ABC News Radio

SUBJECTS: Labor’s blizzard of distraction; AWU Scandal

E&OE……………

Marius Benson: Federal Parliament ended its sitting week yesterday. It was generally seen as a good one for Labor. That was the second last week of the year with the House just back for just four days at the end of the month. For an Opposition view on the week that was I spoke to Christopher Pyne the Manager of Opposition Business in the House a little earlier this morning. Christopher Pyne there has been a general sense that the tone in Parliament was distinctly different this week has been changing for a while – a different dynamic, the Opposition more on the back foot, the government more on the front foot would you accept that reading?

Hon Christopher Pyne MP: Look I don’t really, I know that that is what a lot of commentators want to write and to say, but the truth is that nothing has changed about this Government, it’s still dysfunctional, divided and incompetent. They have had a blizzard of announcements in the last seven or eight weeks which has been designed to distract people from the fact that they are so dysfunctional, divided and incompetent. But Kevin Rudd is still there campaigning for the leadership; Julia Gillard is still not answering questions that are important questions to answer. Cost of living is still the number one issue in the electorate and the government’s handling of the economy. The surplus is still disappearing and the boats are still arriving.

Benson: But there was quite clearly one difference that a lot of people have been commenting on which was that Tony Abbott was different particularly this week for example yesterday he was asking far fewer questions is that a deliberate tactic?

Pyne: Well he usually only asks one if not two questions a day in fact so.

Benson: But usually he’s been asking those questions and then supplementary questions and more than two most days.

Pyne: No, yesterday he asked two questions and he usually asks one or two questions so who ever has noticed that has not noticed anything at all.

Benson: Well several of the papers are noticing that and it was striking yesterday he asked one question no supplementary question, no follow-up to the question to the Prime Minister. Has there been a deliberate decision by Tony Abbott because several of the newspaper commentators are pointing to Julie Bishop and Joe Hockey playing a more prominent role? Has there been a tactic, a tactical decision taken by the Opposition?

Pyne: Well Marius, I hate to be difficult but it is just factually wrong, Tony Abbott asked two questions yesterday. The first question about the Carbon tax and the second question about the Wall St Journal and in fact every time he has been in question time this week he has asked at least one but usually two questions and that is the pattern of the last two or three years so there is nothing that has changed at all.

Benson: So the sense of a more subdued Tony Abbott is wrong in your mind?

Pyne: I don’t think Tony Abbott’s changed one iota. I think what has changed is a blizzard of announcements from the Government and they campaigned a character assassination against Tony Abbott, all of which I think impresses people in the press gallery here in Canberra. But when I get out in my electorate all they want to talk about is their electricity bills and the fact that the carbon tax is pushing them up, and up and up.

Benson: You say a campaign of character assassination against Tony Abbott that the Government is equally critical of mudslinging from you, where you have been attacking the Prime Minister over her role in union affairs seventeen years ago and calling her a liar.

Pyne: Well there’s no mudslinging Marius, the truth is we’ve asked the Prime Minister legitimate questions about she could say on August the 23rd that her involvement with the AWU slush fund, the ‘workplace reform association’ ended in 1992, when in fact she was still witnessing enduring powers of attorney with specific powers of attorney for those involved over a year later.

Benson: But the Prime Minister’s said she answered all these questions, are these questions prominent in the minds of voters when you go around your electorate. Do they ask you about Julia Gillard’s actions seventeen years ago?

Pyne: Oh the Prime Minister’s integrity is very much a topic of conversation in the electorate, because of course she lied about the carbon tax before the election, said that she’d never introduce one and then did introduce one. And of course she keeps saying she would deliver a surplus this year and is now crab walking away from it and they are legitimate questions that she hasn’t answered Marius. Every question the Opposition has asked the Prime Minister this week about the AWU slush fund has been something that she’s never been asked before, that she did not deal with it in the August 23rd press conference and she still has not dealt with. For example when she found out about the fraud she said she ended the relationship with Bruce Wilson, but why didn’t she inform the appropriate authorities, namely the police. And as a Solicitor at the time you’d think she’d have an obligation to do so.

Benson: Attacking the Prime Minister in this way you say is not mudslinging, it does seem mud like?

Pyne: No its not. They’re legitimate questions. The Prime Minister said on August 23rd a number of things to journalists in the press gallery. It’s now become quite clear that some of the things she said are not brought out by the facts.

Benson: Christopher Pyne, thank you very much.

Pyne: It’s always a pleasure.

ENDS