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

4 JULY 2024

Kieran Gilbert: Joining me is the Manager of Opposition Business, Paul Fletcher. What have you made of that protest now resolved thankfully and safely for the police too?

Paul Fletcher: Well it is extremely troubling to see protesters being able to get into Parliament House. Just watching your story about the way they got in, that's very, very troubling, but it's also very troubling that we are seeing these kind of sentiments being expressed. And the question needs to be asked is that because that's been encouraged by at least some politicians in this place?

Kieran Gilbert: What do you mean? Can you elaborate on that?

Paul Fletcher: Well, what I mean by that is that we've seen, particularly from the Greens political party, very considerable equivocation about where they stand. What their involvement has been in encouraging all kinds of protests and breakdowns of civil order.

Kieran Gilbert: And so you'd hope the Greens -they're about to hold it, I think they're holding a news conference shortly, will be asked about this. You'd hope they'd condemn this behaviour.

Paul Fletcher: You certainly would. Let's wait and see because their record on all these issues has been absolutely terrible. We also need to see strong leadership from the Prime Minister, and of course, what we need to do is find out as quickly as possible what happened. And we also need to make sure that those who did carry out this conduct are charged, this is serious stuff and the rule of law needs to prevail here.

Kieran Gilbert: Yeah, it's not just. I mean, the banners are one thing and as you and your colleagues have said they're antisemitic slogans and so on that are used,  and the suggestion that war crimes are enabled in the Australian Parliament. That's pretty, pretty low stuff. But this is also the thing here is the breach of security, which is a significant one.

Paul Fletcher: It is a very significant breach and we need to understand how it happened. But what we also need to understand is that this is reflective of some of the challenges we've seen to civil order and stability in this country since October 7. Going back to the disgraceful conduct of a number of people in the forecourt of the Opera House shortly after October 7.

We need to see very strong and clear leadership from the Prime Minister and the Government on this. The Opposition is very clear, we absolutely condemn-

Kieran Gilbert:  The Prime Minister condemned very quickly though.

Paul Fletcher: As he should have done.

Kieran Gilbert: The desecration at the Memorial and at the political offices. He has been quite swift in those condemnations where people have gone too far, and you also have a democracy where people are allowed to protest.

Paul Fletcher: Sure, lawful protest. But not desecrating war memorials and not breaching the security of Parliament House. And who's to know what their intentions might have been? What was done was bad enough, it could have been even worse. So this is a very serious incident and it needs to be properly investigated as quickly as possible.

If the security resources of Parliament House or processes need to be reinforced, then let's consider that. But certainly, we need to first find out what happened, and we need to be very clear. All political leaders need to be absolutely clear in condemning this behaviour.

Kieran Gilbert: And finally, Senator Payman looks like-  I'm going to go live to the Greens in a moment, but Senator Payman looks like there'll be some announcement today. And at this point outside of the Labor Party and looks like she'll remain there.

Paul Fletcher: Well this saga has gone on for well over a week. We've seen very unclear leadership from the Prime Minister on this.

Kieran Gilbert: He suspended it.

Paul Fletcher: Ultimately yes, he flip flopped several times before he got to that point. So this is yet another test of the leadership of a frankly pretty weak Prime Minister.

Kieran Gilbert: Paul Fletcher, thank you.