THE HON RICHARD MARLES MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR DEFENCE
MEMBER FOR CORIO

E&EO TRANSCRIPT

TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS TO THE POINT

WEDNESDAY, 31 AUGUST 2016


SUBJECT/S: US Ambassador John Berry. Sam Dastyari donation. Negative Gearing. Same Sex Marriage.

KRISTINA KENEALLY: Let’s bring in Peter Van Onslen on To The Point. We’re joined here on To The Point by Shadow Minister for Defence, Richard Marles. Have long have you been lobbying for Stephen Conroy’s job?

RICHARD MARLES, SHADOW MINISTER FOR DEFENCE: Oh! Beat the peddles. Not at all. I’m very pleased to be the Shadow Minister for Defence.

KRISTINA: I’m more interested in why you’re here on To The Point. Because you and Christopher Pyne fill the 1-2pm slot on Sky News on a Friday. Is this some sort of naked grab for our timeslot Monday to Thursday.

RICHARD MARLES: So Christine, you have been a politician, you have been in politics! Christopher and I are enjoying our 1-2 timeslot, it suits us well.

KRISTINA: Well first of all, what did you think of the Ambassadors speech today?

RICHARD MARLES: Well firstly, John Berry has been a fantastic servant of the American government in Australia over the last three years. We’ve been really lucky to have him. I think the important thing he said in his speech from my point of view, right up front; he talked about the pivot to the Asian Pacific. He described it as saying that needs to be the new normal.

PETER VAN ONSLEN: Should this really be happening though? This deployment of troops in Darwin has been going slowly than originally envisaged. It doesn’t look like it’s as strong in practical terms as it is in the rhetoric.

RICHARD: Look, it is happening. I think what is happening, that comes from that question Peter is, that it’s in Australia’s national interest for it to happen. And we need to keep the pressure within the relationship for it to continue to happen. So, I think all of us would like to see for it to happen as fast as possible. One thing to know is that it is occurring. That’s why I was really encouraged by the speech today by John Berry when he talked about matter of fact, that this really should be the new normal in terms of American foreign policy.

KRISTINA: I’m going to ask you more on the ambassador’s speech. We heard before from Hugh White. He kind of has an apocalyptic view of the relationship of Australia. As it kind of sits between the United States and China. The ambassador didn’t kind of share the point of view.

Where do you see Australia’s role evolving vis-à-vis between China and the United States. I mean, the ambassador says Australia’s got no better friend than America and America has no better friend than Australia. Kind of didn’t leave a lot of room for China to be in that group of friends.

RICHARD: Look, our key alliance is with the United States of America. It’s not going to be news ‘invasioning’ to hear that! We have a growing and clearly critical and economic relationship with China. I often think that it is not really a question of having to choose between the two countries. We do different things with both. We should be pursuing our relationship with both.

I’ll bring us back again to something the ambassador said in his speech. He said his vision for an Asia Pacific region, is one where the kind of co-operation we’ve seen in the recent RIM-PAC operation which involved China. And which I think is a really good point to make. We need to be encouraging a rules based order within the Asia Pacific region. That’s why the former Rudd Government was very keen to see America become part of the East Asia Summit to create more forums where you see America and China talking with each other. I do come back to the fundamental point. It is in our national interest to have America in our region as much as possible.

PETER: When it comes to China though, Sam Dastyari is doing his part to maintain the relationship with China.

RICHARD: Look, Sam…. obviously what you’re alluding to in terms of the comments today in your cheeky way is… Look, the first thing Sam has to say about this is and we know this because Sam was completely upfront in declarations that he made in terms of his parliamentary declaration last year. So no one’s trying to hide anything here. Sam’s thought better of that particular donation, that donation that he’s declared. As a result, he’s now moved to donate that equivalent amount of money to a charity.

PETER: So Sam thought better of it once it was exposed in the media. Should he resign?

RICHARD: Of course he shouldn’t resign.

PETER: He’s not on the front bench anyway. He’s not getting payed for the role. Sam as Andrew Leigh. Why doesn’t he just make the symbolic gesture of stepping down?

RICHARD: Of course he shouldn’t resign. He’s made it clear what his view is in relation to that donation to him, by donating an equivalent amount. On this point, we wouldn’t know about this if we lived by the political donation rules that the current government have in place where donations of up to $13,000 don’t have to be declared. In a sense I think this is quite a good story because what it is, is a politician thinking twice about a donation which he’s absolutely declared. Acting accordingly, he thought twice about it, that’s fair enough.

Sam has taken the steps that he has taken now and I agree with those steps. The point is. None of this would be happening if he were living by the rules that this government wants to have in place, which has in place in fact, where you don’t have to declare donations of up to $13,000.

PETER: Do you agree with Andrew Leigh? He told me yesterday that he would like to have another look at this idea of overseas donations to political parties. We’ve talked about it…

RICHARD: I think this is a debate that needs to be had. This was a position we took to the last election in relation to much tighter restriction on foreign donations from overseas. That’s of course the position that applies in the US. They banned foreign donations to political campaigns. There have been some important revelations from some important revelations from the network that shan’t be named. As in The ABC.

Look I was surprised to see that as well in terms of the amount of money that was donated during the last campaign. I think it does, it is a worrying issue if foreign governments are thinking that there is a capacity to manipulate our democracy. I think this is an important debate and we’re absolutely up for it.

KRISTINA: Another revelation coming out to day from Peter Van Onslen’s book The Turnbull Gamble, in all good book stores soon. (Light banter between the guests)

Let’s have a look at a story that appears in today’s Australian, about negative gearing. It appears Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison are pushing for changes to negative gearing according to Peter’s sourcing, and pretty reliable sources, that they got rolled in the Expenditure Review Committee. An attempt today to shame them in the parliament seemed to go nowhere. Is this going to add some more fuel to the discussion about negative gearing as a possible place for budget savings?

RICHARD: Well I hope so. That’s obviously a conversation we should have. I mean you must agree Peter with the view that we haven’t seen it for a very long period of time that a Prime Minister and a Treasurer have been rolled on any issue within cabinet. So a couple of things that come from that. First thing is it makes it clear that the Prime Ministers authority is just about zero right? Now coming out of the last election the division he has got within his own party room and now your revelations Peter and what little authority he had leading up to the election.

This is a man who can’t govern his own party room let alone the country. But there’s been a lot of conversation. I think fair enough too around the question of budget repair partisanship. Should we be having more bipartisanship in this space. We do need to be working as much as we can to get to deal with one of the really challenging issues facing our country. The best emblem of that is negative gearing. The Prime Minister and The Treasurer have views that negative gearing is a place to go in terms of budget save. Former Treasurer Joe Hockey had that view. Clearly we’ve been prepared to wear the political pain associated with IT. We’ve done all the policy work on it from opposition. All we’ve seen from a government who claims to be responsible is from the government benches play politics with this issue. So we do need to be sitting down with them now.

KRISTINA: Let me ask though. You’ve put forward a motion damning the Prime Minister saying that he doesn’t have any authority in his party. Is that really the way to open the door to a bipartisan conversation on negative gearing. Surely this is just politicking. I mean good politicking. I’m not going to fault you for being politicians. But it’s not going to lead you to a bipartisan conversation.

PETER: And on that, in fairness to the Prime Minister and Treasurer, isn’t cabinet where they should be depositing ideas.

RICHARD: What! Behind closed doors? Doors that you’ve managed to open?

PETER: That’s arguably the bigger issue here, is that somebody is having leaks outside of the cabinet. And also having been leaked out of the ERC. It’s a small number, but I would argue that they should be allowed to talk about something which had already been floated publicly. Dealing with the excesses of negative gearing! They weren’t wanting your scheme, they were looking at an alternative scheme.

RICHARD: And it’s great that they’re talking it but what we’re seeing is, because of your revelations is the mismatch between what they’re talking about behind closed doors and what they’re putting to the Australia people is that anything down the negative gearing path represents a fundamental breach of Australian freedoms.

That’s the way the Prime Minister was putting this before the election campaign. We’ve now learned that he see’s that this is one of the key areas that we need to go to. I mean what’s now clear is that anyone who is seriously thinking about the question of budget repair across both sides of politics are both looking at the question of negative gearing.

Now only one party was prepared to do the policy work behind that and that’s Labor. Only one party was prepared to wear the political pain associated with budget repair on this issue and that’s Labor. They have to come to the table now.

PETER: You and I mean Labor generally, are you prepared to look at an alternative way to deal with negative gearing other than your model? It’s a chance to meet half way. I mean right now. The proposition, the only proposition that is out there is Labor’s. And we think it is a really well balanced proposition. But right now, the government aren’t even talking about negative gearing. The only thing we learn about what’s going on in terms of their private musings is via you. I mean, it ought to be better than that.

KRISTINA: Before we move on, we’ve got to talk about the plebiscite quickly. Do you really think there’s a chance there’ll be a free vote in this term of parliament?

RICHARD: We were elected to this parliament to do a job. I have an opinion on this issue. I think same sex marriage should be the law of the land. I reckon we should be voting on that in this parliament right now.

PETER: You say you were elected to do a job. They were elected as a government, re-elected as a government with a policy to have a plebiscite. Whether we like it or not, surely that is something that is unequivocal?

RICHARD: The only reason they’ve gone down that path as you well know is that Malcolm Turnbull is pandering to the right wing of his own party. If we actually went down the path of Malcolm Turnbull’s views he would be with us. In having a conscience vote on the question of same sex marriage right now. That’s obviously the way we should go with this. I mean, my concern about this…I feel really uncomfortable about the idea that a whole lot of Australians are going to have their relationships judged by a plebiscite the way that my relationships’ not.

I actually don’t think that’s fair. I’m not scared about the result. I’m sure a plebiscite would get up

PETER: I’ve seen a lot of Labor people say the opposite. I’ve seen the argument coming from some people in Labor is that a plebiscite may not get up. Are you sure it would?

RICHARD: Well, my view is that a plebiscite gets up. I feel deeply uncomfortable about the idea that one set of Australians have their relationships judged by the entire population when mine is not. I think that is profoundly wrong. And particularly in a context when it doesn’t even determine the outcome.

We’re going to have situations where Liberal MP’s have made it clear that they won’t even follow the outcomes of a plebiscite. Now in those circumstances we oppose a plebiscite. Our view is that, what we ought to be doing is getting on with this. You’d think that there should be same sex marriage in this country, let’s just vote for it in the parliament as we’re elected to do.

KRISTINA: Right. Richard Marles we’re out of time. You’ve got to get to Question Time. Thanks for coming onto To The Point.

ENDS

CONTACT: Simon Furey – 0415 032 732