Sky News
E&OE
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
Well, let’s ask the Social Services Minister Christian Porter, who joins us. He’s on his way back to Perth, but he’s kindly agreed to come into Sky News and have a quick chat to us first.
Christian, how will this work? Does this mean that our journalists- once we were told by Mathias Cormann that it was our job to work out whether or not MPs were eligible. Does this mean now that we’re not allowed to ask?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, as you would know, your job never stops. I mean, I’m sure that you won’t be ceasing to ask any number of questions. But what this does, I think, it gives a very clear line of sight, transparent process which provides an assurance to the Australian people that the types of declarations that we would expect are being made; that people are undertaking a good due diligence into their own circumstances and are prepared to make a clear, transparent declaration, through a very well-known process I might add, which is through the register of disclosable interests, which is a parliamentary register. So I think it presents a very clear, well-known process and it adopts that process and adapts it to a declaration about a citizenship status for every individual member.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
Why is it not an audit?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Are you asking why it’s not an audit as in characteristically why it’s different? Well an audit, as it was, I understand, been suggested by any number of commentators, must have had some kind of mechanism to compel a very wide range of documents. This basically relies on a self-declaration of good due diligence by the member in question. There is a reference to some documents in there about citizenship renunciation, but I think qualitatively that makes it very different from an audit because it relies on a due diligence by individual members and then a self-declaration pursuant to a well-known parliamentary process.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
When the Prime Minister returned from overseas he said we’re not about witch-hunts in Australia, he didn’t agree with what Labor was proposing in terms of voluntary disclosure. How is this different?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Different from a witch-hunt or a voluntary disclosure? Well, I think what Mr Shorten said was that he was prepared to support a process such as a universal disclosure to the Parliament to deal with this issue effectively. He said he was prepared to cooperate with the Government to come up with an agreed process. So a process has been developed. I think it’s very different from what people generally accept to be an audit, which has very vast powers of compulsion about documents but also statements of fact. So we’ve come up with a, I think, standard, well-known, accepted process that gives transparency and line of sight to Australians as to the nature of the citizenship of the members of Parliament that they elect.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
Okay. So it’s voluntary disclosure then?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, you are required to undertake the disclosure by virtue of it being a parliamentary process by a motion of Parliament. So as you’d know, myself and every other Member of Parliament is required to disclose a range of things: whether you have a second property and what you own and who your superannuation is with for financial purposes. So it adapts that process to this separate but important question about the status of someone’s citizenship. So you are required to do it pursuant to parliamentary processes. But an audit, as was being readily conceived – and I argued very strongly against an audit – must involve some kind of power for someone to actually look over documents and statements and histories and genealogy. This doesn’t provide any person with the ability to do that with respect to myself or any other member, but it does place an obligation, which already exists in parliamentary process on a member, to do that sort of due diligence and present a truthful declaration to the house about their citizenship status.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
And obviously that is a job for the High Court, which is the reason why the Prime Minister resisted an audit in the first place. So did you develop this in response to Bill Shorten’s request for bipartisanship over voluntary disclosure?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, this was developed by Cabinet in response to a situation which was not of our making but has nevertheless occurred, which frankly is disruptive, and it was developed in response to a sense that we had as a Cabinet that people wanted an end to this issue within reasonable time so that government can get on with getting messages about the dutiful and important matters of government. So this is a response to a situation which exists. Governments are often faced with situations which exist which are not of their own making but which they have to deal with, and this is how we’ve chosen to deal with the situation.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
So did Cabinet have to lead the Prime Minister to this response? Who was this developed by? Was it developed by the Prime Minister’s office? Was it developed by Cabinet saying to the Prime Minister, mate, you might’ve been out of the country for the last week, but I’ve got to tell you, you can’t keep going on like this?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, it’s a very long question, and you’ll be astonished to have my response, which is that we don’t talk about inner processes.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
Okay then. We’re told that the big penalty is contempt of Parliament, which is $5000 fine or six months jail. I’m assuming that you’re not planning to put any MPs in the slammer if they don’t hand over their documents?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, you’re jumping six or seven steps down the track, but I note again that this adapts a present process which exists, which we are – members of Parliament – all subject to. We disclose around issues of finances and a whole range of other personal matters. I’m not aware of anyone who refuses to undertake that sort of disclosure to Parliament.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
But MPs regularly fail to update the Registry of Pecuniary Interests, for example; they very rarely face any penalties. So what would the penalty be? It’s a maximum $5000 fine or six months jail, and I’m assuming that there’d be Buckley’s chance of that happening.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, again though, this adapts a known and existing process, which also allows for an updating of the register of interest through this disclosure mechanism if there’s a change in circumstances. So, quite properly, if someone comes by knowledge that somehow had evaded them after good inquiry and due diligence, then they would of course be required to update the register; if a situation changed, they’d be required to update the register. But that’s nothing particularly novel in terms of the way in which Parliamentarians have obligations to disclose things that other citizens don’t pursuant to the fact that they’re members of Parliament.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
The Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, has described this as being flogged by wet lettuce. He says that the timeframe is too long; the documents need to be provided faster. Are you prepared to work with Labor and the Greens if necessary to shorten that 122-day timeframe?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, when you look at the timeframe that’s been set with respect to this, I think it’s reasonable in all the circumstances. I mean, these inquiries are not without their complications, particularly when you look at the nature of overseas citizenship laws, many of which are excruciatingly complicated and hitherto have basically been unknown to most Australians other than the for the publicity that they’ve garnered in recent events around the High Court. So look, we’ve come up with a very fair, reasonable plan. I think it will be accepted as fair and reasonable by the Australian people. We’re the Government, we’ve had to act on a range of circumstances which have not been inside of the control of the Government, but of course you’re required to deal with. This seems like an adaptation of reasonable existing processes to a new problem that has emerged and I think people will find that a reasonable response.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
The race for Senate President is on. It’s not usually a job that would occupy the minds of Australians, but it does come with a pretty hefty pay packet – it’s $350,000 a year. Now, Scott Ryan, the Special Minister of State, has now emerged as a candidate. Do you think that voters are going to think that that is a bad look, a vote of no confidence in the Government, if ministers start bailing out to take jobs as Senate President, that presumably they’d be able to hang onto for a little bit even if the Government loses the next election?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, I can earnestly say to you I’m not aware of anyone who is or isn’t a candidate for that job, but look we’re dealing with issues as they arise. The first issue that we’ve been dealing with today is the issue of citizenship, about giving people comfort that members of Parliament are disclosing issues pertaining to their citizenship in an orderly and reasonable way. That’s the issue that we’ve been dealing with today. As to matters around the Senate and it’s leadership, I mean, that will be resolved in due course according to well-known procedures.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
There’s also the matter of the Senate recount. So the High Court ordered that, of course. That’s been underway today. They won’t formally announce the result for a while, but the scrutineers have suggested that certainly Holly Hughes has got up, as has Andrew Bartlett. Now, there’s also a Section 44 question about those individuals for office of profit under the Crown as opposed to citizenship. Does the Liberal Party have any advice in relation to those candidates of whether or not they will then be referred to the High Court?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, again, you’re raising issues and asking me a question whether the Liberal Party – the organisational wings – received information, and I couldn’t possibly answer that because I don’t have that information. But let me say this: based on all the publicity that has been at the forefront of people’s minds on the issue of citizenship, if you were running for Parliament last week or into the near future, you would of course be well advised to take very seriously the obligation to check according the rules.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
But it’s a bit rough if you can’t take any government job during that period, and you weren’t- I mean, in Holly Hughes’ case the suggestion is that because she’s taken a job at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal after she’s been on a non-winning position on the Senate, that she’s not allowed to have a job for a couple of years to prepare herself for the prospect that somebody might fall over.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, the rules though, with respect to the office of profit under the Crown and being engaged in what is essentially the public service, have been well-known and of course there’s many High Court cases going back many years. You described them as tough; I think they are tough. I don’t think that many Australians – and certainly the ones that I speak to about the recent High Court decision – wouldn’t describe that, as it pertains to citizenships, as anything other than very tough. But that’s the ruling that’s been provided and that’s the landscape that we’re now dealing with as a government – and dealing with it we are by an orderly, procedural, known process that’ll give confidence to people that disclosures are appropriate and proper.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
Okay, and just finally before you go, obviously the Senate is back this week but not the House. Is there any movement on any of your portfolio areas in terms of- the drug testing has obviously run aground for the period, but do you have anything up before the Senate that you’re hoping to get through?
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, I mean, we’ve got a 200-page welfare reform bill, of which drug testing is a part, and I would note it was hard to miss that 76 per cent of Australians think that drug testing is a very good idea, including a nice even majority of even Greens voters consider it’s a good idea. So we’ll be renewing our argument around drug testing as a part of that bill right up until the vote is taken. And I would’ve thought that particularly crossbench senators who will have a very important decision-making role around drug testing – those in the Nick Xenophon Team – would’ve been taking a good hard look at that poll. It is a big step to stop the Government from trying something new to achieve this movement of people from welfare to work, which we’ve got a great track record in, so I think that we’ll be arguing that right up until the last moment.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
Okay. So splitting the bill, but you’ll keep that in the back pocket to bring it back in another …
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Well, as I’ve said previously, we won’t be stopping the passage of the entire bill if there’s disagreement around a very small part of the bill, but we’ll be arguing the entire bill right up until the last moment.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN:
Okay. Christian Porter, we know you’ve got a plane to hop on, so thanks a lot for coming in and talking to us today. Thank you.
CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Pleasure. Cheers. Thank you.