Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash
Shadow Attorney-General
Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations
Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
Senator for Western Australia
TRANSCRIPT
Credlin
Topics: the Voice, industrial relations, ACT drug laws
14 September 2023
E&OE.
Credlin
Let’s go though back to Canberra for the latest on this final sitting day before we all vote on the referendum and how things played out. Joining me to discuss that Attorney-General, Shadow Attorney-General, I beg your pardon, Shadow Minister too for Employment and Workplace Relations, Senator Michaelia Cash. Michaelia, welcome. I want to start with your colleague, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, today. She gave a cracker of a presentation at the National Press Club. I played a little bit of it earlier. This was the exchange towards the end of the media questions with The Guardian’s journalist. But then when she finished, and I really think she wept that Guardian journalist away, the Chair of the Press Club of this actual event, the AFR journalist David Crowe, he piped up and had another go. She didn’t back down though, have a listen.
Journalist
You don’t believe there’s any negative ongoing impacts of colonisation on Indigenous Australians today? Just just to confirm?
Jacinta Nampijimpa Price
No, there’s no ongoing negative impacts of colonisation.
Journalist
Would you accept that there have been generations of trauma as a result of that history?
Jacinta Nampijimpa Price
Well, I guess that would mean that those of us whose ancestors were dispossessed of their own country and brought here in chains as convicts are also suffering from intergenerational trauma. So I should be doubly suffering from intergenerational trauma.
Credlin
You were there Michaelia. How did it go do you think?
Senator Cash
Peta, an outstanding address from a conviction politician who was prepared to tell the truth. She got a standing ovation at the end. And I have to say, some of those questions, deliberately asked to try and trip her up. And guess what? She nailed them succinctly and directly. But Peta, I love the message that Jacinta had for Prime Minister Albanese here in Canberra. Perhaps Canberra and Mr. Albanese need some ears. Perhaps we don’t need a Voice. Perhaps Mr. Albanese needs to start listening. And Peta, just very briefly, she gave a very good example: the Yipirinya School in Alice Springs, they are desperate for a boarding school. Why? Because they want to get the Indigenous kids off the street. They want to give them a safe place to sleep and they want to give them an education. Yipirinya, done its homework, made the submission, based it on evidence, asked for funding. And guess what Peta? Prime Minister Albanese hasn’t listened to them. So there you go. That is a perfect example of why Jacinta Nampijimpa Price says the Voice itself won’t work, perhaps Canberra needs to start listening.
Credlin
Look, you’re spot on and I’ve been to that school in Alice Springs. And when you consider the $400 million plus he’s spending on the referendum, you could fund two hundred of those Yipirinya schools right around the country for Indigenous kids. And this is where the priorities are warped in Canberra. Let’s go to unionists and militant unionists like Thomas Mayo wanting to use the very powerful right of entry rules under the Fair Work Act to wander onto job sites and workplaces right around the country to push the ‘yes’ case. He told a group of builders that anti-referendum campaigners were, and I quote, “those same bastards that hate workers.” You’re the minister in this area, the shadow minister, what’s your response?
Senator Cash
Well Peta, this is a completely inappropriate use of right of entry powers. I mean, unions are given, as you and I both know, special privileges under the Fair Work Act, and one of them is to be able to enter workplaces. And this is just completely inappropriate. But what I fear more than anything is that it shows that unions are prepared to cross boundaries when it comes to entering people’s workplaces. And Peta, it’s a sign of things to come. Because in the next round of Labor’s industrial relations changes, guess what? They’re actually expanding union right of entry powers. They’re making it harder for the Fair Work Commission to actually revoke a right of entry power when it has been misused. But guess what? Mr. Burke and Anthony Albanese, a gift to the union movement and delivering to yet another part the union movements’ agenda.
Credlin
Now, just on those second tranche of reforms, business has been long mute with Labor on a range of issues. They’re doing Labor’s bidding including on the Voice, but they have found their voice to oppose in broad terms this package of so called reforms. Now, the cross bench more likely to be Labor’s way than not. But it seems like there’s a bit of movement. How do you place the chances of Labor getting this through?
Senator Cash
Well, we have successfully ensured that the Senate committee, as you know, doesn’t report back until the 1st of February. Tony Burke, Anthony Albanese, absolutely furious, they wanted to ram the bills through by the end of the year. I think that between the Coalition and the cross bench, we’ve put up a reasonable proposal. There are some parts of the bill that we can agree with. Let’s take out those parts put them through this year. I mean, why would you hold up helping first responders suffering from PTSD unless you had a political motive? So we’ve put a fair compromise on the table but what do Mr. Albanese and Mr. Burke say? Our way or the highway. Well, guess what? We’re not going to play that game. And I’m very, very glad that we have got that Senate committee to report back next year so we can properly understand the impact, in particular Peta, on small business, that these changes are going to have.
Credlin
Alright just before we go, I opened the show with this issue in the ACT: hard drugs, decriminalisation, possession not just for cocaine and the so called ‘recreational stuff’. We’re talking ice, we’re talking heroin, have a look at what’s happening into the big US Democrat run cities. Well, that’s coming to Canberra. You’re the one, you’re the shadow minister, who’s introduced the bill in the Senate today to take this head on. It’ll be debated I’m told next month. Tell us more.
Senator Cash
Well, in a few weeks time the ACT Government is rolling out, as you have said, the red carpet to drugs like – ice, cocaine, heroin, LSD, I mean, you gotta be kidding me. And they say Peta, it’s for personal use. Let’s quickly look at the amounts of these drugs that you can now carry without a criminal penalty: 1.5 grams of cocaine, 1.5 grams of speed, 1 gram of heroin. Let’s put that into perspective Peta. 1 gram of heroin is up to five times the average lethal dose. You’ve got to be kidding me. And the ACT Government thinks this is okay. Peta, I’m the Shadow Attorney-General, I will not stand by, it would be a dereliction of my duty as a lawmaker if I did not act. This is a bad bill, it will have a bad effect. Australian families will be devastated and we will not stand by and do nothing. But let me tell you, let me tell you Peta very quickly what Murray Watt says. We asked him about this in the Senate, totally justified by the ACT, and what is worse he says this: “it is for small amounts for personal use.” Well I say shame on you Murray Watt and shame on you Anthony Albanese if Labor does not support this bill when it comes before the Senate next time we return. It is a bad bill and it should be repealed, the ACT law.
Credlin
Go hard Michaelia Cash, as I know you will. Thank you for your time.
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