2GB
E&OE
Subjects: Citizenship, Welfare reform
CHRIS SMITH:
The citizenship circus continues in the national capital. What a farce this has become. As I said at the start of the program, the talk is that up to 19 MPs could be in the spotlight and that Opposition leader Bill Shorten has been hopelessly exposed. Now, the suggestion is there could be a super Saturday of by-elections in the wake of a citizenship audit that’s exposed MPs and Senators on all sides of politics.
Now questions have been raised about five Labor politicians: Josh Wilson, Justine Keay, David Feeney, Susan Lamb, and Senator Katy Gallagher, whose cases are likely to be referred to the High Court this week. Another five Labor MPs who haven’t produced details of when their citizenship renunciation was confirmed could also face a referral. How long do they want? They are Steve Georganas, Anne Aly, Emma Husar, Ed Husic, and Emma McBride. On the Government’s side, Liberal MPs Jason Falinski, Josh Frydenberg, and Nola Marino are also set to have their cases tested in court and there’s talk of a cloud over Julia Banks, Alex Hawke, Michael McCormick and Arthur Sinodinos. And Rebekha Sharkie from Nick Xenophon’s team could also be referred for not renouncing her British citizenship in time either.
Now, Bill Shorten has previously argued Labor’s vetting process for candidates was very strict and rigorous, but the Government says the Opposition Leader has been exposed as a dishonest, sanctimonious hypocrite.
I thought we’d try to make some sense of all of this, and on the line is the Social Services Minister, Christian Porter, because it’s not just citizenship that he has on his plate. Today in the Senate, the Government’s welfare reform legislation will be on the agenda. An important piece of legislation which as you may recall includes provisions for the drug testing of welfare recipients. Christian Porter, thank you very much for your time.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Yeah good morning, Chris.
CHRIS SMITH:
In broad terms, this citizenship issue at the moment has got well and truly out of control. Maybe there’s now an option here for a general election?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
I don’t think we’re at that point yet, but the observation I’d offer is that we as a Government obviously would prefer not to be dealing with this, but this is just one of those storms outside of your control. The question is how you behave and how you weather the storm. I think the fundamental distinction here is that all of those members that you read out, and properly read out, the ones on our side, we have already discussed, they’re already public knowledge, we’ve been open about – we have views on each of them.
On the Labor side, for months – literally for months – Bill Shorten, no equivocation, no sense of irony, has said at least a dozen times that they’ve got a strict vetting process, that there was – in his words – no cloud over any of our people. He said things to that effect at least a dozen times, and it is clear that that was not merely absolute rubbish, but a calculated deception. I mean, he’s played the highest stakes political game of deception in Australian political history, and his stratagem clearly has been to deliberately deceive the entire Australian nation for as long as he possibly could to cause as much damage to a duly elected government in the meantime as he was able to. And this David Feeney thing I think is absolutely astonishing.
CHRIS SMITH:
Well they’re very close, they’re very close. He’s one of the faceless men. Don’t tell me that Bill Shorten didn’t know the precise details of David Feeney many months ago.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
It is impossible to assume that he was somehow ignorant of those facts. And you might remember, Chris, David Feeney at the time of the last election, he forgot to declare an entire house. Some people may have forgotten about this. And now it appears that he has forgotten about his citizenship of an entire country, and you might think that forgetting a very large and expensive house is carelessness, but forgetting about your citizenship of a whole country starts to look dishonest. He must have known, Feeney. Shorten, as his close political confidante, ally, and a person who’s relied of Feeney’s support to get Shorten where he is, must have known. This is not an error. This is a deliberate calculated deception of the entire nation, designed to achieve one end which is to advance Bill Shorten’s career.
CHRIS SMITH:
Okay. Let’s put it in context though. There are suggestions up to seven of your own MPs could be in trouble as well. On behalf of every taxpayer listening right now, if at the very worst we’ve got 10 that have to go to by-elections on some kind of super Saturday next year; they’re worth about $2 million, these by-elections. Why does the public have to fork out $20 million for the incompetence of MPs in the Parliament?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, I mean I think that there’s a difference between some people who have been deliberately deceptive, some people who have been less than stringent and some people whose cases are just complicated.
CHRIS SMITH:
But it’s still $20 million of our money.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Of course, and this is not something that any Prime Minister, certainly not the one we have at the moment, would have wished upon the Australian people. But it’s just an issue that we all have to deal with, and the fact is this could have happened to any government at any time but it has happened to our Government now and we are dealing with it in as orderly, open and as transparent way as possible because that is in the best interests of the Australian people and the Australian nation.
CHRIS SMITH:
Is there any constitutional avenue for the Governor-General to say; enough’s enough; yes, you’ll refer this to the High Court. But the High Court won’t wait until February before they get behind the bench, we’re going to do this before the end of the year?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well that is up to the High Court and the Prime Minister, no doubt, will have conversations to that effect. But I think the first step is that Parliament now has to consider this full register, including all of the deceptions that have been undertaken by Bill Shorten and consider which of all the Members need to be referred to the High Court.
You’ve got interesting cases here. I mean, Josh Frydenberg’s case is about stateless grandparents fleeing persecution in Europe during and post-World War II and there have been vigorous arguments – not least of which from Mark Dreyfus – that that should be referred. Now, I think that that is not one necessarily that should be referred.
CHRIS SMITH:
No.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
But what is fascinating is that it’s now revealed that Mark Dreyfus’ situation is almost identical to Josh Frydenberg’s. But he didn’t bother to tell anyone while he was vigorously arguing for Josh Frydenberg ….
CHRIS SMITH:
Unbelievable, it is so unbelievable. And look, I know there’s a difference between those that have been caught up and those that have been intentionally deceptive, but the deceptive ones, we will not forget their role in all of this.
Now, to the welfare legislation just quickly before we let you go. What’s happening in the Senate today?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
So we’re having our welfare reform bill; 200 pages of welfare reform to strengthen our compliance system, make the system work better; a three-strike demerit point system for people who don’t turn up to job interviews.
And look, what I’d say, Chris, to all the Senators considering this and the cross benches and to your listeners is what the Turnbull Government is doing in the welfare space is working. During the six years of the previous Labor Government there were an additional 250,000 people under 65 – working age Australians – who became welfare dependent. Since our first Budget we’ve decreased the number of working Australians who have become welfare dependent by 140,000 people. Why? Because we’ve created jobs, we’ve been willing to apply rules stringently and fairly, but very stringently, to make sure only people who need payments get on to payment.
And the next step, the critical step in fixing out welfare system is this welfare reform bill and, as you noted, part of it is trying something new which is to drug test welfare recipients and try and compel them into treatment that they need before they’re able to get a job. We think that’s worth trying. But the message is that the things that we have been doing are working and we have 140,000 less people welfare dependent than there were when we took Government.
CHRIS SMITH:
Yeah, without doing something in your pocket I would say that what you’ve achieved in terms of welfare reform has been excellent. Let’s just hope the Senate understand the gravity of what this crackdown is all about and the amount of money that can be saved by these simple measures.
I thank you very much for your time and all the very best for Christmas, if we don’t catch up before.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Thank you Chris, and to your listeners.
CHRIS SMITH:
Fantastic. There you go, Social Security Minister Christian Porter.
You know, this is the kind of thing that will be unravelled if Bill Shorten gets into the Prime Minister’s office. He’ll unravel all of this because he doesn’t like a crackdown on welfare and neither does his party. If there’s ever a reason not to get him in as Prime Minister, that’s it: welfare.
Ends