4BC
14 Mar 2012
Transcipt SUBJECTS: Question Time
E&OE………………………………………………………………………………………
Gary Hardgrave: How long did you get sin-binned for?
Christopher Pyne: An hour Gary. I got thrown out for an hour by your Queensland colleage Mr Slipper.
Hardgrave: Yes, we made Peter Slipper the Speaker. He is the Speaker and he’s made it quite plain he doesn’t like the word scumbag. I thought he would have heard that word years ago when Paul Keating was there.
Pyne: Paul Keating used to fling it about with great alacrity directed towards the Opposition, but apparently it’s not longer an allowed term, but I stand by it. I think Wayne Swan was busily traducing the reputations of people like Gina Rinehart and Twiggy Forest and Clive Palmer and the Opposition generally….
Hardgrave: I’m with you on this Christopher. I got a bit lampooned on Paul Murray’s program last night when I said I’m sick to death of tall poppies being picked on. People like Gina Rinehart (inaudible)… is a revelation to me. This is a woman who’s worth a lot of money and done a lot of good things and I’m just sick to death of the Treasurer beating her up.
Pyne: I thought entrepreneurship was something that Australians valued and more importantly it employs hundreds of thousands of Australians around the country whether it’s in the mining sector or Clive Palmer’s other interests or Twiggy Forest’s other interests. And goodness, the work that Twiggy Forest has done with indigenous employment is second to none. So I don’t think we should be running down the people that are making this country wealthy and employing our families. The last thing we want to do is drive those people away. We want to keep them to keep on doing that.
Hardgrave: They could leave the country. They could take their money anywhere couldn’t they?
Pyne: Well, we’re in a global economy and we don’t want Wayne Swan putting at risk very important businesses because they get sick of being singled out for having their reputations trashed by a treasurer who has trashed debt, trashed the deficit and trashed the cost of living in Australia. He should be focussing on his own job rather than attacking other people.
Hardgrave: Either way, the speaker doesn’t like it. Paul Keating, he did it with gay abandon; scumbag at every turn.
Pyne: That’s true. If we’re worried about terms like scumbag then I think the politicians of today are a bit thin skinned.
Hardgrave: I think so. Well, you maintain the thickness of your skin Christopher.
Pyne: I will to.
ENDS