Topics: Party Room meeting, Budget, higher education reforms, Medicare co-payment, national security
E&OE…
Chris Hammer
Senator Scott Ryan is a Liberal senator for Victoria; he joins us now from Melbourne. Good morning, Senator.
Scott Ryan
Morning, Chris.
Hammer
Who would you like to see lead the Liberal party to the next election?
Ryan
Well, Tony Abbott’s going to lead us to the next election and he has my full support.
Hammer
Arthur Sinodinos, Senator Arthur Sinodinos, said yesterday that he supported Tony Abbott but that his support was not unconditional. So can I ask you: is your support unconditional?
Ryan
Well, Arthur is widely respected by many and, of course, made such a contribution during the previous [Coalition] government. Let’s also put in context what Arthur did say. He pointed out that we’re in government because of Tony Abbott. I think 98 percent of the reason he attributed to Tony Abbott’s was his work as opposition leader. He described him as ‘Black Caviar’ because he was so successful as opposition leader, and he highlighted a couple of challenges, similar to the ones that the Prime Minister in his press club address outlined earlier this week. And as I said to you, Tony Abbott has my full support.
Hammer
And yet Arthur Sinodinos did say that his support was not unconditional. So, can I put the question to you: is your support unconditional?
Ryan
I completely support the Prime Minister. He was primarily the reason that we got to office in two terms. We have some challenges as a Government, but the word games that journalists play are not about the challenges that this Government has and I am addressing on a day-to-day basis.
Hammer
Ok. Now, of course, Senator Sinodinos is a respected figure within the party; and I think that’s given the impression to the media, to the public that there is kind of a groundswell for something to be done in the Liberal Party about leadership. Is that an accurate interpretation?
Ryan
No. I don’t think that’s what Arthur was saying either. I think Arthur was saying, what a number of my colleagues have said and what I myself have said, which is that the Government has challenges; we had a difficult year last year. And as the Prime Minister said, we’ve had a particularly difficult, indeed scrappy, couple of months, but we’ve had some big problems to fix. And so in the press club address he made earlier this week, and when the Parliament goes back and we have a party room meeting next week, the Prime Minister is going to outline along with senior colleagues how we’re going to face the key policy challenges that face the country and the political challenges that face the Government in addressing these; and Arthur highlighted those in his interview yesterday.
Hammer
So what do you make of this people, Andrew Laming, Warren Entsch etc, coming out and calling for spills and criticising the Prime Minister? Are they representative, or are they an isolated few? What’s the interpretation there?
Ryan
Well I’m not going to pass comment on my colleagues. I respect all my colleagues because I’ve known many of them, or worked with them, for the six and a half years that I’ve been in Parliament. Look, the Liberal Party is a party of diverse opinions and some colleagues appear to be frustrated. We have party room meeting next week and I’m sure there will be a full and frank discussion of that amongst the Liberal members of parliament.
Hammer
What should happen in that party room meeting next week? There have been calls for a spill, would that be a good idea or what’s your view?
Ryan
Well I don’t think so, in response to that specific question. But more generally, I have a policy of giving my colleagues my advice, in private, in the appropriate forum of a party room meeting, rather than doing so in public.
Hammer
But there’s a problem here, it was the problem with Labor; people didn’t understand why there was a move against Kevin Rudd. Similarly, I suspect, there’s people wondering where this agitation against Tony Abbott is coming from. Shouldn’t the views of Liberal Party politicians be put out more so the public understand what is going on here?
Ryan
Firstly, I think there’s a very big difference between what happened in June 2010, and I think, with due respect, you’re drawing a bit of a false equivalence. In June 2010, the night before he was going to go overseas and the night before Parliament rose for the winter recess, a group of factional people got together and decided that Kevin Rudd was no longer going to be Prime Minister. A couple of union leaders went on Lateline and most people woke up to the news that they are having a new Prime Minister.
You have mentioned before that a few of my colleagues have made public comment, and that’s all that’s happened. So, when the Liberal Party gets together next week there’ll be a discussion around the policy challenges Australia faces, as is appropriate, the political challenges the Government faces, and that is the appropriate forum for these discussions. So, there’s not an equivalence between an execution of an elected Prime Minister and a few of my colleagues who have expressed their frustrations.
Hammer
So do they need to put-up or shut-up at the party room meeting next week?
Ryan
Well I think that all my colleagues who have spoken publicly have indicated that they intend to express a view to their colleagues in the party room next week, that’s the appropriate place to do it. It’s only next Tuesday when we all come back to Canberra for the resumption of Parliament, and when that discussion will take place. I think that’s the appropriate way to consider it.
Hammer
Now former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, another senior figure in the Liberal Party, has expressed his doubts about Tony Abbott’s ability to lead the party. That’s lead to observations that there’s quite a deal of conversation, maybe even movement within the Victorian branch of the party. Now you’re right there in the centre of it, I guess, of the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party; is there conversation going on about leadership? About how the party can restore its stocks?
Ryan
No, there’s a conversation going on about the policy challenges that Australia faces and the political challenges that the Government faces. Now, I respect Jeffrey [Kennett], he was the leader of one of the most successful reformist state governments in our country’s history; but Jeffrey was making a personal comment yesterday. He doesn’t speak on behalf of the party and he doesn’t speak on behalf of the parliamentary party.
Hammer
Does this issue of leadership, I mean it has been dominating the news media for the last week, does it need to be resolved clearly in the party room meeting next week in some way? Because isn’t there a danger, if it’s not – if a clear signal isn’t sent, that it could linger on and last forever?
Ryan
Well, most members of the parliamentary party,who agree that we have challenges as a government and challenges as a country, most of us want to get together, have a discussion and then get back into the main job, and the main job, as I said earlier, is addressing the budgetary mess we’ve inherited and addressing the problems that face Australian families in their everyday lives. That’s the appropriate place for discussions on those lines to happen. People shouldn’t read too much into a full and frank discussion amongst members of parliament; in fact when I talk to people what I hear is that they want to hear MPs to have full and frank discussions amongst themselves. Now, those discussions about our challenges will happen next week, and the Government is continuing to deal with the policy mess left by Labor and the agenda we took to the Australian people, which the Prime Minister outlined on Tuesday.
Hammer
Ok. The Queensland Liberal MP Andrew Laming has announced that he intends to introduce a private members bill to abolish Australian knighthoods. Should the Liberal Party members be allowed to have a free vote on that bill?
Ryan
Well Andrew, I understand, is going to bring that bill to the Party Room. I’m going to disappoint you Chris by saying that I’m going to give my colleagues the benefit of my views before I broadcast them. However, in principle, I’ve always been a republican. Most people who know me know that, but that will be dealt with, like every other p[piece of private members legislation; it will be dealt with by the party room, the party room will come to a decision on if the Government takes a position. But whether or not the Government doesn’t take a position, and therefore there is a completely free vote, that is also a matter for the party room to decide.
Hammer
Because one suspects that Andrew Laming doesn’t go ahead with his private members bill the Labor Party might, so it could be an issue you need to address in some way. Would it be better for the Government to pre-empt a vote in Parliament by changing the policy itself?
Ryan
Well despite the varied views that exist within the Government on knights and dames and the awards, and the Prime Minister alluded to that himself on Tuesday, I don’t think anyone considers it to be a first-order issue and a major challenge facing the country; and so the Government’s going to focus on those major challenges. If Labor wants to spend the time dealing with that issue, they’re free to do so and that will come up in due course. But Andrew Laming said he’s bring in a private members bill, let’s see what the content of that is; it will be dealt with by the joint party room in the normal course of events.
Hammer
You say that the knighthoods is not a major issue, nevertheless it does seem that the awarding of the knighthood to Prince Phillip does seem to have been the catalyst to this latest speculation about the leadership. Are you now confident that the mechanisms have been put in place within the party, and within the Government, to prevent Tony Abbott from scoring any more home goals if I can put it that way?
Ryan
Well, you know, there was a community reaction in response to the award of that particular knighthood on Australia Day last week, I’m not going to pretend otherwise. And it provoked fierce opinions, but no one actually said to me that it was one of the major issues facing the country, that’s the point I was trying to make, Chris. With respect to the way that the Government will deal with issues moving forward, the Prime Minister’s outlined that there will be more consultative processes, some of those have been alluded to already – such as larger meetings of the full ministry of which I’m a member and a couple of other processes set up to coordinate backbench policy committees. I believe we’ll hear more about those when the Prime Minister addresses the party room next week.
Hammer
Now, how important do you think this year’s Budget is going to be to restore the stocks of not only Tony Abbott, but indeed of the Government? Because, while you say the knighthood issue may be fairly minor, the Budget is most certainly not.
Ryan
Well this year’s Budget’s important, Chris, because it’s another stage in cleaning up the mess left by Labor, that’s why the Budget is important. Good policy is good politics, so goes the old saying, and so while we had some challenges with last year’s Budget and there’s some obstruction in the Senate, particularly from the Labor Party – who are stopping us from implementing their election promises as well as ours, every Budget is important. And when we have warnings, as we’ve had from the newspapers today, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, about needing to bring the Budget back into balance because of changing international economic circumstances. Every day, every month, every year this Budget is in deficit is a burden we’re placing on all our children, which means less funding for schools and hospitals for them, or higher taxes or a combination of both. That’s why the Budget’s important.
Hammer
The Treasurer says the hard work has already been done, that’s what he said this week.
Ryan
Well, let’s not quote him selectively. The point that was made is that we’ve made a lot of structural changes that will take years to take effect. You can’t turn around a Budget deficit in the tens of billions of dollars overnight. Even in the 1990s when Jeff Kennett, who we discussed earlier, turned around Victoria from the unsustainable, broken state that was inherited from the Labor Party, that took many years for the Budget to turn around. You need a strongly growing economy, we have international circumstances that are making that more difficult. But without having very stringent, overnight, extraordinary cuts of levels of expenditure; when you inherit a deficit, that is tens of billions of dollars, and growing, it does take time to turn around. And we’ve always made clear that we’ll take the necessary steps to do things in the short term, to limit waste, and in the long term to make the Budget sustainable.
Hammer
So if the suggestion from the Treasurer is essentially that the strategy is heading in the right direction but it will take, as you say, several years, can the Government back away from some of those more contentious issues? In fact, the policies it has been unable to get through the Senate such as higher education or the GP co-payment? Is there room to move there economically, fiscally?
Ryan
Christopher Pyne outlined himself that he wants the higher education reforms, which were not backed by the Senate last year after a another period of negotiation, to be dealt with in the first quarter of this year; so before we depart for the pre-Budget break at the end of March. And we’ve already indicated as a Government too that if the Senate indicates that it’s not going to pass a particular piece of legislation, we will go back and try to rethink it, but keep our objective in mind. When it comes to the Medicare co-payment, I don’t think it’s unreasonable. It’s the one thing you can’t buy more of, it’s the one thing we can’t replace. Those who can afford it, people like you and I, I do not think it is unreasonable to ask us to make a small contribution when we go and see a doctor, we can afford it. Now, that’s the argument we need to have with the Australian people, or we need to make that argument to the Australian people. And so we will rethink it, but the principle I think is a valid one.
Hammer
Ok. Just finally this morning, the Prime Minister appeared earlier this morning talking about national security, how urgent it is to pass laws to oblige telecommunications companies to keep metadata. There is a perception, fairly or unfairly, that the Prime Minister is keen to divert attention from strife within the Liberal Party. Can you explain why it is so urgent that these laws be passed so quickly when there is, after all, a parliamentary committee looking into this issue?
Ryan
Well the only place I think people would make an accusation that’s like that is in Canberra. I mean if you look at the events we’ve had over the last six or eight months, we had the tragic events in Melbourne with the two police officers, we had the tragic events in Sydney. We know that there’re more people than we initially suspected, more Australians, fighting with the horrific terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq which was so brutally demonstrated with that video that was released of the torture of that downed Jordanian pilot yesterday. So to say that this is anything other than addressing a key national security issue takes politics a little bit too far. This has been on the agenda for a while, this particular bill is currently before a parliamentary committee, and I think it’s also before a Senate committee. But the issue’s been debated now for probably about 12 months. Now it’s not my portfolio, and I will consider the committee report when it comes to the party room, there will be a discussion, but this is about addressing a national security issue. We’ve now got probably more than 100 Australians fighting overseas and that poses a risk when they return, and the means through which they’re being recruited is new technology. So I think we do need to at least heed, and then look at the proposals, and then take those proposals to the Australian people. And the Prime Minister’s outlined that he doesn’t believe there’s time to waste. It’s been debated for almost a year, the committee will bring down its report in February, and he said he’d like the Parliament to consider it within a month.
Hammer
So if Labor says it wants to wait to see what the committee report says, and some time to consider its recommendations, does that mean that Labor’s going soft on national security or unnecessarily delaying these measures? Why the urgency from the Prime Minister?
Ryan
It’s actually laying out a timetable, Chris. It’s actually saying that we’re now at the start of February, we’ve had this debate upwards of six or eight, I think almost 12 months. We’ve made the case to the people that the risk has increased, and that has tragically been demonstrated in Melbourne and Sydney. There’s a committee report coming down from a well-regarded parliamentary committee that often does produce unanimous reports representing both sides of Australian politics; that is due this month. And all the Prime Minister has written to the Leader of the Opposition and asked is that we deal with it by the end of March…
Hammer
So why have a press conference to announce…
(inaudible)
Ok. Senator Scott Ryan, thank you so much for your time today.
*Ends*