TRANSCRIPT - TV INTERVIEW - SKY NEWS - THURSDAY, 2 DECEMBER, 2021

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS WITH LAURA JAYES
THURSDAY, 2 DECEMBER 2021

SUBJECTS: Chaos in Parliament; religious discrimination; Christian Porter; Rachelle Miller.

LAURA JAYES, HOST: Joining me live now is the Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations, Tony Burke. Any more surprises today?

TONY BURKE, MANAGER OF OPPOSITION BUSINESS: Welcome to the House of Chaos Laura. I haven't seen a fortnight like this one. And it's hard to keep up with the number of just bizarre things that have been happening. Last night, the House accidentally resolved to never adjourn. To sit forever. And then they had to come back and fix it.

JAYES: What? How did that happen?

BURKE: They moved the wrong motion. They move that the House would adjourn after a particular Bill and then they hadn't listed that Bill. So we were going to sit there forever doing nothing. Which wouldn’t have been a problem I guess for a large part of the government's agenda, because there's not a whole lot that they're doing. But they're just not paying attention. We had a member of parliament yesterday speak on the wrong Bill, delivered a speech on a Bill that apparently the member had voted on last week but had another go even though something else was before us. We've had people crossing the floor back and forth all over the place. We had two members of the government yesterday crossing the floor to vote with Craig Kelly on his vaccine mandates Bill. I've never seen anything like it. It's as simple as that. And you know, Mr Morrison will come to the despatch box each day and open up with you know, it's all going well, it’s all fantastic. And then just get stuck into Labor and gradually get angrier as question time goes on. But you look at the faces behind him. And they know that this is not a government that's delivering for the country.

JAYES: Well, voter ID was scuttled last night, that legislation. Religious discrimination looks to be going the same way. So doesn’t look like anything will be passed through either house today.

BURKE: Certainly I don't know about where things are at with the Senate. That Magnitsky Bill went through the Senate. And that'll come to the House today. I'm not sure if that’s going to be brought on for debate. That'd be one that we would be capable of legislating but maybe they will, maybe they won't. The religious discrimination bill – it is important that we extend, you know, we've got a whole lot of areas of discrimination already covered in law, we don't have it covered about religious discrimination. So it's an important principle there. But the government's already made a decision to have a joint committee of members of the House and members of the Senate to work through the details. And we need to be able to work through exactly what the implications of that are. So it'd be really unusual if the Government referred to a joint committee, with members of the House of Reps involved, and then decided they wanted us to debate it and vote on it before the committee had even sat for a single day. So I'd be really surprised if they went ahead with that.

JAYES: Well, you've been in that place for a long time. We always see resignations around this cycle of the election. We’re about the see Greg Hunt I think and Christian Porter made it official yesterday. There was a quote in his statement, he said: “There are a few if any constants left in modern politics. Perhaps the only certainty now is that there appears to be no limit to what some will say or allege or do to gain an advantage over a perceived enemy.” Is there some truth to that?

BURKE: I don't believe so. And I’ve seen plenty of times when different lines are drawn in making sure that people don't step over them. The person who tried to step over the line was Christian Porter, I just don't think there's any other way of describing it. The main protection we have against corruption in Australia is disclosure. The main protection we have in Australia of making sure that our members of Parliament are not on the take for cash is them having to report where they get their money from. And Christian Porter tried to come up with a new legal device that I've described before as being like a brown paper bag stitched together by lawyers, where effectively he could receive what is reportedly up to a million dollars and never let us know where it came from. Now, there are lots of countries in the world where members of Parliament receive millions of dollars in cash donations. We don't want to be a country like that.

JAYES: But the Privileges Committee essentially did find that he did nothing wrong. So this was a loophole that’s now been fixed right?

BURKE: Well, nothing has been fixed. There's no new rules before the Parliament. What the Privileges Committee effectively is - if that is their view that he did not break any rules, they haven't come back with what the new rules should be. So under the Morison Government right now, what Mr Morrison has decided is what Christian Porter did gets the tick. So right now and over the whole summer it is possible for every member of Parliament to set up the exact same device, receive cash donations and never tell Australians where it's come from. It's no wonder that they don't want to set up an anti-corruption commission.

JAYES: And just finally, before I let you get back to the chamber. Rachelle Miller is doing a very brave thing today. She’s about to make a speech in the Mural Hall. She’s made allegations against Alan Tudge and he’s calling on the Prime Minister to take action. I know you haven't seen these allegations, but how should this be dealt with?

BURKE: Okay, well, first of all, I haven't seen them and I think it's really important for Rachelle Miller to be able to speak for herself. I don't want to be appropriating a story or an allegation that is hers to tell. But let me put it in these terms. People have had enough. There is no tolerance. And if the allegations are the way you’ve described then action needs to happen and it needs to happen immediately.

JAYES: We will see. Tony Burke thanks so much for your time.

ENDS