2GB Sydney

SUBJECTS: Anniversary of the Turnbull Government; Marriage Equality Plebiscite;

BEN FORDHAM: Christopher Pyne is the Minister for Defence Industry, Anthony Albanese, the Shadow Minister for just about everything, Albo good afternoon.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Good Afternoon.

BEN FORDHAM: Christopher Pyne good afternoon.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good afternoon Ben and Anthony.

BEN FORDHAM: Lovely to talk to you both on this very special occasion, the one year anniversary of the Turnbull government, happy birthday Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Thank you and I’m just sorry that Anthony didn’t get the chance to ask a question today but he’s like the man in the iron mask this guys, Bill won’t let him out and into the public eye.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I don’t think it can be said I’ve been quiet lately.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: If it wasn’t for me and all the media interviews you do with me around Australia they’d be hiding you.

BEN FORDHAM: They’ve even written a book about Albo recently.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I’ve got a book and a beer, you’re just jealous.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yeah I’m in your book.

BEN FORDHAM: Now listen, George Brandis, the Attorney General has made a statement about Malcolm Turnbull in the Senate this afternoon, now I think I’m going to give George Brandis the getting ahead of himself just a little bit award for the day, let’s have a listen to Attorney General George Brandis:

Audio clip begins

GEORGE BRANDIS: Now this evening Senator Ketter there is a great event in Parliament House, a great event, it is the launch of John Howard’s series on the great Robert Menzies, and I believe Senator Ketter that history will show that Mr Turnbull will rate with Sir Robert Menzies and the great John Howard as one of the great Australian Prime Ministers.

Audio clip ends.

BEN FORDHAM: So Malcolm Turnbull up there with Sir Robert Menzies and John Howard.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well of course George Brandis hated John Howard, he called him a runt.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Rubbish, he denied that of course, outrageous.

BEN FORDHAM: Christopher do you agree with that assessment from the Attorney General?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think Malcolm Turnbull will be a great Prime Minister and I think he has been in the last twelve months to be honest, I mean we now have economic growth at 3.3%, business confidence up, consumer confidence up, we’ve created over 200,000 jobs in the last 12 months. We did the National Innovation and Science Agenda that I handed down in December last year, we’ve attempted media ownership reform for the firs time in over 20 years, he’s fixed the national broadband network, you know we’ve actually been a very busy government and I think Malcolm Turnbull will go down in history as a great Prime Minister, and I think he’ll have hopefully a lot more years there to do that job.

BEN FORDHAM: Albo, I’ve got a feeling you may disagree.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well Malcolm Turnbull had a plan to get rid of Tony Abbott but he hasn’t had a plan to govern…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You use that line too often.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Tony Abbott said last week that the government was in office but not in power and certainly Malcolm Turnbull isn’t in power. He hasn’t been able to implement the things that he believes in that he said he would do for so many years, action on climate change, action on public transport, support for marriage equality, support for the republic, on all of these things he is in conflict with not only his own party, he’s in conflict with himself.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: But he’s just delivered the omnibus savings bill today with Labor’s support, Labor’s finally got around to supporting their own savings measures they promised at the election.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well Labor picked it up, Labor made it fair, Labor has made it fair.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I mean the truth is that we were told by many people in the media and by the Labor Party we wouldn’t be able to get anything through the Senate, anything through the Parliament and in the second sitting week on sitting day number 5 we’ve actually got the major $6.3 billion worth of savings through the House of Representatives and it will go through the Senate.

BEN FORDHAM: Sure, on your record of activity though Christopher Malcolm Turnbull has presided over the second lowest level of legislative activity of any recent first term PM, that’s the record.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well congratulations because thank God we’re not simply assuming that passing legislation is somehow doing work, now Labor measures their success by how many bills and regulations they impose on the Australian people. We actually have days in this building, in this Parliament and the last Parliament where we abolished as much legislation and regulations as we can to get rid of red tape so we don’t measure our success by whether we’ve imposed more rules and regulations on the Australian economy.

BEN FORDHAM: Albo are you guys still going to stand in the way of this plebiscite, it looks like you’re going to block it?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well there is not a reason why the legislature shouldn’t do the job that we’re elected to do, why is this special, why is this different from education or health or jobs or the economy or dealing with the myriad of issues that are frankly far more important to your listeners than...

BEN FORDHAM: Because it’s more of a conscience, it’s a conscience issue.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well have a vote...

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well there’s a very good reason why actually Anthony.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Have a vote; there will be a Parliamentary vote anyway.

BEN FORDHAM: Not on a conscience issue like this I don’t know, we’re going to have a vote.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: There should be a conscience vote.

BEN FORDHAM: Well why can’t we all have a say, that’s the promise that we were given at the last election, we were promised we would all get a say.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Are you saying that it’s more important than whether we go to war, what happens with education, what happens with our economy? I think that’s an absurd argument, the only reason why this is there is because of the conflict between Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, and Malcolm Turnbull had to do this deal with the right of his own party and say that he would agree with this even though he’s on the record saying he supports a conscience vote of the Parliament.

BEN FORDHAM: Christopher there’s no guarantee this plebiscite will happen, can you acknowledge that?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the plebiscite, there’s one very good reason why it should happen and why Anthony Albanese’s completely wrong about there being no reason to have it, and that is that at the election we promised it and we got elected, so we have a mandate for a plebiscite.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You’re saying that’s the only reason people voted, well we’ve got a mandate to vote against it.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No you haven’t, you lost the election.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: We got a mandate, we got elected, have a look tomorrow you’ll see me across the chamber.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The public embrace - don’t try and change the definition of mandate, we all know what it means and it means that the public vote for the government’s program.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I have a mandate, you have a mandate

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, the people voted for the government’s platform, the platform included the plebiscite, giving everyone a chance…

SUBJECTS: Anniversary of the Turnbull Government; Marriage Equality Plebiscite

ANTHONY ALBANESE: People didn’t vote for the government’s platform, if you had 51% of the primary vote you could argue that, the truth is you didn’t.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You’re just splitting hairs, the simplest reason…

ANTHONY ALBANESE: This is why you don’t have the numbers in the Parliament to get this though.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The Coalition won the election, and we went to the election with a plebiscite as our policy and it was endorsed by the public and you’re standing in the way because you don’t think the Australian public are smart enough to be able to have a say on a big social change like marriage equality, now I will vote yes.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: No I don’t think$170 million should be spent on a talk fest…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, Bill Shorten thinks that everybody’s…

ANTHONY ALBANESE: And an opinion poll when there will still have to be a vote of the Parliament afterwards, it won’t change anything.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Bill Shorten and you by supporting him on this are basically saying to the public, well Bill Shorten’s said it, that this will be a homophobic debate, essentially he’s saying that the public out there in their homes when they go to vote, when they have these discussions cannot have this in an orderly civil way, and I think that’s massively insulting. It’s absolutely no reason why the public shouldn’t have a say on this massive social change and they can do it maturely because they’re Australians.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: But it’s not a massive social change, it’ll have no impact on you, or me, or Ben, all it will do is give a group of people who currently don’t have the right to enjoy the fruits of marriage that we have to have a celebration in front of their family and friends to do the same thing.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well then let the plebiscite will pass, let the people have a say.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well we’ve had it, it’s called Newspoll, we know what people think, it’s a poll…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That’s ridiculous.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: At $170 million.

BEN FORDHAM: All this talk of marriage equality, love is in the air by the sounds of this.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I hope so, we need a lot more marriage, a lot more love in the air.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: That’s right, why if you support marriage wouldn’t you want more people to be a part of it?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I want more marriage, exactly; I’m in favour of the marriage equality plebiscite.

BEN FORDHAM: Alright you two, time out, you’re off I’ll talk to you soon.