Doorstop

E&OE…………  Hon Christopher Pyne MP: There are two points that need to be made arising out of the matters of Australia day and the Prime Minister’s statement you’ve just heard this afternoon. The first is that the Prime Minister’s statement leaves more questions unanswered than answered and the only way to get to the bottom of exactly the role the Prime Minister’s office played in the very unfortunate events of Australia Day is by a proper Australian Federal Police investigation. The second point to make is that the Government, focussed and obsessed as it is on Tony Abbott and dirty tricks is not focussing on the matters that the Australian people are concerned about right now, job security, border security, pressures on cost of living, they’re the issues that the Australian people want their Government focussed on. The only political party that is doing that is the Coalition. The Government is much more concerned with obsessing about Tony Abbott, with destroying Tony Abbott with a dirty tricks campaign, with tawdry affairs like this one and it’s high time that this Government stopped this charade of a hung Parliament, where it’s all about survival, all about the personal survival of the Prime Minister as Prime Minister and started focussing on the day to day issues of the Australian people. With respect to the Prime Minister’s statement today she has opened a new Pandora’s Box of questions and those can only be answered by a Federal Police investigation. For example, she says that her staffer was with three other members of her office at the Lobby Restaurant when he was told second-hand about Tony Abbott’s statements that morning. Why did he think that it was an appropriate thing to do to go and ring the ACT Unions Leaders, to go and stir up trouble about these statements without actually checking the veracity of the reports that he’d been given second-hand. Are we seriously to believe that the other three members of the Prime Minister’s office had no involvement, were not asked a question by this new media advisor, that he’d just decided off his own volition to pick up the phone, ring a few people and try and get a few people to come over to the Lobby and speak to Tony Abbott. Really it beggars belief that a staffer at that level would act entirely unilaterally, particularly when he was in the presence of three other staffers from the Prime Minister’s office. We still don’t know the purpose for which this information was passed on to Unions ACT and the tent embassy protestors. We now know who it was passed on to, we know where the information came from, we know it was a second-hand version of Tony Abbott’s speech that morning, but we still don’t know to what purpose this  information was passed onto the tent protestors and as we saw in the riot that ensued and the humiliation of the Prime Minister, one can only be drawn to the conclusion that this was a deliberate attempt to disrupt the Leader of the Opposition’s speech that day, to create a furore that backfired very badly. The only way to get to the bottom of what is going on in the Prime Minister’s office is for a full Australian Federal Police investigation into all the circumstances surrounding it. Journalist: And if that happens and the three other staff knew or even Julia knew herself, what would you say, what needs to be the outcome? Pyne: Well the Government as I’ve already said is obsessed about Tony Abbott, obsessed about dirty tricks campaigns, it’s obsessed with grubby deals, like the despatching of Harry Jenkins for Peter Slipper, like the protection of Craig Thomson that is ongoing and has been ongoing for three and a half years. We know there is a pattern at the heart of this Government. The Prime Minister’s office contact Fair Work Australia about Craig Thomson, they’ve now been involved in the riot on Australia Day only two days ago. There is a stench at the very centre of this Government that needs to be expunged. Now if the Prime Minister, or any of her other staff have any further information, they should provide it to the Australian Federal Police. The Prime Minister has made it very clear that she had nothing to do with this information being passed on and we believe that that would be the case, however the other three staff with the particular staffer who is the subject of this controversy we haven’t yet heard from and they’re three people that Australian Federal Police investigation could begin with talking to. Journalist: Are you saying the order for the leak came from higher up? Pyne: There’s no doubt in the minds of the Opposition that the only purpose for which Tony Abbott’s statement and his whereabouts were leaked to the tent embassy protestors was to cause a fracas, a fracas that backfired badly with the humiliation of the Prime Minister, with property damage, with the personal safety of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition being put at risk. This is a very serious issue. This is a serious country; we have serious people at the top of our country as Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition. Their security is paramount and their whereabouts is very sensitive information. I don’t know who else might have been responsible for the decision to leak this information. Only the Australian Federal Police can really get to the bottom of that and nothing less than that will satisfy the Opposition. Journalist: You don’t think Tony Hodges acted alone then? Pyne: I’d be very surprised if a relatively new media advisor standing around with three other friends or mates or colleagues from the Labor Party, from the Prime Minister’s office, would then decide that he had all the judgement to go away and inform the ACT Unions of the whereabouts of the Leader of the Opposition, to breach his security, to pass on second hand information about a speech that was highly charged in the way it had been told to him, which then led to a riot. It’s not commonsense to think that this all happened from one particular staffer acting alone. Journalist: When you talk about dirty tricks are you talking about a serious black ops office within the Prime Minister’s office? Pyne: I think sometimes the Prime Minister’s office think they’re in an episode of West Wing and think they’re terribly clever and smart and get ahead of themselves and this is problem for the Prime Minister. The first person who should want an AFP investigation into what happened here is the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister should want to get control of what’s going on in her office. For example, last year she claimed she was the last person to find out that Harry Jenkins was going to resign as Speaker and that Peter Slipper was going to become the new Speaker. Nick Xenophon said he had heard weeks before the actual event. Now we’re expected to believe that the first she heard of it was the morning it happened. We’re also expected to believe that Ben Hubbard her Chief-of -Staff rang Fair Work Australia to talk about Craig Thomson and she knew nothing about it and it was of no consequence to her. Journalist: So just coming back, of they have a black ops operation, do you have a black ops operation in the Liberal Party? Pyne: What I am talking about is the Prime Minister’s office and her lack of control over it. I would be very surprised if there were any such operations as you describe but sometimes in the Prime Minister’s office we have seen examples where members of staff think they’re in an episode of West Wing and on Thursday, it all turned very serious. Somebody could have been hurt. That riot could have ended much more seriously. The Prime Minister was humiliated, internationally and domestically, her safety and the Leader of the Opposition’s safety could have been placed seriously at risk, that is the subject of our concern and that should be the reason why the Prime Minister should ask the Australian Federal Police to investigate this, even to be investigating the processes in her own office. Now she claims in her statement this afternoon that one media advisor acted alone to create this extraordinary controversy. If that is the case then maybe she needs to be putting in place some processes in her office to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again, because next time it might not be so... Journalist: Does the Liberal Party engage in dirty tricks or leaks? Pyne: Well Brad we’re not talking about the Liberal Party. We’re talking about what happened on Thursday and there is no suggestion that had anything to do with the Liberal Party. Journalist: (Inaudible) Pyne: I think all Australians are very concerned that in a country like ours which prides itself on its open and transparent democracy, the fact that we aren’t surrounded like they are in the United States or Central America or South American countries or many European countries with security guards and so on is one of our great blessings. For the Prime Minister’s office to put that at risk, to put the security of the Prime Minister at risk and the Leader of the Opposition, is a very serious matter, it cannot be washed away with one press conference in Melbourne this afternoon. Journalist: What realistically is an investigation going to find out? Everyone knows that all sides of politics have dirty tricks, what realistically are we going to learn from that? Pyne: Well honestly that is just spin, we’re not talking about anything to do with the Liberal Party. What we’re talking about is facts. On Thursday there was a riot. On Thursday the riot was started by the people from the tent embassy protesting. We know that that information was provided to them came from the Labor Party. We know it came from the Prime Minister’s office. It is a very serious matter. The Prime Minister should want the Australian Federal Police to get to the bottom of why that information was leaked, what purpose was it leaked for and put in place the processes where it cannot happen again. Journalist: Isn’t that a waste of the AFP’s resources? Pyne: If the Prime Minister was seriously hurt, would you be asking that question? Journalist: What are your thoughts on the behaviour of the tent embassy members yesterday at Parliament House? Pyne: Well I think that the tent embassy protestors have not done their cause any good in the eyes of the Australian people. Yesterday’s burning of the flag and rioting outside Parliament House did no more to help them than their extraordinary behaviour the day before. ENDS