Today Show

E&OE TRANSCRIPT Interview – Today Show with Karl Stefanovic and Anthony Albanese Friday 4 July 2014 SUBJECT: New Senate KARL STEFANOVIC: Well, let's talk politics now. There are some new kids on the block in Canberra this morning, with the 11 freshly elected Senators in the middle of an orientation course. The new Senate will sit for the first time on Monday and the Government faces an uphill battle to pass many of its signature budget measures. For more, we’re joined by Christopher Pyne and Anthony Albanese, two of our favourites. Morning, guys. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Morning, Karl. Morning, Anthony. ANTHONY ALBANESE: Gidday. KARL STEFANOVIC: Let the sucking-up begin, hey? Who is the better sucker upper-er? [Laughter] CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Anthony has always been very good at that in the last parliament, in the hung parliament in the House of Representatives when it counted. But we will work closely with the eight crossbenchers. I respect them all as people and colleagues and I think we will have a respectful, productive relationship, passing most of our legislation through the Parliament. Obviously we’re pragmatic. We understand that we don’t control the Senate, but the second biggest story out of the election last year, Karl, first one was that we won it and the second one was the left, Labor, blocking power of the Senate was broken. KARL STEFANOVIC: You’re going to have dramas, though. Already the PUP Senators are indicating this morning, from what we can glean, anyway, that they’ll say no to uni fee changes, they’ll say no to the $7 doctor fee and they’ll say no to making young people wait six month for the dole, so you’ve got dramas there already. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, let's wait and see. I mean, we haven’t even started debating those measures in the Senate, so it is premature to be saying what you will and won’t support before you’ve started sitting. Now, next week the Senate starts sitting and then we sit the week after that. I think that they will pass the repeal of the carbon tax, unlike the Labor-Greens alliance, who insist on keeping the carbon tax. I think they’ll pass the repeal of the mining tax. As for the other measures, we will go through a respectful negotiating process with the Senate, and I am quietly confident, given the charm of members of the Government, and the obvious… KARL STEFANOVIC: There he goes. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …excellence of our program that we will get most of our program through. KARL STEFANOVIC: Carbon and mining tax, obviously the rest of them – you’d have to concede they’re gone, those two? ANTHONY ALBANESE: Yeah, that’s probably right. But what’s extraordinary is the difference in the rhetoric before and after the election. Before the election, Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne and others were all saying no negotiations with any cross benchers, we’re going to be the Government, not talk to anyone. Remember that they described the fact that we had to negotiate our policies through our program through as being an illegitimate government. Well, if the last government was illegitimate because it had to negotiate with crossbenchers, so is this one. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, I described you as an illegitimate government not because you had to negotiate with the Senate, which every government has… ANTHONY ALBANESE: Which we did. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …for 30 years, but because you formed Government with two conservative… ANTHONY ALBANESE: No, no. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …cross backbenchers from rural electorates… ANTHONY ALBANESE: No, that’s not right. KARL STEFANOVIC: Let’s just leave that behind. ANTHONY ALBANESE: That’s not right. We had to negotiate our way through… KARL STEFANOVIC: Let’s leave that behind. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [Indistinct] ANTHONY ALBANESE: …and I wouldn’t be surprised, Karl, if the crossbenchers don’t vote for the broken promises. They will look at what they said before the election then they’ll look at this budget of broken promises and they are entitled to say no. KARL STEFANOVIC: Okay. Joe Hockey warned he’d had other ways – other ways in inverted commas - to force through his budget measures. What are they? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I’m not across what Joe Hockey has said about that but obviously we want to get our program through. We think it’s best for Australia to repair the mess that we were left by Labor, the debt and deficit bomb that was left for us by the Labor Party. ANTHONY ALBANESE: [Laughs] CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We’re going to fix that. We want to work with the crossbenchers to do that. Before the election, we said we wouldn’t negotiate to form a government obviously, but we always knew that we’d negotiate with the Senate. And I must admit, I’m very glad that this Senate worked out the way that it did, because if Labor and the Greens had kept blocking the alliance... ANTHONY ALBANESE: [Laughs] KARL STEFANOVIC: [Laughs] But you know how hard it’s going to be. There are some people in the Senate in the PUP Party that cannot stand your boss, Jacqui Lambie to name one of them. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, let’s wait and see, you know. You know, if Labor and the Greens had kept their blocking alliance we’d be getting nothing. We would not even be repealing the carbon tax. That’s how much [indistinct]… ANTHONY ALBANESE: You were… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …about the people’s banter. ANTHONY ALBANESE: You were the party turned the Coalition into the no-alition. You said no to everything. KARL STEFANOVIC: Oh, that’s a nice line. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That’s an old line. ANTHONY ALBANESE: It’s a good line. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s an old line. KARL STEFANOVIC: It’s not, but you can rehash it. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s an old line. ANTHONY ALBANESE: [Talks over] No, but it’s true… KARL STEFANOVIC: And what about… ANTHONY ALBANESE: It’s true because they opposed everything. What we’ve done is… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Living in the past. ANTHONY ALBANESE: …we’re being constructive. We’re being constructive, and Joe Hockey has… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You’re living in the past. ANTHONY ALBANESE: …given up the ghost, going back to the old whiteboard we did a few weeks ago. He said oh, we can have other ways to get things through. That’s because there isn’t actually new infrastructure spending in the budget. KARL STEFANOVIC: What about Jacqui Lambie? Just on her, she’s bagged Tony Abbott for parading around – again, a quote from yesterday, bagging him for parading around his daughters around at the last election. Your thoughts on that? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I think Jacqui Lambie and all of us in Canberra should treat each other with the respect that all colleagues deserve KARL STEFANOVIC: Well, she’s not. She’s bagged him. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: He’s made no comment on that, and I think he’s right… KARL STEFANOVIC: He hasn’t met with her, has he? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: He’s right not to make a comment on that, and I hope that Senator Lambie will reflect when she takes her place in the Senate next week, that respect, mutual support, the obligation the public expect of us to look at every decision with objective eyes is the way to go. KARL STEFANOVIC: I love finishing on agreement. You’re going to agree with him, aren’t you? ANTHONY ALBANESE: I’m going to agree with him on that, but I think it’s a bit rich. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [Indistinct] ANTHONY ALBANESE: I think families should be off limits. We shouldn’t bag anyone's families, but for a member of the former opposition to talk about respect and we should respect each on other… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Got to stop living in the past. ANTHONY ALBANESE: …after the performance standing in front of those banners, the treatment of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, frankly, is a bit rich. KARL STEFANOVIC: You’re both ferocious in the Parliament and you’re teddy bears outside, and that’s why we love having you [indistinct]. [Laughter] KARL STEFANOVIC: Thanks for being with us. Appreciate it. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Loveable. KARL STEFANOVIC: I don’t know about that. [Laughter] ANTHONY ALBANESE: That’s why he avoids campuses. [ends]