Transcript - ABC Radio National - 17 Feb 2010

SUBJECTS:   IR reforms; Labor's broken promises; Unions; Opinion polls.

(greetings omitted)

Fran KELLY: Christopher Pyne, to you first, IR. Now IR was a vote-killer for the Coalition at the last election. WorkChoices killed off John Howard's Government. Why is your Leader, Tony Abbott, going for broke over IR this week?

Christopher PYNE: Because Industrial Relations will be another example at the next election of Labor's broken promises, Fran. If you were an aged care worker then you are facing a cut of $300 a week in your take home pay. If you are an hospitality worker, you are facing a cut of $3 an hour! If you are a small business person, you are facing your business potentially closing, especially after hours or on weekends because you won't be able to afford to pay the new hourly requirements under Labor's laws. Labor promised at the last election that no worker would be worse off and the unions would not get more power and the opposite has happened in all of those areas. They've got so many broken promises!

KELLY: Chris Bowen, there's no walking away from that, is there? Broken promises...it's the theme that keeps dogging the Rudd Government at the moment and Christopher Pyne just read a whole, long list of broken promises on IR...

Chris BOWEN: Well, Fran, I'm more than happy to have a list of our election promises met compared with any previous Government, most particularly the Howard Government. We have met election promise after election promise.

KELLY: Really? There's still a lot pending! Hospitals, the ETS...

BOWEN: ...there's a lot underway, there's a lot underway. The ETS, we went to the election with a promise to do that and the Opposition says ""isn't it terrible that the Government's not meeting its election promises?"" and then they try to block our election commitments in the Senate? So it hypocrisy was a crime, the Liberal Party would be doing time, Fran. I'm more than happy to talk about Industrial Relations and WorkChoices. On the day Tony Abbott became the Leader of the Liberal Party, he said ""the phrase 'WorkChoices' is dead"". What did that mean? The substance is alive and kicking. We've seen Tony Abbott very explicitly, Julie Bishop, our Shadow Ministers saying that the key elements of WorkChoices are still alive. Now you can't say ""the name WorkChoices is dead but the name's substance is still there"" and the fact is that WorkChoices had a deleterious impact on the working conditions of Australians. They voted on it and they've met a working commitment to tear it up.

KELLY: Christopher? Let's bring Christopher in here because I was talking to Michelle Gratten earlier and we were both still a bit confused as to what the Coalition's policy is, moving forward, on penalty rates. Julie Bishop seemed to say quite clearly early in the week that penalty rates need to be scrapped in some businesses. Joe Hockey said penalty rates need to stay. What is the policy?

PYNE: Well Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott have both made it absolutely clear that penalty rates are not an issue in the Coalition but we will release a full policy that details how to bring about flexibility in the workforce to increase productivity, growth and employment at the particular time before the election.

KELLY: ""Flexibility"", though, it's one of those words that just signals, in big flashing lights, ""some losers"", doesn't it? Flexibility means some people have to give up something?

PYNE: No, no. Chris Bowen talked about hypocrisy. The hypocrisy of Labor's position at the moment is that they claim the Liberal Party will bring back independent contracts, statutory contracts between employers and employees when in fact, the Government's independent statutory contracts between employers and employees, are still in place for years into the future. So Labor has not scrapped the central piece of the Coalition's previous policy, which was the ability between the employer and the employee to negotiate their own arrangements.

KELLY: There is a plan to phase that out though, isn't there?

PYNE: Well, if it's such a terrible thing...if it's such an evil, ghastly thing, why hasn't it been put down when Labor first had the chance? Now the truth is that Labor's policy has placed the union movement back in the centre of the action and that's why we're seeing an increase in strikes, massive increases in salaries like those in the north-west shore and western Australia that aren't being matched with productivity and Chris Bowen said we were blocking their policies in the Senate. In fact, we're trying to make them keep their election promises by not allowing them to means test the Private Health Insurance rebates, a promise they made at the election. They wouldn't touch Private Health Insurance one jot, or one tiddle and we're trying to make them keep their election promises.

KELLY: Well we all know about...

BOWEN: ...let us meet our election commitment which, by the way, was the same election commitment you went with and you walked away from...

KELLY: ...well it's ten to...

PYNE: ...Chris Bowen made the point in Parliament last week, Fran, that politicians weren't expected to keep their promises, only the general thrust of what they said at the election. They're his own words, in the Hansard.

BOWEN: And I was pointing out that we're making our commitments. I was pointing out that the number of commitments that we've met, which is very substantial and we're trying to implement...you're blocking us from implementing...

KELLY: ...okay, well we're...

PYNE: ...you were caught red-handed in the view of the Parliament... (inaudible) as Peter Garrett said, before the last election, ""when we get in, we'll change it all"".

KELLY: Chris Bowen, just before we move off from IR though, does Christopher Pyne...has he hit a nerve there for Labor over this theme of union movement back into the centre of the action? Could that be a trap for Labor? It looks like a gift, Tony Abbott leading on IR, could be a trap?

BOWEN: Well they tried this last time, Fran. You remember the grainy ads with pictures of us being dragged along a 2-D screen. We're all sinister union officials, we're all thugs. I was one and people who'd never worked for a trade union in their life had worked for one like Craig Emerson and Wayne Swan but it was a big, massive scare campaign at the last election. No doubt they'll try it again and I think people have judged this beforehand and they'll pass judgement on them again.

KELLY: Christopher Pyne, Tony Abbott, the polls are trending the Coalition's waved to some degree Tony Abbott's popularity is rising and Kevin Rudd's is falling. Is Tony Abbott enjoying a honeymoon here? Is that how you see this?

PYNE: Look, I think the Australian public would know Tony Abbott very well at this stage...and so I just don't think he'd follow a honeymoon period. He's not an unknown quantity in politics. I think that why Tony Abbott is a net positive in the polls at the moment is because he is seen to be a straight talking MP, who says what he means and means what he says. I think the difference between him and Kevin Rudd is that he is more probable in that respect and people to know where an MP stands! I think the era of spin is out and the era of...

BOWEN: ...you're in big trouble then, Chris. Your job is looking threatened if spin is over, mate.

PYNE: Well, you've always got to know how to change with the times, Chris, which might be a problem for you.

KELLY: Never mind the era of spin, what about the era of overstatement? Just to stay with Christopher Pyne for a second, do you worry that Tony Abbott might overstep the mark? His suggestion, for instance, this hand back of $240million to the TV networks for the TV licenses, is a bribe by the Government for positive election coverage? Now that's a bit over the top, isn't it?

PYNE: No, I don't. if there was a gold medal for hype and overstatement, then it goes to Kevin Rudd who has more ""first priorities"" than...

KELLY: ...do you think, then, that the Government was trying to bribe the networks?

PYNE: In the question of overstatement, I mean, Kevin Rudd was the one who said on twenty-two occasions that Climate Change was the ""greatest moral challenge of our time"". So great, that in the last two weeks of sittings, the number of questions of the Labor Party asked to themselves were ten out of a possible fifty-three. So the greatest moral challenge of our time was rather an overstatement. Don't forget that when the GST was introduced, it was going to be ""Fundamentally Injustice Day"" according to Kevin Rudd. So when talking about hype and overstatement, I think Kevin Rudd wins the gold medal on that occasion.

KELLY: Chris Bowen, I think we'd better let you get a word in there.

BOWEN: Well Tony Abbott likes to say he's a straight talker. I mean, he was straight talking when he said that Climate Change was a load of crap. That's just the sort of difference we see. Tony Abbott says one thing and then walks away but we also see him, as you pointed out, Fran, almost daily now, accusing the Government of some sort of criminal culpability on some issue or another. Whether it be insulation of commercial television or whatever it is! Now, Tony Abbot should, if he wants to be considered as a serious, alternative Prime Minister, remember that in politics and in public affairs, that what Leaders say is very important. He seems to talk before he thinks.

KELLY: Well, we've got to go but, just a point for you, Chris Bowen, has Tony Abbott taken a lesson out of Kevin Rudd's 2007 campaign book and he's throwing out a bit of policy here and there and quickly moving on so he's a moving target. Kevin Rudd's having trouble getting a read on him?

BOWEN: I wouldn't accept that, Fran, from Tony Abbott.

KELLY: I didn't think you would!

BOWEN: Tony Abbott is a very formidable political operator and I've previously said that you don't become a Leader of a major political operator in Australia without being a formidable political operator. He's also a very erratic, irresponsible Leader, who has very little understanding of the fundamentals of the biggest challenges facing us, which is the economy and we're more than happy to fight Tony Abbott at the next election because we have a good story to tell and he will be running, I have no doubt, baseless fear campaigns pretending that they're problems that can be fixed with no cost.

KELLY: Christopher Pyne, a quick final word from you?

PYNE: I think the issue today will be the Senate inquiry in Melbourne about the insulation...the pink batts scandal and Peter Garrett. That's not going to go away. We now have Steve Conroy, the ""Minister for Good Times"", the ""Minister for Mates"" and more! Allegations of seemingly inappropriate appointments. I think the Government's front bench is unravelling and the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd needs to step in, do something about the Minister for Environment and the Minister for Communication. That will be the issue of the day.

ends