TRANSCRIPT: RADIO INTERVIEW - RN DRIVE - WEDNESDAY, 20 OCTOBER 2021

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
RN DRIVE
WEDNESDAY, 20 OCTOBER 2021

SUBJECTS: Scott Morrison reducing Federal Parliament to a protection racket for Christian Porter.

PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: Labor frontbencher Tony Burke's says the matter must be investigated. He's the Leader of Opposition Business and he's my guest on RN drive. Welcome.

TONY BURKE, MANAGER OF OPPOSITION BUSINESS: What an afternoon PK. Good to be here.

KARVELAS: Let's go through it. This is the first time there's been an outcome like this. What happened?

BURKE: Okay, so the order of events. On Monday, which was the first day back after the break, I put forward the case to the Speaker as to why I believe the Privileges Committee should investigate this. The Speaker thought about it for a couple of days, which is proper, and then came back and made the decision, it's called “giving precedence”. But what he found was that there was a prima facie case to be investigated by the committee. So I then stood up to move the resolution. I've moved resolutions like this before when precedence has been given. The thing that has not occurred before was the government then stood up, it was Peter Dutton, spoke against the motion and then used their numbers to prevent the committee from dealing with the matter. If the motion comes from the House then the committee has to report back, they have to deal with it. And what Peter Dutton said was he's written a letter to them so the issue’s in front of them. I saw the letter that he wrote and it doesn't even mention Christian Porter. So effectively, for the first time in 120 years, we now have a situation where the Speaker's decided there's a prima facie case. And the government has said, well, we're not going to allow the committee to investigate.

KARVELAS: What does it mean for transparency in government?

BURKE: This one's extraordinary because what's at stake in this particular matter has a different gravity to most of the issues that get raised for the Privileges Committee. The so-called blind trust that Christian Porter set up, creates a situation where you never report who gives you money. So effectively, we don't know who provided money to that blind trust. And what is now being permitted is a situation where any Member of Parliament can put one of these things together, get money for personal expenses from anywhere - it could be from overseas, it could be from corrupt bodies, it could be from proceeds of crime, it could be anything. It could be from business interests that we'd want to know about. And all you have to report is I got the money from a trust. And I don't know who gave it to me. The whole concept of disclosure is there for a really important reason: it's there to stop corruption. And today, the government voted to not investigate where the money came from, and in effect to legitimise these “trusts”. But in reality, like what is this? It's hard to see it as anything much different than a brown paper bag that's been pasted together by a set of lawyers. That’s what we're talking about here. And Members of Parliament have not allowed to receive money without disclosing to the public. That's how we find out if someone's compromised or someone's corrupt. Sam Dastyari lost his job as a senator after he disclosed where money came from, it was a much smaller amount than this. He disclosed and people said, “Well, no, no, no, that's not proper for a Member of Parliament”. What’s happening here is we will never know where the money came from to pay Christian Porter’s personal bills.

KARVELAS: So how else can you pursue the information on just where the money came from then given today's events which mean that this hasn't been given precedence by the Parliament?

BURKE: Look, up until moments ago I was working on the basis of the committee was going to look at it. I thought the Speaker would give it precedence because the case was so strong. And Tony Smith, he's the other side of politics but to be fair he's got a very good reputation of applying the rules as Speaker. So I had thought that's where it would go to. I never anticipated the government would effectively use its numbers as some sort of protection racket or cover-up. The thing that Anthony Albanese put out immediately after is Labor will establish an anti-corruption commission with the powers of a Royal Commission. And it should have been established a long time ago. And guess who was in charge of establishing it? It was Christian Porter, and it never happened.

KARVELAS: Peter Dutton says the issue is broader than Christian Porter and there should be a broader look at donations in government. Do you accept there’s a broader issue?

BURKE: I'm fine with there being a broader inquiry. Like I don't want this principle to be accepted for anyone. I don't want there to be a situation where anonymous donations that should be declared are not declared. Like that that just should never happen. So if there's a broader issue, by all means, investigate that as well. That's not an argument to say we're going to turn a blind eye to how Christian Porter got his money.

KARVELAS: Tony Burke, always lovely to speak to you. Thanks for coming on.

ENDS