Topics: Royal Commission into the Bondi Attack, Venezuela, defence spending.

 

E&OE

 

JAMES WILLIS:

 

While pressure is mounting on the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, a group of former Labor MPs, senators and party officials have broken ranks, and they are calling for a Royal Commission into our worst ever terror attack. The list of 21 Labor figures includes former MPs, senators, union bosses and party officials. They've written an open letter to the PM, the latest of a long line of open letters claiming that a New South Wales-based Royal Commission is inadequate and there must be a comprehensive response to what occurred at Bondi in December. Angus Taylor is the Shadow Defence Minister. He's on the line for us this morning. Angus, good morning to you.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

 

G'day James, thanks for having me.

 

JAMES WILLIS:

 

We should point out that it feels very unusual for the ALP to be calling out a Labor Prime Minister. They generally pick and stick, don't they?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

 

Well, they do, and it makes you wonder what it is the Prime Minister is so worried about and what he's got to hide? We should, of course, have a Royal Commission. This has been a devastating tragedy. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered that haven't yet been answered, and I think a Royal Commission is the best way of achieving that and that's a widely held view, and it's clear that that's a widely held view in the Labor Party, which is normally very unified on these things as you know, James, so it's very unusual for people in the Labor Party to break ranks, but that's clearly what's happening.

 

JAMES WILLIS:

 

What do you suspect, in summary, Mr Albanese is most concerned about in regards to a Royal Commission?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

 

Well, there're many, many questions, aren't there? I mean, were our security agencies prepared? How were they directed by ministers? What in particular had their focus been and the focus of the ministers been? Why is it that we let this antisemitism and radical Islamist sentiment, why did we let it run, or the government at least let it run the way it did? I mean, these questions haven't been answered. The Prime Minister has been evasive. He is not wanting to talk about this. He's wanting to talk about anything else he can, and I think the questions need to be answered, and it's clear the only way we're going to get answers is through a Royal Commission.

 

JAMES WILLIS:

 

Let's play devil's advocate for a moment, though Angus, a lot of Royal Commissions are politically motivated, as you know, they're often called to attack the other side. We saw that with Robodebt. The Coalition did it when Tony Abbott came to power in 2013. It is a bit of an attack mechanism which ends up being quite critical of former ministers, sometimes Prime Ministers. So why, to play devil's advocate, why would the Prime Minister do that, given he runs the risk of being so exposed?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

 

Well, I've never been a great fan of having Royal Commissions willy nilly, but this is different, James. I mean, we've had 15 Australians killed, and we've had obviously, many others injured and a devastating, devastating situation and I think there are many questions here to be answered. It's the Prime Minister who would be calling it, not the Opposition in the end. We can't call a Royal Commission, only the government can. But the real problem here is he hasn't answered the most basic of questions, we still don't know much about what directions were being received by our security agencies, what in particular was going on there. Now the investigations are ongoing. We might learn more out of that, but I seriously doubt we're going to learn what we need to. Why is it that we've got hate preachers in this country that are radicalising the way they have been, and yet, there aren't being the efforts made it appears to do what's necessary to stop that from occurring? I mean, these are really serious questions. How are we going to deal with radical Islamism? How are we going to make sure we don't have a repeat of this? I mean, the risk of a repeat is clearly high. We saw ASIO increase the terror rating, the concern that they had mid last year, and we saw no action that resulted from that. Why was that? So, James these are really serious questions, and they need to be answered.

 

JAMES WILLIS:

 

Angus, let me ask you about the situation in Venezuela with President Maduro, who's now pleaded not guilty in a US court. I just want your thoughts on what the Greens have called for off the back of this, they've accused the US of kidnapping the Venezuelan President, urged Australia to cut ties with America and AUKUS. How do you respond to that?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

 

Oh well, the Greens are clearly favourable towards a drug lord and an illegitimate dictator, and if that's where the Greens want to position themselves, so be it, and that's the crazy Green Party that I guess we're used to, so we're just getting more of that. But look, let's be clear here, this dictator was not legitimately elected, that is very clear. He is running an industrial scale criminal enterprise. He is selling drugs to the world and killing people as a result, particularly fentanyl and cocaine. And when there is a real prospect of someone like that being held to account, we should applaud it. We should absolutely applaud it. And we have bad people in the world at the moment who are flexing their muscles, and bad regimes who are flexing their muscles and when interventions are made against them, I think it's important for us to stand on the side of the good guys.

 

JAMES WILLIS:

 

One before you go. We recently heard, in the last few weeks, the Defence Minister Richard Marles announced the biggest overhaul of defence spending in decades. Will this work? At the end of the day, I think people are pretty sick and tired, Angus of hearing about all these big projects which are decades away and they blow out by billions of dollars, some of them never get built. I mean, is this going to work or are we a long way off the mark at this stage?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

 

All we ever get is rhetoric, not reality. I mean, what matters now for defence, for our military capability, at a time like this, a time of great uncertainty in the world, a time when, as I said, we've got authoritarian regimes flexing their muscles in ways we haven't seen for a long while, we need real capability. We need real action. They keep talking about funding. Funding still hasn't got to 2% of GDP. It needs to get to 3% of GDP. We've got sustainment and maintenance problems with our most critical assets, our ships, our aircraft, and that money is not being spent as it should be. We have a very serious problem, and the best they can do is move the deck chairs around in the bureaucracy, it's just not good enough.

 

JAMES WILLIS:

 

Well, and we're still too top heavy. There's a lot of top brass, but at the end of the day, you can build all this new technology, we need people to operate it, and we're thousands of people short of our operational capability, and they still can't get the recruitment right.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

 

That is exactly right. So, we're well short of the government's own targets in terms of people, not well short in terms of top brass. You're absolutely right about that, and I've made comments about that in the past. We don't need a top-heavy military. The command structure is too top-heavy, but we do need the people at the coalface. We need to have more agility. We need to have more control over our own destiny. We need to have manufacturing of our own armaments. All of these things need to be done fast in a more uncertain, more dangerous world and that is not happening. We're getting rhetoric, not reality. And you know this announcement that was made, I mean, he calls it the greatest announcement since the Second World War or something. It's all nonsense, isn't it? But the truth is it's not even going to happen for 18 months. I mean, seriously, if you thought it was that important, you'd just get on with it, wouldn't you? But no, we're just going to have more press releases and more rhetoric.

 

JAMES WILLIS:

 

That's it. Angus, really appreciate your time. Thanks for jumping on.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

 

Good on you James, good to be with you.

 

 

ENDS.