Doorstop - Melbourne

SUBJECTS: Newspoll; Labor leadership; HSU and Craig Thomson scandals; Foreign investment; COAG; NDIS; Melbourne by-election

E&OE……………

Christopher Pyne: Hugh Jackman belled the cat today at the studios in Sydney when he said the Prime Minister was handy with the sword and the nunchucks.  I think Kevin Rudd knows that Julia Gillard is handy with the blade and the Australian public know that she’s loose with the truth and we’ll be seeing that in the months ahead as she tries to defend her lie over the carbon tax -that she’d never introduce it and as she tries to convince the Australian public that in fact their cost of living is not under pressure because of her Government’s tax changes.  The Newspoll today that has the Labor Party’s primary vote at 28 per cent is clear evidence that the Government’s attempt to bribe the Australian voters with billions of dollars of cash handouts has manifestly failed because the Australian people know in their heart of hearts that their cost of living pressure is rising because of the carbon tax, because of the mining tax and because the Government is a rotten government that has no place being in government and we should have an election to resolve the crisis.  Mark Bishop, a Senator from Western Australia has belled the cat today when he says the Labor Party is facing catastrophe on a massive scale and they need direct action to resolve that crisis, which in his view is the remove the Prime Minister.  But the point is we don’t need to remove the Labor leader, we need to remove the Government.  This is a bad government getting worse, a Prime Minister who is loose with the truth and getting worse.  The only way to resolve the confidence or lack of confidence in the Australian electorate is with an election. 

Bill Shorten has said today the Government has taken the necessary steps so that the HSU scandal, which is in the papers today doesn’t ever happen again.  Look, the truth is the Labor Party knew about Craig Thomson and Mike Williamson and the HSU for years and years.  They re-preselected Craig Thomson again and again in spite of the fact that Graham Richardson told them what was happening and Mark Latham has written in the Australian Financial Review that Craig Thomson is not the exception in the Labor movement, he is the rule.  So for Bill Shorten to now try and expect applause for the Government’s legislation is insulting to the intelligence of the Australian voter. 

Journalist: Tony Abbott gave a speech in Beijing where he talked about foreign investment in Australia and he said that it’s rarely in Australia’s national interest for another Government and it’s agencies to control Australian businesses.  Is the Coalition raising barriers to Chinese investment in Australia? 

Pyne: I think Tony Abbott is making the perfectly sensible point that we wouldn’t think it was natural for the Australian Government to buy Australian businesses and to control them and therefore it’s rarely in Australia’s national interest for Australian businesses to be purchased by state owned enterprises from China or any other country.  Therefore if there is such a planned investment it should go through the proper processes of the foreign investment review board to ensure it is in Australia’s national interest.  The last government, the Howard Government, blocked the takeover of Woodside by Shell because it wasn’t in Australia’s national interest.  That wasn’t a state owned enterprise so I think the Australian public would expect Government to stand up for Australian business and we wouldn’t allow the Australian Government to buy Australian businesses so it’s rarely in Australia’s national interest for state owned enterprises to do so. 

Journalist: But when so many businesses in China are state owned, what does that say about the national interest in allowing Chinese investment in Australia?

Pyne: Well there are lots of Chinese investments in Australia that aren’t from state owned enterprises and of course they should be encouraged.  Australia is built on foreign investment.  I think Tony Abbott has made the very sensible point that state owned enterprises - whether they are in China or any other country - are rarely going to be in Australia’s national interest for them to own Australian businesses.

Journalist: What do you expect will come out from the next COAG meeting?

Pyne: As little as has come out of recent COAG meetings.  The Government is sclerotic. The Prime Minister is not focussed.  She is not focussed on the big issues of the day.  The Prime Minister has spent the day at film studios trying to avoid the real issues which is her crumbling leadership, the division and dysfunction in the government and is hanging out with what must be said very successful Australian movie stars but she should be focussing on what is going to happen on the COAG agenda this week and the fact that the COAG reform process has ground to a halt.

Journalist: The National Disability Insurance Scheme is one of the items which could come up again, what do you think is going to be the next development on that at COAG?

Pyne: I think it’s disappointing that the Government has short changed Australians with a disability in the National Disability Insurance Scheme.  The Productivity Commission talked about several billion dollars being necessary to kick start the National Disability Insurance Scheme.  This Government under funded that in the budget and discounted what is necessary by $2.9 billion.  The Government has already let Australians with disabilities down by short changing Australians with a disability and I would expect and hope that the states would say to the Commonwealth this week ‘where is the rest of the money for the NDIS?’.  The Government wants applause for standing up for Australians with disabilities but in fact they don’t deserve any applause and what they should be doing is funding the NDIS according to the Productivity Commission’s suggestions.

Journalist: The Greens have conceded defeat in the Melbourne by-election.  Do you think there are any federal implications for that result?

Pyne: I definitely do.  The truth is the Labor Party received 1 in 3 votes in their heartland seat of Melbourne which they have held for 100 years.  The Labor Party’s not talking about the elephant in the room which is that it does not stand for anything.  It could only win that seat with a number of deals with fourteen other candidates for preferences and got elected on the back of the Sex Party preferences who siphoned votes from the Greens to the Sex Party and then to the Labor Party.  Labor is yet again refusing to recognise that they should be trying to stand for something rather than doing their usual dodgy deals done dirt cheap.

Journalist: Do you have any specific comments on the (inaudible)

Pyne: It is not surprising that the Temby report has been leaked.  It is a shocking report.  The Prime Minister cannot be mute on the subject.  Julia Gillard simply wants to skate past the accident that has been the Health Services Union.  The reports today suggest that $20 million dollars of members’ money has been siphoned off for personal use of the cadre of union leaders that ran the HSU over the last ten years or so.  Mike Williamson was the head of the HSU, Craig Thomson was his protégé and the Prime Minister relies on Craig Thomson’s vote to stay in power.  She can’t just turn a blind eye like Lord Nelson to this crisis.  She needs to confront the issue of Craig Thomson and his vote and it’s not good enough for her to get away with simply walking away again from an important issue.

Journalist: When you say confront, what do you mean?

Pyne: We believe Julia Gillard should reject Craig Thomson’s vote in the Parliament.  She shouldn’t accept it on votes on the floor in the House of Representatives.  That would be a clear indication from Julia Gillard that she was going to take firm action about the corruption that has been endemic in the Health Services Union that has costed its members millions and millions of dollars.

Journalist: Craig Thomson and Parliament aside, what should the Government be doing now that details of this report is out - what is the next stage of this investigation?

Pyne: Robert McClelland, the former Attorney-General, had some things to say in the House of Representatives about whether he thought the Government’s legislation was tough enough and whether it had gone further enough in ensuring that union leaders were brought to justice.  The Coalition’s policy is that the rules that apply to company directors about the way they behave should apply to union leaders.  We would implement that if we were fortunate to be elected. Thanks a lot.

ENDS