Sky News

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview – Laura Jayes
Monday 22^nd January 2016

SUBJECTS: Senate reform legislation; newspoll; tax reform; Harper review.

LAURA JAYES: Christopher Pyne thanks so much for your time on the show, can I first ask you, now that we’ve seen this legislation for Senate voting reform are we one step closer to a double dissolution election?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the reason we had to introduce the legislation today is that the electoral commission needs at least three months to change their machinations for running an election, so this is a machinery provision, why we have to introduce it particularly today. It doesn’t bring forward an election; it doesn’t make an election later it just means that once this bill is passed through the House of Representatives this week hopefully through the Senate next week, it will give the electoral commission the maximum flexibility to know what it is dealing with.

LAURA JAYES: It ticks a fairly big box though in terms of completing things before an election, how likely is it do you think that we could see an election called after the May budget on perhaps the eleventh of May which is the last possible date for a double dissolution election and then voters going to the polls on July two? How likely is that?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the election is due in the second half of the year, so if it is July, August or September it really is, most people would regard that as the normal timing of the election so if it is in July, or August, or September I don’t think that’s an early election.

LAURA JAYES: But it’s a live option? It’s still a live option?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I said it was a live option last week.

LAURA JAYES: Yes you did.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Malcolm Turnbull said it was a live option a couple of weeks ago, obviously it is a live option because the Senate hasn’t been passing legislation that we believe the country needs, the latest is the Australia Building and Construction Commission which the Senate has so far not passed, the Registered Organisations Commission the Senate has rejected twice, there’s obviously savings measures in the Senate that they are still holding up stopping us from repairing the budget, so there are lots of reasons why we want the senate to actually support the Government’s agenda especially things for which we have a mandate like the Australian Building and Construction Commission which we took to the election and the Registered Organisations Commission, so what this bill simply means is that people will be able to decide their own preferences in the Senate rather than having a complex web of preference deals being done by micro parties that actually don’t allow the will of the people to be properly reflected in the Senate.

LAURA JAYES: Well David Leyonhjelm for one has pointed out that it is undemocratic in his eyes that it would produce a deadlock in the Senate where the two major parties will now more likely have the balance of power or at least have to negotiate between the two, can I first ask you not about that, but about what this means for Nick Xenophon, he has been a potent force in your state of South Australia, doesn’t this make it more likely that he will get two senate quotas this time round?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I understand that Senator Xenophon supports the proposal.

LAURA JAYES: He does.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I haven’t spent any time at all considering what it means for Nick Xenophon, that’s a matter for Nick Xenophon. I’m focused on making sure that the will of the people is reflected in Senate elections, it hasn’t been in the last few elections, there’s obviously been gaming of the system going on I think the public recognises that, if someone can get elected with 0.5 per cent of the vote when they’re supposed to get 14 per cent I think people know something needs to be done.

LAURA JAYES: You’re not worried about Nick Xenophon? The latest poll in your state of South Australia showed that he would get a 24 per cent primary vote. How does this change the situation for him?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I’m not going to be a commentator on Nick Xenophon and his electoral success or lack of success, all I know is that in Government I can deliver for the Australian people, for the people of South Australia and the people of Sturt and so can Labor if they are in Government, independents and minor parties can’t deliver. They can protest, they can talk, they can raise issues, but actually they can’t make decisions about things that are good for my seat, my state, or my country. So if you want to have an influence over who governs the nation you have to vote for one of the major parties.

LAURA JAYES: OK, let’s change now to Newspoll today, it was quite a shock to some I think, a fifty-fifty two party preferred basis the first time in really a long time, and this is the first bad Newspoll since Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister. What are voters trying to tell the Government?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I don’t think it is a bad Newspoll, the honeymoon-

LAURA JAYES: [Interrupting] it’s not particularly good, is the honeymoon over?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Its fifty-fifty, well the Prime Minister is still double the popularity of the leader of the opposition, I can’t remember exactly what the numbers were but I think that Malcolm was in the fifties and Bill Shorten was twenty one. So if that’s a bad poll I’m happy to take that every day of the week. But no one ever expected Malcolm Turnbull’s honeymoon to last forever. It’s lasted six months, and I think that’s a pretty good honeymoon in anyone’s language. But obviously the next election is going to be a competitive election, every election is and nobody would want to assume that Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition will win the next election just because the people want us to, if people vote Labor or if they vote for independents or minor parties then they could easily see Labor elected and that’s why we need to have people focused on the outcome they want and I think the outcome they want is jobs and growth delivered by a Coalition Government which means supporting Malcolm Turnbull and his team.

LAURA JAYES: Do you think or do you hope this Newspoll does blast some on your side out of complacency before the election?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think it focuses the mind on the fact that the next election is not going to be a lay down misere And that we are going to have to work for it as we should, and that Bill Shorten could end up as Prime Minister particularly if people spray their votes around and vote for independents or vanity parties. So therefore we do need-

LAURA JAYES: What’s a vanity party?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well a party based on a personality I suppose like the Palmer United Party or Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, or Nick Xenophon’s team. They are all vanity parties, the evidence for that is of course they are named after the people who founded them. And that is really the definition of a vanity party but if people spray their votes around, and don’t vote for either Malcolm Turnbull or Bill Shorten but in this case Malcolm Turnbull, they could see a Labor government elected and we don’t want to see that happen.

LAURA JAYES: You can’t ignore the fact that this Newspoll has come after a pretty scrappy week for the Government when it comes to tax reform. The messaging I think it’s fair to say wasn’t quite right on message, it wasn’t a cohesive message, we’re hearing different things from different Ministers within the government. When Malcolm Turnbull made his case for taking over the leadership in the Senate courtyard some six months ago he said the Government wasn’t heading in the right economic direction, it didn’t have the right narrative, what’s changed since then?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think things are going well and I think that the Government’s narrative is very clear; we have on the one side Labor who want to tax more, spend more and borrow more, they have more tax ideas whether its negative gearing or removing the exemptions for capital gains tax, superannuation taxes, they have more taxes, they apparently have more spending proposals and what they, if they don’t have the money they’ll borrow more money.

LAURA JAYES: You just pointed out what’s changed for Labor, what’s changed for the Government in terms of policy?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Sadly nothing’s changed for Labor, Labor are still the tax, spend, and borrow party. On our side of the ledger we are setting out in a calm, methodical, considered way what we will take to the election, what we think are important policies for jobs and growth, they’re about infrastructure; whether its ports, or roads, or dams, or rail, it’s about creating jobs in the defence industry sector, we’ll soon see the defence white paper, the defence industry policy statement, it’s about the innovation agenda that I am responsible for, the National Innovation and Science Agenda driving jobs and growth, we’re putting the foundation blocks in place to encourage the economy to grow and provide jobs for the Australian public. What Labor want is more taxes, more spending, more borrowing.

LAURA JAYES: In that vein we have seen the GST ruled out, reports that the Government may not go as far on negative gearing as first though and also you know having a look at superannuation, should voters expect anything huge in this budget, or will it just be piecemeal reform?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m not sure that the public are looking for a big bang reform, I think what the public are looking for is calm considered government, where we respond to events and get on with the job. Do the things that Government should be doing, try to minimise the tax burden rather than increase it like Labor wants to do. I don’t think economic leadership is defined by increasing the GST by fifty per cent, who decided that was the measure of whether you were economically courageous? I didn’t support increasing the GST by fifty per cent and I’m happy that we’re not going to do that. In terms of negative gearing I don’t like Labor’s policy on negative gearing. It’ll actually depress property values and increase the cost of rents and that needs to be teased out over the days and weeks into the future. Now we might well have some changes to negative gearing around the edges to make sure that it’s doing the job that it’s supposed to do. But Labor’s policy will depress property values which means if you own a current house you’re going to be worse off is Labor gets elected and if you’re a renter then it’s going to increase rents.

LAURA JAYES: When are we going to see some announcements, because in part do you believe this Newspoll shows that people have been frustrated with the policy vacuum space here. Will we see an announcement on superannuation or negative gearing before the budget?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I doubt it, and it’s February and the budget is in May. Governments make their announcements in the Budget, about the economy and about what they want to do about taxation and so on. Much as I love the commentators and the media, we’re not going to be driven by the commentators’ schedule of when our announcements should be. As I said soon we will have the defence white paper, the defence industry policy statement. We are already executing the National Innovation and Science Agenda; we have plenty to do without the commentariat driving our agenda for us.

LAURA JAYES: What about the backbench? What do you say to some of those members of your Government that are getting quite jittery about the Newspoll, about some of the proposals that are being put forward and talked about, it’s time to start taking things off the table isn’t it?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No I don’t think so, and I don’t feel that the backbench or the front bench are in the least bit jittery. I’m a marginal seat Member, I’ve fought eight elections, this will be my ninth election if you don’t count when I ran against John Bannon when I was twenty one and I think a lot of people have discarded that election and we will get out there and sell in our electorates the Government’s agenda. But we’ll also remind people that if Labor is elected we’ll be going back to the taxing, spending and borrowing policies that have ruined the country in the past and that it means Bill Shorten will be Prime Minister of Australia. I think the public are very comfortable with Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister I think they believe that the Government knows what it’s doing and we’ve just got to keep getting on with the job in a calm and considered way.

LAURA JAYES: Just one final question on the effects test, we saw the new Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce yesterday say that he is confident that a Coalition Government will look at the competition laws and the effects test, are you on the same page?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think it’s very important that small and medium enterprises in Australia are not pushed around in an unfair way by big business. I think competition means that small and medium enterprises should be able to compete on a level playing field with big business and as a member of a marginal seat for twenty something years, twenty three years, there are many examples where I think small and medium enterprises feel powerless against large corporations and if we can change the Trade Practices Act to better reflect the market conditions that small and medium enterprises face then that is a change that I am prepared to look at.

LAURA JAYES: So you expect this proposal from the Harper Review to be put to Cabinet sometime in March?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: There’s a discussion paper publically out there right now about the effects text that Scott Morrison issued a couple of months ago, that’s going through the normal processes, but I do agree with Barnaby that we can’t be, we are not the party of big business, we are the party of small and medium enterprises and therefore we need to look to their concerns to make sure that we are listening to them.

LAURA JAYES: Minister Pyne thanks so much for your time.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s a pleasure.

[ends]