Interview with Shadow Housing Minister, Scott Morrison

Sky News Sunday Agenda program, 22nd November 2009

Helen Dalley: All the signs are that the opposition and the government are close to a
deal on emissions trading. Trouble is, the closer the deal becomes, the more some in
the Coalition are trying to move away from it. So what exactly is going on? Is
agreement really possible? Here to talk about that and other things as well is Liberal
frontbencher, Scott Morrison.
Scott Morrison, thanks for joining us.

Scott Morrison: Good morning, Helen. Thank you.

Helen Dalley: Now can you explain to an ordinary person what is going on with the
Coalition, inside the Coalition at the moment? Because your leader on emissions
trading has committed you to negotiate with the government over your amendments, but
then you have a number of MPs including prominent frontbenchers like Nick Minchin,
and other Liberals and Nationals, who are actively working against a deal being done,
and actively working against the leader. So many in the party are working against the
party and the leader.

Scott Morrison: Well I think there’s been a lot of I think over-dramatisation of what’s
happening in the Liberal Party at the moment. There’s been a number of people have
made a number of statements. I don’t think there’s any new spokespeople on this issue
for some time. And there’s a healthy debate going on inside the Coalition, and
particularly within the Liberal Party. We’ve got a party room meeting next week. There’s
a deal that’s looking to be secured to protect jobs. That’s what it’s about. It’s about jobs,
about security of energies going forward. It’s about agriculture, it’s about our emissions
intensive trade exposed industries. That’s the debate. That’s the debate you’d hope
would go on in a political party. We’ll come to a view early next week and then there’ll
be a vote in the Senate and then the House.

Helen Dalley: But what can voters possibly be making of this? Surely they may be
forgiven for thinking this is more than just vigorous debate. This is almost open defiance
of the leader, and really a deeply divided party over the issue.

Scott Morrison: In the House of Representatives last week, we actually voted against
that bill for the second time. And we voted against that bill because the bill in its current
form is a dog of a bill. It’s a bill that’ll export jobs and do nothing about emissions in the
longer term. And in the Senate, that same bill, unamended, is currently before the
Senate, and we’ve had senators speaking against that bill. What we’re waiting for is a
deal.

Helen Dalley: But you’ve also got your leader saying that we’re doing a negotiation in
good faith with the government, and you’ve got some senior people behind him saying,
well we don’t care about that.

Scott Morrison: Well I think what we’ve seen with Malcolm is, Malcolm is taking a very
strong position on this. He has from the outset. Malcolm’s had a very consistent
position on this and Malcolm is trying to take us to a place where we’re in a position to
support this legislation, but only on the basis of a good deal. I mean the party room and

Sunday Agenda 22nd November 2009 Scott Morrison

particularly Malcolm isn’t going to accept a bad deal. I mean if Malcolm and Ian in
particular think this is a bad deal, then I’m sure they’ll say so. But their efforts are being
constructive. They’re the ones being constructive, looking to get to a position where you
know we take the party where we accept the community generally needs and expects
there to be some action on climate change. And that’s what Malcolm’s been doing.

Helen Dalley: It’s interesting you say that there are no new spokespeople in a sense on
your side on the issue, but really I mean you’ve now got Tony Abbott coming out and
virtually changing his position, your own leader said this week that he’s changed his
position. And he’s virtually making his own ultimatums now, and they’re different to
Malcolm Turnbull’s.

Scott Morrison: Well again, I think that overstates Tony’s position. I mean, Tony has
had a few positions on this, but ultimately I mean Tony made it very clear yesterday, as
did Nick, that this is a fairly normal process for the Coalition. We will have our
processes. Shadow ministry will meet, the party room will meet, as we did on industrial
relations, as we did on the stimulus package, a whole range of very difficult bills. The
party room forms a view ultimately, the shadow cabinet makes a recommendation, and
then we proceed accordingly. Now Tony and Nick have always supported those
processes and they’re saying yesterday and today they continue to support those
processes.

Helen Dalley: But in fact they’ve been saying, or Nick Minchin has been saying that
even if a deal gets done, we’re not going to vote for it.

Scott Morrison: No, Nick hasn’t said that at all. Nick said in the Senate that the bill as
currently presented to the Senate, which is without amendments, he wouldn’t support.
That’s what Malcolm and I voted for in the lower house. We voted against it because it
was unamended. Now that’s all that Nick has said. And so Nick has also said that he’ll
be supporting what comes out of the party room. So you know that’s my position as
well, that’s Malcolm’s position as well.

Helen Dalley: Alright, but Tony Abbott does seem to be having a little bit of a divergence
from that in that he’s saying, well we should only support it if it’s all our amendments,
rather than you said before that if it’s a good deal.

Scott Morrison: I watched Tony’s interview carefully on Lateline the other night, and
Tony actually didn’t say that either. Tony will be waiting to see what comes back, as we
all will, as Malcolm will, as Ian MacFarlane will. We’ll see what comes back. That will be
put to the shadow ministry, that will be put to the party room, a decision will be taken,
and I think what we’ll see this week is there’s been a lot of hysteria over the last few
weeks, a lot of commentary about that sort of hysteria, and I think this will all calm down.
There’ll be a sensible debate. There’ll be a decision and we’ll go forward.

Helen Dalley: So what, do you think this is sort of the big tough talking before the prize
fight?

Scott Morrison: It may well be!

Helen Dalley: And then someone comes out and slugs somebody else?

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Scott Morrison: No, I think what will happen is that we’ll have our considered debate in
the party room, there’ll be considered debate in the shadow ministry, decisions will be
taken, as we’ve taken decisions all throughout the course of the year. We’ve had a lot of
difficult issues to deal with throughout the course of this year. And we go back to the
wheat bill where the Nationals took a different view on the wheat bill. We’ve had issues
on the stimulus, where we made a strong decision . . .

Helen Dalley: . . . Well I come back to my point. What would a normal voter think of
this? You say this is just normal debate within the party. It probably would’ve shocked a
lot of voters to see the vehemence with which this one is being debated.

Scott Morrison: Well I think one thing they’ll take out is that Malcolm Turnbull isn’t
someone who just sort of rolls over lightly. I think they’ll see that Malcolm Turnbull is
someone who takes a consistent position and stands for it. I think we’ll see Malcolm
Turnbull is someone who’s prepared to take tough decisions, and I think that’s a good
thing.

Helen Dalley: Let’s talk about what now comes. Do you think a deal will be done with
the government, and will it get support from your side?

Scott Morrison: Well, that is anybody’s guess at the moment. I think a lot of the focus
today has to be on what the government is going to do, because whether this gets
through next week or not will depend on whether the government is actually prepared to
put forward a serious proposition. If they’re not, if they’re going to sort of take advantage
of this situation, and one of the things that’s disappointed me in the past few weeks is for
a government that apparently is interested in getting a deal, they’ve spent a lot of time
playing politics, talking up things within the opposition, rather than focussing on putting
their best foot forward in these negotiations. And I don’t think that reflects well on the
prime minister. I think Penny Wong by contrast hasn’t engaged in as much of that anti-
opposition rhetoric. I think she’s endeavoured to stay on track with the good faith
negotiations. But day after day we have people coming into the parliament, berating the
opposition, talking up issues in the opposition, and how they think that’s conducive to a
deal . . .

Helen Dalley: . . . But you’ve been berating each other, so how can somebody else not
point to that?

Scott Morrison: No, I don’t think so, I mean we haven’t been pursuing the government in
terms of questions and question time on the ETS. We’ve been actually letting those
discussions and negotiations take place in good faith. But the government, from the
prime minister through to the treasurer, through to Greg Combet, has attacked and
berated us every single day. I don’t think that’s good faith. I think they’re playing some
pretty trigger happy politics with this issue. And I don’t think it helps get to an outcome
which I think the majority of Australians want. And that’s what Malcolm’s trying to
achieve. That’s what we’re trying to achieve.

Helen Dalley: If they come to a deal and Malcolm Turnbull recommends it and has the
numbers to get that through your side of politics, what if then more than perhaps a dozen
senators cross the floor against this? That wouldn’t be a good look for the Coalition and
it would be a severe threat to Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, wouldn’t it?

Sunday Agenda 22nd November 2009 Scott Morrison

Scott Morrison: Well I don’t think we should get ahead of ourselves on this. I think that’s
one important thing. We’ll see you know what flavour the discussions take , and what
decision is taken. But at the end of the day, I mean if individuals take those choices,
that’s really up to them. And you know we’ve had a lot of difficult bills that have gone
through . . .

Helen Dalley: . . . So do you think that will happen?

Scott Morrison: Well I don’t know. We’ll wait and see. But one thing I’m sure won’t
happen is that at the end of the day I don’t think the party room or the leadership, and
particularly Malcolm, is going to frame a decision based on such threats. So at the end
of the day those individuals take their own decisions. This is a very normal process
we’re operating here. There’s no special arrangement, no special deal on process. It
will be a normal process, we’ll make a decision, and the normal rules will apply.

Helen Dalley: Alright. There has been speculation in the weekend media to say that
Malcolm Turnbull’s been warned to say don’t push ahead with this deal because the
disunity is not worth it.

Scott Morrison: Well if others want to talk up that as an issue, that’s for them. But there
is no special process here, and some suggestion that there might be some special
process to accommodate, I think would go against the long term interests of how we run
our party. There will be the normal processes, the normal way we make decisions, and
then we’ll come out the other side. People can make their own decisions on the other
side of that, and we’ll see what happens in the party room.

Helen Dalley: Alright, just a few quick issues around this. Why hasn’t Malcolm Turnbull
disciplined those people who’ve spoken out against your policy?

Scott Morrison: We’re not the Labor Party! We’re not the Labor Party, we don’t walk
around with big sticks and say that people you know can’t have their views . . .

Helen Dalley: . . . What, you don’t discipline people who dissent from party policy?

Scott Morrison: At the moment we’ve got a bill let’s remember in the parliament which
we all oppose. Everyone in the Liberal Party currently opposes this bill and we voted
against it twice in the House and once in the Senate. And so there is no disagreement
that this is a bad bill, and this is what people have been saying. This debate is about
Labor’s bill at the end of the day in my view, not about climate change. It’s about the
action on climate change.

Helen Dalley: Let me ask you something that has interested a lot of people. Almost two
weeks ago Nick Minchin said on the Four Corners programme that most of his Liberal
colleagues don’t believe that human activity has caused or exacerbated climate change.
Is that true?

Scott Morrison: I believe the majority of the party room has a view that we have to give
the planet the benefit of the doubt. However people want to interpret that is up to them.
But look . . .

Helen Dalley: . . . So you think he’s wrong saying that?

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Scott Morrison: What the party room thinks, we’ll find out on Tuesday on a lot of these
matters.

Helen Dalley: Do you think he’s wrong saying that on national television, that most of his
Liberal colleagues think that?

Scott Morrison: Well look, Nick has a longer experience in the party room than I do. I’m
not about to go out there and . . .

Helen Dalley: . . . But you talk to your colleagues.

Scott Morrison: But I’m not about to go out there and say what all of my colleagues
think. I think that would be presumptuous of me to do that . . .

Helen Dalley: . . . Well should he have done that? . . .

Scott Morrison: . . . as a new member of the team. But at the end of the day, you know
I’ve said what I’ve said before. And that is, I think at the end of the day the majority of
the Coalition party room want to do the right thing by jobs, they want to do the right thing
by our export industries and they want to do the right thing by the environment. And I
think that’s what’s going to guide discussions on Tuesday.

Helen Dalley: Nick Minchin also said on that programme that this issue was all pretty
much a left wing conspiracy and the quote was, an opportunity for the extreme left to de-
industrialise the world. Do you agree with that?

Scott Morrison: I think with this debate we’ve seen a large level of hysteria. Right
across the board, from both extremes. And in my own electorate I have people who
come up to me, have incredibly passionate views one way and incredibly passionate
views the other way. And so I think with these things the truth always lies somewhere in
between. And I think what people look for from politicians is really to be pragmatic and
focus on the key issues, as I said, jobs, emissions, the environment, future of our export
industries, keeping the power on.

Helen Dalley: The former senior MP, Bruce Baird, called him and others the flat earthers
in the party. Do you agree with that comment?

Scott Morrison: No and what I don’t agree with is the sort of pejorative labelling of my
colleagues by whoever may be applying those labels. They have a right to their view,
they have a right to express their view in the party room. As I said, we all currently
oppose the current bill, and I think that’s the nature of debate in the Liberal Party. We
are a Liberal Party, we’re not some sort of group of mindless robots like Labor. We
express our views, we hold strong views and we come to a pragmatic decision.

Helen Dalley: Alright. Do you think Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership can survive this?

Scott Morrison: Of course I do! I think what Malcolm has shown is strong leadership in
this. He’s not someone who rolls over, does special deals to accommodate his political
issues of the day. Whereas we’ve seen a prime minister doing the exactly opposite of
that. Malcolm’s a strong leader, he’s demonstrated, and I think that’s what the
Australian people have seen through this process.

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Helen Dalley: Scott Morrison, we’ll leave it there. Good luck this week.

Scott Morrison: Thanks, Helen, thanks very much.

Helen Dalley: Thanks for coming in.

Sunday Agenda 22nd November 2009 Scott Morrison