2UE Sydney, Gambling Reform

Transcript— 9:15 pm, Monday, 30 January 2012 — 2UE Sydney Evenings

E&OE

Mike Jeffreys

Good Evening Sir, thanks for your time.

Kevin Andrews

Good Evening.

Mike Jeffreys

Thanks for coming on the program.

Kevin Andrews

Pleasure.

Mike Jeffreys

So to summarise and obviously I want you to give me some more details, it looks from the way this story, that Wilkie has been left in the dark, deliberately by the Government – in particular Jenny Macklin in this case.  For eight months they have been stringing him along. You have now come out and asked that all detail be revealed. Does that about summarise it?

Kevin Andrews

According to a spokesperson for the Government, in April of last year, the Government received technical advice that said that Wilkie’s proposal could not be achieved. It couldn’t be achieved in the timeline. And yet for eight months after April of last year, Julia Gillard and her Minister Jenny Macklin were continuing to assure Wilkie and therefore the general public in Australia that they were able to sign up to his pre-commitment proposal in relation to poker machines. Now if this report is right and I can only go on what the spokesman for the Government has said, that in April they have received advice that this wasn’t possible.

Mike Jeffreys

When did you find out about this?

Kevin Andrews

I only found out by reading the press reports over the weekend.

Mike Jeffreys

Right, okay. So this is the first that you’ve heard of it.

Kevin Andrews

This is the first that I have heard of it. And if it is true, then there wasn’t just the deception of Andrew Wilkie in saying a few weeks ago that we’re not going to sign up to your proposal, in fact this is a deception that has been going on for the best part of a year.

Mike Jeffreys

You know, I was a bit surprised that Wilkie’s reaction when it became pretty obvious that the Prime Minister was going to renege on the deal that they had because I, you know, what do I know, I believed all along that Wilkie was perfectly prepared to do the Samson thing here. If he didn’t get what he was promised, he would pulled the columns down and bring the Temple with him. Since then he seems to me have been a bit wishy-washy – a bit less than committed. How do you see it?

Kevin Andrews

Well I think Andrew Wilkie believed all along and why shouldn’t he, because he had the Prime Minister herself saying that we are going to commit ourselves to your arrangement. All along believing that this was the case. You know, what is so perturbing about this is that it now seems that for probably most of last year, she knew that she couldn’t commit to him, yet she was still maintaining, I presume to him privately – at least publicly,  that she was going to commit to this. So, you know, Andrew Wilkie is now I think in a difficult position, because and I think he is realising this, that he has effectively been duped by the Government.

Mike Jeffreys

I don’t doubt that. I just thought he would have been a bit quicker off the mark to say, ‘you’ve been stringing me along, I’ve said that I’m not going to support you if you don’t meet what we agreed. And so that’s now off.’  But he hasn’t actually said that. He has been kind of compromising a little. Has he not?

Kevin Andrews

He has sort of half said that. The test for the Government and the test for Andrew Wilkie will be when we go back to Parliament. And if there is a motion which puts all this on the table, then he is going to have a ride in front of him. Will he actually stand up for what he said and that is that all bets are off or will he compromise on that?  Now, I can’t second guess Andrew Wilkie. It is up to him. I think that he is a man of firm beliefs. I think that he is a man of integrity, but all of that will be seen in the future.

Mike Jeffreys

Okay, so the timing now seems interesting in as much as you are pursuing it. Although you only just found out about it today. And you would be, I presume pursuing it for the obvious reasons that here is an opportunity to show that once again the Government and the Prime Minister in particular has made a promise that she has no intention of keeping. But it does, and this has been suggested to me already before I came on the program, tie in nicely with the debacle over the so called ‘Tent Embassy’ and the recent comments from Mr Wilkie saying that, well implying that, this is the inference that I drew, that he might support a no-confidence motion. So in other words is this an opportunity for the Opposition to get Wilkie on-side.

Kevin Andrews

Look, our attitude towards all these events is that we have to present what our view of every issue is. We’ll do that, I think, and we have been, in a frank and direct manner with the Australian public. We are in an interesting Parliament.  Each of the independents has an opportunity to choose for themselves. But as we have done for the past year and will do in the coming year for whatever time it takes to go to the next election, we will present the stark alternative of what the Australian people face. And then it is up to each of the Independents to make a decision about whether they agree with us or whether they continue to support the Government.

Mike Jeffreys

Okay, so when it comes to the stark alternative, what’s your alternative when it comes to poker machine reform.

Kevin Andrews

We have been quite frank about this and this is where we have obviously had some disagreement with Mr Wilkie. We just don’t think that mandatory pre-commitment will work. And that’s for a number of good reasons.

Mike Jeffreys

So you are not going to shift on that just to accommodate Wilkie, no matter how tempting that may be?

Kevin Andrews

No, we won’t.  Because our view is that we’re about good policy.  The problem with this Government is that they signed a deal with Andrew Wilkie based on, frankly based on politics. That is they, well not they – Julia Gillard, used Andrew Wilkie’s vote to remain Prime Minister. She did that by signing up to an agreement about mandatory pre-commitment which there had been no discussion or really discernment about whether this would work or not. We’ve spent a lot of time working on this and our view is that mandatory pre-commitment won’t work for a couple of reasons. One is that the person, the gambler, the punter can set their own limits and if they find that that limit is not high enough then they can come back a day or two later and set another limit. So we just don’t believe that it will work. We don’t also think that there is any silver bullet to gambling problems. We need a variety of approaches to it and they must start with the sort of approaches that we have to most addictions in society and that is with counselling with psychological help and assistance.

Mike Jeffreys

So to summarise the position, certainly as you see it with this recent information that has been made available here: The Government, in particular Ms Macklin under the auspices of the Prime Minister, have been springing Wilkie along.  But now that they have done the Slipper deal, well they don’t need Wilkie so much, so the Prime has come out and said well we are going to do the test in the ACT, which is curious for a whole load of reasons in itself. But we don’t think that this would ever get past the Parliament and for technical reasons it won’t work.

Kevin Andrews

That’s true and they had that advice about the technical reasons in April of last year. And yet it took them until January of this year to tell Mr Wilkie that they weren’t going to follow the agreement that they had with him. So Julia Gillard has torn up a written agreement with Andrew Wilkie which on the evidence we have to date, she knew from at least April of last year wasn’t feasible.

Mike Jeffreys

So you’ve had recent discussions with Mr Wilkie about this?

Kevin Andrews

No, I haven’t spoken with Mr Wilkie about this. He came out today and said that the Government was misleading about his position. That he hadn’t been given this information.  I think that all goes to show that there is a great deception going on so far as Mr Wilkie is concerned and the Australian public.

Mike Jeffreys

So is it likely that you will pursue the idea of moving a no-confidence movement in the Government over what happened at the Tent Embassy and you will continue to pursue that. Will there be discussions with Mr Wilkie on that score also involving what you and I are discussing now?

Kevin Andrews

Look there will be ongoing discussions with Andrew, about all of these issues because he is an Independent Member of Parliament.  We’ve had ongoing discussions with Andrew.  Tony Abbott has met with him on a regular basis and will continue to do so.

Mike Jeffreys

Mr Andrews I appreciate you coming on the program this evening. Thank you very much.

Kevin Andrews

Pleasure Mike.

[ends]