MARK DREYFUS MP

Member for Isaacs

ABC RN Breakfast Norman Swan 23 January 2020

28 January 2020

SUBJECT: Sports Rorts; Climate Change.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO NATIONAL BREAKFAST
THURSDAY, 23 JANUARY, 2020

SUBJECTS: Sports Rorts; Climate Change.

NORMAN SWAN: The Prime Minister has stood by the Nationals Deputy Leader Bridget McKenzie over her handling of the $100 million sports grant program. But now Scott Morrison has ordered his department to investigate whether Senator McKenzie breached ministerial standards when she set aside recommendations from Sport Australia and awarded funds to clubs in marginal seats and for colleagues electorates ahead of the last federal election. Attorney-General Christian Porter is also seeking advice over the legality of the grants but he's rejected accusations of pork barrelling or rorting.

PORTER: Had she not intervened and overlaid her assessment on top of the departments assessment less Labor seats would have gotten funding. The Leader of the Opposition warmly welcomed the funding in his electorate.

Attorney-General Christian Porter speaking to Perth 6PR radio station yesterday.

Mark Dreyfus is Labor's Shadow Attorney-General. Welcome back to Breakfast.

MARK DREYFUS, SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Good morning Norman.

SWAN: So do you welcome this investigation by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet?

DREYFUS: I think Mr Morrison is showing a complete lack of leadership in flicking this to the public service. Its his minister. Its his ministerial standards. Bridget McKenzie should have resigned days ago and if she won't resign, Mr Morrison needs to sack her. We already know what any real leader should need to know in sacking this minister. The only reason that she has lasted as long as she has Norman, is that Mr Morrison and his cabinet are all up to their necks in this.

SWAN: In what way?

DREYFUS: This is rorting on an unprecedented scale. Its a throwing out of merits assessment, which Sport Australia had conducted of the more than 1000 applications for this program, and sending the money in a way that would benefit the Liberal and National Parties in winning marginal seats.

I heard the ridiculous claim, again, just then from Christian Porter, saying that Labor seats got some money too. That's because in the corrupted process, Bridget McKenzie and the other ministers involved decided they would try and win those Labor seats by giving more of the grants to marginal seats. Its been a complete corrupting of the process. Shes got to go and its extraordinary, I think for most Australians looking on, that the Government thinks it can get away with this.

SWAN: I mean, notwithstanding your comments, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet are going to look at this. Do you trust them to come back and if they say she didn't breach ministerial standards will you abide by that?

DREYFUS: The public will be entitled to say, if that were the result, why should we have faith in this process when it is being overseen by a head of the department who is Scott Morrison's former chief of staff and a political advisor?

I don't think that you need a further investigation. The Auditor-General has already delivered a damning report. Following a detailed investigation he uncovered that Bridget McKenzie was overseeing a parallel process that was secret, that had nothing to do with the guidelines that Sport Australia published for this program, in order to benefit the Liberal and National Parties. I don't think you need anything more and the Prime Minister shouldn't need anything more and I think Australians would be right to look at this and be very dubious as to why we are having a further investigation, let alone one that's being overseen by the head of the department who's Mr Morrison's former chief of staff.

SWAN: Senator McKenzie has downplayed her membership at the Wangaratta shooting club that received $36,000 in sports grants. That membership is valued at $300. I'm thinking of the whole dual citizenship issue where people were holier than thou and said it's all their problems, not our problem, then it became our problem. I mean, are you confident that your colleagues disclose their own memberships of clubs and associations and should you get back into government there's not going to be equivalent conflicts?

DREYFUS: Its about ministers knowing that they have a conflict. The club described her - the club she gave the grant to - the club said she signed up as a full fee paying member. This is as clear a conflict of interest as you could imagine. She didn't disclose that she was a member. But whether she disclosed or not, she had a conflict of interest. That's the breach of ministerial standards. Again we see obfuscation, and evasion and out and out concealment.

SWAN: So where does ministerial judgment sit in all this is?

DREYFUS: Well there clearly wasn't any. There clearly hasn't been any Prime Ministerial judgment either. There's been a complete lack of leadership from this Prime Minister. Just like the lacklustre leadership for weeks now, we're getting more of it. Hes referring it to his department. What more do we need to know? (LINE BREAK UP). Any fair minded person would see that she has to go.

SWAN: Has Labor sought legal advice on whether they were handed out lawfully?

DREYFUS: Its sufficient for us to read the Auditor-General's report where he says that he has been unable to identify any lawful authority for the minister to do what she did. She can't be the delegate of her own agency. She hasn't used any of the processes that are available under the Act which established Sport Australia and if the Auditor-General says there's no lawful authority, that should be enough.

SWAN: So lawyers are now talking about the prospects of a class action. You're a barrister. If you were asked for your opinion of the chances of success going ahead?

DREYFUS: There appear to be several hundred sporting clubs and organisations across Australia who were assessed as having more merit with their applications than the clubs which did get money on a different basis, the corrupt basis that they were in marginal electorates which the Liberal and National Parties were targeting. The Auditor-General has said there was no lawful authority for what has occurred. That would seem to me to be a very good basis for proceeding to court if you are one of those disappointed clubs. And there are several hundred of them, which sounds to me, like the makings of a potential class.

SWAN: And what's the remedy in court that they would be seeking?

DREYFUS: It might be that they can certainly recover for all of the wasted time and the disappointment that they have endured. Whether there is some other remedy, I will leave that to better lawyers than me, but certainly you have got potentially unlawful conduct by the Government, by the Minister, and very many Australian clubs and sporting organisations have wasted hundreds if not thousands of hours. They're disappointed because the grants program that they thought they were participating in wasn't anything of the kind. It was a rorted, corrupted process designed to achieve Liberal and National Party members being elected or re-elected.

SWAN: Why have you limited your call to Ms McKenzie's head, if you believe it goes across Government?

DREYFUS: Shes the person that actually made the decision. It is absolutely clear that she's got to go. Whether or not there was other ministerial involvement, what exactly was the involvement of the Prime Minister, they're still questions that remain unanswered. Its absolutely clear on the face of the Auditor-General's report shes got to go Norman.

SWAN: If we had a federal anti-corruption commission, would this be an issue for them? And do you support it?

DREYFUS: It should be. Of course there should be a National Integrity Commission. We've been waiting far too long for it. The Attorney-General and the Prime Minister said much well over a year ago that wed see one before the end 2019. Well, we haven't. No legislation has been produced and I'm very fearful that if they ever get around to doing it it'll be a weak and inadequate, anti-corruption commission which wouldn't be able to look at matters like this.

SWAN: Let's move on to the bushfires. The Prime Minister has been criticised for his position on climate change. In relation to this overnight, Prince Charles at Davos came up with a strong comment on climate change. And the Opposition, your leader commented it was a mistake to go for the 45% reduction. I think probably Australians are feeling a bit hopeless at the moment that not even the Opposition is stepping up to the plate.

DREYFUS: We have made absolutely clear that strong action on climate is required. That we are in a climate emergency. We are demanding of the Government that it takes stronger action, as indeed, as you rightly say Norman, are people around the world.

The Government's been missing in action. The Prime Minister's been missing in action on this. They tried initially to downplay the bushfire crisis, just like Mr Morrison has downplayed the climate emergency, and we are going to be demanding from now until the next election - because we are not the Government Norman that the Government take real action on climate. We will be demanding that the Government take a completely different position in the international meetings that Australia attends.

SWAN: How are you going to deal with the problem of Central Queensland and coal?

DREYFUS: We will have comprehensive policies when we go to the next election which deals with climate, which shows that the climate needs to be treated as the economic imperative. It cant be left to future generations. We've got to invest in cheaper, cleaner energy. That's going to be of benefit to Australia, of benefit to Australia's economy, to take strong action on climate.

And of course the exact position of coal, which is going to be used less in the decades to come across the world we will have to consider that. We will have to consider the position of workers in the coal industry and people who depend on them and towns which depend on them.

But Labor is up for the task as we have always been. We are the party that can deal with the economic transition that is required. The present government is just part of the problem. The present government are full of climate change deniers and we will expose them because they need to be doing a much better job than that have been doing up until now.

SWAN: Mark Dreyfus, thanks for joining us.

DREYFUS: Thanks very much Norman.

ENDS