Transcript ABC 891 Two Chrisses 14 April

ABC 891 SA Radio

Excerpts of “Two Chrisses”

14th April 2008, 10am (CST)

Journalist:

(Question about Liberal Party leadership)

Christopher Pyne MP:

Unfortunately when there is a spate of bad stories in the polls and the blood gets into the water, the sharks of the media begin to feed – the feeding frenzy of politics unfortunately. Brendan Nelson is leader at a very difficult time, and I think everyone understands that the Rudd Government is still in their honeymoon period, and Brendan Nelson has the toughest job in politics being Leader of the Opposition let alone at this particular time. He came to Adelaide Friday week ago, he came out to two schools in my electorate, Campbelltown Primary School and St Ignatius College, he did a lunch for me and he was outstanding. If only the media could portray that message to the public instead of the very negative message they’re currently portraying we’d see a different story in the polls and amongst the public. It’s very difficult for him, but I don’t see any moves to replace Brendan Nelson as leader of the opposition and I think a lot of these stories are now feeding on themselves.

Journalist:

One of the stories says that Tony Abbott has withdrawn his support of Nelson leaving only Nick Minchin locking in Brendan Nelson’s leadership

Pyne:

Yes I saw that story as well, neither Senator Minchin nor Tony Abbott were quoted in the story, this is speculation. I think the Liberal Party needs to focus on its message, it’s policies and holding the Rudd Government accountable. I don’t think the public want us to be focussed on ourselves internally, that’s the message from the last election. We need to put the people’s wishes first and to stop worrying about the internal dynamics of the Liberal Party.

Caller:

(Raises the issue of politicians retiring causing by-elections and who should pay for it)

Pyne:

I think there are two issues here, and we’ve talked about this before. First if a member of parliament is elected for a term, for all intents and purposes they should serve out that term. There’s a couple of exceptions to that obviously, death is a good exception, ill health and family reasons, things can happen in families that make life harder, but I’m of the view that if there is a by-election because a member has retired, I don’t think there should be a costly by-election to replace that member. I think the House of Representatives should adopt the system as is the case in the Senate, that is the party that won the seat should replace that person with someone from their own party to serve out the term

Journalist:

How would you get around independents?

Pyne:

Well with an independent you’d have a count back in that seat, that is the person who came second would be the person who is elected which is how it is done in the Senate. Only political parties can replace themselves, or if there’s a second person on the ticket then there would be a count back and that person would be the person elected. So it’s easily done, and the reality is in today’s Australian politics when people go to the ballot box, sure, we might like to think they’re voting overwhelmingly for me as the member Sturt – there would be a certain percentage of people who are voting on the basis on whether they think I am a good local member, but if I wasn’t the Liberal candidate then obviously the largest portion of my vote wouldn’t be voting necessarily for me. I think most people understand that reality. I think most members for Parliament are worth maybe two or three percent as a local member, but most people vote Labor or Liberal or for one of the other parties

Journalist:

In the case of your seat where there are only a couple of hundred votes in it

Pyne:

One thousand, seven hundred and eleven to be precise. But who’s counting? I have a 1711 vote majority at this stage and it’s indelibly imprinted on my mind.

Journalist:

You’d be hard-pressed to say that’s definitely a liberal seat and that the next liberal on the ticket should get it

Pyne:

No, I don’t think so – you either have a rule or you don’t – if you want to have a by-election every time a seat falls vacant then that’s fine. If you take the view that the Liberal Party and I won that seat, if something happened to me and there was a vacancy then the Liberal Party still won that seat, whether it was by 1711 or it was by 20000 the result was still the same, if the Crows win by one goal it’s still the same as winning by six.

Journalist:

(Raises chocolate coming from countries with child slaves)

Pyne:

Well it’s a very interesting issue and I think most of the people in my electorate would be horrified to discover that the chocolate we consume in many cases the cocoa is sourced from Ghana and the Ivory Coast, 70 per cent of the cocoa in chocolate is sourced from Ghana and the Ivory Coast and the largest proportion of the cocoa is produced using child labour, in many cases child slave labour. Tim Costello and David Batstone were in Adelaide last week, David Batstone wrote a book about fair trade and opposed to slavery, and Tim Costello is the head of World Vision. I undertook to write to Kevin Rudd, which I’ve now done saying that the Commonwealth has major purchasing power because of all the vending machines, the simple vending machines in all the government offices around Australia and it would be a very powerful message if all the contracts for vending machines in all the government office that there was a requirement that the chocolate in those vending machines was only fair trade chocolate.

Now there are many kinds of fair trade chocolate, there are brands that are sold in Woolworths and Coles and chocolate shops all around the country and there is also chocolate that has been certified by the fair trade organisation as having being produced from places and by people who haven’t used child slave labour, so we’re not saying that everyone has to buy some sort of Eastern Soviet bloc chocolate. There are in fact many different options and I attached a list to the letter to Kevin saying these are the various brands we can put in the vending machines and it will send a very powerful message.

Journalist:

So if you’re eating chocolate without a fair trade stamp then you’re eating chocolate that has likely been produced by child labour

Pyne:

That is true, because most of the companies that are sourcing their chocolate from fair trade sources are putting the certification on the wrapper so the consumer knows that it has been produced not using child slave labour, or child labour. I think this is a great message…. I think rather than being proscriptive and criticising people the better thing would be to have people turning up to their vending machines in government offices and looking for their particular favourite chocolate bar and when it’s not there and there are other options which are fair trade chocolate available they will ask the question, why isn’t my bar here, and the answer is that’s because it’s not fair trade and the message will spread very quickly, not just in Australia but around the western world and the message will get through to help child labourers and slave labourers around the world…

Journalist:

What about the Federal Government just banning any chocolate that’s made using child labour?

Pyne:

Well it’s not as simple as that. You don’t want to overnight destroy the economies of countries and by doing so hurt the poorest people in those countries. In my letter to the Prime Minister I am not calling for a boycott of non fair trade chocolate because that would hurt the people that we’re actually trying to help… The idea behind this campaign is to put enough pressure on the companies to actually pay the workers properly in the places they’re sourcing their cocoa, it’s not to wipe out the industry, it’s to get them to pay the workers commensurate to their labour, and that means you need to have an approach that combines both pressure that is aggressive but with also an understanding of the need not to destroy these countries’ fragile economies.

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