ABC 891

SUBJECTS: Polls; Labor Party reform; Local Government referendum E&OE............................... Mark Butler: Good morning gentlemen. Presenter: And Chris Pyne, Shadow Minister for Education and Manager of Opposition Business in the House, good morning Chris Pyne. Christopher Pyne: Good morning. Presenter: Chris Pyne, the Newspoll this week confirmed the Galaxy Poll a day earlier, are they all confirming your worst fears? I know it’s a subject David explored with you last week but it’s now been confirmed by some of the heavy polls that have come out that the Opposition may be a victim of its own success. Pyne: Well, it’s very early days and what we’re seeing already is that Kevin hasn’t changed at all. Kevin Rudd is still the same Kevin Rudd of three years ago it’s like he was Rip Van Winkle and went to sleep for three years and woke up and decided nothing had changed that there was no Labor record. Labor’s problem is they can’t run on their first term record because they axed Kevin Rudd and so said it was no good and now they can’t run on their second term record because they axed Julia Gillard and said that was no good so it’s no surprise that Kevin Rudd wants to talk about everything other than cost of living, job security, border protection and economic management and instead wants everyone to be distracted with the Labor Party Leadership issues and how ballots are held and when the day the election is going to be. Presenter: But it’s easy to think that Tony Abbott really hasn’t got a handle on Kevin Rudd this time round. Kevin Rudd is saying you know, let’s be nice to each other, let’s be positive and Tony Abbott, he’s yet to come out swinging. Pyne: Well Kevin Rudd’s just spent three years undermining Julia Gillard in the most horrific personal way and now he wants everyone to forget all that and pretend that it’s a new dawn. Well, it’s not. Kevin hasn’t changed, he has an ego which is Napoleonic in its scale and he thinks the history of Australia is the history of Kevin Rudd. Actually, the public want to know will he reduce the or abolish the Carbon Tax, how will he stop the boats, when will the election be …. Presenter: But doesn’t everyone know that? Pyne: …and what they are going to do about the Budget Presenter: But isn’t that the problem for you, Chris Pyne? That it’s not like he’s a new leader, this is not Kevin 07, this is Kevin 2013. All the things you’re saying about Kevin his colleagues have said and worse. All the things you are saying about Kevin Rudd all, much worse than you’re saying. And yet, so the public know that, they’ve factored it in. They appear to like him. Pyne: Well the problem for Kevin is that he now has a record. In 2007, he made startling promises which couldn’t be tested until he won the election. Now six years later, Labor has a record and does anybody seriously believe they are better off after six years of Labor government when the cost of living has massively increased. They are more anxious about their jobs. There’s been 46,000 unauthorised boat arrivals courtesy of Kevin Rudd changing the policy and no one has any faith in the economic management of the Budget. If you want to change those things we have a clear choice at this election between stability which is the Coalition or the shambolic chaos that Labor has presented for the last six years and continues to present. Presenter: Mark Butler….are you listening to all this thinking – it doesn’t matter….we don’t like him, Caucus doesn’t like him – who cares? It’s working. Butler: Well I’ll agree with Christopher on one thing, it’s still very early days. Kevin Rudd has not yet been Prime Minister for two weeks, and although every politician likes to see polls going up rather than going down, these things are coming out every day, every two days and have been for years now so I don’t think any of us spend too much of our time focussing on them. But the response I’ve had, particularly from my own community in Port Adelaide, but others that I visit as well is two things – the first is that except for the most hyper-partisan Liberal Party supporters, the overwhelming bulk of the community wanted a contest at the next Federal Election, and broadly people think that there is now a contest, there’s going to be a contest they hope of ideas. But the other thing people are telling me is that they’re just sick of the negative, carping politics that they think has characterised the Parliament over the last three years, and yet Christopher has just basically substituted the name Kevin Rudd for the name Julia Gillard and repeated the same torrent of abuse that we’ve seen from Tony Abbott and his team now for the last three years. Presenter: Mark Butler, when did Kevin Rudd explain to you his plans to change the way Labor leaders are elected? Butler: Well Kevin first floated this very shortly after he became Leader, but we shouldn’t pretend that this isn’t a debate that’s being going on for a considerable period of time now in the Labor Party. Presenter: Did he consult the Party room though? Butler: We, we really are the only social democratic party or Labor Party in the world that doesn’t haven’t this sort of a ballot process for the election of a Leader and it’s something that I’ve been advocating for for many years and many others in the party have well. Presenter: Did he consult the Caucus? Butler: Well the Caucus will be coming together to consider a range of issues over the next couple of weeks and the matter will be… Presenter: The answer to that is no? Butler: Well the matter will be put to the Caucus to decide. What’s Kevin’s proposed and announced is that he will be asking the Caucus to change Caucus rules… Presenter: You can’t roll him; he can’t get rolled on this with just a few weeks out from an election because that would be a terrible rebuff. So you’re going to have to give him what he wants. Butler: Well I think we will give him what he wants because I think it’s what the Caucus broadly wants; I think the Caucus broadly embraces the idea of modernising the way in which we do a whole range of things in our Party, including electing the Leader. Presenter: What’s democratic about giving faceless people who aren’t elected in Party sub-branches and Union Chiefs the right to decide the Leader and Prime Minister rather than the Caucus made up of people who were elected by the people? I mean you act as though the Caucus is somehow some sort of amorphous mass. I mean the caucus is made up of MPs who were elected by people. We trust them to make decisions about lots of things, don’t we? We trust our MPs to vote on lots of things but apparently we don’t trust them to elect the best leader. We don’t think they know what is going on. Butler: Well I think the model that Kevin Rudd is proposing strikes the right balance between those two things. Recognising that members of caucus are elected to take a whole range of decisions including the leadership of the party that they are a part of. But also we’ve seen across the world, in Canada, in the UK including the British Conservative Party, across Continental Europe not to mention the US primary system, that engaging people at a grassroots level in the most important decision in the modern age which is who leads one of the two major political parties is a very good thing for grassroots politics. It grows the party, it makes the party more energised and more modern, that’s what we’ve seen everywhere across the world that’s done this, in New Zealand as well, and I’m sure we’ll see it here. Presenter: What’s the timetable here? Will these changes be made if caucus supports it before the election so it’s locked in? Butler: That’s right. The proposal will be that the Caucus rules be changed over the next couple of weeks. When Caucus comes together to consider a range of things that the Prime Minister will put before Caucus including this. If Caucus adopts it, and I’m very confident they will overwhelmingly if not unanimously, then those will be the rules thenceforth. Presenter: Chris Pyne, do you think the Liberal Party will hop on board? Pyne: Well you know they’ll be adopted unanimously of course because the faceless men have said so. The most remarkable thing about this change, of course, is that Kevin Rudd has been involved in four leadership challenges in three years. That’s how unstable Labor has been. When he first lost the Prime Ministership, then he challenged Julia Gillard and lost, then he had the non-challenge when he wasn’t the candidate and then he challenged her again and won two weeks ago. So four challenges. What he wants to do is put a system in place so that nobody can ever challenge him so that he can be Leader of the Labor Party for life as part of the new era of Ruddism. It’s sort of akin to North Korea quite frankly where the Dear Leader, in this case Kevin, will preside over the Labor Party for as long as he wants to. Presenter: Now to both of you: Antony Green, ABC Election Analyst, has only just tweeted that giant Senate ballot papers and concern about informal voting might see the local government referendum vote cancelled. Are you aware of that and even if you’re not is the momentum building that this is not a good time to be testing support for local government? Pyne: Well I don’t believe that now is the time to put that referendum on local government and I’ve called for the Australian Local Government Association, our own Felicity Lewis is the President in fact from Marion Council, to ask the Government to pull the referendum. Labor hasn’t created the necessary momentum to change the constitution and if that fails that will be the third time that it has failed and I don’t think any government will touch it again in the future. So… Presenter: Let’s go back to Mark Butler, Minister for Climate Change, Mark Butler is the thinking now building that you’re not going to put up a referendum on local government to be knocked off a third time and its starting to mount up against you now with Antony Green saying concern about informal voting, giant Senate ballot papers. Putting aside the fact that there is now no bipartisan support for it means that it is dead in the water. Butler: Well that’s the critical thing, bipartisan support. We know that through the history of referenda in Australia, bipartisan support is critical and we thought we had that until as recently as only a few weeks ago when I attended a very large dinner of Mayors across the country where Barnaby Joyce got up along with Anthony Albanese, the two Ministers and Shadow Minister with responsibility for this area and pledged support. I mean, yes there are quibbles about process and so on and so forth, but until very recently it was the Government’s view that this was going to have the support of the Opposition. Presenter: Well without it, are you better off not putting it to the test? Butler: Well I’m still very unclear about what the Coalition’s position is. I mean it was clear from the Party room – Presenter: It’s pretty clear they’re opposed now. Butler: Well we’re going to have to take a decision about that and I haven’t talked to the relevant Minister, I’m not sure what our view is but it’s a great pity because I know that the Local Government Association – mayors across South Australia, across Adelaide – are very passionate about the idea of having their role in the delivery of services to their ratepayers recognised in the most important document in Australia, our Constitution. Presenter: Mark Butler, Minister for Climate Change, thank you. Member for Port Adelaide of course thank you very much. Butler: Thank you. Presenter: And Chris Pyne, Member for Sturt, Shadow Minister for Education, thank you. Butler: It was a great pleasure. Thank you. ENDS