CHRIS SMITH:
Prime Minister thanks for joining us.
PRIME MINISTER:
Chris it’s great to be with you and please pass on to Alan our very, very best wishes for a speedy recovery.
CHRIS SMITH:
I will do that, absolutely.
A rather creative protest in the House yesterday, what did you make of it and did you have any concerns for your safety?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I wasn’t concerned about my personal safety but I’m very concerned that people choose to interrupt democracy. You know our ancestors centuries ago and since then, have fought and fought to preserve our Parliamentary democracy. And we elect our representatives, they come to Parliament and they are free to speak their mind. And what those people were doing in the Gallery yesterday was denying democracy. And it tells you a lot about the Greens Party in particular, that they praised them. Imagine that, they praised people who interfere with democracy, who wanted to shut down the Parliament.
CHRIS SMITH:
They actually said they were proud of them. Is it time that you considered putting some kind of glass face on the public gallery?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I have no doubt it will be considered, but I would personally be very reluctant to do that Chris.
CHRIS SMITH:
Why?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, because part of our Parliament – part of the whole experience of coming to Parliament is that it’s big open spaces, it belongs to the people, it’s the people’s house and I would prefer that we did a better job, that our security people did a better job at checking whose coming in and were able to more quickly move them out if they do the wrong thing than create the impression of us being sealed away behind glass screens.
But you know there’s a lot of things we’ve had to do in modern times to defend ourselves from a security point of view that we’d rather not do. But we’ll see. The Speaker will be in his Department will be looking into this very carefully.
CHRIS SMITH:
Why wouldn’t some of them be charged especially the ones that used super glue on the balustrade, which will no doubt cost tax payers a hell of a lot of money to clear and repair. None of them will be charged according to reports today. Is that acceptable?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well firstly, charges are a matter for the police and ultimately for serious offences for the Director of Public Prosecutions – not for me. But I’m surprised that no charges have been laid but if that is the case, but I’ll certainly look in to it. This is very much a matter for the police, but we’ll certainly be having regard to that.
There’s got to be a strong message sent that if you want to disrupt, if you want to come in to this place and disrupt the people’s house in that way then there has to be a very strong message sent that that is not acceptable.
CHRIS SMITH:
Okay. To the big ticket item – the Senate has finally passed legislation to reinstate the Building and Construction Commission. It’s a moderate win because you’ve had to do plenty of horse-trading to get -
PRIME MINISTER:
Chris it is a big win. It is a big win. And you know something, when you don’t have the numbers in the Senate, horse-trading is the nature of the business.
I said after the election that we would make the 45th Parliament work and you know, every one of those Senators – I know some people have got views about different Senators – but they’re all democratically elected, they’re all there, they’ve all got a vote. I’ve got to try and work with as many of them as I can to get legislation through. And what we have secured is the restoration of the rule of law to the building and construction sector. For the first time in years there will be a tough cop on the beat that will be able to stand up to the criminality, the thuggery, the intimidation of the CFMEU.
Remember, and this is for some of us who’ve been around a while, this is a good point to recall – the Labor Party led by Bob Hawke deregistered the Builders Labourers Federation. The Labor Party led by Bill Shorten fought tooth and nail to protect the thugs and the bullies of the CFMEU. So that shows you what’s happened to the Labor Party, it is now in the grip of militant unions, whether it’s the Transport Workers, whether it’s the firefighting union in Victoria that wanted to trample on all those volunteers, or the CFMEU.
CHRIS SMITH:
Yeh but it’s like anything where too many chefs boil the broth. Where you’ve got you know the horse turns in to a unicorn in many ways. We’ve got some wise heads like Grace Collier, Industrial Relations Consultant writing today in The Australian ‘building industry corruption will continue, savings will not materialise and building companies that did the right thing in anticipation of the Bill being passed without these amendments will be penalised. Lendlease will be laughing all the way to the bank. Shame too on Malcolm Turnbull for caving in to Derryn Hinch. It maintains the existing construction cartel for a further two years and if Labor’s re-elected in two years’ time, it will abolish the ABCC again and nothing will have been achieved.’ That’s just from Grace Collier.
PRIME MINISTER:
And that’s a very good reason for Labor not to be elected in two and half years. If Labor wins the next election they’ll do exactly what they did last time and they will abolish the Building and Construction Commission.
CHRIS SMITH:
But what about these cosy deals between Lendlease and others like the CFMEU, all of that will still mean that the Lendlease operation can deal with government projects despite what deals have gone on in the past?
PRIME MINISTER:
Let me explain, the law applies to – ensures that agreements have to be compliant with the new building code, the enterprise agreements. Obviously agreements have been entered into in the past and the question was, - how long should there be a grace period for those agreements to be brought into line with the new code. Now the arrangement that we had which we felt was adequate, was there would a nine month grace period. So there was never not going to be a grace period. We had a nine month grace period in order to get the legislation passed, in order to win the support of the crossbench, that was increased from nine months, to twenty four months.
CHRIS SMITH:
It’s a massive, massive negotiation -
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you know something; it’s fine to be an armchair critic. I’m the Prime Minister; I’ve got to get things done. Australians expect me to get things done, and in order to get that legislation through, I had to seek compromises and reach agreements and the alternative was exactly what we had in the last Parliament which was nothing, zero, so -
CHRIS SMITH:
Professor Judith Sloan says the net effect is an appalling mishmash of inconsistent and unworkable provisions that completely undermines any benefits that could flow from the restoration of the ABCC and the associated code for government funded building projects. Judith Sloan knows her stuff Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes but what she doesn’t know with great respect is the real job of getting things done. It is easy to be an armchair critic, sitting on the sidelines, sitting there writing your column in The Australian, knowing everything. My job is deliver. I’m marked on results and what I’ve done is secure the restoration of the Building Construction Commission. Secured the establishment of the Registered Organisations Commission to make sure that union officials have to meet the same levels of accountability as company directors do to their shareholders. Those two massive industrial reforms we have secured. Now in the last Parliament, we couldn’t get anywhere with them. The last Parliament I had to prorogue the Parliament, send everyone home then bring it back and force the Senate – had to do all of that just to get them to vote on the Building and Construction Commission a second time. We couldn’t get them to pass it.
What we’ve done is secured a very very big win and as far as the critics are concerned, it’s fine. They are theorists; I’m in the real world.
CHRIS SMITH:
What’s the timeline, when will the Commission actually get work done?
PRIME MINISTER:
The Bill will be given royal assent today or tomorrow and it will – the commission will be set up very shortly thereafter.
CHRIS SMITH:
Okay, the backpacker tax, on Tuesday it looked like a done deal. Everyone was saying done deal, all well and good but then One Nation Senator Rodney Culleton broke ranks with his own party. They are back to 10.5 per cent. Derryn Hinch, Jacqui Lambie, David Leyonhjelm – they sunk the deal for you. Is that disappointing?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it’s very disappointing and I’m not going to criticise the crossbenchers. The real responsibility here is Bill Shorten. Bill Shorten is saying that he wants foreign backpackers to pay less tax - picking fruit - than an Australian. That’s what he’s saying. It’s even worse than that. We have an aid programme Chris for the Pacific Islands, some of the poorest countries in our region. These people can come to Australia, and they can work for six months picking fruit typically. They send their money home, on average they send over $5,000 back to their village in places where the average income is $1,650 a year. Do you know what tax these people pay? 15 per cent. Bill Shorten wants rich white kids from Germany and Norway and Sweden coming out here, having a holiday. He wants them to pay less tax than a Pacific Islander, then someone from Tonga who is sending the money back to his village.
CHRIS SMITH:
So can we get this done and dusted by close of business today?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we’re working on it but the Senate and – but above all, the Labor Party. Bill Shorten has got to look in the mirror and say – ask himself, where is the justice in these backpackers paying less tax than Australians and paying less tax than some of the poorest, seasonal workers who come to Australia as part of an aid program. Now I mean, this has got nothing to do with fairness, this is just absolute rank political opportunism, he is bitter and twisted and disappointed that we’ve got our big industrial law reforms through and now he’s trying to inflict some pain. Well you know, what he’s doing is he’s punishing Australian farmers, that’s what he’s doing and it shows how bitter and opportunistic the Labor Party is and he should be, he should be if he wants to be an alternative Prime Minister, he should be a lot better than that.
CHRIS SMITH:
I know you don’t want to upset the crossbenchers but I get the feeling that the way you have negotiated, the way you have horse-traded is something that has followed a theme in the Senate for the past decade or so, where the Senate is not necessarily just the house of review, they don’t look at Government Bills and say we can make amendments there. They actually play snap with the Government and say, ‘well I’ve got a different policy, allow that policy and I’ll start to look at your policy.’ I don’t think the public expect the Senate to behave that way.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that’s how the Senate always behaved Chris. It’s not just in the last decade. You know the Senate has, with a few exceptions, absolutely equal rights to the House. To get laws through they have to go through the House of Representatives where the Government has a majority and then they’ve got to go through the Senate where we do not. And if the – you know, if the Greens and the Labor Party are voting against us which, they often are, or generally are, we need nine of the crossbench to support us. So we have to do – if this Parliament is going to work, we have to do deals and we either have to do deals with the crossbench or we have to do deals with Labor or the Greens.
CHRIS SMITH:
I know you’ve got priorities for 2017, but I’m telling you the feedback that I get from the open line tells me that they want you to deal pronto with the politicians’ Gold Pass. If it is time for us to tighten our belts, the word that I get from open line callers is that the Prime Minister and his colleagues, the politicians, need to lead that call as well.
PRIME MINISTER:
We hear that loud and clear and that is our policy.
CHRIS SMITH:
But you’ve shelved it in 2016, will you approach it in 2017?
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely. We’ve had a lot of big priorities here and in particular these big industrial bills. You’ve got to remember, these were the triggers I took to the double dissolution election. These were the basis for dissolving both houses of Parliament. They had to be given top priority.
We spent three years in the last Parliament not making any progress with that legislation. Got nowhere with it, absolutely nowhere. I’ve succeeded and my Government in this Parliament where we have less Members and Senators than we did in the last Parliament, we’ve succeeded in getting them passed and we’ve done that in just months after the Parliament came back after the election. But now, that clears up the calendar for the rest of our agenda.
CHRIS SMITH:
Alright, it’s good to have you on the network and thank you very much for your time and all the very best for the last day of Parliament today.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you very much Chris and all the very best for Christmas for you and your listeners and again, all the best to Alan, we hope he is going to be on the mend and back at work – although you’re doing a great job – back at work very soon.
CHRIS SMITH:
Thank you Prime Minister, thank you very much for your time. Merry Christmas to you and the family.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeh thanks Chris.
ENDS