5AA

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview – 5AA Adelaide
Wednesday 5^th November 2015

SUBJECTS: Same Sex Marriage, Nuclear Power, GST

Journalist: The Member for Sturt and Industry Minister, Chris Pyne, and the Shadow Infrastructure Minister and Transport Minister, Anthony Albanese. Good morning to you both and thank you so much for joining us here on 5AA Breakfast.

Christopher Pyne: Good morning Dave, good morning Will, and good morning Anthony, and thanks for having us.

Anthony Albanese: G’day Penbo, g’day Will, g’day Christopher.

Journalist: Guys you’ve got a bit of form with this over the years, you’ve done stints on the Today Show, you do a bit of stuff on Sydney radio so the format is always plenty of fun so you can get stuck into each other as much as you want.

Christopher Pyne: We might get stuck into you instead.

Journalist: Hang on; this is not how this is meant to pan out.

Anthony Albanese: We’re in different cities here, so I’m on Christopher’s home turf, we do Ben Fordham in Sydney this afternoon, in fact.

Christopher Pyne: Indeed

Journalist: Who generally wins that one?

Anthony Albanese: My home field

Journalist: Well it’s good that you’re playing an away game for a change up.

Anthony Albanese: Ben Fordham usually wins.

Journalist: Hey guys, look, we want to kick off with the issue of same sex marriage, it’s quietened down a bit of the last couple of weeks but the foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, breathed new life into it yesterday when she made these comments.

Audio Clip of Julie Bishop: “I think the Australian people should have their say. I have absolutely no concerns about it myself, but I know there are a lot of people who are deeply concerned about the issue – that’s why I think a plebiscite, where the Australia people get to have a vote on it, on an issue as fundamental as this that goes to the very composition of our community, the way we treat each other, how we feel about each other. I think that’s an important issue for a plebiscite and that’s why I support it, and look forward to the Australian people having their say.

Journalist: We’ll start with you Chris – do you think that Malcolm Turnbull, who is obviously a supporter of same sex marriage, is being true to himself by sticking with the process which Tony Abbott laid out?

Christopher Pyne: Well, the Party Room had a many hour debate about the process and, while I was on the side of people who believed we should have a free vote in the Parliament, the view that was overwhelming was that we should put it to the people. The only poll that was published on that was that 70% of people liked that idea, they want to have a say on an issue that which is going to be quite important to our society and so, what’s wrong with giving the public a say? I want everyone to have a free vote, whether it’s me, or Anthony, or you and Will, or the general public and then, once the decision is made, the parliament will implement whatever that decision is.

Journalist: What about you Albo, you’re from Labor’s left which has long championed this cause, what do you think of the plebiscite process? Are you worried that, particularly if you have an equally funded yes and no campaign that it might flush out some sort of ugly hostility towards gay people?

Anthony Albanese: well, I’m not worried about it, I know that it will happen, and anyone who has a looked at the sort of the content of the emails that we receive, knows that an equally funded yes and no campaign will, unfortunately, bring out some of the more bigoted elements. And you can, of course have different views on marriage equality and still have respect for individuals but some people out there that’s not the case. We’ve seen homosexuality linked to bestiality, for example, and quite hurtful comments, and I am concerned that this idea of a plebiscite essentially is a cop out about the liberal party room, I mean, we don’t have plebiscite – if you ask people do you want a plebiscite on the GST? Do you want a plebiscite on going to war? Do you want a plebiscite on paying taxes? Of course, people will say yes.

Christopher Pyne: Well I think the Irish managed it very well; I have great faith in the Australian public to be able to have this debate in a sensible way. Almost every election is conducted in a sensible way. There are always funny elements on all sides of debates, and having faced eight elections, and I think Anthony’s faced seven, we see plenty of extreme views but that doesn’t mean that the great majority of the Australian public can’t have a proper debate. And if the Irish can manage it, I don’t see why we can’t.

Anthony Albanese: But, we have a system is Australia whereby Parliamentarians are elected to make decisions, we know what the overwhelming majority of the public think about this and, the truth is if this change was made, for an overwhelming majority of Australians it would make absolutely no difference to their lives.

Journalist: Do you worry – I’ll switch back to Chris Pyne if we can Albo, Chris do you worry that, as we saw with the republican referendum back in 1999 – you’re a republican you support gay marriage, do you think that it’s easy to run the negative campaigns against it say ‘oh well, we’re going to have to vote on this - it’s going to cost so much money.” A lot of that negativity will feed into it and harm the yes vote.

Christopher Pyne: I think there was a vast difference between the republic debate and this debate. I think a lot of Australians who are very sensible thought that there was no need to change our constitutional model cause if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, that worked very well with the Australian public. I think with this debate the overwhelming view is that it’s time to change that, in my case, I think that there is so many children now of same sex households that they deserve some legal stability around the households in which they live – I think the world has changed dramatically. When my eighty-six year old mother is saying ‘let them in,’ why wouldn’t we want them to be part of what we have? If we value marriage and they want to value marriage why would we exclude them? I think that’s a very big change in society and I don’t think that this will be conducted in negative way; I think it will be seen as a big positive for Australia.

Journalist: Speaking of another large and sometimes emotion filled debate, nuclear power and engaging in the nuclear fuel cycle has been a discussion that has been enabled in, largely in part thanks to Premier Jay Weatherill, member of Labour’s left faction here in South Australia’s royal commission into the nuclear fuel cycle, with the Prime Minister in the studio last week who said that after chatting with Brett the cook and he’s largely supportive of the concept, and there’s some value in engaging in it. Is it time that the Labor left faction federally, Anthony Albanese, engaged in that debate as well?

Anthony Albanese: Well I have a very firm view on this and it’s been a consistent view which is that when someone can show me that there’s a solution to the issue of nuclear waste then I’m prepared to have a further discussion about any further involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle, but whilst that remains an outstanding issue then I don’t think it can be just wished away and that’s my concern. It’s one I’ve held for a long period of time, I respect the fact that Jay Weatherill, as is his right a is his right as the Premier of South Australia, is having this inquiry but hopefully that’s one of the things it’ll look at because those issues haven’t been resolved, certainly to my satisfaction and I don’t think to anyone else’s either. It’s a case of putting off what the problems are in the nuclear fuel cycle for someone else to deal with.

Christopher Pyne: There are countries around the world that have managed to solve the issue of the storage of nuclear waste so I think that is a bit of an old fashioned argument. I certainly welcome the royal commission in South Australia being conducted by Kevin Scarce, you couldn’t accuse Kevin Scarce of being a Labor or a Liberal lackey so he will come up with fair and reasonable findings on all these issues and I agree with…

Journalist: I thought you’ve previously said, Chris Pyne, that it was just a distraction from the repat of the Modbury Hospitals?

Christopher Pyne: Well it might’ve been at that particular point of time but where it hands down its findings, hopefully…

Anthony Albanese: Don’t look for consistency from Christopher.

Christopher Pyne: Sooner rather than later. Well you’re so consistent that you’re still arguing about things to do with nuclear waste that people were talking about in the 70s. You’ve got to catch up -

Anthony Albanese: Mate, there are ships floating around the world with waste on them that don’t land.

Christopher Pyne: You’ve got to update your thinking

Anthony Albanese: There is an ongoing issue, Christopher with nuclear waste.

Christopher Pyne: You just don’t want to fall out with your left supporters, that’s all that’s about.

Anthony Albanese: Not at all.

Christopher Pyne: Well I’m looking forward to the royal commission’s finding and if Kevin Scarce can convince the Australian public through his royal commission that we should go down the track of investing in a nuclear industry, well I’m interesting in having a look at it. I’m not convinced but I’m happy to look at it.

Journalist: Hey, we want to switch now to the GST, Chris, are we going see you walking round Burnside Village with a ‘vote for me and I’ll put the GST up to 15%’ placard?

Christopher Pyne: Well I’d love to be able to go and campaign at the Burnside Village but the proprietors of the Burnside Village don’t want any people like me hanging around handing out my leaflets.

Anthony Albanese: If you took that principal you’d never go anywhere Christopher.

Christopher Pyne: That’s right I think I should gate-crash the Burnside Village and hand out my leaflets.

Journalist: “Man Arrested In Burnside Village”

Christopher Pyne: I go all across my electorate handing out leaflets and talking to voters but the Burnside village won’t have me, which is a real problem.

Anthony Albanese: You’re not welcome in my electorate either, mate.

Christopher Pyne: I am so, they love me in Grayndler. They love me

Journalist: It’s a hard sell though, isn’t it?

Christopher Pyne: Look we haven’t made any decisions about a change in the GST, obviously Jay Wetherill thinks it’s a good idea to increase the GST and hand over money to the states for education, health…

Anthony Albanese: You’re the government; you’ve reached your decision.

Christopher Pyne: Well it’s a state Act. There are other Premiers like Mike Baird that’s in favour of increasing the GST and handing it to the states and also changing the tax mix. Look, I think we are mature enough as a country to have a debate about it, to have a discussion about it, but the government is far from making a decision about it. What the Treasurer’s working on at the moment, of course, is trying to make sure we can live within our means and there’ll be a mid-year economic forecast handed down at the end of the year so, we’ll see more then about how we’re going in terms of fixing Labor’s mess.

Journalist: Hey Albo we’ve got almost one in ten South Australians out of work, why would the Labor Party be trying to demonise business, and talk about “we’re gonna go after the big end of town and companies and do something by jacking up company taxes.” It’s gonna make it less likely that businesses are going to hire.

Anthony Albanese: