Transcript - ABC News 24 - 18 November 2010

SUBJECTS: Parliament; NBN; BER costings motion; Bandt motion

Chris Uhlmann: Christopher Pyne, good morning.

Christopher Pyne: Good morning, Chris.

Uhlmann: Have you got the handle of this new set of rules in Parliament House? The Government says you've made two large mistakes in the last two sittings.

Pyne: Well, the Government would say that.  I don't really take their assessment of the Opposition's performance very seriously. We say they're completely hopeless, totally rudderless, without any vision, they have no agenda and no plan. And that seems to be being borne out by the left faction meeting last night; the comments of John Faulkner when he said they were long on cunning and short on courage; Doug Cameron said they were like lobotomised zombies. Paul Howes seems to be running the agenda of the Labor Party from outside the parliamentary party, whether it's on issues like gay marriage or carbon taxes. So that's my assessment of them. I don't really take their assessment of me very seriously.

Uhlmann: But when it comes to deciding these things the independents seem to vote with them, as they did this morning, with the Government.  When you were trying to get this morning more things decided on in the house the independents saw it a different way.

Pyne: Look, this morning was a little bit messy because the selection committee doesn't have clear lines of power about what it can require the government to do. And this is a faulty area that needs to be addressed because the selection committee met this week and said there should be votes on five particular matters. The Opposition's very clear understanding was that that would be on Thursday. The minutes of the selection committee are vague. The letter from the secretary of the committee is vague. Mr Albanese's view is completely opposite to mine. And the vote was tied 72 all which I think highlights the fact that it wasn't a very clear view either way, but the selection committee should not just have the power to recommend votes, it needs the power to say they should be at a particular time in the parliamentary week.

Uhlmann: But to cut through all this, it seems whenever there is an important vote the independents go with the Government.

Pyne: The independents are mostly voting with the Government, that's true. And so the excuse that the Government has tried to use that they're never going to be able to get anything done is not a valid excuse. We knew it was an excuse at the time. The truth is they are winning most of the votes because the independents are voting with them almost all of the time. They vote with us rarely, but sometimes on important issues like youth allowance being extended to inner regional students, but by and large the Government should be able to get on with its agenda.

Uhlmann: And the thought that some on your side had, that this might all fall apart sooner rather than later, would seem to be a vain hope because it looks like they will hold together for three years.

Pyne: It's in the independent's interest for the Government to hold together because they plumbed with supporting Labor. They want the Government to succeed because of that. Obviously the Government wants to avoid an election. It doesn't mean the Government won't fall apart though. They are really starting to look like the New South Wales Labor Party and their performance and capacity is very much in question. The maladministration in programs like home insulation, school halls, green loans and solar panels is now being extended into the National Broadband Network. For example they need four to five thousand households a day for the next seven years being linked up to the NBN for it to succeed. Now, they couldn't put pink batts in the roofs of houses so I think they're going to find it very difficult to role out the NBN.

Uhlmann: But again you need to get the independents at some stage to come on side with some of the scrutiny that you want to see, and now the independents appear to be happy just to see this business plan of the NBN by themselves and not have it in the public domain.

Pyne: Well the Senate has passed a resolution to make the business case be released. The independents in the lower house believe the business case should be released. The Government not releasing it is extremely arrogant, and the only reason they wouldn't be releasing it is obviously it shows that the NBN has warts all over it. Now if the NBN is such a great idea, why haven't they released it.

Uhlmann: There's another motion that got up this morning about the Building the Education Revolution in the Senate, along with the NBN motion that calls on the Government to produce information. Is it any more likely that they'll produce that than they would produce the NBN documents?

Pyne: Well the Senate passed a resolution today insisting the Government release all the costings for each school that have had a Building the Education Programme. Of course during the election, Julia Gillard promised that she would do just that. The Orgill Taskforce, one of their recommendations was that the costings be released - the Government hasn't released them, so the Senate today has passed a resolution insisting that that happened. Now the Government actually needs to start responding to the Parliament. We don't want to get into a situation were the Executive has decided that the Parliament no longer matters. I mean this is a Westminster democracy; it is not one of the countries that abrogates Parliament and rules from an executive fiat.

Uhlmann: But in the end there is nothing that forces the Government to release those documents?

Pyne: No, and if they don't release those documents, the only takeout the public can have is that it is a Government that doesn't believe in transparency, it's a Government that is running from accountability, it is a Government without an agenda and a plan and when they do have an idea it is so bad they don't anyone to know how bad it is. That's why they wont release the business case for the NBN, because obviously it shows the thing is covered with warts.

Uhlmann: Now among the things the House did this morning was pass the Bandt motion in gay marriage. In the end it was very watered down, it simply asked that MPs go out and ask their constituents about the possibility of gay marriage and yet the Opposition opposed it. Why would you oppose something that just says you should talk to your constituents?

Pyne: Because it was a trite motion Chris. I mean I've been in Parliament for seventeen and a half years. I speak to my constituents for a living. It's what I do every day. I don't need a new Member of Parliament arriving and a few weeks later trying to get a motion passed insisting that I do the job I'm already doing for 365 days of the year for the last seventeen years. I found that extraordinarily presumptuous. The motion was so pathetic, and as you say "watered-down", that it was just in the end a stunt, and in my view we should have debate about civil unions, we should have a debate about same-sex couples, but that wasn't going to be achieved by Mr Bandt's motion today.

Uhlmann: Do you think that in the end you're making a statement about gay marriage itself, that you are defining yourself on this motion if you will if a Bill ever comes before the House. Because of course outside of this place, many people will see this day as a vote for gay marriage by the Labor Party and the Greens and a vote against it by the Coalition.

Pyne: Well the Labor Party has supported gay marriage today that's true, and they are having a national conference on gay marriage next year, so that's fine for them to come that position if they wish to do so. My view is that, and I think many peoples' view in the Coalition is that while the public is very ready for the motion of civil unions, they are not ready for the religious concept of marriage to be adopted by non-different sex couples.

Uhlmann: Christopher Pyne we'll leave it there, thank you.

Pyne: Pleasure, thank you.

ENDS