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SUBJECTS: 44th Parliament; Asylum Seekers. PRESENTER: But first, Australia's forty-fourth Parliament opens today. It will be a day of order and ceremony before the rowdier aspects of parliamentary democracy get underway again. The person principally responsible for organising the government ranks in Parliament will be Christopher Pyne, as Leader of the House, and Christopher Pyne is speaking here to Marius Benson. MARIUS BENSON: Christopher Pyne, in a long political career - you've had a long political career so far. A great moment really. You are returning to Parliament after an election win. That just doesn't happen that often. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It doesn't, Marius. So it should be enjoyed, and today is a day for sober reflection on the seriousness of the job ahead of us, but also a sense of joy that we are back in the government benches and we have the opportunity to try and improve the lives of Australians. MARIUS BENSON: For you personally all those hundreds of points of order that you took from opposition, none of them were ever sustained, and now you'll be watching Labor suffer the same fate. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Marius, it's the way of the world unfortunately, and I think it'll be interesting to see how Labor develops into a new opposition. Certainly this is my twenty-first year in Parliament, and I'm very pleased to be on the Government side of the house in education, as Leader of the House. I hope that with Bronwyn Bishop as Speaker, we in an example being set by Tony Abbott and myself, we can try and make this forty-fourth Parliament a whole lot better than the forty-third Parliament which I think did a lot of damage to the Australian's people's faith in our parliamentary system, and that was the nature unfortunately of the hung parliament, the way it came about, but we now have an opportunity to put that behind us and I think the Australian public will be very pleased. MARIUS BENSON: It was also partly the achievement of Tony Abbott because it is the job of an opposition to make the Government look bad, and he was widely admired in political terms for achieving that end. Do you think it will be a very different Tony Abbott as Prime Minister in the chamber? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It will be a very different government because we have ninety seats and at best, the non-government members can manage sixty. So we won't have that constant sense of impending doom that went with the forty-third Parliament. I think Tony Abbott is a very experienced parliamentarian and he will bring a gravitas to the role of Prime Minister, and Tony Abbott and I really love the Parliament. We know it can be a great debating chamber at its best, and can be used to make our country better. So this is an opportunity in the forty-fourth Parliament. I hope Labor will join us in making this a better parliament, but the nature of the forty-third Parliament was very different because the Government could fall whenever the Parliament sat, and that created a heightened sense of stress around the building, which I think will now dissipate. MARIUS BENSON: Today is pretty much a ceremonial day for Parliament, but there's still a lot of political business around. Can I just ask you quickly about a couple of the issues that are in the air this morning? One is the words of a senior advisor to the Indonesian Government, that's Dewi Fortuna Anwar who says, Australia and Jakarta are now negotiating effectively a people-swap arrangement on asylum seekers. Is the Government in favour of that? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I'm not aware of any such negotiation going on, Marius. I know that since we've been elected, the number of boats arriving has dropped by seventy-five per cent. So we've sent a very strong signal to people-smugglers that we're taking their business model off the table. MARIUS BENSON: But if you are not aware of it, the people-swap negotiations have not come to Cabinet? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I'm not aware of any people-swap negotiations, and if there are any, I'm sure they'll be revealed at the appropriate time. MARIUS BENSON: But not in Cabinet, yet? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I'm not aware of any, Marius. MARIUS BENSON: Can I ask you about one other thing which is a speech last night from Maurice Newman, who's Chairman of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council; he says he'll give fearless advice to the Government. Part of the advice last night was that wages are too low. Do you believe wages are too high in Australia? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Maurice Newman's job is to give frank and fearless advice to the Government, and he should do that, but that's what it is; it's advice. It doesn't mean that the Government will always take it, and he's entitled to his opinions. I don't believe that it's a politically sustainable position to argue that people's wages are too high. Maurice Newman is entitled to that view. I don't think that's the view of the Government. MARIUS BENSON: Christopher Pyne, thank you very much. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It's a pleasure. Thank you. PRESENTER: The Leader of the House, Christopher Pyne speaking there to Marius Benson. Ends