KIERAN GILBERT
Joining me now in the Canberra studio the Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury and the Shadow Minister for Small Business Bruce Billson, good to see you both. It looks like the extradition to Sweden, David, according to Professor Rothwell seems inevitable now.
DAVID BRADBURY
Well look I'm not going to start to make any outlandish assessments of where the matter is going. Clearly, there is a stay for 14 days, the Assange legal team will no doubt be considering their options and of course there may well be other avenues of appeal as we've just heard. So certainly from our perspective we think it's important to respect this process that is the approach that we've taken. But equally, we've taken the approach that any Australian that finds themself in a situation of the sort that Mr Assange has found himself in will be provided with all of the usual consular assistance and that is support we continue to have on offer to the extent that Mr Assange wants to avail himself of it.
GILBERT
When it comes to the government support Bruce, you heard Professor Rothwell there giving an endorsement of how the government has handled this.
BRUCE BILLSON
Yeah look I have no criticism of the consular support, what is unhelpful is when the Attorney-General had said that Assange had fled Sweden, that doesn't sound right and when the Prime Minister said he had done something illegal and couldn't point to any law that had been broken in Australia. That's unhelpful and I think that should stop, but in terms of the consular support, David summed it up. It's a legal system that is open and transparent and quite robust, they've concluded that the warrant is valid and the consular support should continue.
GILBERT
Do you think it seems inevitable now that Assange will be extradited to face those allegations in Sweden?
BILLSON
Well as David said there is one more appeal avenue I understand is available, the information I see is that Assange and his legal team are less concerned about the matter that is in Sweden still before him which is of a criminal nature not related to Wikileaks, but then what might happen from there, that seems to be the discussion.
GILBERT
Well Jeffrey *inaudible* has rejected the notion that the United States would extradite him *inaudible*...
BILLSON
Yeah I listened to the Foreign Minister say the government didn't have any information to suggest what the Ambassador was saying was not right, so from opposition we can only take people on their word.
GILBERT
What do you make of those fears from the Assange camp that that might happen?
BRADBURY
Well I think it's important to respect the integrity of legal processes that are underfoot, but secondly I think it's important to take these matters one step at a time. People should be a little bit cautious about making assessments about what might occur two or three steps down the process. So I think that clearly it is important to let these matters progress down their natural course.
GILBERT
Let's look at some domestic politics now, I want to look at Christopher Pyne this morning, he was on the Seven Network Sunrise program defending his role in the antics that went on in the Parliament yesterday.
*Audio played*
What did you think of that yesterday? It was quite a bizarre look wasn't it for the Parliament to have two senior members of the Coalition bolting for the door to avoid a vote?
BILLSON
Well I think Christopher summed it up precisely. We don't want Craig Thomson's vote, it is a tainted vote, he came in to the chamber looking quite pleased with himself, Cheshire grin, media had been alerted that something was on, we saw that he was there and clearly the government would have loved to have seen the opposition not carry through on its word and numbers of our leadership team showed not only good political leaders and good for the country they showed *inaudible* well as well. There is nothing much more to it than that, we don't want the vote, he was there, he turned up, the stunt was on and we needed to take action to carry through on our word.
GILBERT
They could have crossed the floor as well and voted with the government to nullify that vote.
BILLSON
Well when the Mal Colston issue in the Senate arose some years back we said we didn't want his vote so it was nullified. If Colston voted with the Coalition a Coalition Senator left. That is the practice we have engaged in the past, same here and the action was decisive action that was required and was taken.
GILBERT
The Colston matter was after Telstra was privatised but anyway we'll move on that is a matter for another day and we'll talk about the government's response to this, David, because that's a fair point isn't it, that the Coalition was essentially taken by surprise by Craig Thomson moving to their side yesterday for this vote and they acted accordingly?
BRADBURY
Well look a couple of points to make, the first one is this was essentially a vote that didn't have a lot of significance in terms of the Parliament, it was a gag motion that was going down as it was. I thought the scenes that we saw were just extraordinary and Christopher Pyne is out their prancing around saying he acted swiftly like a gazelle, well he looked like more of a galoot than a gazelle to me. When you have a look at what occurred in the Parliament yesterday, I thought this was taking the Parliament and parliamentary standards to a new low but more significantly I think a lot of Australians would be sitting at home watching television scratching their head and wondering what was going on here. Most people think they elect their local Members of Parliament to come in to this Parliament to stand up for the interests of their community and have their votes counted. To have people fleeing from the chamber in extraordinary scenes like that I thought was just something I had never seen before. But can I just make this point around the point Bruce was making about Mal Colston, it is really important to understand this. When Colston was there to vote for the Telstra sale, they were happy to accept his vote. In the same way if Craig Thomson was willing to support them on a vote that really mattered, Tony Abbott would do anything to try and bring this government down especially if it means doing it before the first of July because he knows that once we hit the first of July the ridiculous apocalyptic proclamations he's been making about what's going to happen when the carbon price comes in to effect is going to be shameful *inaudible*.
GILBERT
Let's go to Bruce, Tony Abbott has said not under any circumstances, the government says it wasn't contrived you obviously don't believe them on that.
BILLSON
Well why would journalists, one walking from one side of the building to another as what David has accurately described as a procedural motion of not enormous consequence, why would the media turn up?
GILBERT
Is it possible Craig Thomson notified the journalists?
BILLSON
You've just seen David cook up the story about a Coalition Member being reasonably athletic to get out of the chamber, you've heard how this has been beaten up but just imagine what would have happened if we hadn't taken that action? Could you imagine the shrill cries of hypocrisy that David and his colleagues would have run? Labor would have loved the opportunity to say, well the Coalition said it wouldn't accept the vote but you have, all this talk about it being an inconsequential vote, that wouldn't have mattered. They would have loved that and lapped it up, that's what this is about. You're seeing the overcooking of a moment of athleticism of a couple of Coalition Members that frankly many in the Labor Party could only aspire to emulate, that's being cooked up but really what was behind it was hoping they could cook up the fact that the Coalition hadn't carried through on its undertakings if Thomson had of voted with us and our people have of stayed, so that's really what is at play here. They should see it for what it's worth.
GILBERT
That's probably exactly what the government would have done...
BILLSON
I think dead right were the words that you're looking for.
GILBERT
I'll put that assertion to you that that is dead right that you would have gone to the Coalition and said that this is hypocrisy, you've accepted his vote once...
BRADBURY
And can I make a point to the hypocrisy of what Joe Hockey said just a week or two ago. He was asked the question as to whether they would accept Craig Thomson's vote and I think it was in the context of bringing the government down, and he said well if Craig Thomson had a moment of clarity then of course we'd be willing to take his vote. The point here is that they will take his vote on the things that count if it were coming in their direction.
GILBERT
Alright let's move on to the mining quickly, we've got to wrap up our discussion quickly, both of your views on this the Prime Minister was pretty blunt last night at the Minerals Council that speech that they are the envy of the world that's true isn't it Bruce, it's very hard to disagree with that, strong mining strong economy and it's fair to say the benefits need to be shared, is it not?
BILLSON
No one is contesting that, the speech last night was short sighted and intemperate. After the mining industry has been subject to all of this criticism and character assassination, what they were looking for was some leadership from the Prime Minister to deal with the productivity challenges that we face. Do you know that the world competitive journals have come out and we've dropped 10 places in 2 years? We've gone from 5th most competitive to 15th. That's what the mining industry wanted to hear. You know another thing, these minerals are just land fill until someone puts tens of billions of dollars on the table, accepts the risk, invests in extracting them, processing them, freighting them and finding markets. That is collaborative enterprise and the Prime Minister needs to understand that and deal with the competitiveness hole she's driving in the country.
GILBERT
David is it time for the Prime Minister to pull out of this combative approach the government's got with mining?
BRADBURY
I don't think it was a combative approach from the Prime Minister at all, she was plain speaking. People have accused this government of not speaking plainly. I think she was very plain, and she asserted one of the principles which is at the heart of what we're trying to do. This is an economy where the resources boom means that this economy is one of the strongest in the world and we want to spread the benefits of the boom. Tony Abbott has been running around now for a couple of years saying mining tax, carbon price, going to kill the mining sector. Let's look at the facts, what do we have? A half a trillion dollars worth of capital investment coming in to the resources sector in this country. If there were sovereign risks of the sort that we've been hearing about, who are all these characters out there willing to contribute half a trillion dollars worth of capital.
GILBERT
Alright gents I've got to wrap it up this morning, thanks for that.