2GB Ben Fordham

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview – 2GB Ben Fordham with Anthony Albanese
Wednesday 3 February 2016

SUBJECTS: Nick Xenophon Team; GST; Kevin Rudd’s candidacy for UN Secretary General

BEN FORDHAM: Well, parliament’s back for 2016 and the odd couple are back as well, Christopher Pyne the minister for industry innovation and science and Anthony Albanese the shadow minister for infrastructure, transport, cities, and tourism. Good afternoon to you Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good afternoon Ben, good afternoon Anthony.

BEN FORDHAM: Hello Albo

ANTHONY ALBANESE: G-day ben and g-day Christopher, long time no see

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well at least 2 hours.

BEN FORDHAM: How are we all? Everything good everything nice and happy and sunshine and lollipop and whatever or are you back to attacking each other already?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Anthony and I never attack each other, a bit of constructive criticism along the way never hurt, but no I got a very good break, my family had a long break but I went back and forth for the weekends but I basically went back to work on the 4^th of January because it’s an election year Ben!

BEN FORDHAM: Albo are you on election footing?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I am certainly on election footing. I made an announcement last week that I was re-contesting my seat of Grayndler. I’ve gotta win the preselection first and then I’ve got a battle as we all do to hold our seats and to try and win seats around the country as well.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Could be a strong candidate in your preselection I think.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: There is, me!

BEN FORDHAM: You’ve got a battle in your own seat don’t you Christopher Pyne as well because you’ve got Nick Xenophon putting up a candidate?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well that’s true and the confusion being created by independents like the personality based Nick Xenophon party could easily see Labor win Sturt, and that is a concern to me, because people will think that they’re voting NXT and they won’t have any problem, I’ll still get re-elected but because of the preference flows I might well end up losing to Labor and Bill Shorten might end up being Prime Minister by one seat! And I don’t think my electorate wants that. So I’ll be pointing that out to them over the course of the next six, seven, eight months.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Wouldn’t that be a good thing, Ben would still have you on the program mate.

BEN FORDHAM: Of course, and I love how he referred to Nick Xenophon as personality based, what’s Christopher Pyne then?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I belong to the liberal party which is a philosophically based party as is the Greens as is the Labor party as is Family First, but Nick Xenophon’s party is like the Palmer United Party or the One Nation Party, they’re based on personality.

BEN FORDHAM: Not quite, I mean come on…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No they’re based on personality.

BEN FORDHAM: Nick Xenophon is based on keeping the you-know-what’s honest.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, they’re based on personalities not ideology, and that’s the big difference the thing about the other four parties I mentioned are that they’re all based on a philosophy about how the country should be.

BEN FORDHAM: I understand that but the gap though between Clive Palmer and Nick Xenophon is huge.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Clive Palmer’s senators have voted with the government more often than Nick Xenophon’s has in the last 2 years.

BEN FORDHAM: Alright let’s go to the GST.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I think that’s a bit rough but in Christopher’s defence I think one of the big distinction is that Christopher belongs to a party that has a chance of forming government and I certainly believe that, I actually don’t understand why if you’re engaged in politics and want to change the country and don’t want to sit around the cabinet table. Because that’s where decisions are made.

BEN FORDHAM: I reckon a reason a lot of people don’t want to is because they feel they’ll be pushed into voting along party lines if they sit around that table, you lose your independence and you lose your voice.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Your voice counts!

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: But you lose your effectiveness, exactly as Anthony says your voice counts, the thing about being an independent like the NXT is you actually can’t deliver, they can criticise, they can raise issues but it’s only Labor or Liberal in government.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: What I say against the greens political party in my seat, I want to make decisions not complain about decisions.

BEN FORDHAM: Can I give you a tip Christopher Pyne,

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Please.

BEN FORDHAM: Stop saying NXT, no one knows what it means and once you work out its Nick Xenophon team you don’t want to be promoting that anyway. Let’s go to the GST, Paul Keating former Prime Minister has entered the GST debate today, he says raising the GST to 15 cents in the dollar is fiscal folly in the extreme fundamentally a bad idea, but if you went to 11 or 12 per cent and it all went to funding public hospitals the additional goods and services tax then that may not be a bad idea, he’s setting it up for you it’s easy Christopher all you gotta do is bump up the GST to 12 per cent, maybe even 12 and a half.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Paul Keating’s having a bob each way but more importantly he made a fundamentally vital point today which is that Labor has to stop their extravagant promises. You know they can’t keep saying we’ve got the taxes we’ve got the money we can borrow the money and spend it. They have to show how they’re going to raise this money with not reducing any taxes with increasing taxes, with increasing spending now we tried that under Rudd and Gillard and people didn’t like it because it was bad for the economy and bad for the budget, what we need to do if Labor’s going to make massive promises like 37 billion dollars on schools they’ve actually got to show where the moneys coming from.

BEN FORDHAM: OK Albo, in Labor circles and Labor folk lore Paul Keating’s economic credentials are very well respected. So you would therefore agree with him that 12 per cent GST is not a bad idea.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: No that isn’t what he said, what he said very clearly as you read out the quote from Paul Keating is that a GST hits the wrong people. And he’s made that point very clearly which is why he thinks it’s a bad idea why he thinks its lazy economics. What he has spoken about it the need to fund education and health in particular which is why we’ve got a fully costed plan in terms of schools to do what the now government said it would do at the last election. Remember those corflute’s on every polling booth that said every school will get the same amount of money whether Labor or liberal win the election, they cut thirty billion dollars…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Not true.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: 30 Billion dollars.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Not true, we have exceeded what Labor promised to spend in the 4 years of the agreement because we put the 1.2 billion dollars back in that Labor took away from WA the Northern Territory and Queensland.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: No one believes you on that Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No one believes you’ve got 37 billion dollars in the back yard

ANTHONY ALBANESE: The education lobbies as well as the Catholic education lobby..

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: They always want more money they don’t care where it’s coming from.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I gave you your chance Christopher, today we asked a question in the parliament about the catholic education commission and the position that they’ve put forward where they’ve said that schools might actually have to close as a result of the cuts that have been put in place by the coalition and that’s why they’ve welcomed our commitment.

BEN FORDHAM: Can I, can I ask Christopher when are we going to know the tax policy, when are we going to know because we’ve been talking about it for years, when are we going to know?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well there’s going to be a tax white paper that will come out in the first half of the year that will indicate the direction, the options that are available.

BEN FORDHAM: When are we going to know the policy?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well there is a budget in May and there’s an election at the end of the year, so some point this year but, what we’re doing which is very good is we’re having a conversation.

BEN FORDHAM: Oh we’re sick of the conversation.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m not sick of it I’m enjoying the conversation, but the thing is what Labor wants to do is have this rule-in rule-out politics which is the old politics that Labor practices. What Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison is saying is let’s have a mature discussion with the Australian public and find out what their views are. And what we’re finding out is that Jay Wetherill, Premier of South Australia for your listeners, wants to increase the GST to 15% and he’s a Labor premier.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Tell us what you position is you’re the government.

BEN FORDHAM: OK quick one from both of you and I mean really quick who will Australia support to replace outgoing UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Tony Abbott offered his support to former NZ Prime Minister Helen Clarke when he was still Prime Minster but Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is considering supporting former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, is it K Rudd or Helen Clarke, Albo?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well it would be extraordinary if Australia refused to back an Australian for a major global appointment just out of spite. I mean Kevin Rudd when he was the Prime Minister appointed a number of people including the former Liberal leader Brendan Nelson to a job, Tim Fisher who was the national party leader to represent Australia. The idea that we would support a kiwi above an Australian candidate is like supporting the all blacks above the wallabies, it’s not on. And remember of course the attack that Kevin Rudd received for supporting a seat on the UN security council but then the new government has quite rightly I think used the position very well, it was a success for Australia.

BEN FORDHAM: Alright I did say quick,

ANTHONY ALBANESE: They should back an Australian candidate should Kevin Rudd decides to run.

BEN FORDHAM: I did say quick, can you be quick for me Christopher, Helen Clarke or Kevin Rudd?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: He sucked all my oxygen out of the interview, the cabinet hasn’t yet discussed it but when we discuss it the public will know what our decision is.

BEN FORDHAM: What?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the cabinet hasn’t decide, Tony Abbott apparently wrote a letter to John Key that hadn’t been to the cabinet, we are not locked into any position. Obviously if Kevin Rudd is the candidate we need to seriously consider the benefits of supporting an Australian, of course we do, but we haven’t made a decision.

BEN FORDHAM: Alright whatever Tony Abbott wrote in that letter doesn’t count because it didn’t go towards cabinet is that what you’re saying?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It wasn’t a decision of the cabinet.

BEN FORDHAM: