Published 19/1/2009
ABC 891 SA Radio
Excerpts of “Two Chrisses”
19 January 2009, 10am (CST)
Matthew Abraham:
… Chris Schacht … Chris Pyne …
David Bevan:
Chris Schacht, you’ve walked in with what you think is evidence of Mike Rann’s political genius. Explain why.
Chris Schacht:
I don’t think I’d say genius but I’d just say the Frome by-election, I said on this program in December the Liberals would get a five percent swing. That’s the standard swing –
Bevan:
You were wrong about that.
Schacht:
I was dead wrong …
Christopher Pyne MP:
You were high balling it, it’s the oldest trick in the book.
Schacht:
No five percent is about the standard you should get in an opposition held seat when a government’s been in at least seven years. The two party preferred vote when they counted Labor/Liberal and distributed all the preferences: there’s no swing against Labor. And that’s same as in 2006.
Abraham:
What about on primary?
Schacht:
No, the primary vote dropped of course but when it went back Labor/Liberal there’s no swing …
Bevan:
But Labor’s primary vote collapsed … tell us why you think that’s smart.
Schacht:
The other thing I had bought to my attention was a leaflet that went out last week in the election which says Liberal priorities, nothing for the Mid North et cetera, and it’s authorised by Michael Brown and the address is the Labor Party office in Adelaide and it finishes off ‘Don’t vote Liberal’. The Labor Party is saying not only instead of voting Labor you can vote for anybody but don’t vote Liberal. And that was basically the tactical skill.
Pyne:
It says a lot about what they thought they had to offer.
Schacht:
What they were doing was making sure the big pressure was: can we stop the Libs winning?
Bevan:
You’re saying that the Labor Party recognised the reality that after seven years in Government and because of traditionally what happens in by-elections you’re not going to win this so where can we maximise our potential?
Pyne:
I think there are numerous things that could be said about this. The number one thing is that he’s [Schacht] basically admitted that Labor had nothing to offer the people of Frome to vote Labor so therefore they just ran a full negative campaign against the Liberal Party, that’s number one. He’s admitted that Labor after seven years in Government didn’t even bother to try and win a 3% Liberal seat, a marginal seat, because they knew they had no hope. So their primary vote collapsed. Second thing is there was a very popular local mayor running, the Mayor for Port Pirie, which changes the whole dynamic of the usual by-election situation. I think anybody would admit that. So what we’re hearing here is tremendous spin from the Labor Party about how clever this is. And what they’re asking the public to say is that we’ve now been in Government seven years and the most important thing we can do is be clever and tricky because we actually have nothing to offer the voters of Frome for the future. Is that how they’re going to run their campaign in 2010?
Abraham:
Well, if they win then you’ll
Pyne:
But winning, I mean the New South Wales Labor Government is still in power. Bob Carr when he retired, the best thing he had to show for his period in office was that he won three elections but what did he actually do for New South Wales? And we’re facing the same situation here in South Australia where all that matters actually is the spin on the result of the Frome by-election, how clever and tricky the Labor Party’s been running at Country Labor, putting out pamphlets that don’t even mention Labor that say ‘Don’t vote Liberal’ and Schachty’s bursting out of his seams with excitement at how clever they’ve been. We actually won the by-election.
Abraham:
You haven’t won it hang on
Pyne:
We will win it. The analysis is that we’ll win the by-election.
Schacht:
Based on what, wishful thinking? I’m just saying at the moment I think it’s 50/50 either the Liberal or the Independent winning
Pyne:
Labor’s not even close to winning …
Schacht:
The minor party preferences will probably put the Independent mayor over the top of Labor and then Labor preferences the one thing is the Liberal vote dropped from 47 first preference to 40. When they were in Opposition after seven years of a Labor Government –
Pyne:
With six candidates rather than four.
Schacht:
That doesn’t matter and in any seat doesn’t matter Labor or Liberal who holds the seat, your candidate vote drops to 40% and the other combined parties are basically exchanging preferences between them and getting close to 60. It is very difficult to win the seat …
Pyne:
My understanding is we were 850 votes ahead as of yesterday.
Bevan:
Doesn’t this show that despite all of your, you know, I’m sure it’s all very valid what you’re saying
Pyne:
Very valid.
Bevan:
…the Liberals didn’t cut through a majority of people in Frome have not yet, still got a few votes to count, they’re not in love with Martin Hamilton-Smith, that’s your message.
Pyne:
What I would take from this by-election is that the voters don’t like by-elections to start with and faced with the opportunity of voting for a popular mayor who is a retired gentleman and attends events all week as the mayor, which is fine that’s part of his job, the public thought we can register our disapproval of having a by-election by voting for the Independent and Labor told people to vote for him.
Bevan
It’s very difficult to try and draw conclusions out of a by-election like this particularly because it was in regional South Australia but one conclusion you might be able to draw is that this points that 2010 for Labor might be similar to 1997 for the Liberal Government. That is in 1997 Labor’s primary vote didn’t got up that much at all but it got a lot of the protest vote … it won a lot of seats but it won them on second preferences because there was a big protest vote against the incumbent Government and it went to the Democrats and Independents some Independents actually managed to get into Parliament. There was Karlene Maywald, Mitch Williams, Rory McEwen Peter Lewis, but many others didn’t though and in those cases the second preferences went to Labor and Labor on a very low primary vote actually managed to win an awful lot of seats. Now, this time round the roles are swapped. Could that be happening?
Pyne:
It’s possible that that might be what happens but we have to win less seats in 2010 to win Government than Labor needed to win in 1997 to win Government. That was a quite extraordinary result in ’97 for the Labor Party. But we had of course the changing of the leader from Dean Brown to John Olsen without asking the public their view. It was a tremendously unpopular move…
Abraham:
A stupid move.
Pyne:
… by the party room at that time and that was played out of course at the ’97 election. But it’s such a long time ago there would have been many reasons for that kind of result but of course we managed to hang onto government but just. I just think the message from in 2010 is that Labor hasn’t got any positive agenda for the future and even this morning, on your program, I was listening to Jim Katsaros talking about the Royal Adelaide Hospital and John Hill, who I’ve always thought was reasonably competent actually, I would give him that, was very arrogant about Jim Katsaros and these doctors and other professionals who don’t want to change the hospital. A lot of South Australians don’t want to change the hospital, don’t want to see it moved, don’t want to see it called the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital and John Hill basically dismissed Jim Katsaros.
Schacht:
My comment about it is that Labor had no chance of winning Frome so what was the next thing you could do to put the pressure back on the Liberal Party? It was make sure that they couldn’t win.
Pyne:
It was only a 3% margin so you gave up pretty easily.
Schacht:
The 3% margin was in an election when Labor got 56% across the State and you couldn’t reduce that, even allowing for whatever Rob Kerin’s supposed personal vote was. That’s what I find staggering, on a Labor/Liberal two party preferred vote when you count all the preferences between the major parties, no swing against the Government. That is an astonishing performance and I genuinely didn’t believe that would occur.
Bevan:
While those tactics might be very clever you couldn’t repeat them in the state election.
Schacht:
No, a general election is different. But one thing it does show in my view is that whatever your criticism people have of Mike Rann, whatever, tactically he’s the brightest politician in South Australia by far and the Liberal backroom boys have got to realise how much you bag him, he is not a lay down misere to be defeated or to be hit round the head, he’s always thinking one step ahead.
Pyne:
He’s clever, he’s a clever, tricky politician but the public of South Australia want a leader who’s going to do things.
Schacht:
But he won’t run the next state election on Frome by-election tactics but when the opportunity comes he’ll give you a hit round the head.
Caller Lisa:
I’ve found myself actually agreeing with Christopher Pyne which is fairly rare for me his comment regarding trickery by Mike Rann, what does he think about the fact that the ALP was unable to put ‘ALP’ on their ballot paper and was the ‘CLP’ a bit of a way to trick people also?
Abraham:
Chris Schacht in the two by-elections we’ve had in the past year, one for Mayo and one now in Frome, the ALP has not stood in its own name. It didn’t stand at all in Mayo and it ran as the CLP, a party that has no members and no leader from what we can gather. [laughs].
Schacht:
It’s registered CLP, Country Labor. The New South Wales Labor Party have been doing it for years.
Pyne:
Maybe you can be more upfront about it than Michael Atkinson was this morning on the radio.
Schacht:
The point is I don’t think anyone in Pirie, whatever way they were thinking of voting, knew other than Rohde the Labor candidate, was a former Labor candidate in two previous elections, was clearly the Labor man but the description of Country Labor …
Pyne:
Are you ashamed of the name of your party?
Schacht:
Well all I can say is –
Abraham:
It’s smart.
Schacht:
Every time the Labor Party does something that gives them a bit of political advantage – I mean for the Liberal Party to claim that we’re only doing things to win the election, the Liberal Party in [unclear] politics for 100 years –
Abraham:
That’s what you’re meant to do isn’t it?
Schacht:
You aim to win.
Pyne:
Well, you’re meant to actually govern for the good of the people …
Abraham:
Yeah, but you can’t do that unless you win … is that lost on the Liberal Party at the moment? You need to get there.
Pyne:
What we get in South Australia is a Government that wins elections but actually doesn’t do anything with power. Five years of windfall gains with GST revenue going through the roof and after five years of windfall gains the Treasurer now says there’s no money in the bank and they’ve got nothing to show for their term of office in the last five years. I think it’s an absolute crime.
Schacht:
Chris, if that is your policy to whinge like that at the next state election you’re in for a belting. That is just the wrong way to go to say ‘that terrible Labor Party keeps winning elections in South Australia’.
Pyne:
That’s not what I said but I’m not a candidate for the next election in 2010.
Schacht:
You’re one of the leaders of the Liberal Party. I hope you do campaign whingeing like that, it just makes it easier for Labor. And to complain that Labor is too good at winning seats or winning elections is just bizarre.
Pyne:
But Martin Hamilton-Smith has a forward looking agenda which the Labor Party keeps taking everything he announces and saying it’s their policy.
Schacht:
But you did the same to Rann when he made announcements from Opposition. Of course that’s the role of politics, you attack each other’s policies. And if one bloke works out like Rann a tactical advantage to create mayhem in the Liberal Party up in Frome in the by-election I don’t think you should whinge about it too much. You just learn from it and make sure he isn’t able to do it to you again.
Caller Samantha:
I’ve got a question about American politics - Barack Obama is free to choose members of his cabinet from the opposite side of politics? How many of us after the last election are glad the other guys got in but think what a shame we’re going to lose a polymath like Christopher Pyne from the frontbench forever?
Pyne:
Forever? I hope not…
Abraham:
It is a different system but … Mike Rann has … Karlene Maywald in his cabinet, he has Rory McEwen in his cabinet.
Pyne:
But he didn’t choose them because he wanted to bring the best talent into the cabinet; he chose them because he needed the numbers to win in 2002.
Abraham:
He’s also employed David Cappo, he’s also employed Dean Brown, he’s also employed Stephen Baker a former Liberal Treasurer … Ian McLachlan …
Pyne:
Even Chris Schacht got a job in the Labor Government.
Schacht:
…I’ll clarify that in a moment.
Abraham:
But also he has said when John Olsen comes back from his gig in the US he’ll find a job for him we do know here that Mike Rann could not refresh his cabinet during his last reshuffle because the right insisted that the next cab off the rank had to be Tom Koutsantonis. Mike Rann said no and they dug in and he said ‘Well, if you’re going to dig in there’s no new talent in the ministry’. Now, someone’s going to have to back down sometime this year if there’s going to be new blood in the Rann cabinet.
Schacht:
…Rory McEwen’s made it publicly clear he’s not standing at the next state election …
Abraham:
But Mike Rann said he won’t replace them hasn’t he?
Schacht:
If he stands down does he appoint another backbencher, a new Labor person to be a new minister in the 15 or does he give that portfolio to one of the existing 14? That’s an issue that he has to sort out, it will be an interesting discussion.
Pyne:
Well I think he said that when they go the ministry will be shrunk because he actually increased it to give them a go.
Schacht:
What the caucus and the debate internally is about that –
Pyne:
They might have to have one of those late night drinking sessions again … Can I answer (callers) question. I actually think that the American system is not as good as our system, everyone always says would it be marvellous to have all these talented people from all the political parties, but the big thing you’re lacking in American politics is the accountability of the cabinet members to the Congress…
Schacht:
There’s no Question Time.
Pyne:
There’s no Question Time, and that does lead to a disconnection between the Executive and the Parliament, and one of the good things about our system is that the Ministers are in the Parliament, and if they do a bad job it could directly impact on them losing their own seats, which means there is a real motivation for trying to do a good job, because your job is riding on it, and as they say the weak wildebeest does get pulled down, by the Opposition in Parliament in Question Time, so you do tend to get hopefully the best people on one side of politics in those positions.
Caller Brian:
You just proved this morning that Mike Rann’s a very cunning politician, which we all know because that’s why he’s the Premier. Because he was clever enough to agree to Peter Lewis’s demands when the Liberals weren’t. Now, apart from a lot of talk like the constitutional convention did any of Peter’s wants actually come into law?
Pyne:
I think the broom rape weed was dealt with wasn’t it?
Schacht:
Yeah, and a couple of other but as far as the constitutional changes in parliament, as far as I’m aware none of them.
Pyne:
It was all talk and no action.
Bevan:
Quite a bit of money was spent on that constitutional convention and maybe that’s a good thing that we had that sort of debate but it didn’t come to anything but Brian you said that the Liberal Party weren’t prepared to meet any of Peter Lewis’s demands. My memory is that on the day that the deal was done both sides actually agreed to his agenda but Peter maintained that he thought that he could achieve more with the Labor Party than he could with the Liberals because he would virtually hold the balance of power. Whereas if he went with the Liberal Party there would be a coalition of independents and that’s why Rory McEwen and Karlene Maywald were so upset with him the two people who are now in the cabinet were furious with Peter for actually installing a Labor Government and they’ve since become Cabinet Ministers.
Schacht:
The point you make, Labor only needed one Independent to get to 24, the Libs needed three … he had more power as the one than if he’d one with the Libs …
Pyne:
But of course all those seats are Liberal seats.
Bevan:
They don’t belong to the Liberal Party you talk a lot about arrogance they don’t belong to the Liberal Party.
Pyne:
No, in terms of the history of those seats they’ve always been held by the Liberal Party or the non-Labor side of politics.
Abraham:
And Michael Atkinson’s fountain pen was used to sign that compact.
Pyne:
He was so embarrassed today about Country Labor he started talking about his dog, Gus, he was so desperate to get off the subject.
Schacht:
Every one of those Independents … Lewis didn’t stand again but the other three all stood again and all got re-elected.
Abraham:
Chris Schacht, jobs for the boys. There was quite a bit in ‘The Advertiser’ over the Christmas break about Labor looking after mates and quite a list of names including you who, what, on the Premier’s food council?
Schacht:
It was listed in a story amongst all the other so called Labor people who’d been appointed.
Abraham:
Do you feel you’ve been verballed?
Schacht:
That was put out by the Liberal Party, picked up by The ‘Tiser. If you’d actually gone to the website of Adelaide Now they had 13 pages of the list of everybody who’d been appointed and then how much money. If you went and found my name you would see I was a member of the South Australian Wine Industry Council with no money. I didn’t get sitting fees, expenses or honorary … not a cent … I was put forward by the South Australian Farmers’ Federation to the State Government to be appointed to it. I was not put forward by the Labor Party.
Bevan:
That’s ‘cos you’ve got more friends in the Farmers’ Federation than you have in the Labor Party.
Schacht:
I am a wine grape growers and member of the South Australian Farmers’ Federation and a member of the Wine Grape Committee. So that’s why they put me forward so my nomination had nothing to do with coming out of the Labor Party, it came out of a strange body for a Labor person which is the South Australian Farmers’ Federation.
Abraham:
If the South Australian Farmers’ Federation knew anything about the Labor Party they might have found someone else. [laughs]
Caller Chris:
I’m just wondering why there hasn’t been more criticism around Rob Kerin, probably because it’s the good bloke mentality? As a life long Liberal, didn’t put the work in to get Peter Lewis over the line, basically gave the election away, a huge majority four years later and then couldn’t wait for an election and … had a by-election … I think everyone’s being a bit soft on him because of his affable nature and the good bloke that he happens to be. Politics is not for good blokes.
Bevan:
Rob Kerin to give him credit, it did look like the Libs in 2002 were going to be slaughtered because of all the trouble over John Olsen and Motorola … but within a matter of a few months Rob Kerin turned that around … and they actually won the two party preferred vote but they lost the election … Chris makes a good point … that you then were slaughtered under his leadership in Opposition at 2006.
Pyne:
Well Rob Kerin is a good bloke and I think Chris has sold him a bit short. He was a good Premier and good minister when he was in the Olsen and Brown Governments and he’s chosen to retire. He’s entitled to do that. I have a new view about by-elections: I actually think the party that won the election at the previous general election should be able to replace a retiring member in the same way as they do in the Upper Houses.
Schacht:
I don’t agree with it in the Lower House. I think that because you’ve got a defined electorate, I think it then makes it much easier for people to bail out mid term. In the Legislative Council and Senate, when you’ve got a list system of voting and it’s a state-wide vote, I think practically you do have the appointment system though people complain … People can serve in the Senate or Legislative Council for 7 years without ever facing the people and I think that’s.
Abraham:
It’s an expensive business though, isn’t it?
Pyne:
It’s an expensive business and very rarely does a seat actually change hands.
Schacht:
Just the same it’s still I think it’s a better way. Although it’s expensive, democracy is expensive but it’s still cheaper than any other system of Government that I know around the world.
Pyne:
Well you could make it even cheaper by applying the same rule to the Lower House that
Schacht:
If there was one seat difference … and it was 24/23 in favour and there was a marginal seat where the Labor member dropped dead or resigned in a scandal and then they said, that’s okay we can appoint the replacement. The Opposition would scream.
Pyne:
Even when the by-election sees a seat change hands we both know that almost universally at the following general election it goes back to it’s normal voting pattern.
Abraham:
You’re hoping so if you lose Frome?
Pyne:
The Ryan for example, the Ryan Federal by-election that John Moore created in 2001, we were slaughtered and everyone said, you’ll never win that seat again and we won it the following year.
Schacht:
But that was a genuine safe Liberal seat. It was astonishing we won it in the by-election. … it went straight back.
Ends