MTR 1377

SUBJECTS: Labor leadership; Independents moving no-confidence motion

Steve Vizard: Federal Member for Sturt, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training, Christopher Pyne joins me.  Christopher good to talk to you.

Christopher Pyne: Good to talk to you Steve.

Vizard: A leader that can’t be trusted is a leader that can’t achieve anything.   Your thoughts.

Pyne: Well Kevin Rudd has exposed entirely the weak underbelly of the Prime Minister and the Labor Party by hitting on the issue that everyone knows in Australia that is destroying this government - that is trust.  Whether it would be Kevin Rudd being able to trust Julia Gillard over the leadership for 18 months, or the Australian people being able to trust Julia Gillard over the carbon tax, everyone in Australia knows that this Prime Minister’s word cannot be believed.

Vizard: So we have got trust being one of the big issues on the one side and Julia Gillard on the other side has just done a doorstop in Adelaide, she’s characterising the big issue as courage.  Courage and character.  She’s saying effectively that Kevin Rudd didn’t have the courage to tackle the issues that she has dealt with.  Which is, insurance reform, health reform, carbon tax, NBN, all of these issues -courage she says that is about.  Your thoughts about that.

Pyne: Well Steve, they are basically carrying on like a bunch of soccer hooligans.  And I think the Australian public is sick of it.  The Australian public as you know from listening from your talk back and so forth, want a government that put themselves last and put the people first.  And they haven’t got that now.  They want an election so that they can get a government that focuses on job security, border security, costs of living pressures, and is run by adults who can at least work together.  The obvious thing out of this leadership contest is that the Labor Party needs some time out of government to get their act together, work out what they stand for and work out their personal relationships.  They shouldn’t be doing this on the public’s time.

Vizard: The answer that they give is that we were voted into office for the full term and we have got to sort this out.  That is the mandate that we have and we have to respect that and honour the people’s wishes and we have got to sort it out ourselves so we can get on with government.

Pyne: No, I don’t think the Australian public are buying it Steve.  The reality is they are a polyglot government with crossbenches from all political persuasions plus Labor members and the only way we can resolve this failed experiment of the minority government is to have an election and to put into power the Coalition who is focussed on things that concern Australians rather than focussed on ourselves.  Of course the result on Monday won’t finish this issue for Labor.  We know that the national right of the Labor Party are only supporting Julia Gillard as long as it takes for Bill Shorten and Steve Smith to work out which one should replace her before the election.  Quite frankly we used to make jokes about how many governments the Italians had before the Second World War and we are giving them a run for their money the way we are changing Prime Minister and the way the government is behaving.  The Australian public is thoroughly embarrassed by it. 

Vizard: Christopher, are you surprised that the former Prime Minister, the former Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, has engaged the support of his wife and his daughter so intensely in what is essentially going to be a caucus matter?  Got them tweeting, twittering, doing their own press conferences in a matter that is fundamentally is going to be decided by their parliamentary colleagues?

Pyne: Well I assume they tweeted on their own volition, they are adults, and they can make their own decisions.  I do think that the reason the former Prime Minister’s wife is being in the airwaves is because Kevin Rudd has been in the air.  I imagine that she felt that somebody had to come out to support and defend him.  I hope my wife would do the same if the shoe was on the other foot.

Vizard: What about this recourse to people power?  The suggestion to get tweeting, get twittering, get on Facebook – it seems to me a fairly fruitless and meaningless activity.  How do you interpret it?

Pyne: Well Steve, the only people power that counts is the people power on Election Day that changes the government or puts in power a group of people that the Australian public can have faith in; that is the people power we need.  Robert Oakeshott, Tony Windsor, Andrew Wilkie, Adam Bandt, Bob Katter and Tony Crook, the cross benchers, they should embrace people power, they should support or move themselves a motion of no confidence in the government so that people power can be bear at an election.

Vizard: We have both leaders now duchessing the independents, approaching them again and trying to win their support.  What should the independents do?

Pyne: The independents should indicate an end to this farce.  They should move their own motion of no confidence next week.  We know the Opposition already has lost confidence in the government; we never had it.  The independents have to put the people first, move a motion of no-confidence and have an election called that can get an unambiguous government in power in Canberra.

Vizard: Is the Opposition ready to govern?

Pyne: We have been ready to govern since the 2010 election result.  We have the policies in place.  We have the personnel and the unity that’s needed at this particular time to address the issues like debt, deficit, border security, job insecurity that this government has created.

Vizard: How much should you respond to this, how much do you silence up and keep tight and let them stir in their own juices?

Pyne: Well the Coalition is not in the airwaves stirring the pot over this issue.  The Labor Party is filling the airwaves and I think that is only just adding to the sense of pantomime and farce that this government has become.

Vizard: Christopher always good to talk to you.

Pyne: Pleasure, thank you.

Vizard: That’s Christopher Pyne, the Shadow Minister for Education and Apprenticeships.

ENDS