Tue, 24th June 2008

Nelson Doorstop - Belinda Neal, child care fees...

The Hon Dr Brendan Nelson MP
Leader of the Opposition

E&OE

QUESTION:

Did you watch the interview last night, Melissa Batten’s interview on A Current Affair and what was your reaction?

DR NELSON:

Well I think every Australian should have watched A Current Affair last night and I would like to think that those Australians who didn’t would catch a viewing of the interview with Ms Batten.

Mr Rudd now needs to explain to Australians why he continues to have Belinda Neal as a member of his Government.

Dean Mighell was sacked from the Labor Party for swearing. Here we have a member of the Government, a key member of the Rudd Government, who it seems has heavied, bullied and intimidated members of her staff to provide statutory declarations that are now the subject of a police inquiry and on the basis of what we now know from a former employee of Belinda Neal, those statutory declarations need to be brought into question.

The very least that Mr Rudd should do now is to show leadership, to make a decision and that decision should be to exclude Belinda Neal from the Government, from the Labor Party Caucus at least until we get the outcome of the police inquiry.

I think Mr Rudd also needs to make his staff available to the Australian Federal Police should they feel it necessary to interview him and his staff.

I think also those police inquiries would obviously extend to the staff of Mr Della Bosca and others in the New South Wales Parliament.

QUESTION:

There’s nothing more that Kevin Rudd really can do, though, while the police investigation is underway. That’s what he says, that he has to wait until the police inquiry is finished.

DR NELSON:

Mr Rudd doesn’t usually make a decision until he’s got a media problem and at this stage I think the decision that I think Mr Rudd should do is stand down Belinda Neal from the Government, from the Labor Party Caucus room until the outcome of those inquiries.

Yesterday Mr Rudd said that neither he nor any of his staff were involved in the dissemination of the statutory declarations. I think Mr Rudd needs to further explain precisely what does that mean.

When Mr Rudd was first confronted with this issue publicly when he was in Japan on Sunday the 8th of June he dismissed it by simply asking what nation-state Belinda Neal represented. He didn’t say anything about this until I, and then Julia Gillard, had raised the issue and it was several days later before Mr Rudd advised Australia, through the media, that he’d suggested that Ms Neal go off for counselling.

I think Mr Rudd still has quite a few questions to answer in relation to this, but most importantly he needs to show leadership. He needs to make a decision and that decision should be that Belinda Neal should have no place continuing as a member of the Government. She should be stood down until the outcome of these inquiries.

QUESTION:

In watching that interview last night, what were you thinking about while you were watching it and about the effort that Ms Batten made?

DR NELSON:

I admire Ms Batten for the courage that she has shown.

We know that we’ve seen the ugly face of bullying with Belinda Neal and Mr Della Bosca and here is a woman driven by idealism to work for, in this case, a Labor Member of Parliament.

She has obviously shown an enormous amount of courage in setting out the truth. She clearly had been intimidated. I found her interview compelling and I also found her interview one which was deeply rooted in a determination to tell the truth.

This is a woman who is a wife, she’s a mother, she went to work for a Member of Parliament and she has been subject to the abuse of power.

None of us should forget what this was all about. What this was all about was Belinda Neal and Mr Della Bosca, a power couple abusing power, to intimidate and bully people who don’t have any. And then further to that, it now certainly appears that there has been some kind of cover-up to distort the truth of the circumstances of the 6th of June.

And as I said early on in this incident, what we needed to know was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and on the basis of the statutory declarations of the employees on the night, and also the interview with Ms Batten, it appears that that is certainly not what we have had.

QUESTION:

Just on the need to know the truth, has the Government perhaps been a bit tardy in calling in the Federal Police? Should they have been called in earlier?

DR NELSON:

We did ask the Government in the Parliament a week ago about calling in the Australian Federal Police. Mr Rudd was scathing and dismissive of that.

I foreshadowed over the weekend that I would be writing to Mr Rudd this week to suggest the Australian Federal Police should be brought in to the inquiry and I’m now pleased, at least, following the interview with Ms Batten that Mr Rudd has chosen to act.

On another issue – we learn today that child care fees will increase by more than 11 per cent and in some cases even higher. We were told by Julia Gillard a couple of weeks ago that all of the powers of the Federal Government would be brought to bear to keep child care costs in line.

We also were told we were going to get some sort of childcare watch and now we have Maxine McKew saying, well, basically it’s a matter for parents and there’s not much the Government can do about it.

I think Mr Rudd needs to give Australians more direction and more reassurance when it comes to childcare costs.

QUESTION:

A Labor official claims that the racist pamphlets handed out during the election campaign in the seat of Lindsay were created in a Liberal MPs office. What do you think about these claims and should there be some sort of investigation?

DR NELSON:

Well, as we know from the Iguana Joe incident, Labor people will say and do anything.

Thanks.