2GB Ben Fordham
21 Oct 2015
Transcipt E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview – 2GB Ben Fordham with Anthony Albanese
Wednesday 21 October 2015
SUBJECTS: China-Australia Free Trade Agreement; Joe Hockey
BEN FORDHAM: Well here was I planning to talk to Anthony Albanese and Christopher Pyne about the Labor party finally agreeing to support the free trade agreement with China but meanwhile, Christopher Pyne is busy outside the studio chatting to Harriette about the Bachelorette. Let me talk to you first Anthony Albanese, good afternoon.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: We don’t need him mate.
BEN FORDHAM: Have you been watching the Bachelorette?
ANTHONY ALBANESE: I haven’t. Not for a minute.
BEN FORDHAM: Well I’m with Christopher Pyne hello Christopher.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Ben, I have four children aged 7-15 there’s nothing I don’t know about the Bachelorette. Except that I’ve only watched three but I’ve managed to keep up with the entire, you know, story.
BEN FORDHAM: Well I’ve given up on it although I must admit I did watch the first few episodes. Who’s gonna win then Christopher come on.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s only now it’s getting really interesting, I think Sascha is going to walk away with Sam that’s my tip. I think she liked him from the first moment they met. There was a real frisson between the two of them, that’s my tip.
BEN FORDHAM: Albo are you at all surprised by this? Probably not.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: I’m not surprised at all mate.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s a great show!
ANTHONY ALBANESE: I know about as much about the bachelorette as Christopher knows about rugby league.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You know; you’ve got to keep up with popular culture Albo! That’s your problem, you’re getting out of touch, you’re moving behind the times.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: The idea of watching shows about people dating…
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Young people are watching the bachelorette my friend!
ANTHONY ALBANESE: I get that, I get that…
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Where are you?
BEN FORDHAM: Christopher I would like to hear you work this into one of your answers during question time in the next little while…
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I don’t know about that, I don’t think that’s possible, it’s all Harriet’s fault! Harriet got me on to this subject…
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Next thing you’ll be all about X-box’s and…
BEN FORDHAM: Now look, just quickly before we get into the free trade agreement…
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You’ll be talking about video recorders next!
BEN FORDHAM: Order, order, now listen to me, before we talk about the free trade agreement with China, I’ve just been discussing Concetta Fierravanti-Wells who is the Assistant Minister for Multicultural Affairs. She addressed the national press club today and she spoke about what she called her ‘wog name’, and when she got married her father said to her look maybe you could just be Concetta Wells, and she said no I want to keep the Fierravanti because I’m proud of my wog name and my heritage. I noticed that Christopher, you always call Anthony, Anthony Alban-aysi.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That’s right, that’s how you pronounce it.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: It’s the Italian…
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s the Italian pronunciation.
BEN FORDHAM: So Albo, everyone else says Anthony Alban-easy…
ANTHONY ALBANESE: People say all sorts of things mate, let me tell you, that’s why I tend to get Albo because it’s too hard.
BEN FORDHAM: Anthony Alban-aysi.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Anthony alban-aysi.
BEN FORDHAM: The labour party has agreed to support the free trade agreement with China, Bill Shorten says he’ll now support the deal after the government agreed to his three conditions. So this will start delivering tariff cuts to businesses by the end of the year. It’s taken some time Albo, some would say that Labor’s been dragging their feet on this deal.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: No we haven’t. We’ve been after making sure that this deal is in the interests of the Australian workers and it’s a good deal today. What we’ve done is make sure that employers who are doing the investment facilitation arrangements under the free trade agreement have to advertise jobs locally before turning to overseas workers. That’s the first thing we’ve done. That’s what we’ve said the whole way through and also we require 457 visa workers if they come in, in trades like electrical or plumbing, they have to obtain the relevant licenses as well under our licensing provisions within 60 days of coming into Australia. So these are important safeguards to make sure that locals can benefit from the free trade agreement and the government and the opposition I think this is parliament working as it should.
BEN FORDHAM: All right let me bring in Christopher, are these reasonable concessions Christopher?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well what the governments done is provide a letter of comfort to the opposition which clarifies what aspects of the China Australia Free Trade Agreement mean. The actual agreement is not being altered or changed but that letter of comfort has satisfied the opposition. What the government is showing is that we can deliver big policy reforms. This is a massive change to Australia into the future; this is the new mining industry, agriculture industry, innovative industries. This will mean a positive standard of living for Australians into the decades into the future. It’s great.
BEN FORDHAM: Alright so this letter of comfort that you referred to, does that mean that the government has not agreed to Labor’s three key conditions?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, what the government has done is clarified some aspects of the agreement that Labor felt were ambiguous, what they actually clearly mean. That’s been enough to satisfy the Labor party. I think this is a great example of the parliament working, of the new government showing we can get things passed.
BEN FORDHAM: Sure so can I just fling that one to Albo, Albo is that a fair summary of the whole thing, in other words there haven’t been changes as a result of that negotiation?
ANTHONY ALBANESE: No its not, there have been changes including…
BEN FORDHAM: Not to the deal though?
ANTHONY ALBANESE: No but that was always to be the case because you couldn’t change the deal. The deal, in order, if you changed one element of it you had to go back and change the whole thing we always accepted that but what you had is a whole range of regulations around the way it will actually be implemented and one of the changes was to increase the minimum base rate of pay for these 457 visas up to $57 000 a year, now that’s a very concrete change as well. Three elements we put forward there was no amber claim here.
BEN FORDHAM: As you’ve both pointed out…
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Andrew Robb and Penny Wong both sat down and…
BEN FORDHAM: As you’ve both pointed out hopefully this is a sign of great things for the Australian economy…
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It means jobs and growth!
BEN FORDHAM: And it’s going to help jobs and business and everything else and it’s above politics. Now speaking of being above politics that’s what happens when a politician says goodbye. Today it was Joe Hockey giving his valedictory speech today thanking his family, friends, and staff as you do. He also urged the, well the parliament, to stop the revolving door of leaders, and I suppose that’s a lesson for both sides. What did you make of the speech Albo?
ANTHONY ALBANESE: I thought it was a very good speech. I didn’t agree with everything as you would expect but Joe Hockey’s made an enormous contribution to public life and it was fantastic that his family were there for his farewell. I think he has, he’s someone that has, that certainly has my respect- I got a mention in his speech for working with him on the Badgerys Creek airport that we worked on for 20 years and he’s some who… I’ll tell you a story about Joe Hockey, very early on in our first term he was chair of the Sydney airport community forum. People were massively affected by aircraft noise in the Sydenham area and he came and sat with my constituents, no votes in it for him, no publicity. Sat down about their concerns and we got things done. From that point on I’ve had a positive personal relationship with Joe and I wish him well.
BEN FORDHAM: Good on you, let me go to you Christopher there’s been some criticism I just noticed a story online, James Missoula at the Sydney Morning Herald this afternoon saying there’s been some criticism from conservative members of the Liberal party that Julie Bishop didn’t turn up to, well she was late to arrive and that she didn’t make any public speech in recognition of Joe Hockey.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Julie was meeting with a delegation from the Middle East in her role as Foreign Minister and she came as soon as that was over so I think that’s a very unfair criticism, We had the same number of speakers as the Labor party. The Prime Minister, Warren Truss as Deputy Prime Minister, the Treasurer… Labor had the Leader of the Opposition, Tanya Plibersek as Deputy Leader of the Opposition, and the Shadow Treasurer, so there was synergy about that. I enjoyed Joe Hockey’s speech, he’s a very old friend of mine, we’ve known each other since we were teenagers and we’ve been in lots of fights together both internally and against the Labor party, and we’ve won a few and we’ve lost a few. And the great thing about Joe is that he’s a person of integrity and he’s leaving with dignity and he’ll have a continuing role to play in government in one way or another and I think he gave a very fair and reasonable speech today.
BEN FORDHAM: Always nice to see when both sides of politics put all the rubbish aside and say nice things about each other, it doesn’t happen enough. Now just quickly it’s back to the future day today because in the 1989 movie, Back to the Future II at this moment, well 4.30 on this day was marked as the time that they were flying into the future to try and save the world. So what I’m wondering is whether we play today back to the future, together. So what I want you to do, I don’t think looking 30 years ahead will be all that constructive; I think maybe 10 years is enough. Albo I want you to say where you think Christopher will be in 10 years and then Christopher I want you to do the same for Albo. Albo, you first.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: I reckon Christopher will be the Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate.
BEN FORDHAM: In the senate?
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Yeah well he will have lost his seat of Sturt by then.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Oh that’s churlish!
ANTHONY ALBANESE: He’ll be a valued supporter of rugby league; there will be this rugby league resurgence in SA after the Adelaide Rams reform.
BEN FORDHAM: Oh yes.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: They were in my electorate the Adelaide rams, I had a brief moment of interest in rugby league when the Adelaide Rams…
BEN FORDHAM: He’ll be the number one ticket holder when Adelaide return to the national rugby league.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: He’ll be the patron.
BEN FORDHAM: Christopher where will Albo be in ten years from now?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think poor old Albo will still be battling away as the Leader of the Opposition for the 10th year after he takes over from Bill Shorten in the next 12 months, he’ll still be there 10 years later, still against Malcolm Turnbull, still with the same old tired lines he runs every day.
BEN FORDHAM: Alright well the boxing gloves are back on, which is what we expect. We’ll talk to you next week.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: See you next week.
[ends]