Meet the Press

SUBJECTS: Budget Savings; Government Debt; School Chaplains; Mining; Malaysia Solution; Parliamentary Procedure

PAUL BONGIORNO: Thanks, Lachlan Kennedy. Good morning and welcome back to the program, Christopher Pyne. Good morning Mr Pyne.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning, Paul, good to be with you.

BONGIORNO: Well, one of the biggest stories politically was the leak that the Opposition is looking at savings of $70 billion. Joe Hockey confirmed he is going through the budget line by line and shadow ministers have been called in, have you been called in yet with your savings?

PYNE: I have met with the Opposition's Expenditure Review Committee, and why wouldn't I? The truth is there has to be at least one party that wants to be economically responsible. The Government is not being economically responsible and the public are crying out for somebody in national leadership to say, “We have to live within our means, we have to beat the international debt crisis.” The Government has shown a complete unwillingness to make the tough decisions, we will make them. It's no surprise that we'll rescind the carbon tax and the mining tax. Straight off the bat that is a $38 billion tax cut. We’re the party reducing taxes, Labor is the party increasing them.

BONGIORNO: To be clear, you'll look for savings in your portfolio of education?

PYNE: Well, we need to have savings across the budget. We also need to reduce the tax burden on the Australian people. We'll start with abolishing the carbon tax, and the mining tax. We’ve already announced we’re going to have income tax cuts.

BONGIORNO: I hear that but there’s a precedent here. The last time the Coalition won Government from Labor, it was the 1996-97 budget of Peter Costello, Amanda Vanstone, then Education Minister, was asked to come up with a $1 billion worth of savings and she hit the university sector very hard. Can you guarantee they won't be in your sights to the same extent?

PYNE: It would be mad of me to go into the details of Opposition policies now when there's an election due in two years’ time. What is important is to underline the Opposition is prepared to make the tough decisions.

BONGIORNO: Well, the Prime Minister says that education couldn't possibly escape the axe.

PYNE: Well, we know that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer will never make any spending cuts. Their answer to every problem is to increase taxes, that's why we have a carbon tax, a mining tax, why we have an alcohol pops tax, tobacco tax is increasing.

BONGIORNO: Peter Costello in that famous budget in fact raised taxes. You may remember the superannuation surcharge, would an Abbott Government do the same?

PYNE: Well, in the 11.5 years, we massively reduced income taxes and company taxes, we had a superannuation surcharge, that’s true which was not a tax. In this Government, in four years, every time they’ve had the chance, they’ve reached for higher taxes. In the last nine Labor budgets, they’ve delivered budget deficits of $220 billion. So I think the public knows which is the party that reduces taxes and which increases. Labor increases taxes, and never finds any savings.

BONGIORNO: Well, you both seem to mix and match in Government. Well, the Treasurer blew a gasket when the Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey and the Nationals Leader Warren Truss compared Australia to a bankrupt Greece. Here’s Warren Truss.

Warren Truss, (MONDAY): If this Government thinks it can borrow again for another stimulus package that just adds to our debt, taking us down the same path as Greece, Italy and Spain and the United States, Japan, other countries, where debt has now become a major issue.

BONGIORNO: There's really no comparison is there, between Greece and Australia. Our credit rating is the highest in the world, theirs is the lowest, for starters?

PYNE: I think what Warren is saying, Paul, it's a slippery slope. When the Government came into power four years ago they had money in the bank, they had a budget surplus, they had no debt and now four years later we have debt in hundreds of billions of dollars, we have budget deficits every four years of the Government's budget and we certainly don’t have a surplus, we have an enormous deficit. The problem with the Government is that Warren is saying that they are on the slippery slope to get worse and worse because they will not live within their means. The Opposition has already announced that we will alive within our means and show them how to do it.

BONGIORNO: Well, just picking up on that sound bite we heard from Tony Abbott, by this weekend it hasn’t become a fantasy or a dream that they’ll return to surplus but it has become an objective. Two senior ministers today on television saying that it's an objective that they return to surplus. One of the Opposition’s favourite economists, Professor Warwick McKibbin said there's no problem if we go into deficit if indeed there is a big slowdown.

PYNE: The problem is that the Government keeps making these promises to the Australian public. That they will deliver a surplus in 2012-13. Most sensible commentators knew it would never be delivered. We are seeing the Government backsliding away from that promise already. It was a complete guarantee, iron-clad, now it's an objective. It won't be long before it's an unfortunate nightmare that that promise was ever made at all. Everyone knows Labor can't deliver surpluses, they don't know how to cut spending. They talk tough before budgets and when the budget is handed down, there's never any pain and the public think, “We need an adult running the country, rather than Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan, who just don't engender confidence in the business community, overseas investors, or the public in general.”

BONGIORNO: Well, just briefly before we go in this segment, I understand there's been something of a development with Craig Thomson, Labor MP. In a tight parliament, Mr Thomson, under a fair bit of pressure for dealings when he was a union leader, will you pursue him in parliament this week?

PYNE:  Well, Paul, Craig Thomson's fate is really in the hands of the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions. I won't comment on that. I'll leave that up to NSW. Yesterday I was told there has been an unfortunate fracas in Tumbi Umbi, where he was attending a public meeting to discuss the pokies yesterday. About 3,000 voters and the chairman or chairwoman in this case, a local businesswoman, was taken to by Craig Thompson, and I'm told he threatened to name her and ruin her business in parliament. If that is true, he has more questions to answer on top of the ones that he was already struggling with.

BONGIORNO: Time for a break. When we return with the panel, should school chaplains be replaced by trained counsellors? And you have to pay the British sense of humour, the ‘Spoof of the Week’ picks up on early criticism that PM David Cameron was useless in the face of violent mobs. Keep your eye on the door.

DAVID CAMERON: “People should expect to see more arrests in the days to come. I'm determined, the Government is determined that justice will be done and these people will see the consequences of their actions. And I have this very clear message to those people who are responsible for this wrongdoing and criminality. You will feel the full force of the law.”

BONGIORNO: We are on 'Meet The Press' with the Manager of Opposition Business, Christopher Pyne, welcome to the panel. Katharine Murphy, from 'The Age', and Marius Benson, from ABC NewsRadio. In shades of the old state aid debate in the sixties, a Queensland parent, Ron Williams, believes the religious test imposed on school chaplains is in breach of the constitution, and the Government should not fund the program. The High Court is now weighing the arguments.

RON WILLIAMS, QUEENSLAND PARENT (TUESDAY): I think schools, State schools, should be secular spaces. Clearly, a religious endeavour, that's how John Howard described it. He said that it would be giving spiritual guidance and general religious advice.

KATHARINE MURPHY: Good morning, Mr Pyne, has Ron Williams got a point? Should State schools be secular spaces?

PYNE: Well Katharine, I think he has a point. But I do think also the High Court are the proper people to rule on that, it's an interesting legal case and I watch it with interest. If the High Court rules school chaplains can't operate in Government schools, I think that will be a shame, chaplains have been a good improvement in many Government schools that want them. If on the other hand, they rule that the chaplains can continue, it's a good program the Coalition started, supports it and will continue to fund. Obviously, we await the High Court as we do on the Malaysian Solution await the High Court.

MURPHY: Indeed, notwithstanding the deliberations of the High Court. Are perfectly comfortable with the way this program’s being administered currently, there’s reports of Creationists preaching to children. That seems to cross the line, doesn’t it?

PYNE: We have to be careful with chaplaincy, I don't think the purpose of the chaplains are to proselytise in school. They are to provide a shoulder for children to talk to, to cry, or talk to other than parents who they may not wish to speak to. They do provide a useful role. On the other hand, they shouldn't be proselytising in State schools, it's a matter for the High Court to determine what the line will be.

MARIUS BENSON: Can I return to the right of miners to explore on farming lands. It is debated at the moment. Tony Abbott was talking to miners in Perth yesterday. There's been a long-established law that says, “You own with freehold the topsoil, not the mineral rights below the topsoil, miners can come in and dig around and look at what is there”. On Friday Tony Abbott said, in fact, he believed farmers ought to be able to say “No”, to miners. Do you share Tony Abbott’s view?

PYNE: Well, the minerals and gases and so on existing under the topsoil of the Australia is owned by the crown and right of the State, or if they are owned in the sea, they may be owned by the crown in right of the Commonwealth. That's a longstanding legal principle. I don't think Tony Abbott was saying that he believed farmers have the right to veto exploration on their properties. I think he was simply saying…

BENSON: He was saying that they ought to be able to say “No”, should they have that right, that's a veto?

PYNE: I think he's saying they should have more opportunities to negotiate and consult with the miners than they are currently given, there's been a cavalier attitude apparently from some of the miners and some of the explorers, particularly in NSW. And there needs to be a proper balance, I don't think Tony Abbott was suggesting for one that we should overturn hundreds of years of common law that's been well established in this country.

BONGIORNO: Well, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen has hit back at criticism from WA Premier Barnett and Joe Hockey that the Malaysian solution is shameful. Here he is.

CHRIS BOWEN: (MONDAY): The official position of the Liberal Party is to tow back boats and drop them at a jetty in Indonesia, if they have children on them. No protection is negotiated, nothing about education, no right to state, no right to work, no access to health. All the things this Government negotiated in the Malaysia arrangement.

MURPHY: Mr Pyne, the Coalition has criticised the Government's policy for not guaranteeing the safety of returned children. But your ‘turn the boats back’ policy doesn't provide guarantees for returning children either, does it?

PYNE: Well, Katharine, that's a very long bow. Chris Bowen is presiding over an absolute fiasco in asylum seeker policy. He's getting more and more hysterical. The truth is that during the Howard Government, six boats were turned around and returned to Indonesia, the centrepiece of our policy is not turning the boats around, the centrepiece of our policy is returning to temporary protection visas and reopening the Nauru solution, which everyone knows worked. Now Labor's policy is to be too proud to reopen Nauru. There's now 6,500 people in detention, they are sending unaccompanied minors to an uncertain fate in Malaysia, which is an absolute disgrace. Another boat arrived last night. We have had three boats in three days. The truth is this border protection policy of the Government is totally unravelling and Chris Bowen is more and more hysterical as he sees his chances of being Labor leader disappearing.

BONGIORNO: We have a question for you from Facebook from Andrew Gunnyon: “Why do you continue to waste valuable question time with pointless points of order?”

PYNE: Well, I never waste any time in Question Time, certainly not valuable time. I take points of order because the Government needs to be made to answer the questions, and tragically the Government never wants to answer the questions. Even though the crossbenchers tried to introduce a tighter paradigm in parliament, Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan have been so bad that even Harry Jenkins, the Labor speaker, has sat them down routinely and I intend to continue to apply pressure on a very bad Government.

BONGIORNO: We saw some examples of how they do it in the British parliament. It seems to be far more gentlemanly. What is wrong with us?

PYNE: Well, I'm rather fascinated by this idea that somehow the modern political era is less gentlemanly than the last one. I mean, 15 years ago trade unions rioted outside Parliament House, smashed the front doors, and people broken and bleeding on the floors of the front reception of the parliament. I'm not sure that things are very gentlemanly 15 years ago.

BONGIORNO: That was outside, but anyway.

PYNE: It was inside too. I was tending to the sick and damaged.

BONGIORNO: We hope it doesn't come to that. (laughs) Thank you for being with us this morning, Christopher Pyne.

PYNE: Pleasure.

ENDS