SUBJECTS: Workplace bullying; Trade relationship with China; Federal election

SARAH ABO, HOST: All right. Well, parliament has yet again been rocked, excuse me, by allegations of bullying after a former staffer of Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles says she was forced out of her job. For more, let's bring in Minister for Government Services and the NDIS, Bill Shorten and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. Good to see you both this morning. Bill, this is worrying. One of Labor's most senior female staffers saying she was bullied and still suffering the ongoing effects. Is there a problem with parliament's workplace culture?

BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: Well, the Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, addressed this in parliament yesterday. Out of respect for the people involved and because of the prospect of legal proceedings, there's not much more I can comment about the individual matters. And the general issue, Labor is very committed to improving the culture and professional conduct at Parliament House.

ABO: I mean, Pete, accusations of bullying, sadly, are not new in parliament. No party, including your own, seems immune to this. The Greens are also in hot water right now with staff claims of toxic bullying culture. It does sound like something's not quite right in Parliament House?

PETER DUTTON, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Well, Sarah, it of course, happens in the media industry as well and across many workplaces, so bullying is not acceptable and there are processes in place to investigate it. One of the revelations, obviously, yesterday was that the Prime Minister's office had been involved in this matter for months and months and there's still no resolution to it. So, you would have thought the priority for the Prime Minister's office would be to find resolution and to find a satisfactory outcome by way of mediation or support for the individual involved, and had the shoe been on the other foot, of course, the Labor party would be completely outraged and calling for sackings of Ministers, etcetera, as they did in the Morrison Government, but I think Mr Albanese’s office has a real, has obviously had a real role to play here and they need to answer why it's dragged on and on and on and they've just been incapable of resolving it.

ABO: Bill, is there an answer to that?

SHORTEN: Well, I don't think there's anything more than I can add beyond what Richard said yesterday. I mean, there is the prospect of legal matters and as Richard said, out of respect for people. There’s not much more I can say I’m afraid.

ABO: No, I understand that. I guess more broadly, given you guys are representatives of the Australian population, but we can move on now and Australian lobster will be back on the menu in China as the final sanctions on live exports are lifted. Bill, 95% of the industry's market was China. This has been a long time coming and will be a big relief for the industry?

SHORTEN: Yeah it is a bit of good news, really. It's – the world's very difficult place, but this is a bit of good news. The Prime Minister and the Chinese leader were able to sort this out. It's an eight – it’s worth $800 million, the lobster industry to Australia. It actually comes on top of the resolution of lots of matters since Labor got in. When we got in, there was a $20 billion ban on Australian products, but now coal, cotton, wheat, barley, timber logs, copper ore extract, nearly everything's now had the boom lifted. And so this is good news for Australia's lobster industry.

ABO: Yeah, you can add wine to that list as well. Pete, the ban on live exports of lobsters has been in place since late 2020. The last time the Coalition was in government, relations with China were at rock bottom. Clearly things are on the mend now, though.

DUTTON: Well, it's a really good outcome for the WA lobster fisher – fishing industry and let's hope that we can continue to expand the trading relationship with China. They're our most important trading partner, but we are also a sovereign nation and we stand up for our beliefs and what's important to us. That's what we did in government and we're happy for the industry to continue to grow and there are issues that we have to stand up for and presumably the Prime Minister is doing that at the moment. Issues are important to our national security and, you know, no doubt the Prime Minister will have more to say about that when he gets back.

ABO: Yeah, we're still waiting for the exact details on when and how, but Peter, are there concerns that we should be a bit more cautious dealing with China or not?

DUTTON: Well, Sarah, again, I mean, if you look at what's happened, example, for example, around 5G, the decision we took when we were in government to exclude high risk vendors from the 5G network was all because the intelligence agencies were saying to us that we couldn't allow our telecommunications network to be compromised. We've got autonomous vehicles and remote monitoring devices. So, we took a decision that was in our country's best interest. It upset the Chinese at the time, and that's the sort of thing that you're talking about. But the alternative to that is to take a decision that's not in our country's best interest and that's not what we did. We did it in a respectful way, but we put our interests first and at the same time, we want a very significant relationship with China as a trading partner to continue to grow. It's good for our economy and it's very good for theirs as well.

ABO: All right. It seems talk of an early election has been quashed. Pete, I hate to come to you again, but you are the one wanting the PM to go early. Speculation is it won't be until March, maybe even May. How do you feel about that?

DUTTON: To be honest, watching the Albanese Government at the moment, I'm happy to see it go longer. I think Sarah – they are, they are contorting into, you know, a knot at the moment. The Prime Minister hasn't got a clue what he's doing. And I think Bill Shorten might be thinking about delaying his retirement, because whilst he's going in February, there could be an opportunity still left. One shot left in the locker, as they say. Bill, I'm not sure whether you want to rule it out this morning or you’re rolling the sleeves.

SHORTEN: Peter, I genuinely look forward to your happy McHappy sessions every Friday where, you know, even from lobster to anything, you can see the, you can see the downside in everything. It takes the real skill to extract the negative out of everything, but, you know, my man, you are the Jedi master.

ABO: Will you hand around Bill? Will you hang around if we go to March or May?

DUTTON: – but you coming out of retirement Bill. It's a positive. It's you coming out of retirement.

SHORTEN: No I know. Listen I know Peter’s coming, I know –

DUTTON: You're watching a slow motion trainwreck with the Prime Minister and here you are still lurking in the background.

SHORTEN: Oh, no Peter, I know that in your own emotionally complicated way, you're saying you're going to miss me and that's okay. But I think the election, we'll have the election and –

DUTTON: It’s not just me, it’s Albo as well.

SHORTEN: Yeah I’ve never been so popular.

ABO: We've still got- we've still got the two of you until February together. That's guaranteed.

SHORTEN: You’ve still got me, you’ve still got me.

ABO: So, really appreciate you joining us today, guys. Have a great weekend.