Sky News - The Nation

SUBJECTS: Problem gambling; passage of Asylum seeker legislation through parliament; CHOGM; the Republic; economy

E&OE…

David Speers: Welcome to the program.  Summit season has begun for the Prime Minister, she's hosting Commonwealth leaders in Perth this week, before next week heading off to France for the G20, and then APEC and the East Asia Summit. This chance to focus on foreign policy may well be a welcome relief for Julia Gillard, but the domestic pressures continue to grow. This week the government has earned a new public enemy in its plans to crack down on problem gambling. James Packer says mandatory pre-commitment technology for poker machines is a bad move. Joining us to look at the events this week, the Finance Minister Penny Wong; former Liberal MP Ross Cameron; former NSW Labor minister John Della Bosca; and Liberal frontbencher and Manager of Opposition Business Christopher Pyne.  Welcome to you all. Let's start with poker machines. James Packer, boss of Crown Casino, says this is a bad move, it won't work. Does James Packer scare you, Penny Wong? 

Penny Wong: Well, James Packer is a businessman, he's advocating for his business interests; as a lot of people who have a lot of money invested in gambling do.  What the government's got to do is look at what's in the best interests of the community, and there is a very simple fact here, we have problem gamblers identified by the Productivity Commission as people who lose up to $21,000 a year; 21,000 that's not spent on housing, on food, on children, on families. And we need to do something about that and that's why we've put forward these reforms.

Speers: John Della Bosca, do you think the intervention of someone like James Packer makes a difference or does everyone just assume a casino owner to take this position? 

John Della Bosca: Well I would have assumed it, I suppose.  I would have taken the same starting point, that it would be fairly logical that James Packer would be defending current arrangements, he has legitimate business interests. I think for the government, Penny set out the social policy cause there fairly succinctly and I think fairly accurately, and it is a change and problem gambling is a big social challenge for Australia.  I think the harder job for the government is threading through opinion on the ground on this issue.  I don't think a particular businessman, even if he's as persuasive and as wealthy as James Packer, is what the issue is electorally, the government has got to...

Speers: Well what do you think the opinion on the ground is then? 

Della Bosca: It's mixed. I think that's the point about this. Some of the polls say, and you've got to take them all with a grain of salt, say that most people when the question is put to them directly - when I say most, 60%, quite a significant majority - say something should be done about problem gambling.  They don't know necessarily what should be done about problem gambling, and I suppose that's one of the issues, but the problem, I suppose, is the range of interests right across NSW and Queensland particularly, around hotels and clubs.

Speers: Chris Pyne, what should be done about problem gambling?

Christopher Pyne: Well, there's lots of things you can do without going down the track of mandatory pre-commitment. You can have what a lot of the clubs and pubs are now practising, which is self-exclusion. What Tim Costello promotes, which is one-on-one counselling.

Speers: Sorry, what's self-exclusion?

Pyne: When a problem gambler's excluded from an outlet, excluded from a club, excluded from a pub, and accepts that they shouldn't be coming back. Tim Costello and others promote this one-on-one counselling which has proven to be the most successful form of turning around a problem gambler, and of course there's voluntary pre-commitment which is practised in Crown Casino right now. And there are apparently 20,000 patrons of Crown Casino who already undertake voluntary pre-commitment.

Speers: Do you think all of these existing approaches are working and that there's no need for further action to deal with problem gambling?

Pyne: Well I don't think problem gambling is a positive. I mean, I don't think you'll find anybody in the political world who's going to say look there's no problem with problem gambling.  But how you manage problem gambling is very important.  And you don't want to introduce mandatory pre-commitment for pokies and then simply find that the people who are losing far too much money on the pokies go and wager it on the horses.

Speers: What I'm asking is, is what we're doing at the moment okay, there's no need for further action?

Pyne: I would always support action on problem gambling.  I do think that we need to do more with respect to problem gambling. 

Speers: So what do we need to do then, what more?

Pyne: Well I would favour self-exclusion, voluntary pre-commitment and one-on-one counseling. That's what I would favour.

Wong: Is that the Liberal Party's policy?

Pyne: Well we haven't got a piece of legislation ahead of us at the moment, as you would know, about mandatory pre-commitment.  The government hasn't come up with anything.  But what Tony Abbott said yesterday, and what I support, is that the party room is unlikely to be in favour of mandatory pre-commitment. When the government comes up with a piece of legislation I'm sure we will have alternatives, and some of those of alternatives will be the things that I've outlined. 

Speers: And you also support rescinding it if you're in government, getting rid of this? 

Pyne: Well as Tony said last night, we haven't got a party room position yet because we haven't got a Government position yet.

Speers: What's your view, though?

Pyne: Well if we decide to oppose mandatory pre-commitment, which I believe we will, then we will rescind it in government, as we said we'll rescind the carbon tax in government, the mining tax in government as well.

Speers: What do you think of this issue, Ross Cameron? 

Ross Cameron: I think you can pronounce the last rights over mandatory pre-commitment. I think it’s dead. I think the tone of voice that David Bradbury, the parliamentary secretary and member for Penrith Leagues Club, he sounded like Muammar Gaddafi coming out of his little hellhole begging for some sort of mercy on this issue. And there's not a single state division of the Australian Labor Party that supports it, the whole of the Labor's backbench is shaking like a leaf on a tree.  And the problem for mandatory pre-commitment is that it's not actually Labor's policy, it's a policy that Kevin Rudd did a deal with the clubs on voluntary pre-commitment.  Julia Gillard, when she took over, affirmed that deal. That's the policy Labor took to the election. They got bent over a barrel by Andrew Wilkie in order to form a government. They agreed to it.  And it's got massive unintended consequences.  The clubs are not going to forgive that welching on the deal and it's dead, dead, dead.

Speers: Penny Wong?

Wong: Ross is always very good at very colourful turns of phrase, and I want to just make it very clear the government's position is for mandatory pre-commitment.  And the best way to think about that is a way of stopping losses. It's a way in which people who have a problem can before they get into that situation stop the losses that we know they do incur.

Speers: Just on the detail here, because, it's still a little bit vague about this.

Wong: Yes, and there are a range of issues I'm sure Jenny Macklin, who as the minister, will work through. But let's come back to where mandatory pre-commitment came from. It came from the Productivity Commission in the report that we commissioned in the previous parliament to look at this issue and to tell the Australian community what was the best way to deal with it.

Speers: But the Productivity Commission recommends all sorts of things.  You've decided to pick this up. 

Wong: And we have because it is a real social issue. I'm from South Australia, as is Christopher. Problem gambling has been an issue that probably at a state level we've been seized by as a community perhaps for a longer period than...

Pyne: And ever since they introduced the pokies.

David  There are a lot of details that we're still waiting for, who's going to need a card, at what level, can you still bet without a card; all that sort of stuff. 

Pyne: I mean, David, you said that James Packer might be scary today for the Labor Party, but the really scary outcome today on pokies was Kevin Rudd's refusal to support the pokies reforms that have been deposed by Andrew Wilkie.  I mean that should really be much scarier for the Labor caucus and for Julia Gillard.  What he was doing today was clearly signalling to the backbench and the front bench of the Labor Party that if they make him leader again he'll get them out of this mandatory pre-commitment mess.

Speers: John Della Bosca, do you read anything into Kevin Rudd not answering questions on this?

Della Bosca: No, I don't read anything what Christopher is suggesting.  In fact just the opposite. I think Kevin Rudd is the Foreign Minister, I think he's being very careful to maintain a careful line around his portfolio. That's the sensible thing to do, especially given all of the speculation.  Very much encouraged by Kevin... 

Pyne: So it's not his job to defend the Government's policies? 

Della Bosca: I suppose the job of every cabinet minister to any appropriate occasion to do that. 

Pyne: Try to defend it.

Della Bosca: But let's move on to some other grounds.  The odd thing, I think, today is Tony Abbott ,in the last 48 hours at least, has committed himself to another round of rollback. So what he's saying is if we do get through this complexity Ross is wrong and you put in place this fairly complex sort of arrangements around problem gambling, he'll get rid of it.  He'll roll that back as well. I think there's two funny things about that, this is now becoming a bit of a theme for the way this Opposition is working; and secondly, it's becoming, you know, I think a big question eventually about credibility, just how many things can you roll back. And last but not least, it signals to me that Tony Abbott's given up the idea of a baton change because the obvious thing for him to do on this question is to be equivocal. But to deliberately upset Andrew Wilkie in the way he has, if I can put it in those terms, to deliberately put him so far offside seems to me to be forsaking the notion that he can form a government by baton change or cause an election. 

Pyne: But Andrew Wilkie doesn't expect the Coalition to support mandatory pre-commitment because we didn't do a deal with him after the last election to introduce mandatory pre-commitment. 

Della Bosca: I accept that, Christopher.  That's not my point.

Pyne: So I don't think he'll be angry.

Wong: He's making a different point, Christopher.

Della Bosca: My point is that for someone who has been good at the political dance on or off, Tony Abbott seems to be continuing to move well away from a position that he's sort of seen to be running for the last 11 out of the last 12 months, which is that he's going to be aiming to bring this government down as quickly as he can.

Speers: Nonetheless, Tony Abbott's position does ensure this is going to be a red hot political issue right up until the election if he's promising to scrap it.  Let me ask you in an election strategy point of view, what do you think about the clubs, hotels and casinos who are funding this campaign and the way they're targeting individual MPs like David Bradbury, in the local club with pictures of him; very personal targeting of MPs who do have a lot of clubs in their communities. How effective is that going to be? 

Della Bosca: It's pretty effective but you can go too far. To personalise campaigns like that can push things too far. Now, I don't know where this is going to go in 18 months' time or 12 months' time; we're all speculating when the next election will be, but if the parliament runs full term it's quite a long way to go. How long this will be sustained I think is anyone's guess.  But, look, the clubs - what I was alluding to is the clubs and the hotels are formidable campaigners when their interests are at stake, and that will make life difficult, and Ross has anticipated in a fairly tough kind of way life difficult for a lot of MPs on the ground.  But I do think you can take this question of individualising negativity around individual candidates too far, because people do recognise that someone's trying to do the right thing by their community. And so it can actually have a bit of a correction if you like.

Speers: Do you agree with that Ross? 

Cameron: Well I think what the Labor caucus is worried about, the backbenchers are worried that the Prime Minister is going to force them to front this sort of blow torch and all this bark is going to get ripped off, and then she'll capitulate.  And that's what they're fearful of. It was reported the Prime Minister just dropped in on drinks among a few backbenchers and they launched into her. She thought she was going to be received as having done this lovely gesture of collegiate solidarity and they just ripped into her on the basis that they could not endure the pain they were suffering from their local clubs. I'm not arguing about whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, I'm just saying there will be no mandatory pre-commitment.

Wong: I think the thing that I agree with that John said though, is that this rollback "we will rescind" message is really becoming the sort of badge of honour of Tony Abbott. It is defining political characteristics.  Everyone knows what he's against, everyone knows what he wants to end or roll back or rescind. I'm not sure what he stands for. I certainly know very much what he stands against, but I'm not sure what he stands for and I think...

Pyne: Everybody knows what he stands.  Everybody knows that he stands for stopping the boats, ending the waste, paying back the debt and getting rid of the taxes.

Wong: Let's talk about pay back the debt then...

Pyne: That's pretty straight forward.

Wong: Yes.

Speers: We might talk about debt a little later.

Wong: No, I'll take that interjection as one would say.

Speers: The minister will ignore interjections. 

Wong: I think it's very interesting... 

Pyne: He's trying to get control of his panel back.

Wong: And I'm going to respond to what you just said.

Speers: Just quickly. 

Wong: I asked about what you believe in and you gave me a bunch of slogans. 

Pyne: No.  Stopping the boats, bringing back the Howard Government Nauru solution...

Wong: And I'm happy to talk about all of those things, but nothing but slogans. There's no content to. There's no content. 

Speers: We might get onto boats, we will get onto debt.  Just finally on this issue, why not have a trial of this technology? 

Cameron: Can I just say, that is so obvious and that's what we'll get. That's what we'll get.  We'll get voluntary pre-commitment and we'll get a trial.

Wong: And I think you've asked me this before, and as I said I think that's something Jenny Macklin has talked about.  But we retain our commitment as we've outlined previously, for the reasons I've gone through, and I think we keep losing...  it's all very interesting for Ross to talk about bark and people bleeding and all of this, or people dying, but we keep losing the sight of what this is about. This is about very vulnerable Australians who do lose a lot of money because they are addicted, and that manifests in terms of their family, their children, and their communities.

Speers: We are going to move on. After the break we'll take a look at the immigration detention system and some of the pressures that have been exposed this week. We're also standing by to bring you a little of the Prime Minister's news conference from Perth. Stay with us.  We're joined this week by Finance Minister Penny Wong; former Liberal MP Ross Cameron; former NSW Labor minister John Della Bosca; and Liberal front bencher Christopher Pyne.  We are standing by to take you to Prime Minister Julia Gillard speaking to the media in Perth in just a few minutes. In the meantime I want to talk about the immigration detention system.  This week a Sri Lankan man took his own life at the Villawood Detention Centre, it happened on Tuesday night. He had been found to be a refugee a couple of months ago but was still waiting the ASIO security clearance.  That's why he was still in detention.  He'd asked to be released for a Hindi religious festival but was denied, and it was after that that he committed suicide. Chris Pyne, do you think there is excuse for someone being in detention for as long as this man was, I think it was 18 months? 

Pyne: Look it's a complete tragedy that he's taken his own life, and it's a tragedy that anybody is in detention who is an asylum seeker. And I simply make the point that when the Howard Government was defeated there were four people in detention, there are now over 6,000.  There have been 12,000 people arrive here by boat since August 2008, since the government changed the previous government's laws, and there's no reason for anyone to be in detention if the government had not changed those laws.

Speers: That's all valid points to make, but I'm querying the time that someone is in detention.  And we saw these very long periods of detention under the Howard Government as well. 

Pyne: It's really bad. 

Speers: Is it excusable?

Pyne: And if you didn't have such a backlog of people, and them trying to get the security clearances and the health checks, they wouldn't be there as long.  And the reason that people are in detention as long as they are is because there are so many in detention.  And the reason there are so many in detention is because the government has dropped the ball on boarder protection policy.

Speers: Penny Wong, Labor used to talk about having a three month time limit on processing on detention, what happened to that? 

Wong: Well a number of things which I think have been discussed in the sort of mixed up fashion, if I may say.  But first, in relation to this man…

Pyne: Sorry Mum, I mixed things up.  Sorry Mum. 

Wong: I'm not a mother, not yet. First in relation to this very tragic incident, as you say he was found to be an asylum seeker some two months ago. 

Speers: A refugee. 

Wong: A refugee I should say, but for various security reasons after consultation with security agents he was not released.  Now that is not unheard of but it's not the majority of people in that position.

Speers: Often happens with Sri Lankans.  After the civil war...

Wong: The second point is in terms of detention Chris Bowen has made a very substantial effort as minister to move particularly women and children out of detention and has released into community arrangements, I think, some 2,000 people he said in the last 12 months.  So that's a significant improvement because these issues, we obviously want to minimise that.

Speers: It's still taking too long though, isn't it? 

Wong: And as you said in your question to Chris, there were people in detention for long periods, including some Australian citizens from memory, under the Howard Government's regime. Then there is the issue of how many people are coming to Australia. I think on that we've seen the head of navy say that the turn the boats back policy, which is what Christopher is espousing again tonight, risks lives, including the lives of Australian personnel. What that shows us is that these are not policy matters as simple as Christopher and Tony Abbott would make them out to be. They're policies which the Immigration Department have said will not implement deterrents. These are the facts from...

Speers: No doubt we'll discuss the Malaysia v Nauru issue, but Ross Cameron, this length of detention issue has been a problem for a long time. Do you have sympathy for asylum seekers stuck in this limbo? 

Cameron: Look, I think it was Bruce Baird, probably from the backbench when the Howard Government was in place, did a sort of an enquiry into this and looking at mental health issues in the centres, and he certainly argued strongly that there was a very strong relationship between length of time in detention and the incidents of mental health issues.  And that wouldn't surprise you; it doesn't seem like rocket science. I think often government departments generally are scandalously slow to make decisions, and in many cases I would support a situation under which if there was no decision - whether it's the Foreign Investment Review Board, or whether it's an ex-gratia payment for some government mistake or whatever - if there's no decision for a long enough period of time it should default in favour of the applicant. Having said that...

Speers: Are you suggesting a three months no decision put them in the community? 

Cameron: Look, I think with respect to Penny on this one, it is the case that if you have thousands it takes much longer to process than if you've got a handful. And the other obvious point is that unlike those who arrive by plane, those on planes all have documents. Those who arrive by boats make a point - I don't know in this case if this was relevant - but in most cases they destroy their documents. So you wind up from sort of ex nihilo starting from nothing and having to build up a person's identity from a whole range of complex international collaborations, and that takes time. So add to the fact that you've got this flotilla of arrivals, the fact that there's no documents, you've got to do health, you've got to do crime, and then you've got to do refugee status. So that's a fair bit of work.

Speers: John Della Bosca, there is a view amongst some in Labor that you should have a fixed timeframe for processing, a limit, how long people can be in detention. What do you think? 

Della Bosca: Maybe I've been out of politics too long, but I find myself in vague agreement with Ross. That you almost get to the point where you think...

Pyne: You're a good man, why not? 

Della Bosca: You don't really understand.  First, it seems ever since this issue has been around, which is a long, long time, a decade and a half or more - it's been a issue forever - but it's been a serious issue since Tampa I suppose, and in the lead-up to that particular issue - it's mystified me why it takes so long to make these decisions.  Even though of course people arrive without documents and all that; so that's the first point.  The person in the street view, I think, does default to the idea well if there's not a good reason to keep them in detention then let them out and manage them in the community appropriately. That seems to me to be a fair position.  But then again, I suppose I'm a bit heretical on this because I actually don't understand what any real advantage there is to offshore processing anyway.

Speers: Well I think you'd probably be the only one at the table...

Della Bosca: I am the only one at the table

David Speers.   ...who would hold that view because Labor supports offshore processing and the Liberals do too.

Della Bosca: It's always been a heresy...

Pyne: The left has never really supported offshore processing.  I'd be interested to see if Penny supports offshore processing.  Are you an advocate for offshore?

Wong: I am the only person at this table in the parliament, out of the two of us, who could say I would have voted for offshore processing if the bill had gone into parliament. Christopher would have voted with the Greens to end offshore processing. I'm just making the point, you know...

Pyne: I don't think the left has really got their heart in it, they're trying to overturn it.

Wong: The government would have voted to implement offshore processing.  The Liberals, for all of their hard talk, would have voted with the Greens. That's the extent to which you are prepared to play politics. 

Pyne: No you don't want to send out any mixed messages here, Penny.  We don't want to mix things up.

Wong: You would have voted with the Greens.  I'm not the one who would have voted with the Greens on this issue! 

Della Bosca: It may be where your heat is but it's also when your hand goes up.  That makes a big difference.

Pyne: Hang on, we had an amendment that would have allowed for offshore processing in 148 countries across the world, including Nauru and PNG, and 146 other countries.  Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees.

Speers: But the Malaysian Prime Minister...

Wong: You never cared about whether Nauru was a signatory to the convention before...

Speers: I'm going to interject here. Chris Pyne, the Malaysian Prime Minister today said that refugees are treated well in his country.

Pyne: I'd be surprised if he didn't.

Speers: And that this deal...

Pyne: What did you expect? 

Speers: And that this people swap arrangement should go ahead.

Wong: I think you have got to be very careful in terms of the national interest the way in which you speak about Malaysia.

Speers: Are you saying he's wrong? 

Pyne: I think the Malaysian Prime Minister said exactly what you would have expected him to say.

Speers: Is he right or wrong? 

Pyne: I'd be very surprised if he had said anything different. 

Speers: But is he right or wrong?

Pyne: I think the standards that are provided towards refugees or asylum seekers in Malaysia are not acceptable to me or to the Coalition. There are no protections in place that we would regard as acceptable.

Speers: But isn't the point then that without the deterrent then of having the Malaysian option there you are going to see more arrivals, you are going to see the problems that we were just discussing in detention centres. 

Pyne: But there's a solution on the shelf right now that the government could adopt, and if the Prime Minister wasn't so stubborn she would do three things.  She would reopen the Nauru processing centre, and I note now that Nauru is a signatory to the UN convention on refugees, and before during the Howard Government they introduced the same protections as are applied under the UN convention.  They would introduce temporary protection visas which took the sugar off the table...

Speers: Okay, I'm going to interrupt you there. We are just going to go quickly to hear a little of the Prime Minister's media conference which is happening, as you can see, in Perth. Let's have a listen.

BREAK

Speers: We are going to leave the Prime Minister there outlining the itinerary for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. You can keep watching that news conference with the CHOGM Secretary-General live on APAC, channel 648.  So flick over there if you want to keep watching the Prime Minister, but she's not talking about domestic matters; she made it clear there. That might give us a nice little segue to talk about CHOGM. 

Wong: I think I should be able to respond to Christopher.

Speers: Very quickly. 

Wong: This is the problem when all you're interested in is the short term politics.  You have a sort of political contortionist position.  So, on the one hand he wants to turn the boats back, which we know will risk lives. But on the other hand he says, and the navy has said, it will risk the lives of Australian personnel. 

Pyne: Kevin Rudd says he'll turn back the boats. 

Wong: On the other hand he says, "I actually really care about the convention.  Although I never cared about it in government, I now say Nauru has to be the solution". The solution that the Secretary of the Department of Immigration says will not be a deterrent.  It is a completely illogical position. 

Pyne: Kevin Rudd says he'll turn back the boats. He said so before the 2007 election.

Speers: We're going to move on from the boat debate. We've had this debate a number of times now.

Wong: And he would have voted with the Greens!

Pyne: You vote with the Greens all the time.  You vote with the Greens all day! 

Della Bosca: You yourself made the point that the volume of asylum seekers has increased dramatically, Nauru simply isn't big enough. 

Speers: Okay, let's move on.

Pyne: Manus Island is also available.

Speers: Ross Cameron.  CHOGM, what do you think, is it still relevant? 

Cameron: Yes, I think...

Speers: Why? 

Cameron: Well, for example take somewhere like Uganda, I think, which has just had a massive discovery of petroleum.  The President of Uganda will say, frankly, look we didn't know it was there, we're totally surprised by its presence.  We've got no idea how to get it out of the ground safely or profitably. 

Speers: What, and he couldn't do that without the Commonwealth colleagues? 

Cameron: He's got an option. He principally has an option between a Chinese development partner and an Australian or potentially North American. Now the idea that we can sit with the heads of state of those African nations that are trying to work out what on earth - you know, how to effectively develop their resources, we can spend several days with them in a club which has very, very decades-long roots and shared values, that is a significant economic opportunity.

Speers: That's actually one of the better arguments I've heard for why the Commonwealth is relevant all week.

Pyne: That's why you have him on the panel.

Speers: But the issue that the Commonwealth leaders seem to be grappling with this week is some of the recommendations of the report that was commissioned by CHOGM a couple of years ago.  It's recommended, for example, and this is one of the most contentious, having a human rights commissioner, a commissioner for human rights, democracy and the rule of law. But that looks like hitting a brick wall.  The way CHOGM works, correct me if I'm wrong, you have to have all leaders agree to something.  And Sri Lanka and India and others are pretty resistant to this. If you can't move on something like human rights within CHOGM, what's the point? 

Della Bosca: I think the Commonwealth Heads of Government is still relevant. I think the Commonwealth is still relevant, partly for the reasons Ross pointed out. There's a whole range of cultural associations which are useful.  It's a bit like saying is cricket still relevant. Well, it doesn't matter if it's relevant or not, people still play it, people still like it. 

Speers: And it gets huge ratings. 

Della Bosca: Well in some ways the Commonwealth is relevant for the same reasons as the cricket is.  It's a residual of the British Empire, and the fact that English is an important international language if not the predominant, if not soon to become the dominant world language.  All those sorts of things are accidental legacies. The British Empire - whatever we might think about other things - and the Commonwealth is another one of those legacies of the British Empire. And, frankly, it's on human rights, I think it is a brick wall for the Commonwealth to try and be a mini United Nations.  I don't think that's its role, and that's probably a mistaken concept for the Commonwealth to go that way.  But the Commonwealth is a club and it has a kind of characteristic of kind of being a strange kind of family that doesn't have a lot in common but has just enough in common to...

Speers: A strange family.  Penny Wong, in simple terms what do we get out of it? 

Wong: I actually agree with Ross but I suppose I looked at it from a slightly different perspective. We have a world that is increasingly globalised. We have a global economy where the connections are more rapid, more significant and probably more complex than they have been previously.  And any forum where you have the capacity to engage with nations, as you say in the same language, at different stages of development on key issues I think is a good thing. And that dialogue of itself is really important. So I don't quite understand why there's all this sort of...

Pyne: Anti-CHOGM talk.

Speers: Anti-CHOGM talk.  And no-one's mentioned the Commonwealth Games.

Pyne: I'm on Penny's side on this one.  Can I say...

Speers: Hold the phone! 

Pyne: Foreign ministers and heads of state spend a tremendous amount of time trying to establish relationships with other countries.

Wong: Correct.  And here we have one. 

Della Bosca: Including Malaysia.

Pyne: Here's a unique club of countries that have something that's very important in common: a shared history.  And it gives us an en suite into a group of people that would otherwise have to establish relationships with.  Why are the Australian's contacting us?  So when Kevin Rudd's running this campaign for the security council for example - and I wish him well and I hope it works - talking to these heads of state in CHOGM... 

Wong: Sorry, I thought you were opposed to it. 

Pyne: Well I hope it works for Australia's national interest if we...

Wong: Your party is opposed to it. 

Pyne: I'm on the Australia team, we're all on the Australia team. 

Speers: But you don't support what they want to do, but anyway. 

Pyne: The point is, he has an opportunity to talk to all these people, to try and garner them together into a group that supports Australia, and that's a unique opportunity that other countries would love to have.

Wong: Can I just tell you, one of the things I spoke at the business forum, which preceded CHOGM obviously, was I was part of a panel that talked about small and medium enterprises and policies around that, and we had people there from Nigeria, from Malaysia, me, and then a woman from the Solomon Islands.  So what you got was a perspective from very different economies about this very important sector of the economy and the different ways in which people were seeking to support them. I thought it was a very, very useful policy discussion.

Speers: Here's a question that we'll get some answers to after the break: is the Queen still relevant. Stay with us.  We're joined this week by the Finance Minister Penny Wong; former Liberal MP Ross Cameron; former NSW Labor minister John Della Bosca; and Liberal front bencher Christopher Pyne.  The Queen has drawn extraordinary crowds so far in her visit down under, and I've been amazed at the turnout and the reception that she's had in Canberra, Brisbane, Melbourne, and no doubt in Perth over the weekend as well. Christopher Pyne, have you been swept up in the royal fever?

Pyne: Well, no I wouldn't say I've been swept up in the royal fever. I am a republican and I believe every Australian should have the opportunity to be our head of state.

Speers: Tell me why you're a republican.

Pyne: Well I believe every Australian should have the right or the opportunity to be our head of state. If one of my four children wanted to be it would be nice for them to have the opportunity to be our head of state. I want our head of state to be barracking for us at the Olympics rather than for another country. That doesn't mean that I don't have a great regard for the Queen, I think she's been a tremendous queen.  I think she's been a great force for stability particularly in the UK.  I don't think there's any oxygen in the republican debate right now but I think there will be in the future, and when that comes I'll be supporting a republic, as I did last time and got a yes vote in my electorate.

Speers: Ross Cameron, I think you're probably the only monarchist at the table. Why do you support sticking with the constitutional monarchy? 

Cameron: I think there's two questions.  Your original question was about the Queen herself, and I would say as a personality the Queen probably could well be the world's biggest celebrity today. And if you ask the question: for any of us, any of these 6 billion people on the planet, whose funeral will stop the world, nobody will stop the world the way the Queen will and that will be one of the biggest events in our lifetimes.

Speers: That's a bit macabre, isn't it? 

Cameron: It's just simply a recognition of the fact that if Britney Spears has been the most Google searched person for, you know, four or five years, the Queen is a megastar.

Speers: Is that reason for her to be our head of state? 

Cameron: No, that's the second question. So then we go to a system of government which is not about the personality of the Queen, or Charles, or William, or whoever it may be. What you are looking at is an institution which has a very long history of stability in a very fragile and unstable world. And because, in my view, it doesn't have any impact on our sovereignty - it's not as if the Queen is ringing up Julia Gillard and saying "I think you got a bum steer there on that refugee issue, you ought to back-track and reopen Nauru", even though she may be thinking it, she doesn't pick up the phone. We are completely at liberty to govern ourselves, and what you have is this very nice sense of stability, continuity, history, and you cannot manufacture history. You've either got it or you don't. It's an asset, we should keep it. 

Speers: That argument, Penny Wong, that if it ain't broke don't fix it, it does convince a lot of people. 

Wong: Oh, look, I understand that.  What I'd say is I think it's about confidence and independence.  That's why I'm a republican.  I think that we are a confident, independent nation and that should be reflected in our legal and government structures, and I think we can do that. I agree with Christopher too, that there's not a lot of oxygen at the moment on this debate and that it's obviously not a key priority at this time.  And as we know from bitter experience on the last occasion, you have to deal with some of the stability factors which make the constitutional monarchy so attractive, and that wasn't dealt with sufficiently on the last occasion.

Pyne: It's kind of interesting hearing people who 10 years ago said that the Queen wasn't our head of state and in fact the Governor-General was our head of state, now describing her as our head of state on a daily or hourly basis.

Wong: Are you having a jibe at somebody? 

Pyne: No, not you. No, we're at unity together.

Speers: John, do you subscribe to the fairly well-worn theory that there won't be a move towards a republic while ever this queen is on the throne? 

Della Bosca: I think that's undoubtable. I think Ross maybe over-primed the pump there, but made a pretty strong case that there's a huge amount of affection for Queen Elizabeth.  There's no doubt about that and there's a huge amount of affection in this country and it's cross generational.  So it goes right back to the people when she was heir apparent during the second world war and so on. So she's seen the Commonwealth, Australia, and her own nation through, you know, a very, very interesting part of history that we've all lived through and she's done that with great dignity and style. But underneath that I think there's still a sentiment in favour of a republic. I think people actually almost see that as a kind of way through. They say we'll keep the current queen and she's good value and then we'll think about this again when she moves on. I think there is a bit of a sentiment for a change when the Queen stands down or at least when she ceases to be the monarch.

Speers: Why isn't Labor moving on this?  Wasn't there talk before coming to government that there would be some sort of referendum or at least plebiscite on the republic at some point?  We're into Labor's second term in office.

Della Bosca: I think a lot of things have happened.  It's fair to say we're in a hung parliament at the moment, there's a lot of things on the agenda.  It's not a top-of-mind concern.

Speers: Not a priority.

Wong: You'd have to get more bipartisanship too before you could move on this, let's be honest. 

Pyne: And the bottom line is nobody's sitting around their kitchen table saying, you know, if we have a republic that's going to help me with my rising electricity bills or grocery bill or my job insecurity.

Speers: You've got to have bipartisan support; two leaders who back it.

Pyne: I think while the Queen is on the throne it's a pointless exercise even attempting a republic.

Wong: And Tony Abbott's a very well-known monarchist.

Cameron: He is.

Wong: So I don't think we'll get that sort of agreement any time soon.

Cameron: It's just not a good enough idea, that's its real problem.

Wong: Oh, Ross.  Just because you say the line well doesn't make the line right! 

Della Bosca: I think one of the issues that has to be resolved is those that want a republic have to really work out whether we want simply, as I think Penny put it very well, the confidence changes that need to happen; which I would probably argue is what you might describe as the minimalist position.  You keep the comfortable furniture of the Constitution pretty well as it is; you get rid of the idea of the monarch being the head of state.  And you don't call it president, you let it still be called a governor-general and a governor and so on; which killed the republican cause the last time around.  The people actually want to use the republican debate as a basis to make some fairly fundamental changes to the constitution and think until the republican sentiment sorts itself out and decides which way it wants to go that's the other great barrier to progress.

Cameron: And by then William and Kate will have arrived and they will be the next mega-celebrities. 

Pyne: Do you think we shouldn't be a republic because it's better to have a mega-celebrity as our head of state? 

Cameron: No, but I'm saying to you your chances - I'm talking about the chances of the measure passing, and did it pass in any state last time?  It failed in every state. 

Speers: The ACT.

Cameron: Now, here you have...

Pyne: The ACT.

Speers: A proud Canberran talking here! 

Pyne: They're very good people.

Cameron: This is not going to happen in our lifetime. 

Pyne: Look, you might be right, and in this year of so-called decision and delivery I'm not sure that the public are waiting for a decision to have a republic referendum.

Speers: I don't think they are.

Cameron: I think it was pretty high up in Kevin's people's convention, wasn't it.  It was one of the great ideas of the people's convention.

Speers: The 2020 Summit.

Cameron: The 2020 Summit, that's right, yes.

Speers: Let's not go there.

Pyne: The only convention I'm thinking there was the climate change convention.  There was going to be the people's convention for the climate change.

Wong:Would you like us to leave you two to have a chat?

Pyne: All these memories of the climate change convention come flooding back to me. Flooding back.  It was a people's convention.

Speers: It was a people's assembly. 

Pyne: An advisory council on what we should do about climate change.

Wong: We can talk about this, we can talk about all the things that Christopher said on climate change.

Pyne: Don't upset your apple cart.

Speers: Next week the Prime Minister will go to a fairly important convention, it's the G-20 meeting in France, and the focus there is going to be on the problems with the global economy; no doubt about that. Today we've seen Europe, in the early hours of the morning in Brussels in fact, European leaders and the banks strike a deal. Penny Wong, is it a good deal? 

Wong: It is a good start. They've given, I suppose, the framework of an agreement in terms of bank recapitalisation and the haircut for Greek debt and how they want to deal with contagion risk, and that is a guard start.  But there's obviously a lot more detail that has to be put out and we'll keep encouraging, as I think many nations are, the Europeans to ensure that the detail is filled in and it is implemented.

Speers: How important, Chris Pyne, do you think it is for Europe to sort out this mess?

Pyne: It's very important. It's very important for both Europe and for the United States to get their ship righted economically. And I think we would be bipartisan view on that. Paul Keating actually had put it quite well last weekend where he talked about the problem in Europe was right back to when politics came into who was going to be in the Euro and who wasn't going to be in the Euro. I think there have been problems with that for a long time that have been going back to its inception, and Europe does need to act on it. They're making steps.

Speers: It's a huge test for the Euro, isn't it? 

Pyne: It's a huge test for Europe, it's a huge test for the EU and the Euro, and it's very important to Australia and the rest of the world.

Speers: The question is, I guess, how much does this affect our region, what's happening in Europe. There are flow-through effects, no doubt about it. We rely pretty heavily on China but China sells a lot to Europe so it all needs to work.

Wong: Well we live in a global economy and we're not immune. We've said that many times and with all know that.  But we do face what has been a period of volatility, which may well continue for some period, with a lot of strength. I mean, we have very low public debt.  Our peak net debt is less than one-tenth of the major advanced economies.  We have relatively low unemployment: 5.2%.  We entered the GFC with the same unemployment rate as the United States, they are now at 9 plus per cent and we've got 5.2, and we've got a very strong pipeline of investment.  So there's a lot of underlying strength that the Australian economy has. No doubt this is a volatile time. But as you would have seen from the recent figures, the recent unemployment figures and the recent inflation data, there's also a lot of good, sound data coming through which I think gives us some confidence.

Speers: Ross, the figures do look pretty good at the moment. 

Cameron: Look just on the European situation, the key thing to recognise is that Greece is not the problem. Greece is only 2% of the European economy; they could handle a Greek default. The problem that Europe has is they have a unified currency but they do not have a unified fiscal policy. So each country is running their own fiscal policy, some are restrained.

Speers: This is one of the outcomes of this deal done today, that there's going to be a bit more coordination on putting together individual budgets in Europe. 

Cameron: That's right, and that's what they have to do. They've got to go one way or the other because historically...

Speers: It kind of changes the political game though, doesn't it? 

Cameron: It does, because they could historically have just cut Greece off, Greece could have devalued and then sort of traded its way back from a reasonably priced currency.  The deep fear is that if you cut Greece off then you get into Portugal, Italy, Spain and the potential for contagion which could potentially unravel the whole thing.  So I can tell you that somebody has just written an article about the guys who are really urging Britain into the Euro, and how many are feeling sort of - looking back at what the consequences could have been if that had've happened.  And I think the Euro is under intense stress, the only way they can solve this problem is not just to have the unified currency but also to more and more centralise fiscal policy.  And that will be a tough and painful exercise.

Speers: Back to the Australian economy, and Penny Wong's point about our unemployment rate, inflation rate, and debt level. What do you think, how does it stack up internationally? 

Cameron: Look, I think you have to say Australia is performing very well. And you also have to admit that we are performing well because throughout the so-called GFC the country to which we have the greatest exposure in our terms of trade continued to grow at about 8% per annum year in and year out.  Australia is doing well because we have been blessed with abundant natural resources, but as you look across the other sectors and obviously retail and manufacturing are the two that have been most in the frame, you see a very patchy story. And one of the reasons in my opinion, and I mean you might expect me to say this, but I think much of Australia's surplus spend during that period was wasted.  It was spent on things that we didn't need and it carried no long term benefit for us, and so at a time when we could have taken the surplus and completely retooled the small to medium sized businesses that you were talking about, and come surging out of that period, we're in a situation where we have given some kids some laptops, we have put pink batts in roofs and we've built libraries. So overall we're doing well but we owe a very, very great deal, too much, to the resources sector and to China.

Wong: Okay, I'm going to say a couple of things.  First you had a go about the cash that was given out, and what I'd say to you is the advice from Treasury was to go hard, go early and go households.  And that was one of the key reasons we're not in recession.  So you can play those sorts of games all you like but that's one of the key reasons we have 200,000 Australians who are not on the unemployment queues as a result of the government's investment and stimulus into the economy.  Your argument about long term investment is probably an argument for the fact that under the Howard Government, where you had increasing revenues each year during the previous boom - something we haven't seen - we've seen reducing revenues as a result of what you call the so-called GFC, where was the investment in the long term drivers of productivity?  Where was it? 

Speers: There was a future fund set up, there were... 

Wong: That is good for fiscal liability, finance minister, that is... 

Speers: Investment in infrastructure.

Wong: Investment in the drivers of productivity. 

Speers: But you've got to admit there was some spending, like pink batts, that hit the wall and did nothing.

Wong: Absolutely.  No-one is defending the problems with that program. 

Pyne: It's a little unfair that Penny's not giving credit when credit's due.  When this government took over it had a $22 billion surplus, it had $160 billion at least in the future fund, it had a higher education endowment fund, it had a communications fund and it had a health endowment fund. Almost all of those are gone except the future fund.

Speers: John Della Bosca, what do you think?  We're talking a lot about history here and how the global financial crisis was dealt with, but right now what do you think is the strength of the economy and what we should be doing? 

Della Bosca: I think the point that's always made, which is that we're reliant on China and that we're exploiting our relationships with India potentially, that's one we often ignore but we're not pursuing India as much as we should be but we are starting to do more of that and they're our issues to resolve.  And I have a view about uranium sales to India which might be different...

Speers: What's that?

Della Bosca: I think we should sell uranium to India but that's my personal view, that's not the Labor Party's view at the moment and that may well be debated and that may well change. But there are a range of things that we need to do to continue to engage with Asia and frankly I jokingly said about the Commonwealth we also have a gateway to Africa which Ross alluded to, and we are a trading nation.  For God sake, it shouldn't be a big surprise to us that most of these benefits have accrued to us because we've been a trading nation.  We've been that since Phillip arrived.  So it's not something that John Howard can claim as an achievement or necessarily the current Prime Minister.

 Speers: Just back on that point...

Della Bosca: But managing that I think there is a strong case to say that both the Rudd Government and the Gillard Government have managed that well, with some glaring exceptions; pink batts and other things. 

Speers: What about this issue of uranium, because it's an issue at the Commonwealth talks as well.  The Indians, well their Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, hasn't come and some have interpreted that as a bit of a snub.  But still they're clearly angry at Australia for not selling uranium. Is that something that should change, will change? 

Wong: I've been asked this question in business forums by people from all over the world, including India, and I make this point: This is not a policy that was Indian directed, this is a policy Labor has had for years which has been associated with a decision to increase uranium mining; a decision about how we handle the export framework.  And amongst the things and safeguards that were put into that policy framework was the reliance on the non-proliferation treaty.

Speers: Because India hasn't signed the treaty? 

Wong: Correct.  So I think it's a little unfair to think this is about this particular nation.  It's not, it's been a long-standing issue.

Speers: But they'll be able to reduce a lot of global emissions if India used more nuclear power. 

Pyne: That's the irony of their position.  And, I mean, Penny says you can't possibly sell uranium to India because of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but yet they also used to have a policy where they wouldn't send asylum seekers to countries that weren't signatories to the UN convention on refugees.  So they're happy to ditch that policy but not happy to ditch the non-proliferation treaty.

Wong: If you wish to talk about the irony on climate change you, Christopher, once supported an emissions trading scheme.

Pyne: Before Copenhagen.

Wong: Well you never put that in.

Speers: Ross, uranium, India, what do you think? Should we be selling uranium to India?

Cameron: Certainly.  And I think that the three mines policy, it was always to me one of the most nonsensical - Labor from time to time produces rational policy but that was certainly not in the category, I can tell you. The idea that uranium is morally okay up to three mines but once you get to the fourth it suddenly becomes immoral, this is just absolute madness.  When you consider the fact that Olympic Dam we have 40% of the world's known supplies of uranium in one whole in Australia.

Wong: And which government has delivered Olympic Dam? 

Speers: If we do sell uranium to India and it's not signed that non-proliferation treaty, where do you draw the line?  Who else would you sell it to? 

Pyne: The Indian Government have put in place the kinds of protections that we think would satisfy us if we were in government that uranium would be used for peaceful purpose, and obviously to create energy.  And for those people who want to reduce emissions it seems a very sensible policy.  I think there's about 1.1 billion people in India. Producing energy for 1.1 billion people, which is a seventh of the world's population, wouldn't be a stupid idea to do it in a way that reduced our emissions

Speers: We are out of time for tonight's discussion. Ross Cameron, quickly, are you going to run next election, get back into the game? 

Cameron: No.

Della Bosca: They need you back, Ross. 

Cameron: No.  I'm flattered by the thought but I don't think I'll be there.

Speers: I just thought I'd clear that up. We're out of time but thank you Penny Wong, Ross Cameron, John Della Bosca, Chris Pyne.  Great to talk to you all tonight.  We'll be back same time next week, hope you can join us then. Bye for now.

ENDS