Sky AM Agenda

SUBJECTS: Labor’s budget deficit; Changes to electoral enrolment laws; Redfern Speech Anniversary

E&OE................................

Kieran Gilbert: Hi Mr Pyne, thanks for your time.

Hon Christopher Pyne MP: Morning Kieran.

Gilbert: I do want to get your thought in the Refern speech twenty years on, but first of all if we could look at the economy. The Business Council of Australia says that the Government needs to now set a medium term road map for returning to surplus, that’s it’s not realistic to suggest that there would be surplus achieved in the next year or two. This is much a message for the Coalition as it is for the Government isn’t it, given the Coalitions promise to return to surplus in your first year if you’re successful?

Pyne: Well if there had been a Coalition Government for the last five years Kieran I think most people accept that we would have had continuing surpluses; we’d have had money in the bank, as John Howard left us with money in the back. We had no net debt, which means we would have got through the Global Financial Crisis quite easily and we wouldn’t be in the position we are in now with carbon taxes, mining taxes, increasing alcopops taxes, tobacco taxes and every other means of revenue.

Gilbert: But do you think things need to be revised now? Given the current set of circumstances, the Coalition, isn’t incumbent on you to not have an unwavering commitment? Because that could be very damaging to the economy.

Pyne: Well on the Coalition’s side of the ledger Kieran, we have a commitment to a real surplus and we believe the savings are there in the Government, in the spending in the budget for a real surplus and we would have returned to surplus by now. On the Labor side of the ledger we have pretence that they will deliver a wafer thin surplus. Treasury’s own modelling this morning indicates they will have $4.5 billion deficit this year and an $11 billion deficit next year. At the same time as that, they are announcing new spending measures. They’ve announced $3 billion as part of this Doha round of discussion about climate change to pay to poorer countries for extreme climate events. Now where is that $3 billion coming from? They’ve got the commitment to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, apparently $8 Billion up their sleave for the Gonski reforms.

Gilbert: You’ve got the same commitment though for the disability insurance scheme.

Pyne: For the NDIS.

Gilbert: That is a massive commitment, and if growth falls off as many economists think it will continue to do, the balance sheet well, that you will face in Government…

Pyne: If we are elected. 

Gilbert: … A surplus will have to go won’t it?

Pyne: Well if we are elected we going to have to do some very serious thinking about the Government’s budgetary situation. But we’re not announcing three billion dollars for the latest Kyoto discussions in Doha, which the Government appears to have this money up their sleeve. Now where is that three billion dollars coming from? That’s on top of billions of dollars they have announced for the Gonski reforms which they simply haven’t got, and the public knows they haven’t got it. Cumulatively it’s $120 billion of promises they have made, while at the same time they are promising a surplus which Treasury has exploded today. The Government has no economic management; they simply lurch from one crisis to another and one sending promise to another and I think the public are very cynical about it.

Gilbert: I want to ask you about another story which is in The Australian newspaper today, automatic electoral enrolment…

Pyne: Sure.

Gilbert: ... for younger Australians when they turn 18, they will automatically be enrolled on the electoral roll. This could hurt the Coalition, couldn’t it? With more younger voters automatically entitled to vote given that demographic traditionally hasn’t been your most popular stomping ground.

Pyne: Well look Labor will always tip the scales in their own favour if they can. Rorting the roll is routine for the Labor Party, that’s what they practise and in fact they’re always surprised other political parties don’t do the same thing that they do, and I conducted the rorting the roll inquiry in 2002 in Australia for the Howard Government and for the Parliament back in those days. So it’s no surprise at all that Labor would try and find every trick in the book to increase their electoral clout, they’re not supported in the electorate so they’re trying to do things that they can to improve their chances with the electoral roll, the Greens are the same. The Coalition believes that we should, people should require identification to enrol, so that we know their enrolment is genuine, and I think they should require identification to vote. I think our roll has been far too loose, for far too long, that’s the way Labor likes it, Labor like to rort the roll. If they can get any advantage over the Coalition, they will.

Gilbert: You say it’s too loose but isn’t it about democratic empowerment, to enable those younger people who would probably be or potentially be less  or more apathetic,  about their democratic right, they would automatically have a right to vote.

Pyne: It’s very important …. Kieran, it’s very important in any democracy that the people voting are genuine voters and have a right to vote. It’s very ….

Gilbert: We’ve got a lot of ways to monitor people, haven’t we?  If they have just finished school or their citizenship…

Pyne: We don’t require identification for them to vote.  Now if there is to be confidence in the democracy, there has to be confidence in the result.  If you know that people have used ID to enrol, used ID vote, you can have every confidence that the result is a fair one.  It undermines democracy hideously if we can’t have confidence that the result actually reflects true voter opinion, so I think that is more important than having a loose enrolment that apparently allows everyone to vote who might want to vote but in fact, allows rorting of the roll and that’s the way Labor likes it.

Gilbert: But doesn’t the flip side risk disenfranchising younger people?

Pyne: No I think it doesn’t.  It doesn’t disenfranchise anyone to require identification for enrolment.  Young people who want to enrol, people who move address they know their responsibility, it’s worked for a 112 years, suddenly Labor thinks “we’re behind in the polls, why don’t we do something to trick the voter. Let’s rort the roll, let’s get an advantage over the Coalition.”  They have been doing it for decades and of course this is their latest iteration.

Gilbert: It’s now, just finally on this issue that I began the program with, the 20^th anniversary of the Keating speech, the Redfern Speech on indigenous recognition.  Noel Pearson today in the Australian again describes this as an important starting point in the journey to reconciliation, do you agree with him on that?

Pyne: I think a lot has changed in the last 20 years and I think a lot of it can be pegged back to the speech by Paul Keating at Redfern, 20 years ago today and I think it was a landmark event and I hope to think, I like to think that much has changed in 20 years to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians, but there is a lot more that should be done and can be done.

Gilbert: So you think that in terms of the symbolism and the importance of that, I think the 24^th Prime Minister in the Nation’s history making that statement at that time was long overdue.

Pyne: Well, faith and good works are both important Kieran, so symbolism and practical action are both important.  The symbol of recognising the dramatic impact of white settlement on indigenous populations was a necessary speech to give, a necessary mea culpa to give, if you like, for the Prime Minister on behalf of white Australians.  That was followed up of course with the apology and much in between that time of practical action undertaken by the Howard Government to improve health, housing, employment and education for indigenous people and that Tony Abbott of course has a very genuine personal commitment to Indigenous Australians and works every year in Cape York for a week or two as a volunteer, as we know.  So if he’s elected, he’ll continue that important improvement in Indigenous people’s lives.

Gilbert: Mr Pyne, thanks for your time.                                                                                                                                         

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