Transcript from Two Chrisses ABC 891 21-04-081

Excerpts of “Two Chrisses”

21st April 2008, 10am (CST)

Journalist:

(Raises the 2020 summit, and the fact that if you criticise it you’re seen as not being welcoming of new ideas.)

Chris Schacht:

(Raises bipartisan nature of the Summit and the Joint Chairing of the regional committee by Tim Fischer, former National Party leader)

Christopher Pyne MP:

But let’s be honest about this C1 (Chris Schacht). There were clearly a few Liberals or conservatives that were invited to the Summit in order to give it some semblance of representation, but there were 118 out of 1000 delegates from the GetUp Organisation. 11.8% of delegates were from GetUp. Now as much as I think democracy is a great thing and the GetUp Organisation has a right to be active in that area, they’re not exactly a centre-right organisation, or even a centre organisation. So 118 people were from one organisation alone, and of course they had the richest man in Australia, there were billionaires, there were artists, they had people like Tim Fischer, Tim Costello, who’s a very good man, and people from the business community but, clearly this summit was jam-packed full of people who support the Labor agenda. This morning the headlines were “Summit endorses ALP agenda”: shock horror, how amazing. They got together some of the most left-wing people in Australia and incredibly they came up with a republic. Now I’m a republican, and Chris Schacht, you’re a republican, but amazingly the new idea from the summit was, ‘let’s have an Australian head of state’. Then we had higher taxes, and new taxes as well on junk food, so the health police can tell us what’s junk food and what’s not junk food. When I was Parliamentary Secretary for Health, cheese was regarded as junk food because it has a high fat content, so we’ll have higher taxes on cheese will we? And higher spending ideas, amazingly the artists section came up with a National Artist’s Endowment Fund, great new ideas – more spending, more taxes and a republic.

Schacht:

(Claims Senator George Brandis said on ABC radio that there were lots of good ideas and two shadow ministers are in disagreement)

Pyne:

I was talking to George Brandis and George also told me that he said the ideas from the summit would start being implemented in the second term of a Pyne Government in 2020 so I think he had his tongue firmly in his cheek.

Journalist:

Christopher Pyne, is it hard for you as a member of the Opposition to criticise this thing though, because you know if you’d come out criticising you’ll be bagged as negative?

Pyne:

Well that is a very good point, I know that when I get back to my office I’m going to have a slew of emails from very good, well intentioned people who’re accusing me of being negative, but isn’t this the whole point? The Opposition has been good about this Summit. Brendan Nelson and Opposition Leaders across the nation attended, that’s all fine, but if we can’t criticise the summit, aren’t we falling for exactly the same problem that these summiteers, identified during the Howard area – that they weren’t allowed to express their ideas because of political correctness? Now back in 1996 when we won office, one of the big criticisms of the Keating government was that if anyone said anything outside of the left or centre-left agenda they were accused of being not forward thinking, or living in the 50’s or whatever, and the public were thoroughly sick of it. This is what gave rise to the unfortunate Pauline Hanson phenomenon, people feeling left out, feeling like their ideas weren’t being considered. Now, sure, we’ve had a thousand hand picked Australians at a conference for two days in Parliament House in Canberra, where they were sitting on the floor with their legs crossed, eating out of a box, how fantastic, (as if) that’s never happened before, and we’re supposed to say ‘right, we’ve had all the consultation we need’ then endorse the ALP agenda.

Pyne:

People rang into this programme when this Summit was first suggested and said they’d like to be summiteers. I bet none of them were invited. Phil Coorey said there were “six average shmos” for every billionaire there. Well who were these so-called shmos? I imagine many of them would have been part of political organisations and activists. As Brendan Nelson said, he didn’t meet any small business people there, the head of the AMA wasn’t invited, and it’s a really good point. The AMA represents doctors all across Australia, but has had a public disagreement with the Minister for Health, and she wasn’t invited. So if you didn’t actually agree with the Government you didn’t get a guernsey.

Caller:

(Thinks Nelson needs to be tapped on the shoulder. As a Liberal he is upset to see Nelson at 2020 Summit. Describes it as a stage managed left-wing love in, and there is the Leader of the Opposition involved in it.)

Pyne:

I think that’s a bit harsh… Brendan is doing a difficult job in difficult circumstances in the Rudd honeymoon period where Mr Rudd can apparently do no wrong. It’s not a great time to be Leader of the Opposition, but someone has to do the job and I think Brendan’s doing a great job, stoically doing the work in this period. There’s no move to change the leadership but people have to understand that six months into this Government, we’re still in the honeymoon period. Brendan Nelson is doing a great job in very difficult circumstances, we just had this great sort of leftwing gymkhana on the weekend in Canberra, this jamboree of people gathering to endorse the Rudd agenda. I was delighted when I saw all the headlines in the press, the number of people who were finally sceptical about this great gymkhana in Canberra, even people describing it as the Great Dorothy Dix Question, Peter Hartcher from the Sydney Morning Herald. Finally the columnists were starting to write - when is the Rudd Government going to start governing - rather than this amazing spin cycle that, sure all the state premiers have gotten away with for the last 4 or 5 years, but when you’re actually running a trillion dollar economy and you’ve got to get on and make decisions.

Journalist:

(Receives a text message accusing Christopher Pyne of wanting his views to be heard but not considering other views)

Pyne:

No I don’t think that’s fair at all, I haven’t dismissed anybody’s views. I knew, however, that criticising the summit would lead people to say that I was being negative and not inclusive of everybody’s views.

Journalist/Schacht:

(Discussion about people who attended the Summit. Raises Hawke Tax Summit in the 1980’s.)

Pyne:

It was a summit that came up with one idea – a consumption tax – and it took until 2000 for a GST which is a consumption tax to finally be introduced which is because the Government didn’t like the idea. Keating liked it, Bob Hawke killed it off, so they had a summit just on tax and couldn’t get the idea up.

Journalist:

One of the interesting things that came out of this thing (2020 Summit) was a call for tax reform. Of course one of the things Martin Hamilton-Smith wants to do is have his own tax summit. Labor here in SA have said this is a waste of time it’s not practical, but that’s one of the things that came out of the National Summit.

Pyne:

One a serious note, you just said that the Summit called for tax reform. The Summit acted like there hadn’t been a twelve year Howard Government. The Howard Government brought about the most wide ranging tax reforms since the war by introducing the GST and abolishing a raft of state and federal government taxes, and the summit acted like there hadn’t been any period in between (the previous Labor and current Labor Governments). It was like the return of the ancien regime, you know after a period of exile. Also the Rudd Government led by Wayne Swan and Kevin Rudd keep saying how they’ve inherited this amazingly bad economy where they’re going to have to get it under control with a very tough and strict budget. My friends at the Summit over the weekend tell me that every speech began with “Australia’s in great shape, everything’s going really well, the economy is powering along, now’s the opportunity to get the dividend from all these amazing things that have happened”. Well the Rudd Government’s only bee in power for the last five months – what, has all this happened in five months?

Caller:

(Wonders how many working families and pensioners were at the Summit.)

Pyne:

How many self-funded retirees were at the Summit? I’m with Phil (Caller) about the representation at this Summit. Kevin Rudd is always talking about working families but self-funded retirees and pensioners in my electorate are doing it just as tough or tougher than working families. I wonder how many representatives of pensioners and self-funded retirees were there. I’m not talking about the heads of their representative organisations – what about the average shmo as Phil Coorey described them? How many of those people filled the numbers at the Summit? Sure John Hartigan was there, and Rob De Castella, and other famous people, and they’ve all got great things to contribute, but this was supposed to be a Summit of average Australians talking about how the country should be run.

Caller:

(Asks what does it mean when you say you’re a republican)

Pyne:

The caller raises an important point, and that is that a republic is hardly a first order issue… I’m a republican who believes that we should have an Australian head of state, but neither am I saying that the most important issue we’re facing right now is the republic. The most important issue facing South Australia right now is the Murray-Darling basin… I would not initiate any sort of debate on the republic at this stage. I would rather fix the Murray-Darling basin and Adelaide water, and stop people having to water their gardens with buckets than worrying about the Australian republic. That said, if somebody presented me with a referendum, then I would vote yes to a republic, the same way as I did last time.

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