Interview with Natalie Barr, Sunrise
30 October 2024
NATALIE BARR: Welcome back to Sunrise. The Opposition Leader is calling on the Prime Minister to refer himself to the National Anti-Corruption watchdog slamming his integrity and his credibility. Anthony Albanese has not ruled out whether he personally asked former Qantas boss Alan Joyce for some of the 22 free flight upgrades he received, and now some of his Labor colleagues are reportedly frustrated that his personal decisions are distracting from the Government's messaging on cost of living for their take. Let's bring in Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume and Housing Minister Clare O'Neil. Morning to both of you. Clare, the front page of The Nightly calls this the gift of the grab. Do you think this passes the pub test?
CLARE O'NEIL: Well, look, Nat, we've got really clear rules about what we need to do in circumstances where an upgrade is received and the Prime Minister has diligently and fastidiously followed all of those rules, he's actually incredibly transparent in his personal affairs, which sets him apart from a lot of the ways that other politicians manage things. I would say that what is, I actually think this, this whole matter, is a really significant beat up. We've got the Prime Minister here being criticised for behavior that is really common across the Parliament. We know that Peter Dutton has accepted lots of free upgrades, including free flights that he's taken gifted to him by Gina Rinehart. Like, let's just all be honest here and hold each other to the same standards. We know, actually, you know, part of our work as parliamentarians.
NATALIE BARR: You’re absolutely right, they all get free upgrades. They're all offered it. I think the key is here, was he on the phone to the head of Qantas asking for them? And I don't know whether he's ruled that out.
CLARE O'NEIL: Nat, he gave a really comprehensive press conference yesterday while the Prime Minister talked through, you know, his response to those allegations and I think he made the really pressing point here, which is that if people have got an allegation to make about that, then I'd really invite them to come forward,
NATALIE BARR (INTERRUPTS): I think they are aren’t they? He’s being asked it everyday.
CLARE O’NEIL: It will be interesting to hear what people say about that. You can’t just walk into politics and start making sledges, generalised sledges about people, without backing them up with some facts. So if people have got some instances that they're concerned about, I'd invite them to bring them forward.
NATALIE BARR: I think that's a pretty specific question. Did the Prime Minister pick the phone up and say, Alan, can I have an upgrade? And then the Qantas main opposition was barred from this country. It's pretty specific.
CLARE O'NEIL: Well, Nat, I don't agree with your characterisation on a couple of points there.
NATALIE BARR: It’s just a question, not a characterisation.
CLARE O’NEIL: Firstly, the Government has been really tough on Qantas and sided with Qantas workers, in particular, in a number of critical disputes, whereas the opposition has taken a different point of view. But I just reiterate to you again, the Prime Minister went through this in some detail at a press conference yesterday, and he said what I'm saying to you now, which is that if people have got allegations to make about this, we would invite them to make those allegations. But he has otherwise accounted for himself properly. He's made all the appropriate declarations and I have to say we've got a lot of really big issues facing us in this country. We've now been talking about this for three days, and I think it's time to move on.
NATALIE BARR: Okay, you're right, Jane, do you guys have to be careful here? Because Peter Dutton has been flying around in a billionaire's jet, which I don't know whether he's declared. Also, he's got a family trust, according to the Prime Minister, where he's hiding investments. Is that a problem?
JANE HUME: You can see what Anthony Albanese is doing here. He's trying to conflate issues. One is about declaring a gift, and certainly he says that he's done that, as has Peter Dutton. However, the issue here is not about declaring the gift. It's about soliciting a gift, not just soliciting a gift, but then breaching a Ministerial code of conduct, which you are subject to, which clearly Anthony Albanese has done when he was Infrastructure Minister in the previous government. He went out and sought an upgrade, or whatever it might have been, from Qantas while he was the responsible Minister, that is a clear breach of a Ministerial code of conduct, similar to the one that he is enforcing on his own Ministers, quite frankly, Clare, if this had been you, Anthony Albanese would have kicked you out on your ass, within a moment to get rid of this distraction. But because it's him, he hasn't done that. He can't do that. He won't do that. Yesterday's press conference, he was dancing around this issue because he knows that there has been a clear breach of his own Ministerial code of conduct.
NATALIE BARR: We’ve got other important issues to talk about as Clare said. Seven West Media Editor in Chief, Anthony De Ceglie, has called on the federal government to scrap the broadcast license fee for commercial stations. Take a listen.
(excerpt)
The government acts like newsrooms are still bathing in the rivers of profits. I asked the Albanese Government, how many jobs do they think that is? How many TV newsroom shifts will disappear so that we can pay it?
(excerpt ends)
NATALIE BARR: Clare, is it fair that the big networks pay this massive multi, multi million dollar fee that was designed 60 years ago, and the social media companies pay nothing and deliver news?
CLARE O'NEIL: Well, Nat, just at a higher level, I think there's some really broad agreement here that you know what's going on in news at the moment is creating real issues, not just for you guys in your newsroom and for the organisations that run news, but for us as Australians. We need thriving newsrooms, and so that's something that's very important to me and important to our government. Nat, you'll know that we've got a news media bargaining code that is attempting to redress some of the issues between the way that big tech provides what they call news, we may not quite agree, and the circumstances that are faced by media giants in our country and I think we need to continue to work those through and the Communications Minister is looking at these matters at the moment. In terms of the direct question, we may have a difference of opinion, but I think at a broad level, there's a real concern. Real concern about the profitability of news, that's got to be profitable, because we need more of it and more good quality news.
NATALIE BARR: So would you consider dropping that fee?
CLARE O'NEIL: Look, that's not what the Communications Minister is looking at the moment. She's looking at trying to manage some of the financial issues being faced by media companies through their bargaining code. So it's somewhere a little bit different.
NATALIE BARR (INTERRUPTS): Could she consider it though?
CLARE O’NEIL: Well, that will be a question for the Communications Minister. What I do want you to understand is that good news is really important for our country, and our government is taking steps to ensure that it's more sustainable.
NATALIE BARR: Jane, should that $45 million that the networks have been paying for many years, should that be dropped now that others are coming in, supplying news and not paying anything?
JANE HUME: I think your new CEO made a really good point here. The growth of the social media companies is a problem, and the information that they're disseminating is of questionable quality, and that's been clear from academics to security agencies have been telling us that. The reason why we set up the media bargaining code was to make sure that credible news agencies were appropriately compensated for the work that they do and the way that that information was disseminated. That's been flouted by Meta in particular, and the government's done very little about that. I remember when Josh Frydenberg was on the phone to Mark Zuckerberg on a daily basis to make sure that this strength was set up and that’s gone.
NATALIE BARR: So would you guys consider dropping the fee?
JANE HUME: Well, we've already said that we will drop the commercial broadcasting tax, that that will be part of our gambling reforms.
NATALIE BARR: Okay, thank you very much. See you next week, both of you.