2GB Ben Fordham

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview - 2GB with Ben Fordham and Anthony Albanese
9 December 2015

Ben Fordham: Well, for the final time in 2015 we bring together the Innovation Minister Christopher Pyne, and the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure Anthony Albanese. Good afternoon to you both.

Anthony Albanese: G’day.

Christopher Pyne: Good afternoon Ben, good afternoon Anthony.

Ben Fordham: Albo, I understand you’re a little bit croaky. You’ve gone down, you’ve taken a hit have you?

Anthony Albanese: I have a bit. I think what happens sometimes when you are going a bit too fast, and the last fortnight was really busy with Parliament and a lot of travel, and yeah, so I’m feeling a bit the worse for wear today.

Ben Fordham: Well.

Christopher Pyne: Still on the radio. You’re an absolute troop.

Anthony Albanese: I’m powering on regardless.

Ben Fordham: I’ve got something that’s going to cheer you up, and I don’t know whether you read this, but as you know Christopher has had a big week. The Prime Minister and Christopher Pyne have announced a $1.1 billion innovation package. But I love this piece in the Sydney Morning Herald but Matthew Knott, and it contained a couple of quotes from Christopher Pyne including this, quote: when Malcolm announced the Cabinet and I was the second person mentioned I sat up and thought he’s serious. I was a bit taken aback. I realised he really meant it. You’re a special person, Christopher Pyne.

Christopher Pyne: I think the point was that Malcolm really wants innovation and science to be at the centre of the economic agenda. And that’s the first time in a long time where we’ve moved innovation very much to centre-stage. So when he mentioned my name second after Scott Morrison’s as the new Treasurer I realised that he wasn’t just paying lip service to it, he wanted it to happen. And then, what, 12 weeks later we’ve announced the biggest transformation of innovation and science policy in decades. So…

Ben Fordham: I can’t help but have a little smile at the thought of Christopher Pyne sitting there in the room, Albo, and noting down yes my name was read out second.

Christopher Pyne: Well that’s a big thing.

Anthony Albanese: He would’ve been very excited, our young Christopher, I imagine. That’s a good thing. That’s a good thing.

Christopher Pyne: [Indistinct] young Christopher.

Ben Fordham: So who was first? Scott Morrison was first, was he?

Christopher Pyne: Yes, because he was the new Treasurer, and I was number two, which I thought well this is good.

Anthony Albanese: Well it’s a pretty low base. The previous Prime Minister didn’t have a Science Minister of course, and he and he slashed the CSIRO. You can’t slash it and give a bit back and say aren’t I terrific?

Christopher Pyne: You’ve got to move on. You’re not going to get to be the Prime Minister of Australia by practicing all this old policies…

Ben Fordham: Alright, let me bring you to today’s news, because the Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is today calling for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to pull the former Prime Minister Tony Abbott into line after Tony Abbott suggested that Islam needs some reform. Now, Tony Abbott has suggested there needs to be a religious revolution inside Islam. Now, I’m going to try something here for a moment. I’m going to try a new segment we called one word answer. Right, Christopher Pyne, does Islam need a religious revolution?

Christopher Pyne: I’m not giving any advice to the perpetrators of Islam. It’s not my responsibility or my religion.

Ben Fordham: Didn’t sound like a one word answer. Albo?

Anthony Albanese: Here’s a one word answer: ditto.

Christopher Pyne: [Laughs].

Anthony Albanese: [Laughs].

Ben Fordham: Is that ditto to Tony Abbott or ditto to Christopher Pyne?

Anthony Albanese: Ditto to Mr Pyne.

Ben Fordham: Okay. So Islam does not need a religious revolution, Albo?

Anthony Albanese: Well look, I mean it is very clear that we need to draw a distinction I think between Islam and those people who are fundamentalists and are using Islam to engage in terrorist, criminal activity.

Ben Fordham: But that’s what he’s suggesting. That’s what he’s suggesting the religious revolution would weed out. It would go in to say listen we’ve got 99.9 per cent of us who are peace-loving people, but we’ve got a small but dangerous minority who are using our religion to go around killing people – we want a revolution to try and clean that mess out.

Anthony Albanese: Yeah, and people who are trying to wipe us out, we need to wipe them out. That’s my view, and I think that is the view overwhelmingly of Australians regardless of their religious background. So I do think we need to be a little bit mature and a bit sophisticated about. I mean, the Catholic Church has a few issues before a royal commission at the moment. That’s not to suggest, at all, that people are somehow to be blamed for condoning the sort of activity that went on in schools …

Ben Fordham: No, but that’s a perfect example – that’s a time when faiths need to front up and when communities say hey listen, we know that every priest isn’t a paedophile but there are far too many who are doing this stuff so we need- we need- and in the case of the Catholic Church, and the Anglican Church, and others, we had a, you know, a public royal commission to get to the bottom of it and to clean out the mess.

Anthony Albanese: Oh, and we’ve got …

Christopher Pyne: Ben, you know, you can’t- you cannot boil these things down to an unsophisticated argument about whether Islam is good or Christianity is good or the thing is …

Ben Fordham: No one’s put forward such an argument, Christopher.

Christopher Pyne: … well, the extremists of any religion, or not even religion – of any political persuasion – are as evil as each other. The drug lords in Mexico and Columbia who kill indiscriminately anybody who stands in their way – they are evil. The Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East who are killing people today – they are evil as well.

Now, it wasn’t so long ago that there was a group in Uganda who claimed to be Christian who were murdering indiscriminately and have happily now been defeated. I mean, all the time in the world we need to be on the side of moderate people, whether they’re Islamic, Christian, or agnostic or atheist. And if this needs to be an alliance of the sensible and the moderate against the alliance of the extremists, whatever religion or whatever their persuasion.

Ben Fordham: Alright, well I’ll take that from both of you that the answer is no to the question of whether or not Islam needs a religious revolution.

Christopher Pyne: Well, I don’t think you can just pick on Islam as a one group of people. Let’s not forget, within Islam there areYazidis, there are Sunnis, there are Shia. Some people would say there are Druids, although Druids are something of a mixture between different religions. You can’t simply blood lump everybody into a group and call them Islamic and say that they are some- they somehow need to be reoriented.

Ben Fordham: Alright. Gentlemen, what have we got planned for the Christmas break? What are you doing Albo?

Anthony Albanese: I’ll be sort of hanging around home. I’ve got the in-laws coming to stay with us at sunny Marrickville so that’ll be good.

Ben Fordham: Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Anthony Albanese: That’s a good thing, of course – he says, knowing that this is recorded.

[Laughter]

Anthony Albanese: It’s a great thing I think. And our son turned 15 yesterday.

Ben Fordham: Fantastic.

Anthony Albanese: And I think him getting to spend time with Carmel, my wife’s parents, is a fantastic thing so I really look forward to it.

Ben Fordham: Oh, that’s nice. Christopher, you’ll be in a wetsuit no doubt?

Christopher Pyne: Oh, of course. I’ll be down at the beach in the wetsuit trying to look slim …

Anthony Albanese: You don’t need one in Sydney.

Ben Fordham: [Laughs]

Christopher Pyne: … and we’ve got all the Sydney family joining us in Adelaide for Christmas this year so it’s Adelaide’s turn so we’ll have a big Pyne Christmas at our house which will be very good fun.

Ben Fordham: Alright. What would you like to say to each other to wrap up the year? Albo?

Anthony Albanese: Oh, merry Christmas and I hope you do get time. I think that’s the most valuable gift you can get when particularly if you’re a- the truth is, if you’re a Minister you’re busier than if you are a Shadow Minister so I hope that Chris gets some time off and gets to turn the phone off.

Ben Fordham: Isn’t that nice? Christopher to Albo?

Christopher Pyne: Well, I hope Anthony has a restful, peaceful and religious Christmas this year and I hope he ends next year as well as Labor’s ending this year.

Ben Fordham: Oh, I’m sure there’s a dig in there somewhere.

Anthony Albanese: We didn’t have a bad week last week, mate.

Ben Fordham: I’m sure there’s a dig in there somewhere.

Christopher Pyne: I’d rather be up with you at the moment.

Ben Fordham: Have a great break. Thank you both for talking to us throughout the year and we’ll talk to you next year. Good on you.

Christopher Pyne: Thank you, have a great Christmas.

Ben Fordham: Anthony Albanese and Christopher Pyne, the odd couple, joining us on Sydney Live.