E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS AM AGENDA
THURSDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER 2018
 
SUBJECT/S: Peter Dutton’s eligibility; Liberals’ division and dysfunction; Morrison’s illegitimate leadership
 
KIERAN GILBERT: With me now the Shadow Finance Minister, Jim Chalmers. Jim Chalmers, thanks very much for your time. I know the Labor Party is obviously going to be pursuing the Peter Dutton matter again off the back of the Malcolm Turnbull tweet. But isn't the Prime Minister right to the extent that voters in your electorate and right around the country would be more interested in things that matter to them as opposed to another "lawyers' picnic", as he calls it?
 
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW MINISTER FOR FINANCE: This is the guy who's been at the scene of the crime in one of the most divided and dysfunctional governments we've had in memory. For him to now be talking about focusing on what the people want after spending weeks if not months talking about themselves, tearing down a Prime Minister, unable to explain why that happened, I think all of these things combined... 
 
[transmission break]
 
...probably see through Scott Morrison's calls for a focus on them after what they've been through in the last little while.
 
GILBERT: But at least he's trying to draw a line under that and say well, they've got the advice from the Solicitor-General in relation to Peter Dutton and let's move on.
 
CHALMERS: That advice has been wrong in the past. We're talking about Parliament on a knife-edge. We're talking about decisions being taken about the Australian people. This guy's a Minister. There are obviously serious questions that need to be clarified. It was completely untenable, before Turnbull intervened, for Morrison not to refer Dutton to the High Court. It's absolutely untenable now. We all know what's going on: Morrison is running a protection racket for Dutton because he knows in their deeply divided and dysfunctional party that the Dutton people still have a lot of say and a lot of sway, and so Morrison's bending over backwards for him. The party is more divided now than when Morrison took over, and this protection racket that Morrison is running for Dutton is part of that.
 
GILBERT: It's tricky for Labor in the sense that you wouldn't want to create a precedent where opposing sides, or the side with the majority - in this case possibly with the crossbench if you are able to get the numbers in the event the Government loses Wentworth for example - then does it create a bad precedent where you're simply referring your opponent to the High Court?
 
CHALMERS: Ideally, the Prime Minister would do it. Ideally, the Prime Minister would show some leadership and refer Dutton to the High Court. There are enough questions that are unanswered...
 
GILBERT: It's a bad precedent if you start referring to your opponent.
 
CHALMERS: Well, the most important thing is that he is referred, because we need clarity. We're talking about Government decisions which are now questionable because he's sitting there with a cloud over him. Ideally, the Prime Minister would do the right thing for once and step in and refer him. That's the point the Malcolm Turnbull has made on the record and in the newspapers today and in other ways, and I think it's untenable for Morrison to ignore that call.
 
GILBERT: The other issue that Labor's been pursuing is the change in the first place to Scott Morrison. Again, isn't he right to say that people want to move on now?
 
CHALMERS: No, people are scratching their heads wondering what happened. Morrison has had an opportunity every day...
 
GILBERT: But he wasn't responsible. He doesn't have blood on his hands.
 
CHALMERS: Are you sure?
 
GILBERT: Well, he wasn't part of the rebellion.
 
CHALMERS: Well that's contested. There have been a lot of people talking in the newspapers and elsewhere about whether or not that's actually true. I don't have a way to get to the bottom of that. You're a better chance than me of getting to the bottom of those issues. I don't accept that he has clean hands. But even if you did accept that, he hasn't been able to explain why Malcolm Turnbull's not the Prime Minister any more. He's leading an illegitimate Government. He tries to kind of smugly dismiss the fact that people would like to know what the hell has happened here. He stands up in the Parliament and says everything is going well and everything's going gangbusters and the policies were all OK, and people are saying "well, why did you ditch the Prime Minister?”.
 
GILBERT: Well says also, as John Howard said, party leadership is a gift of the party. That's the case, isn't it? That's the reality?
 
CHALMERS: But you need to explain why you changed the leader. And he's been unable to do that; on a daily basis, unable to explain to the Australian people, who deserve an explanation, why they knifed Malcolm Turnbull.
 
GILBERT: Shadow Finance Minister Jim Chalmers, as always I appreciate your time. Thank you. 
 
ENDS