2GB Ben Fordham

Subjects: Election Results

E&OE........

BEN FORDHAM:

How are you feeling?

HON CHRISTOPHER PYNE MP:

I’m a bit tired, actually! I’m a bit tired but I am very happy.

FORDHAM:

You sound a bit croaky.

PYNE:

I’m a bit croaky, a bit tired and worn out because this election campaign while it is sort of officially five weeks it feels like three years since the last Parliament.

FORDHAM:

You better fire up, you’re in Government now!

PYNE:

I'm fired up, don’t you worry about that. I’m very much looking forward to it, rearing to go. But I think we are entitled to be tired for a couple of days. It’s amazing that Labor still don’t get it, you know still arguing about the peripheral issues, you know, new slogans. The problem with this government wasn’t slogans, the problem was that it was that it was incompetent and untrustworthy and people didn’t want to vote for it because they didn’t keep any of their promises. They lied before the election about the carbon tax and kept pretending after it that this wasn’t a problem and no one believe that they could, that they liked each other. Everybody assumed that the way they behaved towards Kevin Rudd the first time and then Julia Gillard, that they just didn’t, couldn’t work in a team and they weren’t interested in voting for them.

FORDHAM:

You would have had a look at some of the, those areas that are still in doubt, hanging in the balance, it is a bit like a sea saw. But do you have any updates for us?

PYNE:

Well the electoral commission has given us 86 seats. There are six in balance. I predict that we will win all of them.

FORDHAM:

You think you will win all?

PYNE:

Yeah. I do. Because there are a lot of people who voted by prepoll and postal, like a lot more than usual, and…

FORDHAM:

And that usually favours conservatives?

PYNE:

It usually favours us because it tends to be older people and small business people who are working on a Saturday and of course there is a swing to us across the country and that swing will be amplified in those votes and therefore I think that any of those seats that are in doubt by like half a per cent or less, which they are in places like Petrie and Reid and McEwen Eden-Monaro which will fall on side of the ledger. So I think we will go from 86 to 92 give or take one or two.

FORDHAM:

What about in Clive Palmer’s seat, Fairfax?

PYNE:

Looks like Clive Palmer will win, which is an amazing outcome. And Labor will have about 54 seats so it is a thumping win and Labor pretending that somehow they are really happy with the result is really weird it is like losing the Grand Final by forty points and the losing side coming out punching the air and high-fiving their supporters. The truth is they have lose in a thumping defeat because they were unworthy in the last three years in particular and we have a very comfortable majority for which we are very grateful to the Australian people for giving us the chance to form a government.

FORDHAM:

I know there has been a lot of discussion about Sophie Mirabella in Indi whether or not she will get up.

PYNE:

She’s in trouble. And I think that getting into more trouble today unfortunately. She seems to be falling further behind. And we will just have to see how that one ends up. It’s a country seat so it depends on you know on which sequence they count votes, where they have come from in the electorate as to how that will end up.

FORDHAM:

So when you said that the remaining six you were confident on, well that’s not, what, the AEC has already judged that to have gone the other way, Indi?

PYNE:

I’m not including Indi because the six I’m talking about is six marginal Labor seats.

FORDHAM:

Okay.

PYNE:

Like Petrie, Capricornia, Eden-Monaro, McEwen, and I haven’t got the list in front of me but a couple of others that are in doubt. Reid is another one.

FORDHAM:

When is your boss Tony Abbott, when is Tony Abbott going to be sitting down with everybody and telling them their portfolios?

PYNE:

Well, he has to settle the Coalition agreement with Warren Truss first, that’s what he is doing at the moment, in Canberra. And once that has been done, Warren Truss writes to the Governor-General saying that he is prepared to support a Tony Abbott-led Coalition Government and then that, that the group that he chooses to be his front bench will get sworn in, I assume some time next week. And he will do that I assume toward the end of this week and over the weekend.

FORDHAM:

So the only guarantees are Joe Hockey, Treasurer…

PYNE:

Joe will be the treasurer…and

FORDHAM:

Julie Bishop…

PYNE:

Will be the Foreign Minister.

FORDHAM:

Foreign Minister.

PYNE:

Warren Truss will be the Deputy Prime Minister and I assume Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and the rest of us are all up in the air.

FORDHAM:

What are you hoping for?

PYNE:

Well I am happy to serve in whatever role but I am currently Leader of the House and Shadow Minister for Education and tony has made it pretty clear that most people in the Cabinet will continue in their roles and if I continue in that role I will be absolutely delighted.

FORDHAM:

So the counters are already started on the number of boats that have turned up since the Coalition has been in office but I know hey it’s harsh being in government Christopher but that’s the way it works. So you have had two boat arrivals so when do you expect that you’ll be sending some around?

PYNE:

Well we are not in Government yet. The caretaker provisions still apply until next Tuesday, that’s the day we are sworn in. And then after that the Public Service relinquishes the Government back to the new Cabinet and from that day from what I understand Tony Abbott has made it clear that there will be new orders for the navy and we will start the process of stopping the boats. So until that day we can’t really be responsible for any boats that have arrived. But we are not shirking responsibility but next Tuesday is when we get the hands on the rein of the stage coats, so to speak, so until then it is still the Department of Immigration and Finance, and Treasury that are running the show.

FORDHAM:

So after that point next week, once you have got your hands on the rein so to speak, boats will be turned away when it’s safe to do so?

PYNE:

That’s the policy, yes.

FORDHAM:

And that’s what will happen?

PYNE:

Well Tony Abbott has already met yesterday with the head of the Defence Forces and I assume, not that I was in that meeting, but I assume that that was a discussion that was held.

FORDHAM:

I know you don’t go giving too many favours to the other side, but if you were on the other side of politics, who would you be putting in charge of the Labor Party?

PYNE:

I’d put Kevin back in. I think he’s been terrific. I don’t think we could go past Kevin Rudd. And his speech on Saturday night I must admit sounded more like an ‘I’m still available’ speech than a speech of concession…

FORDHAM:

No…

PYNE:

As long as Kevin is in the caucus, he should be the leader. He has done a marvellous job.

FORDHAM:

Anthony Albanese, your friend, or Bill Shorten?

PYNE:

Look it’s not for me to give advice to my Labor opponents. Of course I have my own views, but I will stick to me responsibilities which is looking after, being a part of the opposition, well the government now. I am still getting used to idea of not being in opposition, Ben.

FORDHAM:

It’ll take you a while.

PYNE:

I know.

FORDHAM:

Christopher, you get that voice fixed up and we’ll talk to you soon.

PYNE:

Thank you.

FORDHAM:

Christopher Pyne, Coalition frontbencher joining us on the line.

[ENDS]