Topics: Katy Gallagher, Brittany Higgins, RBA interest rate rise

E&OE

DEB KNIGHT: And with me as he is every week, our Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor. Bill Shorten, unable to join us unfortunately this week, so in his place is Labor Senator Deb O'Neill. Welcome to you both. I want to begin with the big story of course, the damaging leaked audio recordings and the text messages between Brittany Higgins, her partner David Shiraz and Lisa Wilkinson. Deb, the texts show that your colleague, Finance Minister Katie Gallagher, was told about the rape allegations before the interview with The Project went to air, even though Katie Gallagher indignantly told Parliament that no one knew. ‘How dare you’ was what she said to Linda Reynolds when that was raised at Senate Estimates. Do you believe, Deb O'Neill, that Katie Gallagher has questions to answer here?

DEB O’NEILL: So, I'll make a couple of points straight up. I know that Senator Gallagher was on ABC yesterday answering questions, and I certainly know that she'll be in Parliament next week as the Manager of Government Business in the Senate, and she'll be answering questions there.

DEB KNIGHT: So, you do think she has questions to answer?

DEB O’NEILL: I think there are questions being put, and I'm sure that she has already answered some, and there'll be more that'll be answered as time goes by, but Deb, I don't know about you, but I know from communications with my husband, you know, relationships and texts between two partners when you're under pressure. These is what's been revealed right, it's just kind of another layer of the trauma that's around this entire this entire matter and I just think it must be very difficult for everybody involved in whatever way in this issue that this stuff is just continuing to play out in public. You know you said some of your people who've been elicited, who've been writing in just have got recommendations, they want it to go to a Federal ICAC, they're just disgusted by the whole thing. And I think we've all been just so shocked by the entire story, you know. But sadly, Deb, the reality is 40 per cent of women who are in Parliament are actually reporting being sexually harassed. That is a huge number.

DEB KNIGHT: Okay, but with this particular case, the text message trail shows that Katie Gallagher misled Parliament. How can the Prime Minister still back her?

DEB O’NEILL: Well, that's the assertion that's being made, but I haven't actually seen a clear timeline that proves that and indicates that, and I think that all still needs to be checked.

DEB KNIGHT: And do you think that the Federal ICAC is the place to do it?

DEB O’NEILL: Well look I'd love to actually say that, because people have hopes that the Parliament's actually going to be a transparent place and I know there's been huge loss of faith and hope in democracy and in what happens in the Parliament and this whole incident is terrible experience that we've all had of watching the Brittany Higgins/Bruce Lehrmann saga unfold has only increased that uncertainty. And that's why we do need this National Anti-Corruption Commission, which was promised for many, many years under the previous government. Now it exists, right? It's going to start up on the 1st of July. But what's important for your listeners to know as citizens is they can make a referral. This whole thing that we've seen Senators and Members just standing up in the last few weeks about matters that do need investigation, saying, I'm referring that to the NAC, is actually a completely mistaken understanding of what the National Anti-Corruption Commission does.

DEB KNIGHT: But the rules are that anyone can refer.

DEB O’NEILL: Exactly. So, it's not up to parliamentarians to do this. Any of your listeners can write to the National Anti-Corruption Commission and they can put people in the view of the National Anti-Corruption Commission. This could be one issue, PWC could be another issue, and it's not a matter for parliamentarians to refer. This is for the National Anti-Corruption Commission. They don't need a referral. They've got the power. We've established it so that they can have a look at anything, whether it comes in from the media or whether it's by reporters.

DEB KNIGHT: But do you believe that this is warranted, that the Federal ICAC should be investigating this?

DEB O’NEILL: No, that is not our job to tell them what to do, Deb.

DEB KNIGHT: I'm not asking you whether you're telling them what to do. Do you believe an investigation is warranted?

DEB O’NEILL: Oh, well they will make that determination and certainly there's public interest, but you know there's public interest in so many matters.

DEB KNIGHT: And is this one matter that warrants it?

DEB O’NEILL: Well, I think they have to make that choice. We can't tell them otherwise that would be elected officials who they're supposed to be overseeing.

DEB KNIGHT: But you're saying that the PwC warrants an investigation. Does this warrant an investigation?

DEB O’NEILL: I think the NAC has to make; I haven't referred the PwC matter to the NAC because...

DEB KNIGHT: But you raised it as an issue that will warrant investigation.

DEB O’NEILL: I have, and I do think there are many issues that warrant investigation. This is one that the NAC should consider along with any other issues that they determine are important for them to have a look at. We shouldn't be telling them what to do. Indeed, we can't. I mean, their job is to oversee parliamentarians' public service, right? That's their job.

DEB KNIGHT: Okay, but you can see that warrants some investigation. Angus, I want to bring you in here. Scott Morrison did lose a lot of female votes at the last election because of his attitude towards and treatment of women. Do you believe that the Brittany Higgins situation was weaponised by the Labor Party?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, it certainly looks that way. But I mean, I think the key point you've made and that your listeners are making is that there's really serious questions to answer here, Deb. That Katie Gallagher needs to answer when she first knew about the allegations, whether she's misled the Senate. These are very, very legitimate questions and I think they need to be answered very clearly by Katie Gallagher and the Prime Minister.

DEB KNIGHT: Does the former Prime Minister bear some responsibility here though? Because Scott Morrison stood up in Parliament, he apologised directly to Brittany Higgins which lay the foundation for that compensation payout. Because you couldn't not compensate her when the Prime Minister had stood up and said, sorry.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Yeah, no, I understand all that, but what we're dealing with here is a situation where very significant new facts have come to the public arena. And there's questions that have to be answered. I mean, there's no sign of Katie Gallagher dealing clearly with the timelines here laying out when she knew about the allegations exactly what she knew at that time. The Prime Minister hasn't laid that out either. And she needs to be clear about that because otherwise there's a very real risk that the implication will be drawn that she misled the Senate. Now she needs to clear this up straight away.

DEB KNIGHT: And can the Prime Minister still stand by his finance minister if she is found to have misled Parliament?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, it's a pretty serious issue, isn't it? The Prime Minister at the moment is doing everything he can just to throw mud in every other direction. He said he was going take responsibility. This is one of the clear things he said. He said, we're going to have a new era of integrity and transparency. But as soon as it comes to him and his colleagues, he seems to have a very different attitude. I think he promised a particular way of approaching these issues. He needs to deliver on that promise.

DEB KNIGHT: All right, I want to cover off another issue…

DEB O’NEILL: Deb, can I just say that the fact that the NAC is stood up, is actually delivering on that promise. Everybody wants to send this to the NAC now. The only reason that we have the NAC is because the Albanese Government was elected, and we did it and we had years and years and years of Mr Taylor and he's lot promising that. So, we've got the NAC, we've got Parliament on Monday, there'll be Question Time, the Parliament works to provide scrutiny on everything. Can I just say one of the reasons why you know, these sorts of payouts happen and happen privately is because the trauma that people go through when all this gets public just exacerbates the terrible experiences that they've had of sexual harassment and sexual assault.

DEB KNIGHT: But shouldn't Linda Reynolds have been given the opportunity to speak at the hearings for that payout? Why was she denied that opportunity?

DEB O’NEILL: Well, look, I can't answer that question, but I do know that it's not the Finance Minister who has anything to do with the decision around what happened, that is a legal matter, and it goes to the Legal Services Division, and there was a law set up in 2017 that applies to that. And the Commonwealth obligation has to be acting as a model litigant. And to do that, you have to be able to actually deal with it. I mean, Deb, I'm sure you've had the experiences yourself that I have, that I spoke about in the Parliament on the day I came in after Brittany Higgins gave her speech down there on the lawns of Parliament. You know, like myself, my daughters, like the stories that they told me after this came out about the sexual harassment that they'd experienced, I put some of it on the record. You know, women have had a gut full of being treated in this way and whether you're a Liberal staff or your Labor staffer or if it happens, you know, 50 metres from the Prime Minister's office or 50 metres from your home, we've got these processes to try and take away some of the barriers for women reporting and some of the barriers from them actually getting dealt with in a more appropriate way, in a private way, to properly heal from the injuries that they've had and get on with their lives.

DEB KNIGHT: But you know what, Deb? You know what? The fact that this has allegedly, this crime which has never been proven, there have been, it hasn't been proven of course, there's been no charges that have stuck with Bruce Lehrmann at all, look at the case thrown out. But the fact that this potentially was weaponised for political purposes is what is so galling for so many women and for everyone in general. The fact that this is potentially a rape allegation being weaponised for political gain, that is appalling. And that's what absolutely sticks in the craw, I think, in the wake of all of this.

DEB O’NEILL: And I guess right now that is what potentially could be happening as this information is being released as well. And the people who are at the heart of this, Mr. Lehrmann and Ms. Higgins and Mr. Shiraz, they are all continuing in this tumult, this terrible storm of events that's going around them, and it's being played out in public. That can only make everything that's gone on, and we really will never, ever know what really happened in that room. But it was sufficient for the Prime Minister of the day to make an apology about it on the floor of Parliament. So, the complexity of this is something I don't think we can just boil down and deal with, with evidence that's produced here and there, et cetera. It probably warrants very careful investigation in another format. And if the NAC decide that they're going to do that, well, they will, and they'll do that independently. But I agree with you, Deb, that the whole of the trauma of this, it re-traumatises all of us who've had that experience of being sexually harassed. It's a really difficult situation for all of us, particularly women, to watch all of this, the whole total mess of it, play out in public. It's just a reminder of things that you want to leave behind you, that you can't.

DEB KNIGHT: Well, you can't leave behind. Questions have got to be answered and that's why I think a Federal ICAC is a place to do it. Now, I want to cover off on some other issues. The economy, we copped the other interest rate hike of course on Tuesday, the 12th since last year. Interest rates now at an 11-year high. The RBA Governor, Philip Lowe warning that more rate rises could be on the way. And do you think Angus, you're in government for all those years. Did you do enough to ease the inflationary pressures, which did start to build while you were in government?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, I mean, inflation is absolutely raging. The economy is shuddering to a halt. Productivity has collapsed completely unprecedented in the last 12 months. Completely unprecedented. Nothing like this, Deb, and the reality is government handed down a budget where they highlighted the expectation that there would be no further increases in interest rates. And yet we see in less than a month after this budget, complete failure with an increase in interest rates and a Reserve Bank Governor warning that there may well be more to come. The market expecting there's more to come and a large proportion of economists expecting there's more to come. Labor’s plan on this has failed. They didn't have a plan to be frank. They've got industrial relations policies, investment policies, tax policies, all making budget policies that are all making the situation worse, and Australians expect better.

DEB KNIGHT: Yeah and there is doubt I've got to say Deb O'Neill as to what the government is doing here to get us out of this mess but Philip Lowe this week he said if people are feeling the pinch they should just get another job, work extra hours or cut back on their spending and if renters are feeling problems they should get a housemate or move back in with their parents. Do you still have confidence in him, should his term as Governor be extended?

DEB O’NEILL: Look, I know how hard it is, you know. I've got three kids who've just, you know, moved out of home and a couple have got mortgages and they're managing and it's really tricky. You know, everybody with a mortgage is feeling the pain. But one of the things that we've seen over the last 10 years of the Liberal National Party government was something that Angus has just completely misrepresented, which is sadly that the labour productivity in Australia over the period of 2010 to 2020 was just 1.1 per cent and that is the slowest in 50 years. So, your commentary on this, that we're on our way, we were on our way to this point.

DEB KNIGHT: But you're in government now, so what's your plan to fix it?

DEB O’NEILL: Well, we can't have sort of the knee-jerk, drama, crisis management sort of model of government that we've seen with the others. We have to dig into the job. First thing we have to do is help the most vulnerable people while we try and clean up this mess and get the economy moving again. And to do that, one of the important things was not only to address productivity by making sure that we invest in education and get people new skills in the world, really invest in business innovation and growth, and also fix broken energy markets. There's three things for productivity, but we've also had a responsible budget. Now, the fact is, I was in Estimates, and I sat there through all of the evidence of the Reserve Bank Governor, and no matter how many times colleagues of Mr Taylor tried to get him to say that the budget was inflationary, he actually continued to reply that the budget that was delivered in May put downward pressure on inflation.

DEB KNIGHT: But he also said that unless productivity increased, then the wages increases, the pay rises that your government's backed will lead to inflation. So, you know.

DEB O’NEILL: No, he actually didn't link those two things. That's been reported over and over, and he was asked multiple questions by Senator Hume to that end, she tried everything she could to get the data…

DEB KNIGHT: At a breakfast that he spoke to after the interest rate hike, he said that unless there's greater productivity, then the wage rises, the pay hikes that have been granted could risk leading into inflation. So, it may not have been in Senate Estimates, but he has said that.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Can I correct something that's just been said? And I think this is very important. In our time in government, we saw around 10 percentage points of improvement in productivity, 4.6 per cent of that, almost half of that has disappeared in a single year, one year.

DEB KNIGHT: Alright, okay.

ANGUS TAYLOR: So, you know, what Deb said earlier, it's just completely wrong.

DEB KNIGHT: Alright, I want to end on a good note, because we're out of time, the clock's ticking. Now there's been this study shown that when we're facing stress, we tend to eat more. Bit of stress eating, bit of digging into the ice cream late at night. I want to know, after a stressful week of Parliament, what is your go-to treat, your guilty pleasure? Deb let's start with you.

DEB O’NEILL: It's got to be hot chips. Hot chips. I just remember the smell of them when we were on the bus on the way home from school. I went to St Anthony's at Girraween and we'd pull up at the station and there'd be all those squeaky yellow raincoats and somebody would get on with a load of chips from the fish and chip shop near the picture theatre at Toongabbie and just the smell of hot chips.

DEB KNIGHT: The smell of hot chips and the smell of raisin toast brings me down as well. Angus, what about you?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Yeah, they're both pretty good. But I've got to say Louise's chocolate cakes are something else. I absolutely love them. I get home at about 6 or 6.30pm on Thursday afternoons after a week in Parliament and I eat way too much of the chocolate cake.

DEB KNIGHT: See brownie points with the brownies.

ANGUS TAYLOR: The problem is if the kids have got to it first there's often not much left other than crumbs.

DEB KNIGHT: No, you've got to be quick around chocolate cake, that is true. Angus and Deb, thanks so much for joining us.

ENDS.