Transcript: Sky News Australia Agenda - 17 July 2016

PETER VAN ONSELEN: We’re joined now by the Major Projects Minister Paul Fletcher, thanks very much for your company.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Good morning, good to be with you.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

Do you hope to stay in the same portfolio when the reshuffle is announced or are you hoping to move on to bigger and better things?

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well, as the expression goes, that's a matter for the Prime Minister, but certainly I've enjoyed my time as Major Projects Minister, about nine months, and obviously there's a significant agenda. The Turnbull Government has a commitment of about $50 billion between 2013-14 and 2019-20 on infrastructure projects all around the country. Infrastructure's so important to productivity and also of course to liveability, the liveability of our cities, which is one of our biggest assets.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

Can I ask you on that, I mean one of the big talking points post the election seems to be that the Senate is going to be so hard to deal with in a policy sense. Does that have much impact on your infrastructure agenda, getting things through the Senate, or is there a way - is there a way through that is easier in the sorts of areas that you've got responsibility for?

PAUL FLETCHER:

Look I think first of all obviously we will have a majority in the House of Representatives, we now know that, and we'll be dealing with the Senate where we don't have a majority. In a sense that's not new, that's the situation we were in in the previous government. I think the second thing to say is that if you look at a range of the priorities in the infrastructure space, quite a number of them don't involve legislative action. There certainly are areas of legislative action, but if I look for example at Western Sydney Airport, which is a significant priority, the Abbott Government committed to proceed with Western Sydney Airport at Badgerys Creek, the Turnbull Government very strongly pursuing that, the airport scheduled to be open by the mid-2020s. Very important for Western Sydney, very important for Sydney, very important for Australia.

Now there's a lot of work we have to do. A lot of the terms of that are determined, for example, by the original contractual agreements when Sydney Airport was sold to the private sector, so there's what's called a right of first refusal. We need to work through all of that. So an enormous amount of work to do. My point is that it's not principally legislative. So there's a mix of legislative and non-legislative issues that we need to deal with, but in the infrastructure space and the major projects space, a fair amount of it is engagement with state governments, with indeed local councils and with private sector stakeholders such as for example the owners of Sydney Airport.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

Because the more you can avoid the Senate, the better. You'd have to agree, and notwithstanding the fact that the Government was in a difficult position last September when it changed prime ministers. It has now won an election, done so with a majority - we'll see whether it's 76 or 77, depending on the seat of Herbert. But the play for the DD election, the play for the trigger, that has to be categorised as a failure, now needing around nine crossbenchers to be able to get legislation through, you would have to think.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well I don't think I would agree with that. I mean, the first point to make is the counting is still going on in the Senate, but clearly ...

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

[Interrupts] You're not going to make up nine positions. I mean, clearly it's a more difficult senate to deal with, no matter what happens in that count from here, versus what was in place before the election.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well the point I just want to make in relation to the double dissolution trigger, the Registered Organisations Bill and the ABCC - Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation is that as the Prime Minister has said, there's a process you need to go through under the provisions of the Constitution that deal with double dissolutions, and then how you deal with the joint sitting afterwards. The first thing you need to do is then take those bills back to the reps and the Senate in the normal way, then if you don't get through then you have the joint sitting.

So we certainly - you know, it's our policy, indeed we fought an election on this commitment that we intend to take those to a joint sitting, and we'll work through that. Of course, we need to know the final composition of the Senate, but we'll be engaging with the Senate in a constructive, respectful fashion, looking to make the case for the merits of our legislation. That's what governments always do, and as many people have observed, it's pretty unusual actually, in recent political history, for government to have a majority in the Senate. So in a sense, yes of course the composition of the Senate has changed from the previous Senate, that always happens after every election, but the fundamentals of the fact that we're dealing with a senate when we don't have a majority, that's by no means unprecedented territory; quite the opposite.

TROY BRAMSTON:

Mr Fletcher, can I ask you about the joint sitting, because the Government does not need to hold a joint sitting, there's no obligation upon the Government to do that, and of course after the 1987 double dissolution election, the Hawke Government did not proceed with a joint sitting over the Australia Card because of a regulatory glitch with that which would have made it irrelevant to hold that joint sitting, because the bill could have been later disallowed. But in any event, if the Government does not have the numbers in a joint sitting, why would you proceed with a joint sitting?

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well look, I think we're sort of getting ahead of ourselves a little bit with that question. The first thing we need to do is have the counting in the Senate finished so that we know precisely what the composition of the Senate is. The second thing is, we need to go through all of the processes that the Constitution requires you go to before you can have a joint sitting, and then of course there's the question of the joint sitting itself.

So we'll work through all of that. The arguments that we took to the Australian people at this election about why we need to have a Registered Organisations Bill, so that people who are in control of unions have duties and obligations to their members in terms of how they deal with money, how they act on behalf of their members. I mean, we saw with the Royal Commission into Trade Unions, we saw that the Australian Workers Union was doing deals with companies which we in the interests of the AWU, which gave it more delegateships within the Labor Party, but which we not in the interests ...

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

[Talks over] But this is the point though, Paul Fletcher ...

PAUL FLETCHER:

... of union members, so ...

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

But- sure, but this is the point, though. So you've had this early election, the longest election campaign in modern history. The Turnbull gamble was a success, you won the election with a majority, but the timing of the election, the long campaign, the choice of the trigger - Michaelia Cash said that she would release the Government's response to the very Trade Union Royal Commission you referred to during the campaign on this program; it never happened ahead of polling day. You've got the One Nation genie let out of the bottle now as a result of having the quota halved for the Senate in a DD election. That element of what has transpired has been an unmitigated failure.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well, the simple point I'm making in relation to the measures that we took to the election, that we said we were campaigning on, the Registered Organisation bill, the Australian Building and Construction Commission, we said this is legislation that we've twice taken to the House of Representatives in the Senate, we think it's very important, we think it's important in the interests of union members. Look, unions have an important role to play in our society, but it is important that union officials are acting in the interest of their members, and we're seeing troubling evidence in the Royal Commission that in fact they were more interested in securing delegateships within the Labor Party and doing deals under which money came into the coffers of the union, and actually trading away the rights of their members.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

Okay, but can I ...

PAUL FLETCHER:

Now, in business that would be called a breach of fiduciary duty.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

Sure. This- this is debate ...

PAUL FLETCHER:

[Talks over] That is why it's so important that we have this registered organisations legislation. So we will continue to make the cases to the merits of that. Also the Australian Building and Construction Commission. I mean, we have a situation in this country where the rule of law often does not prevail on building sites because the CFMEU effectively controls what goes on. We've seen instance after instance of judges observing that the CFMEU essentially seems to ignore the law to regard the payment of fines as simply a cost of doing business, and so we need to restore the rule of law on building sites.

This is a very important industry, the construction sector. It employs well over a million Australians, it's important to our productivity and to our economic growth, and so this has been - this was a trigger for the election, and this is an important issue.

TROY BRAMSTON:

Yeah well you're exactly right, I mean I don't disagree with anything that you've just said there, but the fact is you're not going to have the numbers in a joint sitting, and the relationship with the crossbench and the Senate is going to be more difficult because it's larger. I wanted to ask you about the personal relationships with a number of these crossbench senators, because we had the Prime Minister say that Pauline Hanson was not welcome back in Australian politics, yet she's likely to command three Senate votes. I mean, how can you as a minister sit in front of Pauline Hanson, for example, and expect to get her to pass your legislation when the Prime Minister made it clear she was not welcome back into Australian politics?

PAUL FLETCHER:

Look, what I anticipate will happen, will be that when I as a minister, or any of my ministerial counterparts have legislation to take forward, we will go around and brief the relevant parties in the Senate. That's all of the parties, and that's what you routinely do. You go and brief them, you have a meeting, you explain what the issues are, you take away questions; there may be things you then need to respond to in more detail. That's the way that you engage with the Senate, that's what we've been doing ...

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

[Interrupts] Would you agree that she's not welcome in Australian politics?

PAUL FLETCHER:

The point I'm making is that as a government, we will engage with the Senate in a constructive, respectful, businesslike way. We have a duty to the Australian people to govern, and that includes of course engaging with the Senate, and that includes engaging with the Senators who have been elected, so that's what we'll be doing.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

I want to ask you about women in politics. The Liberal Party’s numbers have gone down. Marise Payne was very scathing about that in some comments that she made during the week. Does the Liberal Party need to take this issue seriously? We’ve heard all this talk for a long, long time now, and yet the numbers are going south, not north.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well, can I say we’ve got some excellent women coming in.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

[Interrupts] Not enough though. That’s my point.

PAUL FLETCHER:

… Nicole Flint and Boothby. Julie Banks in Chisholm.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

[Interrupts] But you’ve got less in total than you had before.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Look we do. Some excellent colleagues sadly have not been returned at this election. Women who’ve made a big effort …

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

[Interrupts] But hang on. But hang on, hang on. It’s not just about people who have lost their seats, it’s about women not being replaced by other women. So even if you’d won Sharman Stone’s old seat, it was a man that was running. Jason Falinski, again, a man running in Bronwyn Bishop’s old seat.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Yeah, sure, but Nicole Flint replaced a man in Boothby. In other words, it goes both ways.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

But if we go through it all, there were more women running at the 2013 election than there were running at this election in winnable seats. Not just the fact that you then also have a lower quantum in the after(*).

PAUL FLETCHER:

Is it important that we continue our efforts to build the number of women in the Parliamentary Liberal and National parties? Yes. I mean, I am very pleased that we have a woman as deputy leader of the Liberal Party, in Julie Bishop. We have Fiona Nash as the deputy leader of the National Party. We have a number of women in Cabinet and that’s …

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

[Interrupts] Is it time to look at something firmer? I’m not talking quotas, but I’m talking at least formal targets. I mean you come from a strong business background. You would know as well as anyone that businesses have targets, and businesses can make those targets meaningful because they have KPIs all the way down the line, bonuses to executives to hit those targets, et cetera. Now you don’t have that in politics, so you either have a quota and it’s firm or if you have a target you’ve got to create some KPIs to go with it.

PAUL FLETCHER:

I hope you’re not suggesting though this is for politicians, because that would be a very unpopular policy and I absolutely reject that suggestion.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

[Talks over] But you know what I’m saying. That the reason that business actually makes targets work, and gets something resembling gender parity, is because they put it in their KPIs and everyone down through the line at the business is trying to make sure that those promotions happen. Whereas in politics, someone at the top says, yeah we need more women, and then nothing happens.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Look, I don’t want to get into a debate about particular mechanisms. Certainly I saw what Marise had to say. Marise is a very, obviously respected, extremely senior member of the Parliamentary Liberal Party. She’s a strong, effective politician – very strong and effective politician – she’s been a long-standing champion for the role of women in politics, and clearly these are issues she has strong views about and these are issues that many of us have views about. It is important that we have a strong representation of women in the Parliament, in the Liberal Party and in the National Party. We …

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

[Talks over] But doesn’t something have to change to achieve that? I guess that’s my point.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well, one of the- I’d make a couple of points. The first is, you sort of dismissed that fact that there were women MPs who lost. There are women MPs, Liberal women MPs, who lost in part thanks to a dishonest scare campaign about Medicare, but the point is that there are some ups and downs in politics and that’s inevitable in the vagaries of election outcomes. But is it important that we continue to increase, work to increase, the number of women in the Parliamentary Liberal Party? And in my view, yes it is? I think we have a lot to be proud of but there’s always more work to do.

TROY BRAMSTON:

Can I ask about the front bench, which is how Peter started off this interview. There’s a number of suggestions around the place that a number of former ministers should return to the front bench, whether that’s Eric Abetz, or Kevin Andrews, or indeed Tony Abbott. What’s your view about that? Should a place be found for these people on the front bench?

PAUL FLETCHER:

My view is that it’s a matter for the Prime Minister. [Laughs] Look, can I say, we've got a lot of talent in the Parliamentary Liberal Party and in the National Party. That's a good position to be in. We've got very capable people, we've had an influx of very capable people at this election. I'm absolutely delighted by the quality of the people we've had come in to the Parliamentary Liberal and National parties, but these are matters for the Prime Minister. He will weigh up a whole range of factors, and he'll be announcing the decisions reasonably soon, so we'll wait and see what he has to say.

TROY BRAMSTON:

But wouldn't it make sense to give Tony Abbott some kind of role, in a sense to foster unity in the party, to channel his energies in a particular direction? Could you see a role for Tony Abbott, if not on the front bench but another particular role, perhaps prosecuting the referendum on Indigenous recognition, for example, or is there anything else you think Tony Abbott should do, or should he just be a backbencher seeing constituents?

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well, again that's a matter for the Prime Minister. Can I just say, Tony Abbott has given extraordinary service to this nation over many, many years as the Member for Warringah since 1994, as a minister, as a Cabinet minister, as Prime Minister - I'm very pleased that he's again serving the people. His first job is to serve the people of Warringah, just as my first job is to serve the people of Bradfield. All of us in the House of Representatives, our first job is to serve our constituents, but then there are many other ways we can make contributions. Tony has a lot to offer, but it's really a matter for the Prime Minister.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

Just finally, Troy mentioned that there's this sort of push for Tony Abbott and perhaps others to move on to the front bench. Is there really a push for it? I mean, I do know that there are some commentators, and that there are the same names that I see popping up suggesting it, but it doesn't strike me as anything beyond a small quotient of individuals doing that.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Look, the Prime Minister has the task before him of identifying and announcing his front bench. He's made the point he doesn't expect there to be big changes, he's made the point that he pretty comprehensively changed the composition of Cabinet and Ministry in September, there were further changes earlier this year, so he's got - he's had a lot of renewal, he has made that point, and his focus will be - you talked about business principles before - his focus will be, I'm sure, choosing an effective team which can deliver outcomes for the Australian people. Because we're in government, we've returned to government ... what- [laughs] you know, Labor's been having this so-called victory lap, but they lost, they didn't win. We've won, and we are focused on the job of governing for the Australian people. That is our task. And all of these questions about personalities, that's really a bit second order. What matters is an effective government delivering outcomes for the Australian people.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

Well, I suspect we'll find out the composition of that front bench perhaps even as early as tomorrow afternoon. Paul Fletcher, we appreciate you joining us on Sunday Agenda, thanks for your company.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Thanks very much.

- Ends -