Mr Barns talks to Mr Cox

ABC Radio, Mornings, Thursday, March 9

Tim Cox: OK, just in closing, did you get this information from the Electoral Commission?

Greg Barns: Well, read my column, Tim. Read the line in my column. I haven’t got it in front of me but I said that this is er an interesting question … something to the effect that this information is available and the Labor Party’s been looking at it …

Tim Cox: What your column says Greg is, here are the facts that anyone can glean from reading Australian Electoral Commission returns …

Greg Barns: Yeah, that’s absolutely right … what do you reckon I did Tim. I’ve had a long interest in this issue.

Tim Cox: I’m just asking if you got your information from there or if you were the very first recipient of the email from the Government’s dirt unit.

Greg Barns: Well, I, I, I didn’t get an email from the Government … um …

Tim Cox: A fax?

Greg Barns: … But, but I am certainly aware of … and I was certainly aware that the Labor Party were putting material around. But, my point, so what? You know journalists and I’m not a journalist by the way, I’m a commentator, and journalists would hate me to be called a journalist … but let’s put it this way Tim … the hypocrisy of any journalist who suggests that somehow it’s outrageous to accept material from a political party or a government when they live their lives rummaging around the garbage trucks of Tasmania or looking for things that fall off the back of those garbage trucks … I mean looking at this from afar it is very amusing …

Tim Cox: Greg Barns we’ll leave it there, thanks; Greg Barns on the phone from Toronto. The column was in The Mercury on Monday and the email/unattributed fax from Rod Scott, the Premier’s Chief of Staff also arrived on Monday.

Earlier: The Premier’s dirt unit

The first part of the interview …

Tim Cox: Let’s see what Greg Barns who first raised the issue in his column in The Mercury makes of the way it has unfolded? … Five to six people are looking for intel on the Greens. Is that standard practice during an election campaign?

Greg Barns: It’s pretty standard tactics … not only on the part of Government but Oppositions and other parties. The Greens themselves … I notice that Kim Booth one of their members had raised a series of very serious allegations about a Launceston property developer last year which the developer said were highly defamatory and Mr Booth had to apologise. Now where would Mr Booth have got that information. I’m sure he was using taxpayers’ time and taxpayers’ funds on obtaining that information. Look you know, from the other side of the world, this issue just looks hilarious. Here we have journalists writing about dirt units and dirty tricks. Journalists feed off political parties and the information that they give them about themselves and their opponents and they have been doing so from time immemorial. My only attitude is, so what?

Tim Cox: Alright. If it’s taxpayer funded using taxpayer staff and resources does that change the issue at all?

Greg Barns: Well, here’s a chance to flog my book … I wrote a book last year called Selling the Australian Government published by UNSW Press in which I talkged about this very issue. My own view is that it probably is better done, it should be done by the parties rather than governments themselves and that was the case with the Animals which the Hawke and Keating governments ran very successfully and in the case of Mr Howard’s Government Information Unit. The Opposition is taxpayer funded as are the Greens … if they are doing anything party political it ought to be paid for by the parties …

Tim Cox: The Business Affairs Manager for Consumer Affairs Tasmania is quoted in The Australian today that by becoming a company they have subjected themselves to a greater level of scrutiny than if they had become an incorporated association because there is a greater level of reporting and auditing.

Greg Barns: I know that all too well, I’m a company director. I’m a director of public companies … and it is becoming absurdly difficult to run businesses now given the amount of regulatory requirements because we have governments that insist on trying to legislate for morality. So I sympathy with the Greens about the level of reporting that is required because it is onerous. It is more onerous for public companies … their information is readily available on the ASIC site … you can get a free company search. I notice Geoffrey Hills who is one of the more sensible commentators in Tasmania has done exactly that and has published his results on a website today: Comments 7 & 8 on The Premier’s dirt unit So this stuff is publicly available.

Tim Cox: So do you stand by the claim you made on Monday in the paper that the Greens are I quote a little opaque when it comes to working out where the money comes from?

Greg Barns: Well it’s very difficult. On the face of it. As I understand it they are now saying that we can account for every dollar and cent because it comes from a tithe. I’m interested they have placed a tithe on their party MPs because that’s very common in North America with fundamentalist Christian churches. So one can draw their own conclusions .. we have the Greens who might say, or some members of the Greens are in fact rather religious in their zealotry, joining hands with fundamentalist Christians in compelling their members or at least their MPs to pay a tithe. I found that quite unusual.

Tim Cox: I suggest they choose to do that.

Greg Barns: Ah, well … it’s usually called price gouging if you do it in the marketplace, Tim. I’m not sure how much choice there would be if one member did not do it. I get you they get beaten up by the others and the moral suasion would go on as would happen in a fundamentalist Christian church.

Tim Cox: It’s 10 per cent for Senators.

Greg Barns: I mean as I say if one said no I’m not going to pay it I can tell you now that the moral censoriousness of Senator Milne and Senator Brown … you would be able to her it in every street corner of Hobart.

Tim Cox: Do you stand by that claim that the Greens are opaque..

Greg Barns: Yeah I do. Because the $750,000 is an enormous amount of money in a Tasmanian context. And if they are willing to publish a full list of donors as Tim Morris said, and Tim Morris is one of the better informed and more pragmatic Green MPs … if Mr Morris is saying that that’s good. I disagree with Richard Herr because the Greens are great ones for moral grandstanding and saying we are going to lead the way. They ought to lead the way and publish the full list.