ABC News Radio

SUBJECTS: The year in Parliament

E&OE…… 

Fran Kelly: He’s the Manager of Opposition Business in the House, he joins us in our Parliament House studio Christopher good morning.

Christopher Pyne: Good morning Fran

Kelly: Two hundred and fifty bills passed by the parliament this year.  Doesn’t that suggest, in fact prove that minority government is working perfectly well?

Pyne: Well Fran of the two hundred and fifty bills the Coalition said yes to eighty seven percent of them so in fact we only opposed thirteen per cent.

Kelly: So the Parliament’s working?

Pyne: Well no what it points to is the fact that most of those two hundred and fifty bills were uncontroversial, it doesn’t mean the Parliament’s working it means that the claim that Labor has somehow got two hundred and fifty bills through in a tooth and claw fight is simply rhetoric from Anthony Albanese.

Kelly: No but what about the point that the Opposition was making at the beginning of this Government that it would be a debacle, it would be gridlock in the parliament, it’s not gridlocked the parliament is functioning.

Pyne: Well it is a debacle; the parliament resembles something like a Doctor Moreau’s Island.  What we saw this week was another week of secret deals, special arrangements, legislation drafted and pushed through in the dead of the night, secret deals with Andrew Wilkie or Tony Windsor and Robert Oakeshott and Bob Brown, the Greens calling the shots.  Now legislation might finally get through but at what cost?  The cost to the Australian tax payer is hundreds of millions of dollars of featherbedding and largess to special interests, invested interests in particular seats while the average Australian misses out again and again and again.

Kelly: As Anthony Albanese pointed out though there has always been deals done to get legislation through which is usually in the Senate, I mean the Howard Government spent many hundreds of millions of dollars I would suggest trying to get their legislation through with the assistance of Brian Harradine in Tasmania, Mal Colston you know this is not new.

Pyne: Well Fran let’s look at the Government’s record this year – there’s been more boats arrive in the last three days carrying more people than arrived in the last six years of the Howard Government.  I wouldn’t say the Government’s border protection policies were exactly working.

Kelly: I don’t think they would either.

Pyne: No and their response to the Government’s spending addiction and the fact that they have a budget problem has been to introduce two new great big taxes, two arrows through the chest of the Australian taxpayer, which still lead to a ten billion dollar deficit.  Now Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party can make all the, they can interrupt you as often as they like, claiming everything is brilliant and marvellous and say silly lines like the “noalition”, I mean I could call the Labor Pary the “liebor” party, the truth is that kind of rhetoric doesn’t mask the fact that in the last three days more people have arrived on boats that arrived in six years under the Howard Government, they have introduced taxes that are levying thirty five billion dollars and are spending forty five billion dollars because of those taxes.  We have now got a hundred and seven billion dollars of net debt and a budget deficit of fifty four billion dollars.  It’s hardly been a successful year and that’s why business says and state premiers are saying that one of the biggest problems with Australia at the moment is the lack of confidence in the economy because of this Government.

Kelly: Waging a new tax is not necessarily a negative is it, and these taxes are across the whole community they’re not taxes that everybody will pay in a sense.  They’re on specific areas of business in the same way the Opposition would put an impulse on business for instance to pay for some of your policies.

Pyne: But Fran if the only achievement the Government can point to is the introduction of new taxes I don’t think the Australian public are going to be popping the champagne corks and firing the confetti cannons at election time if all the Labor Party’s got to show for their term in office is great big new taxes.

Kelly: Are you saying though that the changes forced on the Government - we were discussing those with Anthony Albanese there by the cross benchers, that those changes aren’t any good I would have thought you would have supported the sort of change that Tony Windsor forced on the Government with the mining bill in terms of more environmental protection and oversight of coal seam gas exploration?

Pyne: Fran the Mining Tax is a complete shambles.  They have had five separate Mining Tax deals.  Yesterday the Treasurer said that it would stand the test of time, it didn’t last from midnight to dawn.  The Government has changed the Mining Tax so often, they have so many different estimates and forecasts, nobody quite frankly knows how much the Mining Tax will collect – at one stage the Government was saying it was going to collect eleven billions dollars then forecasted that it might be closer to twenty two billion dollars, now state government’s in New South Wales and Western Australia and levying three billion dollars of royalties, so they’ve lost that money it’s down to eight billion and yet they’ve got fourteen billion dollars of spending associated with the Mining Tax.  Only the Labor Party could introduce two new taxes and end up with a bigger deficit than they had before.

Kelly: The Gillard Government has now been in for a year and a bit and at the beginning of this process Tony Abbott’s aim was to try and rest Government during the term, during this term that was the stated aim and that hasn’t worked at this point, is it time to change tactics, the Opposition has really been approaching this year like a never ending election campaign, can you maintain that momentum into a second year?

Pyne: Well Fran two years ago the Labor Party were fourteen points ahead of the Coalition on a two party preferred basis, they’re now fourteen points behind. A year ago the Prime Minister was twenty points in the positive territory she’s now minus twenty one.  If The Labor Party thinks this has been a sensational year let’s hope they have another one like it next year because if they do they will be annihilated at an election, so let’s not listen to any of this nonsense and rhetoric about what a fantastic year the Government supposed to have had.  The “liebor” party has introduced a new tax based on a lie, a Mining Tax that you can’t trust the figures the Government is talking about, next week they’re having a crisis mini budget because of the unravelling budget situation, I mean honestly for the Labor Party and anyone who’s barracking for the Labor Party suggests that this has been a good end to the year is stupefying to the Australian public.

Kelly: Christopher Pyne thank you very much for joining us on breakfast.

Pyne: It’s always a pleasure thanks Fran.

Kelly: Christopher Pyne is the Manager of Opposition Business in the House.

ENDS