RAY HADLEY:
Prime Minister, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Ray, it’s lovely to be with you.
RAY HADLEY:
How are you settling in?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I think things are going ok. It’s different but it’s good.
RAY HADLEY:
Will you be able to watch any of the International Fleet Review or are you jetting off before that happens?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think I am going out on the Harbour to see some of it and then there is a reception at Kirribilli House for Prince Harry and a whole lot of people who have done good things for our community. So, I think I get to see a fair bit of the Fleet Review. What I don’t get to see unfortunately, Ray, is the Grand Final because I will be on my way to APEC when that is on.
RAY HADLEY:
So, you are off to Bali immediately after what happens tomorrow?
PRIME MINISTER:
Basically, yeah.
RAY HADLEY:
Ok. I note, and I am not being facetious, that we are not at war with Indonesia…
PRIME MINISTER:
No.
RAY HADLEY:
…as was suggested might occur when you made your first trip there and even your most ardent critics appear to be softening; saying that you have passed every test in relation to diplomacy with the Indonesian President. Did you have some sort of rapport with him?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, he is a very, very good friend of Australia, Ray; a very, very good friend of Australia. He had a very good relationship with John Howard when John Howard was the Prime Minister. I think he regarded me as a kind of political son and heir of John Howard and I was able to bask in John Howard’s glory, so to speak. Look, he – like the leader of every country wants what is best for his country and I think he understands what is best for Indonesia is that these boats stop. Let’s face it, these people they come to Indonesia, they stay in Indonesia for sometimes many months, they’re often not up to much good and then they get on the boat to Australia and it is bad for us and it is bad for them. Of course, if the former government hadn’t “put the sugar on the table” so to speak, it would never have happened.
RAY HADLEY:
Live cattle was another important conversation you had. Now, remarkably I am told by people in the northern part of Australia that given what you have achieved there we mightn’t have enough cattle to supply to Indonesia 53,000 head on top of what we have already committed to. Have you had any feedback from people in the north about what that means to them?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I haven’t myself had direct feedback on this. My expectation is that one way or another we will find the cattle to meet these additional quotas. Look, I had a lot to do with the live cattle trade in northern Australia in the wake of the former government’s disastrous decision to cancel it in panic at a TV programme. People were utterly devastated and it was a terrible threat to northern Australia given that, what can you do in the north – there’s mining, there’s tourism and there is cattle – and we really do need a vibrant cattle industry if we are going to have a strong northern Australia and that is why I am so pleased that as a result of this trip we seem slowly at least to be getting back on track.
RAY HADLEY:
I know you are probably not troubled by it, but do you think it’s a bit bizarre that so far after the election we still haven’t had an Opposition Leader elected?
PRIME MINISTER:
Ray, how the Labor Party proceeds is really a matter for them. My basic problem with the Labor Party is not that they are going about electing their Leader in this rather convoluted way, my problem is that both of the candidates are in denial about the election result; they are both saying well, sure, we lost the election but we can keep all the policies that we had: we can continue to support a carbon tax and a mining tax, we can continue to believe that somehow we were economic magicians even though unemployment increased by 100,000 and they saddled us with the five biggest deficits in our history. That is the problem: that they are in denial about the mistakes they made.
RAY HADLEY:
In relation to the Labor Party and the fact that they had some blues and fights when in government, I guess it is always more difficult when you are the Prime Minister and you have a certain number of positions to allocate and not everyone on the team is happy. It is a bit like what Geoff Toovey will confront this weekend. There will be a couple of players left out of the 18 or the 17 effectively that will take the field, they won’t be happy about it, but he’ll make that decision. You’ve got some people who are not happy.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, inevitably, but I’m pleased to say that they’ve swallowed their disappointment and they’ve buckled down to the job and the hardest calls you’ve got to make, Ray, after an election are the ones to your frontbench, because inevitably some people don’t get the jobs they want. So, look, it’s tough. Politics is a zero sum game, unlike business which can often be a win-win business. But the good thing, as I said, is that all of my people have buckled down to the job, even if it’s not necessarily the job they wanted.
RAY HADLEY:
Have you had a look in detail at how you’re going to guide yourself through the Senate as of July next year? There are going to be three Palmer United Party senators there by the look of it. We’ve still got some doubt about Western Australia and they’re having a little blue about that at the moment, but for all intents and purposes, you’re going to need six to get yourself to that magic number of 39.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, and Ray, managing the Senate has been a challenge for a lot of prime ministers over the years and I don’t think it’s going to be easy to assemble a majority in the Senate. The interesting thing, though, is that the Greens have lost the balance of power and that I think is a great political achievement for the Coalition and indeed for – if I may say so – the conservative side of politics more generally. So, while it’s not going to be easy and I’m going to have to treat every Member of Parliament – including every Member of the Senate – with respect and courtesy and Senator Abetz, the Government Leader in the Senate will obviously be doing likewise, only more so, I think we will be able to form an effective government in the Senate as well as in the House of Representatives.
RAY HADLEY:
In relation to that, you’re going to have to sit down with Clive Palmer and his three senators at some stage. He may well be the Member for Fairfax, we don’t know, there’s a recount happening as we speak. He’s for all intents and purposes a conservative – that’s what he is – and many of his platforms would coincide with yours, others might not, but how will that dialogue go with Clive, because I think he’s a colourful fellow and given to a colourful turn of phrase…
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes indeed.
RAY HADLEY:
… and you’re going to have to be even better than you were at the beginning of the election. You won’t be taking my advice and saying listen Clive, stick it up your jumper. You’ll have to be even more diplomatic than you were in Indonesia.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look, Ray, I think there’s no doubt that there’ll be a few management issues all round, but look…
RAY HADLEY:
A few management issues!
PRIME MINISTER:
…you’re right, though. He was a member of the National Party, then the LNP for many, many years and he is a conservative. So, you’d think that it would be in his interest to have a strong and successful conservative government.
RAY HADLEY:
Well, we thought that too with a couple of blokes who represented a seat on the coast and one further inland in New South Wales. That didn’t turn out to be – they forgot about their conservative roots.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, this was the problem in the last Parliament. Hopefully, people like Clive will have learnt the lesson of the last Parliament which is if you get elected as a conservative and then act like a socialist, well, you get punished by the electors and that’s as it should be.
RAY HADLEY:
Just a couple of things that I’ve countenanced here and spoken about here with my listeners. We’ve got a terrible problem with outlawed motorcycle gangs. They’ve increased by almost 50 per cent in number over the last few years. The Gold Coast particularly has become the domain of these people. Western Sydney is the same. Coppers have a really difficult job, despite the powers that they have to control them. Is there any thought that maybe the federal government can offer some assistance here, because it is a federal problem. It’s not a problem with the states. These people – when New South Wales or South Australia make tougher laws up they go to Queensland and when the heat goes on the Gold Coast, they go further up the coast – I mean, is there some thought that maybe as the incoming Prime Minister, you could address this rather dreadful problem we confront as citizens?
PRIME MINISTER:
Ray, one of my ministers, Michael Keenan, made an announcement yesterday about toughening up our approach to gangs and this was a policy that we took to the election: that we would work more closely with the states, that we would try to ensure that there was total information-sharing, that there were national databases, that there were, as far as is humanly possible, uniform laws. I absolutely agree with you, Ray – these gangs are a curse and they’re getting into all sorts of things and they are said to be trying to penetrate what would normally be legitimate businesses to give themselves spurious respectability. This is a real problem. All of the police forces in our country are onto it. The Australian Crime Commission is certainly onto it but as time goes by we will absolutely need to do more and we will do more.
RAY HADLEY:
Ok. Just one final one out of left field, and I don’t know if you’ve caught up with this it wasn’t the biggest story but one of the, I mean we’ve got all these organisations, I had my own battles this week with ACMA where a decision has gone against me and I likened it to the fact that when they scored that try after seven tackles, Cronulla, North Queensland couldn’t complain about it because they had the whistle, the referee – well, I say ACMA’s got the whistle in my case. I couldn’t complain. I copped the decision they give even though I don’t think it’s correct but the Administrative Appeals Tribunal is one that fascinates me and has fascinated me for the past decade. We’ve got a bloke who’s diagnosed schizophrenic who has lived in India since the early 1990s…
PRIME MINISTER:
I actually noticed this. It was point two in your column today and look, yes, it’s a very interesting one, Ray, and I’m going to seek some advice on it because we shouldn’t just park people, as it were, on the disability pension. If people are genuinely incapable of working, yes, absolutely they deserve to be looked after but I don’t know that we do people any favours by putting them on the pension and then forgetting about them. I think it’s important to keep working with people – particularly people whose disabilities may not be lasting or may not necessarily be totally incapacitating – if we keep working with them to try to ensure that they make the most of their lives, and I’m not sure that the gentlemen in question is, well, you’d hate to think that he was gaming the system.
RAY HADLEY:
Well, just for the benefit of anyone who didn’t read the article, it was published initially by Gemma Jones and in my column in the Telegraph today I say “This week Gemma Jones reported a story in this newspaper that at first glance had to be a gee-up – a bloke claiming a disability pension from Centrelink while living in an ashram in India. Could it be true? Yes, 100 per cent true. It’s an insult of course, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal has found that Leon Ahern to him "India is home" – meaning he can continue to live in the Ashram and collect the disability pension from Australia. The place has gone mad!” I say and I think it has. I mean, I don’t want to take disability pensions away from people but I think it would be handy if they were living in Australia.
PRIME MINISTER:
And look, you know, if someone’s on a pension, suppose they’re on an old age pension, from Australia and they want to go and live for a period of time somewhere else, I think that’s fair enough but the question I think here is, is this guy legitimately entitled to a pension and he’s got to be seriously incapacitated and that’s the issue that I think ought to be looked at here.
RAY HADLEY:
Ok and I know that the Minister is looking at it as we speak and hopefully, we will get a result on that one so, we’ll go from there. I appreciate your time. Have a wonderful trip in Bali. Have you already made advance bookings to be able to watch the Grand Final?
PRIME MINISTER:
I have a feeling I might be in the air while the Grand Final is actually taking place and look, good luck to Manly. I know regardless of the result it’ll be a great game. Easts certainly go into the game as deserved favourites, but Manly have the capacity to lift themselves for big games and I’m tipping Manly by six points, Ray.
RAY HADLEY:
Alright, well I’ve got a tip for you. I don’t know if the RAAF can help you but if there’s a thing on your iPhone called, talk to your girls about this, they’ll explain it to you, TuneIn app and you can listen to The Continuous Call team call the game whilst you’re in mid-air, I’m told.
PRIME MINISTER:
Alright, well, if I’m allowed to turn the phone on and do this through the wonders of technology I will.
RAY HADLEY:
Just check with the captain first – don’t take my word for it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Ok, Ray.
RAY HADLEY:
Thanks very much,
PRIME MINISTER:
Good on you, mate. Lovely to talk to you.
RAY HADLEY:
All the best, Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
[ends]