Anika Wells MP on ABC Afternoon Briefing

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS 
THURSDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER 2021
 
SUBJECTS: Melbourne riots; mandatory vaccinations; Christian Porter; Facebook regulation. 
 
PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: Time now for my political panel Liberal senator Andrew Bragg and Labor MP Anika Wells. Nice to see you both, well kind of see you on the TV screen. Let’s start on the protests in Melbourne and the kind of discussions that have started as a result in relation to mandatory vaccinations. Andrew Bragg, first to you. The New South Wales government made vaccination mandatory for the construction sector. Victoria has now made the same decision based on case numbers. But some of your front benchers even including Amanda Stoker yesterday on this show have been critical of that. What’s your view? Is mandatory vaccination fair enough in in both Victoria and NSW?
 
ANDREW BRAGG, LIBERAL SENATOR FOR NSW: Good afternoon PK. My view is that vaccinations could be made mandatory by employers in consultation with their workforces. I think that would be the most appropriate level for it to happen. Unless of course someone has a health reason for not having a vaccination. I think it’s entirely reasonable that especially where people are facing the public that the workplace could ask them to have a vaccination on a mandatory basis.
 
KARVELAS: OK so in the construction sector, I don’t know from what you said. Does that fit into, it’s OK to ask them to do it?
 
BRAGG: Well I think it’s the matter for each workplace to determine whether or not it wants to have that. I you know I think workplaces are workplaces. I’ve never been a fan of things like pattern bargaining and so I think that each enterprise should make their own judgement.
 
KARVELAS: OK so you’re opposed. Does that mean it’s just Victoria you’re criticising? Are you criticising the New South Wales government too ‘cause they’ve made it blanket.
 
BRAGG: I’m not criticising anyone. I’m just giving you my honest opinion.
 
KARVELAS: Which criticises what they’ve done whether you want to do that or not that’s the cause and effect of what you’re saying. So do you also think New South Wales then has gone down the wrong road?
 
BRAGG: Yes I mean my view is {inaudible} workplace label I’ve never been a fan of patent bargaining or industry-wide policies. I think that each workplace is different and unique. I imagine the result of my policy would be that almost every construction workplace would have to have a a mandate. Because almost every construction mandate is public facing, all sorry I meant to say, every construction business has some form of public facing so then the net effect would be the same but it would have more collaboration with employees.
 
KARVELAS: Anika what’s your view on this?
 
ANIKA WELLS, MEMBER FOR LILLEY: I think my my point would be that the construction industry aren’t Robinson Crusoe here. When the aged care industry was asked to mandatorily vaccinate they didn’t blockade freeways. And when our nurses in all the states have been asked to get vaccinated to do their frontline work they didn’t throw urine on journalists. 

Why have we had this particular group of people protest and why have they protested now. And I think that’s a pretty complex problem it doesn’t have a simple headline answer. But I do think you could drive a cart through the government position on this at the moment. Like you said there are so many different positions coming from the government right where we need to be unified and showed leadership around it. And that’s not just people who come on shows like yourselves and talk to a national audience. That is groups who are letterboxing suburbs in marginal electorates like mine. That is people who are political actors like Clive Palmer sending text messages to millions of Australians. Those groups all line up with the government and those groups will give their preferences to Scott Morrison. So I’m looking for a stronger condemnation from Scott Morrison and his government than what we’ve seen so far and I worry that we will not get it because ultimately this is a political equation for the Prime Minister and ultimately he wants these peoples votes.
 
KARVELAS: OK I have heard lots of different things I’ve gotta say Andrew Bragg in the last couple of days from people on your side of politics, sympathising with the motives behind the protests. Condemning the violence but talking about the kind of preconditions if you like. But isn’t it your government strategy to lock down if you’ve got the Delta virus you know running hot? Isn’t that…how can you have it both ways? 
 
BRAGG: I’m not here to speak for anyone else. If you want to ask me about my view on what happened in Melbourne, 
 
KARVELAS: Sure, I do.
 
BRAGG: Well I think it is very sad. I mean I I grew up in Victoria, going to the shrine with my grandfather who was a World War II veteran. And I think what happened in Melbourne was despicable. And I don’t think it’s appropriate for people to make political points about what’s happened in Melbourne because it’s frankly very sad and I know that the people of Melbourne have had a pretty tough couple of years.
 
KARVELAS: Yeah they have that’s for sure. Look I want to change the topic, talk about a few other things that have been big on the agenda. Anika to you first. You said on the Privileges Committee and Labor will push to refer Christian Porter to the committee when parliament returns next month. What are you trying to achieve there?
 
WELLS: Well like you say as a member of the Privileges Committee this may very well be a matter that comes before me to consider, so I will speak in general first principles perhaps. But as a first principle in our Australian democracy surely we should expect a better standard of conduct than this. On the basis that Mr Morrison and Mr. Porter are currently asking us to accept and leave be, the only things that stop you from being an MP or the only things that limits you as an MP are if you get a substantial jail sentence or every three years if the voters kick you out. That cannot be the acceptable standard of conduct from federal parliamentarians and that’s what they’re asking us to accept. And this is all for us to consider for us to debate now, a mess of Christian Porter’s own making. He chose to sue for defamation, he chose to settle before court proceedings and he’s chosen to accept money from a blind trust that has been set up in a way, it would appear, deliberately to conceal where this money has come from. These are all his choices. But he is now asking all of Australia, all of Australian democracy, to accept that to solve a problem of his own making. And I don’t think we should accept that.
 
KARAVELAS: I want to give you a right of reply on that Andrew, because yes now he’s stood down from the front bench, he is not a minister any more Christian Porter, but he still hasn’t told us who donated. Shouldn’t we know?
 
BRAGG: Look it’s not for me to speak for any other member or senator. Certainly I think that there are issues with transparency in our democracy. I think that there are issues where people haven’t been transparent with who is authorising materials and who is funding certain activities. And it’s a very important principle that the people of Australia know who is funding political parties and individuals and also who is authorising materials. And that is an issue which I have recently written to the Electoral Commission about in relation to some of the Voices groups.
 
KARVELAS: And jus Andrew I want to stay with you on an issue around Facebook. Facebook has rejected requests to negotiate content deals with SBS and The Conversation without providing any specific reason for its refusal. What should we interpret out of that? Are you concerned about this?
 
BRAGG: Facebook is showing that it’s very hard to deal with. It’s a very big company. But Facebook promised that they would fund small publishers and diverse publishers. And they haven’t made good on those promises. And so I’m wanting to keep the pressure on Facebook to deliver what they promised they would do, which is support small and diverse publishers. Very important.
 
KARVELAS: And jus Andrew I want to stay with you on an issue around Facebook. Facebook has rejected requests to negotiate content deals with SBS and The Conversation without providing any specific reason for its refusal. What should we interpret out of that? Are you concerned about this?

BRAGG: Well we’ll use the parliament. We will use public pressure. We will use the threat of regulation. I mean we can’t have a situation where big tech companies have all this power over our society and economy and face a very low regulatory burden. So we will go where other countries won’t in considering more regulation on big tech companies if they won’t do the right thing.
 
KARVELAS: Anika are you pleased to hear that?
 
WELLS: Yeah I’m learning live as you are Patricia. I remain worried and I think it is relevant to what we’ve been talking about this afternoon about misinformation and how it is impacting our elections and our democracy. Facebook and the likes are a big part of that. And their failure to be regulated, their failure to do their own regulating, it needs examination and I think it needs some improvement. 

So this gives me some heart to hear this afternoon. I look forward to considering the legislation when it comes to the House.
 
KARVELAS: Alright, we’re out of time. Thanks to both of you.
 
ENDS