E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RN DRIVE
TUESDAY, 19 JULY 2016
SUBJECT/S: Female Representation in Parliament; Frontbench Reshuffles; Sam Dastyari; Multiculturalism; Superannuation Policy; Backpacker Tax
JONATHAN GREEN: Plenty to chew over there with our Tuesday panel who are tonight Cabinet Secretary, Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos, and Dr Jim Chalmers, Shadow Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, well this week at any rate. Welcome to both of you.
ARTHUR SINODINOS: Thanks Jonathan, thanks Jim.
GREEN: Are you there Jim? We've lost Jim, Arthur. It's just you and me, I'm afraid. We're alone here together.
SINODINOS: Always good company, a bit like when Jefferson dined alone.
GREEN: Indeed. Let's look to your Cabinet colleagues. Thirteen of seventy-six lower house Coalition MPs are now women. What's the Liberal Party going to do about this?
SINODINOS: Look Jonathan, that's a good question. Last year there was a report by the Menzies Research Centre which is associated with the Liberal Party which talked about the need to adopt targets and back them up with policies across the state divisions so we can develop more of a culture that encourages more female candidates to come forward. We do have women's councils in the Liberal Party which are a way of bringing forward female candidates, mentoring them, helping them navigate the preselection process. But clearly we need to do more to make sure that the pipeline of women in particular coming through is appropriate. We are quite a diverse party in the sense that if you look at the makeup of the Party in terms of occupations and the rest, I think it's a better mix and reflection of the electorate than Labor, may I say.
GREEN: But gender's your stumbling block.
SINODINOS: But I think this is an issue where we do need to do more. I think the approach the Menzies Research Centre suggested last year which was adopted by the Federal Executive of the Liberal Party is an approach that we need to follow through. But that sort of cultural change does take time. We've often seen in the past, Jonathan, what happens is that when we have a big election, when like '96, you get a much bigger pool of women, potentially, coming in. But the issue here is making sure that in the structural sense, the pool, the pipeline is there, whether it's us having a strong election win or in circumstances perhaps where our prospects are not as good.
GREEN: Well that's because perhaps women don't get the go in safe seats, so when some of the marginals come into play, the numbers increase. I mean, Marise Payne, Defence Minister, who lost some of the key fundamental parts of her portfolio in the shakeup has said that if there is a strategy here around female representation in the Party that it's clearly not working. Do you agree with her?
SINODINOS: Well what I'm saying is that the strategies I've just mentioned we need to keep working on and get that cultural change that we all want to see. In relation to Marise's portfolio, the fact of the matter is we're about to embark on the biggest peacetime investment program we've seen in this country, bigger than the NBN for example. It's justified and it was based in part on departmental advice that it would be good to have two senior ministers in the portfolio, one focused on delivering the Defence Industry Plan which was a major part of the pitch that we put to the electorate in the election.
GREEN: Delighted now to say, Arthur Sinodinos, that Jim Chalmers joins us now via Skype. Jim, welcome.
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW MINISTER FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES AND SUPERANNUATION: Sorry about that guys. Technical difficulty!
GREEN: That's quite alright. Jim Chalmers, this female representation issue is a live one for the ALP too. It may well have a stronger representation, but there's an issue there in access to safe seats. Of women getting preselection, yes, but how many in winnable seats for the ALP?
CHALMERS: Well anyone who thinks that the situation for women in the Liberal Party is acceptable is from another planet. The key statistic that people need to know is that in the House of Representatives, the Liberal Party's representation is 17 per cent women and on its way down, on the Labor side, it's 40 per cent women and on its way up. That's the key difference between the two parties. There are less women in the House of Representatives representing the Liberal and National Parties today than under either John Howard or Tony Abbott. And this really does reveal a bit of an issue, Jonathan, I think, which is that Malcolm Turnbull pretends to be a champion of women, but they've gone backwards in his reshuffle and they've gone backwards in the House of Representatives. He pretends to be a champion of small business, but he's kicked small business out of the Cabinet. And he pretends to be a champion of multiculturalism at the same time as he gives that portfolio to somebody who wants to make it easier to offend people on the basis of race. So I think --
GREEN: It's tricky to make that claim, Arthur Sinodinos, isn't it of being good for women with the numbers going backwards as Jim Chalmers suggests?
SINODINOS: Well as I said before, we did lose seats in the Liberal Party and that affects clearly particularly women because we lost a lot of women in New South Wales. But before Jim came on, I was referring to the cultural change we're undertaking to setting targets at state level and the policies that we're implementing to support that. We want structural change, we don't want top-down change and we don't want hypocrisy from the Labor Party where you've got someone like Kim Carr at the moment seeking to avoid being relegated to the backbench and stopping a woman like Linda Burney coming through.
GREEN: Fair point, isn't it, Jim Chalmers?
CHALMERS: You're not on strong ground here, Arthur. No --
GREEN: That is the case, though, Jim Chalmers, with Kim Carr. I mean he's on the outer with his faction, it would seem, ahead of your frontbench announcement this week and there are two women potentially, Anne Aly, maybe, or Linda Burney, perhaps, who could take that frontbench position, Kim Carr staging a rear-guard action to knock the women off.
CHALMERS: Well look I've seen a fair bit of that commentary, Jonathan, on the TV today and on the radio and in the papers, but the reality is that the composition of our frontbench isn't determined until Friday. Nobody is in or out yet apart from the Leaders. So that will be determined. Everybody in a situation where there are more--
SINODINOS: Well Jim, are you going to stand up for Linda Burney against Kim Carr? I mean you've got the opportunity on this program to support her coming to the frontbench.
GREEN: Fair call, Jim.
CHALMERS: Of course it's not, Arthur's being ridiculous...
GREEN: Why is that ridiculous? Who would you back for that frontbench position, Jim Chalmers?
CHALMERS: Because in the Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull sits down and makes a list and he's demoted women, right? In the Labor Party--
SINODINOS: He hasn't demoted women at all. They're still in the Cabinet, rearranged some responsibilities.
CHALMERS: You've taken some responsibilities off Kelly O'Dwyer and Marise Payne, that's a fact in the reshuffle.
GREEN: But Jim Chalmers in the ALP, is it caucus responsibility to nominate that frontbench?
CHALMERS: Yep indeed.
GREEN: So you're a member of the Caucus. Who do you favour, Linda Burney, or Kim Carr?
CHALMERS: We will decide that on Friday.
SINODINOS: Don't you have an opinion in the Labor Party, Jim? You can't express an individual opinion.
CHALMERS: I can express an individual opinion. My individual opinion is that I value the process so much that the first person to know who I'm supporting or not supporting won't be you, Arthur, it will be the people involved. That's how our party room works.
GREEN: Let's move on from that. Arthur Sinodinos, a ministry here of 42. Is that just too big?
SINODINOS: No, no hang on. It's thirty minister and twelve parli secs. What you're referring to here is the fact that the Cabinet is 23 and there are seven outer ministers and then you've got the twelve parliamentary secretaries who we designate as assistant ministers. In the case of the Cabinet, the National Party were, as a result of the election result, able to claim an extra seat. But, I have to say, the Cabinet has been performing quite well, particularly in recent times. There have been no leaks from the Cabinet. It works very well as a collective. I think the Prime Minister was quite satisfied to have a Cabinet of this size.
GREEN: Some commentary around today though that Malcolm Turnbull was trying to be all things to all people. It's sort of an ‘all shall have prizes’ frontbench. Is that a sign of weakness from the Prime Minister?
SINODINOS: No I don't believe it is because there are some very important jobs in the Cabinet. The fact that we've now got in Defence, two senior ministers, one handling defence and national security policy, another one to handle the biggest peacetime investment plan we've seen in this country is an indication that our priorities has shifted. And when our priorities shift, you shift the personnel to get the job done. And I think it will work very well.
GREEN: That's not really answering the question. There's a lot of people there and the sense from that is that they're trying to placate a whole lot of interests, a whole lot of factions in the party.
SINODINOS: Well I can go individually through each of those people in the Cabinet and tell you the contribution that I've seen them make across the table as Cabinet Secretary. And they've all been very good and they've worked together as a team. They're knitting as a team and I think the Prime Minister is happy to take them forward as such a team.
GREEN: No promotion for you in this reshuffle, Cabinet Secretary, are you still under an ICAC cloud?
SINODINOS: Well no it's not a matter of promotion. I'm a member of the Cabinet, I'm honoured to work in the PM's portfolio and my focus as it is of all our other people in the period ahead is to get our platform implemented in the new Parliament.
GREEN: Jim Chalmers, are you hoping for something else in the new Labor frontbench?
CHALMERS: Look, I'll do whatever Bill wants me to do, Jonathan. My first priority is to get on that list of thirty, which is what everybody is focused on now, that Friday ballot. And if I get on that list again, which would be a big honour, a big privilege, then it would be up to Bill what I do. I certainly like working in economic policy, as I am now. So if it's that or if it's something else, it's up to Bill and I'll give it a good crack whatever it is. You raised a really good point--
GREEN: Is Tanya Plibersek jockeying for a position there?
CHALMERS: You raised a really good point before there, Jonathan, and I just wanted to pick that up before we lost it. What we're seeing here is a Malcolm Turnbull who underperformed in the campaign making these changes from a position of weakness. And the difference is when Bill allocates the portfolios after Friday's ballot, he'll be doing so from a position of strength and he'll be doing so with more women, with a greater emphasis on small business and a greater emphasis on multiculturalism than Malcolm Turnbull has. And I think that's a key distinction.
SINODINOS: Jim, he'll be doing it under pressure of having to accommodate different numbers from different factions. That's the pressure he'll be under.
GREEN: How's that different to your party, Arthur Sinodinos?
SINODINOS: Well because the Prime Minister selects his Cabinet. What is happening here is the frontbench position--
GREEN: Under pressure from various factions within the party.
SINODINOS: Yeah but the factional system within the Labor Party is rigid and very well-organised and we're seeing it play out at the moment in terms of who will get, for example, the support of the Left faction. Will it be Kim Carr, will it be Linda Burney? There are huge pressures going on in the Labor Party over the next few days to work out who gets what. The factions dictate who they want and then Bill is just left to dole out the actual position.
GREEN: I want to get to some policy stuff. The political panel, here, with Arthur Sinodinos and Jim Chalmers on RN Drive. Before we do that, just quickly, it's been a big week for conversations around radical Islam, migration, Sonia Kruger, Pauline Hanson, Q&A last night. Jim Chalmers is mainstream politics sort of treading on eggshells here?
CHALMERS: I think these are very sensitive issues and very complex issues so we need to be careful with our language. I thought Sam Dastyari did an outstanding job last night on Q&A. I watched him on that show calmly and carefully lay out why diversity is a good thing, why multiculturalism is a good thing. And I think the point that Sam was really making and the point that I want to make is that at times like this, it's important that we don't turn on each other, we turn to each other. We need more understanding not less because extremists around the world and the recruiters around the world want exactly the type of division and disunity that some of the comments, whether we see it from Pauline Hanson or from others, foster in our community. That's exactly what they want. It's what we need to resist. I think Sam did a great job and all parties, everyone with a voice, everyone with a microphone, has a responsibility to build that understanding and build that tolerance because otherwise we're just playing into the hands of the people who don't want a good outcome here.
GREEN: What's the conversation, Arthur Sinodinos, in the Government about this, about how to deal with this as a topic in the public conversation?
SINODINOS: I think a couple of points. The first is we've had a Parliament elected by the Australian people. Different people have been elected to it, people with a range of views, some the Government may agree with, others we do not agree with, but the commitment we've made and which Bill Shorten has at least mouthed, is to make this Parliament work. So we're going to sit down, talk with people about how we implement our platform. The other point I would make is that if Labor is so concerned about Pauline Hanson, why do they accept her preferences in a number of seats that helped to get their people elected?
GREEN: Let's leave that question hanging, 6:21, and move on to some policy ideas. Now, Senator, ABC 7:30 last night, Malcolm Turnbull had this to say about superannuation policy.
TURNBULL: Of course there are some people who are not happy with it and all of these Budget bills will go through the Cabinet process, they'll go to the backbench committee, they'll go to the joint party room and there is always consultation and work on transitional and implementation issues.
GREEN: That, Arthur Sinodinos, doesn't sound like a sort of ironclad guarantee that super policy will be implemented.
SINODINOS: Well we can't guarantee that the Parliament will accept all of our proposals. All we can do is put them up, put them to the test, make the case for them. In this case, the case for fairness because our superannuation reforms will put more money or at least money into the retirement accounts of low income people and women coming in and out of the workforce. We think it's a fair reform. Labor say in principle they support it, which is great, but they seem to be sort of equivocating on being specific in terms of its support. I would encourage Jim, whatever influence he's got in the Labor Party, to get them on board. These are important reforms and if Labor support them and the Greens and others support them, they will get through the Parliament.
GREEN: We'll get Jim's view on that in a sec, but can you guarantee, Arthur Sinodinos, that the reforms that came from the Budget that you campaigned on, that the Australian public voted on, will be the ones that go into legislation?
SINODINOS: Well I can guarantee that will be the legislation we will put up. Now that will be subject to consultation in the normal way, as the Prime Minister said, and often that means that it has to go, as in this case, to a policy committee, the Economics Committee who will look at that. They will look at the implications of the legislation. But the whole point of this--
GREEN: So that's maybe no.
SINODINOS: No, what I'm saying is it will go through a proper process which means that when we put the legislation up it will be the best possible legislation to implement what we think is a fair and important reform.
GREEN: But it might not be what we voted for.
SINODINOS: Well I encourage you to encourage the Labor Party and others to vote with us for what we put up in the campaign. That would be great.
GREEN: Jim Chalmers, is that the ALP position? You're right behind the changes as put forward in the Budget?
CHALMERS: We're trying to come at this, Jonathan, in a constructive and pretty open-minded way as we've been saying all along. But the reality is we're not asking Arthur to guarantee an outcome through the Parliament, we're just asking him to guarantee an outcome through his party room. And what we had in the election was a pretty remarkable thing where the Liberal Party said to the Australian people, 'hey can you sign up to something that we can't even guarantee will get through our own party room because some of our own people don't support it?'. And Turnbull just last month was saying that it was absolutely ironclad that there would be no changes. Now he's flagging changes. So you can see that it's a bit of a moving target, it's a bit hard for Labor to come to a position on Government changes which haven't finally landed, but we've tried to do the right thing here. As much as we can, we've said we do support better targeting those tax concessions at the top end of superannuation. We had our own policy on the table since April of last year. The Government instead dropped these big drastic changes on the table on the eve of an election. That's the worst way to make superannuation policy. We won't make the same mistake that the Turnbull Government have made in rushing to a conclusion on these big changes, because they have big consequences for people's retirement incomes. So we think that the changes should be independently and comprehensively reviewed. If at the end of that there are workable and fair changes which can be implemented, we'll be up for that. If there aren't and some of the issues around retrospectivity we've expressed concerns about, then they need to be ironed out. But we have come at this the right way, the way that the Australian people expect--
GREEN: It sounds like both of you are kicking this into the long grass.
SINODINOS: No, not at all. We want change. Labor can come on board, we can talk productively about this. We can get change in this Parliament.
GREEN: Do you support Jim Chalmers, or does Labor support, the $1.6 million lifetime cap on transfers to tax-free retirement accounts?
CHALMERS: You need to look at all of these things together, Jonathan. It's pretty hard to isolate one bit or another. Because in superannuation, as you'd appreciate and Arthur would appreciate, in super, it's the interaction between the various measures that matter. So we've got to sort out some of those other trickier ones first, like the retrospective part of the $500,000 non-concessional cap. That's really the one that's attracting the most criticism. We need to go through all of them together, independently, constructively, carefully, and then come to a view. A lot of these measures, even though some of them are backdated, a lot of them don't come in until next year. So we've got the time to do that work, to do it together if necessary, to get to a good outcome, not just to help repair the bottom line but also to make sure we get the right superannuation system in the national interest. We've been pretty constructive. We've resisted the temptation just to pull us apart as many people have urged us to. We've tried to come at this the right way. But when the Government is so hopelessly divided over it, it's a bit hard to negotiate --
SINODINOS: Come on. Come on, Jim. We had a party room yesterday, and--
CHALMERS: And Senator Abetz was just on TV saying that you gagged him. Senator Abetz was just on TV saying that he was gagged--
GREEN: Hang on Jim.
SINODINOS: Jonathan, my point being - we had the party room meeting yesterday. Yes, one Senator did raise matters related to this, but the point is everyone in that room accepted there's a process to take this forward. And if we get Labor and the Greens and others on side, we will get real reform in this Parliament. We will make this Parliament work.
GREEN: It is true though, Arthur, that Eric Abetz, the one voice that was raised in dissent yesterday, was on TV this afternoon on Sky News, saying that the policy debate is yet to come.
SINODINOS: Well that's why we have policy backbench committees. That's why we have good formalised processes which give everybody an opportunity to air these in a reasonably straightforward and sensible way.
GREEN: Let's go to a nice simple one, backpacker tax. National new Cabinet Minister Matt Canavan told AM this morning that the backpacker tax is too high. Here is some of what he said.
CANAVAN: On reflection the rate chosen which is the non-resident tax rate of 32.5 cents is too high and potentially makes our industry uncompetitive. That's why we've announced this review. Barnaby Joyce is in charge of that review and I'm sure the outcome of that review will be a more competitive option.
GREEN: Looks like the fix is in there, Arthur Sinodinos. Barnaby Joyce in charge.
SINODINOS: Well, Jonathan, the review is ongoing. It should report soon. We would aim for a budget-neutral outcome if possible. Because it's like a lot of matters that are going to be coming up over the next few years, and Jim will appreciate this with his strong economic background, we also have to keep in mind the pressure that is coming on our AAA credit rating and the need for us as a Parliament, not just as an Executive, but as a Parliament, to make sure that whenever we're making changes in one area that potentially expose us to a loss of revenue or increased spending, we need to keep an eye on the overall budget bottom line.
GREEN: It's interesting though to have a review of a taxation issue being determined almost entirely within the National Party.
SINODINOS: No. Richard Colbeck was in charge of this before the election. Barnaby is taking this forward, that was announced in the election. Barnaby is a member of a Coalition. So there are as many rural and regional members who are Liberal Members as there are National Party members who have an interest in this, so he will do something that is in the interest of the Coalition, not just of the National Party.
GREEN: Jim Chalmers, would Labor support a lower backpacker tax?
CHALMERS: Look we're participating in the consultation with the effected people around the place. We went to the Government before the election and said if there was bipartisan support to cut the thing, we'd be in that. It's a bit more complex than that because it's a $500 million saving and Arthur is right about the need, given the state of the Budget, to be careful about these sorts of decisions. But we're a part of those ongoing conversations. We don't think it's been handled as delicately as it should be. We do note there's pretty big divisions between the Nats and the Libs in the Cabinet which Arthur was pretending before was all harmonious.
SINODINOS: No, there are no such divisions. Not like the Left and the Right in the Labor Party over who gets the frontbench.
CHALMERS: So the Canavan position is the same as your position is it? The Canavan-Joyce-Sinodinos position?
SINODINOS: Yes, the Canvan position and the Sinodinos position: it's good to have a review and let's look at the outcomes of the review.
GREEN: I'm feeling a lot of love in the room. But we will watch with interest for the review of the backpacker tax. Thanks to both. A lot to get through there, but you've conducted yourselves with aplomb gentlemen. Thank you for your time Cabinet Secretary, Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos, and Dr Jim Chalmers, joining us there via Skype. Dr Chalmers is Shadow Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation.
ENDS
