TRANSCRIPT - ABC Afternoon Briefing with Greg Jennett

PAUL FLETCHER MP

Shadow Minister for Science and the Arts

Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy

Manager of Opposition Business in the House

TRANSCRIPT

ABC Afternoon Briefing 

24 OCTOBER 2024

Greg Jennett: Well, although Lidia Thorpe's a Senator, the House has also seen its fair share of outbursts when visiting leaders are invited in. Let's check thinking on whether the House rules are up to scratch, with Paul Fletcher, Liberal frontbencher and Manager of Opposition Business and a regular on this program. Paul welcome back. So yes you are in the House. The House has also seen hasn’t it these interruptions for visiting heads of government during official visits over the years? What do you believe needs to happen to prevent a repeat of the sort of disruptions that Lidia Thorpe engaged in on Monday? 

Paul Fletcher: Well, you're right, the House has seen this. For example, Bob Brown, the Greens leader, when President George W Bush addressed the House, engaged in a similar kind of protest. It tends to be the kind of thing we see from extreme radical politicians. And Lidia Thorpe, of course, so extreme that she even left the Greens because she didn't find the radical enough for her. There are rules, of course. There's a Privileges Committee. There's the capacity of the House and the Senate to make rules governing the conduct of members and Senators. So this is not unchartered territory. I think the starting point is most Australians would expect their parliamentarians to treat our visiting head of state with respect and courtesy. The Senator clearly failed to do that. And as Senator Birmingham, our opposition leader in the Senate, has pointed out today, the words used by Senator Thorpe in her statement yesterday do raise a very real question. Is she, in fact, validly in the Senate at all? 

Greg Jennett: Okay. So what do you think about that? Do you believe there is doubt Paul Fletcher, over whether she still bears true allegiance to the monarch, either because she renounced that allegiance on Monday, or perhaps that she failed to affirm it correctly back in 2022? And who should examine this? 

Paul Fletcher: Well, I think on both of those grounds you've cited, there's absolutely a question, and I think that is something that it would be proper for the Senate to consider. I mean, it's not a novel proposition that the chambers of the Parliament each impose a set of rules which govern the way that the chambers operate and the conduct of members and Senators, respectively. Could I also make this point. The parliamentary reception for His Majesty King Charles the Third and Queen Camilla lasted for about an hour and a half. I think several hundred people were there, all but one of them, I think it's fair to say, delighted to be there. At 30 seconds of an outburst of a particular juvenile kind of politics. That person was then removed. But her aim, of course, has been to get maximum media attention, and sadly that's succeeded. I think it would be much better if we all focused on the real issues facing our nation, rather than this kind of juvenile and extremist politics. 

Greg Jennett: Yeah, I take the point. And look, if there is further examination of a deterrence effect that you want to build into, parliamentary rules in either chamber will keep across those. It does sound like something the Coalition is keen to explore. Let's move to housing policy. Paul, we got that $5 billion housing announcement from the Coalition last weekend, and it was flanked by most of the major building industry groups from across the land. Now you're looking to freeze the National Construction Code for ten years. But now the Property Council has split and said, no, they don't want that at all. They support regular updates. Should there be exemptions? How did you get into this mess? 

Paul Fletcher: Well, we brought down a policy based upon extensive consultation with a whole range of stakeholders, including councils all across the country. And so to commit $5 billion towards a central enabling infrastructure, things like roads, sewerage, kerbing, guttering, electricity. We know around the country that there are real constraints at the moment on the enabling infrastructure being rolled out. For example, in south western Sydney, there's a real constraint with water infrastructure, and often the amounts of money involved on a per lot basis are fairly modest, but councils or other relevant parties may not have that money to hand. And of course, Michael Sukkar, our housing spokesman, quoted one example in the peri urban areas of Melbourne, where one council was unable to fund a road for about $4.2 million, I think, which would have freed up access to potentially several thousand housing units. So that's why we think what we've proposed is a very practical way of increasing the rate at which new housing comes on stream, and we have committed that. We believe some 500,000 new homes can be facilitated to be built as a result of this targeted expenditure. 

Greg Jennett: Now, there's a lot in there, but specifically on the Construction Code and not altering it for ten years, isn't there a risk that will make homes relatively less safe, that they wouldn't get the benefit of continuous upgrades in, you know, all manner of things, including circuit breakers, RCDs, smoke detectors? Why have you settled on that? And why has that put you at odds with the industry? 

Paul Fletcher: Well, the point we're making is that when there's an update to a Code, it imposes new obligations and new expenditure requirements. And demonstrably that has been slowing down the rate of rollout. Now, right now, we have a very serious problem. The rate of new housing starts is at the lowest level in ten years. It dropped 8.8% in one year. There is no prospect at all of Labor's 1.3 million target being met. Most credible experts say they fall short by about 400,000. In these urgent and extreme circumstances, we do believe that committing that there will not be further changes to the Code for that ten year period is a practical measure. And let's be clear, I think most Australians who want to get into the housing market, would much rather have a house built in accordance with the Code as it stands, than not have a house in a world where the Code gets updated every couple of years? 

Greg Jennett: Yeah all right. Well, I guess that will be determined in some ways at the ballot box. We'll keep talking about that. Paul Fletcher, can I also just get some final observations from you on a fairly aggressive statement that has emanated from the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing, via its spokesman, Li Jian, he's taken aim at Australia on its human rights record. Australia, long plagued by systemic racism and hate crimes, have severely violated the rights of refugees, immigrants and left indigenous people, you know, uncomfortably vulnerable. It's said Australian soldiers have committed abhorrent crimes in Afghanistan, and there's an accusation that Australia's hypocritical in raising these issues with China. What sort of response does this demand from the Australian Government? 

Paul Fletcher: Well, it does demand, I think, a firm response. It was entirely appropriate of Australian diplomats to make the comments they made. As I understand from reporting about human rights abuses in China. And any objective observer would conclude that while Australia, of course, is not perfect. No nation is but our human rights record stands up very, very favourably to the autocracies of the world. And it's appropriate that we speak up as a nation for the values that we think are important. 

Greg Jennett: All right. Well, look, thank you for your observations on that. We'll see what the Australian Government does. Of course, some principals involved in that relationship are currently in Samoa. But we'll wrap it up there. Paul Fletcher thanking you as always. We'll see you back here before too long.

Paul Fletcher: Thanks, Greg.