Doorstop - Parliament House

SUBJECTS: Palestinian UN vote; AWU Scandal; Australian Education Bill

E&OE................................

Pyne: If I could deal with a couple of issues this morning. The first of those is the vote in the UN on the question of Palestine being treated with observer status at the United Nations. The Prime Minister has been rolled by both her cabinet and the Caucus on a very important issue. One shouldn’t underestimate how dramatic it is that Australia is now abstaining from a vote for the Palestinian territories and the Palestinian authority to gain observer status at the United Nations. Observer status at the UN is a reward for a state, or an authority, or the Vatican – it also has observer status as a reward for their behaviour. The truth is Hamas controls Gaza, and the Palestinian authority has failed to reach a peace agreement with Israel in spite of Israel’s repeated efforts to try and bring about such an agreement, and in fact this year, over a thousand rockets have been fired from Gaza into southern Israel, and Israel has responded militarily. The Prime Minister was right in wanting to vote no on the issue of observer status for the Palestinian Authority at the United Nations. The Government is wrong to be abstaining. This has shattered the bipartisanship that usually exists between Labor and the Coalition on the issue of Israel and the Middle East. The Coalition and Labor has routinely, for decades, had the same attitude to Israel’s status, their right to exist, and the necessity of a two state solution, but one where the Palestinian Authority and its people recognise the right of Israel to exist in a peaceful state. The fact that they are abstaining on this vote at the United Nations shatters that bipartisanship. Members of the Labor Caucus are right to be angry about the Prime Minister being rolled by the cabinet and the caucus, and this spells the end of what has been, until now, an understanding between our two parties of the importance of supporting the state of Israel in the Middle East, our ally in the Middle East, and not rewarding the Palestinian Authority for failing to come to a peace agreement with Israel in the last twenty years in spite of every effort being made by the state of Israel to bring that about.

Journalist: [inaudible]

Pyne: Because there are people in the Labor caucus who have the right view on the state of Israel.

Journalist: [inaudible]

Pyne: Well what that tells us is that it’s a very important point you make. The people with the right view about Israel in the caucus have been rolled, including, apparently, the Prime Minister. Michael Danby, Richard Marles, Bernie Ripoll, other Labor members – I had thought Simon Crean, Steve Conroy as we see from the papers this morning, Bill Shorten. People with the right view about Israel for decades were rolled by people with the wrong view. The people in the Labor caucus and the cabinet who rolled the Prime Minister have a wrong, leftist view of the state of Israel and the middle east that has infected the Labor caucus and the Labor government. The coalition will not be joining that particular circus of weakness and vacillation on the state of Israel.

Journalist: The government’s called on Julie Bishop to resign today over… [inaudible]

Pyne: Look, the government is panicked. They’d hoped to end the year talking about issues that they wanted to talk about. The reality is that they haven’t ended the year that way, because there are serious questions for the Prime Minister to answer. There are two very important points to be made about the AWU slush fund scandal. The first point is: did the Prime Minister engage in a conspiracy to defraud members of the AWU or the business community out of their money, into the slush fund? That is the first point. Did she do that? They are the questions we’ve been asking. Now, the most important question that I think we’ve asked this week was about the letter the Prime Minister is purported to have written to the Western Australian Corporate Affairs Commission attesting to the legitimacy of the AWU Welfare Reform Association. Because, if that letter was written, then in fact what she did was say to the Western Australian Corporate Affairs Commission that objects of the association were correct and legitimate and had been established correctly and legally. Now, if she did that, and now we know the slush fund was used for the purpose of the property in Fitzroy etcetera, then she would be a party to a conspiracy to defraud. Now we asked that question and the Prime Minister simply said “no letter has been produced”. I was a solicitor, about the same time in fact. If a solicitor writes such a letter, it’s not something you simply forget. If a letter is written by a solicitor to the Western Australian Corporate Affairs commission, it’s something you remember. So I expected the Prime Minister to say “that letter does not exist; I never wrote such a letter”. If you read her answer in Hansard, she did not confirm or deny whether that letter has been written.
The second part of why this matter is important this week is that we’ve been asking her whether she benefited from that slush fund, because if she did benefit from it then both the action of being part of a conspiracy to defraud, if that is true, and benefiting from a fraud as a solicitor or as an individual are criminal offences. That’s why this is important. There’s been a lot of soap opera…

Journalist: … The question was about Julie Bishop…

Pyne: Well, I said it was a broader question, David, so I thought I’ll put those things out there for you.

Journalist: The Government has called on her to resign, why is she not out here this morning… [inaudible].

Pyne: The idea of Julie Bishop resigning is a hysterical response from my friend Anthony Albanese who is sent out to put the hysterical lines on the television news at night. And why on earth would she be resigning when in fact she is trying to put to the Prime Minister two important facts. Did she take part in a conspiracy to defraud? That is an important issue. And did she benefit from the fraud? Now we’ve asked her twenty questions at least so far and quite frankly we don’t yet know the answers to those two questions. And Julie Bishop has been doing an excellent job. Anthony Albanese’s job is to run interference, he did that yesterday, and its worked because you asked me that question this morning. But it doesn’t mean she is going to be resigning. Nobody will be resigning. The only person who might resign over this is the Prime Minister.

Journalist: [Inaudible].

Pyne: Have I met Ralph Blewitt? No, I have not.

Journalist: It appears that Julie Bishop may have come out here though and lied yesterday in terms of how many times she spoke with Ralph Blewitt. Doesn’t that show that she is not handling this issue well?

Pyne: Well I don’t know about that at all. I mean I haven’t heard any suggestion of that whatsoever.

Journalist: Do you know how many times she spoke with Ralph Blewitt?

Pyne: No I haven’t the faintest idea.

Journalist: Has she been taken off the lead prosecution?

Pyne: I doubt it very much. I’m sure she’ll be right in the centre of it today. I’m here to talk about the Palestinian-Israeli issue and education.

Journalist: [Inaudible] … Bruce Wilson interview last night?

Pyne: Oh yes I did, yes I did.

Journalist: He says that Julia Gillard didn’t benefit in any way.

Pyne: Well he would say that, wouldn’t he? It’s the Christine Keeler response and it’s the truth. He would say that. Look, Bruce Wilson and Ralph Blewitt on the television news last night reminded me very much of Michael Caine and Steve Martin in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. It’s become something of a soap opera but there are very important issues at the core of it and I’ve outlined those.

Journalist: Hasn’t the Opposition made it something of a soap opera?

Pyne: No. The Opposition has tried to ask, well has asked, questions that are searching questions, that are important questions. And the Prime Minister has slid away from the issue, has tried to hold press conferences with journalists so that she doesn’t have to answer questions under Parliamentary privilege in the Parliament. I mean, this is a transparent attempt by the Prime Minister and her tactics team to avoid the scrutiny of the Parliament by saying when she’s asked a question I’ve already answered that in my press conference. Now whether the press conference is fifty minutes, ten minutes or two and a half hours is really quite irrelevant. The truth is the Prime Minister has questions to answer about whether she partook in a conspiracy to defraud and whether she benefited from that fraud. And they are the points that the Coalition continues to raise that she refuses to answer.

Journalist: So will you spending all of Question Time again today on the AWU matter?

Pyne: Well there are lots of important issues. I’ve outlined one of those this morning which is the Government’s shattering of the bipartisanship on the issue of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, I think that is a very important issue. I think the fact the Government is trying to con the Australian people with an education bill this morning which has nothing to do with the Gonski Report, has absolutely no detail, it has nine pages and fourteen hundred words of motherhood statements which they are pretending is a new school funding model. It’s a hoax, it’s a con, it’s an embarrassment and if the Prime Minister introduces it, it will only highlight how spin always wins over substance in this government and thirdly of course there is the very important issue that the Coalition will continue to pursue of whether the Prime Minister took part in a conspiracy to defraud and whether she benefited from it. That is the gravamen of the issue that the Coalition is pursuing.

Journalist: [inaudible]

Pyne: We’ve had 17 weeks of sitting this week; we’ve been asking questions all year about the cost of living, about the carbon tax, about job security, about border protection, about economic management, about the Prime Minister’s integrity. Those are the 5 issues that will form the core of the next election. This week, the only opportunity we have to question the Prime Minister is in Question Time. Journalists have been given the opportunity in two press conferences, neither of which proved conclusive. We want the Prime Minister to say on the record, in the Parliament answers to our questions that are truthful and the public can then rely on the integrity of the Prime Minister. The fact that she refuses to answer our questions only highlights that she has something to hide.

Journalist: So it appears as though question time is going to be dominated by the AWU issue again?

Pyne: Well I’m not in to, as much as I like you, I’m not in to telling journalists our tactics for Question Time. But I think you can expect we are not going to be backing away from this issue.

Journalist: Will Tony Abbott get an opportunity to ask a question this Question Time?

Pyne: Tony Abbott is very busy every day with press conferences and speeches to the Party Room and he might well do speeches on the matters of public importance and censure motions of course. I wouldn’t say that Tony Abbott has been hidden this year. In fact he’s been constantly in the press and constantly pressing the issue on cost of living and the carbon tax and job security and so on. If he gets a question today, if the tactics group decides that he should have a question or if he wants a question, he’ll have one. On the other hand, there is no particular reason why he needs to ask a question today unless he wants to. So that is an absolute red herring that you in the media have fallen for from the Government and good luck to you but we’ll decide our tactics and we will prosecute our case in a way that we think is best.

Journalist: Is he avoiding asking questions on the issue because he doesn’t want to appear sexist or…

Pyne: I think he hasn’t asked questions on this issue for two reasons. Because Julie Bishop is the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, she is a solicitor of twenty years standing and she has carriage of this issue. And when I had carriage of the Building the Education Revolution issue I asked seventy questions in about two sitting weeks and no one asked why Tony Abbott wasn’t asking those questions so I think you’ve fallen for the trap from the Labor Party.

Journalist: [inaudible]

Pyne: Because Julie Bishop’s handling the issue and she’s doing a very good job of it.

Journalist: You’re saying that Julia Gillard should be accountable to the Parliament. Should Julie Bishop also be accountable over her meetings with Ralph Blewitt?

Pyne: Look, I don’t know about Julie Bishop’s meetings with Ralph Blewitt. That’s something you should put to her.

Journalist: Are you going to be asking her about that today?

Pyne: She said yesterday that she had a chance meeting in with Ralph Blewitt in Melbourne for ten minutes where she asked him if he had any documents that he was presenting to the police. She has been absolutely upfront. The tale of the two Julia’s on this issue, if we could drop the A from Julia for a minute, Julie has been utterly upfront, open and transparent about every aspect of this matter, and Julia has been entirely the opposite. She has not been in the least bit upfront, has not been transparent, has not answered your questions, and has not answered our questions.

Journalist: She’s not here today?

Pyne: Who, Julia?

Journalist: Julie

Pyne: Well, she’s not here every morning. I’m not here every morning. Amanda Rishworth’s here every morning, but I’m not, and neither is Julie.

Journalist: [inaudible]

Pyne: Didn’t Julie do three press conferences yesterday? You’re all gluttons for punishment. I think we’ve handled this matter more than enough.

ENDS.