'Geriatric' - David Elliott slams Alan Stockdale's comments on assertive women
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On Sydney Now. You can't handle the truth. The Straight Shooters. Our Straight Shooter on a Thursday afternoon is the former Minister of New South Wales and the Coalition Government, David Elliott, long-time Liberal Party member, so he can give us an insight into exactly what's going on in the Liberal Party at the moment. Hello, David. Hello, Clinton. Alan Stockdale.

Well, if I had to write an episode of Yes Minister dedicated to how you'd send a political party into implosion mode, I'd probably include two entitled geriatrics from another state. And that's exactly what we've got at the moment. And Alan has actually done something that many in the Liberal Party have been trying to do for decades. And he's united everybody, but they've all been united to oppose his idea.

role in the restructure of the party. So it's been very well reported now in the past 24 hours. We brought you the news yesterday about the comments that he made in a teleconference to a Women's Council meeting. Completely

Can't read the room, clearly Alan Stockdale. But just for a bit of background, because some people aren't quite aware of what's going on here. Alan Stockdale and Richard Alston, former Howard government minister, along with Peter Seaton, had been appointed to try and sort out the Liberal Party, rewrite the Constitution. He's from Victoria. He's not from New South Wales. That's right. And there was probably a good reason for Peter Dutton to step in, particularly after the debacle with the local government campaign. And the party does have some issues when it comes to

But I must say, when we're looking at the demographic that we have to now appeal to and looking at the demographic that is represented in that three-person committee, you have to ask yourself if we're singing from the right song sheet.

And I think if I was Alan Stockdale, I'd resign today. And I think that there should be people in the Liberal Party calling for him to resign because he's put the party reputation in disrepute. Yes, it was a joke. We've all made stupid jokes. Goodness, I'm the king of stupid jokes.

But, you know, when you've got this issue with being so sensitive and you've got – that's the issue of demographics and of representation. And you've got a person that doesn't really understand politics in this city, let alone this state.

I think it's proof positive that, uh, this, that, that, that the reform that he's going to be trying to bring in will be probably just knocked on the head out of, out of spite. So his term was to end, I think at the end of this month, June, and they're seeking extension because they actually haven't finished rewriting the constitution. Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I, nobody's seen the, the, the, a draft version of that. I'm, I'm hoping that Mark Speakman and Susan Lee have seen a draft, but, uh,

Nobody's saying that we didn't need to have federal intervention. We certainly did need to have federal intervention, but I think we got it wrong when we picked a couple of old blokes from Victoria. I mean, I can't imagine going down to Victoria or South Australia and giving them instruction about how to do politics. Just couldn't imagine it. And this is all on the same day. It was revealed yesterday on the same day that the AEC declares that

the Liberals have lost another blue ribbon seat. That's exactly right. And this is an issue. While we're talking about quotas, which I don't agree with, but we're talking about diversity and while we're talking about who is our new constituency, yesterday was proof positive. Our new constituency are working people from the outer suburbs. That's all we've got. We're

We've got Lindsay, we've got Barrara, we've got Mitchell and we've got Cook. That's it. So if you're wanting to find out in this town particularly who our demographic is, it is low middle class tradies and families that live in those outer perimeter areas. And now we've got to build on that. We can't lose them. And that's exactly what we're doing. Now, a lot of people, because they tell me in that demographic,

buy illegal cigarettes. And they've been telling me now for the last year, because I've been banging on about this for a long time now, but they've been telling me about this for the last year. There's a simple reason they do. They're law-abiding citizens usually, but the reason they're doing it is because the price differential is so bad. I took my hat off to Chris Minns recently,

this week for becoming really the first politician to actually argue against the excise or the level of it. Well, and all power to Chris. And I think I'm seeing him next week and I'm going to give him a wrap for this because 10 years ago when I was first made minister in the justice portfolio, as the tobacco industry came and spoke to me and they said, listen, this chop chop is bad news. It is going to forfeit the taxpayer. It's rightful excise. Okay. That's a good consideration. But,

but it's gonna be used to do everything from funding counterterrorism organizations to money laundering. Everything that the tobacco industry, and you can say what you like about them, but they did their work on this particular brief. Everything that they told me was going to occur has now occurred in the last couple of years.

And I think that Minns is in the right space to push the envelope on this. He's dead right. This is prohibition all over again. And the criminals, like they did in the 1930s in the United States, are now using tobacco, particularly the cost and the illability for people to afford tobacco. They're using that as low-hanging fruit when it comes to funding their operations. And I think...

It just goes to show how disengaged Canberra is for their just immediately dismissing Chris on this. And I also think that it should be bipartisan. I'd like to see the opposition jumping up and down about this as well, the New South Wales opposition. I think Mark Speakman should be getting on this issue and making sure that the Premier has the maximum amount of political air cover that he can get. Jim Chalmers shot it down pretty quickly, though. Does it

Does it help in practice, because you were in power when there was a Liberal government, a coalition government in power in Canberra, does it help when there's a Labor government in Canberra, a Labor government in New South Wales to negotiate on these sort of things? You know what, I never really found it. I had just as good a relationship with Catherine King when I was Transport Minister as I did with the Federal Liberal Transport Ministers. That's the beauty about Australian politics. We actually have

personable relationships on both sides. And it's important that there's a bit of level of trust there.

I thought it was quite bizarre him just basically immediately dismissing it because clearly when the Treasurer is dismissing something, it means that he's worried about the bottom line. The bottom line is coming down, though. That's exactly right. And this is what I couldn't... I don't think he understood exactly what the Premier was trying to highlight, the fact that we are forfeiting excise by the illegal tobacco. You're also, by the way, Treasurer, potentially aiding money laundering and criminal activity. So...

If your argument is, oh, well, I can't afford it, well, you can't afford not to. It's New South Wales Health that has the job of, and I spoke to an inspector at length off air this week, and he went to chapter and verse how it all works. And look, he does his best, but he concedes there's just simply not enough of them.

Chris Mintz has indicated that we might need to move responsibility to the police. When you were police minister, had police expressed concerns about the growing market? No, not... The irony is that I had my eye on this issue as the counter-terrorism minister, not necessarily as the police minister, and for those reasons, because it was very much in the health jurisdiction. But...

I think when you're looking at the element, the type of people that are benefiting and profiting from illegal tobacco, then it does become a police matter because not only is it important for the police who there's 14, 15,000 of them out there. So they certainly have the ability to run an operation, an ongoing operation or to maintain compliance.

But also, they know what to look out for when it comes to illegal activity and people that have got unexplained wealth. They know what to look out for. A Department of Health inspector is not going to then have suspicion that

The bloke that's selling illegal cigarettes also has a Maserati. And his wife's full of plastic because she's had plastic surgery three times last week. And the kids are all driving sports cars. That's not something that a health inspector would be trying to look out for. But police can do that. King's birthday, not the Queen's birthday, the King's birthday long weekend this weekend. Have you met the King?

I have. I have. And in fact, it's also my birthday. Thanks for mentioning that too. So you get the birthday. It's probably the reason why from a very young age I was a staunch monarchist because I was scared they were going to take away my birthday holiday. Yeah, tomorrow's column, I'm dedicating to the royal family. Nine of them who I've met and I'm talking about my personal experiences. Which one do you think I'd want next to me in a pub brawl?

In a brawl. In a pub brawl. Not just, not a rugby, a pub brawl. How does Prince Andrew go? Nah, he doesn't get a minute. I've never met him. He's had a few dramas. No, I'm glad. You know, I've got enough scandal in my life to worry about somebody else. Okay, well, look, he's married into the royal family. I'll go Mike Tindall, the former rugby player. Nah, nah. The only one that's married in that's mentioned that I've met...

and I'm going to be honest with you, I'm going to be brutal with her, is Meghan Markle. You better. Yeah, yeah. Well, I hosted the Invictus Games. Of course. And so I had a fair bit to do with it. She's Harry's baby. Yes, indeed. So in the three different jobs I've had as a member of Parliament, as an army officer, and with my involvement with St John Ambulance, I've met nine of them in that capacity. One of them gets two mentions because this person, I think, changed after a certain event happened in their life. And who's that? May I may not?

So who would you want next to in a pub brawl? So, okay, it's not Andrew. Although I did see some vision of Meghan Markle dancing around while she was pregnant today that's been released. Does Harry fight? No, Harry, I think we can because he was a soldier. But no, he's not the one that I'd want next to me in a pub brawl. We'll have to read tomorrow. Have to read tomorrow and I'll be very keen to get your feedback. David Elliott in the Telegraph. Thank you, mate. Thank you. David Elliott.