ABC 891

E&OE TRANSCRIPT 891 ABC Adelaide – Matthew Abraham and David Bevan Wednesday 20 August 2014 SUBJECT/S: local politics, Clive Palmer, Budget 2014. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Good morning Mark Butler, Labor MP for Port Adelaide, opposition environment and climate change spokesman. MARK BUTLER: Good morning Matt and Dave and Christopher, wherever he is. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Christopher, I think you’re joining us, Christopher Pyne, from Perth this morning. Liberal MP for Sturt, Education Minister and Leader of the House. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning David, good morning Matthew and good morning Mark. I’m in Perth for a dyslexia and disability round table, a series of those that I’m having around Australia. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: First Martin Hamilton-Smith jumped ship from the Opposition leader’s team, and now his key advisor’s jumping ship. It’s hardly a vote of confidence, is it, in Steven Marshall? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Martin Hamilton-Smith was a deep act of treachery against his own party and his own friends and family which, of course, is one of the most wicked acts in South Australian political history. Daniel Gannon’s a young man who’s been offered a higher paid job and is quite sensibly, like most young men, taking it. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Martin Hamilton-Smith got offered a higher paying job, I think. [Indistinct] he’s better paid as a minister than… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I don’t think you can compare the two. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Okay. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think people – Daniel Gannon’s been a great staffer for the Liberal Party in South Australia. He’ll be a loss for us because he’s got excellent media skills but he’s got a… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: You’re not serious… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …been offered a better job. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: You keep coming back to this thing about Martin Hamilton-Smith. I mean, you wouldn’t compare that with what went on with Dean Brown and Ted Chapman and Mike Rann. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: What Martin Hamilton-Smith was much worse. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: What, than their leaking? Was much worse… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Martin Hamilton-Smith’s act of treachery against his own party as a former Liberal leader is a much worse act than any other act I’ve ever seen in politics [indistinct]… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: What, than helping an Opposition leader? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, you’re making allegations, Matthew, first. Let’s make that point so that your listeners don’t think that what you’re saying is proven. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Well, I know it happened. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, it’s not proven fact, is it, but Martin Hamilton-Smith… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Well, I… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s a proven fact that he has… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: I know it happened. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …decided to join a Labor Government in spite of spending a lifetime as a member of the Liberal Party and as a member of the Liberal Party. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: I know it happened. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: So I don’t think you can compare the two. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Well, I can tell you I know it happened. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, we seem to be off on a bit of a tangent. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: No, not really. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m a Federal Liberal Minister and I’ve actually got nothing to do with the state Liberal politics in the ‘80s or ‘90s and we seem to be off on something f a tangent. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Well, let’s turn to federal politics, national politics, international politics in 2014. Christopher Pyne, where would you place Clive Palmer on the foreign affairs spectrum - at one end, he should be the Foreign Affairs Minister and at the other end he is a dangerous liability. Where would you put him on that spectrum? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I think Clive has retracted his comments about China on Q&A on Monday night. DAVID BEVAN: Well, he’s qualified them. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: He’s qualified them. That’s correct. And he’s saying that he was talking about people that he’s suing and being sued by over various mining interests and companies. Now, it seems that there’s a lot of litigation involving Clive Palmer’s mining companies and Chinese partners that he has in those companies. It would probably be quite unwise for me to wade into those discussions and comment on them. I think the fact is that he has recognised that his statements were unacceptable and qualified them. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Do you accept his explanation and that he was actually not talking about the Chinese Government even though, to quote, he said the Chinese are bastards and mongrels, they’re communists, they shoot their own people, they haven’t got a justice system and they want to take over this country? Now… DAVID BEVAN: He couldn’t have been talking about the company. Companies don’t have justice systems; companies are not communists; companies don’t shoot people, so he must’ve been talking about the Chinese Government. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, look, it’s not my job to defend Clive Palmer’s comments. I mean, he – they were obviously a significant mistake, and rather than try and back them up, Clive Palmer had to try to qualify them and I think he recognised that… DAVID BEVAN: Do you think he’s a bull in a China shop? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think he recognised that he went a bridge too far, so it’s not really my role as a member of the Liberal Government to defend Clive Palmer. I think… DAVID BEVAN: But you can’t bag him with outrage either because you need him. Is that a fair call? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think the best advice for any new Member of Parliament is if they’re not completely across an area of public policy, perhaps they should stay away from it, and maybe foreign affairs is not Clive’s strong suit. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Mark Butler. MARK BUTLER: Well, frankly, I don’t think Christopher should be gilding the lily on this. Julie Bishop’s been clear, a number of other senior Cabinet ministers have been clear that Clive’s comments were deeply irresponsible in terms of state-to-state relations between Australia and China, our largest export market. It was deeply irresponsible for him to say what he did, and in terms of people-to-people relations, which are increasingly important whether it’s tourism, education, a range of other respects in which the Chinese and the Australian people are interacting day and day, it was also deeply hurtful. So I think it’s quite clear that – well, it seems to me at least that Clive was motivated by this slugfest that his company is having with a Chinese company, Citic. The trouble is though that his comments on Monday night were clearly far broader than talking about a company. He was clearly talking about the Chinese state, and I think it is important that Cabinet ministers of the Australian Government point out very clearly to the Australian people, the Chinese people and the Chinese Government that his comments were not representative of Australia, the Australian Parliament or the Australian Government or the Australian people, and that they are regarded by us as deeply irresponsible. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: In the photos I’ve seen of the Q&A panel, Penny Wong was sitting next to him, next to Tony – in between him and Tony Jones. Do you think she should’ve said something at the time? MARK BUTLER: Look, I don’t know whether she did. I didn’t catch the Q&A program so I can’t comment on that. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: What about… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I watched her face. I mean, she was obviously deeply unimpressed, and so she should’ve been. And I don’t think anybody in Australia thinks that Clive Palmer’s remarks are acceptable, and he has been condemned by everyone, and so he should be. But obviously he’s made a significant mistake and the Government has made it very clear, and I’m sure the Chinese Government don’t think that Clive Palmer speaks for either Australia or the Australian Government or the Liberal Party nor the Labour Party. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: But PUP Senator Jacqui Lambie’s gone even further. She said we should get ready for war. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Jacqui Lambie’s statements are obviously quite unusual and Jacqui Lambie perhaps should take the same advice that Clive needs to take which is to think clearly about public policy before they make statements which might damage our international reputation. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Now, Chris Pyne, just backtracking a little bit, Tom Koutsantonis has sent a text saying what kind of treachery is knocking off a guy you work for? And he’s referring to you knocking off your boss at the time, Ian Wilson, for pre-selection. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, of course that’s a base lie. I never worked for Ian Wilson, so here you are, Matthew, simply repeating… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: No, no. I asked you… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …repeating lies on the public radio and expecting me to defend them. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Okay. Now – and thank you for clarifying that. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, no, thank you for raising it. What, are you going to ask another question that’s a complete lie and ask me to deny it again? MATTHEW ABRAHAM: No, no. You don’t mind taking questions from listeners? And one of our listeners, Louise of Golden Grove wants to know if the Schoolkids Bonus is scrapped, will we be going to be able to claim some expenses from our income tax return as we used to before the bonus in came in? Stationery, calculators, computer software were all deductible, she says. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, at least Louise has asked a sensible question. So before the Schoolkids Bonus, which has only started, in fact, last year in 2013, there was a capacity to deduct some education expenses that was introduced by the Howard Government, and then altered by Labor, and then finally scrapped by Labor, who instead, rather than allowing people to deduct some education expenses, scrapped that and gave people a cash splash that could be spent on anything; not education expenses, just any item whatsoever. It’s a good question that Louise asks and we do need to consider that in the removal of the Schoolkids Bonus how we might, down the track, help support families with children in schools in terms of the costs and deductibility of their expenses. I’m sure that when the Budget repair job is nearing its completion over the coming years, having tried to save us from the debt and deficit disaster left to us by Labor, we’ll be able to reconsider… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: But fairness… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …those kinds of policies. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Fairness would say that you would do both at the same time, wouldn’t it? If you’re going to remove the bonus, you should reinstate the tax concessions. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, fairness demands that we remove the debt and deficit disaster left to us by Labor. That’s what’s fair. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: But – so that might not happen… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: At the moment we have a massive debt. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: You’re saying you’re prepared to consider it, but you’re not promising that it will happen at the same time. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Of course not. I’m not promising that it’ll happen at the same time. That’s not the game of policy. What I’m saying is that when we start repairing the Budget from the debt and deficit left to us by Labor, which I think the public fully understand, we will be able to consider those kinds of measures again, but right now we have $123 billion of accumulated deficits and debt rising to $667 billion from nothing… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: So they won’t be… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …thanks to Labor’s six years in government. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: So they wouldn’t be automatically restored as a tax deduction. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Of course not. I made that pretty clear. DAVID BEVAN: Mark Butler, sounds like mums and dads are going to get hit. MARK BUTLER: Well, mums and dads are getting hit in so many ways by this Budget. Christopher mentions the $123 billion figure. He doesn’t mention that more than half of that 68 billion came from decisions that Joe Hockey made within only a couple of months being appointed as Treasurer in the December mid-year Budget review. Decisions like giving tax breaks to multinational companies and a whole range of other things, and what this does reflect, I think, is the Government’s priorities in Budget. Instead of providing mums and dads, parents of school kids with money up front to deal with those costs that come at the beginning of the year, rather than having top scrabble together receipts, and maybe one day, if Christopher’s kind enough to reinstate the deductibility, put in a tax return several months after incurring these expenses, this Government is deciding on priorities like tax breaks for multinational companies, like a paid parental leave that gives more money to people who earn more than the average. This is all about priorities, and… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: But why block a Government that said it was going to fix a deficit problem. That was its agenda. It said that before the election. Kim Beazley didn’t get in the way, from memory, of changes that – as Opposition leader, that even though they were opposed by Labor, because he believed that the Government had a mandate for it. MARK BUTLER: Well, a couple of points you’ve raised there, Matthew. Firstly, they concocted this Budget emergency. As I said, of the $123 billion in deficits that Christopher just talked about, 68 billion came from Joe Hockey’s December mid-year Budget review. And also, they did not say that they were going to cut education. They said precisely the opposite. They did not say they were going to impose a tax on Medicare visits, they said precisely the opposite. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: But they did say they were going to get rid of the carbon tax and they did say they were going to get rid of the mining resource rental tax, correct? MARK BUTLER: Well, they did and we were very clear about our positions on that as well, and I, for example… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: But they won. MARK BUTLER: …was elected as the Labor Candidate on our position, for example, on climate change, and we’re voting according to that. But we will not simply wave through cuts to family payments, to health payments, to school payments, to pension payments because of some concocted Budget emergency that Joe Hockey came up with in December, contrary to all of the promises that Tony Abbott made in the lead in to the election campaign DAVID BEVAN: Mark Butler, thank you for coming in to the studio. MARK BUTLER: Thanks very much. DAVID BEVAN: Christopher Pyne, thank you for joining us from Perth. It must have been an early start for you. We do appreciate it. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s always a pleasure. DAVID BEVAN: Liberal MP for Sturt and Mark Butler, Labor MP for Port Adelaide. [ends]