“Good morning, we have an interview with Liberal, Mr Whine.”
“Good morning, pleased to be here.”
“Now about the chaos in the House last Thursday…”
“If I could just interrupt you there, there was no chaos, there was just a stunt. A ridiculous, childish stunt by Mr Shorten and his Labor Party colleagues.”
“In what way was it a stunt?”
“Well, they were just trying to make us look bad by calling a vote when some of our ministers were off doing other things.”
“But surely your ministers should have been there.”
“That’s not the point, the point is that Mr Shorten has yet again shown that he isn’t fit to be Prime Minister.”
“So what did Labor do that was so wrong?”
“Well, they called for a vote and they shouldn’t have done that because we’re the government and we should win all the votes on floor, and they only called for a vote because they knew that we’d lose and then they’d try to make us look bad.”
“But surely they have a right to call a vote.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The point is that we’re still the government and all the vote did was interrupt our members from doing important things.”
“Such as going home early?”
“I’d just like to point out that nobody had permission to go home early.”
“So they left without permission?”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that. It was just they didn’t have permission to leave, that’s not quite the same thing as leaving without permission.”
“I don’t see the difference.”
“We can discuss semantics all day, but the fact remains that it was Labor that was responsible for the chaos.”
“I thought that you said that there was no chaos.”
“Not from our side, but what chaos there was, was all down to Labor.”
“Surely Labor can’t be held responsible for your members leaving early.”
“No, but they were certainly responsible for people noticing that they left early.”
“Even the PM says that they did the wrong thing.”
“Does he? Oh, well, then they certainly did the wrong thing, but not as wrong as Labor were in attempting to sneak through their ridiculous push for a Royal Commission into banks.”
“But shouldn’t Labor try to push their policy through. I mean they very nearly had the numbers to do it.”
“That’s my point. They shouldn’t have had the numbers. It was only through some of us not being there that would have enabled them to do it.”
“But shouldn’t your MPs have been there?”
“Exactly. That’s what was so wrong with Labor’s little stunt. We should have been there.”
“That’s not Labor’s fault though.”
“No, look we’ve already established that the ministers shouldn’t have gone and that Labor shouldn’t have attempted to take advantage of that and that we won the election and that we’re the government and we don’t think that a Royal Commission would do anything for the people who’ve suffered because of poor behaviour from the banks, so why are we just going over old ground and not moving on?”
“I’m not sure that we’ve established that a Royal Commission wouldn’t help. Isn’t that still something that…”
“How would a Royal Commission help? It’d be better to ensure that checks and balances that are already there are working properly.”
“So why did your party call a Royal Commission into the Home Insulation scheme?”
“Well, to remind everyone how badly Labor botched the scheme. People died and houses caught fire…”
“Yes, but how did a Royal Commission help? I mean, using your logic shouldn’t resources have been put into ensuring that there were better checks and balances in the home insulation industry to ensure that dodgy operators…”
“What do you mean ‘dodgy operators’? Everyone knows that it was all the fault of the Labor Party.”
“But getting back to Parliament…”
“What! Have Labor called for another vote? This is outrageous. What do they think…”
“No, no, I mean, getting back to talking about Parliament.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Do you think that Labor’s tactics have made the PM’s position less secure?”
“Not at all. I think that Mr Turnbull has the full support of everyone in the party and that we just want to get on with the moral challenges of repairing the Budget and ensuring that companies get a well-deserved tax cut.”
“So what about Senator Bernardi’s attempt to remove 18C by collecting the signatures of Liberal backbench senators? Doesn’t that suggest that he’s trying to undermine Mr Turnbull?”
“Not at all. Senator Bernardi is just attempting to ensure that a piece of legislation which restricts free speech is removed.”
“So you’d be in favour of its removal?”
“That’s not the important thing. The important thing is that Labor is attempting to use its numbers to stop us doing what we want to do and the sooner they get used to the idea that we won the election and abandon all attempts to implement their election pledges the better.”
“Including the Budget measures that you’re demanding that they support because they pledged that they would?”
“Well obviously not those ones because they’re important for the future of the country.”
“How did you determine that?”
“We agree with them.”
“Sorry, Mr Whine, but your time is up.”
“No, Mr Turnbull has promised me another chance.”
“I meant for the program.”
“Oh. Good morning then.”
“Good morning.”
