Radio National

17 Jul 2017 Transcipt

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview with Christopher Pyne, Defence Industry Minister, on Radio National with Fran Kelly.
17 July 2017

SUBJECTS: Australian Defence Industry Exports;



FRAN KELLY: This morning, the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, will announce greater powers for the Australian Defence Force to respond to domestic terror incidents. The restrictions on call out powers – that’s the process in which state police can request the involvement of the ADF – will be eased and Special Forces will provide ongoing specialist training to state and territory law enforcement. The changes follow a review into the way police and the ADF interact on national security - a relationship tested during the 2014 Lindt Café Siege, where the police response was criticised. But will these changes keep us safer?

Christopher Pyne is the Minister for Defence Industry. Minister, welcome back to Breakfast.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning, Fran, it’s nice to be with you again.

FRAN KELLY: I’ll come directly to your portfolio in a moment, but turning around this involvement of the ADF. The rules as they stand, mean the states and the territories can only ask for ADF support when their capability, their capacity’s been exceeded. So how will this change? What will be the new threshold for when the military can be invited in, or get involved in a terrorism incident?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence will make an announcement about this later this morning, Fran, where they’ll go through the details. But what has occurred is that in 2016, we’ve reviewed the involvement of Defence in domestic counter-terrorism incidents. It’s the first time since 2005 that that’s occurred. And arising out of that have been some suggestions about how the Defence forces can be more closely associated with our police forces.

The immediate responders to a domestic counter-terrorism event, of course, are the police. But there are things that Defence can do in terms of embedding Defence officers in some of those police forces, offering training in counter-terrorism measures, and in allowing the state and territory governments to call Defence in earlier, should they choose to do so, and before they’ve exceeded their own capabilities.

FRAN KELLY: And on that point under the changed rules – that call out power – will it still be up to the local state and territory police forces to make that decision about when to call in the army, or will the Federal Government be able to intervene, or the Defence Force in some way, to bring in the ADF?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well it’s never entirely been up to the discretion of state and territory governments. The call out provisions that are instituted by the Minister for Defence, the Prime Minister, or the Attorney General, or myself, or the Deputy Prime Minister, depending who is in the country at the time. There is a process by which those call out provisions are initiated, depending on the threat to Australia. So we’re kind of talking about nuanced levels of involvement by Defence. The call out provisions don’t rely on a state or territory government to be responsible, they are a matter for the Federal Government. But there are of course, other provisions where the state or territory government exceed their own capabilities and then ask Defence for assistant; and that’s what we’re talking about today and that’s what Malcolm and Marise will be talking about later this morning.

FRAN KELLY: Okay. The Lindt Café siege is one of the most recent cases where this new call out power would perhaps have been relevant. People watching that unfold on their televisions around the country were really left wondering, why it went on for so long, why special commando units didn’t move in more quickly, why snipers didn’t shoot the assailant. Under the new rules, is it likely special army commandos, or army snipers would’ve been called in earlier, or the federal forces might have made that decision?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look Fran, it would be quite wrong of me to start trying to reopen the issues around the Lindt Café. There’s been an entire coroner’s report about that and recommendations being made. They’re being implemented by state and territory governments and the Federal Government, and all the governments are working together. As for the details of this announcement; really it would be much more sensible to let Marise and Malcolm answer these questions after the announcement later this morning.

FRAN KELLY: Okay. This week we will get a version of the L’Estrange Report into the intelligence communities; it’ll be released. I understand it doesn’t recommend a home office type arrangement that would bring various agencies under one minister. But what’s your opinion? Should we shift to that model? Would that be advantageous?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Fran, the arrangements for the cabinet are a matter for the Prime Minister. At the moment the Attorney General, the Foreign Minister, the Minister for Border Protection, the Minister for Defence, members of the National Security Committee, all have a role in the protection of the Australian public from terrorism offences and from obviously defence-related issues, and that continues to be the case. And touch wood, we are doing so very effectively.

FRAN KELLY: So you don’t think we need a new arrangement, a new sort of home office?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s a matter for the Prime Minister. It’s a matter for the whole of Government to decide. It certainly is not a matter for me to advise through Radio National – as much as I’m sure you’d love me to do so – the Prime Minister about how he wants to structure his Government.

FRAN KELLY: Okay. You’re listening to RN Breakfast. Its 18 minutes to 8. Our guest is the Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne. Christopher Pyne, you’ve said over the weekend you want Australia to become a leading arms exporter. What kind of arms would you like Australia to be exporting?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Australia has the ability to export weapons of many different kinds. For example targets vessels, ships, offshore patrol vessels, potentially frigates down the track, things like remote warfare systems, surveillance, sonar, radar.

FRAN KELLY: Are we already doing all that?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We are doing some of that. My ambition is for us to enormously increase that capacity and send a lot more weapons overseas, to appropriate countries and appropriate places of course. We simply wouldn’t do so willy-nilly, we have a particular process for that. I believe that we can, over the course of the next few decades, create jobs and investment here in Australia by being a major weapons exporter; because we have the skilled workforce, we have the advanced manufacturing base, we have the technological capability and we simply need to have the will to do so. And since the Turnbull Government has been elected, the Turnbull Government has the will to support defence industry, not only to supply our needs here in Australia but to export overseas, creating jobs and investment here.

FRAN KELLY: And as you say it would take several decades to build up that capacity. We’re not a huge population. We already have some kind of shortage, that’s talked about often in terms of our capacity with- and our kids and expertise in STEM subjects and some of our research capacity, and we’re bringing people in. Why would we identify weapons as the export niche we want to develop? Why not a capacity in, I don’t know, solar technology or some other kind of high-end manufacturing? Why weapons?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We can do it all, Fran…

FRAN KELLY: Well, can we? I mean, really? We’re going to have to focus if we want some niche expertise, aren’t we?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I’m a Defence Industry Minister, so unsurprisingly I’m focused on defence industry, not solar technology. So, I’m focused on defence industry and we are at the moment in the build-up of our largest military build-up in our peacetime history; $200 billion over the next 10 years.

FRAN KELLY: And we didn’t have the capacity to build our own submarines, we have to buy them from the French.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, we’re building them here in Australia. They’re being designed by Naval Group and they’ll be built here by Naval Group at Osborne. So that’s not right that we’re buying them from France. We’re building them here in Australia.

FRAN KELLY: We’re buying some of that expertise in, aren’t we?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well of course we’re buying in some of the expertise for design and for training and for management, because we haven’t built a submarine since 2003. But at the end of this process we’ll have built 12 submarines here in Australia, 9 frigates, 12 offshore patrol vessels, and 21 patrol vessels for the Pacific. We’ve completely re-energised, in a renaissance, the shipbuilding industry in Australia, and they were decisions being made by this Government. And as part of that, as part of that massive build-up of our capability in defence industry, we then need to look at exporting that capability, because it brings treasure, investment and jobs to our economy here in Australia.

And there’s no reason that we can’t do that very successfully, because we have the skills and capability to do so. And what we have to overcome is, with great respect, that instantaneous and reflexive response that Australians sometimes have that we can’t do it here. We can do it here. We are a great manufacturing nation and a great export nation. And defence industry, with this huge heft that the Turnbull Government has put into our military capability build-up, this huge heft is the opportunity to do just that.

FRAN KELLY: Can I ask you just a couple of quick domestic questions? The National President of the Liberal Party, Nick Greiner, says Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull should sit down together and resolve their differences, and if they don’t, the Liberals are likely to lose the next election. How likely is this, these two men sitting down together and solving their differences?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Fran, I and the rest of the Cabinet and the Government, are entirely focused on the Australian economy, on national security, on domestic security. We’re getting on with the job. And I’m not going to be distracted.

FRAN KELLY: And your national- federal president now says that you should be focused on- well, Malcolm Turnbull should be focused on healing this rift with Tony Abbott. Do you agree?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: These are very much inside the beltway conversations that the Australian public are not interested in. And when I’m walking around my electorate talking to my constituents they don’t raise these matters because they’re not interested in them. They’re interested in jobs for themselves and their children, they’re interested in energy prices particularly in South Australia, which has the highest in the world, and they want solutions to our everyday problems. They’re not interested in the inside-the-bubble conversation that sometimes we’ll have, forgetting what the real issues are in Australian politics.

FRAN KELLY: All right, well, you better mention that to Nick Greiner then, I suppose. Christopher Pyne, thank you very much for joining us.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Thanks Fran.