Renegade Liberal Dan Sullivan on poll tax and party deals

Broadcast: 16/06/2006

Reporter: Rebecca Carmody

REBECCA CARMODY (PRESENTER): The Attorney General Jim McGinty must be rubbing his hands with glee tonight. For the second time running, Labor's legislation to introduce publicly funded election campaigns has managed to turn the Liberal Party on its head. Renegade Liberal Dan Sullivan is agitating for the party to withdraw its support for Mr McGinty's bill, and his leader Paul Omodei isn't one bit impressed. Mr Sullivan is angry about a separate deal that's been negotiated between the Nationals and Mr McGinty which could cut into Liberal Party funds after the next election, because of that he says all bets should be off. I spoke to Mr Sullivan earlier, he was talking via mobile phone from his electorate office in Bunbury. Dan Sullivan, your leader Paul Omodei says he is not impressed with how this issue has been handled and says that he will be speaking to you this weekend, are you our of line here?

DAN SULLIVAN (LIBERAL MP): No not out of line at all I'm simply doing my job, firstly the vast majority of people I represent do not support a poll tax so I am simply representing their point of view but the other thing too is I have subsequently worked out that the Liberal Party could be at a significant financial disadvantage as a result of its support for this poll tax so no I dont think I'm out of line at all.

REBECCA CARMODY: Why is it then that your leader feels the need to speak to you about this?

DAN SULLIVAN : Well I would hope he wants to talk to me to find out more about why this poll tax package is going to be so damaging for the Liberal party you know the shadow minister for electoral affairs hasn't spoken to me, I would expect to have a very robust debate on Tuesday on this whole matter in our party room but I would kind of hope that thats the reason my leader is going to be talking to me.

REBECCA CARMODY: Is it your view then that there has been a lack of leadership in the Liberal Party in dealing with this public funding issue?

DAN SULLIVAN : No the issue with this poll tax is how Jim McGinty has hoodwinked the Liberal Party. My colleagues made a decision to support the poll tax last Tuesday but they were not told that Labor had done a deal with the National Party and that deal is going to cost the Liberal Party around half a million dollars over a four year term of government so I think now that my colleagues are aware of this I'm hoping that we might even withdraw our support for the poll tax.

REBECCA CARMODY: How is it that the Liberal Party then got itself hoodwinked?

DAN SULLIVAN : Well I dont know I suppose thats a question for me to ask the leader the simple fact is why wasn't Jim McGinty asked about the full details of the poll tax package, why wasn't he asked whether a deal had been done with the National Party or The Greens for that matter now because we were not given that information a majority of my colleagues decided to support the poll tax we now find that instead of being beneficial to the Liberal Party its actually going to cost us around half a million dollars.

REBECCA CARMODY: Will you have the support of your colleagues when you try to overturn the partys decision on this next week then?

DAN SULLIVAN : Look I think this is a defining moment for the Liberal Party for two reasons, firstly people out there are crying out for a political party that will stand up for what people want and in this case people want the poll tax to be dumped, so I really think if the Liberal Party wants to get in touch with the community again here si a golden opportunity to say stuff the poll tax.

REBECCA CARMODY: Why is it that you begrudge the Nationals so much of any funding shouldn't you be working with the Nationals your natural ally?

DAN SULLIVAN : Look the National Party can no longer really claim to be a truly conservative party. They say they represent country WA but I wonder how many people in country WA are aware that the National Party recently resolved that at the next election it would be prepared to support a Labor government now never in the history o f this state has the National Party indicated it would support Labor so I dont think they can really claim to be a conservative party anymore.

REBECCA CARMODY: Nationals leader Brendan Grylls says you have only raised this issue today because he says you are suffering from limelight deficiency syndrome would you like to respond to that.

DAN SULLIVAN : Brendan's got a good sense of humour. I can understand why he is trying to deflect attention away I mean the National Party have got their thirty pieces of silver by doing a deal with Jim McGinty and all I can say to Brendan is "Brendan get out there into country areas, go to your local country pub and ask the people in there whether they want to pay their taxes to pay for political parties to run political campaigns.

REBECCA CARMODY: Given that this is Jim McGintys legislation why is causing so many problems for the Liberal Party, the Attorney General must be laughing himself to sleep at night over this.

DAN SULLIVAN : I think Jim Mcginty and the National Party would be having a good old chortle over this whole thing and look I dont normally talk about what goes on in the party room but I have to say Rebecca that I did tell the party room that Jim McGinty is one of the wiliest most cunning politicians in this state and it wouldn't surprise me if he was well aware of the implications of this whole thing before he struck the deal with my colleague Troy Buswell, the harsh reality is he has completely outsmarted and outwitted the Liberal Party.

REBECCA CARMODY: Dan Sullivan thank you very much.

DAN SULLIVAN : Thank you Rebecca