Transcript - ABC 891 Two Chrisses - 3 Aug 2009

SUBJECTS:    Labor Candidate in Sturt; political donations      

(greetings omitted)

Bevan: Now Christopher Pyne, are you relieved that Mia Handshin, the candidate who reduced your seat to a mere shadow of its former self, to have a play on words, announced in the Sunday Mail that she is not going to contest the seat again despite the endorsement of Don Farrell and other heavyweight Party figures in South Australia?

Pyne: Well I think she announced it in the Australian on Saturday morning and then it was repeated in the Sunday Mail.  Look, I never comment on my opponent, as you know.  You've been asking me questions about my opponents for five and-a-half years and I steadfastly refuse to comment about ...

Bevan: ... she's not your opponent ...

Pyne: ... my former opponents.  I've had 6 former opponents and they've all been very worthy candidates and all of them did very well against me.

Schacht: ... they keep losing!

Pyne: ... and they didn't win.

Bevan: That's sort of a good thing, he likes ... the ones who lose seats against him.

Pyne: It's up to the Labor Party, who they choose as the candidate for Sturt, it's a matter for them.  It's really a matter for them who they choose.  The only thing I would say is that I think this whole ALP, having a conversation with themselves about dividing up the eastern suburbs seats to their personal favourites is very unedifying.  Watching, reading stories about how somebody's going to 'have' Norwood and somebody else is going to 'have' Hartley and there might be a swap between Hartley and Sturt.  Who's going to 'get' Sturt?  I mean, quite frankly, being the candidate and the Member for Sturt is about serving the 130-odd thousand people who live in the eastern and north-eastern suburbs.

Bevan: I had a phone call from Grace Portolesi on Saturday morning, when I was walking around a certain hardware store.  She said to me, 'David, I am not, and I am not interested in becoming a candidate for the seat of Sturt'.  So it's just not on the agenda of Grace Portelisi, State Member of Hartley, and that's what she's interested in doing and that's where she wants to stay.

Pyne: Well that's just going to the point that I was making.  I mean the...this sort of discussion within the ALP in the newspapers about who's going to get what seat is only a personal (unclear) that can be handed around to people...

Bevan: Well she is the Member for Hartley and she says 'I'm not involved any in those sorts of discussions'.

Pyne: That all seems to depend on which factional Godfather is looking after it at any particular point.  Getting elected is actually about getting the confidence of the voters in an electorate.   And I have been doing that for over 16 and-a-half years and I intend to continue to do that for Sturt and I think that it's unedifying to see this public display of ALP arrogance.  They're obviously so confident about winning all these seats that they've lost sight about (unclear).

Abraham: if his eyes roll any further back into his head he's going to fall of his seat!  ...Chris Schacht?

Schacht: Well first of all, we just heard what Chris Pyne would say, wouldn't he?  Obviously greatly relieved in one sense, that Mia is not running.  I said on this program five or six weeks ago that basically the seat was not a long-term Labor seat on the present boundaries.  That we might fluke winning it once but you wouldn't hold it.  That's still my view on the present boundaries and I've lived in the Sturt electorate for all but about six years, when we were actually, where I lived in Mayo for a while, in Sturt.  I've been through every type of campaign in Sturt and I was there when we won it in '69 and I was there when we lost it in '72 and we haven't won it since.

Abraham: You'd argue that Mia Handshin is of the calibre that you'd want to find a good safe seat first...

Schacht: As I said here on this program and I'll say it again - Mia Handshin is one of the brightest young people that we have coming into the Labor Party by any definition, that's why she did so well in Sturt.  She still couldn't win, through no fault of her own, even though there was a swing nationally to us in South Australia.  My views as I said it there, and I'll admit it here, I've talked to ... Grace Portolesi rang me this morning to again declare that she had never discussed it with anyone.

Abraham: Grace is doing a lot of protesting...

Schacht: ... no.  No.

Pyne: ... she was Friday, Saturday and Sunday ...

Schacht: ... and why would the Labor Party let her give up the marginal seat of Hartley and risk losing that at the next State election, to run in Sturt, that we wouldn't probably win?  That is a fundamental political issue someone wants to float a name for malicious or whatever ...

Abraham: ...I (unclear) it was Annette Hurley, one of the dumbest factional moves in the recent history of the Labor Party.

Schacht: ...but hang on!  She went from a safe seat ...

Pyne: ...very arrogant of the Labor Party ...

Schacht: ...she went from a safe seat, which we still won.  What I'm saying is ... Grace Portolesi ... no, no, no, no, no, there's a difference between going from a safe seat when someone else wants to run for it than running for a marginal seat where you've just won ...

Pyne: ...you're constantly talking about internal Labor Party matters, the east and the north-east suburbs ...

Schacht: ... your party has been through brawls in the paper, over preselection, the coming Senate election etc, etc.  No party's got a monopoly on being pure about internal discussions.  Highly, as I said midyear I had a discussion with Mia yesterday where I again said to her, after reading the paper on Saturday and Sunday, your best decision, she said her long-term future is in the Labor Party and she's in a position where she can make a major contribution by being a long-term Member of Parliament, State or Federal.  Not, maybe, winning one term and then being tossed out.

Abraham: John from Port Pirie...has rung again, and I think...John, this morning you __ keep people to a promise

Caller John: Yeah, I rang a couple of weeks ago about the Centrelink youth article about rolling all of the allowances and allotments into one, and making it appear to be a new pay rise.  Christopher was going to talk to Tony Abbott and the other Chris was going to Jennifer...

Pyne: ... Jenny Macklin ...

Bevan: ... we, as a program, put a request into Minister Jenny Macklin's office, and we have yet to hear back from them so we will renew that, but ... yes, we've asked her to come on talkback with us.

Schacht: Whether or not it's any advantage, I'll also say that they can use my name and ask her to come on...

Abraham: Do you think that'll help?  That might be a mistake!

Schacht: It would be a mistake to not turn up at all!

Abraham:  Chris Pyne, has Tony Abbott been too busy launching his book and maybe positioning himself for a leadership run?

Pyne: Well I'm not absolutely...the actual figures...the information that Centrelink gave us is that the figures that were promised to the individual pension holders is what they will be receiving.  They have rolled into one payment, a number of different smaller payments, which has confused some people - this is what Centrelink's told me - has confused some people because they feel like they're missing out on a particular aspect of payments they were receiving when in actual fact is rolled them all into one.  Now, if in that process you've missed out, the Centrelink says it might be because your income has changed, or assets have changed.  Now I think that's unlikely.  What I suggest John does, and he lives in Salisbury, is that right?  Port Pirie.  I think he should contact his local Federal Member, who would be Rowan Ramsey, and Rowan Ramsey will be about to take his personal issues up with Centrelink.  It's hard for us to do on the radio, but Jim will answer it, Centrelink have taken a number of payments and made one, and that is causing a lot of confusion amongst some pensioners who feel they've had something taken away, but what John should do is approach Rowan Ramsey ...

Abraham: ...have you taken it up with Tony Abbott?

Pyne: I've spoken to Tony Abbott about it and that's what he's told me.

Abraham: To chase it up with your local MP?

Pyne: No.  They've folded a number of payments into one, and that that has caused a lot of confusion for a lot of constituents across the country.

Abraham: So they fold them, roll them and fold them again?

Pyne: In that rolling and folding, they might well have found that they missed out on something and in that case, on an individual basis, his Federal Member, who has a direct link into Centrelink, direct person who deals with the Federal Member should be able to help him if he goes through his individual circumstances.

Bevan: Chris Schacht, the mad Kelt...and I must be one of the few people Mia hasn't spoken to...Mia Handshin, you're saying she's still got a future in the Labor Party?

Schacht: Well I certainly hope she has. 

Bevan: Sturt?  But not Sturt?  Sturt's out now...

Schacht: Well...

Pyne: You're nodding.  Is that a yes?

Schacht: Well...she said she's not running.  I said three or four weeks ago that it wasn't a...if you wanted a long-term career in politics, be a Member of Parliament.  For the Labor Party Sturt on its present boundaries and is nothing to do with the calibre of Chris Pyne.  It is to do with the boundaries.  It is just not a Labor long-term electorate.  No, it's a fact of life.  If you dropped out, as I said before, if you dropped out on a redistribution, all areas in Sturt south of The Parade, it'd be marginal Labor-held seat, where she'd be a good chance.  While it's got all that area south of The Parade, in the electorate, which votes 21% Labor year-in, year-out, it's hard for Labor to win and hold it for...that's been proven.

Bevan: This is the Two Chrisses - Christopher Pyne and Christopher Schacht...  Now one of the things we've been discussing on the program this morning is the decision by Anna Bligh, the Queensland Premier, to ban her MPs from attending intimate Party fundraisers with businesspeople.  Now this is commonplace for both the Liberal Party and the Labor Party at a State level, right across the country including South Australia.  The South Australian Labor Party has been particularly successful at doing this sort of thing - they've raised many hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last few years by selling tickets to dinners where you are promised access to Senior Ministers and sometimes even the Premier, but you've got to pay the dime.  Now, Chris Schacht, your view on this, and is Anna Bligh doing the right thing by banning these sorts of dinners?

Schacht: Well I can't speak about the internal ins and outs of what's happened in Queensland or what I've read in the press, but it does seem things have got a bit out of hand in Queensland where the issue that came up last week about a "success fee" being paid to a consultant for $1million for a company to change its superannuation administration or advice etcetera.  I think success fees are really very problematic.  I think if you employ a lobbyist or a consultant with any sort of background, doesn't matter what sort of background, non-political...I'd always be not interested in a success fee.  I think you always should be paid for the labour you put in...

Abraham: ...because you worked as a lobbyist...

Schacht: ...well I'm registered at the Federal level for one company and I don't get paid a success fee.  I've been paid now, for several years, a monthly retainer irrespective of the success of the company.

Abraham: Right, and you have to submit a list to the company, of who you're working for?  So things that you've done (unclear) that retainer?  What's the company?

Schacht: Absolutely.  The company's listed on the Federal Lobby List.  It's called Pilates Australia.  It's a manufacturer of aeroplanes that are sold to the Australian Air Force as trainers.  To the Royal Flying Doctors, to Police Forces and to the corporate sector around Australia.

Bevan: So if you are successful in a Government, State or Federal, to buy one of these planes, you don't get a success fee?

Schacht: No.  From the very beginning I refused to have anything to do with success fees...

Bevan: ...why?

Schacht: ...I think it just doesn't recognize the labour you've put in, the work you've put in irrespective and I think it's the wrong way to go.  I think you should be paid for the labour you've put in, the work that you've put in as part of the work for the company.

Abraham: But the suggestion coming out of Queensland is that there seems to be something wrong with success fees...

Schacht: ...well I, personally...I've never been in favour of success fees.  And when I've been paid, and I've only been paid by about three companies in 7 years since I've left Parliament.  It's never been as a 'success fee', it's for the work I've done irrespective of the result.

Bevan: Christopher Pyne...two issues there.  One - is banning these dinners, where businesspeople pay big bucks to sit at a table with a Senior Minister or the Premier.  The other - is these success fees.

Pyne: Well I don't really have any knowledge of success fees.  As I've been in Parliament for 16 and-a-half years it's something that's quite alien to me.  I'm on the record, many years ago I fact, saying that I think all political donations from business and from the Union movement, so I have absolutely no difficulty at all with banning political donations.  I believe that public funding of election campaigns is the way to go, as we have done that at the Federal level...it could be extended.  If you don't have enough money because of the public funding, well then you cut your campaign to suit the clock, as they say.

Bevan: ...but you've hosted $1000 a head dinners for John Howard...when he was Prime Minister...

Pyne: ...the problem with that is the Labor Party wants to say out of one side of the mouth "yes, we all think this is absolutely terrible.  We've got to do something about it", while last weekend they were charging businesspeople $110 000 a head for packages at their conference!  So they're raking in as much money as they possibly can, while also saying "this is all so terrible!".  There was a story in the newspaper about $110 000 packages...

Schacht: ...I think it was $7 thousand...

Pyne: ...anyway, whatever they're...don't interrupt me, I didn't interrupt you.  Hang on, I can give you countless examples of the Labor Party booked the entire Great Hall of the Parliament last Budget, and booked out the entire thing and boasted about making $1 million from business that night.  Now they want to rake in as much money as they can and also say "these political donations, they need to be reformed".  The real reform...

Abraham: ...how do they book something that does not belong to them?

Pyne: ...access.  The real reform here...the rules allow this to go on.  Of course, Christine Morris was absolutely right.  A businessperson, and his secretary or her secretary might ring my office when I was Minister and says "we'd like to see Christopher Pyne fore thirty minutes to talk about Aged Care", I wouldn't even know if they'd paid the Liberal Party a dollar.  I would say "of course you can come and see me, I'm the Minister, you're an Aged Care Provider, a charity or whatever".

Abraham: ...you'd start (unclear).

Pyne: No, wouldn't have the faintest idea.  There's a conspiracy theory going on here. 

Bevan: ...let's just say though, you knew that somebody had kicked in $100 000 to your campaign - a lot - I'm using this as an example...

Pyne: ...it never has, by the way...

Bevan: ...let's just say that you knew somebody had donated a significant amount of money to your campaign and they were a businessperson.  Would they get priority?

Pyne: I would give them the very same access that I would give anybody.

Bevan: So if they rang up and said "look, can you put me through.  It's Fred Bloggs here, can you put me through, Chris knows me, dadadada!  I know he's busy but does he have time to take my call?" as opposed to, you know, the local Women's....I don't know.

Pyne: Look, if it's my job to speak to somebody and as either the local Member or as a former Minister or now as a Shadow Minister, then I will see them or speak to them.

Abraham: So these people are dumb!  Paying money to see...because they're paying money to listen to...

Pyne: ...well I wouldn't pay it.  The overall point here is not...the Labor Party is trying to make us all about business donations.  But there's no talk about the Union movements...hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars in donations to the Labor Party.  If you're going to ban donations, ban them all!  Don't just say "well the business community's bad, they buy access" but if you're saying the Union movement has been giving hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars to the Labor Party for decades.  If you're gonna do it, do it to both!  Either individuals donate or...I'm quite passionate about it.

Abraham: I know that, no kidding!

Schacht: ...irrespective of the relation between...which people can criticise or not, the Trade Unions to the Labor Party, Unions can affiliate and become full members of the Labor Party by their...by taking a decision to join.  To affiliate to the Labor Party and pay a fee per member, per year to the Labor Party to be able to send delegates to the ALP State Conferences...hang on, I'm just saying that if they choose to pay the money to affiliate...whereas business do not affiliate to the Liberal Party.  There's an organic connection.  Some people want to change that even in the Labor Party...

Pyne: ...what the Labor Party want to do, essentially, is to create a One-Party State where the Union movement continue to give millions of dollars.  Last election, the Union movement itself spent over $30 million...business...not allowed to be given that?

Abraham: In the old days, who knew what about the workers?  The Labor Party.  As for the Liberal Party, you call it business.  You couldn't argue that the Labor Party in this state is anti-business.

Pyne: I'm not saying that at all!  What I'm saying is that Labor, if you think about what you're arguing, is Labor gets to ban business donations and individual donations, and not Union donations, right?  There'd be no money gong to their opposition.  No money, because the Unions don't give the Liberal Party any money, but the Labor Party will continue to get hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Union movement, effectively creating a One-Party State!

Abraham: Getting back to the dinners, my point is, aren't Governments selling something that doesn't belong to them?  Political parties are selling something that doesn't belong to them?  Because if you're a Government Minister, you're an employee of the Crown.  Any information you have, any secrets you may have, any decisions you may make, you make on behalf of the people.  Not your political party.  The money you get from these dinners doesn't go to the taxpayer, it goes to a political party.  So my question is, aren't you, as a matter of principal, selling something you don't own?

Schacht: Well let me just say, on that same principal, to stretch it out as a member of either political party, Labor or Liberal, and paying your $50 or $100 or whatever it is to be a Branch Member gets you a better position because you go to a branch meeting and the local Member turns up!  In this case, the Liberal Party, Chris Pyne!  And then that Member of the Liberal Party gets a better chance to talk to their local Liberal Member than anyone...

Abraham: The difference there, Chris Schacht, is that person is a Member of that...

Schacht: ...what I'm saying, as far as access is concerned.  The fundamental issue as Chris Wallace raised today, you're gonna go back and look at the cost of elections...

Pyne: ...the more you raise, the more you'll spend...

Schacht: ...so in the early '90s, Nick Bolkous, as Minister for the Electoral Act, and I was Chairman of a Select Committee in the Senate on it.  We put up a Bill that went through to limit...ban payment of political advertising on television and radio.  There were two elections held in Australia - Tasmania and one in the ACT under those rules and everyone said it was a good outcome.  Money was saved, but the Liberal Party and its business supporters and the television stations went to the High Court and in an astonishing decision, the High Court said, and implied Freedom of Speech here, therefore knocked the legislation out and so we're still on this treadmill...tens of millions of dollars of television...

Abraham: ...we'll quickly go to Vincent from Unley.  Good morning, Vincent.

Caller Vincent: Good morning, everyone.  I want you to read the fact that almost certainly when businesses make a donation wether it's a direct donation or buying a place at a dinner table, will be claiming that as a tax deductible contribution.  A tax-deductible payment.  So when the tax (unclear) in some shape or form, but the other side of that is, in order to claim a tax deduction, the business has to show some benefit.   Otherwise, why would they lay that out as a business expense?  And then the servicing is just tying it to the shareholders as well. 

Abraham: We'll put that point to Chris Pyne and Chris Schacht.

Pyne: What they have to show to get a tax deduction or to get tax back, is that it was an expense in the course of doing their business...

Bevan: ...you get a benefit for it...

Pyne: ...doesn't mean you got any kind of particular benefit out of it.

Bevan: Then why would you waste your time?

Pyne: That's the matter for the businessperson to make the decision and for the shareholder when they vote.  Same with the Union movement, what I'm...in this debate...I've been pure about it.  I say ban all the donations.  Now individuals...there's a democratic process there and the High Court has already found that you can't actually stop individuals from donating because that's their personal choice, associations, incorporated bodies, and corporations you could ban them tomorrow and they would all be out and if there was less money for election campaigns I don't think the voter would complain.

NEWS

Abraham: Chris Schacht in closing on this question of donations

Schacht: Well I'm not against banning donations but you'd have to put a very strong limit on what even an individual could put in and up to $10,000 should be the absolute maximum any individual can put in if you're going to be fair dinkum, but the real issue is how do you control the expenditure on the election campaign which per capita in Australia is now higher than the per capita in the United States Presidential Election, we've got to deal with that issue.

Pyne: I support banning political donations from business and unions. I believe that individuals should be allowed to continue to exercise their democratic right to support a particular political party or individual... with a limit, I'm quite happy to have a limit and if there is a diminution in spending at election time I don't think the voters will be complaining.

ENDS