Transcript – Weekend Sunrise

ANDREW O'KEEFE: Time to look back at what's happened in the corridors of power this week. Joining us to discuss, from the Gold Coast, is Liberal Steven Ciobo and in Sydney Labor's Jason Clare. Good morning to you both.

JASON CLARE: Morning.

STEVEN CIOBO: Happy Easter.

ANDREW O'KEEFE: Happy Easter to you to. First up, NewsCorp reports this morning that former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop is facing the chop at the election is she decides to run. Steve, people in Mackellar saying they'd prefer to vote for Dick Smith if he decided to run rather than Ms Bishop. What are your thoughts about that?

STEVEN CIOBO: Well look Andrew; of course, we're always sensitive to what people are saying. We look at these things. This pre-selection hasn't been decided, Bronwyn hasn't, I don't think in a final sense, made clear what she intends to do. So we wait and watch, ultimately there's a pre-selection process. The party members of the Liberal Party in Mackellar will have the chance to have their say on who they want to represent them and ultimately that person will take forward the Liberal brand in Mackellar.

ANGELA COX: Jason are you surprised that she's considering running?

JASON CLARE: I think what this story tells us Ange is that if the Liberal Party don't get rid of Bronwyn Bishop, then the people of her electorate will. All Australia is sick of the rorts, they're sick of the dodginess and the helicopter scandal was just an example of that. But Malcolm Turnbull's problem is that it's just not Bronwyn Bishop, he's had to sack three ministers in the last three months and now it looks like he's got another minister, in Arthur Sinodinos, whose in problem, caught up in this alleged illegal slush fund. So I can understand why the people of Mackellar and right across the country are sick of the dodginess, the rorts and the division at the heart of this government.

ANDREW O'KEEFE: You've been pretty vocal about Arthur Sinodinos this week Jason. It doesn't seem yet we have clarity on what exactly what's happened here but you've come out swinging.

JASON CLARE: Well what we know is that Arthur Sinodinos was the Treasurer of the Liberal Party and the Finance Director of the Liberal Party at a time where all of these donations were made to the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party has refused to tell us who the donors were, what I said if these people were illegally donating to the Liberal Party when Arthur Sinodinos was in charge of the money, then his position really becomes untenable. Malcolm Turnbull has had to sack three ministers already, now I think he's going to have to sack his right hand man as well.

ANGELA COX: Steve, what's your response to that?

STEVEN CIOBO: I think Jason has had a big cup of cranky this morning from the sounds of it. This is the guy who, of course, when Craig Thomson, was under police investigation the Labor Party ran around saying 'hang on there should be due process, let's not get too caught up in all this.' I think Australians, frankly, are just sick of this bitterness and negativity that comes from the opposition-

ANGELA COX: But even Malcolm Turnbull said if they've got something to say, they should put the cards on the table-

STEVEN CIOBO: Absolutely-

ANGELA COX: And let them fall where they may. If he has to fall over this.

STEVEN CIOBO: This is the whole point though you see, because there is an investigation; let's not lose sight of the fact that Arthur Sinodinos has already been through an ICAC process. ICAC said basically there's nothing to see here and that's why Arthur has come back onto the front bench. Of course, look the Opposition is going to do whatever they can, to throw as much mud as they can, to say everything is awful and everything is bad. But when you bring it back to the fundamentals, what Australians know is this. They want to know does their Government have a plan, have an agenda, to drive jobs and to drive growth. Because that's what Aussie's care about. This sort of sideshow stuff, I don't think they get too caught up in it. They want to know-

ANDREW O'KEEFE: Australians do want to know what the plan is. We haven't heard too much about it at the moment.

STEVEN CIOBO: Well you know Australia had three per cent, Australia had three per cent growth. We in fact had the strongest growth out of any of the G7 countries. We put a $1.1 billion national innovation and science agenda down, we've had a $1.6 billion Defence White Paper, we've put through Senate reform, we've made decisions in relation to the second Sydney Airport, we've got a $50 billion infrastructure fund that's rolling out. Frankly guys this is a government that is doing a hell of a lot, it's driving the nation forward. We've created three times, three times, as many jobs, I should say three times as quickly we've created jobs in Australia as the former Labor Government did. I get that Jason has a job to do; I just don't get too caught up in it-

JASON CLARE: Well Steve I just don't think the people of Australia like governments that are at each others throats, they've always hated disunity and this week, the first week of a three month election campaign, you've got Abbott undermining Turnbull, then Turnbull undermining Morrison-

STEVEN CIOBO: That's just false-

JASON CLARE: And now you've got another minister in trouble. You've had to sack three ministers in three months, now you've got another in trouble, on top of that you've told everyone their going to get an income tax cut, now you've ditched that and are saying companies will get a tax cut. There's nothing that will upset Australian's more than finding out big companies will get a tax cut and they won't. And that's your problem.

ANDREW O'KEEFE: Well we've got a Budget to re-set that agenda I guess coming up sometime soon, so we'll see how we respond to that. Thanks gentlemen.