RN Drive with with Patricia Karvelas

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RN Drive with with Patricia Karvelas
11 December 2017
SUBJECTS: Sam Dastyari, dual citizenship and shipbuilding in South Australia.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: … is withstanding another barrage of controversy over his links to China. The Government has called for Dastyari to quit, but has this along with the new policy on foreign interference angered our largest trading partner? An op-ed in the communist party’s official newspaper the People’s Daily, labels the Australian media and Turnbull Government as paranoid when it comes to China’s influence.
Christopher Pyne is the Minister for Defence Industry and the Leader of the House. We’re together finally, Christopher Pyne, welcome.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Patricia, and I’m very sorry to keeping you waiting. Nice to be here.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: That’s okay, I’ve always got other stories. In chasing Sam Dastyari, have you damaged relations with China unnecessarily?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: There’s no sense that our relationship with China has been damaged whatsoever by anybody other than Sam Dastyari and Bill Shorten being such soft touches for potential foreign influence from overseas governments. The Chinese would be quite contemptuous of Sam Dastyari in Beijing. They would have been surprised that a politician would have allowed a Chinese national – however connected they now are to Australia – to pay the personal bill of a senator, frontbencher in the alternative government. Because once that was done of course the Chinese person who did that had a very significant influence over Sam Dastyari and we saw it played out when he publicly contradicted Labor policy on the South China Sea and had to be disciplined by Bill Shorten.
Worse than that of course, he then warned that particular person that they may be the subject of surveillance by the Australian national security agencies, which taken
at its worst suggested he was interfering between the national security agency and a potential person of interest. Now I don’t know if this particular national is a person of interest but Senator Dastyari didn’t know either and yet he did actually warn him he might be being surveyed.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay, but the op-ed question suggests the Australian Government and the media should uphold the principle of truth from facts and reject political prejudices and paranoia when handling relations with China. That’s directed at your government.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I don’t think that anyone should try and turn this issue into a foreign policy issue between China and Australia. We have an excellent relationship with the Chinese Government. Obviously they are a major trading partner, but that relationship is built on mutual respect and they would support their interests and protect their interests just as fiercely as the Australian public expect the Turnbull Government to be as to protect our interest. This isn’t an issue about the relationship between China and Australia, it’s an issue about any foreign government having power over federal politicians like Senator Dastyari and more importantly Bill Shorten’s very limp reaction to that by allowing him to remain in the caucus and that’s the issue, is the inappropriateness of Sam Dastyari’s behaviour [indistinct] …
PATRICIA KARVELAS: But the article also talks about the racist undertones of the reporting around China’s influence. Do you think the Australian media is being racist in its reporting of this?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No I don’t, and I also don’t think that we should make an editorial or an article and a column in the People’s Daily in Beijing the subject of our political discourse in Australia. Other countries can write whatever they like about Australia as Australians do about other countries – they should be respectful discussions, but that isn’t the issue. The issue here is the inappropriateness of Sam Dastyari’s behaviour and Bill Shorten’s reaction to it. Our relationship with China is very strong, will continue to be strong. It also should be robust and we shouldn’t be afraid to criticise China, or the United States, or Israel or the UK, or any other country with whom we have a close relationship. We criticise the Japanese for example for whaling on a very regular basis. But just because you have a relationship with a country doesn’t mean you have to be supine to that country.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Peter Dutton has suggested that Sam Dastyari’s a double agent. What’s the proof that he’s a double agent?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well you’d have to put that question to Peter Dutton. I’m not responsible…
PATRICIA KARVELAS: So you wouldn’t use the language double agent?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I didn’t say that. I’m not going to be drawn into it. What I’ve been talking about I think it’s fair to say is that Sam Dastyari has hardly been appropriate. I think that’s on any measure. The Australian public would agree
with that. Bill Shorten’s reaction to it has been not that of an alternative prime minister and while Sam Dastyari remains in the caucus and likely to be promoted to the front bench and to the Cabinet in a Shorten government, Mr Shorten should take much further action with Sam Dastyari than he has.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Labor’s candidate for Bennelong, and of course the by-election’s this weekend, Kristina Keneally says the Chinese community in the electorate are unhappy with the inference that people from that community are suspicious people. Has that been the inference and what’s your message to people in that community who are very concerned about some of the language they’re hearing?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the only evidence we have for that is Kristina Keneally saying it. And I’m not sure that we should take the word of Kristina Keneally who promoted Ian Macdonald back into the Cabinet who’s now in prison and with the Candidate of Eddie Obeid for Premier, who also happens to be in prison. And I think people are more suspicious of Kristina Keneally blowing into Bennelong and wanting to further her career through Bennelong. And now if anything else the truth is that John Alexander is the excellent local member who’s been serving the area well, and Kristina Keneally simply wants to put another notch in her belt of political success.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: You know, you talk a lot about this Chinese billionaire and the influence of course on Sam Dastyari, but many people have raised with me – many of our listeners – that the Liberal Party, the LNP, is still prepared to take donations, in WA, for instance. Why not denounce that right here, and say: well that’s the wrong strategy as well? You can’t criticise Labor when you’ve taken the money of this man.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well there’s two important points to make there. Firstly, we have introduced foreign donations reform laws into the Senate, which have not yet passed the Parliament. Secondly, the Labor Party has received about twice as much in value in terms of donations at the last federal election as the Coalition. And finally, there’s a huge difference between taking a donation from somebody who wants to be part of the Australian democratic process …
PATRICIA KARVELAS: You’ve implied that he was trying to have an influence, an active influence, on Sam Dastyari to push the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign policy on Australia, but then you’re happy to take the money. It’s illogical.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, no. It’s not, Patricia, because obviously you don’t understand the difference between somebody paying for the personal bill of a member of Parliament and someone making a donation to a political party. Now …
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Why would they make the donation? Why would they make it?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Patricia, you notice the Federal Government in spite of receiving donations from this particular individual changing our policy on the South
China Sea? Now, if this particular individual was seeking to change Australian Government policy, you’d have to say he hasn’t been very successful. With Sam Dastyari, no-one…
PATRICIA KARVELAS: …But he didn’t change the Labor Party’s policy either, did he?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m sorry, Patricia, I’m not here to answer for the Labor Party. The truth is that Sam Dastyari [indistinct] paid his personal bills for, did contradict Labor policy and trying to conflate donations to a political party and the payment of personal bills is completely, it’s utterly wrong. And I’ll be sure your listeners see the difference.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: You say he hasn’t changed your foreign policy, he also hasn’t changed Labor’s.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, we’re talking about Sam Dastyari’s behaviour, not the Labor Party’s policy position on the South China Sea. You’re trying to change the discussion. We’re talking about Sam Dastyari’s inappropriate behavior and Bill Shorten’s weak response to it.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Just finally on this citizenship issue, documents emerged today which contradict Liberal MP Jason Falinski’s citizenship disclosure.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Not really.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Well, there is a discrepancy now.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, there isn’t.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Well, there is a discrepancy.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, I don’t believe that.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: It’s in black and white.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well so you say, but here again the media trying to make the behavior of the Labor Party equivalent to that of the Liberal Party. The truth is we have sent our people to the High Court and the High Court is hearing and has heard their cases; whether it’s Senator Canavan, Fiona Nash, Barnaby Joyce. Labor pretended there was nobody in their side who had a question to answer. We’ve identified at least five, four of whom were UK citizens at the time of the election, at the time the nominations closed for last year’s election.
That is beyond excuse, they have indicated themselves, they were UK citizens when nominations closed. One of them, Susan Lamb, still sits in the Parliament and is still a UK citizen. She’s never renounced her UK citizenship. Labor’s tried to throw up a smokescreen in order to try and create some kind of equivalence in the public mind, we’re all as bad as each other. But the truth is we’ve dealt with our problems. John Alexander’s having a by-election right now. Bill Shorten has fooled the Fourth Estate once, and now he’s trying to fool you again. [Inaudible].
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Alright. I’m very hard to fool, I can promise you. Now, just finally, today you made an announcement…
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Not on the evidence of…
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Well, I ask you questions and I ask them tough questions, and I think most of my listeners would agree with that and I think …
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m happy to have your tough questions, Patricia. You know, otherwise I wouldn’t come back on the show.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: That’s right. There’s two sides to every story. Actually I think there’s about 25 sides to most stories.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [Talks over] I’m sorry the [indistinct].
PATRICIA KARVELAS: I know, can you believe it? Your bird did deserve to win over the magpie, although I put down my guns on the magpie. Just finally on your announcement today, you announced 200 jobs in shipbuilding today. What are they and why do we need them?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well its great news, because one of the most important challenges in the shipbuilding and submarine building space is the skills and workforce, and we have about 1200 or less than that, 1200 people working for the ASC ship building right now. We want to keep those people in the industry. We’ve done the first course by announcing that the first two offshore patrol vessels will be built near Adelaide by the ASC. That will soak up about 400 jobs. We’re rebuilding the naval shipyard at Osborne South, that’s about 600 jobs. And today, we’ve announced 200 positions and scholarships for people to work in the project office around the shipyard and to have retraining in computer-aided design and other aspects of naval shipbuilding, which means there are now1200 positions available to keep that workforce intact, remembering we have to increase it five times by the mid-2020s. We need 5500 workers by the mid-2020s.
So, today the announcement effectively ends Labor’s valley of death in shipbuilding. It’s a great achievement; it couldn’t have been done without the Turnbull Government’s commitment to commissioning ships here in Australia. We’ve started on the Pacific Patrol Boats in Henderson, we’re starting on the offshore patrol vessels next year in Osborne, we’ve stated on the new shipyard and then today there’s 200 jobs expanded that will be able to keep the workforce intact.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Christopher Pyne, thanks for joining us on Drive.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Great pleasure. Thanks Patricia.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: That’s the Minister for Defence Industry and the Leader of the House, Christopher Pyne.