Sky News AM Agenda

Subjects: Carbon Tax; Costings; Election 2013 EO&E........................................................................................................................................... KIERAN GILBERT: Three days to go in this election campaign. A lot of focus on the carbon tax and whether the Coalition will have a mandate to demand Labor and the minor parties concede to a rescission of the mining – the carbon tax I should say. Now if Labor and the Greens don’t do that, what is the timetable for a double dissolution, would it be within the first year? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look Kieran, it would be absolutely remarkable, if the Coalition wins on Saturday, for Labor to not support the abolition of the carbon tax. This election has been about a referendum on the carbon tax, of the last three years. It has been absolutely clear that the Coalition, if we are elected, will abolish the carbon tax and reduce the burden of the cost of living, help businesses with their business costs, start to recover the business community and the economy. GILBERT: How soon would you have a double dissolution, within the year? PYNE: Well Kieran let’s not put the cart before the horse. There’s a couple of things that have got to happen before anything like that happens. First of all, the Coalition needs to win on Saturday and the surest way to abolish the carbon tax is to vote for Coalition in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate. Now that Labor has made it clear that they are divided over the carbon tax it would be foolhardy if you want to abolish the carbon tax to split your vote between the lower house and the upper house. If Labor keeps their senators in this and the Greens dominate the Senate then they will be in a position to ignore the mandate of the people, in all the will of the election, if we win it, and keep the carbon tax. We won’t do that, we will completely respect that this Saturday is a referendum on the carbon tax, if we win it we will abolish the carbon tax, it will be one of our first acts in government. And I will be very surprised if Labor didn’t respect the will of the people… (inaudible) GILBERT: Labor and the Greens said they have been elected by individual electorates who support their view on the carbon pricing, so they are honouring their mandate. PYNE: Look Kieran, nobody believes that this election is about anything, well one of the most important things about this election is the abolition of the carbon tax. If Labor candidates and MPs are saying that their electorates want to keep the carbon tax, then their voters should vote them out on Saturday. And if their vote is to keep them in office, we will still move to abolish the carbon tax and voters should vote for the Coalition in the Senate on Saturday if they want to abolish the carbon tax. GILBERT: Would it be better, I know you are talking, you are saying that there are various things to happen before we get to that hypothetical, but it is a very likely hypothetical if I could put it that way, that you will have to honour your pledge for a double dissolution, if the Greens will have the balance of power, or if Labor and the Greens combine and knock this off. What sort of timetable would you envisage to have that, put that to the people? PYNE: Well Kieran to use a footy analogy, this season isn’t even over yet and you are already talking about the next season. Now, the Grand Final for this Parliament is this Saturday and if people want to abolish the carbon tax they need to vote Coalition in the lower house and in the Senate. And Labor in the last 48 hours has made this election front and centre about who will abolish the carbon tax and who will not. Labor wants to keep the carbon tax, the Coalition will abolish the carbon tax. If you are in any doubt, vote Coalition in the lower house and the Senate to abolish the carbon tax. That is the Grand Final for this season this Saturday, Labor has made it all about that. GILBERT: Is there any realistic probability that you can see that the Coalition might have a majority in its own right in the Senate? PYNE: Well we want, we want the public’s will to be fulfilled. The public vote for a Coalition Government in the House of Representatives then they are supporting our policy scriptures for Australia. They are supporting toughening our border protection policies to stop the boats. They are supporting abolishing the mining tax, and abolishing the carbon tax. GILBERT: Are you hopeful for a majority in the Senate, is that a realistic possibility here? PYNE: Well I am not going to commentate or speculate on the outcomes of the Senate result because I just don’t know and nobody does. It would be a waste of my oxygen. What I can say to the Australian public is that if they want to abolish the carbon tax they can’t risk a Labor or Greens vote or a minor party vote in the Senate because the danger of doing that would be that Labor will keep the carbon tax with their alliance partners, the Greens. The surest way to make sure the carbon tax is abolished is to vote for the Coalition in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. GILBERT: Tony Abbott put this back at the centre of the agenda when he addressed the National Press Club on Monday. A clear strategy was that, to remind everyone including your political opponents that this is, well he has got a mandate for what you are arguing this morning. PYNE: Well Kieran, Tony Abbott has talked about abolishing the carbon tax since the first moment that Julia Gillard broke her promise that there would be no carbon tax under the government I lead. And on Monday of course he talked about it as he should. But it was really Kevin Rudd and Mark Butler and the Labor Party who put it back on the agenda on Tuesday by playing ducks and drakes over whether they would respect the will of the Australian people on Saturday. Now this issue is front and centre in the election because they have made Saturday a referendum on whether the will of the people will be respected by a major political party like the Labor Party and the Greens, or whether they will thumb their nose at the will of the people should the Coalition win on Saturday, and try and keep the carbon tax. GILBERT: Ok, Tony Abbott… PYNE: It would be an act of political bastardy. GILBERT: Tony Abbott has said in an interview with the Lowy Institute of Foreign Policy that he would be an Asia-First Prime Minister if he wins on Saturday. We already know that he would go to Jakarta for his first visit as PM if the Coalition is successful. He has added to that Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul before the UK and Washington. Is this a message to his critics as much as it is to the region? PYNE: Look, Labor is very fond of making up myths about Australians Leader of the Opposition from the Coalition. You might remember that Paul Keating said that Asian leaders wouldn’t talk to John Howard. Well we then entered one of the Golden Ages of eleven years of engagement with Asia with exports sky rocketed under John Howard and our relationship with China grew closer and closer and also we maintained our relationships with Japan, Korea and had a flowering of our relationship with Indonesia. So you can’t rely on what Labor people say about the Coalition leadership when it comes to foreign affairs. Tony Abbott has made it very clear that our focus will be our region first and our traditional alliance partners after that. But it is not a zero sum game. We can chew gum and walk at the same time. We can have an excellent relationship with Jakarta, Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul at the same time as having an excellent relationship with Washington and London and the rest of the European capitals and that is exactly what Tony Abbott will do. GILBERT: And on a couple of other issues just to finish, the costings matter. It’s Wednesday now, the final week for the election campaign, and still we don’t have all of the detail. I know you have released savings, I know you have released the headline figures for a couple of policies, but no detailed costings. Isn’t that taking the electorate, well essentially taking the electorate for granted here and not providing the detail, not providing the transparency that you should be? PYNE: Well Kieran, it would be if it was true. But it is not true. Joe Hockey released… GILBERT: Where are the details? PYNE: Well Joe Hockey released $31 billion of savings. GILBERT: Of savings. PYNE: ..at the National Press Club. GILBERT: Savings, not costings. PYNE: The media are like people who have one course after another. And when they are finished with one course they say where’s the next one. Simple truth is, we released $31 billion of savings last Wednesday as we’ve released our spending policies we have announced savings… GILBERT: Yeah, but not all the detail. You concede that not all of the detail is out there yet… PYNE: Well Kieran we have released almost all the detail of all our policies. There will be a few policies left today, tomorrow. Once all those policies are out, we will give a budget bottom line, but it will be well advanced of Labor’s policy in 2007 and 2010 under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard which was released 5pm on the Friday night before the election. GILBERT: And finally, on the state of play in South Australia, you are obviously spending a lot of time there as well there, being on the road with the Opposition Leader, are you confident about picking up a few seats there in South Australia? PYNE: There is certainly a positive feeling in South Australia but that doesn’t surprise me because Kevin Rudd axed, politically axed, the local girl, Julia Gillard. And so that is a factor in Adelaide. Julia Gillard was popular in Adelaide, she had a lot of support in 2010 here and Kevin Rudd undermined her relentlessly for three years until he tore her down and now doesn’t have any idea why he should be Prime Minister. So there is a lot of sympathy for Julia Gillard in Adelaide, and Kevin Rudd is very unpopular here. So anything can happen in the election on Saturday but I am hopeful that we will do well in Adelaide because a Coalition Government will abolish the carbon tax, the mining tax, protect our borders, build the infrastructure we need and restore the budget to living within our means. GILBERT: Christopher Pyne, appreciate it, thanks. PYNE: Pleasure, thank you. [ENDS]