Transcript - Two Chrisses ABC 891 - 4 May 2009

(Greetings Omitted)

Matthew Abraham:

C2 (Christopher Pyne), red faces in the Opposition ranks. How will Martin Hamilton-Smith be taking credibly now, how could he expect to be taken credibly by his own troops and by the public after the train wreck of his allegations that senior Labor Party officials were effectively engaging in corrupt behavior?

Christopher Pyne MP:

Well to be absolutely honest I think this is a complete storm in a teacup. It only made it to page six of The Advertiser after the revelations in the Parliament. It is really a very minor issue.

Abraham:

The boo-boo was page one the next day.

Pyne:

And I was out door knocking in Dernancourt last week and I have to tell you not one person raised this matter with me when I was door knocking, about 100 houses. Many people raised Tom Koutsantonis's driving record with me and the fact that they couldn't believe that he was still a Minister in the Government. I quite frankly think the public are totally switched off from this issue. The unfortunate aspect about it was that the tactic of the State Opposition, it was wrong, and Martin Hamilton-Smith's admitted that and he's apologised for it, which I think's very good of him to do so because some politicians would just plough on trying to pretend they hadn't made a mistake. I think he's been upfront and honest with the public and said I made a mistake, I'm human and I think he'll get points for that. I think the unfortunate aspect is it took the attention off Tom Koutsantonis's Ministerial statement that day, where he admitted to 60 traffic infringements over a period of time, rather than the 32 that we'd previously known about. I'm sure the State Opposition will learn from this. It's a year out from the election, they have been travelling well. Their announcements about the stadium, about the hospital, about land tax have been well received and no doubt they'll get straight back on the bike and keep peddling, which is what politics is all about. You've gotta pick yourself up and get back in the race ...

Abraham:

Unless you have a fatal accident.

Pyne:

This is definitely not a fatal accident.

Abraham:

So this is just falling off a bike, it's not driving your Commodore into a stobie?

Pyne:

I think this is hitting a pebble on the road. No doubt the Labor Party will try and beat it up and run it for all its worth, as you'd expect, because they want to take the attention from the seven 'Rip Van Winkle' years that we've been in under the Rann Government. The public are much more interested in outcomes, they're much more interested in what's going to happen for the future for their children in education, in health, in investments in roads and infrastructure, than they are in a debating point in the Parliament.

Chris Schacht:

If C2 (Pyne) says that is a little storm in a teacup you'd probably describe the perfect storm of Cyclone Tracy as just a slight rain shower. This shows that Martin Hamilton-Smith and the Liberal Party star have got no idea of doing anything. If they want to be the Government ... of South Australia and can't get the simple method of just making one phone call to the Church of Scientology to check it, if they can't do that well then they really don't deserve to be governing anything. The next issue is Martin Hamilton-Smith says he's got some idea who gave him the now bogus emails but he won't divulge it, he won't go to the police, he won't go anywhere, has he got something further to hide? Was he set up by someone in the Liberal Party who doesn't like him? Who was he set up by and he keeps saying no, I don't want to know who sent it to me, that again is a sign of weakness, I just cannot believe when I was told on the day the allegation was made, I was incredulous that no one knew that the Labor Party, over 40 years, has never been sympathetic to the Church of Scientology at all ... you should have known a bit of politics to ask the simple questions. If any church has indicated that they've given a donation to any Party you'd think twice, because churches don't usually do it. Even someone like Scientology, you would have double checked it. It just shows complete sloppiness. As C2 (Pyne) has just mentioned, they had Tom Koutsantonis making a statement in the Parliament, which you've got to admit from the Labor Party point of view was not one of the brightest moments of the last seven years of the Labor Government - the Koutsantonis affair, and completely blew it out of the water and ignored it. Even if they'd proved the emails were absolutely fair dinkum, why didn't they save it for next week and use the first week to get stuck into Koutsantonis and then raise it, so you've got two weeks of raising issues. All in all it shows abysmal political planning, abysmal political skill and it purely proves that I don't think they're fit to govern.

Abraham:

Chris Schacht, these allegations were false as it's been patently said by Martin Hamilton-Smith. The fact that the ALP had a historical opposition to scientology's hardly much of an argument, they've got a historical opposition to uranium mining and yet they're all flying up there today for a Cabinet meeting. I don't know if your alarm bells would go off with that would they?

Schacht:

You should have some knowledge in political history, I bet you if C2 (Pyne) had been sitting down in that room - he might have been one of those who said you'd immediately have a little bell ringing in your head to say stop, let's double, triple, quadruple check this because it just sounds too good to be true, and it was.

Abraham:

Chris Pyne, putting aside your door knocking survey, going to the nuance in the Opposition Leader's Office and the Opposition's own radar, would you agree with Chris Schacht? If it was you, what would you have done?

Pyne:

It's not for me to say what I would have done if I was in the State Opposition. The easiest way to check a story that you're not certain about is to give it to a journalist and let the journalist check it out. That's one way in politics if you're not certain about a story. People will tell journalists things they wouldn't tell politicians, amazingly, even though they're very untrustworthy, journalists, on the level of trustworthiness, politicians nor journalists can compete with pharmacists in terms of popularity in those surveys that they publish about professions and who is more trustworthy than others. I think journalists, trade union leaders and politicians languish down the bottom, lawyers as well, and I've been two out of four of those. I think the point here is that Martin Hamilton-Smith took a risk, a calculated gamble and it didn't come off. Oppositions have to take risks every day if they are going to punch through into the public's mind. Many of the things that Martin Hamilton-Smith has done over the last 18 months that he's been Leader have been very successful. He has put land tax on the agenda, he has created a debate in South Australia about our sporting facilities and what kind of stadium we should or shouldn't have, whether it should or shouldn't be on North Terrace at the west end. He has forced the Government to change its plans in respect to the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital and drop that name, and he's created debate about the Royal Adelaide Hospital, whether it should stay where it is and be renovated and developed or whether it should be moved to a great mirage at the end of North Terrace. (Abraham: One misdeed can often wipe out many good deeds can't it?) Of course ... the public, however, looking at the total knowledge they now have of the Opposition and Martin Hamilton-Smith would say to themselves sometimes someone hands you a ball and it drops and you get back into the game. He made a calculated gamble, it didn't work, but on many other issues Martin Hamilton-Smith has punched through and I think the public will give him a lot of credit for that.

Schacht:

If I was, and I'm not thank goodness, but if I was running the Liberal Party I'd be asking a number of serious questions about the staff work. For a start, in the Liberal Party down at Parliament House. The big thing that's now come out is the Labor Party people named by Mr Hamilton are now taking legal action because he said a lot of these accusations outside of Parliamentary Privilege, that could be quite a debilitating diversion over the next eight or nine months with court hearings, adjuncts, paperwork being lodged, etcetera. It's the last thing you need out of left field a legal action that's going to get publicity every time there's some action in it. It won't be resolved easily, that's the consequences of not having smart thinking in your own office, whether it's yourself or your staff. I say to the Liberal Party if you really want to make a contest at the next election you're going to have to smarten up in a couple of spots. This is a track record that is just going to lead to another electoral defeat.

Caller Phillip:

It seems to me that Martin Hamilton-Smith blew and Rann blew in appointing Koutsantonis to the Minister of Road Safety with his record. Shows on both sides total lack of background checking and making sure that what you're doing is okay ... to me both Parties have got egg on their faces.

Pyne:

I think Phillip has hit the nail on the head with respect to Koutsantonis. It absolutely shocks me that the Premier would appoint Tom Koutsantonis to such sensitive Portfolios as Road Safety and Corrections and Youth without having established for himself the fact that he had a better than average driving record even if he had an average driving record I think the public would say we all make mistakes. The fact that he could have 60 traffic infringements over a period of time is really quite remarkable and I think the lesson for the State Opposition is don't get in the way of a story that is running when it's running your way ... these things come and go ... it's a year to the election and it'll be long forgotten by election day.

Schacht:

C2 (Pyne) that's one thing - don't get in front of a good story you already had going, and that's what they did. The Koutsantonis thing was obviously a big embarrassment to the Premier and the Government and may still have some legs to run. That issue has now been completely muddied by the performance of the Opposition last week.

Abraham:

Iliano the hairdresser says sorry Labor Party, Chris is right. Not one person mentioned Martin Hamilton-Smith affair in the hairdressing salon. That is the best indicator of all, end of story.

Caller Mary:

I agreed with your caller who said that both Parties hadn't done any checking. The Labor Party had far more resources to check on Tom Koutsantonis and the allegation that Martin Hamilton-Smith didn't have correct advisors that this may not go. When Koutsantonis put up his hand to Mike Rann first and said there is this, who did Mike Rann talk it over with. I think in the case of the Government Mike Rann should have been far more ruthless and said this really isn't on for a Road Minister and then Koutsantonis came back and said there's a bit more and then he came back and said there's a bit more. Who did the checking in between? I think there is almost a double standard here. I also think Martin Hamilton-Smith yes, it isn't causing a great deal of outrage, but Koutsantonis is causing outrage because of the and this, and this, and this I'm now admitting to.

Caller Paul:

I just think it's a little bit incredible. I think Tom Koutsantonis is being set up here, or there seems to have been a bit of a set up. They can't possibly have not checked his background in regards to this and then made him the Police Minister or the Traffic Minister, Road Safety Minister.

Caller Brian:

I find that the carry on over Hamilton-Smith's blunder, and it was a blunder, pales into insignificance beside the Labor Government's, in my view, incompetence, in appointing a fellow like Tom Koutsantonis to a Portfolio with his record and then maintaining him still as a Minister, particularly for Youth Affairs, when the example he's given to youth is pretty terrible with Bolkus and Brown now having a law suit against Hamilton-Smith .

Abraham:

Let's just leave it with Tom Koutsantonis now. I don't know where we're going with that. Chris Pyne, we're getting lots of calls here about Tom Koutsantonis isn't this exactly the point? The Opposition has, blew an opportunity to go after Tom Koutsantonis in that week in Parliament, and even the Labor Party, when you talk to them off the record, they can't believe their luck, but secondly in terms of any future attacks on Tom Koutsantonis, you know what's going to happen to them, they're going to be howled down.

Pyne:

I think there are two aspects to that. I think Mary of Myrtle Bank hit the nail on the head in terms of resources that are available to an Opposition versus a Government. My understanding is that the resources in terms of staffing available to the Labor Party in South Australia are 80 to one to that that's available to the Opposition, so of course there's a higher standard. When I was a Minister in the Government, and I'm sure C1 (Schacht) would agree, the journalists hold the Government to a much higher standard than they do the Opposition in terms of research because they know that the Opposition is struggling along with virtually nothing in terms of resources in comparison to what the Government has. Most people are incredulous and I think your caller, I think it was Brian, was incredulous about the appointment of a fellow as Road Safety Minister who'd had 60 traffic infringements. People find that absolutely remarkable. The second aspect of this story is the whole issue about Martin Hamilton-Smith last week is quite a messy story. It's not something that lodges in peoples' minds, whereas the Road Safety Minister having 60 traffic infringements is the sort of thing that does lodge in peoples' minds and is very hard for the Government to shake off. C1 (Schacht) was talking about the campaigns against the Church of Scientology. I've spoken out very strongly against the Church of Scientology myself, particularly in relation to things they've said about psychiatrists and so forth, but the Labor Party did take major donations from the Baath Party in Iraq when the Whitlam Government was in power and therefore most people are thinking ... is this true, isn't it true.

Abraham:

But we know it's not true don't we?

Pyne:

We know it's not true, but in terms of past performance the Baath Party is not exactly Lily White.

Schacht:

C2 (Pyne), can I just say in Saturday's Advertiser Greg Kelton wrote a very good piece about this affair with the donations etcetera wrote some detail that obviously got from Liberal sources about the lack of checking. If you've only got one staff member, even as a backbencher, and someone drops that sort of stuff on your table as emails you say to your staff member go and ring the Church of Scientology, one phone call to get even a hint that there's something about it, you'd soon work that out. Apparently they must have done none of that and just went into the Parliament and dropped it, then you are asking to be hit in the chin. I think that, though I can't disagree with the angst in the community about Tom Koutsantonis and the Premier, he'll have to make his own judgments about that in the future and the damage it may or may not do to the Labor Party, but why the Liberal Party could miss kick one of the greatest own goals last week, when if they had Koutsantonis on the ropes, as they believe they did, they go off and blow themselves up. It is one of the most extraordinary political things I've seen for some time.

Abraham:

Chris Pyne, are you uncomfortable that senior business people donating money to Liberal Party are making their donations conditional on the Liberal Party cleaning out what's being described as ... ""slow moribund Party organisational leadership, deadwood, time serving MPs and time wasting MPs""?

Pyne:

Well business people often have an opinion about Members of Parliament, both Liberal and Labor. That story in The Australian today is another anonymous story. A person's name didn't want to be named in the story. I always think those people who have very strong opinions, but aren't prepared to put their names to them lose a great deal of currency in their views ... if they're prepared to put their name to the story, well then that's quite a different matter. If you want to go around taking guerilla warfare potshots at people from behind trees and walls then you don't get the same currency as you do if you're prepared to come out on the battlefield and have a proper discussion about it. I always believe in coming at people from the front, not coming at people from behind and I therefore don't give much credibility to stories that are based on the premise of anonymity.