E&OE…

PATRICIA KARVELAS
One man who has the job of knowing exactly what is going on is the Assistant Cabinet Secretary, Scott Ryan. Senator, thanks for joining me.

SCOTT RYAN
Good evening, Patricia.

KARVELAS
Did you enjoy that as much as I did?

RYAN
I missed some of that. I did miss the debate about the emojis as I was otherwise occupied – there were multiple committees meeting during the week – I completely missed that…

(Interrupted)

KARVELAS
I do watch you on Twitter, and you don’t use emojis really, do you?

RYAN
I will be honest, I will admit when I am slightly behind the curve, and apart from the constantly changing emojis I am in awe of Julie Bishop’s ability to keep up to speed with them all.

KARVELAS
You don’t think that her using a red face for Vladimir Putin was inappropriate?

RYAN
I don’t think, realistically, that any foreign nation or foreign leader is going to judge Australia or Australians by emojis. But I constantly hear complaints that politicians do not show their humanity. Now, Julie’s interaction with people on Twitter is probably talking about responding to people who don’t normally engage with politicians, and I actually think it is something to be encouraged. It shows a sense of humour, and realistically it is not going to cause offence or cause anyone to read Australia any differently.

KARVELAS
I am curious to know what our listeners think of that: 0418 226 576, that’s out number. Should politicians be able to answer questions, serious questions, by emoji? I am seriously putting this out as a question because it has genuinely been a part of the political discussion this week; my guest is Assistant Cabinet Secretary, Senator Scott Ryan. Now we also heard Jacqui Lambie saying that her fellow Tasmanian Senator, Eric Abetz and of course he is one of your colleagues, has given up. He used the word ‘negro’ in a radio interview and said the media is anti-Christian and criticised his own Government for rejecting Bjorn Lomborg; has he lost his sense of Party discipline? Because he has been consistently speaking out all week against the Turnbull Government?

RYAN
I wouldn’t go that far. Eric is a person of strong views, I have known Eric for a couple of decades, and he is exercising the right of every Liberal backbencher which is to speak freely. He has been on the frontbench for a very long time until the recent change and that requires a great deal of discipline. One of the important things about the Liberal Party is that we do show a diversity of views; I don’t agree with them all myself, but at the same time I think it is important that we are not robots and automatons all parroting talking points.

KARVELAS
That might be one thing, but were you offended by his use of the word ‘negro’?

RYAN
It is not a word I would have used, however I do think that we have to be careful to not always assign the worst possible motive to someone if they use an inappropriate word or if they have a slip of the tongue. I understand Eric has defended his use of the word this afternoon…

(Interrupted)

KARVELAS
But that is what he has done: he has defended it.

RYAN
It is not a word I would have used.

KARVELAS
Okay, I will put it to you differently.

RYAN
Yep

KARVELAS
Should he be defending it? Should he not just say:  this is a word that is considered very offensive?

RYAN
It is considered offensive by some…

(Interrupted)

KARVELAS
By a lot.

RYAN
I didn’t hear the full interview, but I did read the newspaper articles this morning. I can honestly say, I don’t think Eric was seeking to offend anyone, and often offence can be caused inadvertently. But I do think that this is a problem, that we constantly jump to the worst possible motivations of someone when they use a term or mount an argument that we don’t like. I don’t think anyone really thinks Eric was trying to offend people. So, I just think…

(Interrupted)

KARVELAS
What was the point of identifying a Supreme Court judge by his race?

RYAN
The way I read the newspaper article this morning was the question that was put to him by the Sydney radio interviewer was regarding the concept of racism and his response to that was effectively trying to quote this African-American, Black-American Justice Clarence Thomas who had dismissed that very argument in the judgement on same-sex marriage in the United States. So, the issue itself was one being raised in the interview. It is a word I would not have used, but again I don’t think he was realistically trying to offend people. He was actually trying to use the argument mounted by that American justice to defend his particular position.

KARVELAS
I just want to get you on today’s big story, Papua New Guinea will soon be resettling refugees on Australia’s behalf. Given what is happening in Nauru, are you confident that PNG is well-placed to do this? Given the staggering rates of things like violence and domestic violence in that country, the lack of job opportunities, is it a place where refugees will be resettled safely?

RYAN
One of the things that we have made clear, and that Peter Dutton and Malcolm Turnbull have continued to make clear, is that the people who came unlawfully by boat cannot be allowed to settle in Australia because it will restart the trade that we did so much to stop. That debate used to be theoretical, I sat in the Parliament when Labor said: that is a theory, that is not how it really works. We saw what happened then, and it has been stopped again. That is a clear policy objective, and I know some people disagree with it, but it is a policy objective of this Government and we make these decisions democratically. With respect to PNG, I am not familiar with all of the conditions of the arrangement, and I do not believe they have become public yet. While there are challenges in Nauru there is also a significant ongoing program of investment and oversight of our arrangements and our contractors in Nauru to do everything we can to have a safe environment. It is also true that no environment is perfectly safe. I do not know the areas of PNG that will be used for this, but it is important that we maintain the promise we made that keeps the people smuggling trade from restarting. It is difficult. No one pretends that it is not, but it is important that we maintain that because we cannot afford to open those flood gates again.

KARVELAS
PNG is in drought, we covered that on the program yesterday, there are public safety concerns; there is very little welfare support for its own people. You talk about not knowing the details, yet you promised to be a different kind of government to the previous government. Should we be seeing more transparency on these issues?

RYAN
What I was referring to was myself not being aware of all the details yet and I think to be fair you will see those details come out over the coming weeks. This is only something that has become apparent in the last 24 to 36 hours. So I just say, give us time and I have no doubt that we will be providing those details to the public.

KARVELAS
I want to move on to another issue, and they are all linked to the big policy announcements this week, the other one being a huge shake up to the financial services industry that was announced at the beginning of the week. After the Murray Inquiry response and with the Big Four banks raising their interest rates, Bill Shorten says the banks see Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison as a soft touch. There will be plenty of voters with a mortgage who will be looking for someone to blame, won’t there?

RYAN
I have got a mortgage, and no one likes this. I appreciate that the banks have said that they want to increase their capital requirements, they have been asked to. I think the points that Scott Morrison has made are very important here, one of which is: Australia got through the global economic difficulties because we had a very strong banking sector. The one thing you do not want is a weak banking sector. That protected small businesses, mortgage holders and lots of people’s jobs. The second point is competition in the banking sector and there are many mortgage providers. I jumped online myself this afternoon after I heard that my bank was putting up my mortgage rate, to see what alternatives are out there. And there is no shortage of alternatives for people to shop around. One of the things about mortgages is that it is a bit like health insurance; the providers and the sellers know that people don’t shop around very much. We do need to change all of our behaviours and look around and be willing to move where we have our mortgage because that will put competitive pressure on them.

KARVELAS
That is really interesting, a Senator voting with his feet and shopping around for another mortgage. You have given me an idea.

RYAN
Well, I just jumped online and had a look.

KARVELAS
You have given me an idea, I too have a mortgage that I am not always happy about. On the line I have Assistant Cabinet Secretary, Senator Scott Ryan, you’re listening to RN Drive I am Patricia Karvelas. Our number is 0418 226 576. We are wrapping up the news week; there has been a lot of news this week. The news story today, I want to put to you is Tony Nutt has been announced as the Liberal’s new Federal Director. He is starting behind the eight ball a bit isn’t he, with an election not far away? He has got a lot to do in a short amount of time; you might have an early election.

RYAN
I would discount the possibility of that and dismiss people’s either hopes or fears for that particular…

(Interrupted)

KARVELAS
Really? I am actually, I have my money on March.

RYAN
I think the Prime Minister made clear, and I think he even made clear in an interview today, that he intends the Parliament to run its full term, because what the people expect is the Government to get on with the job. The most important thing for a Government seeking re-election is a track record of success. It is roughly a year until the next election is due and I think you can expect the Government to run until that period. With respect to Tony Nutt, I would count him as a friend. Tony, I think John Howard once described as one of the greatest servants the Liberal Party had ever had; there is virtually no role he hasn’t performed as a state director in two or three states, as a chief of staff to a prime minister. There is probably no one better prepared in the country to be the federal director of the Liberal Party than Tony Nutt.

KARVELAS
How will he do the job differently than his predecessor Brian Loughnane?

RYAN
It is a bit like when there are different leaders of the Party, Patricia. Different people bring their own particular mood, their own particular perspective on how they do a job. The challenge is essentially the same which is preparing and running the logistics of a political campaign across the entire country which is no small feat. But different people just have different ways of doing it, and that is just because we are all different people. So, I don’t think there would be a huge difference in the campaign at all. Brian had been there more than a decade, and I have worked with both Brian and Tony. They have both been great servants of the Liberal Party and it is extraordinary that someone does do that job for a decade these days, they are incredibly demanding tasks.

KARVELAS
Finally on gay marriage, I think it has been a very messy process this week, I have been genuinely confused about the proposal put forward by Warren Entsch and I have tried to get more detail on how that would be framed. This idea of a Bill that would stipulate exactly what would happen and would lock in, after a plebiscite, a change to the law. Of course the Prime Minister originally suggested that would be the case, but now has suggested that it wouldn’t be binding but would put a lot of pressure on the Parliament rather. What is the process?

RYAN
There is a clear choice: Labor said they don’t want a plebiscite there should be a vote in Parliament, and the Coalition’s view is that there will be a plebiscite in the next term of Parliament. I think what will likely happen will be that there will be that there probably won’t be legislation in the short term, it does get a little bit more complex. I would note that some of my colleagues who have outlined their personal opposition to changing the marriage laws have even, over the last 24 hours, said that if a plebiscite was carried they would vote for a change, they would respect the democratic will of the people and I think that is entirely respectable. I would suggest what we will have is a Bill for a plebiscite and following a plebiscite if that was supported across the country, there would be legislation to change the Marriage Act.

KARVELAS
And would the plebiscite happen within, perhaps, 100 days after the election of the Turnbull Government?

RYAN
I don’t think it would be a year away, but I also wouldn’t want to necessarily put a particular number of days on it. I think the Liberal…

(Interrupted)

KARVELAS
But let me get you on this, should it happen pretty quickly after a Federal Election?

RYAN
The Coalition will have a process before the next election about outlining exactly what will happen and when. So, people will go into the ballot box knowing what the timeline will be, I just don’t know right now, 12 months out, I can’t say in good faith what that would be, but that will be made clear before the next election as part of our normally policy process.

KARVELAS
Thank you so much for joining us on a Friday night.

RYAN
Thanks for having me, Patricia.

(ENDS)