ABC AM

E&O TRANSCRIPT

ABC AM WITH SABRA LANE

15 AUGUST 2017

SABRA LABE: The Minister for Defence Industry and Leader of the House of Representatives joins us now, Minister thank you for talking to us this morning.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Pleasure Sabra, thank you for having me.

SABRA LANE: A lot of Australians would be scratching their heads this morning and thinking politics is a farce and a circus, can you understand that view?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I can, and I can understand with the application of section 44 of the constitution, the idea that a person who was born in 1967 didn’t ever know that they were a New Zealand citizen, whose father left New Zealand in 1947 before New Zealand even had citizenship could get caught up in the morass of section 44. I can understand why people think that’s just not common sense, and that’s why we need to give the High Court the opportunity to clarify the application of the section, and that’s exactly what we did yesterday.

SABRA LANE: The Opposition says that Mr Joyce should stand aside from Cabinet and his portfolios until there is a court ruling, pointing to the Matt Canavan precedent. There is a precedent, why not follow it?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well that would be a complete overreaction given that we have the Solicitor-General’s opinion, which is very clear, that they believe that the High Court will find that Barnaby Joyce is not disqualified from sitting in the Parliament and the Speaker himself said yesterday that until the High Court decides the status of Barnaby Joyce there’s no need for him to stand aside from voting in the Parliament. And if Matt Canavan, I think, had had all the facts and the legal opinions at his disposal at the time he might have made a different decision but the horse has bolted if you like with Matt Canavan, with Barnaby Joyce it hasn’t and we’re making the more sensible decision to await the High Court’s ruling.

SABRA LANE: Why not release the advice?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I don’t think that’s the usual practice of government, there’s nothing particularly to hide, but I guess you could ask the Labor Party why they won’t release the evidence showing at least 7 of their MPs don’t have a cloud hanging over them giving they’re refusing to do so.

SABRA LANE: This could take months to clear up and the government’s majority is now at stake, and in the frequent sniping from the side lines of the former Prime Minster and threats from MPs to cross the floor over issues like the clean energy policy and banks, how difficult is your job going to be until the High Court rules?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well politics is always challenging Sabra, and it’s one of the things that makes it interesting, but the government is getting on with the job, we’re getting on with the job of creating jobs, of balancing the budget, of encouraging investment, of keeping inflation down and interest rates down. We’ve reduced unemployment, we’ve created about 168,000 jobs just this year, we’re making the difficult decisions that need to be made, but also I think we can see green shoots in the economy, which is making people feel a lot more comfortable about the direction of the country.

SABRA LANE: What measures has Mr Joyce undertaken now to renounce his citizenship?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: My understanding is that on the weekend he filed the required papers that mean that his citizenship will be renounced by mid-this week.

SABRA LANE: It’s a brave Prime Minister who makes the declaration that Barnaby Joyce is eligible to sit in the House of Representatives and quote ‘the High Court will hold it so.’ How can the Prime Minister be so confident?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the Solicitor-General’s opinion is very clear, and while there’s a lot of huffing and puffing from the Labor Party, which we’ve heard now all day yesterday, the reality is the Solicitor-General’s opinion is very clear, it would be premature and a complete overreaction for the government to have done anything other than what we’ve done, which is to refer the matter to the High Court, in fact it was asked by Barnaby Joyce to do so to give them to chance to clarify what section 44.1 means in the modern era and we’re getting on with the job otherwise as we did last night when we had our Cabinet meeting. We’re continuing to do all the things the Australian public expects a good government to do, settling things like the education reforms, following the budget and this week we’re debating the citizenship law changes, the corporate tax cuts because we’re trying to create jobs and investment, we’re just getting on with it while Labor’s playing old-style politics.

SABRA LANE: Well Mr Turnbull was using those words though, ‘the High Court will hold so’, that sound awfully close to a directive to the High Court.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the High Court will make its own decision, what Malcolm was doing was indicating an opinion of his own that with the Solicitor-General’s opinion tucked in our pockets we’re pretty confident that Barnaby Joyce’s position is secure.

SABRA LANE: But Australia has a separation of powers, how receptive do you think the High Court will be to that opinion and directive?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the High Court will make its own decision based on the evidence presented to it, I’m sure it won’t be reading Hansards.

SABRA LANE: If the High Court finds otherwise, Mr Turnbull will look silly here and there’ll be a by-election, the government will be dependent on cross-benchers, perhaps in the Lower House.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Sabra, if, if, if, now let’s wait and see what the High Court decides about Barnaby Joyce’s status and we’ll deal with that matter at the time. We’re confident that the High Court will find that Barnaby Joyce is quite qualified to sit in the House of Representatives and life will go on. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of hyperventilating from the Labor party in the meantime, but I think the public are happy for us to keep getting on with the job, and common sense says that Barnaby Joyce couldn’t possibly have expected to be a New Zealand citizen given the history that I’ve already outlined.

SABRA LANE: You’ve named a number of Labor MPs that you think are under a cloud in this regard, Susan Lamb, Tony Zappia, Justine Keay, Maria Vamvakinou, are you going to refer their circumstances to the High Court.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I’m thinking about what to do because the Labor Party, of course, is saying we’re supposed to that their word, Bill Shorten’s word, not a word that Julia Gillard or Kevin Rudd were capable of taking when they were the Prime Ministers of Australia, but we’re supposed to take Bill Shorten’s word that he thinks they’re in the clear. Now if they are in the clear they should produce the evidence, if they haven’t got the evidence, they need to have their status clarified by the High Court. So all they need to do is produce the evidence that they are qualified to be in the House of Representatives, that they’ve renounced their citizenship successfully. To take Justine Keay for example, she claims that she was still a UK citizen on the day of the election and received her information from the UK after the election that she wasn’t any longer, which is no different to the situation Malcolm Roberts finds himself in in the Senate for example, from One Nation. We haven’t seen any evidence from Tony Zappia or for Maria Vamvakinou that the Greek or Italian governments have renounced their citizenship, and the same for Susan Lamb from the UK, so the Labor Party needs to produce the evidence or the government will obviously consider its options.

SABRA LANE: Minister in regards to North Korea, the US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says that if North Korea fires a missile at the United States it could escalate into a war very quickly, how close is the world to conflict?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well if North Korea fires missiles at Guam nobody would expect the United States to do anything other than take out those missiles in the sky and I assume that they would ensure that North Korea can’t do so again, that’s a matter for the United States Secretary of State and for Defense is making it very clear to North Korea, that they are playing with fire. The United States is the most powerful military country in the world’s history, and North Korea should be very careful to make any missteps.

SABRA LANE: Mr Pyne thank you for talking to AM this morning.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s a pleasure, thank you.