GOVERNMENT MEDIA MONITORING UNIT DATE: NOVEMBER 3RD, 2006 TIME: 9.06AM STATION: 6PR MORNINGS(MAUMILL) SUBJECT: MAUMILL COMMENTS ON CCC INQUIRY This transcript is produced for information purposes only. Although all care is taken, no warranty as to its accuracy or completeness is given. It is your responsibility to ensure by independent verification that all information is correct before placing any reliance on it. BOB MAUMILL I pick up The Australian today, there it is starring at me – page one – Minister paid by developer. Oh no, we all go. A Carpenter Government Minister was last night under mounting pressure to resign, after it was revealed that he accepted $5,000 from a developer. The Corruption and Crime Commission heard that Norm Marlborough, Minister for Small Business in the South-West, received the money from Canal Rocks Proprietary Limited less than two weeks before the February 2005 state election. Strewth, he’s my Member of Parliament. So then I pick up The West and there’s Norm, smiling Norm, obviously wasn’t taken yesterday, smiling Norm there with Alan Carpenter with his arm around him. And Robert Taylor, Sean Cowan, Amanda Banks and Daniel Emerson – took four of them to write that story. And then a comment by Robert Taylor about the same issue and then I thought, my man’s in trouble. So at half-past-five in the morning, seeing as he’s my Member of Parliament, I rang him up. Woke Ros up, his wife and said, now listen Norm, I’ve told listeners on this program you’re my Member of Parliament, you’ve been a friend of mine for 30 years, is there anything in all of this? And Norm said, yeah the bloke gave me five grand, it was for five tickets to a Kim Beazley fundraiser. I said what’d you do with the money? He said gave it to the state secretary of the ALP, that’s what I’m supposed to do with it. It was five tickets to an ALP fundraiser. I said that’s not on the front page of The Australian newspaper. He said what do you want me to tell you? He said, I’m telling you, it was for five tickets, he said I think I sold other tickets as well, gave all the money to the state secretary of the ALP. So I thought, the thing to do here listeners, because it’s well known that I use Norm on this program from time to time as a butt of all of my jokes, we’d better ring the state secretary of the ALP and get Bill Johnston, who’s state secretary of the ALP, to come on air and explain this matter. But then I read all of the stories and I spoke to Norm and I spoke to his wife and - 2 – I spoke to Bill Johnston and I thought about the recent program on which I raised the issue, pardon me, of property developers making donations to political parties. You may recall, if you’re a regular listener, that I spoke to an academic who studied these matters. I raised the issue because Paul Keating had said that.. in a recent speech, you remember Rob, when Paul made that speech about property developers should not be allowed to make donations to political parties or candidates? I thought it was worthy of discussion. I made my position clear, as I have done in the past. Playing footsie and accepting donations from property developers had always had the potential to end in scandal and grief. Think as far back as Bjelke Petersen and the white shoe brigade on the Gold Coast, when they were cutting loose up there with donations going in all directions. Which brings us to the issue of my local Member of Parliament, Norm Marlborough. Norm is copping heaps. Now as far as I’m able to find out, ringing everyone I know who’s involved in this – one, because he met with and arranged a meeting between a man who wanted to develop a property at Smith’s Beach, which other people opposed and Norm arranged a meeting between that man and a public servant. Two, this man bought five tickets at a thousand dollars a ticket, to an ALP fundraising dinner at which Kim Beazley was the guest of honour. Norm sold the tickets, sent the money to the state secretary of the ALP. Three, the five grand, along with those monies, went into ALP headquarters and then became the responsibility of the people in headquarters. Four, the man.. the man was.. who Norm arranged the meeting for, was not a constituent of Norm’s. Norm Marlborough arranged that meeting between the man and a public servant. The man obviously wanted to get his development over the line, the public servant was someone that knew about the matters and as far as I know, may have been involved in the decision making process. Five, did Norm Marlborough, and this is the key to it, receive any direct financial benefit from the five grand? Maybe Bill Johnston the state secretary of the ALP can tell us about that. Another question, is it inappropriate for Norm Marlborough, or any other Member of Parliament, to meet with people outside their own electorate to discuss matters concerning the business of those people? Is it inappropriate, if he’s the Member for Peel, for instance, should he be meeting with people who are say, in the electorate of Kalgoorlie, or Murray? Should he only restrict his political activities and conversations and meetings to people inside his own electorate? Of course, the other question is, Norm Marlborough paying the price of being a friend of Brian Burke. Well Burkie can look after himself. He’s not a public servant, or a member of Parliament and how he conducts his business and earns his living is up to him. He’s not the only retired politician, by the way, who’s earned a quid as a lobbyist – let’s think, Bill Hassell, who else John Halden, Julian Grill, there’s a stack of others. But Norm Marlborough is a Member of Parliament, he is a Minister of the Crown and from what people who he deals with, he’s a very good one. And we need to know and this is the nub of it all, has he done wrong? Or has this now become a question of, well we can’t get Burke, let’s get Marlborough? Or is it, as I’m starting to get after reading The West and other papers, is it a question of - 3 – some journalists believing that well, it’s all about perceptions? I think that got a run here somewhere, perceptions. Well whose perceptions, there’s? And that raises the question that should really matter here, honesty and worth. What about worth and while we’re at it, what about innocence or guilt? What about whether or not say, let’s forget the perceptions, what about someone is good at what they do or not corrupt, or have done no wrong? But in the minds of some people, perceived to have links or associations that a journalist or a broadcaster or political opponents don’t approve of, what about that? Do we ignore the sum of a person’s worth and then go out and destroy that person on the basis of perceptions? If we do, well I think we’re cowards. If we don’t talk about it on air, I think we’re cowards. If people like Bill Johnston won’t come on air today as state secretary of the ALP and that’s where the money stopped, if he won’t come on air and talk about it, he’s a coward. We’re going to try and ring him. And I might say, that if we destroy people on the basis of perceptions, those that encourage us and condone us to do it, they’re cowards too, you’ve got to have more than someone’s perception. They’ve got to be either guilty or not guilty. They’ve got to be right or they’ve got to be wrong. If Norm Marlborough’s broken any law and I have got a 30 year friendship with him, he’s my Member of Parliament and I get on good with him, if Norm Marlborough’s broken any law, is in any way corrupt or his guilt is established, then I will damn him on this program. But so far, no evidence has emerged that he’s guilty of any wrongdoing, despite the headlines, by the way, suggesting that he has. And while those who are so concerned about propriety of perceptions are getting so heated up about the issues of links to developers or other vested interests, let’s get fair dinkum about it all. Let’s strip away the bullshit. Let’s examine the whole question of who buys influence and how. Let’s see who buys tickets to fundraising dinners to meet premiers, prime ministers, treasurers and other decision makers. Who sits with whom? What do they talk about? Those decision makers, premiers, prime ministers, candidates, ministers – they’re out of their own electorates and they’re somewhere else on some night raising funds for the party. People pay a thousand, fifteen hundred dollars a ticket to eat crook tucker and get access to the decision makers. What do you think they talk about? The price of the food? Of course they don’t.