HENRY: Penny, good morning to you, thanks for joining us.
WONG: Good morning, good to be with you, very early ...
HENRY: It is very early isnt it. Craig Thomson ... its very late for him actually, because hes been under a shadow for so long. Finally the Prime Minister on the weekend has said that its no longer appropriate for him to be part of the Labor caucus. What changed and now its no longer appropriate?
WONG: Both in relation to Mr Thomson and Mr Slipper, the Prime Minister has made the judgement that the circumstances have got to a point where she needed to take the sort of action she took and announced it on the weekend, and I think it was appropriate action to take. These have been difficult circumstances for a period of time and the Prime Minister came to the view that it was time that action be taken given that, really, the standing of the Parliament was becoming affected.
HENRY: But in reality when you say she came to the view, in reality what she did is backtrack and particularly in Craig Thomsons case it took her a long time to come to that view, didnt it?
WONG: Paul, I think theres a few things we have to recall. The first is that in this country, politicians are not judge and jury. We dont decide what peoples punishments should be, we dont decide if theyre guilty. And there are proper independent processes in this country; the courts, the police, where relevant, that do that job.
And those processes do need to be respected. We dont have trial by politicians in this country. But that had to be balanced against what was occurring in terms of the reputation of the Parliament. And what the PM said yesterday is she came to the view that the standing of the Parliament, an important, critical institution for the nation, had come to the point where she needed to act and she did.
HENRY: Alright, how much of her coming to that view with regards to Craig Thomson is the fact that this week Fair Work Australia will release its report?
WONG: I wasnt aware that Fair Work Australia was going to release its report this week. Thats a matter for them and as I said, theyre independent. But the Prime Minister on her return from overseas, as you know she went to Gallipoli and obviously was overseas for the last week, took the view that both in relation to Mr Slipper and Mr Thomson she did need to act and she made that decision.
HENRY: Do you think she left it too late? Could she not have taken this view, in Thomsons case, months and months and months ago at the very least?
WONG: I think Id go back to what Ive said she has had to balance the principles that I spoke about and she has ...
HENRY: But do you have a view on that? Penny, do you have a view, do you think she left it too late?
WONG: I think she made the right decision. I understand she spoke to both Mr Slipper and Mr Thomson over the weekend and I think she made the right decision.
HENRY: And it was very much her decision, we know now. Will Craig Thomson be disendorsed for the next election?
WONG: Thats a matter for the Labor Party and the branch in NSW and the people in his seat ...
HENRY: Would you recommend that? Would you recommend that because it seems to me that hes paying no penalty at all and Labor are paying no penalty at all because youve got the guarantee of support from him ...
WONG: Again, youre asking me to be judge and jury about penalties. In terms of preselection, Mr Thomson, Penny Wong, all of us, hold our seat in this Parliament because the good voters of Australia put us here and the members of the Labor Party pre-select us. And all of us have to stand, if we want to stand again, all of us have to stand before those members and say I ask for your support and were all in that situation.
HENRY: You will have caught up with the Galaxy Poll this morning that had Labor on 30 per cent. If an election were held now and the Galaxy poll is even loosely correct, Labor will be decimated. Do you think that the decisions the Prime Minister has just made will make any difference to that ultimate decimation?
WONG: Weve got a lot of work to do. We know that as a Government, and the next big step in terms of that work is the Budget to be handed down in the very near future a Budget that will return a surplus because thats the right thing to do for Australias economy. But of course weve got a lot of work today and were aware of that.
HENRY: Alright, Penny, thank you very much for joining us this morning.
WONG: Good to speak with you.
ENDS