The Morning Show

KYLIE GILLIES: Well, the Prime Minister’s performance during question time yesterday is making headlines, this morning. Malcolm Turnbull unleashed a blistering attack on Opposition Leader, Bill Shorten, during the first sitting of the year.

[Excerpt]

MALCOLM TURNBULL: This man is a parasite. This simpering sycophant, blowing hard in the House of Representatives, sucking hard in the living rooms of Melbourne. What a hypocrite.

[End of excerpt]

LARRY EMDUR: Well the fiery exchange was a result of proposed changes to family tax benefits. Turnbull’s outburst comes after a turbulent start to 2017. A high profile ministerial resignation, an embarrassing leaked phone call with Donald Trump, and a shaky refugee swap have all dominated the headlines so far this year.

Leader of the House and Minister for Defence Industry, Christopher Pyne, joins us live from Canberra. Good morning back- welcome Minister.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Larry and good morning Kylie, and thank you for having me back on again.

KYLIE GILLIES: Welcome back.

LARRY EMDUR: Quite the commotion during question time, yesterday. I was watching you closely. You looked like a proud parent at an athletics carnival.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [Laughs] Well, I think Malcolm is finally sick of Bill Shorten attacking him all the time personally, and maintaining a studied disregard for Bill. I mean, Bill’s been calling Malcolm immoral, an amoral over many months. And I think that’s pretty personal. And Malcolm, I think, has finally got sick of it and thinks that he had some things to say and he said them. I think it was a perfectly reasonable speech.

KYLIE GILLIES: It certainly has lit up the front pages of the newspapers but what do you think the voters make of it, Christopher?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, look, I’ve been in Parliament a long time and Paul Keating, Peter Costello, other members of Parliament have been colourful parliamentary performers. I don’t think it ever lost them a vote. And importantly it allowed us to- when Peter Costello was doing it, to make sure the Labor Party didn’t get away with a lot of the mistruths that they tell.

Paul Keating used withering parliamentary attacks to attack the Liberal Party, and people like John Howard or Alexander Downer, over many years. It was a signature tune of his; I don’t think it lost him any votes.

The bottom line is politics can be a pretty tough business and if you go around calling someone immoral, which Bill Shorten’s been doing to Malcolm Turnbull, you can’t complain when you get as good in return.
LARRY EMDUR: Okay, let’s go back a step, and can you explain the proposed changes for us?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The proposed changes to which particular thing, Larry?

LARRY EMDUR: To where that all came about yesterday.

KYLIE GILLIES: The Family Tax, yeah.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [Talks over] Oh I see, right. Well we announced…

KYLIE GILLIES: [Interrupts] Because it kind of got lost in all the theatrics and all the drama.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes, well I wasn’t sure whether you meant the changes to the Life Gold Pass, or whether you meant the changes to child care…

KYLIE GILLIES: [Talks over] Family tax benefits.

LARRY EMDUR: Well, you should watch this show more often. then you’d understand what I was doing.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [Laughs] Sorry. Well what we’re trying to do is reform child care in Australia in order to make it more accessible and affordable. A lot of your viewers would be people who use child care. It is a topic- it’s a barbeque stopper, as they say in politics. It’s one of the things that families talk about a lot. And if they can’t afford child care, they can’t work as much as they want to do.

So what we’re trying to do is spread child care to more than a million families to make it more accessible to those people, particularly low income people, so they can get more work if they want to and therefore improve their standard of living.

So the lowest income people will only pay $15 a day for child care under these reforms. But we’ve got to pay for it. Unlike the Labor Party who ran up debt and deficit when they were in Government, we believe you have to be able to pay for things. So we’re removing a supplement in the Family Tax Benefit that was only paid really as a bonus in the Howard and Costello era, when we had a $22 billion surplus. Now, Labor got rid of that surplus, they ran up the deficit, and we need to be able to pay for improving child care in Australia and that’s what we’re trying to do.

KYLIE GILLIES: Okay, the Life Gold Pass for travel for all retired MPs, gone. How do you feel about that cut?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I had qualified for the Life Gold Pass but I have to tell you Kylie, after I leave this particular job, the last thing I’m going to want to do is travel around the country on planes. I’ve been on planes for 24 years so far. And, they’re basically a taxi to me these days. I don’t really, you know, necessarily enjoy getting on the plane and travelling everywhere so I could not care less about the Life Gold Pass being taken away.

LARRY EDMUR: Alright. Do you like reminiscing? Do you like looking back on the gold old days?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Sure, of course I do.

LARRY EDMUR: We love having you on the show, Minister. So much so that we started reminiscing ourselves about the- you know, the happy days, the good old days. And that’s [audio error] found this gem from about a year ago. Let’s have a look now.

[Excerpt]

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: If they really want Donald Trump, well they’ll elect him. But my sense is that they won’t choose Donald Trump for the nomination. But I’m just an Australian politician. What would I know about American politics?

LARRY EDMUR: You’re an Australian politician on a Morning Show.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Indeed.

[End of excerpt]

LARRY EDMUR: Now you obviously heard the news, Minister?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [Laughs] Yes, yes.

LARRY EDMUR: Can you believe what happened there?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well obviously I’m not very good at picking the outcomes of elections…

LARRY EDMUR: [Laughs] I’m staying away from you on Melbourne Cup day, that’s for sure.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That’s right, exactly. I’d never give you a bum steer, Larry. I’d do my absolutely level best to give you a good tip.

LARRY EDMUR: Thank you.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, well obviously I’m not very good at picking elections and Donald Trump won and good luck to him. And we’ll obviously be working very closely with him. I spoke to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis this morning, who’s my counterpart in Washington. We talked about a lot of very serious and important things, but significantly he absolutely reaffirmed America’s very strong commitment to the Australia-America alliance. We have a very longstanding relationship. In fact, Secretary Mattis used to be the Commanding Officer of the Marine Corp that has Waltzing Matilda as their theme song, which is not known by many people, so...

KYLIE GILLIES: [Interrupts] No, lovely.

LARRY EDMUR: No.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yeah, it’s a nice touch….

KYLIE GILLIES: So you said that was a phone call you had with him or a face-to-face? A phone call?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, no, he rang me from Washington this morning, so…

KYLIE GILLIES: Oh wow. So that phone call went well, unlike…?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Oh yes, oh yes. Went very well.

KYLIE GILLIES: [Talks over] Yes, unlike other phone calls. That leaked one of course between Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull. And then we’ve seen it immortalised on the US comedy circuit.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes.

KYLIE GILLIES: What did you think of Malcolm Turnbull’s- well, his alter ego Saturday Night Live appearance? I take it that you saw it?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes I did watch it. I mean, I thought the accent was absolutely execrable, quite frankly. But Americans have never been great at Australian accents, that’s for sure. They really don’t quite get how we speak. But look, I thought the thing about Malcolm Turnbull’s phone call with Donald Trump was that it showed that Malcolm Turnbull stands up for Australia and Australia’s interests all the time, and I don’t think he came out poorly from that at all.

LARRY EDMUR: If they were going to do a little thing with you on Saturday Night Live, which Baldwin brother would you like to do…?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’d hate to think.

LARRY EDMUR: Who would do you over there?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Brad Pitt, obviously. Why do you even ask, you know?

LARRY EDMUR: [Laughs] I’m sorry, that’s such a stupid question.

KYLIE GILLIES: I would have gone with a…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [Interrupts] If they couldn’t get George Clooney that is, of course.

KYLIE GILLIES: George Clooney? Ryan Gosling?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: If they couldn’t get him, they’d probably go for Brad Pitt.

LARRY EDMUR: [Laughs]

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m a bit older than Ryan Gosling, I think. That’s the problem.

KYLIE GILLIES: That’s true…

LARRY EDMUR: Oh they can do the Hollywood makeup. Just before we move on from Washington, did you hang up the phone from Washington saying sorry I’ve got to go now to do The Morning Show?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I should’ve. No I didn’t. But we did talk about the Australian media in glowing terms though, you’ll be pleased to know.

LARRY EDMUR: Of course, yes.

KYLIE GILLIES: Oh, you spoke of the Australian media in glowing terms?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Of course, I always speak about the Australian media in glowing terms.

KYLIE GILLIES: Okay. Yeah, before we go the- if we turn it back to maybe your home state of South Australia. [Indistinct] heat wave conditions, black outs causing quite the stir. Can we get your thoughts on that and do residents have a right to be angry?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well of course they should be angry. As I’ve said in the Parliament yesterday, I’m trying to build 12 submarines and nine Future Frigates and some offshore patrol vessels at Osborne in South Australia, and Defence has advised me that we’re going to have to build our own power generation, costing $20 million, and all the fuel storage that goes with it, because we can’t rely on South Australian power because the state government has so mishandled that policy issue.

Now, a First World country that has these constant black outs and major spikes in price- the government is failing the people of South Australia, and now the Australian taxpayers are having to stump up so that we can have our own power generation at Osborne in case there’s more blackouts in the future. And that [audio error] we are getting to a farcical stage in South Australia. We’re more like a backpacker hostel or a Third World country than a First World state.

LARRY EDMUR: [Laughs] Okay. Alright well, thank you very much for chucking out a couple more headlines for us this morning.

KYLIE GILLIES: Yes, that’ll get back.

LARRY EDMUR: That will get back.

KYLIE GILLIES: That will get back.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [Laughs] That’s the idea.

KYLIE GILLIES: [Laughs]

LARRY EDMUR: Enjoy your front page tomorrow in Adelaide.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [Laughs]

LARRY EDMUR: Thanks for talking to us today.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s a great pleasure, Larry. Thanks Kylie, good to see you.

LARRY EDMUR: Always good to catch up.

KYLIE GILLIES: Thank you, Minister.