Bolt Report

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview – The Bolt Report
14 June 2015

SUBJECTS: Shorten and the Royal Commission into Trade Union, anti-terror legislation.

ANDREW BOLT: Alas, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten refuses to come on this show. But the moment he agrees, I’ll let him put his side of the story. But someone who will come on is Christopher Pyne, Education Minister and Acting Minister for Employment. Thanks for your time. What is the central allegation you make against Bill Shorten in this – this workplace stuff?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Andrew, the important claim that needs to be refuted by Bill Shorten is what Winslow Constructions got in relation to their payment to the AWU. Now, businesses don’t give money to unions because they like the cut of the jib of the union secretary, or the smile on their face. They pay money to unions to get consideration in return. And what Bill Shorten hasn’t explained is what was that consideration, because if it was workers getting lower rates of pay, or having their penalty rates traded away, as in the case of Cleanevent, then that’s a very serious matter. Because as a union leader, rather than standing up for workers, he was – the claim is he was allowing their pay and conditions to be less than they should have been. So that’s the central component – what did Winslow Constructions get in relation for their payments to the union?

ANDREW BOLT: But isn’t Winslow Construction, you know – the alternative for them was that the CFMEU might come in. Now, that was a very hard-line union. And Bill Shorten may not have traded away anything other than the conditions that were necessary in order to keep the business viable, so, you know, CFMEU didn’t come in and destroy the joint. Is that not a legitimate thing for him to do?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Andrew, if that’s true, why didn’t the AWU and Winslow Constructions simply call the $225,000 worth of so-called “safety payments” the ALP membership payments? Now this is hard to explain. If this was so above-board, and there was no reason for anybody to try and hide it, why did Winslow Constructions describe their payments to the AWU as for safety training, when they were actually being used for ALP memberships? And was this during the battle within the Victorian ALP for the heart and soul of a number of pre-selections, one of which Bill Shorten won in Maribyrnong, Richard Marles won in Corio, Stephen Conroy was a warlord at the time in the Victorian ALP right. I mean, these memberships played into power within the Victorian ALP, to defeat other ALP figures. Who benefitted from that? These are the questions that Bill Shorten needs to answer, and just this patter, “I won’t give a running commentary on the Royal Commission”, doesn’t cut the mustard.

ANDREW BOLT: Cabinet leaks – you’re one of the ministers quoted as being against plans to strip citizenship from Australians involved in terrorism, if it made them stateless. How can you be confident now, that when you go into Cabinet, what you say won’t be in the papers the very next day?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, that’s a very good question, Andrew, and it makes, you know, being in Cabinet something that, while I enjoy it immensely, one does need to be careful what they’re going to say, if it’s going to end up in the newspapers. Now, that’s not the way government should operate, and I’m pleased to say we did have a very frank Cabinet meeting a couple of weeks ago where these points were made. The Prime Minister described it as a “come to Jesus” moment. And I think, hopefully, all of my Cabinet colleagues recognise that, for government to operate successfully, we must be able to trust each other and work together, and I think that’s definitely what you’ll see in the future.

ANDREW BOLT: Yeah, but something in your answer seemed to suggest that you would be wary about opening your mouth. Is this going to damage the frankness of the debate now?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I don’t think it’ll damage the frankness of the debate. I mean, I have a quite colourful turn of phrase at times. I might curb that colourful turn of phrase, because sadly, it seems very quotable in the media when people want to leak it. I think you’ll just be very careful about what you say, but it won’t change the points that I will make in the Cabinet.

ANDREW BOLT: The plan to strip citizenship from Australians suspected of terrorism by a minister – that’s based in part from advice from Bret Walker, one of the Government’s top experts on national security law. He says the Government has misread his advice. He says he always meant that terrorism suspects should only lose their citizenship following a court conviction. Do you think the Government should follow that advice?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Andrew, there’s always risk involved in every decision like this, every piece of legislation, particularly around national security, and the interpretation that the courts will put on our legislation, and the power that the Government is giving itself, or giving the Parliament. So government’s a lot about mitigating that risk. We believe that the legislation that we’ve – that we will be introducing in the next fortnight, to strip dual citizens who are foreign fighters of their Australian citizenship, mitigates that risk as far as humanly possible. In the end, that’ll be a matter for the High Court to decide, should it be litigated in the High Court. And the other matter, of course, which was the one where only Australian citizens have their citizenship stripped from them, is something that’s actually under discussion. Philip Ruddock and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells are leading that discussion. That is not yet decided.

ANDREW BOLT: Yeah, but you were obviously against that, and a lot of people from the left of the Liberal Party, but also conservatives like Cory Bernardi and me, are worried about whether that should be a decision of the minister, or whether that should be a decision of a court, and I suspect that you are on the court side of the argument. Are you happy with the legislation, the draft legislation that’s apparently going to come to Parliament soon?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I’m happy with the draft legislation in relation to the dual citizens, because of course, dual citizens would not be made stateless by having their Australian citizenship removed.

ANDREW BOLT: No, there were two aspects. That bit, put that to one side.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yeah.

ANDREW BOLT: It’s whether a minister makes the call, rather than a court.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I think the Institute of Public Affairs, Tim Wilson, yourself, many others, have expressed reservations about that matter on its own, and that’s why the discussion is happening at a national level about where that matter ends up, and I don’t think that is yet resolved.

ANDREW BOLT: And you say Tim Wilson, me – and Christopher Pyne as well?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I mean, this is a matter for national discussion. As a member of the Cabinet, it would be unwise of me to pre-empt the final decision of the Cabinet. So I will continue to keep my counsel within the Cabinet, and hope that it doesn’t leak into the newspapers, Andrew.

ANDREW BOLT: Well, good on you! Well, let me put it this way then. Amanda Vanstone is a former mentor of yours, and a good friend, a former Howard government minister.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: She is.

ANDREW BOLT: She said this week, the Prime Minister’s actions, putting that proposal to Cabinet without proper warning, was either lazy, or sneaky, or both. Is she right?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look, Amanda’s a very good friend of mine. She’s the godmother of one of my children. That doesn’t mean that I always agree with everything that she says or writes. In fact, I’ve known her since I was five years old. We’ve probably disagreed as much as we’ve agreed. And she has a firm view, which she put in her column in the Age newspaper, and that’s all part of the national debate around government, and the Westminster system. I think the truth is that the period of the last – of those couple of weeks when the Cabinet was a bit of a leaky boat is a lesson for everyone in the Government. But we’re getting on with the job. We’ve had good growth figures in the last few weeks. We had excellent unemployment figures last week, showing that jobs growth is powering on. We are getting the economy under control, and growing. The Budget has been well received. On the things that matter to Australian voters, and families, we are kicking goals, and we’ve got to keep doing that.

ANDREW BOLT: The Prime Minister won’t say whether or not the Government paid people smugglers $40,000 to turn around their boats of illegal immigrants and go back to Indonesia. Now, he says the Government doesn’t comment on operational measures like that. So why did the Immigration Minister and the Foreign Minister both initially say the claims were false?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Andrew, we don’t comment on operational matters, and...

ANDREW BOLT: They did.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, that’s a matter for them. But the Prime Minister, and this morning on your show, I, will not be commenting on operational matters. But I will say this. I’m not going to be lectured by the Labor Party about border protection, because they were the ones that created the business model for people smugglers. In the six years that they were in government, they gave 50,000 people the opportunity to pay people smugglers to come to Australia. So they created the business model, which we have dismantled. And we’ll continue to do so, because we’ve done a very good job at stopping the people smugglers’ business model. Now, we’ve had all sorts of means to do that. Turning back the boats has been one of them. And we’ll continue to do that, because we don’t want an open-border policy.

ANDREW BOLT: Christopher Pyne, thank you so much for your time.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s a great pleasure, thank you.

ANDREW BOLT: Coming up, the panel – Peter Costello and Michael Costa.

[ends]