Michael Brissenden reported this story on Monday, March 14, 2016 08:16:00

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: A deal that's expected to see the Liberal Party preference the Greens in several Victorian federal seats is causing internal unrest among some of the Liberals conservative MPs and Senators.



Former Senate leader Eric Abetz has written to party president Richard Alston to voice his objection to the deal.



The party plans to keep mum on any preference deal with the Greens until Election Day, forcing Labor to spread its resources across a number of its seats.



For more, Senator Eric Abetz joins me live on the line.



Senator Abetz, good morning.



ERIC ABETZ: Good morning, good to be on the program.



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: We'll get to the preference issue in a minute but first I'll just get your comments on the previous story about the cost of the plebiscite on gay marriage: $525 million is the estimate - is it still worth doing it?



ERIC ABETZ: Look you can ask the question what price of democracy and changing the fundamental institution which has socialised children for the past millennia can't be reduced to bean counting.



And when you know, and if I heard correctly the $281 million dollars of that figure or 500 plus is in fact the time taken to vote, it does show and indicate that this was a study in inverted commas with an outcome that was sought by those doing it.



Because quite frankly to try to take into account and double the figure on the basis of the time taken to vote as being a factor basically sees that, look let's get rid of democracy each time people go to the polling booth it costs them $281 million.



But then in a very perceptive question the interviewer was able to get out of Price Waterhouse Cooper that it was not an actual financial costs but just something foregone.



So instead of sitting at home on election or plebiscite days for an extra 15, 20 minutes, or half an hour you actually go out to vote and you put the financial cost on that is, I must say, quite a bizarre way to undertake such an analysis.



And of course it doesn't take into account the costs on the other side of this debate - people who feel strongly, who will feel depressed about a change if it were to occur as a result of a plebiscite.



So I think this is a very skewed study.



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Regardless of the cost, would you support the plebiscite happening as soon as possible - potentially before the end of the year as suggested earlier by Senator Brandis?



ERIC ABETZ: What I support is the party's policy which is that we go to this election focused on the fundamentals, getting the economy right, ensuring that we transition from an economy largely based on the resource sector to advanced manufacturing, to agriculture, to the services and education sectors etc.



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: So that's what we are concentrating on, that's our policy. Then after the election in due course we will have a plebiscite and that will be considered and discussed by the new Parliament. And it will take its course, but I would imagine within about the first 12 months of the next government but let's wait and see.



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Okay on the election generally, what's wrong with doing a deal with the Greens if it means it forces Labor to spend more time and money on campaigns in some of the marginal seats?



ERIC ABETZ: The way that you allocate preferences says a lot about what you as a party stand for and what matters to you.



And from my perspective the party of Menzies and Bolte and other great luminaries within the Liberal Party, they took on the extreme left head on and would never countenance doing preference deals. A situation which the Liberal Party in Victoria stood for very strongly only a matter of a few years ago in the 2010 election...



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Sure, sure but before that isn't that the way it was done?



ERIC ABETZ: Well before that regrettably for some it was the way it was done.



I have always been opposed to that methodology that was only undertaken by some on the basis that I believe that the way you allocate preferences indicates what you actually stand for, the principles you stand for.



And it's this sort of transactional allocation of preferences that has brought the cross bench into such disrepute, that they have somehow got into the Senate by these complicated preference deals based on transactional policies and politics and not on principle politics.



And I have no doubt that the membership of the Liberal Party would not want to see us preferencing the Greens that stands for death duties, that stand for increased petrol prices, increased gas prices, increased power prices that would see higher unemployment.



And might I add these sorts of discussions have ramifications in our rural marginal seats where the Liberal party conservative voters say how on earth could you even countenance and contemplate doing a deal with the Greens.



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: So you think it will cost you votes?



ERIC ABETZ: I think it will cost us votes if we go down that track and I'm confident we won't.



But if we were to go down that track it would cost us votes in the rural seats and those seats are very important right around Australia, we hold the vast majority of them and we need to keep them.



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: What about doing deals with the Greens in the Parliament? Because that's what's happening with this senate voting reform, isn't it? Isn't that a sensible bit of cooperation?



ERIC ABETZ: Well the Labor Party have crab walked away from their own principled position so what you have is an unanimous decision from the joint standing committee on electoral matters.



And the only one that is unprincipled in this situation is the Australian Labor Party, that having signed up for a joint standing committee on electoral matters for purely transactional purposes hoping to gain the preferences of all the crossbenchers, crab walking away from that which they know to be right, which they know is the best method to deal with the disrepute of the Senate voting system has got itself into after the last election.



So this is not doing a deal with the Greens. This is sadly a situation where Mr Shorten and the Labor Party have yet again walked away from principle.



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: But hasn't the Government had to make some uncomfortable compromises here?



The ABCC bill for instance, the Building and Construction Commission Bill, has been taken off the list for this week because the Greens don't want to discuss that while they are discussing this.



ERIC ABETZ: The same with the Australian Building and Construction Commission, every single Labor Party senator and member would know that if you are genuinely concerned about the longevity of the trade union movement and genuinely concerned about getting rid of corrupt bosses doing deals with corrupt union officials then you should be voting for this legislation.



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: But it's not on the list is it?



ERIC ABETZ: The reason they aren't voting for it is because they get these rivers of gold from the corrupt CFMEU.



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: But didn't the Government take it off the list because the Greens didn't want to actually have a vote on that while they were talking about Senate reform?



ERIC ABETZ: The simple fact is that the Labor Party could have this on the list if they indicated their support for stamping out corrupt bosses and corrupt union officials from the construction sector.



And we as a Government have a $50 billion investment in infrastructure coming down the road, huge construction work to be undertaken, vitally important that taxpayers get value for their dollar from that infrastructure fund.



That's why it's important we do get the Australian Building and Construction Commission back up and running and to see the alternate prime minister Bill Shorten run away from that and basically say nothing to be seen here shows that he's not a fit and proper person to be the prime minister of our nation.



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Now Senator Ricky Muir, we understand, will attempt to bring on a vote on the ABCC this week.



If it doesn't get up this week should the Parliament be brought back to allow a vote to give the Government a legitimate argument for a double dissolution?



ERIC ABETZ: I will allow the leadership of the party to make those sort of determinations and consider what their methodology is. I'm no longer in the engine room determining matters...



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Sure but it is possible that's the way you could deal with it isn't it?



ERIC ABETZ: Oh look lots of things are possibilities. I don't intend to run a commentary on all of that other than to say clearly the Australian Building and Construction Commission is vitally important legislation and if we cannot get it through the Parliament then it is vitally important that we do go to a double dissolution election because this sort of endemic corruption between bosses and union bosses is not something that this nation should tolerate.



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: You've got to get a chance to vote on it first haven't they?



ERIC ABETZ: Oh well they've already had a chance to vote on it and have voted it down and been quite in an unprincipled fashion deferred it off to another Senate committee exactly the same terminology, exactly the same bill, deliberately deferred to avoid vote on it.



And Labor, Greens and some of the crossbenchers cooperated to achieve that with a tied vote in the Senate. And that is not something which I think the people of Australia will look upon with any favour by those that voted against this legislation getting up.



If you support the rule of law, if you want to oppose corrupt construction bosses, if you want to oppose corrupt union bosses then this is the legislation for you and those that have voted it down and then deferred it have indicated whose side they're on.



The Coalition is strongly on the side of the rule of law, on the side of principle and on the side of looking after the small contractors and individual workers.



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Okay Senator Abetz we'll have to leave it there thanks for joining us.



ERIC ABETZ: Thanks a lot.



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Senator Eric Abetz there.

