5AA

11 Nov 2015 Transcipt

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview – 5AA David Penberthy, Will Goodings with Anthony Albanese.
Wednesday 11 November 2015


SUBJECTS:
Australian Republic; Trade Union Royal Comission; Tax Reform;

WILL GOODINGS: I like this because you see the whites of David Penberthy’s eyes when two tribes meet…

DAVID PENBERTHY: That’s right, no we like to fire up for this segment because they are two of the most experienced political operators in Australia from either side of the ideological divide and they are now going head to head right here on 5AA breakfasts at 8.30 every Wednesday. The Member for Sturt and Industry Minister Chris Pyne, and the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Anthony Albanese. Good morning to you both guys and thanks for joining us again.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning David, good morning Will and good morning Anthony!

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Good morning team.

DAVID PENBERTHY: Now we’ve just had a royal visit here in South Australia with Charles and Camilla spending a pleasant afternoon in the Barossa Valley yesterday, this question’s to both of you, do you think that the goodwill that clearly exists in Australia to the royal family shows that Australians don’t really have the passion for a republic anymore.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Who are you asking?

DAVID PENBERTHY: I’m asking you kick it off Chris; well I’m asking you both because you’re both republicans but you can go first Chris.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You can’t have any silence on radio!

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You got to give us an order we’re both very polite.

DAVID PENBERTHY: You are very polite.

WILL GOODINGS: Clearly.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We’re very disciplined people.

DAVID PENBERTHY: You go first Chris…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I am a republican and I think there’s a lot of passion for having an Australian head of state, but I also think there’s a great deal of respect for the British Royal Family particularly the Queen, and I think this debate will fire up much more when the queen is no longer on the throne. We had a vote in 1999, I campaigned for a yes vote and achieved one in Sturt in fact I was one of the organisers of the Conservatives for an Australian Head of State, fondly called CAHoS here in Parliament House, but I do think that after the queen is no longer on the throne the Australian public might have quite a different view.

DAVID PENBERTHY: Malcolm Turnbull seems quite reticent to try to breathe new life into it though, doesn’t he, despite the fact that he’s a former head of the ARM.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think that most, certainly on this side of the divide - the liberal side of the divide think that there’s no point in having a big debate about something that’s not going to be an issue for some time.

DAVID PENBERTHY: What’s the labour position on this Albo, do you think that this goodwill that exists means that the people are a bit over it, that we had our chance in 1999 but blew it?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I think what it means is that Australians are quite polite people and that this debate isn’t a personal one. I’ve met the queen at Buckingham palace and when I did that as part of the Australian delegation as the minister to the first G20 meeting that was held in London I had…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Would have been a champagne socialist delegation…

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well it was a very strong delegation.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …At Buckingham palace.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Where we were very proud of the fact and the whole world recognised how well we did through the global financial crisis…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: With the Howard government setting up the foundations for you.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: See he said he was polite at the beginning and then he just keeps interrupting…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m just helping you out.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: …He just can’t help himself we’re not even on a partisan issue here, this is when we agree Christopher, chill out! But I think at that time some of the criticism was, oh you were nice to the queen, of course, and Australians are polite. Australians will give a warm reception to Charles and Camilla as they do any royal visitors that doesn’t mean that we don’t think that in in 2015 we should have an Australian head of state. And the other issue of course as the reminder of, today is the 40th anniversary of the dismissal of the Whitlam government and I regard that as a stain on our democracy. The fact that an elected prime minister was removed by the representative of the queen in Sir John Kerr, still that was one of the things that politicised me and helped divide the nation. I think that today I’m a minimalist in terms of the change but I think that it will happen but of course it isn’t’…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: What is a minimalist these days?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: That I don’t believe we should have a President with a whole lot of power it should be very much restricted in terms of the role that they can play, I don’t want to see the Prime Minister and the President or an Australian head of state, in conflict.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I agree with that, I think the issue is how to appoint an Australian head of state. I simply think that my children should have the capacity to be Australia’s head of state like every other Australian child in the country today but that is the one role they’re shut off from simply because of right of birth, and I think that is a remarkable thing. but how we actually elect an Australian head of state is going to be an interesting process because I think the public, they had their chance to have a parliamentary appointed person and they rejected it, and I think that what we now have to focus on is codifying the powers so that Anthony’s right and hopefully I’m right that the prime minister and the president aren’t in conflict but I think the public want to have a say.

DAVID PENBERTHY: Can I just interrupt this terrifying outbreak of consensus for a moment, Christopher Pyne, the Trade Union Royal Commission cleared opposition leader Bill Shorten who has written actually incidentally, about the republic in Fairfax newspapers overnight, cleared him however it made the announcement shortly after 8pm on Friday evening. Is that appropriate given how much focus is being placed on the royal commission by your government?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the Royal Commission’s a lot more than, much more than Bill Shorten, and I know politicians can be accused of having ego-centric personalities, present company excepted of course, but the trade union royal commission is about rooting out corruption and bad behaviour in the trade unions, and there’s been a lot of evidence brought forward about the CFMEU and the AWU or the MUA or the NUW etc. about what’s going on.

DAVID PENBERTHY: The timing of the Friday evening announcement, was that appropriate?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the, what the Trade Union Royal Commission has said is that legally they were bound to release that information as soon as they’d made their decision.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: What, and they made it on a Friday night at 8 o clock?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: And they found that he had not done anything unlawful, they certainly didn’t say that his behaviour had been pure as the driven snow. And I was kind enough on Monday on sky television to say that I welcomed it as a positive thing for Bill personally that he hadn’t broken the law according to the Royal Commission, but that doesn’t mean that the royal commission’s work hasn’t been and continues to be really important.

DAVID PENBERTHY: Well Anthony Albanese are you ready to concede now that this in fact has not been an entirely political exercise? In all bet, while bill shorten has been cleared a great many details have been drummed up as a result of the royal commission including revelations about the NUW, is it time to admit that actually this has been an important process?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well this was a red hot decision. There’s a term in terms of put out your trash, when governments or organisations want no one to notice anything you put it out on New Year’s Eve or Christmas eve or 8 o clock on a Friday night after the TVs have already had their news broadcast. And didn’t even give, Bill Shorten’s lawyer contacted the royal commission and said you know is there anything, any statements coming about their client and the royal commission didn’t even get back to them. I mean it’s the hottest decision since the royal commissioner himself Mr Hayden decided to speak at a liberal party fundraiser.

DAVID PENBERTHY: Would you have preferred, Anthony Albanese, to have some of the revelations about expensive union funds to have come out at 8.17 on a Friday evening?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: No I want to see, if people are breaking the law and abusing the privilege that they have as being trade union leaders that should be dealt with, it should be dealt with by the Australian Federal Police it should be dealt with under the normal legal processes. But what we’ve seen here is 80 million dollar exercise, and we’ve seen not just bill shorten the current Labor leader, we’ve seen two former Prime Ministers have to appear before various enquiries in an unprecedented fashion. I mean we could have had, when we were elected, enquiries into how we went to war with Iraq, with what when on with dogs on the waterfront, with what went on with the James Ashby affair. You know we could have had inquiries about all of these issues, we didn’t because it’s not appropriate to engage in such a political fashion if there are breaches of the law, and you know I have contempt for some of the people who have had clearly a breach of…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well there have been charges laid, out of the Royal Commission’s evidence.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well it’s taken a long time and certainly there have been no charges laid against the leader of the Labor party in fact the opposite has occurred and yet he was subjected to a whole lot of smear as a result of the appearance that occurred before that royal commission.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think the Labor Party would be well to support the governments registered organisations commission, and the Australian building and construction commission as an article of good faith that they, like the Liberals, believe that corrupt union bosses shouldn’t be in their positions because we should be supporting honest upstanding union bosses who look after their workers, I would have thought Labor supported that

ANTHONY ALBANESE: And bear in mind, the, the…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: But you won’t support those bills.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Christopher Pyne just exposed the Government’s position because he spoke about corrupt union bosses, and no doubt there have been corrupt union bosses, that have been people like Michael Williamson in terms of from the HSU the sort of revelations that we’ve seen but you can’t have a corrupt union boss without having a corrupt employer.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yeah they both should be in the same boat.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: But they never talk about, no one in the government speaks about the corruption that is there in terms of employers