2GB Ben Fordham

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview – Ben Fordham, 2GB Sydney

Wednesday 11 November 2015

SUBJECTS: Remeberance Day, The Whitlam Dismissal, Tax Reform;

BEN FORDHAM: Hello Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Hello Ben, hello Anthony.

BEN FORDHAM: Hello Albo.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: G’day Ben and Christopher.

BEN FORDHAM: Remembrance Day today gentleman, I was lucky enough to be in Martin Place to welcome back some Coo-ee Marchers who re-enacted the famous Coo-ee March of 100 years ago when they set off from Gilgandra and coo-eed along the way and collected more men who were willing to go to war. Remembrance Day today, time to reflect, time to remember. Christopher who are you thinking about today?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well at eleven O’clock I said a little prayer for my great uncle Octavius who was killed on the western front, and my great uncle Patrick who was killed on the first day of Gallipoli at ANZAC cove, and my father who served in Korea and Japan after the Korean War so I remembered them at 11 O’clock.

BEN FORDHAM: Good on you. Who’s been on your mind Albo?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well I think about my good, my good and dear friend Tom Uren who passed away earlier this year and I had one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life going to a Kentanabry to Hellfire Pass where he and Weary Dunlop and Sir John Karrick worked on the Burma Siam railway and, these were old men by then who gave such sacrifice during the Second World War and it was a very humbling experience to actually be able to be there with these great Australians, most of whom, of course, have now left us.

BEN FORDHAM: There’s another piece of history that people are looking back on right now and that’s political history. It’s been 40 years since one of the most divisive moments in Australian political history – the dismissal, the Governor General at the time, Sir John Kerr dismissed the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, after a period of instability when the Senate blocked the budget, so where were you guys? Let’s look back 40 years, where you and where were you and what were your opinions about the dismissal on that day, Christopher first of all?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I was eight and I was watching Adventure Island, true story, and they interrupted Adventure Island to say that the Prime Minister had been dismissed by the Governor General, and my mother was ironing, and I remember her being quite weepy, and saying everything will be alright now because Mr Whitlam and Mr Haydon will be gone. And so my recollection is one that we were pleased about what had happened as an eight year old, my take out was that it was a good thing.

BEN FORDHAM: Albo?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, it certainly wasn’t a good thing, and…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The public thought it was a good think because they elected us in a landslide 5 weeks later.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Keep up with the program, Malcolm Turnbull has apologised, your leader, today and has acknowledged 40 years on that it was certainly not Australia’s finest day, and that it was inappropriate for such an intervention to occur and that’s to his great credit. But I was at school and Vince Crow; my History Teacher came in and told us, I went to St Mary’s Cathedral in the city which was a centre of activity. The City was pretty wild that afternoon; I’d got into trouble for getting home pretty late, cause it was…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Last time you’ve been in a Cathedral.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: There were Horses and - I was an altar boy at St Mary’s I’ll have you know….

BEN FORDHAM: Where you really?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I was absolutely…

BEN FORDHAM: And now you’ve got a beer named after you, how fitting.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I was in the guilderson Steven - oh there’s nothing in the Catholic creed that outlaws beer.

BEN FORDHAM: Oh, I know that.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No wonder you turned to communism.

BEN FORDHAM: Oh, Christopher.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: So on the Friday…

BEN FORDHAM: So the mass would have been said in Latin back then, would it not?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, that was 1963-66.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I’m not that old.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: God help us.

BEN FORDHAM: I only say that, I should say, I only say that because my dad was an altar boy and he can’t recite much of the mass these days in English but he knows it word for word in Latin.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Oh is that right? Well good on him.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well on the Friday the big demonstration was held on the Domain which was a St Mary’s Cathedral boys playground so all of the …

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You skipped School.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: We all left school and went to do demo…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yeah, I never did that.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: And we did not get into trouble because, as the Christian brothers told us, our government had been dismissed.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Jesuits didn’t feel the same way.

BEN FORDHAM: I’m not going to talk to you about the GST because it’s going absolutely nowhere at the moment. Malcolm Turnbull says he wants to have a mature debate about changes to the GST. I don’t know how you have a mature debate when you’re not giving any details about what you’re actually plan to do.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That’s because we haven’t got a policy to do the GST. I mean, this is the most funniest part I’ve ever heard. Labor’s criticising us for not releasing detail of a policy we don’t have when they won’t release detail of policies that they do have, which have got a 55 billion dollar black hole attached to them.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: The government has flown a kite about the GST, 15% on everything….

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You run a not very scary scare campaign.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Then they want to have a debate and then they run from it and Christopher, again, you know, just plucks out these figures from wherever….

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: My Daughter’s Halloween outfit was scarier than your scary scare campaign.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well you’ve run away, Christopher, you run away squealing…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: My Seven year old’s more frightening than your scary campaign.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You’ve called for a national debate…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: My seven year-old daughter is scarier than your campaign.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well front up, front up and have a debate.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We haven’t got a policy to increase the GST, this is the ridiculous part. You’re looking so silly; you’re wasting all your question time.

BEN FORDHAM: So hang on, so you’re not going to increase the GST?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, we’re having a discussion about it…

ANTHONY ALBANESE: But you won’t even discuss it, that’s the problem.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The public are very pleased that they’ve got a mature government that can have a debate and an opposition that’s running a not very scary scare campaign. Those fluorescent skeletons that hang from rear vision mirrors, they’re scarier than the Labor Party’s scare campaign.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: But you say there is no debate Christopher, you can’t have it both ways.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You won’t have one, you’re not in it.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: We’re trying to have one

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You’re not in it.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You’re saying it doesn’t exist

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You’re not in the debate – we’re the ones having the debate with the Australian public. You’re somewhere in a little cul-de-sac of your own.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You’re not having a debate, you’re saying…..

BEN FORDHAM: This is why I said we’re not talking about the GST.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Exactly, they’re onto you, Ben’s onto you Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You’re off on your own.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: So is the Australian public.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You’re out, we’re in. We’re new politics, you’re old politics

BEN FORDHAM: Gentlemen, go and have a cold glass of water, I’ll talk to you next week.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Alright

ANTHONY ALBANESE: See you next week

[ENDS]