ABC AM - Sabra Lane

SUBJECTS: Restoring faith in the Parliament   E&OE................................   TONY EASTLEY: The Prime Minister will promise today to find savings in this year's budget to pay for Labor's disability insurance scheme and changes to the education system. Julia Gillard will outline her priorities for the election year at the National Press Club, arguing that her Government is focussed on governing rather than campaigning. The Opposition says if it wins the election a signature policy will be parliamentary reform. The Opposition's Manager of Business Christopher Pyne has been speaking to chief political correspondent Sabra Lane. SABRA LANE: Christopher Pyne Welcome to AM. HON CHRISTOPHER PYNE MP: Thank you Sabra. LANE: What sort of changes are you proposing to Parliament? PYNE: I think one of the key changes is to make Question Time more accessible to all members of the Parliament. One of the fair criticisms of Question Time is that the frontbenchers on both sides feature and often local issues that many backbenchers would like to raise never get a look-in because of border protection or economy, cost of living, job security, etc dominating frontbench questions. So I would like to see a backbench Question Time introduced for half an hour following our normal Question Time to give backbenchers an opportunity to ask Ministers questions about their local electorate that they need answers to. LANE: And you’d like to see unscripted questions from Government MPs and backbenchers to the Prime Minister? PYNE: Well the questions from backbenchers from both government and opposition would probably not go to the Prime Minister because they’d be about local issues and they’d be looking at answers from Ministers, typically for example about roads or schools or other issues in their local electorate, myrtle rust leaps to mind, or fruit bats in northern New South Wales. There are a whole lot of local issues that never get a run and both Government and Opposition backbenchers will have the opportunity to get answers to questions. LANE: And what about the independence of the speaker? PYNE: Well I think that we do need a little "i" independent speaker, one that stays outside the party room in the way that Harry Jenkins did and tries to exercise a genuine independence. What's happened with the Speakership over the last two years has been a farce under Julia Gillard where it's been used as a shiny bauble in order to attract support as it was with Peter Slipper. This has been wrong. It's reduced the role of Speaker and also damaged the Parliament and it's time to put an end to that. LANE: Oppositions for decades always have put forward ideas for reform of Parliament and their appetite for change seems to dissipate once they take government. How serious are you? You might change your mind if you win the election later this year. PYNE: Well Sabra I’ve been in the Parliament for 20 years, I have a very strong belief in the Parliament. I think most people would say that I do evince a genuine interest in making the Parliament a better place. I do think that backbenchers nee to be more engaged in Question Time. There needs to be more spontaneity, so I’d like to introduce interventions during speeches. I think that there are, I'm suggesting about six or seven practical changes to the Parliament that I think would make it a better place, none of which turn the place on its head. And so I would be assuming that they'd be supported on all sides if we get the chance to form government in August. LANE: Why not do away with Dorothy Dixers? Surely they have been abused by all parties over the years? PYNE: Well of course technically there is no such thing as a Dorothy Dixer. But of course what you find in the political world is that both sides of politics will put up questions when they’re in government to showcase their achievements and I don’t think we are going to be able to change human nature to that extent. But you can certainly create more spontaneity in Question Time and include backbenchers in it, in a way that is genuine and interesting to both the Parliament and the public. LANE: Some political observers though Mr Pyne would say the Opposition and its tactics during this parliamentary term, that the regular pushes for the suspension of standing orders in Question Time, repeated points of order, the language of blood oaths and the like, have also contributed to the demise of parliamentary standards. Has the Opposition got its hands dirty on this? PYNE: Well the parliamentary tone is set by the Prime Minister and Julia Gillard is the Prime Minister and she has lowered the tone. The Prime Minister leads by example. LANE: But the Opposition has it not, by playing along with these tactics, has also helped lower the tone? PYNE: Well the Prime Minister leads by example. Her example has been one of vindictive, vicious and nasty performances at the despatch box. She has unfortunately set the tone for the Parliament and it's been one of the worst parliaments certainly in the 20 years that I've been in the nation's capital and so she really bears responsibility for that. The Opposition has tried to hold the Government to account. I think most people think we've done a good job at that. But I guess we'll see at the election in August. LANE: Well on the issue of transparency and being accountable, the last time this program spoke with the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard said you should come clean on the James Ashby affair and what you knew about this case and Mal Brough's involvement. What did you know? PYNE: Well I've answered all those questions before Sabra. I’ve answered them many, many times and in many different ways, from many different journalists. So as far as I'm concerned I've really dealt with all those issues. I'm quite happy to point out that I've said that I met with Mr Ashby on three different occasions - once when I first met him in the Speaker's office; the second time when I had a drink with he and another staffer for about an hour on a second occasion; and thirdly when he came and picked up a bottle of wine which was signed by Tony Abbott for a departing staff member from the Speaker's office. But as to the matters to do with Mr Ashby and Mr Slipper I think most people would say that they've come as a surprise to all of us. They certainly came as a surprise to me. LANE: You had no knowledge about his legal case? PYNE: No, none. LANE: The Prime Minister will outline her plan today for the year, apparently signalling huge and significant structural changes to the budget this year to help fund policies that she'd like to run at the election this year. She'll also reportedly flag that her Gonski education reforms will be a crusade that she wants to be a signature of her time as a prime minister. Will the Opposition be wedged on all of this? PYNE: Look the Prime Minister's test today is to outline a sustainable economic plan for the country. Rhetoric, platitudes - people are sick of them. People are sick of the Prime Minister’s rhetoric in particular because of course she promised not to introduce a carbon tax, she promised to deliver a surplus and she promised not to challenge Kevin Rudd. Major promises all of which she was quite happy to break so the Prime Minister today is not going to get away today with more platitudinous nonsense to try and get away and fool the public into voting Labor. She needs to outline a genuine, economic plan that is sustainable, that highlights what she can do to protect people’s jobs, to reduce the cost of living and to get the budget back into surplus. She needs to show how she is going to fund $120 billion worth of unfunded promises and how she is going to eliminate net debt which she has promised to do by 2021 which will require surpluses of $30 billion a year starting in 2016. She can’t just get away with the usual platitudinous rubbish. LANE: And with the bar now set. The benchmark, genuine, sustainable economic plan is that what we’re going to get from Tony Abbott tomorrow? PYNE: You’ll see from Tony Abbott as you’ve seen over the last twelve months. Genuine policy that will make Australia a better place. A real economic, sustainable plan that will protect people’s jobs, reduce the cost of living and give the Government - and set the budget and the Government on an even keel in an economic sense. Not just tomorrow but over the next eight months until the election in August. LANE: Will Australians know where every dollar is going to come from tomorrow? PYNE: They certainly will by Election Day. EASTLEY: The Opposition's Christopher Pyne speaking to our chief political correspondent Sabra Lane. ENDS.