2GB

SUBJECTS: Ruddy Made Excuses; election costings E&OE............................... Chris Smith: But I reckon the most creative concept of the day has got to go to Christopher Pyne. Sick of Kevin Rudd’s excuses, he’s just released a website of ‘Ruddys’ – the slogans Kevin Rudd uses to palm off hard questions. Everything from ‘I’ve got to zip’ to ‘I was in receipt of no such advice’, ‘the national secretary will look at that as well’, ‘these are deliberations for the cabinet’ and what about when he talks about developing Northern Australia , what did he say in reference to how it’s going to be funded? ‘We’re working through that’. Coalition campaign spokesman, Christopher Pyne is on the line. Mr Pyne, good afternoon. Christopher Pyne: Good to be with you Chris. Smith: You must be having a field day with this because I would have thought he was a world class ‘fob-a--off-erer’. Pyne: Well, Kevin Rudd is making the campaign boring because all he talks about is Tony Abbott… Smith: Yeah! Today in particular! Pyne: Every day it’s the same. He just relentlessly attacks Tony Abbott because he’s embarrassed about the last six years of the government, he’s got no plans for the future, so all he has left is to attack the opposition and Tony Abbott’s just getting on with the job of getting our policies out there, explaining to people how we can be a better country. But today, I thought we might spice it up by releasing a website of Ruddy made excuses and you’ve said a few of them. We all know that Mr Rudd is very good in the middle of a press conference when asked a curly question at deflecting it by pretending he hasn’t seen the article in the newspaper; in spite of the fact know we all get media summaries in the morning at 6’oclock in the morning. Or, he’s always saying it’s a matter for the cabinet, or I’m aware of the history or I don’t want to rake over old decisions. Whenever anything is difficult to answer, he’s always got a Ruddy made excuse. Smith: Well there’s a lot of that. What’s the most frequent excuse do you think? What’s the most frequent line he uses? I thought that was a classic at the last debate when he started to say, when it comes to that airport for Sydney, well Anthony Albanese is across all of this. Well Anthony Albanese isn’t behind the microphone and you just happen to be the Prime Minister! Pyne: Well Kevin Rudd isn’t ready for this election, because he spent three years and three days relentlessly undermining Julia Gillard. And then he found himself back in the top job, had to call an election within a few weeks, and of course he’s not match fit. Tony Abbott on the other hand is match fit because for 4 years he’s basically led the same team. We’ve been stable and adult about our approach, and he’s match fit for this election. So I think Kevin Rudd’s favourite excuse is to drop a complete clanger, say a howler of an excuse and then say, but I’ve got to zip! And he thinks this is terribly funny but actually I think the public thinks it’s a bit peculiar. Smith: I think they could probably argue the same of you on at least one point. The Coalition does keep fobbing off questions about when costings are going to be released. Pyne: Well, the government in 2007 and 2010 released their costings document the night before election-day at 5’oclock. So we can’t be lectured by them. Being lectured by them on costings is like being lectured by Hannibal Lecter on the benefits of vegetarianism, Chris. And we’re not going to be lectured by them. But we will release our costings. We are releasing them as we release spending announcements. But if you want a one and a half per cent company tax, if you want a generous paid parental leave scheme that’s fair on women. If you want to get rid of the carbon tax and the mining tax and you want to stop the boast, then the choice is very simple and Labor can try and distract people with all sorts of scare campaigns, at the end of the day I think a lot of the members of the public have made up their mind already. Smith: I think you might be right. Thank you very, very much for your time this afternoon. Pyne: Pleasure Ends.