2UE – David Oldfield

SUBJECTS: AFP inquiry into Australia day riot

E&OE……… 

David Oldfield: We actually just had a fellow on who told us the burning of the Australian flag was a necessity, it was basically a matter of freedom of speech, a democratic right and we’re going to be seeing a lot more of it. 

Christopher Pyne: Well, I doubt that that’s true.  I think burning the Australian flag is a pretty rare occurrence and of course the circumstances in which it burnt can be illegal of themselves.  It’s dangerous quite frankly to burn anything especially surrounded by children as occurred on Friday.  Whether we need a law banning the burning of the flag is really a moot point.  If, they wanted to the police could have pressed charges against people putting other people in dangerous circumstances that occurred on Friday in Canberra. 

Oldfield: Certainly you would find, you’d hope that we’d have something other than common sense as a deterrent for burning the flag because as you can see common sense is the least common of all senses. 

Pyne: My only concern about banning the burning of the flag is that it would simply lead to people burning it more often in order to draw attention to their own situation and to their own political cause. 

Oldfield: You could almost build another jail. 

Pyne: At the moment most Australians sort of go ho hum, you shouldn’t be burning the flag.  It’s stupid and offensive, but because it’s not illegal it doesn’t actually happen that often.  I think if they wanted to in the A.C.T the police could have pressed charges against people who were trespassing, who were causing property damage, who are assaulting and battering people and putting people in danger.  All of those things are obviously criminal offences. 

Oldfield: Sadly however, if you were to find them and you and I both probably appreciate that most of them are not taxpayers and they’re all likely on welfare and you’d likely not collect any money from them anyway.  There’s still the pressing matter of the Prime Minister for a start.  These are the raw facts of the issue.  One of the PM’s young staff members contacted Kim Sattler, a long time ALP hack and told her Tony Abbott made comments pertaining to the tent embassy which were not entirely accurate.  The staff member Tony Hodges wanted Sattler to get people from the embassy to respond to Tony Abbott and we saw how they did that.  Cleary this man wanted fireworks of some sort.  Sattler facilitated that; the image of the frightened PM and the violent mob.  Certainly we saw what happened.  But have we missed anything in this.  Where should this be going? 

Pyne: The most important thing that occurred out of the Australia Day affray is her security and the Leader of the Opposition’s security was placed at very serious risk.  This is the most serious breach of security since the Fraser Government and arguably the worst ever.  Obviously that needs to be inquired into and properly investigated there are now so many claims and counter claims into what was said by whom and why and people changing their stories regularly that only an inquiry from the Federal Police can get to the bottom of who was responsible.  The Prime Minister has made a number of press conferences, all of them have left more and more questions unanswered.  She is yet to answer why the media office was in the Press Gallery on Thursday afternoon telling journalists that Tony Abbott had been responsible for a riot at the lobby restaurant.  That in itself suggests to us that we know what purpose this information was conveyed.  An email sent to 3AW in Melbourne from Kim Satler on that Thursday afternoon completely confirmed that she was told that Tony Abbott had said the tent embassy should be bulldozed and removed.  Again on Facebook Kim Sattler indicated that she’d been told that Tony Abbott said the tent embassy should be removed.  Now, she changed her story on Sunday, but who leant on Kim Sattler to change her story on Sunday.  To no longer contradict the Prime Minister?  These are all questions that need to be answered. 

Oldfield: Look, even if Tony Abbott had said those things, and a lot of people wouldn’t think those things are unreasonable, but even if he had it’s not the excuse to turn it into a riot and does seem to be a matter of if not anything else media manipulation and trying to use ignorant people to create a protest.  Do you believe however that the Federal Police have a capacity to potentially find the Prime Minister being involved by this?  I mean being the Prime Minister is kind of a useful way of avoiding an investigation. 

Pyne: I think it’s the last thing possible that the Prime Minister was involved.  I agree and believe her statements that this all came as a surprise to her.  I doubt very much that she would want to be involved in something that basically placed her in a headlock and dragged along a path and losing her shoe and pushed into a back of a car. 

Oldfield: So is this just her staff doing the wrong thing behind the scenes without her knowledge?

Pyne: I think it is.  The more serious issue though is that the Prime Minister has not got a handle on what is going on in her office.  Why is it that a junior media advisor can unilaterally decide to take the action that was taken?  I mean, that beggars belief.  Apparently there were three other Prime Ministerial staffers at the lobby restaurant at the time this was happening, at the time this information was being passed on and yet we’re supposed to believe he didn’t even mention it to any of his new colleagues. 

ENDS