Topics: Bill Shorten’s appearance before the royal commission into trade union corruption, Minister Turnbull’s speech at the Sydney Institute.
E&OE…
KIERAN GILBERT
Joining me now is Labor frontbencher Ed Husic and Liberal frontbencher Scott Ryan.
Ed Husic – first to you – a pivotal day for Mr Shorten, as I said to Laura it is hard to overstate the importance of this in terms of his response to the allegations made.
ED HUSIC
Well, it is one day in a politically motivated exercise that has been undertaken by a Coalition government that has thrown all the rules out of the windows in how royal commissions should be done, the way that they should be treating Cabinet held information in times past, as you saw with the handing over of Cabinet documents ahead of the 30 year rule. This is just an $80 million political exercise being undertaken to extract in some way shape or form political advantage, it is a disgrace. $80 million spent on the royal commission, $15 million spent, just $15 million spent for instance on an issue that is seriously concerning the public on domestic violence for instance. If you want to see priorities by this Government – play politics spend $80 million, care about the welfare of people in the community, spend $15 million – that tells you everything.
GILBERT
The motivation to one side, allegations have been made now through this inquiry, this judicial inquiry Ed Husic, as Laura said there, the Opposition Leader has put and did put his political career ahead of the rights of workers and that that was manipulated, conditions manipulated to boost his numbers, the union’s numbers at the Labor Conference and so on. These are allegations that he would want to take head on, surely?
HUSIC
Absolutely, he, Bill has indicate his preparedness and his enthusiasm to go and front this royal commission to go and answer those questions and put fact on the public record and respond to the type of issues that are being raised. But, picking up on the points that you just raised and Laura referred to in the cross that you just did, not only are these matters, these agreements subject to scrutiny by Fair Work and its predecessor agencies. But it also has to go through a process of consultation and ultimately a vote from the workforce. People who are going to be covered by these agreements have to have those agreement explained to them and then they make a decision themselves on them. So the of suggestions being put forward about whether or not there was manipulation in the process – these will ultimately be decided by employees who will decide or determine whether or not they are in the interests of themselves. And being a former union official myself, and having had to argue agreements and having put forward the pros and cons of agreements, people will test whether or not it is fair dinkum for them and whether or not they will support it or not.
GILBERT
Scott Ryan, one of the points that Bill Shorten and his supporters make is that here is a moderate union Leader making deals with businesses like Thiess John Holland, I know the former chief, respective businessman Tony Shepherd, said that this was a great deal not just for the company but for the workers and that the project, the East Link, was completed ahead of schedule. So, these deals are being compared to militant unions like the CFMEU which the business community, construction sector complain about day in day out.
SCOTT RYAN
The problem we have just seen there with what Ed said, Kieran, is that he thinks that corporate Australia, the charities, the non-government sector in Australia and government itself should be subject to scrutiny but somehow the unions are like the medieval church where no one is allowed to ask a question. What this royal commission has illustrated is firstly those militant unions like the CFMEU, which seem to have their own session of the Federal Court permanently held because they are always there and again only earlier this week news came about them having another record fine imposed on them, but in this case what Bill Shorten has to answer is the fact that there are serious allegations now, including from some members of the union and from some people who, on the ABC only a couple of weeks ago, pointed out that they didn’t think they consented to the agreement where there were apparently potential losses to workers from certain agreements and on top of that serious amounts of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars, flowing from employers to unions in secret with no transparency, with no reporting and no accountability. Now, Bill Shorten, the Labor Party, the community would accept no less than an inquiry to happen if this had happened in any other sector. What this royal commission has brought to light is that there does need to be extra transparency of some of these union activities.
GILBERT
But this fine, the fine you mentioned – which union was that.
RYAN
Well that was the CFMEU, as I mentioned, but what we have here with the AWU is…
(Interrupted)
GILBERT
Exactly, isn’t the point that you compare the CFMEU to the AWU? The CFMEU, militant and very hard to deal with in the corporate world, and then you have the AWU, this other group more middle ground. So the unions get whacked for being militant on the one hand but then you have a middle ground union leader and he gets criticised for doing a deal like that.
RYAN
No, that’s not the point here Kieran, first of all Bill Shorten and Ed Husic are preventing us from re-legislating the very transparency and policing provisions on that militant union, so they do need to be held accountable for that. If they do want to put some distance between themselves and the CFMEU then stop protecting them in Parliament, stop protecting them from having a real industrial law officer on the beat, because here in Melbourne the CFMEU is just out of control and it has been since Labor got rid of the Building and Construction Commission. When it comes to the AWU, What Bill Shorten has to answer is, why with all these agreements are workers saying they were left out of pocket and that at the same time there were serious amounts of money flowing from the corporate sector to the AWU and that was never publically known.
GILBERT
Alright, let’s put that to Ed Husic, that is the key question here, these payments, tens of thousands and in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to the Unions separately, what did they get in return? What was the money for, that is the key question isn’t it?
HUSIC
Well two things, first is obviously a lot of this will be tested today and we will get some facts on the table in relation to some of those points that you raise. Second, I have seen the coverage today that detail some of the things that companies do work with Unions on in terms of providing training for workplace delegates to ensure that agreements that are reached, that some of the things that cause disputes, disagreements or misunderstanding about application of agreements that you actually save money by training everyone up in understanding on same common ground on how agreements will work and some of that goes through training funds. As to whether or not on how those things are set up or how they operate, we will get that sorted or heard about today. But if you are into transparency if I can make this point too, in the middle of all the debate over FOFA and financial advice, when calls were being made for a royal commission to examine how ordinary Australians lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, where was the commitment to transparency then? Where were Tony Abbott and Scott Ryan when that call was being made where they basically said they wouldn’t support an inquiry into that?
(Interrupted)
RYAN
Neither did the Labor Party, they just voted against it in the Senate last week. You voted against the royal commission.
HUSIC
This is all about political motivation that drives royal commissions, it is what this Government is about, it is not about public policy, it is not about getting legit fair dinkum laws, it is about scoring political points and they will be condemned accordingly in the public space.
GILBERT
Alright, Scott Ryan, to you finally, your response to that in the context that this is the third Labor leader to appear before the royal commission since the Abbott Government came into office, set up, each of them, by the Abbott Government.
RYAN
Any one that doesn’t think there are serious problems with the union movement particularly in some of the sectors such as construction, just needs to spend some time in the Melbourne Federal Court where the CFMEU is there on an almost regular basis, they almost have a reserve bench. We have had allegations for many years now of links between certain union activities and bikie gangs, and if you work in construction in Melbourne you know the power and behaviour of unions. What we have evidence of now is serious amounts of money flowing between certain businesses and certain unions and apparent favouritism being granted to those businesses. And every worker and every business in Australia is concerned about that.
GILBERT
A quick break, back in just a moment with Ed Husic and Scott Ryan.
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GILBERT
This is AM Agenda, thanks for your company with me this morning is Ed Husic and Scott Ryan. The Communications Minister has warned against exaggerating the threat of the Islamic State terror group. Malcolm Turnbull at the Sydney Institute last night said that it is important not to be complacent about the national security threat from IS but also not to overestimate that threat and to give it, the group that is, undue credibility. Here is a little bit of what he has to say to reporters after that speech at the Sydney Institute:
(Clip of the Hon Malcolm Turnbull at the Sydney Institute)
Prime Minister Abbott has previously warned that Islamic State is coming after us and said Labor has rolled out the red carpet for terrorists. Here is Mr Turnbull when asked whether or not these comments were directed at Tony Abbott, here is a bit of what he had to say on that:
(Clip of the Hon Malcolm Turnbull at the Sydney Institute)
Senator Ryan, your take on your senior colleague, Mr Turnbull’s critique last night?
RYAN
I think the two little grabs of Malcom’s comments after the address last night sums up that there is a bit of a media beat up here. Malcolm made the point that he thinks the country and the Government has got the balance right between the competing interests here, he also made the point that the Government has been and the Prime Minister has been quite measured in his comments. I would reinforce that by saying, as I might have said this to you once before Kieran, that when the Prime Minister started outlining the nature of this threat in July and August last year, well before the tragic incident in Melbourne and the tragic incident in Sydney later that year, I think that played a very important role in preparing the country for the nature of this threat. It is different to those we faced in the Cold War, because through social media there are new recruiting tools which mean that vulnerable and radical people in our community can be geared up and can pose a greater threat to our community, so it is different and I think Malcolm was pointing out the context of the changed threat.
GILBERT
So, what is the beat up here? When basically, as done just there, it was the comparison, the parallel of the comments made by Malcolm Turnbull and those comments made by Tony Abbott, simply putting those two statements side by side.
RYAN
Not by you Kieran, I think some of the radio news I have heard this morning haven’t done exactly what you did just there which was to actually broadcast the points that Malcolm was making, and what he made during the address. I think we have got to understand that there is a difference between making a thirty or forty minute address and actually addressing something in a much shorter timeframe with a media conference. I don’t see any inconsistency between what Malcolm and the Prime Minister have been saying and Malcolm outlined that in the grab you just played.
GILBERT
And Ed Husic, the point that should be made is that Turnbull’s advocacy in the Government, and from Christopher Pyne and others including, I am told, Greg Hunt who hasn’t been reported much but he in that Cabinet meeting also raised concerns along with the other Cabinet Minsters that have been mentioned but I am told Greg Hunt had concerns initially about those citizenship proposals and saw them reined in. But the point to be made is, having the likes of Turnbull and others making these points is that it is Cabinet working as it should.
HUSIC
I think when it comes to national security and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a widely held view in the public domain, is that people just want the job done. They want to be protected by effective laws and arrangements that ensure our way of life is enhanced and preserved. Having said, people don’t want to see politics and they don’t want to see the debate go too extreme on either side, they just want us to get the job done. So, some of the debate that has occurred and some of the way in which some of my colleagues like Mark Dreyfus are being characterised is truly disgraceful and I think there is something to be said about having a bit more temperate language in the public space. Having said all that Kieran, I think the reason why this has got so much traction, this story, is because people are trying to work out what Malcolm Turnbull is saying here. He is working hard in those clips you just played that he thinks the Government has got the balance right, but why did he make the statements in the first place? When you read excerpts of the speech itself and you are left wondering: what is he trying to communicate? And the concern has been, and you have made the point about what has happened in Cabinet, the concern has been that there has been division existed and whether or not people have gone too far, and other concerns that the Government has tried to politicised the process with some of the talking points that were revealed in the last week or so, leading into the conclusion of the winter session of Parliament. So, we are all left wondering: what is Malcolm going on about when he makes that type of speech with those types of comments.
GILBERT
Gentlemen, we are out of time. Ed Husic and Scott Ryan, thank you both, we will chat to you soon.
HUSIC
Thank you.
RYAN
Thanks, fellas.
(ENDS)