ABC 891

SUBJECTS: Mental health funding in South Australia; Political leader popularity

E&OE…………

Abraham: Christopher Pyne has joined us in the studio ... and joining us on the line ... Senator Don Farrell ... you may not have heard all of this but we’ve just been talking for the last two days about this very distressing case and there seems to be a mounting body of opinion now from doctors ... in the system, including John Brayley, that South Australia has a chronic shortage of forensic mental health beds and other mental health facilities. Do you just sit back and watch this as some sort of road crash or is there something the Federal ... Labor Party needs to do to intervene?

Don Farrell: Obviously it’s a serious situation. The Federal Government doesn’t simply sit back and look at things, but is an issue for the state Government to deal with and I for the moment would like to let them see if they can sort it out.

Abraham: So, so say the Federal Government watches the state government and thinks “they’re not doing a very good job of this. We need to intervene here.” You’ve intervened in unions. You’ve intervened in other organisations you’ve regarded as dysfunctional. If you believe there’s a part of a state government that’s not doing it’s job – I’m not saying that is the case, but people are starting to say that who are experts in the system.

Farrell: Look, it’s a serious issue and it’s an issue which I think people are rightly concerned about, but for the moment I think the way to deal with it is to allow the state government to try and resolve it.

Abraham: Christopher Pyne, you’d agree with that wouldn’t you? If you were to get into government you wouldn’t want to be in a position of intervening in areas that are state areas.

Christopher Pyne: Oh, look, I don’t think we should intervene, but I don’t think we can wash our hands of mental illness and mental health as a national issue. When I was the Minister for Mental Health for four years in the Howard Government if found out that South Australia was on the bottom of the table of every measure of how it dealt with mental illness. What happened in the 70s, 80s and 90s was essentially people with mental illness were put out into the community without support in the community. Everyone wants people out of institutions, but if you put people out of institutions you must give them support in the community and that never happened. So in the Howard Government I established Headspace; the youth mental health initiative and we also had a $2 billion package for mental illness across Australia.

Abraham: So is more money going to be the solution here?

Pyne: South Australia does not put enough money into mental illness. That is a simple fact. They are on the bottom of the table in every measure. David Cappo, you might remember did a study about mental illness and social inclusion and so in the Rann Government, some things happened, but Labor is in Government state and federal and this horrific story that I’ve been listening to on my way here this morning highlights South Australia needs to put a lot more money into mental health.

David Bevan: On another topic, the polls show consistently that both of you work for people that are incredibly unpopular. I’m sure Christopher Pyne; if I asked you why Julia Gillard is unpopular you’d be able to wax lyrical, but your own leader; why don’t people like Tony Abbott?

Pyne: Well, I always remind myself of one really important statistic about Opposition Leaders. In 1996 when we had a landslide victory to the Liberal Government, the Liberal Party, on election day the Saulwick Nielsen poll in the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald published a poll; Keating 47 per cent, Howard 42 per cent. It’s very important…..

Bevan: No, no, no. I didn’t ask you how this was going to play out at an election. You may well be right. The question is why don’t people like Tony Abbott?

Pyne: My important point is Opposition Leaders – Let me finish.

Bevan: But you said…

Pyne: But I haven’t finished it. Opposition Leaders are never popular, never popular.

Bevan: So he’s unpopular because he’s an Opposition Leader?

Pyne: Absolutely. Mike Rann if you remember was unpopular when he was Opposition Leader and went onto win the election. Opposition Leaders have to point out every day how bad the Government is and because this Government is so rancid he spends a lot of his time talking about how rotten the Government is and people obviously don’t like it.

Abraham: Or that people just don’t like him.

Pyne: No, it’s not that they don’t like him. It’s a role that casts you in an unpopular light.

Bevan: Don Farrell, why don’t people like your leader?

Farrell: Can I say something about Christopher’s leader first?

Abraham: No, no, the question was quite specific here.

Bevan: Why don’t people like your leader?

Farrell: Just on Tony Abbott I think it’s interesting that….

Pyne: You were asked about Julia Gillard.

Farrell: I’m happy to talk about her and why I support her and why she’s been very good for South Australia.

Abraham: We’ve asked you why people don’t like her and the clock is ticking.

Farrell: Look, some people don’t like her. There’s no doubt about that. I think she’s more popular in South Australia perhaps than other parts of the country. That’s because she grew up here and she’s been doing things like supporting Holdens that I think are good for the South Australian economy. (inaudible), there were many times through the Howard Government period where I thought Howard was so unpopular that he was never going to win the next election, but invariably he did. So it’s not a question of your unpopularity at a particular time in the cycle. I think Julia is doing all of the right things to turn the situation around. If you look at the economy; I know you were talking about the negative aspects, but unemployment remains low, interest rates are falling, growth is very good; the envy of many countries in the world.

Bevan: (inaudible)

Farrell: I think all of those things when we come to the election, which is in the second half of next year people will look at the economic circumstances and say, “are we going to be better off under a Julia Gillard Government or are we going to be better off under Tony Abbott Government”.

ENDS