Today Show

SUBJECTS: School Funding; COAG; Same sex marriage; NSW health cuts E&OE............................... Karl Stefanovic: Welcome back to the show, well the Federal Government is heading into a tough showdown with the States at COAG today with Julia Gillard facing a hard sell on her education reforms. Lisa Wilkinson: So joining us to discuss this and more is Transport Minister Anthony Albanese and Shadow Education Minister Christopher Pyne. Stefanovic: Welcome you two, you’ve been going at each other like cats and dogs already this morning, what’s going on? Hon Christopher Pyne MP: Well it’s nice that he showed up this morning. Stefanovic: Ooooh! Wilkinson: Early out of the blocks! Anthony Albanese MP: He begins with nastiness. Pyne: He was frightened last time. Albanese: He begins with nastiness. Pyne: He was scaredy cat. Stefanovic: It keeps coming. Albanese: We’re the nice party, I’m from. Pyne: He stayed home. Albanese: The nice party I’m from. He’s from the nasty negative party. He’s following Tony Abbott’s script, he’s now supposed to be nice and gentle. Pyne: Did you switch to Rudd or are you still with Julia? What’s happening? What’s happening on your side? Albanese: From a Turnbull man. Pyne: Malcolm’s a very talented man. I’m sure you can’t say that about your Prime Minister. Albanese: I certainly can. Wilkinson: Are you keeping score here Karl? Stefanovic: Who needs a need a script. Wilkinson: Three, two. Pyne: Last time he didn’t show up. He just sort of stayed in bed he was too scared to come on. Albanese: He’s so nasty this man. Pyne: Nice to have you here this morning. Karl: You accused him of being more in make-up here this morning. Albanese: He was, he was there for an hour. Pyne: I’ve got that Irish skin. Stefanovic: You got here at five. Pyne: I’ve got Irish skin, I can’t help where I come from. Albanese: You need more ethnics on TV, you’d need less makeup. Stefanovic: I’ll agree with you on that. Pyne: How much things have changed in Australia now, attacking the Celts. Wilkinson: Good to see you two arguing out the important issues. Albanese: We are with each other on this. Pyne: You’ve got lovely Mediterranean skin which I haven’t got. Wilksinson: Can you two stop admiring each other now trying to make up for it because we need to get onto one of the hottest issues of the week. Albanese: COAG. Pyne: Oh you want to talk about policy? Stefanovic: It’s too early for policy, it’s all about personality. Wilkinson: Education reform is what we’re talking about. COAG of course starts today. Anthony, are the states Gonski? Albanese: The states should sign up, what we have here is a great offer. Two dollars Commonwealth money for every dollar. Changing forever the sort of argy bargy that has gone on for year after year, decade after decade. This will put it on a sound footing on the basis of needs. Making sure there are no losers here, there’s just winners and bigger winners. Wilkinson: Well WA would tell you there’s losers. Albanese: They’re winners. Pyne: And South Australia and the ACT. Albanese: They’re all winners. Pyne: They’re all losers. Albanese: All of them get additional funding from what they have now and that’s, it’s a good deal. It’s a good deal for the States. Importantly it’s a good deal for students. Stefanovic: It’s not a good deal if you’re in WA though. Albanese: Well the fact is that WA.... Stefanovic: Are being penalised for being efficient. Albanese: No, no, they’ve invested in terms of schools and every student in WA will get more money as a result of this package. Pyne: It’s a smoke and mirrors trick. What the Federal Government is trying to do is cut $11 billion of education spending, to spend $9.4. Julia Gillard is actually cutting $1.6 billion over the next six years on education funding in Australia and they’re making the states pay it in new money into schools. So, if the states sign up to it they can have it but the bottom line is, it is a retrograde step because it will actually mean cuts to school education not more money for school education. Stefanovic: We’ll see how it all goes today. Let’s quickly move on. I want to talk to you about this story of New South Wales. The New South Wales Government believes today that it will lose something in the order of seventeen thousand beds if you don’t keep extending the funding to the various state hospitals and particularly emergency departments. Can you guarantee they won’t lose that funding? Albanese: Well it’s a nonsense story. New South Wales is getting 23% additional health funding, hospitals funding over the next four years. At the same time New South Wales has cut $4 billion from their health system. I mean they need to stop cutting as the Commonwealth increases our funding in places like health and education. They need to get on with the business of delivering services and stop the cuts that New South Wales has put into health and education. We’re seeing a forerunner of what might happen if Christopher ever gets to be Education Minister. We’ve just heard him argue against additional money. Pyne: You’re the one cutting education. Albanese: We’ve heard him arguing against additional funding and just make this stuff up. When you have Tory state governments cutting. The combination of, if Christopher does get to be Education Minister and Peter Dutton who people mightn’t know is the Shadow Health Minister ever gets to be Health Minister, you’d see cuts in both places. We’re putting in additional money. Wilkinson: Alright let’s leave that one there. We’ve got to get to gay marriage because it’s such an important issue for so many people. Barry O’Farrell has declared that the Coalition should allow a conscience vote on this. Chris surely that is reasonable and we can’t have New Zealand you know, being ahead of us in so many areas and this is one of them. Pyne: Well in this Parliament we went to the last election saying that we wouldn’t have a conscience vote on same sex marriage and our policy was to keep the Marriage Act as it was. There’s been a vote. It was roundly defeated. I think it was 2:1, the ballot. Now in the next Parliament we haven’t got a clear policy on a conscience vote. The party room will get to decide that, either before or just after the election and we might well end up with some recognition of same sex couples. Stefanovic: So you’re saying right now that there is a chance? Pyne: Oh yes definitely because… Stefanovic: There’s an appetite for it now so you think it’s safer with the public. Pyne: I’m not sure there’s an appetite for it. I think that a lot of people believe that recognising same sex couples, especially for the children of same sex couples and supporting commitment is a positive step. In this Parliament though we had a clear policy and we don’t believe, unlike Julia Gillard that you can constantly change, go to an election with one policy and then have a different one after. So the election is coming up, Tony Abbott’s made it clear that he hasn’t changed his mind about same sex marriage, but the party room could well decide between now and the election or just after the election that we’ll have a conscience vote on it. Stefanovic: Sounds like the door’s open. Albanese: Well good on Barry O’Farrell. It’s time to move on, on this issue. It’s time, if you’re serious about…what always strikes me is those people who say that they are strong supporters of the family that seem to be against people recognising that through a commitment. Wilkinson: Yeah. Albanese: I think it’s a simple issue. I don’t think, it won’t change the world. What it will do though is change the lives of couples who want to make a commitment to each other. Wilkinson: Significantly. Albanese: What’s wrong with that? Stefanovic: Good point to finish on. Thank you gentlemen for being reasonably civil. It may not be a gay marriage here, however…down the track … Albanese: Certainly not. Pyne: He’d be hard to live with though. Wilkinson: Thank you very much gentlemen. Albanese: How do you … I could go so many places. Pyne: What about our karaoke song? Stefanovic: Oh well, okay we’ll cut down Fordo’s time on the Buzz. But what’s your favourite karaoke song of all time, in light of Peter Garrett’s dancing and singing. Pyne: Well I saw Peter Garrett dancing beforehand so in my household we have SingStar and ABBA dominates because my four children are under 13 but if I ever get a choice it’s the anything from Glen Campbell Rhinestone Cowboy. Stefanovic: Oh dear! Wilkinson: I can just see you doing that. Anthony for you? Albanese: Well in the spirit of Peter Garrett, I think Wedding Cake Island by Midnight Oil cos there are no words, cos it’s in no one’s interest to hear me sing. Wilkinson: You can just do a bad dad dance and get away with it. Albanese: I’m a shocker. Stefanovic: Well done guys. Wilkinson: Thank you gentlemen appreciate it. ENDS.