SUBJECT: Nationals leadership turmoil; Government divisions; Matt Canavan resignation; Sports rorts.
MARK DREYFUS
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO NATIONAL BREAKFAST
TUESDAY, 4 FEBRUARY, 2020
SUBJECT: Nationals leadership turmoil; Government divisions; Matt Canavan resignation; Sports rorts.
FRAN KELLY: The chaos in the National Party has been sparked by the ongoing scandal surrounding the way the Morrison Government handed out funding to sporting clubs. Former Deputy Leader Bridget McKenzie was forced to resign after the head of the Prime Minister's Department, Phil Gaetjens, uncovered a relatively minor breach of ministerial standards in the way she administered the grants. But otherwise, according to the Prime Minister, the Gaetjens review cleared Bridget McKenzie of a much more serious claim that the $100 million fund was rorted for political advantage. Scott Morrison is refusing to release that report which is at odds with the separate review from the Auditor-General that found the money was used to favour marginal seats at the last election.
Mark Dreyfus is the Shadow Attorney-General. He joins us from our Parliament House studios. Mark Dreyfus welcome back to Breakfast.
MARK DREYFUS, SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Thanks very much Fran and good to be with you.
KELLY: Your pursuit of Bridget McKenzie over the sports grants program has ended in a challenge to Michael McCormack's leadership of the National Party by Barnaby Joyce. Did you have any thought at any point that it would come to this?
DREYFUS: We thought, looking at this program - and prompted by Georgina Downer appearing with a huge novelty cheque pretending that public money was in fact a gift from her or a gift from the Liberal Party when she was simply a candidate - we thought that stunk and that's why I referred this matter to the Auditor-General.
Not in my worst nightmares did I think that the administration of this sports grant program would prove to be as corrupted as we now see that it was. And we've got a cover up from the Prime Minister, which won't work. This matter is far from over. We've had the resignation of Bridget McKenzie for, as you said in your introduction, a relatively minor matter. But the whole program - it's clear from the Auditor-General's report - was a corrupt use of public money for private political advantage.
KELLY: Look, I'll come back to what Labor claims is the cover up of a corrupt program in a moment, but just to stay with Barnaby Joyce for a moment and this notion of politicians rehabilitating themselves I suppose. He lost the leadership of the National Party after his extramarital affair and there were questions or allegations from some women of sexual harassment. These questions over Barnaby Joyce's past inevitably re-emerging. Here's Barnaby Joyce speaking to us a short time ago.
BARNABY JOYCE: Well, let's first of all, you know, its a very tawdry attack on you by others when they say well, we don't know how to beat him on policy so I will beat him on slander. I don't expect my personal life to be brought into that judgment, I expect my political life and the capacity to deliver to be foremost in their mind.
That's Barnaby Joyce speaking to us a little earlier. He says he's learned his lessons, is that fair enough? He says hes had two years to think about his mistakes. Will Labor hold Barnaby Joyce's past against him if he wins the leadership?
DREYFUS: Just straight away we can see that Barnaby Joyce is trying to paper over why he resigned from his positions previously. It was not to do with his personal life. It was to do with allegations, very serious allegations of sexual harassment that were made against him, including by someone in a senior National Party position. And he wants to reinvent the past.
It's a matter for the National Party who they choose as their Leader or the Deputy Leader. What's shocking to me is that on a day that the Parliament was meant to be coming together in a day of condolence for those who suffered from the recent fires, for people who've died, a day of tribute to our magnificent firefighters for the effort that they've put in in recent months, the Nationals can only think of further tearing themselves apart.
And what happened you might ask to Mr. Morrison's claim that we would now have stable government? That's been thrown out the window too. Self-obsessing by the Nationals, again, tearing themselves apart, again. There's not a lot the rest of us can do about it except look on in horror.
KELLY: Okay coming to sports rorts, Labor wants the Gaetjens report released but before we get to that we now have, or do we have, a potential conflict of interest emerging around another minister, or former minister now Matt Canavan. He's just quit as Resources Minister to support Barnaby Joyce, but Matt Canavan has revealed he didn't declare a link to the North Queensland Cowboys Football Club which received a $20 million loan from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility that he was, in part, in charge of administrating. Does that put him in a difficult situation? Is that a breach of his rules? I mean, he was just a member of a footy club, does it come to that? You cant be a member of a footy club?
DREYFUS: Applying the standard. No, its not being a member of a club, Fran, that's the difficulty here. It's making decisions as a cabinet minister that deliver millions of dollars to a club of which you were a member.
KELLY: In this case Matt Canavan as that minister couldn't approve loans. He had only limited ability as Minister to veto loans.
DREYFUS: The question is - he was involved - the question is how long did he know about this conflict of interest? And why didn't he declare it before now? Why has he waited until the cover of this leadership turmoil to think it's appropriate that he mentioned this matter?
On this, it seems, from what we know already, that on the standards applied by the Prime Minister to Bridget McKenzie about a conflict of interest, his position in Cabinet was also untenable.
KELLY: Okay. Moving on to Labor's concerns about the Gaetjens report. The Prime Minister says that Phil Gaetjens, the head of Prime Minister and Cabinet, has cleared Bridget McKenzie, and therefore the Government of any distributional bias, any political bias in the way that $100 million grants scheme was administered, and the grants were handed to sporting clubs before the election. Who don't you believe? Scott Morrison? Or Phil Gaetjens, who is the country's top public servant?
DREYFUS: Well, I'll just say this to start with, if ever you needed an example of why we need a National Integrity Commission, this is it. We wouldn't be in the absurd situation the Prime Minister's put the country in if we had an independent and powerful National Integrity Commission, which could, and would, have been inquiring into this very matter.
Instead, we're in the absurd position that the public report of the Auditor-General - a senior government official charged with accountability and probity matters in the government - has said that this program was rorted in no uncertain terms. It's apparent that instead of merit - this is what the Auditor-General said in his public report - instead of merit, we've had decisions made in a parallel process set up by Mr. Morrison and his party to deliver funds for their party political advantage.
KELLY: So that's what the Auditor-General found.
DREYFUS: That's right.
KELLY: And the country's top public servant has found the opposite.
DREYFUS: Regrettably, on the basis of a secret report which must be made public. But on the basis of a secret report, we've got Mr. Morrison claiming that the Auditor- General was wrong. That's an absurd position for the Prime Minister to have put Australia in. It's a complete failure of leadership.
You have to be concerned, Fran, about the future of government in this country if the leader of the Government is saying black is white, is trying to pretend that nothing went on here, couldn't answer any questions at his press conference as to what were the reasons for the grants being given. And Damian Drum, the National Party Whip, actually explained it yesterday, publicly at least he had the honesty to say what happened here. He said that Bridget McKenzie's decision making was to maximise the performance of the Coalition at the election. That's what really went on. But Mr. Morrison cannot bring himself to own up, he cannot bring himself to apologise. He cannot bring himself to properly disclose what happened here. Labor won't let this go, Fran.
KELLY: So what does that mean? You're going to demand this report? You're not going to get it. It's deemed Cabinet in confidence.
DREYFUS: We, and the Australian people, are entitled to see, whatever dodgy reasoning was used by Mr. Morrison's former senior political advisor - who now happens to be the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the most senior public servant in the country - but he's not performing as the most senior public servant in the country. He's performing as a senior political advisor still, which is what he was before he went into this job.
We don't know what his reasoning was. We don't know why Mr. Morrison thinks that he can get away with disagreeing with the Auditor-General's report. And we won't know until this secret report is made public. It's vital that it be made public. It's no way to govern a country to say I've had a secret report done by the bloke that was my former senior political advisor. He says nothing to see here and that's the end of the matter.
Well, Mr. Morrison, it's not the end of the matter. Labor is not going to let this go. And I don't think the Australian people will let this go Fran. I think the Australian people are rightly disgusted by what's occurred here. They're disgusted by the use of $100 million of public money to further the political advantage of the Liberal and National Parties at the election.
KELLY: Mark Dreyfus thank you very much for joining us.
DREYFUS: Thanks very much.
ENDS
