Transcript - Today on Sunday - 9 August 2009

SUBJECTS: Malcolm Turnbull; ETS; debt and deficit

Laurie Oakes:

Mr Pyne welcome to the program.

Hon Christopher Pyne MP:

Good morning Laurie, good to be here.

Oakes:

Well as usual the Liberals woke this morning to more cheery leadership headlines, the Sunday Telegraph for example says ""party crashes line up, to oust Turnbull on Tuesday"", must be pretty demoralising?

Pyne:

Look, Laurie, there are two kinds of people in opposition, there are people who want to hold the government accountable, want to work on policy and who want to get back into government at the next election and then there are people who I think find that too difficult and would rather play the parlour game in the over heated atmosphere of Canberra called 'leadership revolving doors'. I can tell you that 99% of the party room are 100% behind Malcolm Turnbull. There are always two or three people who swim in a different direction, and those people can do a lot of damage as we've seen they are doing. But at the end of the day Malcolm Turnbull will lead us to the next election. The leadership team is 100% behind him, as is the party room, and as that becomes more apparent as the weeks progress, I think those people will lose interest and certainly peer group pressure will bring them to book in my view.

Oakes:

Well if the Liberals I've been talking to who are disillusioned with Malcolm Turnbull only 1% of your party ring me, you must have a massive number of MPs?

Pyne:

Well Laurie you have a lot of contacts of course. But I think at the end of the day there is a small coterie of people. The overwhelming majority of people in the party room support Malcolm Turnbull and just want us to get on with the job of holding Labor accountable. That's our job in opposition. Those people who are anonymously backgrounding against Malcolm Turnbull are really backgrounding against all the marginal seat holders who will lose their seats if they don't stop their very damaging activities. And that is where peer group pressure in the spring session will be borne on to those people and I think we will find, even though opposition are dog days, opposition is an important part of the political process and that will become much more apparent as the weeks progress and leadership speculation and unfortunate disunity will in my view disappear.

Oakes:

Is Malcolm Turnbull surviving just because no-one else will put up their hand?

Pyne:

Well Malcolm Turnbull is surviving because he has a track record of success, as a business person and as a committed Australian to causes. He's surviving because he's very intelligent, he's articulate, he is very capable and he's easily the best person in the opposition to lead us to the next election. That is obvious to me and I think obvious to most of my colleagues. That's why he's leading the party and why he will lead us to the next election.

Oakes:

Do you have a leadership baton in your knapsack?

Pyne:

Laurie I remember a time when you asked Peter Reith that question many years ago and it dogged him for the rest of his political life. I can assure you that I can categorically state that I certainly won't be challenging anybody for the leadership between now and the next election. The job that I want to do is the job that I have now and do it well and I have no ambitions beyond being the member for Sturt, the manager of opposition business and shadow minister for education.

Oakes:

Well I have a lot of other names being mentioned. Andrew Robb is being mentioned as the last man standing. I saw one newspaper the other day suggesting that Barnaby Joyce might be a Liberal leadership possibility now the Libs and Nats have merged in Queensland, how would he go?

Pyne:

I think Barnaby Joyce is very happy as the leader of the Nationals in the Senate. We have a leader. We're 100% behind him. He will lead us to the next election and damaging speculation to the contrary is only hurting the members in marginal seats and the number three people on the Senate ticket and those people who are doing it are doing themselves no favours at all.

Oakes:

The last news poll was disastrous for Malcolm Turnbull. He was down to 16% as preferred Prime Minister, you have got another news poll on Tuesday morning, the morning of the next party meeting. How bad will that be, and if it is really bad, will that destabilise him further?

Pyne:

Look, I think we have to assume Laurie that the news poll on Tuesday will be very bad, the last two weeks...

Oakes:

Single digits?

Pyne:

Well, who was to know what it will be. But the last two weeks have seen the media full of constant unfortunate speculation, not the issues that the opposition would like to see being debated and quite frankly the issues that the Australian public would like to see being debated about debt, and deficit, and interest rates, jobs, taxes. They are the things that people actually care about. I think the Australian public is really turned off politics, it's about constant leadership speculation or other issues. They want the people in Canberra, their politicians to get on with the job of making this country great again, fixing the economy, making sure their jobs are secure. Whatever the news poll is on Tuesday is quite frankly irrelevant. We all know it's going to be bad because the media have been full of the different issues that the public are not interested in. But we will move on, the only poll that counts is the poll on election day, and Malcolm Turnbull as you've written yourself, is a tenacious character, he is not a quitter, he is a fighter and the Australian public really appreciate that in their leadership.

Oakes:

I think that's true, but he's not getting much help from some of his colleagues. For example, Wilson Tuckey this morning is saying that he will tell Mr Turnbull to his face at the party meeting that his performance over emissions trading scheme demonstrates both his arrogance and inexperience. That will be a big help, won't it?

Pyne:

Well, Wilson is an acquired taste Laurie as I think you know. One thing you can say about Wilson is at least he says what he means and he says it publicly rather than anonymously behind columns in Parliament House. He is a person with experience and much wisdom. I like Wilson Tuckey. I've worked with him for 16 and a half years. He is entitled to his view. His view isn't shared by the majority of the party room. Wilson is not the spokesman for the Liberal Party, he is an individual member of the party room. He is quite entitled to say what he wishes to say inside the party room, but he does not speak for the Liberal Party. Malcolm Turnbull speaks for the Liberal Party. He is the leader and he will continue to be a leader. He is the one the Liberal Party fears the most, the reason why the Labour Party keep stoking these issues is because Malcolm Turnbull is the leader that labour fears the most.

Oakes:

Well forgive me a little smile there in the last couple of weeks, but you will agree that the emissions trading scheme issue will be a major test for Mr Turnbull?

Pyne:

Well, we have made it very clear that we have nine principles that we've offered to the government as a negotiating position to discuss how to make their flawed emissions trading scheme better. Their own people have described their ETS as a dog of a policy. It's a friendless policy - the Greens don't support it, business doesn't support it, the opposition doesn't support it. We've given them nine suggestions about how to improve the bill and if they consider those in good faith as we are showing, we will see how it turns out. If they arrogantly reject those principles, if they arrogantly say we don't need any help, we know best about everything, which seems to be becoming their position, then the opposition will have no choice but to vote it down on Thursday.

Oakes:

Can Mr Turnbull's fragile leadership stand a party room rebuff on ETS?

Pyne:

There hasn't been any kind of rebuff and there won't be any. Our position is clear. We think the emissions trading scheme is flawed. We made nine suggestions about how to improve it, we think it should be delayed. If the government in good faith sits down and negotiates with us, we will be quite prepared to talk to them about how to make their system better. Because actually we want to protect jobs, we want to reduce debt, reduce deficit, protect jobs. Now, their ETS won't do any of those things, it will export jobs and ironically export emissions.

Oakes:

The government will clearly ignore the nine points that were approved in that Shadow Cabinet hook up, the bill will go to the Senate on Thursday, in its present form, does that mean the opposition will definitely vote it down in the Senate?

Pyne:

If the government is not fair dinkum about discussing principles for improvement of the emissions trading scheme, then on Thursday they will leave us with no choice but to vote it down, and we will vote it down on Thursday.

Oakes:

So what happens then, when it comes back in November, will you vote it down again then and risk a double dissolution?

Pyne:

Well, the only people who are talking about a double dissolution are the government. And the reason why they want a double dissolution...

Oakes:

That's not true. A lot of Liberals are talking about it and they are worried about it, and Tony Abbott has made that pretty clear publicly.

Pyne:

Well I'm not the least bit worried about a double dissolution election. I mean when you're in opposition the earlier election you have, the earlier chance you have of getting back to government, which is what we want to be able to do. So double dissolutions, the only reason the government wants a double dissolution is because they don't want to be forced to have another budget next May. They don't want to go through next year and have their porosity of economic skill on display for the entire Australian public, so they want to run scared for an early election and try to get it out of the way as quickly as they can, that is obvious to me. Now in terms of November, why would the government bring the emissions trading scheme back in November when Copenhagen is in December, when the US legislation may or may not be passed in November, and whatever happens in Copenhagen in December, if the bill has gone through in November, we will have to amend it again in February, so the only reason the government could bring the emissions trading scheme back in November for a vote would be because they want a double dissolution, yet again playing politics with people's jobs rather than worrying about what is good for Australia in the medium and long-term.

Oakes:

I'm interested though, you think the government is running scared of someone who you think might be down to single figures in a poll next Tuesday. Can I ask you, do you really believe that Malcolm Turnbull will have rebuilt his leadership standing and his popularity to a position where he can win an election next March?

Pyne:

Laurie I think that polls are a snap shot of people's thinking at a particular point in time. I actually don't believe that at election time the voters sit down and think, Malcolm Turnbull, whatever the percentage he is in News poll indicates what we think of him. When I'm out and about in my electorate in the last 6 or 7 weeks here in the break, I can tell you that people like Malcolm Turnbull, in my electorate. People think he's got the character and the capacity to be a great Prime Minister. If Labor has an election, I think they will get a very rude surprise from the public on election day and I'm not in the least bit concerned about passing opinion polls that indicate someone's transient popularity.

Oakes:

Before Mr Turnbull stepped into the trap that Godwin Gretch had set for Kevin Rudd, the coalition seemed to be getting some traction on the issues of deficit and debt, how do you get back to that?

Pyne:

Well obviously the most important issues facing Australians are jobs, and debt and deficit has a very important impact on whether people will keep their jobs and whether the economy will go well, I think the Australian public know that when this government took over the economy was travelling well. Debt was non-existent, deficit not existent, there was a surplus, the unemployment situation was positive and as a consequence of this government's mismanagement of the economy we are now in a position where people are not nearly as secure as they were and we are saddled with an enormous debt and deficit. They are the issues that the public wants us to fix. They want us to be talking about things that in their living room they're worried about, this week when Parliament returns we will focus again on the issue of jobs, and debt and deficit. Tomorrow we will release the findings of a study that we have done, which by frontier economics which will indicate that the government needs to seriously rethink its emissions trading scheme. I believe that the emissions trading scheme is about jobs: jobs not being exported. Sure we want to reduce our emissions, we want to have a better climate, we don't want to just export our emissions so this week we will get back viscerally on to the issue of jobs, debt and deficit.

Oakes:

But you're talking about a private consultancy, the Reserve Bank has changed its economic forecast for 2009 from sharp contraction to modest growth for Australia, now no other country in the world is in that position, surely that helps the government and makes it very hard for you to attack them on economic policy?

Pyne:

I think the public in fact are quite concerned that this government seems to swing from fighting inflation dragons early last year to spending like drunken sailors at the end of last year, fighting inflation at the beginning of last year, spending like drunken sailors at the end of last year and all through this year and now saying that there are green shoots in the economy. If that is true the governments message is - we are still going to go into 315 billion dollars of debt and 57.6 billion dollars of deficit, even though only apparently 30 percent of the stimulus package is spent. If there are green shoots in the economy, if people's job are secure why wouldn't they save that 70 percent and keep us out of the debt and deficit they are saddling future generations with. I'm never sure with this government what their economic message is, are things going well, are things in freefall. Are they declaring victory because they didn't have two quarters of recession, is jobs the indicator of recession, their message changes with the daily news cycle because it is all about spin, and not about substance, and I think the public will see through that.

Oakes:

We're out of time but I'm glad you see green shoots in the Liberal party as well. We thank you.

Pyne:

Thank you.

ENDS