Transcript - Two Chrisses - ABC 891 - 29 Mar 201

Matthew Abraham: Chris Pyne, Liberal MP for Sturt. Good morning to you Chris Pyne.

Christopher Pyne: Good morning Matthew and David and C1 over in New Zealand.

Abraham: Now we'll have to ask Chris Schacht over in New Zealand to go easy on you. You are sounding poorly.

Pyne: I am poorly I might tell you. I've got a very sore throat and I know all the listeners out there will be feeling a very deep sympathy for me.

Abraham: They will Chris Pyne, they will. And Chris Schacht, former ALP State Secretary. Good morning to you Chris Schacht.

Schacht: Good morning from Windy Wellington in New Zealand, but it's a nice day. It's even a nicer day for the Labor party when they won those two extra seats last night that we didn't expect, and to have now a very commanding position in the house of Assembly, 26 seats and an overall majority of five. In terms of seats won one of the best results from the Labor Party in the last thirty years.

David Bevan: Now Chris Schacht let's start with that result. Geoff Anderson was featured in the Stateline Program, ABC TV News 7:30 on a Friday. And I thought it was a really good wrap of the State Election, first class. Geoff Anderson, former staffer to the Bannon Government. He was involved in the water privatisation and now he's an academic at Flinders University. He says the state election we've just had has re-written the books because previously the wisdom was if you had a swing in the order of seven per cent or more, which is a big swing, there's no way the small (margin) seats will be able to withstand that. No matter how good the local MP is it all gets washed away. Now this wasn't the case this time around. Chris Schacht do you agree with Geoff Anderson that something has happened in this one that's caused us to re-write the political books.

Schacht: Partly I do, partly I don't. The seven per cent swing to the Liberal Party was after Labor got 56 and a half per cent of the two party preferred vote in 2006. If we had a normal election in 2006 and Labor had done well and got 51 or 52 per cent and then there had been a seven per cent swing and Labor had dropped to 45 or 46 per cent then you would have lost those marginals. But it's the fact that Labor had such a big margin, what you might call electoral fat, in both the two party preferred vote and in the seats, and the very good outcome that we had excellent marginal members.

Bevan: Yeah, but hang on Schachty, if we asked you ten days ago "can seats sitting on one or two per cent withstand a seven per cent swing against the government," you would have said to us "of course not."

Schacht: No no, I would have said if it's even no, they wouldn't have withstood it but I always qualified it to say, there may well be that the big swings will be in safe Liberal and safe Labor seats, which exactly happened. Now if it had been coming of 52 per cent in stead of a 56 and a half per cent state-wide Labor vote from the last election and it had dropped to 45, even with dud candidates from the Liberal party we probably would have been very lucky to win 23 or 24 (seats).

Abraham: Now Chris Pyne, just responding there Chris.

Pyne: Well Chris Schacht is absolutely right. You cannot look at this election result without looking at the 2006 result. And in 2006 we had a really bad result. We had no money. We appeared to lack ideas and leadership, and our own people punished us. But in this election in 2010 we got very big swings in traditional Liberal areas like St Peters and Hackney and Joslin and Vale Park and Athelstone and Rostrevor and so forth in my electorate. And that meant that we did get the big seven point nine per cent swing. But it wasn't uniform across all the seats. So we actually saw a more hand to hand combat in those seats with smaller margins with Labor incumbents, not unlike the 1998 federal result when John Howard won with less than 50 per cent of the two party preferred vote, but he got the vote where it mattered. And the other aspect of this election campaign you don't want to forget is that you will never know what impact Labor's cheating how to vote cards for Family First had on seats like Mawson and Light and Hartley.

Abraham: We can work that out exactly because we know how many Family First primary votes there was and we know the margin was. And we know that in Mawson, it would not have made a difference.

Pyne: It does remove a bit of the legitimacy of the Rann Government's election victory. I know that the Labor party will now try and airbrush this out of history, or say "well everyone does it". The truth is it was quite immoral and unethical and it does lend a stench to the Government's victory.

Bevan: Chris Schacht we can hear you groaning all the way from New Zealand.

Schacht: First of all it was a bone headed idea that the party put that out, and apparently it was done on the say so of the party secretary. I don't know whether that's correct. But there is no evidence on Election Day that such a stunt, and it was completely legal under the act, gets any votes at all. When people turn up to vote and are given half a dozen how to vote cards, and if you're a family first voter, you are pretty determined before you turn up to vote who you're going to vote for. You look at the ballot paper; you see the names of not only the candidates, but the name of the party next to each candidate. You will make up your own mind where you preferences (go).

Abraham: Except on the dodgy Family First cards handed out by people in Family First T-Shirts with no ALP identification, the party identity was not next to the candidates Chris Schacht.

Schacht: No, but on the ballot paper when people are in the cubicle voting it was. I would have thought if this stunt, and I would call it that or a bone headed idea, had got more than ten votes per electorate I would have been very surprised. It wasn't worth the effort at all and all it's done has upset Family First, who we have to negotiate with in the Legislative Council. What I am surprised about is that members of the right wing faction of the Labor Party have always had open relationships and good discussions with Family First. Why they would allow this stunt to go ahead, or as I call it a boneheaded idea is a mystery to me and it has made no difference to the result in any seat other than the publicity that the Liberal Party, after they lost badly complained that they were robbed. They weren't robbed; they got comprehensively beaten because they had dud candidates in the seats that mattered.

Bevan: Chris Schacht, when the decision made to use those dodgy cards, the Labor party didn't know it was going to win. I thought there was going to be a seven per cent swing or maybe more and it really seriously faced the possibility of a hung parliament or maybe being pushed into opposition. That's what was in the mind of the people who made these decisions. This was also happening at a time when trust was a key issue during the campaign. So what does this say about the Labor Party Chris Schacht that in an election when trust is the key issue they were prepared to use tactics like this, regardless of the outcome.

Schacht: Well it was a boneheaded idea. When I was party secretary for nearly ten years, during elections someone would always come up with what would look like a smart idea and I would always say...

Bevan: Well it was a boneheaded idea apparently being used by the Labor Party apparently around the country. We had Isobel Redmond this morning saying there were mercenaries, that's the word she used, she said they were like mercenaries, hired guns, they came from interstate, they came from Queensland....

Schacht: People travel from interstate at every election from the major parties to help out, Labor and Liberal. It was a boneheaded idea because it never delivered the votes. It was legal and it never delivered the votes and it gives an excuse for the Liberal party and others to claim it was a dirty trick. It was stupid, Mike Rann has said he's going to amend the act to make sure it doesn't happen in the future and that's the correct decision. It was a boneheaded idea, but it did not in the end affect the result in any seat.

Abraham: Chris Pyne. We'll go to calls in a moment, but just coming back to you to respond.

Pyne: Well Chris Schacht can say it didn't affect the outcome and that is something people can argue about. Psephologists will break down the election and determine that. A government needs to be legitimate, a government need to be elected and for the people to be able to say "that was fair and square". Now since the election, two things have happened in the Labor Party. Number one is that Jay Weatherill has exposed the unity in the Labor Party to be a sham by challenging Kevin Foley and being beaten. Numbers two a number of irregularities have come to pass, have come to the public mind, which indicate there is not legitimacy about the Rann Government. Now Mike Rann can say all he likes that he will be amending the legislation. He's like the boy who steals the eggs and afterwards says he's sorry about it. The truth is Mike Rann's the Premier; Mike Rann's the leader of the Labor Party. His party did this trick, his party deceived voters and that quite frankly is utterly unacceptable and it removed a legitimacy that every government needs. (inaudible)

Abraham: Can I just read this to you from Megan Lloyd written on October 29 1997 after the 97 election campaign, "Failed Independent candidate for Davenport Andy Seaman stood for State Parliament with no policies, no campaign material and spent most of the election day in Goolwa, instead various eyewitnesses reported seeing family members of sitting member Iain Evans at local polling booths wearing T-Shirts promoting Ms Seaman and handing out how to vote cards for her.  Ms Seaman's second preferences went to Mr Evans. Now Iain Evans is now challenging Steven Griffths for the deputy leadership of the Liberal Party. In other words what the Labor Party did with Family First you would say is not all that far off being a template for what Iain Evans did back in 1997.

Pyne: Well I'm not answerable for what Iain Evans has or hasn't done. I'm not sure what his response to that was back in 1997, it's so long ago. I don't even remember that happening. If Megan Lloyd wrote in a newspaper it probably did happen.

Abraham: Not only did they have bogus how to vote cards, they effectively had a Trojan horse candidate.

Pyne: Well perhaps you should ask Iain Evans about that....

Abraham: We asked him to come on this morning to talk about the deputy leadership of the Liberal Party and his challenge to Steven Griffiths, but he declined.

Pyne: Well I'm not in a position to comment about the candidate that you've mentioned who's name I've now forgotten, in Davenport in 1997. But that's really a matter for Iain Evans to comment upon.

Schacht: He wants to be Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party. Goodness me. What's going on in the Liberal Party.

Abraham: Well the same thing that's going on in the Labor Party; everyone wants to be Deputy Leader.

Schacht: Everyone wants to be Deputy Leader and there will be a democratic ballot. All I can say is that Mike Rann got a result that in terms of seats won is equivalent to the best years of the "Dunstan Decade." And I have to say the Liberal Party are going to have to chew that over people like my good friend C2, Chris Pyne, Nick Minchin just leaving now who were responsible for allowing dud candidates to stand for the Liberal Party in marginal seats; they've got a lot to answer for. For the Liberal Party, not for the Labor Party.

Abraham: We're talking to Chris Pyne and Chris Schacht; C1 and C2. Let's go to Port Pirie, home of Geoff Brock and Ian. G'day Ian.

Caller 1: Good morning boys. How are you going?

Abraham: Very well thankyou. Now what do you want to say about dirty tricks Ian?

Caller 1: I've got a couple of things to say. I'm sick and tired of these Liberals every time they lose, crying into their cups of tea about how they were beaten by a dirty tricks campaign. And if you remember back to the Federal Election in New South Wales they used dirty tricks over there. No party is any different to the other.

I worked with John Rohde, the endorsed Labor candidate for the seat of Frome, putting up posters for Election Day, and the Liberals were putting up the opposition to the Adelaide hospital posters at the same time they were putting their own up.

Abraham: I don't think they made any secret of the fact that they were opposed to the building of a Royal Adelaide Hospital on a new site.

Caller 1: Well I certainly wouldn't...

Abraham: But you're saying they were doing that?

Caller 1: I wouldn't be doing that for another political party as an ALP guy.

Abraham: Now how did you go with Pirie Ian?

Caller 1: John Rohde didn't do very well, but I scrutineered at my polling booth and I saw a lot of people who were handing out how to vote cards for Geoffrey Brock and when I scrutineered nine out of ten Geoff Brock cards gave John Rohde a second preference. So it's obvious to me the Labor voters in Pt Pirie, and I can only speak for Pt Pirie, not Clare or anywhere like that, left the Labor Party and went to Geoff Brock.

Abraham: Maybe the Labor Party should have pre-selected him?

Caller 1: He's not even a member of the Labor party so how can he be pre-selected?

Abraham: That hasn't stopped the Labor party pre-selected....

Caller 1: Well I know it hasn't.

Bevan: Thanks very much for your call Ian. Ian from Pt Pirie.

Abraham: Martin on another topic. G'day Martin.

Caller 2: Good morning gentleman. Mr Pyne sir, I hope you get better real soon.

Abraham: Do you think he needs to get out for a bit of a run Martin?

Caller 2: Well, I find it absolutely staggering that Nicola Roxon can criticise the man (Abbott) for doing what he's doing. And I think Mr Pyne will agree with me when I say this, at least Mr Abbott doesn't make his policies on the run.

Bevan: He might be thinking about policies on the run. We've got a lot of text messages saying at least you've got a lot of time to think while you're riding your bike. Somebody else says he's reminding him more of the Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Abraham: Chris Pyne does Tony Abbott risk, and Tony Wright suggested this, does he risk looking incredibly fit, buffed, but a little bit crazed?

Pyne: Not at all, and I think this is so ridiculous that the Labor Party is trying to turn Tony Abbott's physical fitness into a negative. I don't remember them making these criticisms of Wayne Goss and John Bannon when they were running marathon running races. This is just purely a political effort of the Labor Party, because they have no response to Tony Abbott. There is nobody in the Labor Party who can match Tony Abbott, and therefore they're trying to turn what is an out and out positive into a negative. As I said yesterday in the media we spend millions of dollars every year of Federal taxpayer's money trying to get people up off their buts and out exercising. Here we have a leader of the opposition who is leading by example. Whose physical fitness shows personal determination, stamina, discipline and focus, and the Labor Party is trying to criticise him for it.

And it also shows a particularly snobbery on the Labor Party's part; they really saying, "oh the people with serious jobs, or triathlons. Only people with non-serious jobs should be doing sport or triathlons." I mean what on earth are they talking about? All sorts of people want to play sport or look after their physical health.

Bevan: Christopher Pyne, has your leader inspired you to take up some physical activity?

Pyne: Well I'm not a triathlete, but I do try and walk every day with Matilda the Labrador in Adelaide and in Canberra I try and walk every day with one of my Senate colleagues.

Bevan: So you're not exactly "iron man" material?

Pyne: I've never held myself out as "iron man" material.

Abraham: Now Chris Schacht, just coming back to you Chris Schacht. You were saying to me when I checked which part of the globe you were promoting volley ball in this morning and it's obviously in Wellington....

Schacht: Oceania Volleyball.

Abraham: Chris Schacht, the state-wide vote originally we were looking at 48-52, but on election night Antony Green's software was calling it at 51-49. 51 to the Liberals, 49 to Labor. You're saying that's going to be very close to the mark.

Schacht: I think that will be close to the mark. The electoral office under the act before the do the next re-distribution has got to do an accurate two party preferred vote, Labor vs. Liberal in all 47 seats and in four seats the Labor party candidate came third and is not being counted as two party preferred. That's in seats like Chaffey, Frome, Mt Gambier and Fisher. And when that is counted out, as the man in Pt Pirie said, most of Geoff Brock's Pt Pirie preferences overwhelmingly went Labor. That will mean the two party preferred in from Labor vs. Liberal in the seat of Frome will be quite respectable. That may well mean that the Liberal two party preferred vote instead of being over 51 per cent may be under 51. I still think it will be a majority Liberal two party preferred vote narrowly between fifty and a half to 51 per cent. And until they do that actual count some of this is still just estimation, but I still believe the Liberals will get just over 50 per cent of the two party preferred vote, but most of it wasted in safe Liberal and safe Labor seats.

Bevan: Chris Schacht, do you think we're going to see a very different Rann Labor Government this time around from the previous two terms? Because we've got many MP's on wafer thin margins; that there are some leadership tensions, there's no doubt about that. And those MPs who have been re-elected they don't owe Mike Rann anything this time around, in fact maybe they were re-elected despite Mike Rann.

Schacht: Well obviously my own view and I've expressed this even on election night. I think a lot of people were interested in voting for Isobel Redmond, but when it came to the crunch they didn't vote for the Liberal Party. I think the Labor Party has got to take note of the swing on the two party preferred vote. Clearly the big swing against many ministers in safe Labor seats can't be ignored. So if there's on thing I do know about Mike Rann, he is tough enough to say about himself and particularly his team of ministers "we're going to have to very carefully assess how we present ourselves even when we make tough decisions." As some people said to me, you've got to make tough decisions. Sometimes that upsets people, but you don't have to rub their noses in it and appear arrogant or overbearing. And I think that is why a lot of people reacted against the government. I'm sure Rann will take that on board. And if they don't, well then with a large number of seats, probably up to a dozen seats needing swings of less than five per cent, then the Government will probably have difficulty getting re-elected in 2014.

Abraham: Chris Schacht thank you and Chris Pyne, last word for you the Liberal MP for Sturt. On the sick list today, but we do appreciate it, just to give a wrap up there.

Pyne: Well I think Schachty summed it up pretty well there. The Government.....

Abraham: You mustn't be feeling well. You've agreed with him twice now.

Pyne: Well he's been particularly sensible today, which is unusual, but may be it's the New Zealand air. The Rann Government has presented as extremely arrogant for a very long time, and of course they had an enormous majority and were able to do so. Isobel has brought the party back from six months ago we looked like a complete train wreck to a pretty good outcome where we've increased our number of seats. We've certainly increased our vote. We've massively reduced the Labor Party's margins and in 2014 looks like a real prospect. The only thing which will damage our chances in 2014 is disunity on our side of the house and a return to a 40 year old feud between elements of the Liberal Party. So what we all need to do in the Liberal Party is forget about the past, focus on the future, focus on unity and not return to any of the personality clashes that have marred our chances in the past. Because the Liberal voters out there are really saying to us, "we're giving you a chance".

Bevan: Sounds like you're backing Steven Griffiths for the Deputy Leaders job, not Iain Evans?

Pyne: I am completely staying out of the State Parliamentary team. What I am saying is that it's axiomatic that unity is important and I am not in any way entering into the Liberal Party Parliamentary choices. That's a matter for them. I'm a Federal Liberal. They are state Liberals and I am not in any way interfering at all.

Ends