MARK DREYFUS MP

Member for Isaacs

ABC RN Drive Patricia Karvelas 6 February 2019

06 February 2019

SUBJECTS: Huang Xiangmo; Tim Wilson's collusion; Phelps amendments.

MARK DREYFUS QC MP
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY
MEMBER FOR ISAACS

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RN DRIVE
WEDNESDAY, 6 FEBRUARY 2019

SUBJECTS: Huang Xiangmo; Tim Wilson's collusion; Phelps amendments.

PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: Mark Dreyfus, welcome back.

MARK DREYFUS, SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Thanks for having me.

KARVELAS: Mr Huang has been living in Sydney with his family since 2011 and he clearly has connections with Labor and the coalition if you look at the donations. Are you surprised by this news?

DREYFUS: I'm not going to comment on the detail of the case. We haven't been briefed, but obviously well always listen to the advice of the security agencies. But I need to make this clear, Patricia the Labor party does not accept foreign donations. A couple of years ago, Bill Shorten said that we would not accept any donations from Huang Xiangmo and that has been the position.

KARVELAS: OK but you had previously accepted donations, that's correct isn't it?

DREYFUS: Yes and they're declared and they're on the record. But as of June 2017, we've made it clear that not only will the Labor Party not accept any foreign donations, it wont be accepting donations from Huang Xiangmo.

KARVELAS: You're a member of the national security and intelligence committee was the committee consulted at all about this decision?

DREYFUS: The intelligence committee doesn't actually get briefed on operational matters. There's a bar in the legislation as it happens. I think that should be changed, but the role of the committee is presently pretty much confined to looking at bills that the Government brings forward.

KARVELAS: The Foreign Minister Marise Payne spoke to me a little earlier, were going to replay that interview shortly. She says Beijing has not raised the issue with her and she doesn't expect it to. Should we be concerned about diplomatic fallout?

DREYFUS: I don't think this is a matter other than a citizenship question that the government is apparently and I say again we haven't been briefed, though we would expect to be as an opposition this is the government applying citizenship law, and national security considerations to that question.

KARVELAS: Do you expect to be briefed? You just said you haven't been.

DREYFUS: We would expect to be briefed, I and the Opposition Leader receive regular briefings on national security matters and this is a sufficiently important matter that perhaps over the course of the next, brief sitting weeks there are only seven sitting days that briefing will be able to be arranged.

KARVELAS: In the past, he has dared both parties to return the donations he's made too. Should Federal Labor return the money that he donated?

DREYFUS: I think all of this has come to light more recently, and I think that's a question you would have to direct to the National Secretary.

KARVELAS: Do you have a view?

DREYFUS: I think that's a question you would have to direct to the National Secretary.

KARVELAS: About whether you have a view? I asked what your view is. Do you think it's unethical to keep the money?

DREYFUS: As I say, by implication I would be commenting on a specific case, I would be commenting on a national security matter, we haven't been briefed on the details of why there is apparently a decision not to proceed with Huang Xiangmo's citizenship. That's the question, the facts underlying that would perhaps determine what the correct position is on his donations.

KARVELAS: These donations were made through his Australian company, so not strictly foreign donations. But Bill Shorten has stated he doesn't want to accept foreign donations. So is there a backdoor way here?

DREYFUS: Well that's one of the matters that will have to be dealt with in legislation to ban foreign donations, to make sure that there are not backdoors and it raises a question as to what the source of funds is, if for example a donation is made to an Australian political party by an Australian citizen. Then, that's not on the face of it a foreign donation. But if the source of the money is foreign, then it would be. And we need to make sure that legislation that we have to ban foreign donations grapples with that problem. And there are lots of other problems with how you deal with, for example the problem of disclosure, how you deal with splitting which is presently possible under our electoral law where separate donations can be made to different state branches all of these need to have anti-avoidance measures written into them, and foreign donations there will be no exception.

KARVELAS: Labor is calling for Tim Wilson, the Liberal MP to step down as Chair of a parliamentary inquiry into your franking policy after he failed to declare a shareholding in a firm that testified against the policy although he did actually make the revelation in his pecuniary interests. He has actually declared, he just didn't declare at the beginning of all these meetings. What are your concerns here?

DREYFUS: We think it's beyond question that Tim Wilson must resign the chairmanship of the Economics Committee of the Parliament. His conduct has been highly unethical. It's not just that he's been colluding with a private company, which has got a financial interest in campaigning against a Labor policy. He also owns shares in that very company and he's a relative of the company's owner. And the collusion is quite direct. It included the scheduling of a hearing of the Federal parliamentary committee on the same day, within 400 metres of distance from the AGM of that very company. So he's hand in glove with his relative whose company he owns shares in, using the processes of the Federal Parliament to complain against Labor. It's a disgrace, and he actually has to resign. I don't think there should be any doubt of it. I could go on, Patricia, to say it's a sham inquiry in the first place because rather than an inquiry into government legislation or an inquiry into government policy, we've got here an inquiry into an announced Labor policy. I don't think there has ever been a parliamentary committee used in that way. As well, they are sham hearings because instead of receiving proper evidence it's just like a town hall meeting where people are given a minute or two to come and rail against Labor policy. It's an extraordinary misuse of parliamentary processes and a parliamentary committee. He's behaved disgracefully, and that's even before we learned about these revelations today of his link to the relative, his link to

KARVELAS: OK so whats the rule that he's broken that means that he deserves to step down, that he must step down? Is it that he didn't declare that he was a distant relative of this man at the beginning of these committee meetings?

DREYFUS: He didn't declare that he owned shares in the company.

KARVELAS: But he did in his pecuniary interests right?

DREYFUS: Yeah but were meant to go and look at that.

KARVELAS: But he did make the declaration?

DREYFUS: David Coleman, as Chair of this Committee, set a very different example when he was Chair by declaring his own personal interests so that people appearing before the inquiry would be able to see publicly. Weve just had a Royal Commission report, Patricia, which talks about the difference between acting ethically and acting properly and acting in good faith and maintaining the trust of the Australian people, and not taking advantage of loopholes or some fine-grained thing about.

KARVELAS: So he has said he will declare, now, at the beginning of the meetings following that David Coleman precedent or example rather that you've just set. And he has declared it in his pecuniary interests. So where is the breach?

DREYFUS: He's hopelessly compromised, Patricia. He has been caught colluding with a relative, whose company he owns shares in, to manipulate processes of the Parliament. It's hard to imagine

KARVELAS: So where is the manipulation of the processes of the Parliament that you are referring to?

DREYFUS: He's colluded with this man about the course of the committees hearings. He's put on a committee hearing at a date and a place that coincided with the company's AGM, presumably so that many people who were at the company's AGM could flock along to this parliamentary hearing.

KARVELAS: Well that could be circumstantial right? Is there evidence that

DREYFUS: That's stretching belief, Patricia. This is a situation where he has disgraced himself and the Parliament. He has no choice but to resign, and we need to have people not only avoiding actual conflicts of interest, we need to have people in positions of responsibility like the Chair of a parliamentary committee avoiding the appearance of a conflict of interest. That's what a lot of these rules go to. They go to making sure that confidence in our system of government and in our Parliament is maintained. Wilson has disgraced the Parliament and disgraced himself, and he should go. I don't think any fair-minded person perhaps Im going to hear a partisan defence from the temporary Prime Minister but any fair-minded person looking at this would say that he has got to go.

KARVELAS: Just to be very transparent with our listeners, we have invited Tim Wilson to come onto the program, and to explain himself but he has declined the invitation. Just on another issue, the Prime Minister today effectively dared Labor to vote for Kerryn Phelps's bill to speed up medical transfers for asylum seekers from Nauru, the Opposition has just received some legal advice around the wording of the bill. Can you take me through that?

DREYFUS: Well the legal advice makes clear that the national security of Australia is absolutely protected and maintained in the form of a ministerial power that's included in the Phelps amendments to the Migration Act. And for the Prime Minister to say, as he did today, that the bill was stupid that's his word is shameful, desperate stuff from a Prime Minister writhing around in the death throes of this government. He should actually respect the processes of the Parliament. He should pay attention to whats in the bill. We had thought that he had admitted that he was wrong on the need for a medical review panel. And it really looks like desperate stuff that he's saying. He's saying it's stupid and then in the next breath he's saying hell ignore it. Now, this is an appropriate reform to the Migration Act. Labor supports this

KARVELAS: So will you be pushing for any amendments?

DREYFUS: We are going to vote in favour of the amendments that have already been passed by the Australian Senate, which introduce a procedure that makes sure that sick people in regional processing facilities can receive the medical care they need without compromising our strong border protection arrangements. That's what the legal advice that Labor has obtained confirms, that a ministerial discretion is retained, the minister will have power to refuse transfers on the basis of border integrity, or national security, and Mr Morrison's hysterical claims that control of our borders are somehow lost by letting in sick refugees needing urgent medical care, it's hysterical.

KARVELAS: If the bill does pass, it will be the first time in close to 90 years a government has lost a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. The Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he wont call an early election. There's no convention that forces him to is there?

DREYFUS: There isn't, but it is a fact that the government hasn't lost a substantive vote on legislation

KARVELAS: So do you think they should call an election if they were to lose this vote?

DREYFUS: I'm not saying that for a moment, but it's the fact that the Government hasn't lost a substantive vote on legislation since 1929, I think that will speak for itself. But what we've come to expect from this government that is in complete disarray, complete disunity, barely has policies on matters of major significance like climate change and energy. It's idea about what we are to spend the next three months in the lead-up to the election on is apparently some massive scare campaign that the government is going to conduct against Labor policies. One might ask where are the government's policies on these matters? When are they going to stop talking about Labor and start talking about the future of our country?

KARVELAS: Mark Dreyfus a big week next week, thank you so much for joining me tonight.

DREYFUS: Thanks Patricia.

ENDS