ABC 891

SUBJECTS: Paid parental leave scheme; Wayne Swan; Bob Carr

Matthew Abraham: Chris Pyne, is your party room a little stroppy?  Very stroppy indeed over the funding of paid parental leave scheme announced by Tony Abbott and say it’s a Rolls Royce scheme and the economy can’t afford it. 

Christopher Pyne: Well, I’ve never known our party room to be as happy as they are at the moment and why wouldn’t they be? 

Abraham: So there’s no debate about that? 

Pyne: That debate has been had and we had that debate before the last election.  We have a generous paid parental leave scheme, a fair dinkum scheme which means career women can take six months off and spend that time with their new born babies which is great and not go backwards in terms of their career and their wages which I think is a fair enough scheme.

David Bevan: Penny Wong, you say that the numbers just don’t stack up. 

Penny Wong: The numbers don’t stack up and the description of it as a Rolls Royce scheme is a description by a Liberal party member.  There’s also Liberal Party people describing this plan as being practically friendless in the Liberal Shadow Cabinet.  The reality is….

Pyne: I’m its friend. 

Wong: You might be it’s only one other than Tony Abbott because clearly your shadow finance minister doesn’t agree with it.  The reality is about priorities.  We have prioritised paid parental leave.  That’s why we’ve got it in; a fully funded scheme already benefiting 140,000 Australian families.  The scheme the Opposition are putting forward involves whacking a great big new tax on the economy and is a scheme which is about privileging people who are on high incomes.  We don’t think it’s sensible.  The business community doesn’t think it’s sensible and it is practically friendless in the Coalition Shadow Cabinet. 

Pyne: I think it’s kind of fun that Penny Wong would be talking about a big new tax when this is the Government that introduced the carbon tax, the mining tax, the alcopops tax…

Abraham: What, you don’t like having your own clichés thrown back at you? 

Pyne: It’s not a cliché.  The truth is the carbon tax is the biggest new hit to the economy in many, many decades and for Labor to talk about costings when they have five different costings for the mining tax and three different iterations for the mining tax, I think the Australian public when anybody says “great big new tax” their reaction is “oh, she must be talking about the carbon tax.”  I think it’s audacious at least that Penny would be willing to talk about new taxes.  Let’s talk about the carbon tax.

Wong: I did listen to you mate. I think this really shows the priorities of the coalition and it really shows the economic recklessness. We are saying to wealthy miners: we want you to pay more tax for the betterment of the whole community. We are using that revenue to fund a reduction in the tax rate for small business and for the rest of the economy. We are using that revenue to improve the superannuation holdings of superannuation of working Australians. What the Coalition is saying is that they would rather give wealthy miners a tax break, then give a tax break to small business and give working Australians more superannuation. I mean this is a completely wrong suited approach to public policy.

Abraham:  And minister do you think it is good public policy to have our treasurer bagging Gina Rinehart, Andrew Forrest and Clive Palmer, saying they are blind to the national interest, poor their considerable personal fortunes into advertising, army of lobbyists, dodgy modelling. Do you call this commercial manoeuvring?

Wong:  What I think the Treasuer is saying is quite right, that if people want to engage in a national policy debate, then the national interest needs to be the priority, rather then your personal business interests.

Bevan: And do you think Gina Rinehart, Andrew Forest and Clive Palmer are blind to the national interest?

Wong: Well what I would say is that I’ve no doubt, when Mrs Rinehart and Mr. Forrest stood up and opposed the mining tax is that what they were doing was advocating for their business interests. I think it is entirely appropriate for the Treasurer to say: if we want a debate about what the national policy should be, we have to look to the national interests.

Abraham:  The fact that you altered your mining tax, doesn’t that show they might have had a point?

Wong: Well hang on, my recollection is…

Pyne: They changed the bill three times. 

Wong: My recollection is the big demonstration that some of these individuals had involved in was after we had reached an agreement with a significant proportion of the mining industry. But look, my view is we have a good dialogue with Australian business. Yesterday the Prime Minister stood up with leaders in the business community to talk about brining them into the council of Australian Government’s process to push along deregulation so we can get better productivity benefits for the nation. We have a productive dialogue, sometimes it’s robust and you’d expect that, because our job as the government is to look to what’s in the best interests of all Australians.

Abraham: Now, senator, as a Labor senator, how do you feel about this lording of Bob Carr and the fact that he will single handily lift the IQ or double the IQ of the senate and that there are only about two or three people in the senate who can read or write, and Kim Carr, the other Carr is the one of them… (Inaudible)

Wong: Well I did learn to read and write a little while ago, but what I say is: I worked with Bob Carr actually, you might not know that. In the mid 90’s when Labour first came to Government in NSW, I spent a stint there as an advisor in his government and worked on the forest policy there. Which was something, obviously, a pretty important reform for Bob personally. I have enormous regard for him and I’m extremely supportive of this move. I think he will be a great … (inaudible)

Bevan:  (Inaudible)… he’s just being applauded by the Canberra Press Gallery as somebody who finally got to Canberra who can string a few words together and has got half a brain.  He’s a brain on a stick.

Wong:  I’ve never been of the view that when you strengthen your team that somehow diminishes you.  I think strengthening your team is a good thing for the government, for the party and it’s good for the country.  I think he’ll be a great Foreign Minister and I’m looking forward to working with him.

Abraham:  And Chris Pyne, does finally the Carr move show that Julia Gillard may be righting the ship?  She’s dispensed with Kevin Rudd, she’s able to recruit a talented person, attract a talented person into the team.  Now are there ominous signs there for the Opposition?

Pyne:  Well it one fell swoop, Matthew, what Julia Gillard has managed to do is confirm that she’s a proven liar given that she on three occasions last week said that there was no possibility that…

Wong:  Come on Christopher.

Pyne:  Hang on.

Wong: This is a personal attack, you always have to go the personal don’t you.  Have you got nothing better to say?

Pyne:  She’s a proven liar.

Wong:  Have you got nothing better to say to the people of Australia?

Pyne:  She’s a liar.  She said last week on three occasions that it was absolutely untrue, that it was completely untrue, that Bob Carr was coming into the Senate to be the Foreign Minister.  And on Friday she announced that he was coming into the Senate to be the Foreign Minister.  Secondly, she’s humiliated all of her colleagues because she’s said that none of them are good enough to be the Foreign Minister.  And thirdly far from bringing this ‘brain on a stick’ that he’s referred to, he’s the guy that gave us Eddie Obeid and Mark Arbid and Joe Tripodi and the faceless men of Sussex Street…

Abraham:  I think we should let Penny Wong respond on behalf of the Prime Minister.

Wong:  Actually I think Chris should just go and have another cup of coffee.  I think he’s a bit grouchy this morning, really.

Bevan:  Penny Wong, thank you for your time this morning, Senator for South Australia and Minister for Finance.  Christopher Pyne is still going, he’s the Liberal MP for Sturt and Manager for Opposition Business.  We thank him for his time this morning.

ENDS