Transcript - Two Chrisses - ABC 891 - 19 April 10

SUBJECTS: Rachel Sanderson; Nicole Cornes; Health reform

Matthew Abraham: Liberal Member for Sturt, Shadow Education Minister, Manager of Opposition Business in the House Chris Pyne, and C1 Chris Schacht, former Senator and former Labor State Secretary. Good morning Chris Schacht.

Chris Schacht: Good Morning and good morning everybody.

Abraham: Now we'll go onto some of the big issues in a moment, but Rachel Sanderson who won the seat of Adelaide; surprised everyone. Michelle Lensink mentored her during the campaign; so quite a good little campaign run there. Chris Schacht you had an observation listening to Rachel Sanderson because neither the Labor Party nor the Liberal Party saw this coming.

Schacht: Well I think in the last few weeks before the election by talking to people in the Labor Party in the Adelaide campaign, they could see it coming....

Abraham: Really?

Schacht: Whether it was going to be big enough; 10 or 11 per cent to lose the seat....

Abraham: It was nearly 15 in the end.

Schacht: It was nearly 15 in the end. My comment earlier, I heard the interview and you asked a lot of detailed questions about her background which I think is good; flesh out who the personality is etc. I think you should do that with a whole range of even sitting members of Parliament about background, family, boyfriends, girls, wives, whatever. Where do they come from? Do they play sport....

Christopher Pyne: Are you making some suggestions?

Schacht: No, no, I just think it's very good for her to get a chance to flesh out her personality.

Abraham: She didn't bat an eyelid and I thought she handled it.....

Schacht: The only other comment I make listening to thinking if the Liberal Party 12 months ago thought they had a chance of winning Adelaide she wouldn't have been the candidate. They would have got someone from one of the old two factions who had stabbed each other to death, sorted it out and then been the candidate as one of the usual suspects.

Abraham: And not won the seat maybe?

Schacht: Maybe still won the seat....

Abraham: Maybe not.

Schacht: Maybe not won the seat, but certainly not ended up with somebody who's fresh blood in every sense of the word and may be a real advantage for the Liberal Party in the years ahead.

Abraham: Well she sounds like a pretty savvy operator.

Schacht: I have to admit some, well not a conflict of interest....

Abraham: Here we go.

Schacht: My son when he was earning money to play volleyball...

Pyne: He used to model for Rachel.

Abraham: What?

Pyne: He was one of her favourite models.

Schacht: He did part time modelling.

Pyne: He's very tall and good looking unlike C1 who is very tall and extremely unattractive

Schacht: He did Ed Harry, SA Tourism and he did modelling for Rachel Sanderson so it was a few years ago.

David Bevan: So your son got his looks from his mother?

Schacht: Absolutely. He got my height and his mother's very good looks. He didn't get my athletic ability. And through that I actually met Rachel many years ago.

Abraham: Now Christopher Pyne, is that a fair cop. Now sometimes political parties think, "oh, we can win that seat. Let's put one of our hacks in there from one of the two major factions. They'll fight for that seat. And then you don't get your Rachel Sanderson's popping up.

Pyne: Adelaide is an unusual kind of seat. I'm sure C1 would agree at both a Federal and a State level Adelaide is an unusual seat because it brings some of the most well heeled suburbs in the city without a doubt-Gilberton, Medindie, Walkerville and North Adelaide together with quite a few less salubrious suburbs. Federal Adelaide goes from Kilburn and Clearview right through to Unley Park and takes in all the ones in the centre of the City of Adelaide which is just a microcosm of that. So it's a very difficult seat to manage from both a party point of view and from the public's point of view because you have people with very different interests. And the Liberal Party the people in Gilberton, Walkerville and North Adelaide are quite strong willed so they will choose the candidate they want. It's nothing to do with factionalism. It's simply a question of they think they know what is good for Adelaide and they do and they choose the candidate they want. And if they then get behind the candidate it can be a very good outcome. Now I wasn't surprised about the.....

Recording interrupted.

Schacht: CBD plus, going purely through Walkerville, Prospect, Fitzroy nearly up to Regency Road...

Pyne: I think Rachel (Sanderson) will do a very good job, and I think that she'll hold the seat...and I think she'll be a very good member.

Schacht: I just spoke to Lomax-Smith (Jane) a week ago-just gave her a ring, she's taking a break from things, going overseas, but she told me....

Pyne: ...Inundated with calls I assume...

Schacht: The she just told me one fear. In 2002 she got 26% of the Walkerville polling booth, in 2006 she got 46% in the Walkerville polling booth...

Pyne: ...there was a big swing in 2006

Schacht:...and then it went back to 26% in 2010

Pyne: of course... In 2006 they said "you are such a rabble, we are not going to vote for you"...

Schacht: That's right...

Pyne: And you know Wattle Park, Stoneyfell, Burnside-they felt it all out there in the state election, and in 2010 they said no we feel like you've got your act together, we like Isobel Redmond we think she is alright, we think the party is much better...

Abraham: That's not what you were telling us then...

Pyne: and they came back to us in large numbers. That's why we won such seats like Adelaide, Norwood and Morialta

Schacht: And had a couple of local issues that, that helped, and as some of the Labor Party told me in the electorate in Adelaide, a number of the issues that the Labor government did, and were involved in, it wasn't that they were just upset were against what people in Adelaide wanted, the way they went about announcing it and as someone said "rubbing their faces in it", gave a real impetus for those people to say "Well, we're going to get even on polling day"...

Pyne: In the Glen Osmond booth. If you compare the figures for Sturt in 2007, to this 2010 State election when the Federal 2007 election was a pretty poor day for us, federally-there was a 12% to the Liberal Party in the Glen Osmond booth at this State election...

Schacht: Correction, compared with the federal...

Pyne: ...Federal election. So there's a lot of Liberal voters (that) said "no, no I think we'll come back and vote for you this time, because (we) you might have got you're act together" so it was an interesting...

Bevan: So, so Rick Sarre joined the, the Labor Party at the wrong time?

Pyne: Look that's a matter for the Labor Party. Rick Sarre being (inaudible)...

Schacht: He didn't join the Labor Party; he's been a member of the Labor Party for a long time. What you're saying is he's been a candidate.

Bevan: He was preselected as the candidate for Sturt at the wrong election wasn't he Chris Schacht...

Schacht: Because, well he's going to be a very good candidate.

Bevan: Um...Mind you Mia Handshin was a very good candidate...

Schacht: ...was a very good candidate, yes...

Bevan: ...and failed to knock off the man sitting next to you.

Schacht: Yes.

Pyne: ...and I worked very hard for my electorate.

Schacht: Oh yeah, yeah...

Pyne: I'm not going to join the love in on who's a great candidate. I worked very hard for my electorate.

Bevan: So Chris Pyne, Chris Pyne you've, you've got the blotting paper, the, the grease-proof paper and you slid the map of your electorate across the state result... and you looked at your Federal booths and how they match up and you would have to be (pretty happy) laughing would you not? Because you overlap now into Norwood which, which was won, Adelaide is that right? Morialta.

Pyne: There is no doubt the Labor figures that I sort of run into around my electorate are saying there, that, there were no down sides for the state result for you in Sturt. We obviously picked up Norwood, we picked up Morialta, and we picked up Adelaide. The Torrens result went from 18% to 7%, Bragg went from about 12 to 23%, Unley went from 1.7%-13%, Hartley and Norwood came down to 2.5% from about 6%. SO, but you can't just transpose the state result across to the federal electorate, but certainly you know, I will keep working as hard as I always do...

Abraham: You'll take that though? 

Pyne: But, I mean obviously, obviously the state result was encouraging

Abraham: Okay now

Schacht: But there's two extra state liberal members...

Pyne: Yeah, there's two destroyers knocked out that were in the Labor Party, that were in my electorate before, firing bombs at me...

Bevan: Is this battleships?

Pyne: Last election there was Vini Ciccarello, Lindsay Simmons, Grace Portolesi, Tom Kenyon all campaigning against me in Sturt... And now I have two less-that's got to be helpful.

Abraham: In a moment Malcolm and Jan.

Abraham: Malcolm form Walkerville has called the Two Chrisses, C1 and C2, good morning Malcolm?

Caller (Malcolm): Morning gentlemen, again very, very good program. I, I just want to reinforce the situation at Adelaide High, and as you are aware of my cause over the last couple of years I'm very, very strongly associated as an old scholar, and my whole family went to Adelaide High, and, and the inability of families to go to Adelaide High, the inability of families in the closer area, surrounding Adelaide, to go Adelaide High, and the complete failure of Jan Lomax-Smith, despite her children going to Adelaide High, and the failure of the Labor government to purchase that building in Currie street. Just to, I mean everyone wants a good education for their children, now if you cant go to private, obviously you want to go to a public school which, that you think is going to be good for your children. And the absolute arrogance of the Labor government not to recognise that is one the major factors (despite the other points that have been raised), is one of the major factors in the demise of Jane Lomax-Smith.

Abraham: Well Malcolm I think both C1 and C2 both agree with you on that one, that it was a sleeper of an issue, or a major issue that wasn't addressed. Now Jan from Crafers has called into the two Chrisses, hello Jan?

Caller (Jan): Hello, good morning The two Chrisses, Matt and Dave. Nicole Cornes, her appointment. When she was running in the previous election, you guys were very harsh on her (in my opinion). What do you think this time of her appointment this time to the Mike Rann Government?

Abraham: Well she's been appointed as a mining adviser to um...Paul Holloway the Minister for Mining, what we make of that Chris Schacht?

Bevan: ...Chris Schacht?

Schacht: Well, well I think she can do a very good job at it. I mean looking over thirty years of appointments, both Labor and Liberal as staffers to ministers, they are ministerial staffers appointed by the Minster to advise them. They rise and fall with the minister and the government...

Abraham: Do they need to advertise those jobs?

Schacht: No they don't, oh but sometimes you do, sometimes you don't, that's up to the Minister or the government's policy.

Matthew Abraham: Do you need to know something about mining?

Schacht: Not necessarily, not necessarily. You don't necessarily have to be...

Pyne: Why on earth would you need to know something about mining...

Schacht: No, no, no hang on...

Pyne: To be a mining adviser?...

Abraham: Can we just stop it you two just for a minute the two of you, Chris Schacht if someone is appointed on the taxpayers payroll to advise a Minster on mining, is an advantage to know something about mining, she may I don't know, but you're saying you wouldn't need to

Schacht: You wouldn't necessarily need to. I think, I think what you need is a good dose of common sense, is the most important criteria, and the ability to work hard.

Abraham: Because when I spoke to her on the day she was preselected for Sturt...

Bevan: No Boothby, Boothby...

Abraham: Boothby I should say, she, she didn't know the ALP's mining policy, but I suppose since then...

Schacht: Well if you went through my twenty odd years and asked quite a few candidates on the first day we'd selected them and asked them any number of policy issues and you would have got the same answer.

Abraham: Well she may have been gone and thought well maybe I better go and knuckle down on this one?

Schacht: Okay, all I'm saying is she is working for Paul Holloway, I think she is a, she is a quite, a very appropriate appointment and so on...

Bevan: Why?

Schacht: ...It is no worse. Because as I say, the Minister has to take charge of whom he or she appoints to his staff. If they go wrong, they take the responsibility whether they're Labor or Liberal...

Pyne: Why didn't they announce it before the last election?

Schacht: What?

Pyne: Why didn't they announce it before the sate election?

Schacht: Because I presume there were changes going in staffing arrangements...

Pyne: Oh yeah...

Schacht: There was a whole range whether people had contracts again; there were two minsters that left the government by being defeated and there had to be obviously some changes....

Abraham: And there's nothing inappropriate about this, by the way I'm just saying. It's just a bit of a career path, she has as we understand it worked for Don Farrell's Shop Assistants Union he's no longer Secretary of that, but still obviously has a keen interest in its affairs. They're a major factional player (The Shop Assistants Union). And she's a lawyer, so she's got a law degree...

Schacht: Which in mining is a pretty useful thing to have by the way.

Abraham: And...

Schacht: Mining law, law about mining. Sorry, sorry I just have to say the obsession about picking on Nicole Cornes...

Abraham: No one's, no one's picking on Nicole Cornes

Schacht: Okay...

Matthew Abraham: If you just let me finish here. Is it a career path to a seat in the upper house or the Senate is what I'm asking you and I'm not saying it is, I'm asking there a way of people who are identified as having talent, they went in one seat, it didn't work out but you still think this person has potential to the party. Let's keep them in the party if you know what I mean.

Chris Schacht: I think that's quite a reasonable thing to have, and suggest and as I said after she lost Boothby now two and half years ago, nearly three years ago, I said then in an article to the Sunday Mail that I hope she stay active in politics, because I think she was a very good candidate...

Abraham: How is she a good candidate, if that was the only seat in that federal election that Labor's primary vote went backwards?

Schacht: If you going to run that list across the number of people who went on to be members of parliament later on, you have a pretty long list of people...

Bevan: I'm, I'm just asking by what measure do you judge about whether a person is a good candidate?

Abraham: Gail Gago would be a case in point. She contested two federal seats unsuccessfully and they found her-she continued in the party.

Schacht: She continued in the party and became a minister in the Upper House. And she did well in Adelaide in 1996 and lost, but still did reasonably in the view of the swing that was on.

Pyne: And Makin.

Schacht: And Makin in 98

Pyne: Did she win that one?

Schacht: No, let me finish. And in 98 the result in Makin was not very good at all. I'll be blunt about it. She's now a Minister in the State Government in the Upper House.

Pyne: In the Upper House.

Abraham: Chris Pyne, apart from sitting in the bleachers making helpful comments....

Pyne: I just took the view if somebody's digging themselves a hole why would you stop them?

Abraham: Chris Pyne, I know we're talking about mining, but we don't need to hand them a bigger shovel. But Chris Pyne is this why the Labor Party is successful? In other words it finds people they think have got talent and they are tried out in a seat, but they're also kept in the system. They work in the "profession" of politics.

Pyne: My view is that Nicole Cornes is no longer a candidate for Parliamentary office so therefore she isn't really in my view fair game for a Liberal Party attack. If she runs for Federal or State office again then she's fair game again. I can only assume that she's spent the last three years becoming a very good expert on mining law and that's why she's been chosen to be the mining adviser to the Minister for Mining in South Australia Paul Holloway and I'm quite certain she's been chosen entirely on her merits because of her mining expertise.

Bevan: He's also the Minister for Urban Development and Planning, the Minister for Industrial Relations and the Minister Assisting the Premier on Public Sector Management.

Schacht: There's a whole range of things in that area and I have to say....

Pyne: She's just a Mining Adviser from what I read in the paper.

Schacht: Well if you're an adviser to a Minister every day you're going to deal with different things in the broad portfolio. All I can say is she is absolutely as well qualified for that job as dozens and dozens of....

Pyne: Labor hacks....

Schacht: Labor and Liberal people have been appointed as advisers in State Parliament and if she doesn't turn out....

Pyne: What are the names of these Upper House members of the Labor Party in South Australia?  What are there names these Upper House members?

Schacht: What are the names of yours? I mean that's why we want to abolish the place.

Bevan: Can we move onto health reform. What's going on in Canberra right now? Is it actually going to work?

Pyne: Well since you've (Schacht) had such a big run I might go first and you can finish up.

Schacht: You've probably enjoyed me going first.

Pyne: I was happy with the odd digging.

Bevan: A couple of weeks ago you were in the hot seat over Isobel Redmond and the Liberal Party tearing itself apart....

Pyne: We never do that. I think what's happening in Canberra at the moment is Mr Rudd tried to find a big distraction from his disastrous emissions trading scheme at the end of last year after Copenhagen and not a very good start to 2010 with a Leader of the Opposition who was out there taking the fight to them and thought, "lets find a huge distraction."

And it's health. I think he thought the Premiers would sign up pretty quickly as long as you showed them a bucket of money, but they worked out pretty quickly what he was really doing was taking the State's GST away from them and then just re-funnelling it back to them through a new federal bureaucracy. This health plan has been roundly condemned not just by the Opposition, but by people like John Debel the architect of Medicare, Ken Baxter, Pat McGorry the Australian of the Year. And I think the Premiers, at least John Brumby and Colin Barnett smell a rat in the Government's proposal and they're not just going to sign up to it to make it easier for Kevin Rudd. What we need in a health plan of course is genuine reform, not just an election fix, and I think Kevin Rudd is struggling.

Now they might get a deal. I mean he seems to have found a tremendous amount of money; tens of billions of dollars in the last couple of weeks to bribe the states. But if I was a State Premier; the Howard Government established the GST as a growth tax. Once they allow it to start being eaten away by the Federal Government; that is the thin end of the wedge and it'll just be a....

Abraham: But doesn't it make sense to have, in a country like this which geographically has quite a small population base, doesn't it make more sense to have the Federal Government having a more coordinated approach to the Federal Health System?

Pyne: Well I'm not absolutely certain a bureaucracy in Canberra managing the entire country is better than a bureaucracy in Adelaide or Brisbane or Sydney or Melbourne. I'm not convinced that the closer you get to Canberra the smarter the bureaucrats become and the more efficient. After the Building the Education Revolution fiasco I would have thought people would be pausing before they handed over their health powers to the Commonwealth. And as a Liberal, it concerns me that one day there'll be a situation where there will be State Premiers on North Terrace and cabinets with absolutely nothing to do.

Bevan: How do we remove a layer of bureaucracy....

Pyne: (inaudible)

Bevan: Chris Schacht, maybe you can answer this one? How do we remove bureaucracy? We're not handing over the health system 100 per cent to the federal government, we're just shifting the mix. At the moment it's a 40/60 split in terms of funding; 40 per cent from the Federal Government, 60 per cent from the states. We're going to reverse that, but we're still going to have a mix of state and federal funding. If there's a mix there will be blame shifting. While there is a mix there will be blame shifting, as sure as the sun coming up tomorrow. And we're going to have another level of bureaucracy because we're going to have these regional health boards.

Pyne: Good summary.

Schacht: When Tony Abbott was Health Minister I heard him comment on a couple of occasions about the need for more Federal Government and there was a case about shifting some of these responsibilities for funding to the national level. South Australia and the smaller states desperately need the Federal Government to take over the health system in their states, because in another 15 years the whole state budget will have to go on health and there'll be nothing for anything else. Even with the GST funding staying as it is. My only quibble about this plan is that it's only the first step. Ultimately the Federal Government has to take the funding responsibility for all the health system. You don't need to duplicate a bureaucracy in Canberra. There is a bureaucracy of management in each state and within the state you can say you've got the people to deliver it, but these are the key performance indicators, which you've got to meet on a national outlook for what the health system should be. And in the long run we'll end up with a better health system than what we've got now.

Ends