Interview with Richo, Sky News

SUBJECTS: Election of the new Speaker E&OE. Graham Richardson: Good evening Christopher how are you? Christopher Pyne: Good evening Richo.  It’s good to be with you.  I’m well thanks. Richardson: Thank you very much.  Now, I watched those proceedings last week fascinated.  I might say, like every cabinet minister and caucus member I spoke to knew nothing about it.  I’d had no hint.  No one had blown in my ear about it.  Obviously it took you by great surprise as well. Pyne: It definitely did take us by surprise.  Nobody expected Julia Gillard to elevate Peter Slipper to the speakership of the Parliament, especially when he was facing likely preselection defeat in his own seat.  The irony of what happened on Thursday was that a person who in the Opposition was being managed out of Parliament was plucked by Julia Gillard and given the most important job in Parliament and over the top of Harry Jenkins, who most people would agree is fair, honourable and reasonable man.  So it certainly took me by surprise and I think it’s taken the Australian public by surprise. Richardson: I think you’re right about that.  It did surprise everybody.  First off, there is all these dark hints about Julia Gillard forcing Harry Jenkins out.  Now, I’ve made as many inquiries as it’s possible to make.  I’ve spoken to everybody and his dog about this and I can’t find a scrap of evidence that he was forced out.  I have no doubt that somebody would have tapped him on the shoulder and said if you’ve been talking about going, if you want to go now’s the time.  Slipper is ready to jump.  I don’t doubt that was said.  But I honestly don’t think there is any evidence whatsoever that he was pushed.  Do you have any? Pyne: Well, Graham nobody it going to admit or suggest or even hint that Harry Jenkins, who was a fair and honourable man was executed to make way for Peter Slipper.  Nobody is going to admit that.  It does seem strange that Labor members were whispering darkly to other Labor members in Parliament House that Andrew Wilkie would be irrelevant soon.  That points to the idea that Labor had been preparing for some time for a new vote or an extra vote in their caucus which of course is Harry Jenkins. And last week was an extraordinary week as you indicated.  It was a week of secret deals and special arrangements starting with a late sitting on Tuesday night for a secret deal with the Greens, which couldn’t be revealed to get their vote for the mining tax and ending with a special arragment where Harry Jenkins was shunted aside and Peter Slipper was unceremoniously placed in his seat.  And even though I nominated many Labor people to take that role, which is what Government’s usually do, to nominate the speaker, and they’d all been nobbled.  But even Anna Burke said she was loath to say no to my nomination.  I don’t think the Labor caucus is exactly firing confetti cannons and popping champagne corks that Peter Slipper is the new Speaker and Harry Jenkins is on the back bench. Richardson: They’re pretty happy about the numbers situation though.  From what I gather I think they believe they might have delivered a bit of a coup.  You know yourself that you and others voted against Harry Jenkins in a ruling some months back and he’s been worried about it ever since.  He’s certainly been talking about quitting.  He knew that if he ejected, say you, your very good friend Rob Oakeshott would not vote for it. Pyne: Well, Harry would never want to eject me Graham.  That would be beyond the realms of possibility. Richardson: I don’t know.  If I was speaker I know who I’d be going for and I’m talking to him right now. Pyne: The thing is, even if Harry wanted to retire, even if he did, let’s just say he retired of his own accord.  Labor could have replaced him with a Labor member of Parliament, like Anna Burke, like John Murphy or any of the other people that I nominated on Thursday.  That’s what Government’s usually do in Australia.  This is just a political fix to get an extra vote on the floor of the house.  It’s a short term tactical advantage.  But a lot of people in Canberra, and I’m sure you would suspect yourself in the long term what it just points to is into secret deals, into special arrangements, whether it is with the Greens, whether it’s with the cross benchers or whether it’s even with Opposition members of parliament that were being managed out of the Parliament.  Julia Gillard has decided to make that person the most important person in the parliament. Richardson: I accept all that, but doesn’t it strike you as the climate where you have to do deals.  Where you don’t have the numbers in a hung Parliament, which you and I have never seen before.  These are times where you’re setting the precedents.  We’ve never had it before, ever.  I’m just wonder how you manage when you don’t know what’s going to happen with every vote.  It’s must be an extraordinary difficult thing for the Prime Minister, and if you were in Government.  You’d have to do the same sort of deals would you not, because that’s the only way you’re going to survive? Pyne: Graham, on the one hand the Government is saying they’ve passed 250 bills, 87 per cent of which the Opposition supported by the way.  They don’t add that.  But on the one hand they say they’ve passed 250 bills, but on the other they say they need to suborn a member of the Opposition into taking the speakers job and executing Harry Jenkins to get an extra vote.  They can’t have it both ways.  On Thursday they were saying what a clever tactical move this was to get Peter Slipper into the speaker’s chair.  On the other hand they were saying it came as a tremendous surprise, that nobody predicted it.  They can’t have it both ways.  This is the problem with the current Labor Party.  They want to be seen to be smart, tactical, political operators; al-la the Hawke-Keating Government and dare I say it yourself when you were in the Senate. On the other hand they’re not; they’re rank amateurs because they gave it all away.  On Thursday, they couldn’t contain themselves.  They had to tell everybody they could find that it was a smart tactical manouver. Richardson: I think it was.  If I was there I would have said the same thing.  Now they’ve got that magic number of 76.  You can do all sorts of things at 76 that you can’t do at 75 can’t you? Pyne: The public are thoroughly sick of smart tactical manoeuvres.  The public just want good Government.  They don’t want Government that introduces a mining tax, breaks it’s promise about a carbon tax, comes up with the dodgy forecast they came up with yesterday to try and pretend they might have a surplus next year. Richardson: If I could interrupt on that one point.  First off 60 per cent of them according to the polls do want a mining tax.  60 per cent of them.  I mean, that’s one of the things that you’re out of step with the public on isn’t it? Pyne: Well, the vast majority of people do not want a carbon tax and if they had their way, they wouldn’t want a mining tax.  A lot of people have probably acquiesced to a mining tax simply because they know they Government has spent so much money, they have to find the revenue from somewhere.  But they certainly do not want a carbon tax, which pushes up their cost of living and they want a government that returns to the Howard Government’s border protection policies, in spite of the fact that they were tough and seen to be tough, because the Government’s changes to those policies simply haven’t worked.  Rather than secret deals and special arrangements, what the public really want is to get an unambiguous Government, a Government that can simply govern for everyone rather than for special interests if you’re a cross bencher or a Green. Richardson:  Well look I accept much of what you’re saying but I wanted to go to the mining taxes.  I think the mining tax explains to me in graphic detail, it’s a great example, of why this whole system of governing without the numbers is so difficult.  Because if you look at it you know you had to give something to Wilkie, you had to give something to Windsor, you know Windsor was about water and Wilkie’s about something else.  Everyone’s got fifty million here or a hundred million there to get something through.  I mean that is the problem with this whole idea with not having the numbers is it not? Pyne: Well the horse-trading that’s going on in the House of Representatives is leaving the vast majority of the public stone cold.  The truth is unless you’re in Lyne or New England or Denison or a Green or now a disgruntled Opposition member who is looking for the Speakership.  Unless you’re in one of those positions you don’t get any special deals in Australia.  But if you are in one of those seats you do get a special deal and the people are thoroughly sick of it.  What they want is a government that has an election, has the confidence to go to the people and accept the outcome. Richardson:  Well they’ll get an election and now it looks to me a full term one, I don’t think there’s going to be any early one now that they’ve got the extra number.  But you know look just looking at some of the issues that you’ve just raised or touched on.  I mean how smart was it when you knew Slipper was already on the borderline because he’d taken the Deputy’s job when you didn’t think he would and there were a couple of votes there at the time that were a bit off that suggested to me he might’ve been slipping his vote where he wasn’t supposed to.  I mean you must’ve known he was ready to jump, why would you go take him on now with Mal Brough?  Why wouldn’t you do it say three or four or five months before an election when it wouldn’t have mattered, when no one would care?  Why do it now? Pyne:  Well Graham it’s an interesting question and I think the answer to it would surprise a lot of members of the public and particularly the press gallery in Canberra.  Tony Abbott doesn’t want to own the space of the Machiavellian deal-making politician.  If Julia Gillard wants to own the space of the person who tells Kevin Rudd she’s not going to challenge him and then challenges him or tells the Australian people there’ll be know carbon tax under a government I lead and introduces a carbon tax or tells the people she’ll govern transparently and honestly and then suborns an opposition member into the Speaker’s chair, if she wants to be the Machiavellian toe cutting politician well good luck to her.  That’s a space that Tony Abbott will never occupy and its one of the reasons the Australian public likes him and one of the reasons they’ll elect him as Prime Minister because he’s not into that kind of deal stuff. Richardson:  The amazing thing is we’ve got the most unpopular Prime Minister in my lifetime – and given that I’m 62 that’s a long lifetime.  The most unpopular ever. He’s even more unpopular.  So you can’t say everyone likes him because they clearly don’t. Pyne:  Well at the last election he went into the election with you know negative poll ratings and turned out winning more seats on the day than the Labor party, so polls come and go.  The truth is out in the field, one of the things they say to me about Tony Abbott is he’s a straight up and down fellow, he’s an honest straight-forward politician.  They don’t say that to me about Julia Gillard who knifed Kevin Rudd, who introduced a carbon tax against the wishes of the public and has now managed to convince an Opposition member to take the job that a Labor member should have.  And if she wants to own that Machiavellian space well good luck to her because on election day, no matter when it’s held, that will be the judgement of the people and I’m prepared to accept their judgement because I think they’ll vote for a change of government to some adults in the room who are prepared to make the tough decisions rather than make the deals, make the special arrangements in the dead of the night in order to massage legislation through or cling to power to protect the Prime Minister’s skin. Richardson:  One last Christmas question.  I notice that Tony Windsor very kindly offered to make you the Speaker, nominated you because he said it was the only way he could shut you up.  But Christopher you declined, we were all so disappointed. Pyne:  But if I was the Speaker Graham I wouldn’t be able to do anything.  I’d just have to sit in the chair.  Although I would get to throw other people out which would be a great advantage I can tell you.  A great advantage! Richardson:  I bet it would.  Christopher Pyne thankyou very much.  Not just for tonight but for everything you’ve done during the year.  I appreciate it very much and I have no doubt I’ll be speaking to you next year.  We’ll see you very soon. Pyne:  It’s a pleasure.  Thank you Graham. ENDS