5 July 2016
E&EO.
NICK McCALLUM:
Senator, thank you for your time.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Good to be with you Nick.
NICK McCALLUM:
Ok. So first of all, let’s get a reaction to what Bill Shorten said today. He basically said that Mr Turnbull is angling for another election.
MITCH FIFIELD:
This is just bizarre. I think Bill Shorten has white line fever and he should take half a day off, relax and settle down. We’ve just had an election. The Australian people have spoken and the onus is on us to make the Parliament that they have chosen work. And that is what Malcolm Turnbull is setting about to do. We are confident, cautiously, that we will be in a position to form a government so that we can get on and transact the people’s business.
NICK McCALLUM:
Obviously, you and your fellow MPs are a lot more across what’s happening with the counting and your scrutineers. Have you got any further developments this afternoon as to how much closer you are to forming a majority government?
MITCH FIFIELD:
In terms of numbers, we’re probably in the low 70’s. And in terms of seats, we want to be in a position in the mid 70’s. 76 would give us majority government. We probably won’t know until the end of this week where the final numbers will finally fall. But we think we are in a good position to form government to give people the confidence that there is a team that has a course that we are determined to follow in their interests. That’s our absolute focus.
NICK McCALLUM:
Senator, it appears the Liberals are already divided and they are tearing each other apart behind the scenes about this result.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Nick, I don’t think that is right. The Cabinet is absolutely united around Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister. My Party Room colleagues, and I’ve spoken to a lot of them over the last few days, want nothing more than for us to form government and for Malcolm Turnbull to continue as Prime Minister.
NICK McCALLUM:
But you know more than anyone, in politics there are always repercussions, there are always recriminations. Cory Bernardi, he’s gone on holidays now, but he was whacking a lot of people yesterday.
MITCH FIFIELD:
It’s entirely understandable after an election, where we haven’t won as many seats as we had hoped, for people to ask questions about that. What we need to focus on is to form a government. As Malcolm Turnbull indicated today, there are always lessons to be learnt from the election. We want to make sure that we learn those lessons. The public always have messages that they are sending to their elective representatives and we want to make sure we understand those. And over the longer term, of course as a party, we will look at the campaign itself. Whether a major party wins, loses or draws an election, they always have a look at the campaign they ran.
NICK McCALLUM:
So the whole excuse for doing this election was to get the Australian Building and Construction Committee legislation through in a joint sitting. You are not going to be able to do that now are you?
MITCH FIFIELD:
We needed to have an election by the end of the year, absolutely. But what we did in terms of calling a double dissolution election was to avail ourselves of a provision in the Constitution to resolve deadlocks between the House and the Senate. You have a double dissolution in order to give yourself the option of having a joint sitting of both houses. Now, we don’t yet know what the final configuration of both houses will be. But we are very determined to talk to our colleagues in the Parliament to seek to secure the passage of the ABCC legislation and also the passage of the Registered Organisations legislation.
NICK McCALLUM:
Your Ministerial colleague Josh Frydenberg admitted last night on Q&A that it was unlikely that the legislation would get through.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Maybe it’s because I’m Manager of Government Business in the Senate Nick that I am by nature a legislative optimist. I think we are really duty bound to seek to convince our new colleagues of the merits of our ABCC legislation and the Registered Organisations legislation.
NICK McCALLUM:
Do you now regret the changes in the Senate law because it was intended to effectively to make it harder for independents to get in, and butter on both sides, you’ve certainly got more independents. And they are going to be a damn sight harder to control than the previous Parliament.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Well, the purpose of our changes to the voting system for the Senate was to make sure when someone walks into the polling booth and they cast their ballot, that their vote is actually given effect to in a way they intended. That you don’t find yourself in a situation where a vote for a party with a particular set of beliefs, and as a result of complex preference arrangements between parties which no one really knows …
NICK McCALLUM:
Senator, I understand all of that but the intention from a purely political point of view was to make it harder for independents and it’s backfired.
MITCH FIFIELD:
The intention was not to make it harder for independents. The intention was to ensure that if someone casts a ballot, that there was a genuine representation of their ballot, in terms of who was elected. And that’s why someone like Nick Xenophon was very supportive of these changes. Nick Xenophon, as we know in previously elections, came very close to two quotas in his own right. He’ll be elected into the Senate, probably, with another two colleagues. We wanted to make sure that those who were elected were genuinely a product of the vote that the elector cast.
NICK McCALLUM:
Finally, Sir are you alarmed by the rise of Pauline Hanson?
MITCH FIFIELD:
Obviously there are a range of issues where I disagree, and where my colleagues disagree, with Pauline Hanson. But it does have to acknowledged that she has been elected fair and square. And what those of us in the Parliament and, hopefully, in government need to do is to respect what the Australian people have expressed through the ballot box and work with all members of Parliament.
NICK McCALLUM:
Senator Mitch Fifield, thanks indeed for your time.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Terrific, thanks Nick.
[end]