891 ABC Adelaide

E&O TRANSCRIPT

891 ABC Adelaide Radio

15 August 2017

SUBJECTS: Barnaby Joyce Citizenship; doubts over Labor Party MP’s citizenship;

JOURNALIST: …Leader of the House and he’s Minister for Defence Industry and one of the most significant Liberals here in South Australia and he joins us right now to discuss the issue of Barnaby Joyce’s citizenship, and indeed the citizenship of our MPs. Christopher Pyne good morning to you.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning David and Spence.

JOURNALIST: Why not adopt the Xenophon suggestion Chris Pyne that all MPs turn up and prove they’re bona-fide rather than more surprises throwing Parliament into disarray?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well it’s a good question for Senator Xenophon actually Spence, because he’s admitted that he hadn’t actually ever heard from the Greek or Cypriot government that he’s not a citizen of that country, so in fact he needs to answer that question, I’m sure he’ll be doing so today after your searching questions to him. There’s no need to audit all the Members of Parliament, there are 225 Members of Parliament and in the vast majority of cases, obviously 90% plus of those, there is no question about their qualification to sit in the House of Representatives or the Senate so that would be an overreaction. What the government is going is methodically and sensibly dealing with the issue of Barnaby Joyce’s citizenship. I think most people, most right-thinking people would regard it as not common sense that a person who was born in 1967 in Australia whose father left New Zealand in 1947 before New Zealand had citizenship by the way, would never have had any notion that they could possibly be a citizen of another country. And this idea that foreign countries can confer citizenship on Australians unknowingly is, quite frankly, ridiculous and that’s why we’ve asked the High Court to clarify the meaning of section 44. I mean imagine if Kim Jong-un in North Korea decreed that every member of the House of Representatives in Australia was a North Korea citizen, would that mean that we all had to resign from the House of Representatives, I mean there has to be a common-sense approach brought to this question.

JOURNALIST: But the Prime Minister has invited the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, to front up with any MPs that he thinks he might have a question mark over them and join him in going to the High Court, so if it’s good enough to send a letter to Bill Shorten saying, hey would you like to get on the bus to the High Court, we’re going we’re happy to give you a lift, why not make it for all MPs?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Because we have doubts about the citizenship of a number of Labor MPs…

JOURNALIST: And who are they?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Tony Zappia in Makin, from South Australia, Pat Conroy from Newcastle, Josh Wilson from Fremantle, Maria Vamvakinou from Calwell, Sue Lamb from Longman, Justine Keay from Braddon…

JOURNALIST: Penny Wong, is Penny Wong on your list?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I’m only dealing with Members of the House of Representatives in this respect, because I’m obviously - that’s where my focus lies, but people who have some doubt about their citizenship need to produce the evidence that they’ve one through the process to remove any doubt. Now what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, the government has, as the adult in the room, referred Barnaby Joyce to the High Court to clarify the meaning of section 44. Bill Shorten, one of the most untrustworthy people in politics thinks that we should all take his word for it.

JOURNALIST: So I’m assuming Steve Georganas would also fall into that category, I mean this is obviously turning into a bit of a witch hunt here now Christopher Pyne.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Not really, because Steve Georganas has indicated that every election he writes to the Greek government saying that he doesn’t regard himself as a citizen and if he still is a citizen understand that he has renounced it, so he has actually taken action.

JOURNALIST: Well that’s something that Xenophon says he’s done in the past as well. But look, at some point for many of these people we’re just taking them on their word and it would be nice to just sort this mess out. Can we take another tack on this, Tony Burke was saying on AM just a short while ago that the standard was set with Matt Canavan, Senator Matt Canavan, he’s not taking part in a vote and he’s stepped aside from Cabinet. Why shouldn’t that apply to Barnaby Joyce?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Matt Canavan is voting in the Senate so that’s factually not true. Matt Canavan, perhaps in hindsight, he acted when he didn’t have all the facts, nor a legal opinion to back him up, and he resigned possibly prematurely. Barnaby Joyce has the Solicitor-General’s opinion which says very clearly that he believes that the High Court will not find that Barnaby is disqualified from being in the House of Representatives and common sense tells us that as well, and therefore it would be a ridiculous overreaction. The Labor Party are the party that supported Craig Thomson for three years, the Member for Dobell, and Peter Slipper as the Speaker. Now, I’m not going to take a lecture, as much as I like Tony Burke, I’m not going to take a lecture from Tony Burke about how the [inaudible] government should behave in the House of Representatives when they backed in Craig Thomson for three years as the Member for Dobell, I mean seriously.

JOURNALIST: But how can you say we need to establish whether or not this man is legally an MP, and yet we should allow him to hold the second highest office in the government?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Because until the High Court rules otherwise he’s the Member for New England.

JOURNALIST: But isn’t there a shadow of doubt though?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, I mean the Speaker yesterday made it perfectly clear, Tony Smith that until the High Court rules that he’s not qualified to be in the House of Representatives he can go about doing his duties in a fully functioning way

JOURNALIST: There must be a doubt otherwise you wouldn’t go to the High Court.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well that’s why we’ve asked the High Court to clarify it, not because we have any doubt about our legal opinion, but because we think it’s important that section 44 be clarified for everyone in Australia. I mean otherwise we’re in a situation where millions and millions of Australians are not qualified to stand for Parliament, and that was never the intention of our forefathers. Let’s not forget fellas, before 1948 there was no such thing as Australian citizenship, we were all British subjects, did that mean that between 1901 and 1948 every Senator and member of the House of Representatives had a foreign allegiance to another country, in this case Britain, of course not. We need to have a common-sense approach to this.

JOURNALIST: You said after the election the government has a strong majority, it’s clear that you do not have a strong majority.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No it’s rubbish, we won every single vote in the House of Representatives yesterday, and we passed the citizenship legislation…

JOURNALIST: Your hold on the Parliament depends on a High Court ruling, how can you say you have a strong majority?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Because we won every vote in the House of Representatives after the Labor Party tested our resolve on the floor of the House, so we have exactly the same majority today that we had last Thursday, exactly the same.

JOURNALIST: Is the door open for those who’ve opted to step aside to come back in then, dependent on the High Court ruling?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Matt Canavan’s status will be resolved probably around the same time as Barnaby Joyce’s status. If the High Court finds that Matt Canavan is qualified to sit in the Senate I have absolutely every expectation he’ll be reinstated.

JOURNALIST: What about the Greens though, who’ve said we’d better go.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The Greens resigned from the Senate, so that may have been an overreaction on their part, but they have resigned from the Senate, which of course Matt Canavan has not done.

JOURNALIST: Of course, there was smiles all around by the major parties saying how silly the Greens were, the eggs on your face now isn’t it?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well if the High Court rules that they actually didn’t need to resign, well then, the egg will be on their face for resigning.

JOURNALIST: But also, that you shouldn’t have, that you and the Labor Party was doing this as well, shouldn’t have been so dismissive of the Greens for being so silly you didn’t sort out your citizenship, I mean it goes all the way to the Deputy Prime Minister’s office.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think that’s something of a debating point.

JOURNALIST: Christopher Pyne, thank you.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Thank you, welcome Spence to the show with David Bevan, is he being generous to you? He was always very cruel to poor old Matt.

JOURNALIST: He’s a very talented individual Christopher Pyne.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yeah, that’s what they all say. Next, you’ll be saying he’s a valued colleague.

JOURNALIST: Well if I was a Liberal MP and another MP said that of me I’d be really worried. Thank you, Christopher Pyne, the Leader of the House, the Minister for Defence Industry.