FRAN KELLY:
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull joins us in our Parliament House studio. Prime Minister, welcome back to Breakfast.
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s great to be with you Fran.
FRAN KELLY:
You told Parliament yesterday that these bills are “vital economic reforms and a critical part of your economic plan”. But the truth is we heard little about them during the election campaign, even though they were the triggers for the double dissolution election. Why should we see this as anything other than union bashing by the Government?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Fran you described it as ‘union-busting’ earlier today, but I tell you, what it is, is ‘economy-boosting’. This is about jobs and growth. This is about ensuring that the construction and building sector, which employs one million Australians, is governed by the rule of law.
Right now, there are 113 officials of the CFMEU, this union, which is so powerful and so influential over the Labor Party, 113 of their officials are before the courts on over 1000 charges.
FRAN KELLY:
Doesn't it show that the laws are working, then?
PRIME MINISTER:
What it shows Fran, is that the union - and you can quote any number of federal judges that have made this same observation - the union regards the very small fines that are imposed on them, as no more than parking tickets. They have the same approach to it - they treat it as a business expense.
Now what we need to do is get the law applied. Now, you've seen the video today on the Commonwealth Games precinct, where a CFMEU official is threatening an employee of the contractor there and finally says to him: "I know your telephone number. I know where you live." That's the sort of thuggery that's going on, on Australia's building sites. It is costing us money. It's costing taxpayers money. It's increasing the cost of housing. It's undermining housing affordability, 30 per cent or more additional costs.
So this is a big economic reform and not only was this a big part of the election, these two bills - ABCC and Registered Organisations - were the triggers for the double dissolution election. So this is our mandate.
FRAN KELLY:
Okay, well I do go back to the point that you didn't talk about it much, I have to say, during the campaign. But if we could go to the Registered Organisations Bill, which is coming in, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, ASIC, currently regulates corporations’ behaviour - behaviour by corporate executives.
Why not give ASIC coercive powers to regulate unions as well? Because this is all about trying to regulate behaviour of union officials. Labor's policy says let ASIC do it. Wouldn’t that be cheaper and more logical than creating a separate oversight body? Why do you need to do that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it would be a very small part of ASIC. There are not a large number of registered organisations, unions and employer organisations, and the considered view is that a stand-alone regulator, which would oversee these registered organisations - that's unions and employer organisations - will have a greater focus. But this point that is raised about whether it is a small division of ASIC that does it, or a standalone regulator, these are questions purely of design. The fundamental -
FRAN KELLY:
Well not really. Doesn't this bill set up a registered organisations commission?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, it does, it does. But the real point is, the critical point is, imposing the same laws of accountability and transparency and propriety on unions and employer organisations, as are imposed on corporations. What the Labor Party has rejected - and I have to say, I have always found it very hard to understand why Labor has resisted the Registered Organisations Bill after the scandals exposed in the royal commission and elsewhere.
You know, after the Health Services union scandals, Kathy Jackson, Craig Thompson, all of these scandals and rip-offs, you would have thought that the leaders of the union movement and their political representatives in the Parliament would have said: “Now is the time we must clean up our act to reassure our members and potential members that unions are run in their interest”.
FRAN KELLY:
Okay, now -
PRIME MINISTER:
So what we're doing - I cannot stress to you more, Fran - this is not anti-union. This is not union-busting. If the Labor Party were to support this legislation, they would build public confidence in the unions, because the unions would be run in accordance with the law.
FRAN KELLY:
Okay. You accused Bill Shorten yesterday of being in debt to the lawless CFMEU. That was your quote. One of our listeners called in to ask whether the Coalition is in fact in debt to the banks and she cited your refusal to subject the big four banks to the banking royal commission. You talk about scandals and rip-offs. Well, the banks have had plenty of scandals in the last little while.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes but this is really- you're talking about two completely different things. I mean the issues -
FRAN KELLY:
Well, we had a royal commission into the unions.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, we did but you see this is - Fran, you've got to work out whether you want to govern or whether you want to play politics. Now, Bill Shorten is in Opposition, so I guess he's just got to play politics. I'm the Prime Minister. We're in government. We're governing. Where there are problems -
FRAN KELLY:
There's no politics in accusing Bill Shorten of being in debt to the lawless CFMEU?
PRIME MINISTER:
Where there are problems and failures in any industry, the role of government is to fix them, is to address them, and that is what we are doing with the issues about poor governance and accountability in the banking sector.
So we have beefed up our funding to ASIC. We've given ASIC the resources to track down malfeasance and deal with it and prosecute people that are doing the wrong thing. We've got a new code of conduct that Kelly O'Dwyer announced yesterday, we're bringing the banking CEOs before the Economics Committee. You know, right across the board, what we're doing is addressing the issues that have been raised and that's what we're doing in the industrial relations field too.
FRAN KELLY:
Okay, to get these changes through, you're going to need nine votes on the Senate crossbench. To get those, it's pretty obvious you're going to have to compromise. Let's go through a few of the crossbench demands. David Leyonhjelm wants you to lift the ban on the importation of the rapid-fire Adler shotgun, this is one that fires off seven shots I think. Could that be up for negotiation?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Fran, I'm not going to engage in negotiations with you. I mean –
FRAN KELLY:
No, but are you going to negotiate that with David Leyonhjelm?
PRIME MINISTER:
If you become a crossbench senator at some point in your future career, I'm sure we'll have lots of good discussions. But we will be dealing respectfully with all of the crossbench senators.
FRAN KELLY:
It's important, though. I mean I think listeners will be interested. Will our Government really consider lifting a ban on the importation of a shotgun like that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Fran, the regulation of firearms is dealt with by COAG in effect, by states-and-territories and the Commonwealth working together. So the importation ban on the lever-action Adler shotgun, - over, more than five rounds - was introduced and has been maintained because of a failure to date, of that state and territory group to reach a resolution on it.
So it is a collaborative effort. But I want to stress to you that we have the most – well, we have among the most, if not the most, rigorous laws on the regulation of firearms in the world. It's one of the great achievements of John Howard. It's one of the great prides of the Coalition that following the Port Arthur massacre, as you know, John Howard took the lead and he introduced the new firearms legislation. Thousands of guns were returned and destroyed and what we now have is very strict firearm laws. I think Australians when they watch the ABC news and see what happens elsewhere in the world, are very thankful for John Howard and the Coalition for providing that leadership.
FRAN KELLY:
Prime Minister, earlier on the program, we heard from Amnesty International on its major new report on Nauru. Amnesty says your Government’s policy of offshore processing is “explicitly designed to inflict incalculable damage on hundreds of men, women and children.” It goes on to say “it's a systematic regime of neglect and cruelty that amounts to torture under international law.” The world's leading human rights body is accusing your Government, our Government, of torture. You need to respond to that, don't you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I reject that claim totally. That is absolutely false. The Australian government's commitment is compassionate and it’s strong. Let's be quite frank about this, there's no point beating around the bush. The Labor Party came into government and were warned by many people including me, I was Leader of the Opposition. I begged Kevin Rudd not to change John Howard's border protection policies. I argued with him –
FRAN KELLY:
Prime Minister, I think we all understand what led to offshore detention.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I'm not sure that everyone does. I'm not sure that everyone does Fran. Let's be quite frank. There were 50,000 unlawful arrivals on over 800 boats and 1200 people died at sea, of whom we know, there's very likely to have been more.
Now what we've been able to do is to stop the boats. No deaths at sea. We've closed 17 detention centres -
FRAN KELLY:
To quote Amnesty, is a “systematic regime of neglect and cruelty” a key to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely not. That allegation, that accusation is rejected by the Government. We've reduced the children in detention from almost 2,000 when we came into office, to zero. We've increased our humanitarian program from 13,750 to 18,750 by 2018-19 and as you know, we are taking an additional 12,000 refugees from the Syrian conflict zone.
As far as Nauru is concerned, we provide significant support to the government of Nauru for welfare and health services and that includes a medical clinic, upgrades at the hospital, of the Nauru Hospital, a new surgical facility, new school buildings, education, curriculum development. There is a very substantial investment there, to improve the circumstances of the people that are there. But I have to say to you –
FRAN KELLY:
Well, I don't know. Are you finished?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, no, clearly, Fran, you keep talking.
FRAN KELLY:
I don't know if you got to see Four Corners last night, you probably didn’t get to see it yet. But we all got a look at some of the school buildings on Nauru where the children are going. We also - I think Four Corners did what the Australian and Nauruan governments have not been keen on doing, which is putting faces and voices to some of the children held on Nauru. So we could all see their hopes and dreams. We could see the effect on a nine-year-old of being locked up for 1,179 days. We could see these bright young people reduced to self-harm, made sick from hopelessness and despair at just being stuck there. Too scared to go to the local school because students pulled knives on them.
There are 128 children in this position. How long does our policy depend on them staying there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Fran, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection rejects the claims in the Amnesty report and has rejected similar claims in the past. I just note that the Minister, Mr Dutton, offered to go onto to the Four Corners program and be interviewed live to deal with those allegations and that offer was rejected.
FRAN KELLY:
Well, let's - we saw the pictures last night. Let's hear now from one of these children. 17-year-old Shaman, she’s from Myanmar. She came to Nauru with her mother and grandmother. She spent 1,090 days at time of broadcast in detention, or on Nauru rather. She speaks five languages. She'd like to grow up to be a doctor. Her former teachers from Save the Children described her as talented, ambitious young woman, or at least she was. This is part of her interview on Four Corners.
FOUR CORNERS – EXCERPT:
Don't care what country it is but I just want to study good and have a good time and healthy and safety and happy. We just want to make great good friends and have a good times like you, like everyone in other countries who is safe. Have in their home, sweet home and staying there and studying and playing. Everything - I just want to be the same person like everyone.
FRAN KELLY:
17-year-old Sharman speaking from Nauru. Prime Minister, shouldn't we be rewarding young women who just want to study in safety? Not just relegating them to a place where we then can forget about them?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there are certainly - they are studying on Nauru. There are some -
FRAN KELLY:
She's not going to school. She's too scared to go to school.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we are supporting the government of Nauru in terms of their security measures. But I just can't, obviously, engage on this particular case. But we -
FRAN KELLY:
Let me ask you a broader question –
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Fran, let me speak now. We've heard from this young lady and it is a very sad story that she tells. But, you know, there are 1,200 people, many of them young women too, no doubt, from whom we can never hear, because they drowned at sea under the Labor Party's reckless failure to keep our borders safe.
FRAN KELLY:
Okay so let's talk about the future. There are 128 refugee children stuck on Nauru. That policy is clearly not sustainable. Are you in active discussion with the United States to take some of these refugees?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not going to go into discussions with other countries. But as you know, we are looking, we work very hard to encourage these refugees to return from where they came from, if they are able to do so. And of course, particularly with those who have had refugee status denied. We also are working to find third-party resettlement options. Of course, as you know, there's Cambodia, we have an arrangement with Cambodia.
But the truth is, Fran, to be quite frank with you, is that what happens is that there are many people in Australia who say to the people on Nauru: "Don't accept any offer to go anywhere else, because eventually you will be able to come to Australia.” I just want to say to anybody in that situation, you will not come to Australia. If you seek to come to Australia with a people smuggler or you've sought to come to Australia with a people smuggler, you will not settle in Australia.
Now, now, I know that's a tough policy. I know that is hard. But the alternative is what we had under Labor.
FRAN KELLY:
Okay.
PRIME MINISTER:
50,000 unauthorised arrivals and 1,200 voices that were silenced, that cannot go on Four Corners, that cannot talk on Radio National, because they drowned at sea.
FRAN KELLY:
Alright Prime Minister, let's move on to some other issues, because it seems as though the 18 Crown Resort employees detained in China over the weekend, including three Australians, will soon be charged with gambling crimes, flouting China's strict laws against the promotion of gambling in China. That's what it looks like.
How involved is the Government in this? Is the Government working, talking to the Chinese government, doing anything to help here?
PRIME MINISTER:
When Australians get into trouble overseas, we always provide consular support and that is precisely what is happening there now.
FRAN KELLY:
Are you concerned about more Australian businessmen being locked up in China? Does this concern you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Fran, of course we are. As Julie Bishop has said only recently, at any time there are several thousand Australians who are in trouble with the law in other jurisdictions. We provide support for them and assistance to them. That's part of our job. That's what the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade does. It's part of their consular duties.
FRAN KELLY:
Can I move to the backpacker tax now? It's passed the Lower House, your changes, it goes to the Senate. You amended it, the proposed rate of 32.5 per cent dropped to 19 per cent.
Have you been advised by Treasury that backpackers will still be discouraged from taking on work? Treasury told you it doesn't matter what you slug them, if it's 32.5 per cent or 19 per cent?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, all of the advice that we've had is that this will make - that I've seen on this, the Treasurer has I think he's made this point himself - is that this will make us more competitive with other backpacker destinations.
FRAN KELLY:
Prime Minister, the House will vote in the next day or two on the marriage plebiscite bill. It will go to the Senate. It will be defeated. Can I ask you now, why –
PRIME MINISTER:
So, so you say. That's your assertion.
FRAN KELLY:
You think there's still a chance it will pass?
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course. Of course. I am working very hard to get the Bill passed by the Senate. Not so long ago, your fellow distinguished journalist, Catherine Murphy, from The Guardian said at a press conference: “We all know what the numbers are in the Senate”. Well, I think that's terrific, if journalists know what the numbers are in the Senate. Experience tells me that you don't know what the numbers are until the votes are finally counted.
FRAN KELLY:
Okay. Well, numbers aside, why do you think that LGBT Australians should have their equal rights subjected to a vote by the entire population? Why is that fair or right? Or good precedent?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, you may say LGBTI Australians' rights, like all Australians' rights are governed by our constitution and any amendment to our constitution has to go –
FRAN KELLY:
But this is not an amendment to the constitution.
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course it isn’t Fran. But you're jumping from one premise to another like from one lily pad to another. Let's just focus on the point you've made. You've said there's something illegitimate about giving the people a vote on an issue. Now, what I'm saying to you is, we have a long precedent in respect to the constitution. I know this is not a constitutional referendum. So you can't say giving the people a vote is somehow or other undemocratic or illegitimate.
FRAN KELLY:
Well, when it's the only time when it doesn't require a change to the constitution.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Fran, I agree that this is - if you like - a novel approach, but it is perfectly democratic. There is no question about that. Changing the definition of marriage affects every Australian. It affects not just LGBTI Australians, it affects everybody. I mean, you see the way your proposition would go, is you'd say the only people that should be entitled to have a say on this are gay Australians.
FRAN KELLY:
No, no. I would say that the Parliament should deal with this, as it does with other matters of this kind.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look, that's an argument that's been put and it is a perfectly reasonable argument to say this is not consistent with our parliamentary tradition. But the fact is it is perfectly democratic.
It is a proposition that we took to the election. We won the election. It will be held on the 11th of February. Unless all of the polls are completely and utterly wrong -which I don't think they are - it will be carried and gay couples will be able to get married after, shortly after the 11th of February.
I for the life of me - you know, why wouldn't the Labor Party and others who support gays being able to get married, LGBTI couples being able to get married - Lucy and I support that - why wouldn't we grab this opportunity and say: "Look, it may not be the perfect way of resolving the matter from your point of view, but grab it”? It will be carried, it will be done. Let's get on with it.
Why do you, Fran, let me put this back to you, why do you, a supporter of gay marriage on a question of process only, want to delay the time that gay couples, LGBTI couples, can get married? Why do you want to delay it?
FRAN KELLY:
Because the overwhelming sentiment that appears to be coming from the gay community is that they don’t want to risk this.
PRIME MINISTER:
Ok. Alright. So are you saying that it is only…
FRAN KELLY:
You must have heard that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Let’s assume, let’s accept your premise, I won’t argue with you on that – but let’s assume the gay community by a large majority don’t want to have a plebiscite. Are they the only Australians that have a say on this?
FRAN KELLY:
Oh no, of course not, but they are an important voice in this.
PRIME MINISTER:
They are an important voice but so is the rest of the Australian community. What we are doing is giving every Australian a voice on it.
FRAN KELLY:
Okay.
PRIME MINISTER:
Every single Australian can have their say.
FRAN KELLY:
Prime Minister, we are out of time. Thank you very much for joining us.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you so much.
[Ends]