Transcript - Interview with Andrew Clennell, Sunday Agenda, Sky News

The Hon Alex Hawke MP

Shadow Minister for Industry and Innovation

Manager of Opposition Business in the House 

Topics: Anika Wells charging taxpayers for travel, accommodation and expensive Parisian food, the Prime Minister’s decision to authorise Anika Wells’ overseas odyssey's, under 16 social media ban, the government assisting in the return of ISIS Brides, gas policy, e-bike regulation, immigration, Liberal Party. 

ANDREW CLENELL, HOST:
Joining me now is the Shadow Industry Minister and Manager of Opposition Business, Alex Hawke. Alex Hawke, thank you for your time. I'm going to start with this Annika Wells expenses matter, which I'm sure you heard through that interview. What do you make of her spending and her suggestions that she's met the guidelines on every occasion?

ALEX HAWKE
Well it simply doesn't stack up, Andrew, and I think you asked the right questions. And the Minister's defences don't seem to stack up either. If the Minister is eating a muesli bar and falling asleep in Paris, then why is the taxpayer being charged for expensive dinners and expensive food and expensive travel if she's not partaking of them? So if her defence is, well, I was working really hard and I didn't eat much and I wasn't really paying attention or asleep at the table, then we could presumably recoup some of that money. I mean, when you look at the expenses of Annika Wells, whether it's New York, whether it's Paris, whether it's Thredbo, these are expenses that would make the royals blush. And yet she looks down the camera and says, oh well, it's all within the guidelines. Now I think Australians aren't going to buy that. I think these are very expensive trips for a relatively junior Minister. And she hasn't justified why the expenses were so high, unbelievably high, expenses that would make the royals blush on some of these trips.

HOST
Does she have a right to take her family for a skiing holiday in Thredbo on the taxpayer if she works so hard and she's got to be there anyway? And she says that's within the rules? Does she have a right or should she pay the money back? What's your position on that?

ALEX HAWKE
Well, Andrew, the election was in May. She was appointed as a new minister in May. Most Australians and their families cannot afford a holiday in Thredbo at the moment. They're struggling to even get the groceries that they want and pay their mortgages. They have to defer their family holidays. You can't tell me the Minister's been working so hard since May that she needs holidays after she's been to Paris three times and New York. I mean, I think this is inexplicable. When you think this is, as she says, a world-leading social media ban, she really has to be at her desk. I don't believe she's across the details of her ban or how it will operate. And yet she's saying, well, I'm charging the taxpayers for holidays. Most people who work in small business and medium business in Australia can't afford a holiday and can't take time off their business because they're working so hard. So I'm not sure that'll pass the pub test, all these holidays and trips, straight after an election when she's got a new job. When you get a new job, you're supposed to work 10 times as hard at that job, not rack up all these expenses.

HOST
It's fair to say, isn't it, though, that many politicians go to fundraisers or events that are personal and add official duties to it to ensure they get the trip paid for, as she may have done. She doesn't deny she did in Adelaide. That's common practice for you guys.

ALEX HAWKE

No, it isn't. The Adelaide trip is something that she'll have to explain. I don't know the circumstances of her friend or her friend's birthday. I don't understand that trip. But what we can see is a Minister who hasn't been given the guardrails that Ministers should be given by the Prime Minister and his office to limit expenses and have expenses inside the expectation of the Australian people. Now, the truth is, Andrew, and you know this truth, ministers don't approve their own travel to go overseas. They're approved directly by the Prime minister and his office. So they must have known the expenses. They must know this Minister is racking up a lot of expenses. It's for the Prime Minister to justify why Annika Wells is flying around the world and spending a lot of money outside of the expectations of ordinary Australians. I think people will look at this and see it's not usual. It's a lot of money. And these expenses, they don't really stack up when you look through them pretty close.

HOST
All right. Yeah. Five days in Paris, $6,000 authorised for meals, from what you're telling me by the prime minister's office, $10,000 authorised for ground transport. Now, you've been a Minister who's travelled overseas, I'm sure, as immigration Minister. Do you have a view on those sorts of costs?

ALEX HAWKE

They're very high, even for work and standard business arrangements. All of these expenses are very high, in the very high to extremely high category. We are currently in a very difficult economic time for most Australians, households, businesses, families. So you'd think the Prime Minister, who we've been told at two elections, grew up in housing commission, understands the value of a dollar, would say to his Ministers, at the moment especially, you must be seriously conscious of your spending and the limits that you put on your spending on the taxpayer. In fact, when we look at it, it looks like the culture in the government is, well, go for your life, we won the election, you can spend what you like as a Minister, you can travel where you like, you can do what you like, because the taxpayer is footing the bill. Now, that's where Australians, I think, are going to step in and say to the government, well, you need to stop this spending. We can't afford our bills. You can't be racking up very high to extremely high expenses.
HOST
What's your view on the social media ban and the job the government's done on it?

ALEX HAWKE

Well, the jury's well out, Andrew, and I think, I look at the government's advice, I speak to families in my electorate, I speak to people who have kids, my own kids, there hasn't been enough work done on the preparation for this launch. It's coming on December 10, we all know that. When I hear the Minister, she doesn't fill me with confidence either. You can go to the Government's own advice, for example, it's got inexplicable things like do your kids need to delete the apps that are being banned off their phones? The answer to that is no. So I worry that the government thinks governments magically ban things and they're banned, and this tends to be a Labor philosophy, bans, prohibitions, that magically they will work. It actually requires a lot of hard work, which is why Annika Wells' decision to be overseas most of the time is inexplicable when most Australian parents don't feel prepared, aren't ready, and when you look at the government's own advice, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Of course, parents should be told, well, if the apps are so bad on your kids' phones that they cannot use them, that we need a government ban, well, the easiest way would be to delete them completely, but the government advice doesn't say that.

HOST

She says you're scaremongering about the Digital IDs, the Opposition's scaremongering. You won't have to provide them. No one will have to provide them. What do you say to that?
ALEX HAWKE
Well, Andrew, why did the government accept our legitimate amendment? This was always going to be an issue with this process of banning children off these services, how it happens. And the Minister can't explain exactly how this will happen, how it will work, what practically will happen. You've got to remember, Andrew, before the last election, the government told young people and parents that YouTube would not be included in the ban. And then after the election, they said, oh, actually, YouTube would be. Now, YouTube was the biggest website in the world before the election. They knew a lot of young people are on it. They didn't do it for electoral reasons, in my opinion. They deliberately kept it from young people and parents. And now they're trying to retrofit their bans. So they're the ones that have been making mistakes and deliberate political maneuvering around this. And we've been right to point out, how will this work? How will it affect adults? How will kids get around it? I don't believe the Minister's done enough work. It's obvious she's been travelling internationally, advertising our ban before it's even started operation, before people are ready. Her job is here and she needs to be here working on it.

HOST

There's another danger for teenagers that's around and getting a lot of press at the moment. Now, I'm told, Alex Hawke, during the Cook by-election, the number one issue raised with Susan Lee and Simon Kennedy was e-bikes. What do you make of them and the danger they pose during summer? You'll have kids off the phones and on e-bikes.

ALEX HAWKE
Well, I'm not sure that will happen. The State governments, they've got all the regulatory power here, they've got the laws, they've got the licensing regimes, they've got the departments, they've got bureaucrats. It is inexplicable they haven't assessed e-bikes, which function essentially like a form of motorbike, haven't applied the same rules and regulations that they have to heavily regulated, dangerous vehicles like motorbikes. I think that's overdue. The Minns Government is playing catch-up here in New South Wales. You'd want to catch up pretty fast before too many of these bikes get on the pathways and roads because they are quite dangerous.
HOST
There's speculation the government could announce a gas reservation after Cabinet tomorrow. Would you support that? It was kind of an Opposition policy, wasn't it?

ALEX HAWKE
Well, once again, like Annika Wells saying we're scaremongering, the government said we don't need a gas reservation at the election just a few months ago, but it was Coalition policy. Australians strongly want a domestic gas reservation that works in favour of Australians. The Coalition strongly supports a domestic gas reservation. We took it to the election. It's part of our Net Zero policy to have more gas and have gas supplying power and having a reservation make sense. We'd urge the government to do it. We asked them at the election to say you should get on with it and the government said no, a gas reservation is not a good idea. So once again, they're telling the people one thing at the election, then realising the Coalition is right about that and we do need a better domestic gas reservation that operates for Australian families and businesses.
HOST
Should the government dump the energy rebates or keep them?
ALEX HAWKE
Well, I think this is a very difficult question. The Government has been pushing up the prices of power over a long time now. We've seen Chris Bowen's plans. Energy is up 30 per cent for households. It's up 40 to 70 per cent for some businesses. The number one reason the Labor Government is bailing out so many heavy industry businesses is because their power costs are doubling or tripling when they go to sign new contracts. So the question we have to ask is how long can the taxpayer pay for electricity bills when the government pressure is increasing the price of it? It's unsustainable. Labor knows it's unsustainable. Now of course we might have to agree with the government for another round of energy relief but that is not a solution to the power prices themselves going through the roof because the consumer is paying more and the government and the taxpayer, which means consumers ultimately, are paying more as well. That isn't a sustainable model.

HOST

On migration, we've seen a very heavy push in recent days from Andrew Hastie to severely curtail migration. What do you make of that?

ALEX HAWKE

Our colleagues are free to speak their minds. It is a top issue we've seen from Australians at the moment. They are concerned how Labor has lost control of the immigration system. One thing we've seen in recent days is the conversation about returning ISIS brides. People have been coming back into the country allegedly with no assistance from the federal government and the immigration Minister is missing in action. We haven't heard from the immigration Minister about this issue. The immigration minister doesn't get on television and defend the current migration program like most immigration Ministers did, like I would do when I was a Minister. He's silent on the numbers coming into the country. He's silent on whether it's an appropriate level. He's silent on the fact the Albanese Government has increased the migration program. So there are a lot of things that Tony Burke and Anthony Albanese need to get in front of the Australian people and say, this is what the level of migration is, we believe in it and you have the choice about whether you support us or not on it. But they're totally silent.
HOST

Shouldn't you come up with a number? You're going to come up with principles. When are you going to give us a number so we can see the difference?
ALEX HAWKE
We might.

HOST

You might? By the end of the year?
ALEX HAWKE
Well, our policy is well in development and we might come up with a number. The problem is now at the moment, without the Government coming out and saying, here's our plan for migration, they are hiding from their own migration plan, Andrew. We will have strong principles about reducing migration. And that's appropriate in this kind of environment.
HOST
And perhaps a number this year?
ALEX HAWKE
That's up to our policy team.

HOST

Would you have that on net migration and permanent? Or would you have it on net or permanent or both, do you think?

ALEX HAWKE

Well, you've got options on both. I mean, the government does have levers to pull to reduce the overall profile of people coming into the country in many different areas, as you know, and that's what's being considered. Paul Scarr, Jonno Duniam they're working up our policy principles. The principles are right to be announced now, but of course, without the government even being able to defend its own migration program and its loss of control of the borders, and the fact that they are facilitating the return of ISIS brides with no information for the public about where they are, where these ISIS brides are being housed, whether they will be charged with any crimes. There is literally no information from the Albanese Government about immigration or what is happening with the migration program.

HOST

Alex Hawke, didn't your government bring back ISIS brides and children? I'm not saying you mightn't have a point with some of the answers that are being given on it, but didn't your government do the same thing? If they're Australian citizens, what are your options?

ALEX HAWKE

Well, we do have options, and this is a very complex area, there's no doubt about it, but you have to take a fundamental position about what people have done overseas, what happens when they return, and we can't get any information from the Prime Minister or Tony Burke about what is happening with people that may have committed crimes against humanity, serious crimes against Australian law. There are simply no answers. Now, certainly in the past, there have been a return of people. Now, some of those people, I have to say from my recollection, were orphaned children, orphaned Australian children, that is, without parents. Some of those intakes, there were particular issues about the fact that there were young children who were orphaned who belonged to different countries and they had to be returned to their home countries. This is very different. This is now returning people who are maybe complicit and they may have charges to face, but we still don't know. Will the people who've come back into the country, seemingly without the government's knowledge, according to Anthony Albanese and Tony Burke, be charged, or will they face a judicial process, given the fact that it was illegal to go, that crimes against humanity occurred, that many times they were willing participants in those very horrible crimes?
HOST
Very brief answer here, Alex Hawke. You're known as the numbers man for Susan Lee. Do you think she'll survive to the election?

ALEX HAWKE
Yes, I do, absolutely, and I think the media has been, well, very interested in covering it all year round. I think there's a difference in what happens. Opposition is difficult. We have, obviously, a difficult election loss this year. There's a lot of internal things to get through. We're getting through them, but I think Susan's doing an excellent job.

HOST

Alex, got to go. Thanks a lot.

ENDS