TRANSCRIPT - Sky News Newsday with Kieran Gilbert

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

SKY NEWS NEWSDAY

2 JULY 2024

Kieran Gilbert: Welcome back to the program. With me live in the studio is the Manager of Opposition Business, Paul Fletcher. Thanks for your time. The Coalition criticising the Prime Minister for not going to NATO. Simon Birmingham says it's a dereliction of duty. Recently Peter Dutton was saying that the Prime Minister's trying to circumnavigate the globe on taxpayer dime. Is the Coalition being inconsistent here?

Paul Fletcher: Well not at all. I think as Simon Birmingham has rightly pointed out this NATO summit being held in Washington, it's all the members of NATO and four Indo-Pacific countries invited as well; Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan. It is an opportunity to engage with a whole range of democratic nations, the like-minded nations with which we have much in common, shared democratic values. And of course it would be a very time efficient way for the Prime Minister to engage with a whole range of counterparts. As Simon Birmingham's rightly said, national security is the highest responsibility of the Prime Minister.

Kieran Gilbert: Should the Coalition then reign in the criticism of when the Prime Minister does travel?

Paul Fletcher:  Well, I think the point we're making is that this would be in fact an efficient way for the Prime Minister to use his time. We've seen a lot of very inefficient use of his time. We've seen some very enthusiastic use of the RAAF jets to get around the world and do a lot of travelling. But as Simon Birmingham has said-

Kieran Gilbert: Would you say this year he’s only been to PNG?

Paul Fletcher: As Simon Birmingham has said that national security is an important priority for the Prime Minister, and for any Prime Minister and this would have been-

Kieran Gilbert: There hasn’t been a lot of travel this year though?

Paul Fletcher: Yeah, but this would have been an efficient way to use his time. So we do think this raises some significant issues.

Kieran Gilbert: Do you recognise though, if you look at this year he's been to PNG and that's it. He was still copping flack for travelling too much.

Paul Fletcher: We've seen very enthusiastic travelling all around the world by this Prime Minister in his two and a bit years in government.

Kieran Gilbert: Ok well yeah, we will move on because we've got to talk about Senator Payman and the way the Prime Minister's managed this. He's been backed unanimously by his party room on this. Does the Coalition need to tread carefully on these issues given how serious that social cohesion question is more broadly?

Paul Fletcher: The social cohesion question is very, very important. And what we need to see is clear leadership from the Prime Minister about the importance of social cohesion and being clear in identifying antisemitism, of which we are seeing a disturbing rise. But instead, we've seen weakness from the Prime Minister on that broader question. And we've also seen weakness from the Prime Minister in the way that he's dealt with the question of Senator Payman, who crossed the floor.

Kieran Gilbert: She's been suspended.

Paul Fletcher: It took quite a long time to get there. And we've seen a number of different positions being taken by the Prime Minister before he finally got to that position. And it would appear, that in part reflected internal disquiet within the caucus that the Prime Minister was not enforcing what in fact, has been a rule that's applied for more than 100 years in the Labor Party.

The Labor Party is very different to the Coalition. In the Coalition, we respect the right of people on the grounds of conscience to vote against the Party's position. We don't encourage it, but we permit it. We do not have a rule that people are automatically expelled. But Labor has had that rule.

Kieran Gilbert: So you asked him, should she be expelled yesterday? Do you think he should do that?

Paul Fletcher: What we need to see is a clear, strong, consistent position from the Prime Minister on this issue, as on all of the issues he's handling. But we've seen a lack of clarity, a lack of strength, a lack of consistency from the Prime Minister when it comes to the question of responding to the prevalence of antisemitism that we are seeing. And it's hard to avoid the conclusion that that lack of consistency has also been reflected-

Kieran Gilbert: But he suspended her indefinitely?

Paul Fletcher: He has now. He has now. It took some time.

Kieran Gilbert: And you want to be careful don’t you, not to alienate a young female senator as well in the middle of this.

Paul Fletcher: Look, I'm not going to be giving the Prime Minister advice on how to handle caucus. That is a matter within the Labor Party. But I think there'll be a lot of Australians looking at the way the Prime Minister has been quite weak on the question of antisemitism, and on the question of social cohesion.

And we know that a lot of this is driven by political considerations and the pressure that the Labor Party is under from the Greens. I mean, we've seen some strong anti- Greens language from the Prime Minister, but he seems to be still very happy to take their preferences.

So if the Prime Minister was serious about his position, he'd make it clear that Labor is not going to accept Greens preferences.

Kieran Gilbert: Paul Fletcher, thanks for your time as always. 

Paul Fletcher: Appreciate it.