Interview with Tom Connell, Politics Now

Topics: News poll, One Nation, Victorian politics, Arts funding political blog, Gambling Ads

TOM CONNELL

Joining me live now, Shadow Minister for Youth Arts and Sport, Angie Bell. Thank you for your time. It’s four months in for Angus Taylor, and he’s back to the depths Sussan Ley was plummeting. This has got to be a little bit disappointing, doesn’t it?

ANGIE BELL

Well thanks, and good to be with you today, Tom, and your viewers at home. Look, we’re 18 months to two years out from the election, and as we know, that is a very long time in politics. Goodness me, Tom, a week is a long time in politics, daily and hourly it is a long time in politics as well. So, we have a long way to go to the next election, and what the Coalition is doing is we are focused on rolling out our policies, and you would have heard this week and in the Budget reply in the last sitting, Angus, talk about our tax back guarantee, which, of course, is going to deliver $250 permanently to workers on $70,000 a year all the way up to $1,000 in year four, and that is going to be baked in to the forwards. Now, when you look at what Labor are doing, they’re going to deliver a $250 sugar hit that’s going to go backwards with inflation every year, and so Australians again, will get less from this big taxing, big spending Labor Government – the biggest in our history, in fact.

TOM CONNELL

Obviously, your main opposition remains Labor, but will you be seeking to increasingly highlight details on policy that One Nation has an issue on, given the past week.

ANGIE BELL

Well, the policy work is hard work, and the PBO, the office that costs all of the policy work, is available to all parliamentarians across the spectrum, and therefore you can put a policy forward and get it costed, and that is very important work, because that impacts the budget bottom line. What we’ve seen from some opposition parties or other parties is that they may not have had some of their policies costed, that is something that the Coalition does do with every single policy that we take through our party processes in Canberra.

TOM CONNELL

But stuff such as the housing policy, which was not so much a costing issue, but more clarification needed. Is that the sort of thing you’ll be highlighting more, given you are right now losing voters to One Nation?

ANGIE BELL

Certainly, we’ll be highlighting what we have on offer for the Australian people, we’re not going to ‘out nation’ One Nation. We are the Liberal and National parties and Coalition, and it’s our job to be a strong opposition to tell the Australian people what we are going to deliver for them, and be 100% focused on Australians and their needs, because right now, under the biggest taxing, biggest spending government in Australia’s history, Australians across the country are hurting, and they’re angry, and they’re frustrated.

TOM CONNELL

Bit of a throwback in politics in Victoria. Ditch the witch, the ad campaign against Jacinda Allen. What did you make of that?

ANGIE BELL

Well, look, I think it is nasty, and it is not nice when you’re on the receiving end of that sort of criticism, particularly as a woman, but politics is rough and tumble. You need to have thick skin to be in the game. You will be criticised, and that is part of the game, unfortunately. But I certainly do not condone using those words to talk about any woman in Australia, never mind a politician.

TOM CONNELL

You’ve taken aim at a particular blog, and it’s tax-free donation status. Now, the blog is called Pearls and Irritation. It says it used donation money quite a bit, at 650,000 odd dollars for project and production costs, all to do with arts projects. What evidence have you sought or got of the arts projects this involved?

ANGIE BELL

Yeah, well, certainly this came up in Senate Estimates aswell, Pearls and Irritations. And there has been absolutely no response from the Minister, by the way, today from the article in the Aus about this, and no response from the Director epartment on it either. And that is the Pearls and Irritations website gaining DGR status to get funding to fundraise, and then not spending it on the Arts. Now this is a political platform, and also through Senate estimates, what we saw was Pearls and Irritations-actually the two-way communication between the department- outlining that they were helping Pearls and Irritations to get access to that Arts funding, and so this is something that the Minister has to answer for. Is Creative Australia doing the right thing here or the wrong thing here? It certainly looks like it’s the wrong thing, Tom.

TOM CONNELL

Okay, and in terms of the Minister’s response, have you sought to get that clarification from Tony Burke, and whether he’s going to intervene here or seek that specific evidence of the Arts projects.

ANGIE BELL

Absolutely, I have sent a letter to the Minister on Friday, and I await his response. Currently, there’s been no comment from the Minister or from Creative Australia on this issue.

TOM CONNELL

I want to ask you about the Government’s response to gambling reform. It has been criticised by the crossbench, and they’ve said, well, Peter Dutton in opposition went further than this. What were your thoughts on the measures Labor has taken, and should they have gone further?

ANGIE BELL

Well, look, when we went to the last election, Peter Dutton said that we should have a ban on advertising an hour either side of sporting games, and I think that that probably hits the right balance. Now, the big bug bear with the Government is that they’ve simply not done anything on this for so long, and now we’re at a point in time where we need to have something done, and I would say to the Government that they should take our policy and have a look at what we put forward at the last election, because I think that struck the right balance.

TOM CONNELL

So, still pushing for something beyond what the government has done. They’ve got a ban until 8:30pm and the critics are saying, well, plenty of sports still going on at that point.

ANGIE BELL

Look, you need to think about when children are looking at sport, and if they’re sitting with mum and dad, and watching a sporting game, they shouldn’t have ads around gambling available for their little eyes. They shouldn’t be looking at that, and so I think it is important that either side of a game, and during the game, there shouldn’t be gambling ads.

TOM CONNELL

Angie Bell, appreciate your time today. Thank you.

ANGIE BELL

Thanks so much, Tom.