2GB Ray Hadley
E&OE
RAY HADLEY:
Minister Good morning to you.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Good morning Ray.
HADLEY:
Now, well first to the most important news of the day and of yesterday, Bronwyn Bishop has resigned as Federal Speaker. The ongoing pressure, including the chopper ride, but then the chartered aircraft to take her from Sydney to Nowra among other things costing $6000, a few things about that, I in fact went to Gerringong on Saturday and drove back, it is only about 30 or 40 minutes north of that area – what it smacks of Minister is, and I am not referring just to Bronwyn Bishop, but a sense of entitlement. You would be fully aware, you have spoken about your own method of dealing with these matters as an individual but it appears to be that there are some people, your colleagues, from both one side of the House and the other side of the House who seem to make an art form of using taxpayer’s money for travel expenses.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well it is important that the Prime Minister has done what he has done and that is to get the Tune Conde Review in place. These things have to be about work expenses, that is what this should be about and we need a system that deals with work expenses like any other work place has to deal with work expenses and a clear set of rules. I for one as a Member of Parliament am quite happy and quite keen to have a clear set of rules because it is important that we spend our time focusing on the things of governing the country and growing the economy and protecting national security and all of those important things and for the last three weeks that has not been the focus of the public and rightly so and that matter has been dealt with and we will have the review and – I mean Bill Shorten now has to front up and talk about the things he hasn’t wanted to talk about the last three weeks, whether it is $40,000 in donations that it took him eight years to decide to declare or the other issues that involve him looking to ramp up electricity prices with a 50 per cent RET and bringing back the carbon tax. So these are the issues that haven’t also had a lot of discussion over the last three weeks and now that this matter regarding the Speaker has passed Bill Shorten will have to explain himself on these matters.
HADLEY:
Well it has passed but there will be this examination by Mr Conde and Mr Tune, as you so politicly put it the Tune Conde Report but the bottom line is this you gotta pass the common sense test. Now I would think that people would see me as being rather privileged because I do what I do and I think they would be right and I get well remunerated for what I do as well but if I were to go to the owners or the executive chairman of this radio station and say “look you want me to call a game in Nowra on Saturday but I am not prepared to drive down there. I would like you to supply an aircraft to get me to Nowra.” I mean even allowing for the position I hold in this network, they would look at me like I had two heads and say “well who do you think you are? Get in the car and drive down or at worse we will get you a car and get someone to drive you down there if you don’t feel up to it.”
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well I have driven there many times myself both on work and the South Coast is a beautiful place to visit as well. But look it has got to be about what are reasonable work expenses. Bronwyn has made a tough decision for herself, I think it is a decision everybody respects and has expected and she has made a decision in the interests of getting reform in this area but also a decision to assist the government get back to the job of government and I think to enable the government to get on with what is important for the country. I pay tribute to Bronwyn for making that decision and it was always her decision to make Ray this….
HADLEY:
Well Alan Jones made the point this morning, and people may not have heard it, that because of her position in the Parliament as Speaker the Prime Minister has no capacity to sack her.
MINISTER MORRISON:
She is not a Minister.
HADLEY:
He can’t sack her.
MINISTER MORRISON:
She is the Speaker of the Parliament and it was always her decision to make and those like Bill Shorten desperately desperately trying to breathe oxygen back into this issue this morning, trying to make this link with the Prime Minister it’s absurd. She is the Speaker of the Parliament, she was the one that needed to make a decision, she has and that is I think in line with a long history of her loyalty both to her party and her country. I commend her for making a difficult decision against herself but I think in the country and the Party’s interest.
HADLEY:
But now we have got the report – the enquiry into the expense, as you say work expenses not holiday expenses work expenses. I went through Tony Burke’s history of excessive travel claims including a family holiday to Uluru and I don’t know why this hasn’t got any traction, the local paper the Western Advocate did an excellent job last week in identifying Penny Wong and Bill Shorten going to the Lights on the Hill Labor Party fundraiser to honour the memory of Mr Ben Chifley and raise money for the Labor Party. They both charged accommodation back to us the taxpayers, we paid for an airfare and return I suspect from Adelaide to Sydney for Ms Wong, we paid a Melbourne to Sydney return airfare for Bill Shorten but no one is jumping up and down about the fact they go to a fundraiser in Bathurst. Anthony Albanese is the key note speaker this year I bet he won’t be charging it back.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Glasshouses and stones Ray I think that is what this is all about. This is why I think it is important that the Prime Minister has decided to put this on the forward agenda to make sure that there is a proper review of what are legitimate and reasonable work expenses and the role of those being funded and to give Parliamentarians I think very clear rules. But for the Labor Party to carry on as they have I think is the height of hypocrisy. I think it is important now we just focus on getting those rules right and we continue on the job of government. Now we will be down in South Australia, there is a Cabinet meeting down there tomorrow, some important decision being announced in particular the one that Malcolm Turnbull has been talking about with training hundreds of workers down there on the NBN, some decisions coming forward on ship building down there in South Australia. I mean getting on with the job of building and growing the economy is what we are so focused on. That is our main agenda. That is what we are focused on.
HADLEY:
Ok, now to other matters. A new Speaker needs to be found now that the Speaker has resigned. They are talking about the Deputy Bruce Scott who has announced I think in the last 24 hours that he won’t be seeking another term in government or in opposition as the case may be. Sharman Stone got mentioned by Alan this morning but surely the Father of the House Mr Ruddock has to be one of the front runners. I mean he would – given the current circumstances he would bring a sense of dignity to the position apart from anything else and I think that people are looking for that not just in the Parliament but outside of Parliament as well.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Look I think there are a lot of good candidates and I think it is important that the Parliament now do its job and particularly the Coalition Party Room and in particular the Liberal Party Room, work through those processes. I mean there are a lot of good people who I think can meet exactly the sort of bill that you have put forward. Obviously Philip as the Father of the House has enormous respect in particular his achievements as a Minister were outstanding but there are many others and I think it is important for the party to go through that sort of grass roots process within our own ranks of our own Party room I think to move forward with a new Speaker. That Speaker will set the tone for the balance of this Parliament and hopefully beyond and there is some work to do there but the Party room will do its thing.
HADLEY:
The Daily Telegraph reports today Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen has twice made representations this year calling for an Assyrian man to be released from immigration detention. He is known as Isaac Isaac, in detention in Western Australia after he used his brother’s passport to enter the country in 2012. Chris Bowen writing on behalf of his brother, who lives in his constituency, is at odds I would think with Labor’s new held position as sort of the way things that may be on being tough on illegal arrivals?
MINISTER MORRISON:
They are talk out both sides of their face on this. You will remember Tony Burke, another former Immigration Minister, making representations on behalf of people for a Mr Nweke who was in Villawood Detention Centre and was alleged to be involved in all sorts of drug trafficking. I mean at the end of the day what you are going to have is a Labor Party who under Bill Shorten who will let the Unions decide what trade policy is, they are going to let the Greens decide what the renewable energy target is going to be and how much you pay for electricity and Tanya Plibersek is going to decide whether they turn boats back or not if they are elected to government. This is the problem that Labor has, on all of these issues Bill Shorten gets led around by the nose by people who don’t believe in anything and he is the chief amongst them. I think this is the challenge that they now have – now that the issue of the Speaker has been put to rest I think Bill Shorten is the one who is going to be most nervous because the spotlight is coming back on him. These issues have now been dealt with Bill Shorten’s issues remain very much front of mind. The fact that the unionists can’t know whether they could trust him to be a union leader who did the right thing by them when he was their union boss. If he couldn’t do that when he was there union boss how on earth could they trust him as Australian taxpayers and citizens as a Prime Minister?
HADLEY:
You talk about unions – not a very pleasant experience today for people coming to our country or leaving our country because of a four hour strike action. Not you portfolio but you have permission to talk about other matters, what is it all about? Money?
MINISTER MORRISON:
This is an agreement that roles around every couple of years and the CPSU are taking that action with rolling four hours stoppages. But I can stress though that the appropriate arrangements have been put in place that none of Australia’s border security arrangements and safety of life at sea issues are at risk. There has been the appropriate accommodations made for how this action takes place. The arrangements have also been made with the airlines and airports and others to try and make this as seamless as possible. There is a Fair Work Australia ultimate process that is at the end of all of this and a new arrangement will be struck. Unions will strike and that is what they will do on occasions and we will continue to work through this issue with them but let’s not forget it was this government that put more than $700 million back into our border protection that was ripped out by the previous government. We have an Australian Border Force which for the first time I think has real law enforcement teeth and I think a real career path for people working in the Australian Border Force and in the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. I think the opportunities for working both in the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the Australian Border Force today are better than they have ever been.
HADLEY: Just back to the Tune Conde Review, David from Hamilton in Queensland says “Ray, you have suggested in the past it needs to be retrospective can you check with the Minister whether he knows whether it will be retrospective, that they will – how far back they will go at looking at the abuses?”
MINISTER MORRISON:
What I understand that they are looking at is how to make the system work better.
HADLEY:
So they won’t identify those who have abused it?
MINISTER MORRISON:
The Department of Finance does exactly what you are talking about quite regularly and all the time and there are any number of matters that are on foot at any one point that they are looking at. So I think we need to separate -what Mr Tune and Mr Conde are working on is a better system which makes the rules clearer so it is all about work expenses and understanding the modern job that politicians have to do today.
HADLEY:
Ok, now in your own portfolio this week is Homelessness Prevention Week, what are we doing? Because if I travel through Brisbane or Sydney or any major city I see many people, Melbourne, I think about when I was down there for Origin two how cold it was and those people living rough, what are we doing about it?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well over 100,000 people are homeless and that number hasn’t shifted in a very, very long time. When we came to government the funding for the National Partnership Agreement of Homelessness had been – the cupboard was bare they had ceased that funding going into this year. So we put that money back in and I am pleased to say the NSW and Western Australian Governments in particularly were some of the first to sign up, thankfully the Victorians have finally signed on a little while ago but in Queensland the Premier up there you know she needs to sign the letter accepting the almost $60 million we want to put into that arrangement over the next two years to support homelessness initiatives on the ground. It’s now August this should have been in place at the beginning of last month and I call on the Premier in Queensland to say yes and to let those funds flow to Queensland to ensure that the important homelessness projects up there can be funded.
HADLEY:
Talking to Scott Morrison, just interrupting ACT Fire and Rescue crews at the Fyshwick Mail Centre in Canberra after an unknown substance was found in a package. The building and staff have been isolated, firefighters in hazmat suits will be entering the building to get a sample of the substance and we will know a bit more about that later. Let’s hope it is just something that is not untoward. Now, in farewelling you I believe that you had some joy over the course of the weekend on a much lighter note in relation – is it still called the Shute Shield the rugby union competition?
MINISTER MORRISON:
It is called the Shute Shield and the Southern Districts Rebels had a great win over Sydney Uni. It was a great weekend for the Shire all around with the Sharks doing so well over the Warriors.
HADLEY:
So who used to play for Sydney University?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey so I…
HADLEY:
Mr Hockey played for them?
MINISTER MORRISON:
He did.
HADLEY:
Well we know the Prime Minister was a front rower what role did Mr Hockey, the Treasurer, play?
MINISTER MORRISON:
He was also a front rower…
HADLEY:
That’s a surprise.
MINISTER MORRISON:
They had a celebrated exchange at training I understand many many years ago but tomorrow I will be wearing my Southern Districts tie for the benefit of my colleagues and well done to Jed Holloway and all the boys down there it was a – and for all the crowd for coming down to foreshore.
HADLEY:
Well I am glad you have told us you are wearing that tie because there would be hundreds of thousands of people seeing you on TV thinking “I wonder what that tie is all about?”
MINISTER MORRISON:
That is not – this is a different one but tomorrow it will be down in South Australia so…
HADLEY:
Ok, well we found three people who care about Southern Districts beating Sydney Uni; the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and Minister thank you for your time.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Thanks very much Ray.