Today Show

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview – Today with Lisa Wilkinson and Anthony Albanese
Friday 4 December 2015

SUBJECTS: Ian MacFarlane, Mal Brough;

LISA WILKINSON: …Industry, Innovation and Science, Christopher Pyne, and Shadow Transport and Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese, Good morning to you gentlemen.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Lisa good morning Anthony

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Gday Christopher.

LISA WILKINSON: Get the niceties now but that’s ok

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I hope you enjoyed the Walkley’s while I was working in Canberra.

LISA WILKINSON: We’ll get to that in a second, now Christopher, Ian McFarlane says he’s jumping ship to the nationals with another liberal MP rumoured to follow, this is surely a sign the government is far from united?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look it’s really just an internal Liberal-National party of Queensland issue, whether Ian McFarlane is in the Liberal party room or the National party room he’s still a part of the coalition and he’s a valued colleague. I’m sorry that he was disappointed that he was asked to retire from the cabinet but he has been in the cabinet since 2000 so he’s had a pretty good run in the cabinet, but I’m sorry that he was disappointed and if he wants to be in the national party room well you know he goes with our best wishes but he’s still part of our coalition.

LISA WILKINSON: Yeah but it still doesn’t sound like a very united liberal party. When did the Prime Minister find out that McFarlane was defecting?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I don’t know the answer to that Lisa, but I don’t think it was very long ago.

LISA WILKINSON: When did you find out?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yesterday.

LISA WILKINSON: OK were you shocked?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look I was disappointed but the LNP in Queensland is a different party to the rest of the country. In every other part of the country there’s a Liberal party and a separate National party, in Queensland they’re in the same party so it’s really just an internal party dynamic. And I don’t think the public figure is very important it’s neither here nor there. Ian McFarlane is a good friend of Malcolm Turnbull, there’s no angst between those two and we’re getting on with trying to create jobs and growth, we passed three bills last night through the senate, the citizenship bill, and the labour savings bill and the multinationals tax bill that labour tried to block so we’re just getting on with the job.

LISA WILKINSON: You have had a heck of a week.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It has been a big week.

LISA WILKINSON: Meantime, special minister of state Mal Brough remains under pressure over his involvement in the Peter Slipper affair, after this week completely contradicting his previous statement to sixty minutes, have a look:

RECORDING: “LIZ HAYES: did you ask James Ashby to procure copies of peter slippers diary for you? MAL BROUGH: yes I did.

RECORDING: Did you ask James Ashby to procure copies of peter slippers diary for you? MAL BROUGH: No.”

LISA WILKINSON: Christopher, Mal Brough clearly hasn’t told the truth here.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Mal came back into the parliament after that answer and corrected the record. He explained that he was confused and he’s sorry he’d confused the Parlaiment…

LISA WILKINSON: What part of that question was confusing?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the question according to Mal and what he’d told the Parliament was that the question from Liz Hayes had several prongs to it

LISA WILKINSON: Oh hang on, please I’m sorry Christopher we’ve seen the unedited version of that question it was a small stumble but that question was absolutely clear, and after telling Liz Hayes that he did do it, he then spent three minutes justifying why he did it, not whether or not he did procure private diaries of Peter Slipper, to then stand up in parliament when the heat is on and say that he didn’t do it. As a federal minister he has misled parliament.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well there is an investigation by the AFP in this matter…

LISA WILKINSON: Yes there is so as special minister someone who is meant to be upholding ethics and standards of the parliament, why doesn’t the Prime Minister ask Mal Brough to stand aside while this police investigation is going on?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well if there are any charges laid that is exactly what will happen, but you can’t have ministers or leaders of the opposition standing aside every time a claim is made against them, Bill Shorten was investigated by the Victorian police for 12 months and at no point was he asked to stand aside because he was eventually cleared of all wrong doing and I was the first to congratulate him for being cleared because it would have been very traumatic for he and his family for that 12 months.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: That is absolute nonsense Christopher, what we’re talking about here is something that we know that he did. He misled Parlaiment that’s why his position as a minister is untenable. Very separate from any AFP investigation that will take its course, but what we saw this week was Mal Brough each and every day mislead parliament so clearly that there wasn’t anyone in the government including Christopher as the leader of the house prepared to defend him. I’ve seen governments gag and stop oppositions speaking before. I’ve seen before for a whole week a government gag itself and move that motions be put so that it didn’t have to defend Mal Brough. And this is connected of course with Ian McFarlane’s defection and the chaos that’s there, because now the national party will be entitled to Mal Brough’s position when he goes, because it’s not a question of if he goes, it’s a question of when he goes.

LISA WILKINSON: OK we’ll have to leave it there unfortunately we’ve run out of time but I’ll have to quickly before I go congratulate you Christopher Pyne, you sort of won a Walkley award last night for the famous fixer interview with David Spears on sky news.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I was the subject of the Walkley, but I’m very pleased and congratulate David Spears on winning a Walkley on the back of an interview with me, good luck to him well done.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Christopher…

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Christopher, Christopher, Christopher, they’re laughing at you not with you, a very important distinction.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I always wanted a Walkley…

ANTHONY ALBANESE: A very important distinction.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Don’t you be nasty now Anthony at the end of the interview..

ANTHONY ALBANESE: David Spears was laughing at you not with you

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You try and be nice.

LISA WILKINSON: You both try and be nice. Thanks very much…

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Why don’t you try and be nice to your coalition colleagues you’re falling apart!

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You’re now being nasty this morning and it’s too early to start the day grumpy Anthony.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: you are falling apart! Bye, bye!

LISA WILKINSON: Thanks you Anthony thank you Christopher, we’ll see you soon. Over to you David.

[ends]