ABC 891

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
891 ABC Adelaide Breakfast with Matthew Abraham and David Bevan
Monday 2 February 2015

SUBJECT: Interview with Matthew Abraham and David Bevan.

DAVID BEVAN: Joins us now, Liberal MP for Sturt, Education Minister and Leader in the House; good morning Christopher Pyne.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good Morning David, morning Matthew.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Christopher Pyne, is it too late for your leader Tony Abbott to remake himself? Is the job beyond him?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, certainly not and today at the National Press Club the Prime Minister will outline an agenda for the Government for 2015, which I think people will be very attracted to. I think it's pretty clear that there'll be a wholesale change to the paid parental leave scheme, which has been something of a bugbear over the last couple of years, particularly with the traditional Liberal Party supporters. And I think it's certainly never too late. I mean politics is a business of ups and downs. You have good days and you have bad days and obviously last week was a week that we'd rather not repeat, but we have - we're in government, we've got lots of great things to do as part of being in government, a good positive agenda and we're getting on with that positive agenda.

DAVID BEVAN: Christopher, sometimes it is too late and you know that. Sometime it is too late. It was too late for Julia Gillard, it was too late for Kevin Rudd, sometimes it is too late.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, there is an obsession in Australia with the day to day of politics - the day to day game of politics - who has the ball and who hasn't got it and who's kicking where et cetera, who's scoring and so forth. The truth is that the Government's getting on with an agenda around repairing the Budget that Labor left us, the debt and deficit bomb that they left us…

DAVID BEVAN: But you're having to rewrite your agenda. Today it's expected the Prime Minister will drop something that's been very dear to his heart for several years now; that's paid parental leave. So you're dropping - you're throwing things out of the plane as it's losing altitude.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, paid parental leave scheme is very hard to afford at this time and we need to recalibrate that to take account of the resources that the Government has and that are at its disposal courtesy of the taxpayer to support all Australians. So I think you'll see, today and in the future, policies around support for families and the creation of jobs that will be very attractive to the Australian public. We do have a very positive agenda about - around national security, building the best universities and high quality education in Australia and the world and of course the roads of the 21st Century and repairing the Budget. We have faced a hostile Senate, a politically opportunistic opposition and when those things happen in politics…

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: …and an accident prone, hapless Prime Minister; are you going to add that to the list? Will you concede that when you see results such as the Fisher by-election and the Victorian election and now this cataclysmic result in Queensland, putting aside that Campbell Newman had partly been architect of his own destruction, the - Tony Abbott was the icing on the cake, the difference between taking a hammering and losing government?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I don't - I haven't seen any research that shows that's the case. Campbell Newman can't possibly - or the Queensland LNP can't possibly be saying that they lost because of the Federal Government when they had a government for three years.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Are you serious? Are you seriously saying that there are not people in your own ranks who think that Tony Abbott has cost them government in Queensland, both within your own federal ranks and in Queensland? It'd be all eyes on Abbott wouldn't it?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, there's no doubt that the last week is a week we'd rather forget, there's no doubt about that Matthew, but Campbell Newman had his own difficulties in Queensland long before the so-called difficulties that the current Prime Minister has, long before. Right after he was elected his government had been running into trouble and he had not been popular in Queensland, not just in the last week or two when Queensland LNP lost the election, but in fact for some time he has been struggling to maintain popularity in Queensland. So it'd be quite wrong to assume that suddenly it all went bad in one week.

DAVID BEVAN: So you're saying don't blame Tony for Queensland?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think you have to be fair about it and the fair response is that there were many factors in Queensland.

DAVID BEVAN: Including Tony Abbott.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: One of which might have been the Federal Government over the last week or so and one of which of course is Campbell Newman and his own government. And they all - everyone has to take responsibility for themselves at the end of the day, but of course it would be unfair to blame one single individual.

DAVID BEVAN: See you're starting to sound like Wayne Swan when he would come on radio and defend Julia Gillard. That's what you're sounding like to me.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well that's a pity, because I don't really like Wayne Swan. [Laughs] He wasn't a very good Treasurer and I don't think he was a very good politician. But you've chosen a rather choice insult David. But - well, you know, my job as a senior member of the Government is to explain to the people that we have a positive agenda [indistinct] is not a great week…

DAVID BEVAN: [Speaking over] Here's how Jay Weatherill thinks you need to change your agenda if Tony Abbott is to stay on as Prime Minister.

[Excerpt of interview]

JAY WEATHERILL: Reverse the cuts to health, reverse the cuts to education. Take the money that he's saved through cutting automotive assistance and reinvest them in partnership with South Australia to transform our economy, keep his promise about submarines, build 12 new submarines here in South Australia. Then he might have a hope of re-establishing his support in South Australia and if he did those things I'd be more than happy to stand next to him and work in partnership with him.

[End of excerpt]

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Well, there's his wish-list Chris Pyne, can he deliver on that?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, as usual Jay Weatherill's just continuing to propagate the lies of the Labor Party about the Federal Government. And there are no cuts to education, there are no cuts to health. Education and health in South Australia from the Federal Government are increasing ever year for the next four years. I think it was 27 per cent increase in health, 23 per cent increase in education. Overall, the money to come in in South Australia is going up over the next four years. But Labor's very good at just repeating a mantra over and over again. I don't take my political cues from Jay Weatherill. I'm a Cabinet minister in a federal Liberal government…

DAVID BEVAN: Okay…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …I think Jay Weatherill would be very well advised to repair his own budget, to create the jobs in South Australia that need to be created by freeing up regulation rather than heavy government red tape. Then we might see Olympic Dam expanding. Jay Weatherill has led a government of intervention, a government that has increased taxes and…

DAVID BEVAN: And people like it….

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …[indistinct]…

DAVID BEVAN: …Chris Pyne, people like it.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, they didn't win on Saturday. The emergency services…

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Well, there was a six per cent…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …by hundreds of…

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: …you only just won Davenport.

DAVID BEVAN: You lost Fisher, you lost the State election. People like him.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I don't agree with that. I don't think people do like Jay Weatherill. I think that they…

DAVID BEVAN: They just…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …they voted - they didn't vote for…

DAVID BEVAN: [Speaking over] They didn't know what they were doing?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …[indistinct] doesn't mean that they like Jay Weatherill. They've massively increased the emergency services levy, they're lying about the pensioner concessions. Everyone knows that the State Government's responsible for 90 per cent of the funding and Tom Koutsantonis is trying to pocket that under an excuse of blaming Labor and in fact they didn't win the last state election in the popular vote…

DAVID BEVAN: They've got majority government now…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: They got 47 per cent. Now, let's not forget that. Let's not forget that Labor got 47 per cent of the vote. Not 50 per cent plus one and therefore they have not governed a legitimate government for the last 12 months.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Chris Pyne, if, as you say and this is obviously going to happen now, there's going to be a wholesale change to the Paid Parental Leave Scheme, a scheme that was fundamental - it was Tony Abbott's baby, to use a euphemism. It's going to be gutted. What will be left of Tony Abbott? Will he be one of - will he just be the hollow man of Australian politics, that there's nothing left?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Oh Matthew, that's such a ridiculous statement. Tony Abbott is a very substantial character, a very substantial Prime Minister and former cabinet minister. The idea that because one policy is altered somehow that changes the dynamic around Tony Abbott as a character and a person is a ridiculous bit of hyperbole.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: But what would be left of him? He…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I'm not going to play this silly game, Matthew.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: …Chris Pyne, this was his call this. Just as knighting a prince was his call. This is his judgement and he's having to apologise and now abandon a core policy. I mean, the Paid Parental Leave Scheme was a core policy for Tony Abbott…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, it wasn't so core that we actually introduced it, Matthew, and the Paid Parental Leave Scheme has never been introduced. So, it wasn't that core that it was part of even the first budget of the Government.

DAVID BEVAN: So, it wasn't really a core thing at all.

[Ringing sound]

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The simple truth of it is it hasn't even been introduced.

DAVID BEVAN: Just quickly, 20 seconds before the news, if there's a spill you'll vote for Abbott?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I don't believe that there'll be a change in leadership but I support the Prime Minister.

DAVID BEVAN: Who is Tony Abbott. You support Tony Abbott?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Tony Abbott is the Prime Minister and I support Tony Abbott.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Christopher Pyne thanks for talking to us.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It's a pleasure.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Christopher Pyne, Liberal MP for Sturt.

[ENDS]

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