2GB Ray Hadley

E&OE

RAY HADLEY:

Minister good morning.

MINISTER MORRISON:

G’day Ray.

RAY HADLEY:

Firstly in an article not related to your portfolio but you have no doubt seen the pictures and the vision of the Auburn Deputy Mayor Salim Mehajer over the weekend.

MINISTER MORRISON:

Yeah who hasn’t?

RAY HADLEY:

Four helicopters, luxury cars, motorbikes ridden by outlawed motorcycle gang members, I’ve checked with senior police today and they are people associated with motorcycle gangs.

MINISTER MORRISON:

Yes.

RAY HADLEY:

Drummers, fighter jet – and by the way someone said, “how would he get a RAAF fighter jet?” it wasn’t a RAAF fighter jet.

MINISTER MORRISON:

No, of course not.

RAY HADLEY:

But even shutting down the street without permission. Now I make no reference to Mr. Mehajer here but I note the Prime Minister this morning has spoken about spending more money on the ice epidemic and he also weighs into the debate about legislation for unexplained wealth.

MINISTER MORRISON:

That’s right.

HADLEY:

Now I have spoken already to the Commissioner of Police in NSW. He is a full supporter of this but strangely enough other states and territories aren’t supporting it because at the moment it is the domain of the Federal Government and it is very complicated to go into it and he wants to bring it back under the NSW fold.

MINISTER MORRISON:

Well there has been some frustration with getting states and territories to sign up to a cross jurisdictional arrangement on unexplained wealth. I mean…

RAY HADLEY:

Why?

MINISTER MORRISON:

That’s really a matter for the states. We have also been very supportive of it and the NSW Government is very supportive of it.

RAY HADLEY:

Well Mike Baird wants to do it today.

MINISTER MORRISON:

I know and I commend him for that. I know Michael Keenan has been working very hard to this end because this is an important tool in the hands of those who go out to deal with those whether it is in drugs or other forms of organized crime. The way to draw attention to yourself is through lavish spending and where people do that then there needs to be the opportunities for law enforcement to follow that through and connect the dots. Follow the money as they say and that is very important and it is something that the government has been very committed to. It’s for the Prime Minister and Michael Keenan to announce what the next step is here. They have been very strong on this point and I commend Mike Baird and Commissioner Scipione for the very strong position they have taken as a state to try and support that issue.

RAY HADLEY:

Well my tip is they will go alone. That if they don’t get cooperation from the other states and territories that they will do an agreement with Minister Keenan to bring it back under their control so they can start to move against people. Because the way I understand it at the moment under the federal law you have got to have a reason to go to someone and say “where did all that money come from?” but if you don’t have a reason you can’t ask them. The NSW law that they are looking at they go to them and say “listen old mate you need to explain yourself for no justifiable reason you are driving flash cars, living in big houses and you are on the Disability Support Pension, we need to know where all the cash is coming from.” And then that person has to explain themselves without reason.

MINISTER MORRISON:

I think that is all very fair enough. Wherever we can we will work with the states but we can’t have a have lowest common denominator form of federalism. I am working with states on some other areas, I am pleased that all the states and territories have now signed up to the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness, took a while but we got there. I was in Adelaide on Friday and we announced that we would be supporting the coroner’s recommendation in terms of BasicsCard income management for people who are subject for child protection matters – parents. That horrible case of Chloe Valentine in South Australia, so we have worked with the South Australian government there but if they are not going to work with us on these sorts of things well I don’t see why the Commonwealth or individual states have to be held hostage to that lowest common denominator approach.

RAY HADLEY:

Ok well let’s hope things do change. Now I want to talk about – and I have already spoken about it you may have heard my comments today about the poll two party preferred 54 – 46. There is an article here by Peter Hartcher, “from afar the solution for the Coalition is clear, Malcolm Turnbull is a vastly more appealing alternative for the Australian electorate. He will transform the Coalition’s fortune.” I want to know what photos Mr. Turnbull has of Mr. Hartcher to make him the right… I mean this is just – doesn’t Mr. Hartcher understand the polls from when he was last leader?

MINISTER MORRISON:

Well look the distraction of all of this and the commentary that goes around it, that happens from time to time and it is unhelpful…

RAY HADLEY:

I know he is your mate, I know he’s your mate…

MINISTER MORRISON:

That’s not my point. I’m not making that point…

RAY HADLEY:

No, but my point is if he pulled his head in we wouldn’t have all this. He puts himself out there. You had a vote last week on same sex marriage, democratically done. Forget whether Christopher Pyne thinks it was branch stacked or not, the Nationals were there but even if they weren’t there the Liberal Parliamentary Party would have voted the way they voted anyway. All we had – Turnbull, Pyne and even the Attorney General they don’t think that this is fair that you blokes had a vote and the women had a vote and decided democratically that you do what you are doing.

MINISTER MORRISON:

Well the objective of the government is to focus on the things that interest the Australian people and that is family domestic violence…

RAY HADLEY:

Well that would be helpful if you told all members of the government, including Mr. Turnbull to pull their heads in, or someone did.

MINISTER MORRISON:

Well I will leave those things to the Prime Minister…

HADLEY:

He is your mate.

MINISTER MORRISON:

But we need to focus on jobs, we need to focus on family domestic violence what we are doing there, we need to focus on the ice scourge that is affecting communities all around the country. These are the things that people want to see us focusing on.

RAY HADLEY:

Can’t you go for a Chinese feed with him tonight and say, “Malcolm, you are not very helpful you know, what are you doing?“

MINISTER MORRISON:

He is not my keep – I am not his keeper and he’s not mine. We’re colleagues…

RAY HADLEY:

But he listens to you.

MINISTER MORRISON:

We are colleagues and my message is simple every government Minister must focus on the matters that are of most concern to the Australian people and they are jobs.

RAY HADLEY:

Why don’t you do this and say “Laurie Oakes was right on Saturday, if there is going to be a change of leadership it is going to be me not you. Pull your head in.”

MINISTER MORRISON:

Well there is not going to be one and the Prime Minister has my full support and that is the way it will remain.

RAY HADLEY:

Well I hope he does.

MINISTER MORRISON:

There is no reason to think otherwise.

RAY HADLEY:

He doesn’t appear to have the full support of Malcolm Turnbull who does his best to undermine him at every opportunity. He is like a spoilt brat who lost the game, took the bat and ball and went home. Now he comes back a number of years later and his mates in Fairfax are pushing his barrow, despite the fact he is unelectable. In fact I would say this to you, Anthony Albanese, Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek will be doing handstands, degree of difficulty 9.5, if he is the leader of the government leading into the next election because they will lap him.

MINISTER MORRISON:

You know what they will also be doing handstands about Ray?

RAY HADLEY:

What?

MINISTER MORRISON:

Everyday that we are talking about this and every day this is being speculated about in the media so I am not going to speculate about it. I am not even going to talk about it.

RAY HADLEY:

Well if he pulled his head in we wouldn’t have to talk about it. He is like a petulant child who got shown the door by the party and he has been sour ever since.

MINISTER MORRISON:

I don’t know what you are expecting me to say, Ray. I mean I have made my point, I am not going to indulge media speculation about this stuff and I think I want to focus on the issues of jobs and particularly family domestic violence. I wanted to do an interview on that last week on one of the particular programmes and they told me it wasn’t important enough with everything else that was going on and they wanted to talk about something else.

RAY HADLEY:

Well what they probably think is, with all due respect to you Minister, it is a bit of a diversionary tactic because while it is a terrible?

MINISTER MORRISON:

Family domestic violence is a diversionary tactic?

RAY HADLEY:

No, let me finish don’t get on your high horse because there are very important things to talk about in relation to leadership and what happens every time we start to talk about it you and others say “look family violence is our focus,” and it is very, very important but just at the moment there is a crisis in government. You are down the tube in the polls according the Fairfax 54-46, you would lose an election if it was held tomorrow, and they are out for their reason they are out after your leader.

MINISTER MORRISON:

So what is our response to that? I’ll tell you what our response to that is our response is to do the job of government. That is our response. You don’t go round banging on about leadership and indulging that sort of commentary that occurs in the media. You focus on the things that your listeners want us to focus on and that is what I am doing. I believe that is what the Prime Minister is doing and that’s where my focus is.

RAY HADLEY:

I will leave it here with one final comment.

MINISTER MORRISON:

Sure mate.

RAY HADLEY:

I wouldn’t bang on about it if Turnbull pulled his head in. End of story. Ok, we won’t say anymore. I spoke on Friday about a 26 year old called Ali Haider who abused a magistrate because he had been taking ice out to an inmate at John Morony Correctional Centre out at Windsor. He is on the Disability Support Pension. Hello.

MINISTER MORRISON:

He won’t be when he walks in those doors at prison that’s for sure. He was automatically suspended and his case is now under review when he comes out.

RAY HADLEY:

I thought there were a very good piece today by Andrew Bolt about Dyson Heydon and this nonsense about a guest speaker at a Liberal function. He specifically asked the pelicans who put it on, look if is anything to do with the Liberal Party I can’t come. Last year I think a former Chief Justice of the High Court gave the address in relation to Sir Garfield Barwick.

MINISTER MORRISON:

Look I don’t know a lot about this forum and it does seem to focus on fairly fine points of constitutional law and all that sort of thing which they like to focus on and they are important issues. What Labor is simply trying to do here is fairly transparent; they are seeking to attack the credibility of a former Justice of the High Court who has been given the job of working through the issues regarding the dodgy deals between unions and the Labor Party. Now there is the evidence before that Royal Commission when it comes to Bill Shorten and others that requires massive explanation. So rather than engage in an explanation they attack the judge and that is exactly what they are doing. It was despicable what I saw in the Parliament last week, one of their members even called him a bagman. Now that’s how dirty Labor gets when they don’t like the evidence that comes out in a Royal Commission. Don’t address the Royal Commission, attack the judge.

RAY HADLEY:

He hasn’t repeated it outside the Parliament of course.

MINISTER MORRISON:

Yeah, that bloke you were referring to earlier the actor, he attacked the judge too when he didn’t like the outcome. He is off to prison and his DSP is suspended.

RAY HADLEY:

But hang on a sec just there, with that pelican right the magistrate having been referred to in that appalling way had the chance – and I have had letters from other retired magistrates who said she should have given him another six months for contempt for abuse of the court. She was asked whether she wanted to pull him back from the cells and give him another whack but she said “no, I’ll leave it at that.” Now I mean you can’t let people off the hook when they disrespect the institution like a court the way that – it wasn’t against her it was against the court.

MINISTER MORRISON:

Look I think that is very true. I mean it is up to individual magistrates to do what they will do but what we saw was someone supplying drugs to someone in prison, ark up at the judge afterwards because they didn’t like the evidence and the finding. You know I don’t think that is terribly different to what we are seeing the Labor Party do with Justice Heydon.

RAY HADLEY:

Ok, we will leave it there. Thanks for your spirited debate today.

MINISTER MORRISON:

No worries Ray always good to chat. Go the Sharks tonight.

(ENDS)