Sky News AM Agenda

SUBJECTS: Speaker saga; Foreign investment; Alan Jones E&OE………… Christopher Pyne: Good Morning Kieran. Gilbert: If mediation is successful, this goes through the courts and it’s been dealt with, is it fair that Peter Slipper return to the Speakership? Pyne: Well there’s a lot of ‘ifs’ there. If this is successful, let’s wait and see if that happens. The issue of the Cabcharge documents that with the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecution for assessment is yet to be resolved involving Peter Slipper. The Commonwealth has said for months, led by a litany of Labor Ministers; Nicola Roxon, Anthony Albanese, Wayne Swan, Craig Emerson and famously Bob Carr said that Mr Ashby had no case against the Speaker at all and yet the Commonwealth settled with Mr Ashby last week… Gilbert: There’s no taxpayers money though? Pyne: Well that was in breach of their own guidelines, their own guidelines that the Attorney-General’s Office says that they shouldn’t settle matters in order to save money on litigation that’s one of the reasons they mustn’t settle for. So in fact they’ve settled because they thought they were going to lose and the Attorney-General has mishandled this matter from the very start, so there’s a long way to go in the Ashby/Slipper case, then there’s the Cabcharge issue and all of this really goes back to Julia Gillard’s judgement. She was the one who handpicked Peter Slipper to be Speaker of the House of Representatives over Harry Jenkins, who was a fair and reasonable Speaker for some time. Therefore Julia Gillard has to be the one who needs to come out of the witness protection programme that she’s been in since before the Olympics and actually do a press conference and answer questions somewhere other primary school or a set piece speech like a conference because she’s been cottonwooled by Labor, they’re protecting her because she’s so unpopular. Gilbert: Ok, so that’s a political problem and no doubt we’ll get to a fair bit of that later as well, but on the Slipper matter, once the taxi voucher issue is also dealt with and if, and I know there ifs, but if they are managed and he comes through, doesn’t due process suggest that he should be able to return to the job? Pyne: Well of course the Commonwealth has settled the matter with James Ashby. They have admitted he was right in the claim that he has made they’ve essentially said the sexual harassment claim against the Speaker had truthfulness about it, that’s why they settled. Now there’s a big question mark over whether the mediation will be successful with Peter Slipper and James Ashby. If Peter Slipper settles with James Ashby and admits wrongdoing well that doesn’t simply clear the matter away. It means that it didn’t go to court but it means that both the Commonwealth and Peter Slipper have admitted the truthfulness of James Ashby’s claim. Gilbert: But the Attorney-General maintains that they’re still vexatious. Her argument, the Attorney General is that they’ve done it to save taxpayers money, but the Ashby claim is still vexatious, she stands by that. Pyne: Well Nicola Roxon would like to have her cake and eat it too; and we’d all like to have that. The truth is Kieran, the Commonwealth settled, they therefore admitted that James Ashby had a case that they couldn’t defeat in court, and they paid him $50,000. He still has his job until this Parliament rises in a maximum of 12 months time. The case against Peter Slipper is still on-going. If the Commonwealth have admitted the truthfulness of James Ashby’s claim, if Mr Slipper settles with James Ashby and admits the truthfulness of his claim then quite frankly Julia Gillard has to make a call as to whether she thinks Mr Slipper should be in the chair. She handpicked him over Harry Jenkins in another bad judgement call on her part. She owns Peter Slipper, not the Opposition. It’s her opinion we need to get to the bottom of. Gilbert: I want to ask you about John Howard’s comments last night relating to foreign investment and China. He said that it is inevitable that China will liberalise politically as it has done economically and that investment from China should be welcome. This sounds like a fairly direct message to those in the National Party who are particularly wary about Chinese investment. Mr Howard said we should welcome it including from state-owned enterprises. Do you think that will ignite debate in the Coalition or do you think the Nationals will still kick up a stink? Pyne: I don’t think the Nationals are causing a (inaudible)of a degree of foreign investment, and I think the debate in the coalition is a good thing it should be on going; we are not a Stalinist party.  What John Howard is saying is perfectly fair and reasonable and that is that we welcome in Australia foreign investment whether it is from Britain, China, Japan, the US, Canada, South Africa and have for decades and decades. It’s what made our country great is foreign investment, because we don’t have the capital in our own country to (inaudible) to do the infrastructure we need to do to build our economy. Gilbert: Would it be fair to say that investment by state owned companies is rarely in the national interest for a state owned enterprise to take over an Australian company that Mr Howard seems to have no such problem with it. Pyne: Well Mr Howard is saying that we shouldn’t be close minded about foreign investment, whether it’s from China or anywhere else. He is also making a very good point, which is: as China liberalises economically, which it has been doing since Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s. And the great middle class in China grows and grows we know it’s been happening for several decades. The economic liberalisation will be followed by political liberalisation as the middle class in China demands greater political rights that their friends and colleges have around the world. Gilbert: You seem to be more open to foreign investment by state owned enterprises then your Leader is. Pyne: Well I’m open to foreign investment as well; we should all be open to foreign investment. But each time there is a foreign investment in a major enterprise it needs to go through the proper processes. The foreign investment review board needs to consider it, they need to do so under the (inaudible)that they have been given by government, if we are elected, we have said that we would lower the threshold for which the Foreign Investment Review Board can review investments in Australia and will keep a register of the land that is being owned by a foreign investor so that we know exactly where we are at any particular point in time in terms of who owns all of Australia. Of course no one can take the land anywhere and foreign investors don’t invest in Australia in order to run business into the ground. They invest in businesses because they think they will make a profit from them which is good for the whole economy. Gilbert:  Indeed, let’s move on now to a couple of other issues, the Alan Jones backlash we are seeing financial implications felt by the radio station, a number of sponsors have pulled their support, do you think that’s a good thing? Pyne: Well I think what Alan Jones said was crass and that he admitted that he was wrong and he apologised for it. But I think this issue has now morphed into (inaudible) statements from Alan Jones into another Labor distraction from everything that people actually care about. Now, main stream Australia cares about the cost of living the fact they can’t pay their bills, they care about boarder protection, electricity prices, the Carbon Tax, the flat economy. They don’t care about all these other distractions that Labor is trying to create. And quite frankly it makes me feel vomitus, listening to the hypocrisy, dripping, spewing from the mouths of the Labor Ministers. Kevin Rudd for example: he worked as hard as he could to get on to Alan Jones when he was the Leader of the Opposition, he couldn’t get enough of Alan Jones when he was the Leader of the Opposition. He was always trying to get onto his program, and the sucking up by Kevin Rudd to Alan Jones was vomitus and is quite frankly now talking as though he is some angel without any crimes at all in the past. It’s disgusting that Kevin Rudd thinks he can get away with this and the media should ping him for it. Gilbert: Kevin Rudd, part of what he said was that the Liberal Party should not engage Alan Jones in future Liberal events. He’s not a paying member of the Party but what you make of that in principle... Pyne: I am not going to take any advice about how to operate the Liberal Party from a person like Kevin Rudd who is a grotesque hypocrite when it comes to Alan Jones.  Kevin Rudd couldn’t get enough of Alan Jones when he was Leader of the Opposition; he used to feet a path to Alan Jones’s door and suck up to him grotesquely on the radio. So taking advice from Kevin Rudd is not something I am going to be doing. Gilbert: On one final issue, you are going to be pursuing this later in the day about Labor pamphlets that you’re suggesting make false claims about the Coalition policy on education. As I understand it it’s about funding and isn’t it fair to say that the Labor Party had promised more funding on an ongoing basis than the Coalition has? Pyne: No they haven’t, that’s the whole point. This is one of Labor’s (inaudible). The truth is Labor is lying about education funding; the Coalition is the only political party with a commitment to six per cent indexation in the next round of quadrennial funding. That’s six and a half billion dollars of funds over and above the current quantum for government and non government schools. Gilbert: Labor said the same thing. Pyne: No they haven’t. No they haven’t. Labor has said that they have a view that we should have an aspirational goal to be in 2025 in the top 5 countries in the world by education. They have put no money, no money at all on their promises. They are trying to hoax the Australian people that they have made a commitment, they have made no commitment in fact the only facts out there are that there is a hit list of (inaudible) schools that will lose money under the Labor Party proposals for education and there is six and a half billion dollars of a commitment from the Coalition in ongoing increased funding. Gilbert: (inaudible) Pyne: They haven’t said they are going to maintain the indexation. They have been so successful at tricking everybody, they have even tricked you. The truth is they haven’t committed to indexation at all, and they haven’t committed to six and a half billion dollars. (Inaudible) Gilbert: Are you saying simply they haven’t put the dollars to it? Pyne: They haven’t done anything about indexation.  Gonski can see six and a half billion dollars in today’s dollars, but they haven’t committed to it and they haven’t repudiated that hit list because they haven’t put out their own modelling. So yet again they are trying to distract people with their litany of lies that they are putting around the country in these pamphlets. Gilbert: They are saying that no school will be worse off in real terms; does that answer your question? Pyne: They haven’t said that, no. But Kieran look at the facts, they haven’t said no school would be worse off in real terms, they have said no school will lose one dollar, they have never added the three words in -  real - terms. Only the Coalition said that. But the truth is the Coalition is committed to indexation in real terms at six and a half billion dollars. They have said no school will lose one dollar, but never in real terms but they’ve tricked everybody. And the thing is, they need to be pinged for their Labor lies, this is what they are going to do right up to election day, it will be one Labor lie after another, starting with this education campaign. Gilbert: Mr Pyne, thank you very much for your time this morning. Pyne: Pleasure. ENDS