Doorstop - Parliament House

SUBJECTS: Private health insurance rebate; Australia Day riot

E&OE……… 

Journalist: (inaudible)

Pyne: Well, Robert Oakeshott is wrong.  He’s wrong about most things so it comes as no surprise that he’s got this wrong as well. 

Journalist: (inaudible)

Pyne: There are 11 million Australians in private health insurance.  There’s no doubt that some will drop out of having any insurance.  There are many who will downgrade their insurance and be under-insured as a consequence.  There will be a greater emphasis on public hospitals at a time when we are stretched for funds in a government sense.  It is wrong in every respect.  It attacks apparitional Australians who choose to take out private health insurance and it’s typical of the Government which lied before the 2007 election, didn’t include this as a policy in the 2010 election and yet again have broken another promise because of their spending addition.  This legislation is driven by the Government’s need to get more money.  It’s not anything to do with any other issue. 

Journalist: Will the Coalition scrap the means test if it does win the next election? 

Pyne: The leader of the party will make an announcement about that at the appropriate time. 

Journalist: When is the appropriate time then? 

Pyne: When he makes the announcement. 

Journalist: (inaudible)

Pyne: Well, obviously the Government needs to put an end to the soap opera that this parliament has become; whether it’s the parade of cross benchers across the television screen at night changing their position in order to keep the Government in power and to stay in their seats, but more importantly it’s the cancer eating away at the heart of this Government.  The leadership tension between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, which is making the Government dysfunctional and divided.  The public are sick of the soap opera that is the Government in Canberra.  We are too serious a country to be ruled by court jesters and conspirers as we are at the moment.  Good members of the Labor Party of good conscience should put an end to it.  There should be a ballot and somebody should be chosen to lead the party who can restore integrity to the Labor Party and the Prime Ministership. 

On the 7:30 Report last night we saw very clear footage of Kim Sattler on Australia Day verballing the Leader of the Opposition.  The Prime Minister’s statement that she made on 28 January about her staff’s involvement is clearly being contradicted by those remarks last night and by many other bits of evidence that have emerged since 28 January.  The Prime Minister has made those same statements in the Parliament and quite clearly her alibi has been exploded.  She needs to release all the communications Kim Sattler says exists between Tony Hodges and Kim Sattler.  If she doesn’t release those text messages and other communications, then what has she got to hide?  Only by releasing that information can she verify her alibi and restore integrity to the office of Prime Minister. 

Journalist: Are you suggesting that she’s mislead parliament? 

Pyne: Well, she’s made the same remarks in Parliament that she made on 28 January, which is the Leader of the Opposition’s remarks were conveyed accurately to Kim Sattler.  Now, we have television footage, which obviously puts a lie to that suggestion.  The Prime Minister needs to make a full explanation to the house.  She needs to release all the communications between Tony Hodges and Kim Sattler and she should ask Kim Sattler to resign from the Labor Party in Canberra and from her position in ACT Unions given the links between the union and the Labor Party in Canberra. 

Journalist: (inaudible)

Pyne: Well, that will be the Prime Minister’s alibi I’m sure, but I think that’s unbelievable and I don’t think the Australian people will believe it.  I think the Australian people believe there is a culture of dirty tricks that operates out of the Prime Minister’s office.  The Prime Minister is the head of that office and it’s time she either took it in hand or hand the Prime Ministership to someone on who will restore integrity into the office. 

Journalist: (inaudible)

Pyne: Quite clearly the Prime Minister has said that the Leader of the Opposition’s remarks were conveyed accurately.   It beggars belief that if his remarks were conveyed accurately by Tony Hodges then Kim Sattler would have conveyed them the way she did to Barbara Shaw, which led to the affray. 

ENDS