Triple M's Hot Breakfast with Eddie McGuire, Luke Darcy and Mieke Buchan

Friday, 23 July 2010

Subjects: 2010 election; Hey, Hey it’s Saturday; population; border protection; West Coast Eagles

E&OE…

EDDIE MCGUIRE    … the Deputy Opposition Leader, from the Liberal Party of course, joining us in the hot seat. [inaudible]

JULIE BISHOP    Good morning Eddie, great to be here.

EDDIE MCGUIRE    It is great to hear another voice other than Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard. We’re finally getting some people in to the play that we can talk with. Julie you’re from Western Australia, originally from South Australia, I’ve known you a long time. You are a board member of the West Coast Eagles, you’ve got an enormous CV that I don’t think a lot of people in Melbourne, particularly, know much about you. Who is Julie Bishop?

JULIE BISHOP    Well I do come from the West now but I grew up in Adelaide on a farm in the Adelaide Hills and went to school and university in Adelaide. Headed over to the West and found work as a lawyer over there and have had a fantastic life in Western Australia. I know it is like another country to some people but it is a great place to live. And yeah I am on the board of the West Coast Eagles, I’ve been there since about 2008 and prior to going into parliament I was a lawyer, a partner in the law firm of Clayton Utz…

EDDIE MCGUIRE    Yeah you are playing it down. You were right up the top of the law firm there.

JULIE BISHOP    I was managing partner.

EDDIE MCGUIRE    You’ve had a massive career and you’ve smashed through the glass ceiling nearly every step of your career right the way from school right the way through and now you are one of the leading women as far as office holders in parliament until obviously Julia Gillard became the Prime Minister. Can you tell us a bit about that? It still is a male dominated area, we still hear Julia Gillard being picked on for her clothes and her hair and her voice and things like that, but how is it going these days? Is more open, do you think now is the time for women to get into these offices more than there ever has been before?

JULIE BISHOP    Well it is interesting Eddie, a number of people say to me you are the first female to hold a leadership role at a national level in the Liberal Party and I say, “hang on I am the first West Australian to hold a leadership role in the Liberal Party!”

But there are more women coming into politics. I think there is still a novelty about having a first female Prime Minister and it is interesting it is not a novelty that is shared by other countries in our region. We’ve had Prime Ministers, Heads of State and Presidents in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia.

So we can say there is no position closed to women these days. We’ve got a female Governor-General, female Premiers and the like.

But I think that federal politics is a very difficult juggling act particularly for women, because of their children, because it sits in Canberra. If you live in Perth or the Northern Territory or Tasmania or northern Queensland it does take a lot of time to get to Canberra as parliament sits for a couple of weeks every month in Canberra. So the number of women is nowhere near 50 percent, probably about 25-30 percent.

LUKE DARCY    Speaking with Julie Bishop here on the Hot Breakfast. How is Tony going? He had an interesting campaign choice the other night, he decided that Hey, Hey it’s Saturday and Red Faces was the opportunity he was going to take up.

EDDIE MCGUIRE    The other one was Kerry O’Brien and the Red Hen!

LUKE DARCY    Kerry O’Brien was a little [inaudible] about the fact that he couldn’t get access to Tony Abbott. Let’s listen to Kerry on the 730 Report.

KERRY O’BRIEN    After interviewing Julia Gillard on Monday we were hoping Tony Abbott would be available last night or tonight to balance the scales in the first week. Mr Abbott couldn’t make it tonight, he is on another television program called Hey, Hey it’s Saturday with Daryl Somers on their Red Faces segment.

[laughter]

LUKE DARCY    Can you feel the contempt coming through there Julie? Was it the right choice Julie to go and do Red Faces?

EDDIE MCGUIRE    Lets hear the reception Tony got?

DARYL SOMERS    We do have the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott! [cheers and music]

MIEKE BUCHAN    So how do you react to that?

JULIE BISHOP    Well first of all Kerry O’Brien should lighten up, I mean come on! But I understand that the warm up guy on Hey, Hey had got half the audience to boo and half the audience to cheer so it was all contrived.

But look it is a bit of fun and people often say they want to see more of their politicians and have them more accessible, more human. I remember in the 2007 campaign Kevin Rudd used to appear on Rove instead of going on the 730 Report and I think Kerry O’Brien was pretty snaky about that as well. But others thought it was a stroke of political generous for Kevin Rudd to be on Rove so people could see the human side of him.

EDDIE MCGUIRE    Julie it is a reasonably short campaign. One of bugs with it is that everyone is being told by political analysts and 21 year old advisors how to go about doing these things. Is there any danger at any stage that someone is going to tell us what our country is going to be in the next ten years?

JULIE BISHOP    We have been setting out our vision for the future of Australia, we have been putting out polices, but I think this is what the debate on Sunday night should be about. I am a little disturbed that the Prime Minister doesn’t want it to clash with Masterchef. I mean come on this is a most serious political debate. It is an opportunity for people to evaluate our leaders and their policies and pass judgment, have an informed judgement, on what they think will be best for the country.

EDDIE MCGUIRE    Julie one last one for you, and particularly being from Western Australia you have far more insight into this than I could ever have, but I reckon the refugee issue is the greatest beat up of all time. Your state are screaming for workers particularly in the mining areas and things like that. Why are we getting so upset about, alright we don’t want people just washing up on our shore and things like that so put the things in place, but are we just going a little nuts on the population and refugees in a country that is half empty and is screaming for employment?

JULIE BISHOP    Well you are right from this perspective Eddie, in Western Australia we do have a shortage of skilled workers and unskilled workers. The big mining projects in the north of the state are screaming out for more workers and I think that Western Australia could have a much larger population particularly up the coast up to the north west, it is where all our strategic energy projects are. And there is a lot of space up there, a lot of water, and I would love to see a large population centre in the north west of the country. I think strategically it would be a good idea as well to have a defence base up there. And so the situation in Western Australia is perhaps different from say outer Sydney, outer Melbourne.

But the issue about the asylum seeker debate really comes down to trying to maintain an orderly migration program and when people pay people smugglers to get into leaky boats and make that risky journey across the seas puts their lives at risk, the lives of our Defence and Custom personnel at risk, then that is no way to run an immigration policy. That is why we say stop the people smuggling trade, but we must continue to be generous towards genuine refugees and maintain that humanitarian program that Australia has.

LUKE DARCY    We have to get to a break, but one final hard hitting one from me before we finish. Okay Julie, are you ready for this?

JULIE BISHOP    Yeah.

LUKE DARCY    Who’s going to win Masterchef Julie? Very important.

JULIE BISHOP    Guess what? I am more interested in who is going to win the important political debate and that is going to be Tony Abbott. Go Tony!

EDDIE MCGUIRE    Do you think Tony is going to win?

JULIE BISHOP    Tony is a very formidable intellect. I mean the guy is a Rhodes Scholar no less, and he has got his economics degree from Sydney University…

EDDIE MCGUIRE    He might be a Rhodes Scholar but is he street smart? That is the question.

JULIE BISHOP    Yeah, I believe Tony is.

EDDIE MCGUIRE    Well he is used to getting into the ring, he is a good fighter.

JULIE BISHOP    Well that is what he did at Oxford, his blue was in boxing so he is a fairly fit kind of guy. I don’t think anyone questions his fitness.

EDDIE MCGUIRE    No. It will be interesting to see how it goes on Sunday and hopefully we’ll get some debate going and actually get some answers on those things.

JULIE BISHOP    That’s right. Well I have enjoyed being here today. I am doing a bit of media around Melbourne this morning. I’ve got to head back to Perth. The Eagles have got a big game on Saturday, they are playing Carlton at Subiaco Oval. So screaming for my team!

EDDIE MCGUIRE    Yeah you do us all a favour there.

JULIE BISHOP    Indeed, we are on the bottom of the ladder but lets face it Eddie, we’ve only got one way to go. Up!

EDDIE MCGUIRE    And Julie I know you joined after the Cousins situation and all the issues over at the West Coast Eagles to try and stabilise their club and you’ve done a great job over there. So congratulations for all you are doing with the footy world, and good luck!

JULIE BISHOP    Same to you. Collingwood on Saturday, how are you going to go against…

EDDIE MCGUIRE    The Tigs, yeah well we will get in and get stuck into them hopefully Julie. We’ll see how we go. But it is going to be a big game at the MCG.

LUKE DARCY    He’s half trying to keep a lid on it Julie.

JULIE BISHOP    They are on top of the ladder and its been 20 years since your last premiership mate.

LUKE DARCY    Very good points you make Julie!

EDDIE MCGUIRE    Julie Bishop joining us, the Deputy Opposition Leader and just one of the great women role models.