MARK DREYFUS MP

Member for Isaacs

ABC Radio Melbourne Polliegraph Rafael Epstein 20 November 2019

20 November 2019

SUBJECTS: Robodebt; Hong Kong protests; Integrity commission; Secondary boycott laws.

MARK DREYFUS
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
MEMBER FOR ISAACS

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC MELBOURNE POLLIE-GRAPH
WEDNESDAY, 20 NOVEMBER, 2019

SUBJECTS: Robodebt; Hong Kong protests; Integrity commission; Secondary boycott laws.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:And joining us in the studio Tim Wilson. He's the Liberal MP for the seat of Goldstein. He's chair of the Parliaments Standing Committee on Economics Tim Wilson. Welcome.

TIM WILSON: Thanks for having me Raf.

EPSTEIN: Mark Dreyfus joins us as well. He is the ALP Member for the seat of Isaacs. He is the Shadow Attorney-General and Shadow something else no, can't remember Mark.

MARK DREYFUS, SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Constitutional Reform.

EPSTEIN: Thank you very much. There you go. I knew there was something there.

DREYFUS: Good to be with you Raf. Hello Tim.

WILSON: Hello Mark.

EPSTEIN: Look we'll go straight to Mary who had, or has a Robodebt issue. We will get onto the significant changes in the moment. But Mary, what happened to you?

MARY: Yeah, hi, I had two Robodebts. So my first one was about three years now, I think it was, and I got an email asking for a repayment of $39,000. A lovely email that said, you know, I have three weeks to pay or I can click now to pay immediately. I had to fight tooth and nail to get it wiped because it was entirely, I didn't actually owe it.

EPSTEIN: You'd have to provide the proof wouldn't you to get that?

MARY: Absolutely, like hours and hours and hours of calls. I had to find all the payslips, I had to ask Centrelink to go back through their call records. And thankfully I could remember a call I made in a new financial year to report a certain amount of income.

EPSTEIN: How many hours to get it wiped? How many hours of effort?

MARY: I mean several months and 20 hours. More than hour on hold each time you call and then another hour to explain the whole story and people go off and, you know, like 10 or 20 of those calls and emails and finding documents and yeah. Lost sleep and stress and all the rest as well.

EPSTEIN: Make you angry?

MARY: Yes, scared and angry. I actually knew that I didn't owe anything because I had been doing my income every fortnight, logging it with Centrelink correctly. So I knew it was an error. But I also didn't know if I was able, if I was going to be able to sort of fight this big, faceless beast that was saying I had to pay the money. And, even though I didn't, I knew I didn't owe it, I thought I might still have to.

EPSTEIN: I think that's the issue. Mary, we don't know the details. Thank you for your painful story. 40 grand you had to work for months to get it wiped. Tim Wilson, did get the Government get it wrong?

WILSON: I think the Government's tested something to try and get the data and the credibility we have around how much people are being paid, and making sure people aren't being overpaid. I think we've learned a lot along the way. There's no ambiguity about that and it's made corrective action.

EPSTEIN: So did you get it wrong?

WILSON: We absolutely introduced a system that can be improved. And there were clearly some problems with it, and we just heard one right there. But if you do introduce any new system, there will be errors along the way. And there will be consequences. And that's why it's important to acknowledge it to fix it. That's what we're doing.

EPSTEIN: Mark Dreyfus, under Labor, they started the averaging. The way requests were made to people changed under this government.

DREYFUS: That's right. It was introduced by Christian Porter in the middle of 2016. The averaging has been used by the Tax Office for a long time, but never used in the way that this Liberal Government has decided to use it. Just scandalous.

EPSTEIN: Can I just press pause. Only because I don't want to talk about things that not everyone understands. Averaging is when the Tax Office says well, you got 50 grand last year. So we're guessing average you probably got 50 grand this year.

DREYFUS: It's actually not that. It's that we've seen that you've earned $400 in that fortnight, and $300 another in another fortnight, we're going to average both right across the whole year and assert that across the whole year you will earn $50,000 even though you might only have earned a thousand and no further inquiry was made beyond the use of this averaging algorithm.

It is a scandal what has occurred. The Government's been running an extortion racket here.

EPSTEIN: Why is it an extortion racket?

DREYFUS: Its an extortion racket because on the Government's own admission, they've sent out these Robodebt notices to almost a million Australians. On their own admission, at least 20 percent were false. It's probably, we think, a much higher percentage. So we've got a government here that's sending out false debt demands to Australian citizens in the hundreds of thousands, causing mental distress. Some people we think may have committed suicide as a result of getting this.

We've heard not a single apology from Christian Porter, who was at the Press Club today. Not a single apology here from Tim who says they were testing. Sending out nearly a million debt notices, a fifth of which on their own admission are false, is not testing. It is a scandal what has occurred and the Prime Minister should be apologising, Stuart Robert should resign, Christian Porter should resign too.

EPSTEIN: Tim Wilson, a lot there, extortion and apology. You wouldn't actually agree with me when I said, did the government get it wrong?

WILSON: Yeah, but if anybody's experienced any problem or heartache associated with the implementation of the system I have no issue in saying I'm very sorry to hear that.

EPSTEIN: Do you think anyone has committed suicide because of it?

WILSON: I don't have any evidence to say that.

EPSTEIN: A lot of claims around that.

WILSON: There are a lot of claims and I don't want to get into people's individual circumstances and I don't have any evidence. So it's simply irresponsible for me to say anything otherwise.

EPSTEIN: The fundamental shift of saying, okay, now the government needs to provide proof that you owe a debt. I will point out, we don't know a lot of the detail. The minister did like a five minute doorstop. He hasn't done any other interviews for something that affects probably more than a few million people, we don't have any detail on. But the fundamental change where now you, the government, have to prove to me I owe a debt, as opposed to me the welfare recipient, proving that I don't owe a debt. That means you got it wrong, doesn't it?

WILSON: What it says is we introduced the system, there have absolutely been consequences associated with that, there have been wrong issues that have been issued, wrong debt notices that have been issued. There are ones where there has been a discrepancy between what the government data said and the algorithm has shown and what is practically being applied is that we've provided pathways for people to rectify that. But we have a responsibility ..

EPSTEIN: It took people months, you heard that.

WILSON: And that's why I say I'm very sorry to hear that where those situations arose. But where we have a situation where there's been overclaiming of public money, people rightly expect us to pursue people doing wrongdoing and ripping off the system.

EPSTEIN: No one is disputing that.

WILSON: That's right. I'm saying we also seek to pursue people where people are doing the wrong. It's a pathway of how we do that, particularly off a whole system approach where we're often talking about millions of Australians.

EPSTEIN: A lot of you texting about suicides that follow some of those Robodebt notices. Wow 80 per cent of claims are accurate, all collecting tax from tax dodgers. Balance up the story ABC. There you go, some on the government side there. So anyone going to jail? No, they'll just receive fines which we will pay for. That would be around both. I think. The people running Centrelink, and perhaps as well around the banks.

I want to get on to the banks in a moment. Mark Dreyfus is with us from the Labor Party and Tim Wilson from the Liberal Party. It's quarter past five. I want to get to China but Fiona's in Boronia. What do you want to say Fiona?

FIONA: Firstly, I'd like to say that people are not welfare recipients. They are people who receive benefits and entitlements.

EPSTEIN: Okay.

FIONA: And I would like to remind Mr. Frydenberg there was a young man..

EPSTEIN: Tim Wilson here, not Josh Frydenberg.

FIONA: Sorry Mr Wilson. There was a young man who specifically left a suicide note regarding the pressure from debt collectors and from Centrelink for a debt that it turned out he didn't owe. So how can you say that it was a test, and it was a little mistake? People have died, people are homeless. So I really don't appreciate the flippancy of the remarks

WILSON: What I'm being is straight and honest. And so I understand there are things that you've raised. I didn't say they were wrong. I simply raised the fact that I didn't have that information. You're aware of a circumstance that I'm not aware of. And that's why when it comes down to these issues, the appropriate thing is to acknowledge where there are things that there have been wrongs done, and they are being fixed. And that's the pathway that the Government's pursuing.

EPSTEIN: Let me just remind people, the Lifeline number is 13 1114. Can I ask you both about China and the Hong Kong protest? Tim, you went to the Hong Kong protest because I saw a picture of you there. I'll start with you, Mark Dreyfus, does it make a difference what Australia says about China? I'm all for us saying the right thing and doing the right thing. My question is, does China ever change its behaviour, based on what even the Australian Prime Minister says?

DREYFUS: I think all countries in the world are concerned about their international reputation. I think China - and we know this from the immense effort that China has put into what sometime is called soft power or diplomatic influence over the last several decades, but they've ramped up their soft power effort to gain influence in the world. I think it does matter to China what we, as a middle power in the world say. I wish that the government realised that more than they seem to. I don't think we should hesitate.

EPSTEIN: Their language is tougher now? Its got tougher?

DREYFUS: Its got tougher and I think it needs to be tougher yet. We can be very concerned about what is occurring in Hong Kong.

Tim did the right thing in going to Hong Kong to witness the protests that are occurring, to express concern as a backbench member of the government and that's a good thing. I do think that senior ministers and the Prime Minister need to be expressing a view about this because I do think it matters to China. What Australia as a middle power says.

EPSTEIN: Can I ask you about specific language Tim Wilson? Eric Abetz has brought up China harvesting organs. Andrew Hastie, who's got a significant position on another committee, a former soldier, has likened our, I guess, our lack of response to China to the West's lack of response to Hitler's Germany and to Stalin's Russia. Are we going to hear the Foreign Minister of the Prime Minister say anything approaching that?

WILSON: The Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister who represent the government and the people of Australia have been assertive and strong in their language about, not just the Hong Kong protest, but increasingly about the detaining of Uighurs in the western parts of China. And they have a responsibility to act in a strong, forthright, but diplomatic way in the circumstances between the rights of nations.

One of the privileges of backbenchers or shadow members of the Opposition is that they can say things with a lot more freedom, as I have, as Andrew has and as Eric has.

EPSTEIN: Should the Government ramp it up a bit? The Prime Minister ramp it up a bit?

WILSON: There actually has been very clear increases, particularly associated with Hong Kong.

EPSTEIN: Im just asking if you feel you want the Government to be stronger?

WILSON: I always want the Government to be strong and I do believe it has been strong. And as the situation unfolds, there is strength as a country in making it clear what our views are particularly on Hong Kong, particularly on the Uighurs in the western part of China, and I don't think we're at the end of that journey, sadly.

I mean, I was just reading on Twitter now the Wall Street Journal has put out a tweet saying that there is somebody who's worked for the British Consulate in Hong Kong, who was allegedly tortured, to try and get information about the protesters. This situation is extremely serious and I don't think, politely, a lot of Australians you haven't been there and seen or spoken to the people involved, understand the gravity of the situation.

EPSTEIN: Do you think the army is going to come into China?

WILSON: Well, I hope not. But they have already been on the streets.

EPSTEIN: Do you think they'll come in in force?

WILSON: Well, I hope not, I also don't know on what banner they will come under should that occur. We are facing a very difficult situation, not just for the city we love but ultimately for the democratic rights and freedoms of people in the city. But let's not trade it away. The issues that are facing Uighurs in the western part of China as well.

EPSTEIN: Mark Dreyfus, just quickly do you think the army is going to get involved in a high profile way in Hong Kong, the Chinese army?

DREYFUS: Some of the reports suggest that army personnel are already on the ground.

EPSTEIN: Do you think well see marching, you know, uniforms, weapons, tanks?

DREYFUS: You've got to see China is the authoritarian state that it is. The revelations in the New York Times about the treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang province tell you about the nature of the Chinese state. I think the world should be prepared for anything to occur in Hong Kong.

EPSTEIN: Let me get some traffic. I'll come back to more of your calls and questions with Mark Dreyfus and Tim Wilson.

EPSTEIN: Mark Dreyfus is the Shadow Attorney-General. Hes part of the Labor team. Tim Wilson chairs the Parliaments Standing Committee on Economics. Sharon's calling from somewhere in Melbourne. We were talking about the changes to Robodebt, announced without too much detail by the Government yesterday, what did you want to say Sharon?

SHARON: Hello, I just wanted to say I'm a mental health clinician, and I absolutely have seen people's mental health deteriorate because of receiving Robodebt notices. I've seen patients who I was already seeing get significantly worse, and I've seen new patients come in because they're receiving notices. These are vulnerable people in our community and the Government seems to have no understanding that there are lots of people who can't take on this big department, who receives a debt like this and think that's it, I have nothing more now.

EPSTEIN: Sharon, let me refine that to a question. You did say you apologise Tim Wilson. These people have been harmed by this. You still haven't said if the Government got it wrong.

WILSON: Right, well, what, we know - and I've just had some statistics put forward for me - and some of the things that Mark said before was incorrect, which is the number of notices being factually wrong is apparently 0.2 percent. 20 percent of people have contested it. And so clearly they have been notices that have been wrong and part of the system design, obviously has failed.

EPSTEIN: But it's not about what's wrong, it's about putting the burden on people to prove they don't have a debt.

WILSON: And that's precisely why..

EPSTEIN: Was that the wrong thing?

WILSON: I do actually think that there has to be mutual responsibility in the system that we have. Now, what's clear is that the burden has fallen too heavily on people and that is why the Government has corrected to make sure that we support people who need it, make sure that debt is recovered, and we have a system that has integrity.

EPSTEIN: Mark Dreyfus has already called it extortion and demanded an apology from the Prime Minister. So if I can, I'm going to move on to Phil in Brunswick.

We've spoken a lot yesterday, and today about the allegations circling around Casey Council. The essential claim from the state's top corruption watchdog is the councillors were paid money by a developer and they changed their votes to get land rezoned. Not all of those deals have gone through yet, but it's pretty sensational evidence. Phil, what do you want to say about that?

PHIL: I wanted to ask Tim Wilson why the Federal Government is unwilling to bring in an open and transparent anti-corruption commission at the federal level. For some reason are federal politicians immune from the sort of corruption that seems to happen at council and state levels?

EPSTEIN: They're proposing one.

WILSON: Well, firstly, we're developing legislation to do exactly that. And of course, one of the allegations that was made against one of the councillors, or the candidates I think it was in this case, the example is exactly what happened with Sam Dastyari, where he allegedly had debts paid off. So there's absolutely cases where that can happen. That is already against the law. But the big difference - as you move further and further away from council towards state, towards federal - we actually have much less discretionary power. And that's irrespective of party no matter who you are, federal parliamentarians have virtually no discretionary power where councils voting on planning applications, etc, have a lot more. That's why if you look at these issues of corruption, they often exist much more at the council level. To a certain extent state level but a federal level becomes diminished considerably.

EPSTEIN: Mark Dreyfus, another pet topic of yours, the Government, I mean, they've got one in the works don't they? They're going to give us a federal anti-corruption body?

DREYFUS: It seems so. I spent the whole of 2018 calling for a federal integrity commission. And finally, at the end, in December 2018, Christian Porter and the Prime Minister announced that one was going to happen after spending years deriding the idea.

EPSTEIN: You only get one chance to do it.

DREYFUS: That's right. At the time Christian Porter said that they'd been working on it for 12 months. We're now two years on from when he says they started working on it. He went to the Press Club today with a much heralded speech that was going to be about the national integrity commission - no timetable, no legislation and apparently from the little that he said at the Press Club today, he's still committed to the inadequate model that was universally condemned when he announced it in December 2018. So lets have a national integrity commission.

EPSTEIN: Just on their proposals being condemned, I've done tons of interviews with the people who condemned the national model. They are the same people who condemned IBAC - the one we have in Victoria.

DREYFUS: Also initially inadequate.

EPSTEIN: It does have flaws.

DREYFUS: Yes.

EPSTEIN: It's delivering now though, isn't it? So even if a whole lot of eminent legal people come out and say, look, you haven't got it, right the proof now is that the Victorian one derided by a lot of people, it's delivering now.

DREYFUS: And it's been substantially changed from its initial introduced form. Every Australian state and territory now has an integrity commission. The only jurisdiction in Australia, which doesn't have an integrity commission is Australia and it's long past time that we had one. I'm calling on Christian Porter and Scott Morrison to get on with it. Bring a model to the parliament so we can have a debate. And it might be you're right Raf, that it's better to have an inadequate one than none at all.

EPSTEIN: I don't know.

DREYFUS: Let's see it. Let's see them bring legislation to the parliament.

EPSTEIN: Tim Wilson do you know the timetable for the legislation?

WILSON: No, I do not.

EPSTEIN: Chris is in Moonee Ponds. What do you want to raise Chris?

CHRIS: I could comment on all the topics you're covering.

EPSTEIN: Just try and narrow down one if you can.

CHRIS: I just think politicians have become prisoners of populism and the 24 hour news cycle and they don't actually think through the issues before they comment or act. A case in point, we're criticising the Communist Chinese Party. I'm an Australian businessman, so I've got nothing to grind here. But we had a demonstration by vegans. We had a demonstration by young people about environmentalism and we shut it down. We're going to change the laws in one day. The people in Hong Kong have been persevering with this for six months.

EPSTEIN: So Chris you're talking about the Prime Minister's. the Prime Ministers spoken about what he calls secondary boycott protests. He wants to make them illegal. Is that what you mean?

CHRIS: No, that's the secondary boycott process, that's something separate. This is about us commenting on what's going on in Hong Kong, criticising the Chinese Government who have been very patient, and yet we wouldn't allow this to go on for one day.

EPSTEIN: Okay, Tim Wilson, you've been there, how do you respond to that?

WILSON: Firstly we actually do tolerate peaceful protests now. Now, there are steps and processes that have to be gone through around making sure that people know if you're going to block streets and those things, you get a permit. It's a standard thing. By comparison, what is now going on is not a not a standard protest situation you have. And you know, there is wrong on both sides. I'm not trying to pretend otherwise

EPSTEIN: You're talking about Hong Kong now?

WILSON: Hong Kong, yeah, it's a much more extreme situation.

EPSTEIN: But has China been patient? Chris thinks they have been patient?

WILSON: Well. I don't quite agree with that. Actually, I think the Chinese Government - this all started because it's not a democratic system. But trying to draw the comparison between the two countries is just fanciful. The reality is it's off the basis of them not having a democratic system, not having the capacity for people to be able to have their voice and really what has been a consistent effort by the Chinese Communist Party to shut down dissent and that is what has lead us to this situation. Now not everybody is doing the right thing on both sides but to compare the two I just think is fanciful.

EPSTEIN: Are they useful comparisons between Hong Kong and here Mark Dreyfus? I know you don't like some of the Prime Ministers proposed plans, but are they comparable protest situations?

DREYFUS: I don't think you can directly compare. But I do get Chris's point that we've got a Prime Minister that wants to shut down protests. So we've got Tim, going to Hong Kong to say he's very concerned about what's happening there but I haven't heard Tim speaking up - because he should - against Scott Morrison wanting to shut down the political protests.

WILSON: Mark, they're cheap political points because you haven't even seen the proposal, nor have I. What they are talking about is making sure that businesses can operate while also giving people the right to speak and there are tensions in that existing in law already. So lets focus on the substance.

EPSTEIN: Here's what I don't understand. When Westpac said we're not going to fund Adani. Matt Canavan, the Resources Minister, says people should not give their business to Westpac. That was his position on Sky. He said that a few times, right? You shouldn't send your money Westpac's way because they don't want to fund Adani. What the Prime Minister seems to me wants to outlaw is when the Australian Conservation Foundation are telling people don't give your money to Westpac because they might give money to Adani, that would be outlawed?

WILSON: I don't think from my understanding of the proposal that is anything near what is being proposed. The question is making sure that normal commercial services in a non-discriminatory way are provided in the marketplace. That is my understanding what's being discussed, and nothing more, but we'll wait and see the detail. Not what you have just proposed at all.

EPSTEIN: So if you write a law that says the hardware store can't be targeted, because they're doing business with Adani, I think that's what the Prime Minister is talking about, some hardware stores who might be targeted because they're doing business with Adani, how is that law separate to a green group saying don't give your money to a bank because they're doing that with the money?

WILSON: And this goes right to the heart of the call the gentleman made before, I think it was Chris, is about consistency. And if anyone wants to criticise me - consistency is not normally the point of criticism unless they're frustrated by my concern - because they these are the sorts of processes that should be going through in testing the law to make sure that whatever proposed is put up, I will be applying the test of consistency. Because, you know, whatever people's cause or justification, people have a right to express their opinion and contest and to associate in protest.

EPSTEIN: Quick ten second, right of reply, Mark Dreyfus. I know, we don't have detail from the Government on secondary boycotts.

DREYFUS: I don't think we're ever going to see this law.

EPSTEIN: Ever?

DREYFUS: No, because what the Prime Minister was actually banging on about, he doesn't like primary boycotts. He doesn't like the people who say don't do business with them because we don't like the way they make their money. And what the Prime Minister actually wants is all Australians to be quiet. I was going to ask Tim whether he's a quiet Australian.

WILSON: Most people would not suggest that.

EPSTEIN: How can we have a friendly non money bet because there's going to be legislation from the Prime Minister on some form of secondary boycott, surely? They're going to come up with a law?

DREYFUS: It wont say what he said he was going to legislate to do at the Minerals Council. I read what his speech said and we won't see legislation that's anything like that.

EPSTEIN: We will return to the debate, I'm sure, at some stage in the next year or two. Mark Dreyfus, thank you very much for coming in.

DREYFUS: Thanks Raf.

EPSTEIN: Tim Wilson, thanks to you as well.


ENDS