Today Show

LISA WILKINSON: Well former Liberal MP Wyatt Roy has been widely condemned after being caught in the middle of a battle between Islamic state insurgents and Peshmerga fighters near the Iraq Syria border. Here’s what he told us a little earlier

AUDIO CLIP – WYATT ROY

LISA WILKINSON: It’s understood five IS fighters were killed during the confrontation. So for more on this I’m joined by Minister for Defence Industry Christopher Pyne and Shadow Defence Minister Richard Marles. Good morning to you gentlemen and Christopher -

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Lisa.

LISA WILKINSON: I want to start with you; the Foreign Minister has slammed Wyatt Roy for acting against government travel advice and placing not only himself but anyone who may have needed to rescue him at risk. This is a pretty big lapse of judgement from a former politician.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Lisa I don’t know all the facts associated with Wyatt Roy’s trip to Iraq, I know that he is travelling around the world on something of a sabbatical since he lost his seat of Longman. He is a very good friend of mine and I’m glad that he is safe and well, that’s the first thing, the most important thing whoever the Australian is who happens to be in Iraq. Julie Bishop has made the quite sensible point that the travel advice from the Australian Government is not to travel to Iraq, only absolutely essential Australians need to be there in terms of military personal, security personal who might happen to work there. It is certainly not a tourist destination and no Australian should be travelling to Iraq simply to observe the situation there. So I’m glad Wyatt’s safe and I’m glad he is getting out of there and I would urge everyone to take Julie Bishops advice and not to go there.

LISA WILKINSON: One word answer, did he do the wrong thing?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well look I’m not going to judge his choices they’re matters for him to make.

LISA WILKINSON: No, it’s a simple yes or no Christopher. Let’s move to Richard, Penny Wong has said that Wyatt Roy should have known better than playing out boyhood games in a war zone. But former Northern Territory Labor President Matthew Gardener travelled to an IS battle zone just last year, you’re all doing it.

RICHARD MARLES: Well the answer to this question is it was clearly the wrong thing to do; it’s a massive lapse of judgement. I’m surprised Christopher doesn’t find it easier to make that comment, I mean this is profoundly stupid profoundly selfish, we’re talking about a war zone, this is not a Contiki tour here and Julie Bishop’s absolutely right that if anything had happened to Wyatt Roy it would have put others’ lives in danger who might have needed to provide assistance. I still want to understand did anyone in the government know about this? Christopher did you know that Wyatt Roy was planning to go there because all of that is still very unclear.

LISA WILKINSON: Did you know Christopher?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No of course I didn’t know, Richard’s just trying to make it a political issue for the government which is slightly pathetic and rather a quantum leap, but Wyatt Roy is a private citizen, he made those choices himself and certainly I didn’t know and I doubt anybody else in the government knew.

RICHARD MARLES: But you can still make the judgement that he did the wrong thing.

LISA WILKINSON: Well I think the problem is particularly for those families who would have been called in to protect him probably feel a little let down when former government officials should have known better but we will need to leave it there, Christopher and Richard a short one this week thanks very much for your time.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Pleasure.

RICHARD MARLES: Thank you.