Jamie Briggs MP

Joining me in Canberra is the Labor MP Gai Brodtmann and the Adelaide Liberal MP Jamie Briggs. Welcome to you both.

Thank you

Good afternoon.

Firstly to the ongoing controversy over asylum seekers, we have seen the UNHCR reaffirm that it will be heavily involved with the Malaysia swap between Australia and Kuala Lumper. First to you Gai, we have also seen your colleague Melissa Parke speak out on this. Do you think she has a valid point when it comes to unaccompanied minors being sent to Malaysia?

First off I think we need to wait to see what is in the final agreement which is being negotiated at the moment between Malaysia, UNHCR and Australia. So let’s just wait to see what is in that final agreement.

But would you feel uncomfortable if unaccompanied are being taken to Malaysia?

Well, as the Minister has said today that every individual, the vulnerabilities of every individual and particularly of children will be taken into account. It will be assessed on a case by case basis.

Jamie if the Malaysian solution goes into place and the boats stop coming which they appear to be, the numbers appear to be slowing down the number of arrivals. Won’t that be good enough for the Opposition, won’t you then support the Malaysia solution?

Well look I tend to agree with what Gai said in her first answer, let’s see what is in this final so called deal. We should have waited to see what is in this so called deal before Chris Bowen and Julia Gillard tried to spike their own budget by announcing it just on the Saturday before the budget. I mean this is really amateur hour diplomacy that is going on at the moment and it is like faulty towers has taken over running our immigration policy, if it wasn’t so serious it would be laughable. We have got this situation now where finally the Government has admitted that its pull factors, that the law changes in Australia in August 2008 have caused this massive surge that we have seen in the last two and a half years. We have seen the crisis in the detention network. I see that on a daily basis with the Inverbrackie detention facility in my electorate and now what we need the government to recognise is that there is a solution which used to work, which they shut down themselves which is called Nauru. Which could be opened as soon as possible, as soon as the Minister was able to pick up the phone and call the President of Nauru. That is the solution that the Government should adopt.

Is that a fair assessment Gai?

Look, we want to stop people smuggling at its source. We want to stop getting on the boats and taking the dangerous journey to get here. It is just, we have seen the dangers of that, we have seen the toll of that and we want to stop that. We have to stop it at its source, which is out in the region. The source is in the region, the source of asylum seekers in the large number of places in the region. We need to stop it at the source, which is why we want a regional solution, to what is a regional problem. 

Jamie to you in Adelaide, do you feel comfortable with unaccompanied minors being sent to Malaysia or indeed any off shore processing centre?

Well look I find it interesting that the Labor Party used to try and demonise John Howard and his government for the way the so called treatment of these people. And now of course, one of the greatest criticisms of the Nauru option was that Nauru was not a signatory with the UN Convention, well of course Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN Convention and Nauru Government hasn’t been accused of allowing practices such as caning to occur.

THE UNHCR is involved; will that ease your concerns?

Well look we don’t know, I mean what we are hearing is as I say, for a bunch of trade unionists they are not very good at negotiation these people. They have told the people they are negotiating with, you know they have given them all the weapons in the negotiations. They have admitted what a weak position they come from and you know I think it is terrible diplomacy, it is a terrible way to come about to an arrangement if that is where they achieve it and you see the Malaysians play hard ball because they have seen our cards. I mean we are playing, we are literally playing poker face up.

BRODTMANN:

That’s nonsense.

But is that a fair assessment though that the Government played its cards too early?

No, I think that we are going about these negotiations in an open and honest way and it appears  that we are all putting what we want on the table and that is what is being discussed at the moment. And we have seen over the past week or so pieces, iterations of abut what we need to do is wait until we get the final agreement between the UNHCR and Malaysia and Australia.

Before we move on, the Head of the Government’s Immigration Department’s detention health advisory group, Louise Newman, has today also spoken out about the unaccompanied minors part of this agreement, do you think there is genuine concern within Labor ranks and Government ranks about it?

Well, I think that as the Minister said this morning, I will just reiterate that. He will consider the vulnerabilities of individuals, particularly the vulnerabilities of children in this whole process. And the UNHCR will be involved.

Well we will move on now to the on-going climate change debate, we saw some very big crowds over the weekend out in support of the carbon tax in the ‘say yes’ campaign and today the Climate Change Minister Greg Combet responded to a poll that suggested perhaps not nearly as much public support.

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Jamie Briggs, first to you, is that a far assessment from Greg Combet given that we still haven’t seen any of the numbers? Is it too early to be talking about costs to groceries and jobs?

Oh well, not at all. What we are doing is saying that we have got a policy which we had before the election which is a direct action approach of reducing our emissions, remember the target of five percent reduction by 2020 is a bipartisan target. We have got a different way of getting there, but what Tony Abbott has been talking about specifically, is that, you mentioned at the start there groups of people out on the weekend in support. There is one way of course to get the whole Australian community out to tell us whether they support it or not and that is to hold an election and that is what Julia Gillard should have done and that is what the poll today says that she should do. She said at the last election when their policy, lets not forget was cash for clunkers and it was to have 150 people picked out of the phone book come together and tell them what their policy should be. She said there would not be a carbon tax, now of course just after the election, she announced that she would not have a carbon tax. The right thing to do by the Australian people, is to take it to the election. If Mr Combet is so confident that his plan will be supported, I see no reason why he shouldn’t take that to an election.

It’s just, it’s extraordinary the fear mongering that is going on with Tony Abbott and his team. You see Labor has faith in the Australian people, they have faith in the fact they will accept and embrace change, once we get more detail coming out which will be coming out over the coming months. But the thing is, what we are doing here is very very hard and what the Coalition is doing is not helpful in anyway. I mean Labor has always taken the hard decisions on hard decisions on change and reform, Labor has always taken the hard decisions on charge and reform. We did it in the seventies with Whitlam, we made major change to modernise the Australian economy to ensure our prosperity for the future. We did it in the eighties under Hawke and Keating, major change, modernising the economy and prosperity in the future. That is what we are doing trying to do now, it is hard and it doesn’t help when we have got people like the Coalition, throwing these things from the peanut gallery, this fear and scaremongering from the peanut gallery when thing is that we need to get information out to the Australian people, which is what we are doing and we need to actually make sure, and I do believe and I have faith that the Australian people will embrace this change because we realise this is the best thing for modernising the economy and ensuring our future prosperity .

Well you know it is funny that you say that, because ultimately we do trust the Australian people.

You don’t, you just frighten them Jamie.

No no, no. Well okay if we want to talk about the Labor Party’s history, let’s go back to 1998 shall we, when genuine tax reform was being debated, when it was taken to an election,  John Howard said I will make take this to an election; he nearly lost his first term because he took it to an election. Kim Beazley and your Labor Party ran the most vicious vehement scare campaign you could imagine after he won that election, after he won that election. So what we are saying is do the right thing, do what John Howard did with achieve genuine reform, if that is what you claim this is and take it to an election. There is nothing wrong with taking to the people. The Australian people are not scary.

This is the right thing and parts of your party know it is the right thing. I mean John Hewson, although we never know which way Tony Abbott is on this issue. Yesterday John Hewson, because I went to the rally, the climate change rally yesterday and he was saying that Tony Abbott has more positions on this issue than the Kama Sutra. So the thing is that parts of your party know it is the right thing to do, we know that it is the right thing to you. You should just let us get on with doing it.

Take it to an election.

People from overseas from Europe and the UK are constantly astounded about the fact that we do not have bipartisan support on this, they have always have bipartisan support on the fact that climate change is real, the fact that the climate science is real, the fact that we need action on climate change and also the way forward. Why can’t we…

We believe that too.

I think we need to move on, if we can. To the issue of live exports, we have seen more and more comments today from the Independent MP, Andrew Wilkie. There is genuine concern growing in all sections of the parliament on this issue. Jamie, are you happy with what the Government has announced so far?

Well I think that the Four Corners story last week was extremely disturbing and you know I found it repugnant. I at times could not watch some of the treatment that those magnificent animals were getting and I would hope that…

Would you support a stricter ban from Australia towards those abattoirs or a complete ban?

Look I don’t think bans are the best option to go, because I worry that the market will still be filled my animals from somewhere else. And you know we are better to use our market position to better try and influence. But I do say this though; I wonder when Joe Ludwig first knew about this and why he didn’t act before. I mean quite obviously, and it has been reported that he knew some time before this footage was aired by the ABC last week, why he didn’t take action on these abattoirs before then. We know there has been another three boats go as I understand just in the days following; now I think that Joe Ludwig has been a bit asleep at the wheel here.  

Before we go Gai, your response to that? Has Labor waited to long and indeed Australia waited too long and do you some of your colleagues also have concerns?

Well, everyone who saw the footage last week was actually disgusted by what they saw. The day after the Minister actually suspended trade to those facilities in Indonesia and he also initiated an independent review of the sort of supply chains, so from the beginning of when the cattle leaves the farm, right through to the point of the slaughter, so there is a major review, an independent review that is taking place, so further bans can’t be ruled out, so at this stage, there is a suspension on trade to those facilities.

But can we stop what happens to live stock once they go to Indonesia?

Well it really goes depend, let’s see what the review has to say I think that is going to be a holistic review and I think that is going to give us a very comprehensive picture about what actually happens.

And that is all we actually have time for today on Capital Hill.