5AA Radio Adelaide

JOURNALIST: Well it’s finale season in 2016 whether it’s your favourite TV show like a Westworld or something else or your favourite radio segment they’re all sort of rapping up at around this time and unfortunately so it is the case for two tribes and so for the last time in 2016 good morning to Anthony Albanese.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: G’day.

JOURNALIST: And good morning to Christopher Pyne.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning, good to be with you.

JOURNALIST: Good to have you here again chaps, now I wanted to kick off with you if I could Chris because I was watching the interview that your former colleague, the long serving Treasurer in the Howard government, Peter Costello, gave last night where he painted a pretty bleak picture of the workability I guess of our Parliament and lamented the fact that the country spent a week debating the wisdom of the backpacker tax which was something that he said wouldn’t even touch the sides in terms of taking or restoring money to the deficit. Did you subscribe to his negative assessment of how our Parliament works, particularly the Senate?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well it’s a good question, I think one of the things that’s changed over the recent decades has been the responsibility of the opposition to support good measures that the government puts forward. Now when the Keating and Hawke government were reforming significant parts of the Australian economy they managed to do that without controlling the Senate and usually with the support of the Opposition, whether it was led by Andrew Peacock or John Howard because there was a sense of responsibility. Unfortunately what’s changed in the last decade I suppose, and both sides are at fault, is that the opposition just opposes for oppositions sake. Now the opposition knows that we need to repair the budget, they know that and yet they oppose almost every single measure that the government puts to the Senate and so we have to therefore work with either the Greens or the cross benchers and I think maybe one of their new years resolutions in 2017 should be more constructive about things that they know, even if they get into government one day, and perish the thought, but if they ever do get into government they’re going to want the budget to have been repaired as well so it’s in everyone’s interest for us to work together for our economy to create jobs.

JOURNALIST: Is that a fair assessment do you think Albo, and I pick up on where Chris was almost I think self critical there, or he said both sides are guilty or this because I would say that when Tony Abbott was opposition leader and Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd were PM when that little roundabout was underway there were times where the objective of the day, the order of the day always seemed to be let’s just make the government look incompetent, paralysed, useless, it can’t do anything, is this tactic now the norm for oppositions?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well I think there’s no doubt that Tony Abbott in particular as the opposition leader, I mean I used to say he turned the Coalition into the noalition, that he had an impact on politics in Australia. He is the first opposition leader to say, literally, I’m going to wreck the Parliament, that’s what he said after the 2010 election and he didn’t accept the legitimacy of the Parliament that had been elected and acted that way each and every day and I think that has had an impact on our politics, there’s no question about that. But if you look at what’s actually happened this year, the omnibus savings bill where a number of initiatives that Labor put forward as savings were adopted by the government, that’s a good sign. I thought there was a good sign this week when Josh Frydenberg and the government said for 24 hours that they were gong to look at the review of the so-called direct action plan on climate change including a price on carbon, a modest market mechanism that everyone who’s serious about the policy knows is a necessary component and I think that was a good sign. So it needs not just oppositions to be constructive, it actually needs governments to be constructive as well and not just engage in essentially falsehoods before the Australian public. If you’re going to move to a carbon constrained economy that everyone says in necessary from Malcolm Turnbull down then let’s look at the least cost way to do it and everyone also agrees that a market based mechanism is the best way to do that and I think this morning’s newspapers are pretty disappointing that that’s been ruled out so I think all politics parties share some responsibility, both in opposition and in government but we all need to work towards a more constructive political process.

JOURNALIST: So then what’s the sum, and I ask this question to both of you perhaps starting with you Chris, what’s the sum of 2016 in terms of what comes after it, we’ve had Brexit, we’ve had Trump, we’ve had even locally we’ve got the composition of the Senate after the federal election we’ve had this year, was 2016 a glitch or is it a trend?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think 2016 was a difficult year for incumbent governments, and we saw that all around the world, just the Italian government this week, obviously change in New Zealand, you talked about Trump, Brexit, we lost a lot of seats in the election, came close to losing. I think incumbent governments are finding it difficult at the moment because the expectations of the public are very high, probably because they’ve been over promised over the years by different political parties, but I think there are good signs this year towards the end of the year. I mean we got the Registered Organisations Commission through, the Australian Building and Construction Commission set up, the backpacker tax through, reform of superannuation, income tax cuts for middle income earners, as Anthony mentioned the omnibus savings bill and I think there are green shoots from that point of view for the Parliamentary perspective. But there were a lot of jobs created this year, the economy’s actually not going too badly in comparison particularly to other OECD countries, we have the highest growth rate in the G7 so we’re getting some things right and I think 2017 is a year to be looking forward to, I think it’ll be a positive year. And I think the new Senate, you mentioned the new Senate being unwieldy, it’s actually been more cooperative than the previous Senate, people have been prepared to sit down and talk and Malcolm Turnbull has shown himself to be an adept negotiator and I think that is what’s required, it’s what the public’s given us.

JOURNALIST: What do you think Albo, particularly in the context of the rise of Xenophon, particularly here in South Australia and also more broadly, particularly in the eastern states the resurgent One Nation.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well there’s no doubt that there’s massive disillusionment with the major parties and we need to acknowledge that, not pretend that it’s not a phenomenon. I think that governments need to talk to people and with people rather than at people and I think that is one of the big lessons of what’s occurred globally. The Italian result that Christopher referred to is a disaster, I mean it’s a no-brainer that Italy needs some governmental reform in its structures and 60% of people said no. The rise of a major party, I mean people are worried about Hanson or Xenophon here, I mean the rise of a major party led by an Italian comedian literally is quite an extraordinary phenomenon that’s occurred there over the last few years. I don’t think anyone in terms of major commentators were taking Donald Trump seriously at the beginning of this year that he could be elected president of the United States but that becomes a reality next month with all the potential implications for the globe that are there and we just hope that some of the predictions are wrong so we need to take that on board, we need to engage with people. I think, I’m going to use an unusual person that you won’t expect perhaps, I think when Malcolm Turnbull took over the leadership his popularity was stratospheric and that was because he said I think what people want to hear which is that he’s going to treat the public like adults, he’s not going to engage in politics first, he’s going to work towards constructive solutions and I really think that is what people wanted to hear. Now that hasn’t eventuated but I do think that was a bit of a sign of people wanting to break away from what people saw was the fault of all of us, Abbott, Gillard, Rudd during those years, that heavy conflict as well that people wanted to break away from it. Something I think that myself and Christopher try to do when we do our forums including this one, is not just engage in the sort of yelling at each other and that’s what people want from our politicians and if more of that happens then I think there’ll be less scope for people to vote for someone else which is what I see Xenophon or Hanson or any of the sort of third party populists, whether it’s the left or the right as representing.

JOURNALIST: Hey just before we let you go guys, the big story in New Zealand this week was that the Prime Minister suddenly sprang out of bed and thought stuff this for a joke I’m out of here, had his own Mal Maninga moment. To both of you and Chris this is something you explored in that book you wrote, “A Letter to My Children” where you talked about the downsides of public life, you know 22 weeks a year interstate, did either of you watch John Key and have a little pang inside of you where you think jeez I wish that was me? Not that we’re trying to get rid of you.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No it’s hard to get rid of me, I’m like blackberries. Look I thought it was great for John Key who’s had a terrific career to put his family first and to know when to go is a critically important thing in politics, and very few people get to choose their own time of their leaving and I think if you can do that it’s a great achievement. But I’m obviously loving Defence Industry and we’re doing tremendous things and as we announced today we’ve just appointed the person to re-do and plan the infrastructure at Osborne South and North so we’re getting on with the job and I’m loving it so as long as you’re loving what you do and your family’s prepared to put up with it I think I’ve got a few more years left in me.

JOURNALIST: What about you Albo, your wife’s a former politician and I saw her in Sydney last year and she looked extremely happy to be no longer a politician.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: She’s never looked better and she’s never been happier. People say do you regret it and not a bit, but she made her contribution, she got to be a Minister for almost 11 years. I mean she’s an example of someone who – she could’ve been the Premier of New South Wales, she actually didn’t want to be and people who don’t know her sort of go oh yeah, or people who don’t understand what happened on two occasions when essentially people were encouraging her and she’s glad that she left, she wasn’t enjoying it towards the end and the moment I’m not enjoying it I will go at the election after that. I am enjoying it, you do make, from time to time, it’s very frustrating and you do weigh up the cost benefits to your life and particularly with your family and it’s my son’s 16th birthday tomorrow and I’ve been in politics all of his life so I’ve missed the years in which he wants to spend more time with me, that’s gone. But I’m still enjoying it, I think I’ve still got a contribution to make and I think John Key deserves great praise, I think he’s been a very good Prime Minister of New Zealand and good on him, he’s a very good bloke, the New Zealand Warriors made the grand final a few years ago and I took my father in-law along and we sat there during the whole game where the warriors lost and after the game people were going up talking to John Key who was sitting next to my father in-law and my father in-law said to me who’s that bloke, I said he’s the Prime Minister of New Zealand and I think that says a great deal about the character that is John Key that he could sit next to someone for 80 minutes of a grand final wearing a warriors jumper. He’s a really good bloke, very down to earth and I very much hope and I’m sure he will have a good contribution as well. He’ll make a contribution some other way but I’m sure he’ll have a much more relaxed life that he has as Prime Minister.

JOURNALIST: Hey look we want to thank both of you for your contribution this year, Albo and to you Chris it’s been terrific having you on, we are thrilled that you defected from another radio station and chose to get with the strength here on 5AA breakfast. We know that our listeners enjoy the segment and it gets a bit willing at times but between all the parrying and trash talking it always, I think, gives people a clearer insight into what you’re trying to do for the country even though you don’t agree on a lot of things, so good on you and have a great Christmas.