ABC24 News Breakfast

SUBJECTS:  Reforming the Parliament; Prime Minister’s speech; Election campaign

E&OE................................

Rowland: Good morning to you.

Pyne: Good morning Michael.

Rowland: Wayne Swan says now that the Prime Minister has fired the starting gun for this very long election campaign there’s now no excuse for the Opposition not to release fully costed policies after the May budget, will the Coalition do that?

Pyne: Well the pressure is actually on the Labor Party Michael, to explain how they will fund their 120 billion dollars of unfunded promises they’ve already made. The pressure is not on the Coalition. Labor’s in Government, we’ll release our policies, our costed fiscal policy some time after the budget, before the election, but Labor has to explain where the 120 billion dollars is coming from. Which taxes will rise? What cuts will be made? The Prime Minister should have done it yesterday; instead she gave the only announcement of her speech was a purely political one, the announcement of the election date. So Wayne Swan can huff and puff and blow everyone’s house down as much as he wants. Truth is the pressure is on Labor to explain their 120 billion dollars of unfunded promises which they’re using to try and bribe the electorate.

Rowland: What do you base that 120 billion dollar figure on, give us a breakdown here?

Pyne: Well that was the figure that was published in the Financial Review last year which is made up of things like the 32 billion dollars on the Gonski reforms, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, costed at the level the Productivity Commission has says it will cost. Things like defence contracts, like the submarine contract. There are other items, part of that, but it is 120 billion dollars which the Government needs to explain where the money is coming from. It’s not good enough just to make the promise, they need to explain what taxes will rise to pay for it.

Rowland: Right, you want to be a member of the alternative Government, Tony Abbott wants to be the alternative Prime Minister, now that the election date has been announced, there is pressure on him to announce his policies and to ensure they are costed. We know about the 11 billion dollar hole in the Coalitions policies in the last election campaign. Christopher Pyne how quickly after the main budget can voters expect to see where the money is coming from the Coalition’s policies?

Pyne: Look Michael, we’re not going to dance to Labor Party’s tune, nor even the media’s tune about when we release our fiscal policy. We have released a number of policies which you’ve dismissed. We’ve already announced that we are going to abandon the carbon tax. That we are going to abolish the mining tax, that we will bring back the Australian Building and Construction Commission. That we will have a very generous Paid Parental Leave Scheme that we will return power to local schools and principals, that we will have locally run hospitals and we have a plethora of policies which we’re debating at the moment in our real solutions mini campaign, all of which you’ve completely ignored. So we are not going to dance to Labor’s tune. The truth is we have a number of policies that are already in the market place, there will be more, and after the budget and before the federal election we will release our fiscal policy in good time.

Rowland: Now, I think it’s unfair to say that we haven’t ignored the Coalition’s policies; there was full coverage, at least on the ABC of the Opposition Leader’s document release over the weekend. But I just want to pick up on those two keynote reforms you raised there in terms of criticising the Government, The Gonski education reforms and the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Will the Coalition commit to both of those in Government?

Pyne: Michael I didn’t criticise the Government, I said they had to explain how they were going fund them, so there is actually a difference.

Rowland: Ok will the Coalition commit to both schemes?

Pyne: Well we’ve already given full bi-partisan support to the National Disability Insurance Scheme so that issue will happen. That matter will happen rather, whether there is a Labor or a Liberal Government.

Rowland: but that is the full scheme, not just the trial?

Pyne: We have said that we will do the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Tony Abbott is very passionate about it; I’m very passionate about it. I’m glad Labor’s doing it as well, but they’re not the only people that support the National Disability Insurance Scheme. On the education reforms, we’ve already announced a number of policies in that area to do with principal autonomy, a robust curriculum, teacher quality and ending the discrimination against disabled children in non-government schools. But we will have a full response to the Gonski report in good time, and Labor will do the same I’m sure and the public will be able to choose which policy they prefer, But the election of course will be about the economy, about job security, about cost of living pressures and about border protection and Labor will have to provide the detail of how they are funding their 120 billion dollars of so far, unfunded promises.

Rowland: Ok Christopher Pyne, now that we have the election date as September the 14^th, it will mean that there will be a relatively limited number of days of Parliament. Essentially the first session before winter that makes what happens on the floor of Parliament even more important. I take it back to the Coalition’s announcement that it wants to reform the way Parliament operates if the Coalition wins government. You want to give Ministers more time to actually use Parliament to answer questions or to be held accountable to the Opposition. So based on that will the Opposition back away from the daily suspension of standing orders that we’ve seen the Opposition engage in towards the end of last year?

Pyne: Well Michael, you’ve really got to stop running the Government’s propaganda. We don’t do a suspension of standing orders every day that is what Anthony Albanese says and I’m sorry to hear you repeating it...

Rowland: Well it’s not every day, but it’s virtually every day. They are a common occurrence and if my memory serves me correct, one was moved to the start of question time in the final sitting week of last year?

Pyne: Well, I mean you are not running Coalition tactics on the floor of the Parliament – that’s my job and one would have to say that after the two years, the Opposition held the Government to account very effectively. Essentially we have bamboozled the Prime Minister into calling a eight month election campaign. So I think the tactics in Question Time have worked very successfully, we will continue to hold the Government to account, hopefully as well as we have been doing. We don’t do a suspension every day but I did give a speech yesterday that outlined seven points that I thought we could change in the Parliament that would improve the Parliament, starting with the Prime Minister leading by example and stopping the vindictive and vicious attacks denigrating Tony Abbott and other Members of the Coalition front bench. But I also proposed a back bench question time that should happen straight after the current Question Time to give backbenchers to opportunity to ask questions about their local electorates on local issues and I think that would be a very helpful reform.

Rowland: So that would preclude any suspensions of standing orders because they are usually moved at the end of Question Time. Will you use them less often this year?

Pyne: Well Michael you seem to be getting a bit caught up on the issue of the suspensions of standing orders. I didn’t mention that at all in my speech yesterday.

I mentioned other things for example like if the Speaker deems that a Member has corrected a slander being used against them by a minister that if the Minister uses it again that minister should be thrown out of the Parliament for an hour or for a day. Because as we have seen, one of the problems with the Parliaments is that ministers repeat the same slanders daily against the Opposition even though there is no basis of fact to them, so that’s another change that we could make. I also suggested that we should allow interventions during second reading speeches to improve the spontaneity of the Parliament. So there are a lot of positive changes that the Opposition is proposing that we intend to pursue should we be fortunate enough to be elected.

Rowland: Ok, strap yourself in Christopher Pyne; it’s going to be a very long seven and a half months. Thank you very much for your time this morning.

Pyne: Pleasure.

ENDS.