MTR Morning with Luke Grant
25 June 2010
Topics: Prime Minister Julia Gillard
LUKE GRANT: I get to speak to Brendan every couple of weeks on the night show here, Melbourne Tonight on MTR 1377 but we thought it important to get him on this morning. He's Minister for Home Affairs and he does cop a mention in John Ferguson's piece today. So he's on the line for a chat right now. Morning Minister.
BRENDAN O'CONNOR: Good morning. It's good to be with you in the morning, not the evening.
LUKE GRANT: Yeah right. I mean probably both, with due respect you might - we both might make more sense now.
BRENDAN O'CONNOR: I think that's right.
LUKE GRANT: Brendan, I'm here with John Ferguson from the Herald Sun as well. I just want to start by, he mentions you in a piece today as, the Minister in charge of border protection and a key Gillard ally who helped win key votes for the coup. Is that a fair description?
BRENDAN O'CONNOR: Everyone knows I'm a close friend of the Prime Minister. I've known her for a very long time, but really it's now about what we do from today. Of course you know as the Prime Minister said, Kevin Rudd has done some amazing things over the last two years. He actually made sure we got through the global financial crisis, out the other end with the best economy in the world. He did some amazing things.
But we had lost our way and we needed to consider that and the party room, the Caucus, decided that we needed to have a new leader and they had full confidence in Julia Gillard being a great leader and more importantly a fantastic Prime Minister and she will be.
LUKE GRANT: How many people did you have to convince that Julia Gillard was the right way to go?
BRENDAN O'CONNOR: I've seen some of the sort of descriptions and you know there will be some revisionism going on about who played what role in all of those things. But in the end the reason why she had the overwhelming support of the parliamentarians that make up the Parliamentary Labor Party is because she is a person who has a great clarity of thought, great compassion and is a great leader. And she'll be a great Prime Minister.
LUKE GRANT: At the end of the day it seems to me that people like Bill Shorten and Mark Arbib, their votes count more than mine. Because its people like them, the faces of people that get around behind the scenes and say, look we're going down here quick, let's make a change. And they snap their fingers and people get to it and all of a sudden Kevin Rudd's gone.
I mean it's cutting and running rather, from Kevin Rudd who as you say, had done a pretty good job and if his worst feature was that it got the poll for 50/50, surely you'd have enough confidence in yourselves and the people around you to back him and knuckle down and make it happen?
BRENDAN O'CONNOR: Look I think too much is made of the internal workings. And indeed sometimes there are mentions of people playing certain roles, which I have to say to you, from my view is sometimes inflated just to give I guess a narrative for journalists to explain what happened.
What happened yesterday was the overwhelming number of parliamentarians that represent constituencies around the country, believed that Julia Gillard would lead this Government and make sure we got back on track.
She's already made clear she'll cancel the advertisements on the mining issue. She's already made clear she wants to engage with that sector and resolve that matter. She's already made clear she wants to move forward and indeed ensure that this Government is stable and will be doing things for the Australian people, particularly in the areas of health and education.
JOHN FERGUSON: Brendan, John Ferguson here. Look I hear what you're saying about you know, journalists needing a narrative, but it was an incredibly ugly way to neck a Prime Minister wasn't it?
BRENDAN O'CONNOR: There was never an easy situation, John, for these things to happen. Can I just say to you and you'd be aware of this by the people you've spoken to that there is a great deal of sympathy for Kevin. Firstly he has done a remarkable job as Prime Minister. Secondly we know this person personally and we know that yesterday was very sad and difficult.
But parliamentarians are there to make difficult decisions. And we had to make a decision for the future of this country and it was with a heavy heart but a clear head. I made a decision along with my colleagues to ensure that we were led by the best person you'd find, and Julia Gillard was that person.
JOHN FERGUSON: Yeah sure, but isn't it the case that basically and you know like I speak to a lot of people, Kevin Rudd was widely loathed. You would had to have a hard heart not to feel sorry for him yesterday. But isn't it, the guts of the situation, he was a decent bloke and you consulted with people, he would still be Prime Minister?
BRENDAN O'CONNOR: I think Julia Gillard's made clear that she wants to have a government that's consultative and actually brings people in, ensures that the expertise that's in our party room is used to its best, in the best possible manner in order to ensure we make the right decisions. And look we can always do better.
And I think it's really important to acknowledge that Julia said that she associated herself with some of the errors that we made along the way. But in the end the parliamentarians that make up the Government, believed that she was best suited for the job. And I believe that is the case and she'll be a very good Prime Minister.
JOHN FERGUSON: What do you think about the election? Your advice, I mean she'll listen to you, we've got to have a look at her don't we as Prime Minister? So it's going to be sort of longer rather than shorter before we go to the polls?
BRENDAN O'CONNOR: Well look there's clearly a need to resolve some outstanding matters. The Prime Minister's now made clear, she's made clear that we have to resolve the matter with the mining sector and she's made clear she wants to have an open dialogue with the sector.
And have the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Wayne Swan and Minister Ferguson engaged fully on the details to ensure that the Australian people get their entitlement, which is a fair amount of money from their natural resources and at the same time ensure there's confidence of the mining sector in that resolution.
So that's important. There are a number of other issues she'll want to deal with. So she's already made it very clear that she's looking to call an election with months, but there are things to be done first. And this is a government that prides itself on getting results and will need to obviously resolve some of those matters before an election is called.
LUKE GRANT: One final thing before you go, Brendan, and that's this I understand what you're saying, you're parliamentary colleagues sat down and they decided that they couldn't cop Kevin Rudd any longer, but surely they did that at the urging of people like Mark Arbib and David Feeney and particularly Bill Shorten who's I think absent from the debate today.
Surely those factional leaders, they're the ones at the end that say, you will vote this way. I mean you don't go into that room and think oh yeah no I'll give Kevin a go 'cause he's a good bloke. If you're in a faction, you vote that way surely.
BRENDAN O'CONNOR: No, look it really isn't like that anymore and I would say that was probably more the case ten or so years ago. But from the time I've been a parliamentarian, the formal factionalism of the Australian Labor Party has disintegrated. The fact that the leader picks not only the ministers but their portfolios has meant that there's enormous authority of the leader.
And those sorts of people who might have some influence, of course had a bearing. But let me tell you this, the reason why Julia Gillard spoke to Kevin Rudd about a change of leadership is because she believed it was in the best interests of the government and the country. She made the decision.
There might have been other opinions, but in the end as always is the case with someone like her, she listens, but she decides. She decided yesterday we needed to move forward, we needed to get back on track and she'll be a very good Prime Minister.
LUKE GRANT: But see now what looks silly is that she said no, there's no challenge on four times I think in the last couple of weeks and all of a sudden Gillard, at the same time as Shorten and Arbib and Feeney and others think, oh no let's get rid of Kevin. It just doesn't - it doesn't look like that's how they played that.
BRENDAN O'CONNOR: No, look I understand that, but can I tell you when she said that she was loyal to the Prime - former Prime Minister, she was. And in fact nobody is saying she was disloyal to the Prime Minister ...
LUKE GRANT: Yeah.
BRENDAN O'CONNOR: ... and she's got a great record of loyalty to leaders. But can I say to you, she made a decision yesterday and I know it's unusual, it's almost unprecedented, but within a day, the Parliamentary Labor Party made a very difficult decision, but made the right decision for this country.
LUKE GRANT: Good on you, good to talk to you.
BRENDAN O'CONNOR: Okay, no problem.
LUKE GRANT: Thanks for your time. That's Brendan O’Connor.
