Sky News AM Agenda

SUBJECTS: AWU Scandal; Newspoll; NAPLAN testing

E&OE...................

Kieran Gilbert: Good Morning Mr Pyne, Thanks for being here.

Hon Christopher Pyne MP: Morning Kieran

Gilbert: It’s going to be a torrid final week of parliament. The opposition broadening its attack on the AWU slush fund issue. The Opposition Leader today going to move a private members bill to impose criminal penalties on union leaders that misuse their members’ money. Have you got any other details for us?

Pyne: Well the coalition’s policy, Kieran, is that the rules that apply to company directors should be the same rules that apply to union leaders. We’ve been pressing for that for some time and the government has opposed that. We don’t see any reason why union leaders who have control of millions of dollars of union members money shouldn’t have the same rules applying to them that company directors have, and clearly with the scandal involving the Health Services Union and Craig Thomson, and now the Australian Workers Union and Bruce Wilson and Julia Gillard etcetera, it is time for the government to adopt that policy.

Gilbert: But it’s about focusing on that AWU issue, is there a point where that becomes counterproductive? With the government introducing legislation, for example, on the Disability Insurance Scheme, other big issues like that?

Pyne: It’s about protecting union members’ money. Now, the government has a whole lot of distractions that it’s been trying to get up for many months. Certainly we support the National Disability Insurance Scheme, but they haven’t provided the necessary funds to make it actually work, and the same is the case with school funding. It’s very important that union members who pass over their hard earned savings to union leaders have that money spent on things that are for them, not for union leaders, as has happened in the Health Services Union scandal

Gilbert: Bruce Wilson, the former union official said at the weekend, in the Sunday papers, that the Prime Minister knew absolutely, categorically nothing about the alleged fraud. Ministers say it’s story over. Does the coalition need to provide more information?

Pyne: Well I would expect them to say that, but let me just give you a couple of examples Kieran. The Prime Minister’s yet to explain whether she asked Bruce Wilson where the $5000 came from that appeared in her accounts in 1995, which he gave to Mr Hem, who has been reported in the Australian. She has yet to explain if the matter of the AWU slush fund was so routine, why it remained hidden from slater and Gordon – why she simply didn’t open a file. She’s yet to explain how, when she found out in August 1995 about the fraud, she broke off the relationship in September 1995, but the Western Australian police weren’t called in until August 1996. Now why didn’t she, as a solicitor practicing in Victoria, inform the appropriate authorities and the police? Because if she had, maybe that money could have been recovered.

Gilbert: I want to ask you about a couple of other things. Newspoll, Labor at 36 after a few months of improvement. Are you hopeful, confident, that that is Labor’s vote topping out now?

Pyne: Well, the polls come and go. What Labor has done for the last three to four months, is have a carpet bombing campaign on Tony Abbott’s character. It clearly hasn’t succeeded. The public are only interested in issues like cost of living, job security, border protection, economic management and the Prime Minister’s integrity. The Government is trying to shift that debate onto Tony Abbott. Sure, they’ve had some impact, but the truth is they are an incompetent government, they are divided and dysfunctional, they have lost control of our borders, cost of living is worse than ever, people are concerned about their jobs, and until they get those issues right, they’ll continue to bottom out in the polls.

Gilbert: I still want to ask you one last question. As shadow education minister, a University of Melbourne survey into NAPLAN shows children are suffering stress related vomiting, unrelated side effects of NAPLAN include Teachers teaching to the test. Should the whole process be now reviewed?

Pyne: Well, two things about that Kieran. The coalition has said that we’ll review the NAPLAN process if we are elected. I am concerned about the publication of the NAPLAN results because NAPLAN is an important diagnostic tool but the publication of it puts stress on teachers that is unnecessary, so we’ll look at that. But can I say in terms of that research, the teachers shouldn’t be teaching to the test. There’s no reason to throw the NAPLAN out the window because the teachers are doing the wrong thing. They shouldn’t be teaching to the test, they should be teaching students just as they always do. The NAPLAN should simply be a diagnostic tool to be used along the path.

Gilbert: Mr Pyne, Thanks for your time

Pyne: Pleasure

ENDS