Well, can I say first of all that Christopher’s right – intelligence matters for decades now have been completely separate from party politics in Australia and I think that’s a very, very good thing. There is a very bipartisan consensus around the convention not to discuss intelligence-gathering activities publicly and that will remain the case for many, many years to come, I’m sure, but I think it’s important to appreciate just how unprecedented these revelations from Mr Snowden are that are reverberating around the world. I mean, the scale of the revelations, the volume of the material, that he’s releasing in a very arbitrary fashion, I think is quite unprecedented and countries all across the world are having to come to grips with this in a very new way. What Bill Shorten said yesterday I think was really important… to say that, well, we’re going to support the Government very strongly with the shared objective of making sure we continue with a very strong relationship with one of our most important partners – I mean, almost a quarter of a billion people living very close to our north – and we’re not going to be prescriptive about the way in which Prime Minister Abbott and the rest of the Government should respond to this because they’ll have a whole range of sources of advice in front of them that we just don’t have access to. What Bill… DAVID BEVAN: Should Tony Abbott apologise? MARK BUTLER: Well, Bill didn’t say that yesterday. I think what Bill did say in the Parliament was in this very unprecedented situation that countries across the world have found themselves with the volume of material that Snowden has released we do have a case study in the way in which President Obama dealt with a revelation with a close partner of America’s, namely Germany. Now, we’re not saying that that should be replicated entirely here but it is a case study that makes a useful starting point. DAVID BEVAN: Well, which bit? Should Tony Abbott do what Barack Obama did and that is ring up the Indonesian President and say ‘look, I’m really sorry’? MARK BUTLER: No, Bill Shorten’s been quite clear about this. We’re not going to be prescriptive about what the Government should do. We’re going to get behind the Government to make sure that Australia, as a nation, continues with a strong relationship with Indonesia. All that Bill said – and I think this is sound – is that the Obama situation is a good starting point. DAVID BEVAN: But isn’t that what Barack Obama did? And you’re saying you should look to the Barack Obama example. MARK BUTLER: As a starting point. Now… DAVID BEVAN: Well, what does that mean? MARK BUTLER: … we don’t have access to the information that the Prime Minister and his ministers like Julie Bishop and others have about the precise circumstances of what happened in 2009. We just don’t have access to that information or back-channel discussions with Indonesia. This is a matter… DAVID BEVAN: You could ask Kevin Rudd. MARK BUTLER: This is a matter that Tony Abbott is going to have to respond to as the PM and Bill Shorten made it very clear in the Parliament yesterday that we would support the Government very strongly in the shared objective of retaining a strong relationship with Indonesia. DAVID BEVAN: Christopher Pyne, Bob Katter can’t believe that the PM is just not dumping a big bucket on Labor and blaming them and moving on. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, after listening to Mark Butler, I must say I’m still none the wiser as to what the Labor Party’s position is with respect to this so-called apology but, putting that to one side, Tony Abbott is responding as a Prime Minister should, in a statesmanlike way, and he’s made it quite clear… DAVID BEVAN: He hasn’t improved the situation, has he, because the Indonesian President is tweeting? He’s not even picking up the phone and talking. There’s nothing through the ambassador… he’s withdrawn his ambassador… the ultimate insult… he’s sending you a tweet saying ‘I’m really upset with Tony Abbott’. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look, it’s a very unfortunate situation – there’s no doubt about that – and the only way that the Australian Government can respond is the way that it has responded. Obviously we wouldn’t ask any other country to apologise to us and we’re not going to apologise for anything but we obviously want to rebuild a strong relationship with Indonesia and I think there’s every prospect that that will happen. We have far too many shared objectives to go our separate ways and we are, as Marty Natalegawa said… the Foreign minister in Indonesia… he said himself ‘we are like family’ because of the closeness of our geographic proximity and our relationship going back many decades, so obviously we will be able to rebuild that relationship. DAVID BEVAN: Should the ABC have broadcast this story, Christopher Pyne? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I don’t believe so but that’s a matter for the ABC. DAVID BEVAN: Mark Butler? MARK BUTLER: Well, I think I agree with Christopher on that being a matter for the ABC. I think it’s incredibly important that the ABC and other branches of the media make their own decisions about this and that they not be decisions that are subject to interference by government. Independent media’s a very important pillar of our democracy and the ABC has to own that decision. DAVID BEVAN: Yeah, well, you want an independent ABC but should the ABC have exercised its independence in this way? MARK BUTLER: Well, I think that’s a matter for the ABC. DAVID BEVAN: You can disagree with the ABC and still allow them to be independent. MARK BUTLER: I can. Look, I think ultimately these matters will come out. Again, as I said, this is quite an unprecedented situation that countries across the world are finding themselves in and whether it’s the ABC or The Guardian or some other online sort of forum, these things are tending to come out and so I think, you know, rather than focus on whether Mark Scott should have made a different decision, or someone else, I think what we need to focus on is how we deal with the consequences of these revelations that are coming out from Snowden. DAVID BEVAN: Do you think it’ll be over soon? MARK BUTLER: I’m not sure whether that was to me, David, but, look, I just don’t know how much material Snowden has and what he intends to do with sort of rolling them out. I think, you know, this is, as I said, no country has confronted the volume of material that he’s putting out across the world. It’s quite unprecedented. DAVID BEVAN: Mark Butler, thank you for time… MARK BUTLER: Thanks, David. DAVID BEVAN: … and, Christopher Pyne… Liberal MP for Sturt, Education minister and manager of government business in the House… thank you very much, Chris Pyne. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s a pleasure, thank you. Ends