SUBJECTS: Fake email scandal, GroceryChoice, Sydney Town Square, sexy politicians
RICHARD GLOVER:
Welcome to the Monday Political forum, with us, this week: Chris Bowen is the Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation, Corporate Law and Human Services. He's the member for the seat of Prospect which takes place in places like Fairfield and Horsley Park in Sydney. With him is Kathryn Greiner former City of Sydney councillor and Richard Walsh publisher and author.
Welcome.
All: Thank you, thanks.
GLOVER:
Now Malcolm Turnbull's ratings have fallen with Newspoll recording the biggest fall in satisfaction rating for a leader in 25 years. It's a product, according to the pollsters of last week's problem, going in hard on the PM partly on the basis of what proved to be a fake email. Now, Mr. Turnbull is now levels that were enjoyed by Brendon Nelson, Kim Beazley and Simon Crean when they were ousted as leaders so is his leadership immortally wounded?
Now, Chris Bowen your one of the people who I think were termed "attack dogs" in parliament last week against Mr. Turnbull. He did have - I mean hindsight is a wonderful thing - this all began with a senior treasury official, who gave what appeared to be explosive evidence saying that this fellow, John Grant, car dealer, well he'd formed the view that he was meant to treat this guy as something special. Now if you're an Opposition Leader, you had a senior treasury official making that sort of allegation, in similar circumstances, then surely you would jump up and down about it?
CHRIS BOWEN:
Look not in that way and I think Malcolm Turnbull has shown appalling judgment, frankly. You're right oppositions get information from time to time, anonymous information, documents. Opposition Leaders don't use them and shouldn't use them, unless they can prove it one hundred percent. You know Kim Beasley, a whole range of leaders of the opposition from time to time have received allegations, look they went in the top draw because they couldn't be proven, because it's not the right thing to do.
GLOVER:
But then let's assume the email was the only thing they had, they had evidence given on oath, admittedly the man said that look that's too, that he had some problems with recollection, but nonetheless you had a bloke saying this out in open.
BOWEN:
Well then, the right thing to say that there should be an inquiry, investigation, ask the questions. Don't go out and do what Malcolm Turnbull did and accuse the Prime Minister, effectively of corruption, and call for his resignation.
You know, Bill Heffernan used a fake document to call for the resignation of a High Court justice. The Prime Minister of the day, John Howard, rightly required his resignation. Now, it is good enough to require the resignation of one of the most junior members in the executive, than it's equally appropriate for the alternative Prime Minister, in this situation, to apologise and tender his resignation. That's my very firm and frank view.
GLOVER:
You don't have some sympathy for somebody who is relying after all on a senior Treasury official, he is somebody that the system, that well, Labor, whatever, has put in a pretty big position of trust.
BOWEN:
No, well then the appropriate thing to do is to go out and say, well look, serious questions have been raised and then the Prime Minister needs to respond to those allegations. You don't go out and use, frankly use, the fake email and the evidence based on a fake email to call for the resignation of the Prime Minister of the country, you simply don't do it.
GLOVER:
Kathryn Greiner, how much damage has Mr. Turnbull done last week?
KATHRYN GREINER:
I think he's been, he certainly has been wounded and I think Chris makes some good points there, I…without the smoking gun, you have to be very careful how you tread, I think he has probably lost the trust of the community, he may have well lost the trust of his own party, but if you're and Opposition Leader you have to take risks, it is the name of the game and you're not going to get it right 99.99% of the time. You will get it right, but occasionally you are going to get it wrong. This time Malcolm was intemperate, intemperate in his judgment and I think needed to have, the, he needed to have that email in his hand and be absolutely certain about it.
GLOVER:
We're not all having the benefit of hindsight though, it's easy to fake this thing once its appeared to be a fake…
GREINER:
Well, I mean the other thing that's, the good thing I think from Malcolm's point of view that come out of last week is that, that he took a fair whack of stuff from Chris's side of politics and we, we actually saw a side of the Prime Minister which is one that we hadn't seen before and to lead his party in battle is what his side of politics would expected him to do, but they threw everything in the kitchen sink at Malcolm last week and Malcolm was still standing, now…
GLOVER:
…so he should some resilience there?
GREINER:
So there's a bit, there is a bit… there is some resilience there… he is no fool and we all know that, he knows that, his opponents know that. I happen to think he is a very gifted individual and I think he will come back from this, but it is in that restoration of trust and being prepared to, to walk away from this saying what have I learnt from this experience? And if I was Malcolm right now, I'd go horse riding for three days and I'd just think, clear my head and think this one through and see where I went wrong.
GLOVER:
So, so political pundits were saying on the weekend that the traditional way to do this, the whirly Mr. Howard, for instance would test whether or not it was a fake e-mail and see if its stacked up and if it did stack up then you bring your big troops in, you don't necessarily do it yourself.
GREINER:
That's right, and I think, I don't know what was going on inside Malcolm's head at the time, I have no idea, no conversation with him about that, but I suspect that he thought that, if this… The lesson that I've always learnt that unless you haven't got the smoking gun you can't go and, and you don't remove your opponent no matter who it is, you don't remove your opponent in one fell swoop, you build towards it, so therefore the sending in of the underlings, is logically what should have happened.
GLOVER:
A resilient but intemperate says Katherine, Richard Walsh, do you agree?
RICHARD WALSH:
Yes, I do, yes. He will, he will bounce back, I think. I think for me, the most extraordinary thing about this, was how small the allegation against Rudd, I think that is the most worrying thing for Rudd. The most worrying thing about the popularity figures sees this morning is that his popularity is too high. What happened seriously…
GLOVER:
Mr. Rudd has always been quiet popular…
WALSH:
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I, I to, to think…
GLOVER:
I don't think they are worried about… (Laughs)
WALSH:
Well he should be, he should be because from this point of view, what was being accused here was, in international or in any kind of terms, absolutely upney, even if it'd be true and even if they got nothing, he was being asked to, all was being asked is that he'd be kind of looked, looked after sort of appropriately.
GLOVER:
…being given a better class of biscuit in the waiting room was another bell of crabs …yeah?
WALSH:
Vaguely and therefore what we got to say is that Rudd's popularity is in such, such height that any allegation however, upney can be turned into…you actually have a Leader of the Opposition who seriously asking for his resignation on the basis of this and supported by the press, and supported by the press. Because, of course, the press always want, wanting a change or drama and so the difficulty of Rudd's position, is that he is so popular, that people's expectations of him are totally unrealistic.
GLOVER:
Yeah so what, it is important to take of allegations of corruption seriously, you know thought and…
WALSH:
But it's not corruption…
GLOVER:
…but allegations that someone has been given a favour, is an important situation…
WALSH:
but it wasn't even a favour. It was that he'd be. That he'd be…
GLOVER:
What?
WALSH:
It, it wasn't that he'd be actually given a grant.
GLOVER:
Well I think the most serious allegation is maybe, maybe that Mr Swan…
WALSH:
No, no I am talking about Mr Rudd, the window allegation…
GREINER:
That's right, that's the issue that there, the issue needed to be separated between the two individuals and I'd like to know how many other things went through Mr Swan's home fax but that's all separate issues.
GLOVER:
Okay Chris Bowen, Kathryn Greiner and Richard Walsh are with us.
First the Senate killed of Fuelwatch, now the government itself has killed of Grocerychoice, the website that promised to allow consumers to compare the price of the basket of goods they intended to buy that week in the supermarket - it wasn't just an average exercise - you could put in real products.
The consumer organisation Choice, which was putting together the website for the Government, is incensed saying the Government is simply buckling to pressure from the big supermarkets. Have they got a point?
Chris Bowen when you were Minister for Consumer Affairs you were the person who in a sense promised this service to the Australian people - what has gone wrong?
BOWEN:
Firstly Richard, a bit of context here. We are a Government which has taken an interest in competition and transparency in the grocery market. That's why we have done things like introduce unit pricing at the shelf level, so that people can compare goods more easily. That's why, for example and I was the relevant minister, I freed up the foreign investment laws to try and get more competition; and while we are working hard with the State Governments to try and free up the planning laws - which I think is the most substantial area for reform.
Now Grocerychoice was one of our election commitments. It has been a challenge to implement, it's an election commitment which I don't think anyone could argue with, it is a good idea, but when you actually go to implement it you have got more than 2000 supermarkets across the country, many of whom carry more that 20,000 items. Trying to get a workable website at a modest cost has been a challenge.
GLOVER:
It is all computerized, all the prices are scanned we all know that. In fact they have self scanning operations now, so that you scan your own products, it can't be beyond their wits to supply that computer program to Choice.
BOWEN:
And that is what Choice was working on. Craig Emerson who is now the Minister with the best information available to him, over the last three weeks has taken the view that the supermarkets through their organisation ANRA are the best way to deliver that.
Craig is a very smart fellow, he has got all the information in front of him, he has taken a view that that's the best way forward.
GLOVER:
People are very cynical about this; they'll think that you have absolutely buckled to the pressure of these big supermarkets who don't want people to know how their prices compare.
BOWEN:
As I say, I think it is very hard to argue against more transparency and more information, that's what we have been trying to do with Grocerychoice. It has been a challenge. As I say, it would be churlish to deny that it has been difficult because you take what is a very simple concept - let's have a website – great idea. It didn't get much coverage during the election campaign by the way when it was announced as Labor policy, I think it got a sidebar down a column, but it has become an area of great interest…
GLOVER:
But Choice, the people who are building it, they believe it is possible to do, why not give them a chance to do it and if it all collapses in a months time and people say its not useful for us then well and good – then you have seen it in practice, it was going to start on Wednesday.
BOWEN:
As I say, Craig who is the relevant minister, with all the information available to him has taken the decision that this route is the best way to go down.
GRIENER:
What I now want to know is how much has the Government going to have to pay Choice and the people who have worked on this website. Because this as you rightly point out, we now have self scanning machines in some of the supermarkets, and I used one on the Gold Coast about two weeks ago. That information is all there because the product is no longer listed on the shelf; it's just scanned into the computer as you go through the checkout. So you can down load that, that is there, and I am sure that Choice is working on the capacity – and from what I read, I missed the interview that you were having with them earlier…
GLOVER:
They believe they can do it.
GRIENER:
That was my understanding. Now whether that is going to change peoples buying behaviour, this was one of the issues, this was a promise from the Government, I think the community accepted that that was a valuable promise. I think people do want to know, they want to know where you do actually have competition whose playing who off which supplier.
But I think more importantly, and I raised this with Chris back in February this year, if you get away from what happens down the east coast of Australia is one thing, but if you get away from the coast, if you get out to the regionals and especially into remote communities, where transport is the key factor that drives up prices.
How can you ask a member of the indigenous community in Katherine or Kununurra to pay $7 for a lettuce? It doesn't cost that much to grow it, but it costs a hell of a lot of money to transport it, and I thought that that was where the Government should have focused a lot of their attention.
GLOVER:
Richard Walsh do you think they have caved in or is it perhaps, you know a bit about computers, it is perhaps too difficult with so many, Woolies don't have the same price throughout their stores, they change the prices store by store, often in relationship to how close you are to an ALDI actually.
WALSH:
Absolutely. I think it was a foolish promise to make in the heat of the election, foolish not because they are being stood over, foolish because it couldn't possibly happen without that absolute cooperation with the supermarkets. If they didn't have that in the bag, they couldn't have promised it.
But they can replace it easily with something which I think is much more useful to the consumer, basically going into various regions and doing it on week by week, basket by basket. Although that is the past, that's what happened last week, a bit like TV ratings, there is a lot of pride at stake. Coles would not want to see that Woolies ten weeks out of 12 was ahead of them in the country, compared to them in Sydney, ahead of them in Brisbane, ahead of them in Melbourne. So if you take and just do a sample, two places in the North Shore, two places in….
GLOVER:
But we have done that in the past, haven't we, and I don't know if it has really resulted in people making different decisions.
WALSH:
With the governments imprimatur I think it would have a lot, I think the press would play it up and I think it would have a salutatory effect because it would be more official and people would see that the country was more expensive and one chain was more expensive. They would vie with each other to get the position and even though as I say it is historical…
GLOVER:
Is there a possibility Chris Bowen of some sort of compromise where you do something like that?
BOWEN:
Well look, I think that Craig has indicated that he does still want a website, he wants to see one and I think that Richard is right, the benefits of a website is there for anyone to see. We copped some criticism for even saying we should have a website, but now I think a number of people are commenting correctly, here and elsewhere, on the benefits that a website can bring which has been in my view all along.
GLOVER:
Ten to six is the time; we have Chris Bowen, Kathryn Griener and Richard Walsh with us.
A debate in Sydney though after the state government announces it will purchase buildings opposite the town hall to create a new town square for Sydney. As part of its planning for the new metro railway. Now some are thrilled and point to the great town squares of Europe, but even Federation Square in Melbourne, which some people reckon is good. It seems very windy to me.
How do Australian town squares end up as wastelands attracting drunks and violence? Is a new town square a good idea for Sydney and what does it need to include to make it work. Kathryn Greiner you used to work in that big building there?
GREINER:
I was there when we put this altogether in Frank Sartor's time as lord mayor, this is nothing new. In fact the council owns as you know it owns Woollies corner already and it owns pretty well all the street, all the building up Parkes Street and down Pitt Street with some exceptions in there. I don't think a square should always be, never be absolutely open on all four sides. You need to have what we call and a friend of mine says if I hear that word 'active street frontage' again I will throw up, but you do need to have the opportunity for cafés and shops along as placed, opportunities to sit down to have a coffee outside, sculptor features what ever, but the key to this and this was not my plan this was Franks and it was always a very good idea. Is that you use what Frank would have wanted to have to use, go in at Pitt Street with all the buses and have a major bus, rail interchange build there. Now this was long before…
GLOVER:
Underground or…
GREINER:
Underground.
GLOVER:
Right.
GREINER:
So you go under Parkes Street and you have a bus interchange, and my view was that was where light rail then picked up and went down George Street and around the city and through, lots of other different, and that is a subject for anther day. But you used space as your transport node, and there in the basement you have your large supermarket. With the appropriate price checks and you have a bus interchange; you have a car park underneath Hyde Park so you actually start to do two really important things. You keep all of the pedestrian, or the private cars out the city and you keep the buses out of the city and that is what changes the face of the street.
GLOVER:
What about on top? Because for instance there is a lovely area in a way outside St Mary's Cathedral, but it doesn't seem a very human space for some reason.
GREINER:
Well you see the City of Sydney, if you walk out your door now and walk into George Street and walk along Goulburn Street, Liverpool Street. I think this is where the heart land of the residential section of the city is, but we also have residential development all the way from the Opera House as we know, all the way down to this. But this is a very busy end of town so the town hall square at town hall is the logical place to put a gathering space. We have never had any…
GLOVER:
So you reckon it will work, it won't just be all…
GREINER:
Know I think it will be fantastic cause I think you can actually do some really neat modelling there of closing part of Park Street as well and you could actually build in some really good quality, some galleries, cafés things that keep going, restaurants, things that keep going until late at night.
GLOVER:
Now Chris Bowen, I know you have written about the difference about Sydney and Melbourne in their urban development. Do you think this is a positive idea for Sydney?
BOWEN:
Yes, I think it sounds like it is and as you say, I've got the very strong view that Melbourne has invested much more in place management in public art and we have relied in Sydney on our beautiful harbour and the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House and we have let the rest of it go frankly - no criticism of any individual or any organisation - it is just a cultural thing in Sydney. We haven't invested our time and money in place management in creating engaging spaces, spaces for people to go and become places. And I think Melbourne because they don't have the harbour and the Harbour Bridge to rely on…
GLOVER:
Have been forced to…
BOWEN:
They have been forced to and they have worked much harder at it and done a much better job and so we need engaging places, places that people find interesting and want to go to…
GLOVER:
So how do you make it so it isn't just a place of violence and drunks and windiness?
BOWEN:
Well I think every square will be different every place will be different you have got to rely on the local environment; you have got to rely on what is happening around there and cater to it accordingly. Now obviously that strip of George Street is a problem, but it need not be with the right urban design and the right policing etcetera it could be a wonderful urban place for Sydney.
GLOVER:
Richard Walsh do you go along with that?
WALSH:
No, total waste of money. I mean it will be windy and cold in winter and in summer it will be too hot and we I think Martin Place battles to be relevant and that is a big space. We do have little spaces; I mean if you want shops go underground, that is great. I would…
GLOVER:
Is it great to go underground?
WALSH:
For the same amount of money you could rescue that space opposite St Mary's you could actually, we have a fantastic resource in Hyde Park take it across, put Collins Street under around the other side of St Mary's and extend some park land. That is what we need people, where people can eat their lunches and so on. There are not going to do that in an open space like that. The great in Europe like St Marks and so on and basically you have walls and four sides. This is a windy city; we need it to be surrounded not by two sides but by four sides.
GLOVER:
But isn't it a trouble with Martin Place is slopey for a start so you can't have café chairs and so forth and its got banks and big financial institutions it doesn't have the sort of thing that Catherine Greiner was talking about with little café's and tables.
WALSH:
But what are people supposed to do there? Sit and eat their lunch, what are, march, demonstrate against Chris I don't know what they are going to do, I will be in that, but on the other hand extending Hyde Park, now that's worth the money.
GREINER:
And we are not saying that the space in front of the town hall necessarily needs to be completely concreted over. I mean you can actually you can grass that space, it is actually a better space, it runs east west. The spaces in the city that should have been, closed to traffic are things like Market Street rather than Pitt St Mall. I mean you actually get a lot more sun if you actually went in there. So you can do grass, you can make it soft surface and put in trees.
WALSH:
Have nice little nooks and crannies.
GLOVER:
Federation Square, Chris is to my experience is quite windy. They seem to love it, but I don't quite get it.
GREINER:
It is the activity in it.
BOWEN:
That is right and you are going to find some public areas that some people hate and some people love. The important thing is to build them and invest in them and if you have enough of them, then you will find the city lifted and I think it is a really, really good opportunity for Sydney and what should go in there is a matter for, everybody will have different views, but it is a really good thing if it happens.
GLOVER:
Okay three to six is the time. On the Monday political forum we have Chris Bowen who is the Member for Prospect and Minister for Financial Services, Kathryn Greiner former City of Sydney councillor and publisher and author Richard Walsh.
Bruno the latest character of comedian Sacha Cohen last night described the Prime Minister as 'uber cute' and as 'hot, hot, and hot'.
Mr Rudd aside, who so far has been our sexy looking political leader.
GREINER:
Pick me pick me.
GLOVER:
Kathryn Greiner?
WALSH:
Nick Greiner, maybe?
GREINER:
Yes of course, of course it has to be Nick Greiner.
GLOVER:
I will re-phrase my question. Mr Rudd and Mr Greiner aside, who is the, there is some correspondence in. This is Roseland, 'definitely Paul John Keating a very handsome man'. This is from Elizabeth in Five Dock, 'Paul John Keating then, now and forever', and so they go on. It has got to be Hawkie doesn't it?
WALSH:
It is a photo finish, Hawkie and Holt one for the Libs one for Labor. But who wants to be cute, I mean the only reason why Rudd is uber cute is he actually looks like an over grown school boy.
We don't know whether stuff on top of his head is baby hair or grey hair and it is probably he has gone quickly from baby hair. He looks like a child.
GLOVER:
C'mon William McMahon and Billy Hughes in a photo finish.
WALSH:
…for ugliness
GLOVER:
Chris Bowen?
BOWEN:
Well you know they say politics is show business for ugly people and I am no exception to that. I must say she will probably kill me for saying this, I don't think she is listening, but my Mum always found Don Dunstan very attractive.
GLOVER:
Yes in the pink shorts or…
BOWEN:
Well just more generally, the pink shorts probably did do something for her.
GLOVER:
So if Kevin could just slip on some pink shorts. He might make the grade.
We are thankfully out of time, thank you to Chris Bowen and Catherine Greiner and Richard Walsh another Monday Political Forum.