2GB Ray Hadley
E&OE
RAY HADLEY: Minister good morning.
MINISTER MORRISON:
G’day Ray.
HADLEY:
News broke during this programme yesterday that Tony Smith is the new Speaker. There is a lot of talk today about the role you played in getting him elected. You’re a numbers man in NSW.
MINISTER MORRISON:
I don’t know about that but what I do know is that Tony Smith – he’s been a mate of mine for a long time. He will do a fantastic job and I think he really set the tone for that yesterday. You know in politics you support people you feel strongly about and I certainly felt strongly about Tony. I was very pleased to support him for that role, there were other great candidates in that race as well and it was a very friendly contest. One of the most civil and friendly contests I have seen actually so that is a credit to all the other candidates, Russell and Andrew and all the others so that has been good.
HADLEY:
I think…
MINISTER MORRISON:
Ross Vasta I should have said.
HADLEY:
The lack of dignity attached to the outgoing Speaker, who fell on her sword. She hasn’t been found to be criminally guilty of anything at the moment…
MINISTER MORRISON:
No.
HADLEY:
And there is an enquiry into her and others. But the Greens Adam Bandt I thought he showed a lot of dignity – a lack of dignity and class when he said what he said about her. I mean it is a time I would have thought for reflection, she has done a lot of good things throughout her career and this was the final part of her career I’d imagine in Parliament – in a senior position. I thought Mr Bandt’s comments were totally out of order.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Yeah I mean this was a very difficult day for Bronwyn and Bronwyn had made a difficult decision against her own interest but very much because of her understanding of these issues and she has been in politics a long time and she has been a real warrior for our side of politics and the Australian people. I have got nothing but praise for Bronwyn’s career. I mean I have two young girls and what they have seen in Bronwyn is someone who never sought any advantage or quota or anything like that for her to succeed in politics. She did it the tough way and she set at the time an example where it was even tougher for females in politics when she broke through the glass ceiling.
HADLEY:
Well why are all the boys there and there is one victim of all this and it’s a woman, Bronwyn Bishop. I mean you had your Leader of Business in the House defending Tony Burke on Channel 9 last Friday. A disgraceful performance by Christopher Pyne, making excuses for Tony Burke. Then we find out that he had a dayroom booked in a London hotel instead of going to the airport like normal people and waiting there the people of Australia paid $1352 so his wife and he could luxuriate in that day room. I mean what happened here was there some sort of deal done between you and the Opposition to go light on each other and the person who ends up on the outer is poor Bronwyn Bishop while you blokes – and I am not referring to you specifically, but you blokes all escape censure?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well Christopher also provided a very spirited defence of Bronwyn as well and I think he has been…
HADLEY:
That made it all the more duplicitous that he would defend her at the same time that he climbed on board with the Opposition and defended Tony Burke.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well Christopher never called for Bronwyn to resign in fact he said the opposite so I think Christopher held a consistent position through all of these issues. What we have got now Ray is this issue has taken a heavy toll and that is understandable and what matters now is that we have got to fix up the issues. The Prime Minister has got a system in place for doing that and now Brendan Nelson has come on board and the former Speaker Harry Jenkins is on board to sort this out. So we have got to go and sort this out but we have also got to get on with the job of running the country, Ray.
HADLEY:
Minister, hang on a sec, hang on, hang on, it is not respective – Pyne, Burke, Shorten, Wong, the former Treasurer Swan, they are not paying the money back that they should be paying back. I mean Philip Ruddock has offered to pay back the fare to Cairns, Bronwyn Bishop has offered to pay back anything she thinks is owed to the Commonwealth of Australia but these other polukas from your side of politics and the other side of politics you know Teflon coated.
MINISTER MORRISON:
So what – I am not quite sure what you are suggesting Ray?
HADLEY:
Well I am suggesting that they should pay the money back. I am suggesting Christopher Pyne should put his hand in his pocket not because it is cold and peel $1352 out for the day bed that he booked for some you know beautiful hotel in London instead of going to the airport like a normal person and sitting there waiting for the plane.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well Ray there are 180 Members of Parliament who claimed access to the family allowance.
HADLEY:
Good make them all pay it back.
MINISTER MORRISON:
That would mean you would be retrospectively changing that rule.
HADLEY:
Well there are greater expectations from the people who lead us, who we vote to lead us, than on the ordinary citizen. The ordinary citizen has been let down more particularly because one woman has been offered at the alter – sacrificial lamb that she is and then the rest of you get on with life. That is not right. That is not fair and it is not what Australia should be about Minister.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well Ray what we will do is we will get on with the job of fixing the system and that system is in place. Individual members will take their own decisions as Bronwyn did in relation to her own cases and Philip has in his case I should stress. But Ray we have been dealing with this issue rightly for several weeks. I think the message has been delivered loud and clear and the system will be improved and changed. But politicians have to get on with the job now of doing what we were elected to do and that is to make important decisions about running the country, the national economy, growing jobs, dealing with big challenges like ice and domestic violence and all of these things. It is as important as those entitlement issues have been over the last few weeks and I understand how angry people have been. I am also very angry about the level of domestic violence in this country, I am very worried about the impact that ice is having particularly on regional communities not in our metropolitan areas and these are the issues that we need to address in this Parliament now. We will deal with the entitlements issue but we also have to get on with the job now of running the country.
HADLEY:
Well we will beg to differ on that mate.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Sure.
HADLEY:
Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie yesterday revealed her son is an ice addict – you just mentioned this, she called for parents to have the power to force their children into drug treatment. Well I don’t, with all due respect to Jacqui I am not in her boots and I never wish to be in these circumstances. It is a dreadful thing – I had to laugh, there is a report today I think in The Australian about an enquiry – no it is in the Courier Mail actually about an enquiry into organised crime up there and some pelican who says to be an expert says oh look we need to leave the bikies out of this you know waiting for this report to come back to the government about whether the laws of Campbell Newman should be reversed, the bikies are white knights or something. I have it not on good authority I know that bikies are targeting rural communities, probably in Tasmania as well, getting people hooked on ice and it is a readymade cash flow back into their personal finances. There needs to be a really really big stick taken to people. Troy Grant in NSW suggested life sentences for people dealing in this death and there really needs to be a rethink federally and state politics about what we do with ice.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Yeah that is under way, Ken Ley was appointed to come back with his report. His interim report has come back and it deals with everything from early intervention to law enforcement issues. You are very right about the point you make about in regional communities. Of course drugs is a big and huge problem and ice in particular in the suburbs of our major cities but Michael McCormack he is the member down there in the Riverina and Wagga and you’ll have listeners out there. I mean he has been raising that issue about what the impact is in Wagga. I was down on the South Coast on the weekend and you know I saw this bloke scratching his arm and you know what that was and they often are in communities where there are a lot of older people as well and I can understand the concern of older Australians seeing these young people in that situation and that can be quite terrifying for them. So there are just so many implications of this, I feel for Jacqui, it just must be the most horrible of things and I think there is a very strong will here Ray and you’ll see the action follow from Ken Ley’s report.
HADLEY:
Well Jacqui Lambie is just one of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of parents dealing with the same thing across Australia at the moment.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Yeah that is true.
HADLEY:
Now you have had some luck in your portfolio Social Services, Queensland has now signed up to the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness, is that right?
MINISTER MORRISON:
It is and I am pleased about that. I really don’t know why it took so long but anyway they are on board and that is great and all the other states are as well. You know getting people out of homelessness and getting them into stable housing is the best way to get them into a job and get them off welfare. So you know the way we are attacking this issue is you have got to see how all the bits link up together and it doesn’t matter whether it is younger people or others if you can get people into sort of a stable set of accommodation and that is what this funding is there to do working together with the states. The more we do of that the more opportunity we are going to have to get young people into a job. But you’ve got to have the sticks as well and in the Parliament this week in the Senate we have – I am still not confident we will see this Bill passed this week but we have a Bill which says that the waiting time to get on to the dole if you are a job ready young person – someone who isn’t affected by some of the issues we have just been talking about or who has just come out of juvenile detention or someone who can’t go home because of domestic violence issues or has mental health issues, we are not talking about people in those situations. We are talking about job ready young people and we are saying you would have to wait four weeks before you went on to the dole. Now in New Zealand when they did this 40 per cent of those who would have otherwise have gone onto the dole immediately they had to wait four weeks and guess what after four weeks they didn’t go on to it.
HADLEY:
What they got a job in the interim?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Yeah they did or they went into education or they made other decisions. This is a good reform and it says to young people yeah we want to help you get into a job and we are actually spending more helping young people get into a job in this last Budget over $330 million than we are by the savings of saying to young people who are job ready ‘no you are going to have to wait four weeks before you are allowed to go on the dole.’ So we will help them get into a job, but you can’t go from the school gate to the Centrelink front door. That can’t be Plan A for anyone.
HADLEY:
Thank you for your time as always. We will talk next week.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Thanks a lot Ray, good to be with you.