E&OE TRANSCRIPT

SUBJECTS: Neo-Nazis, the Voice, Qantas and Qatar bidding, PM’s cricket match

KARL STEFANOVIC, HOST: A disgusting video has been sent to Senator Lidia Thorpe from a Nazi terrorist organisation, threatening her and burning the Aboriginal flag.

We're not going to show you any more of that because it is absolutely appalling but joining us to discuss is Minister for Government Services and the NDIS Bill Shorten and 2GB’s Chris O'keefe.

Morning guys, nice to see you this morning. Lidia is addressing the media today, Bill, on this threatening video. It’s pretty rough, isn’t it?

BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: I think it's cowardly and disgusting. I don't know what it is with these man-baby Nazis. Wearing a hood so no-one can see you. They think they're so tough.

This lame brain is in his backyard making a disgusting video. The Aboriginal flag is a recognised flag, sending it and trying to pressure one of our Senators and abuse them, it is cowardly and gutless.

I wish that bloke would take his hood off so people can see what kind of joker he is. The guy can't even remember his lines has to read it off a phone.

STEFANOVIC: Chris?

CHRIS O’KEEFE, 2GB: Police should be onto them and finding out who they are, pay them a visit and put them in front of a magistrate. This is not on. It is not good for this country.

STEFANOVIC: Bill, why do you think Melbourne is such a hotbed for this kind of thing?

SHORTEN: How do you know this is Melbourne, Karl? Do you have some information?

STEFANOVIC: Just generally speaking.

SHORTEN: I don’t think that’s right, mate. I Think most people in Melbourne, 99 per cent would deplore it.

But I couldn’t tell from that backdrop that it was Melbourne, mate. I don’t know what were the giveaways?

STEFANOVIC: I’m just trying to put to you, generally speaking, we’ve done several stories on the Nine Network and on 60 Minutes on Neo-Nazis in Melbourne – I was just proposing –

SHORTEN: There is a nest of idiots and I don’t think the idiot tribe is in a particular geography.

STEFANOVIC: The Voice is struggling to gain support in Labor’s heartland. Pre-polling isn’t looking good in key electorates like the NSW’s Hunter. How are you feeling about it?

SHORTEN: I’m not going to necessarily rely on 25 people on an exit poll. But I think a lot of people at the moment are battling cost of living. I think that’s understandable. I think there are a lot of people that aren’t engaged and we’ll have to see how we go in the next ten or so remaining days and on the Saturday, I think when people engage and they realise that just putting people on the nation’s birth certificate and getting an advisory committee, the rest of us don’t lose by making decisions better than we previously have.

STEFANOVIC: We’re not going to spend too much time on pre-polling numbers but some aren’t good in the Redlands area of Queensland for example, admittedly a safe Liberal seat, 93 per cent of people have said they’ve already voted no.

O’KEEFE: I think Bill Shorten was right when he was leader of the Labor Party, he said there was not a snowflakes chance in hell that the Australian people would go for this in a referendum, and he’s been proven right. Bill Shorten as Labor leader in 2018 said, “you know what I’m gonna do, I will legislate the Voice, see if it works and go for Indigenous recognition in the constitution”.

Now, if you had your time again, do you reckon Anthony Albanese would be going for the same thing? Talk about wisdom Billy boy.

STEFANOVIC: It is possibly damaging, not just for the party but for the Prime Minister. Billy?

SHORTEN: Are you asking me? In terms of what I said five years ago, we’ve now had five and a half years of debate and discussion on the issues, so I’m very supportive of us having the referendum.

But, no, let’s see what happens – no I don’t think it’s damaging for the Prime Minister. It’ll mean that the Australian people have spoken either way.

Once we’ve had the referendum vote I would hope that people would come together again. But as I say, let’s just wait and see. A lot of people, maybe because I support the Yes vote maybe I tend to hear more from Yes voters, but there’s a lot of Australians out there who are yet to engage, I’ve said for perfectly sensible reasons, they have other things on their minds. But the actual proposition enhances the country it doesn’t divide us as the No case would have us believe.

When you get to the detail of it –

STEFANOVIC: I can’t see how it gets up.

O’KEEFE: It can’t get up. But I will say this, just on the Prime Ministerial question, with people saying ‘well Albo is dead in the water – in 1951, Sir Robert Menzies asked Australians to vote to allow him to ban communists in Australia, it was defeated but he remained Prime Minister.

STEFANOVIC: Well, let’s see what happens. Qantas doesn’t want the government to let in more Qatar flights because it will only help Australians – Bill, it will help Aussies, therefore we shouldn’t do it, how does that make sense to anyone in the world?

SHORTEN: Well first of all, in the first week of September there was 1,857 international flights in and out of Australia. So, you know, Qatar’s pursuing a commercial agenda, they’re bankrolled by their government.

Just because a business wants to add some flights doesn’t mean we’ve all got to immediately say “thank you very much”. The fact of the matter is that Virgin has got private equity sale, they want a good price for them. There is a fair bit of commercial interest in the background here.

O’KEEFE: It would be nice if Australians got some cheaper fares though, Bill. What are we talking about, are we talking about Qantas protecting its commercial interest, are talking about the Qatar government, are we talking about Albo, are we talking about all you lot in the chairman’s lounge, what are we talking about here? It would be nice if somebody at some point in this discussion went “hey, little old Australians, can we have cheaper airfares”, which is what this deal would have secured. And we keep missing this.

At the end of the day Qantas is a private company, why are we protecting a private company? It’s a free market, they operate in a free market and they prove time and time again when they illegally sacked workers for quote unquote, what Richard Goyder said, for “sound commercial reasons”. Like they illegally sacked almost 2,000 people.

STEFANOVIC: But Bill, it’s in the national interest of course.

SHORTEN: Chris, Chris enough mate. You got the reaction you want. First of all, don’t associate me with any decision of the board – you know that I think I don’t know what it takes for a board or a chairman to resign these days. I was out there on the frontline with those baggage handlers when they got sacked, so of course I think that’s illegal. But what you’re doing Chris, is what you’re saying is one set of commercial interests, Qantas – and that’s all they are, I get that – but there is another set of commercial interests, the Qatari government and Virgin, they’re businesses too.

O’KEEFE: What about the interest of Aussies paying for flights –

SHORTEN: Chris, I didn’t interrupt you at all. What I’m saying is let’s not put a white hat on one side of the commercial negotiations and a black hat on the other. I’m only interested in how Australian passengers are not hostages, but treated like customers.

So what you’ve got here is a very un-beautiful, ugly contest between two major airlines, and yeah, we want to see cheaper flights for people, but let’s not pretend that having Qatar on a particular day magically makes your flight cheaper to the Gold Coast.

STEFANOVIC: Well the Gold Coast is beautiful this time of year.

Before we go talking white hats, Billy, if you’re going to become Prime Minister again, which y’know, may happen down the track –

SHORTEN: No.

STEFANOVIC: If it does, can you not play cricket? We’ve had a succession of Prime Ministers prove a debacle of it. Bob Hawke, remember that? This is John Howard’s, remember that – there we go. And yesterday we had Prime Minister Albanese have a crack too, here we go, boom, and there’s the Prime Minister under a sitter and oooo, dropped it, dropped it.

So Billy, can you just at the very least, confirm you’ll never attempt cricket if you become Prime Minister?

SHORTEN: Well one, I’m not running for Prime Minister and two I promise never to attempt it, and three, if Albo was the first person to ever drop a sitter, he’d probably get a game in the team.

STEFANOVIC: Good way to end it guys, see you next week.