5AA Adelaide

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
5AA Adelaide Radio
13 December 2017
SUBJECTS: Sam Dastyari; Bennelong Bi-election

JOURNALIST: The final instalment of two tribes for 2017. Anthony Albanese and Christopher Pyne good morning to you both
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Will and David and Anthony.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: G’day, I’ll say merry Christmas given it’s the last one.
JOURNALIST: Yeah, merry Christmas to you guys as well. Hey we’re going to kick off with you if we can Albo. In light of Sam Dastyari’s resignation yesterday has Bill Shorten’s credibility been damaged by his decision to stick with Sam Dastyari for so long, and has his grasp on the leadership been weakened by losing an ally from the New South Wales right?
ANTHONY ALBANESE: No not at all. The fact is that Sam’s paid a heavy price, there’s still people sitting in the House of Reps and the Senate who’ve received donations from Huang Xiangmo. Some hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone to the WA Liberal Party, for example, that this week we found out that a notice has gone out asking people to attend a fundraiser for the Liberal Party where the guest speakers weren’t Liberal Party Ministers or Shadow Ministers, they were representatives of the Chinese government, so I think there are real questions to be asked there. The Sam Dastyari issue has been settled by Sam’s decision to resign from the Senate. Sam was a colourful figure; I think we need more colourful figures in politics…
JOURNALIST: He was a bit too though colourful wasn’t he?
ANTHONY ALBANESE: I think one of the things about Sam was that he took things on, there was no first second or third gear, it was always fourth or overdrive and that obviously created some issues with Sam’s judgement and he’s paid a price for that, he’s acknowledged that.
JOURNALIST: But Bill Shorten’s safe do you think? He’s clearly upset a lot of people in the New South Wales right.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Look, Bill Shorten’s position has been secure. One of the things about the Labor Party is that there hasn’t been undermining. No leader in the time I’ve been in politics on either side has had more support or a straight run at things than Bill Shorten, and the other…
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That doesn’t sound like a very fulsome endorsement.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: The undermining that’s gone on is on your side, the question is what will be the implications for Malcolm Turnbull if Kristina Keneally wins the Bennelong bi-election on Saturday?
JOURNALIST: We’re going to talk about Bennelong in a tick. Just to you though Chris on the Dastyari issue, do you think that his resignation is the end of the affair, or do you support the Foreign Minister Julie Bishop in demanding that he go immediately and that taxpayers stop paying his wage?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s a very unusual resignation because it’s basically a resignation in the future. He is still a Senator and he says he will resign the time we come back to the Senate in the February. And the latest twist in this Dastyari saga is that Kristina Keneally is holding out the prospect of taking his Senate vacancy so Kristina Keneally has already moved on from Bennelong…
ANTHONY ALBANESE: She’ll be the Member for Bennelong on Saturday.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We suspected that Kristina Keneally was just using Bennelong as a career progression rather than wanting to represent people of that seat, unlike John Alexander, but she’s already not ruling out taking Sam Dastyari’s Senate seat. So she’s really proven to everyone that it’s just about career progression.
JOURNALIST: Let’s put that to you Albo; is that something you would like Kristina Keneally to consider in the event that she’s unsuccessful in her bid to represent the people of Bennelong on the weekend?
ANTHONY ALBANESE: No, I want her to win Bennelong, I’ll be there handing out.
JOURNALIST: In the event she doesn’t.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well it’s pretty obvious she is doing a fantastic job and that she’s in with a real crack here. She is campaigning hard, I was in Bennelong yesterday I’ve got to say and if…
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: (inaudible) the neighbourhood.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: My little – I notice they’ve kept you away.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m there this morning my friend.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well that will seal it. Kristina Keneally has been elected in Bennelong, thank you Christopher.
JOURNALIST: In the event Chris Pyne that Kristina Keneally wins on the weekend is Malcolm Turnbull’s position tenable?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Kristina Keneally is already moving on to the Senate vacancy. She has given up on Bennelong; we all knew that she was only using Bennelong as a stepping stop.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Why are you there handing out?
JOURNALIST: Newspoll has it at 50/50 this week.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Why are you there working?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’ll be there on Saturday handing out as well because I think John Alexander…
ANTHONY ALBANESE: See, they’re petrified.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: He really wants to represent the people of Bennelong, he’s represented them well for the last seven years, he’s a good local member. He cares about issues like congestion and traffic, which Kristina Keneally created the problem in the first place. And I’m very confident the people of Bennelong will vote for the good hard-working local member…
JOURNALIST: So you’re going to be there handing out how to votes are you Chris Pyne?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I am, I’m going up to…
JOURNALIST: How often do you hand out how to votes in other states?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Oh, when I’ve got a free Saturday.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: The sign of desperation.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I really support John Alexander and I want him to win.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Have you got a visa to get into Sydney?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I don’t need to go near the Marxist state of Grayndler, that’s for sure…
ANTHONY ALBANESE: They’d tar and feather you here comrade.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: (inaudible) Republic of Grayndler, don’t worry about that.
JOURNALIST: Hey Chris on balance and hand on heart it hasn’t been a great year for you guys?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We’re finishing the year very well, we’ve had a very successful budget, we’ve achieved marriage equality in Australia, we won the New England bi-election with the biggest swing to a government since 1911, which Bill Shorten really can’t take any comfort from that disastrous result. The swing to Barnaby Joyce was bigger than the Labor Party’s primary vote, so [we’ve] actually ended the year in very good shape. We’ve created 371,000 new jobs, 80% of which are full time, in Labor’s last year they created less than 100,000. The economy is
recovering which is the most important thing that governments can achieve. The budget is getting back to surplus so…
JOURNALIST: I get all that, but I thought one of the most on the money remarks I’ve heard from someone of late was actually Bob Katter where he said, and I don’t agree with his views, certainly on same sex marriage, but he said a couple of weeks ago ‘it’s felt like the Parliament has spent the entire year flying back and forth to Canberra so that we can argue about each other’s citizenship and whether gay people should get married or not.’ That’s what it’s felt like, that’s what a lot of our listeners think, I reckon they’re going to want to see more nuts and bolts stuff that affects them in 2018.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We have the energy guarantee, the national energy guarantee formulated this year to try and take pressure of electricity prices. Malcolm announced, of course, the Snowy Hydro 2.0, the largest renewable energy project in Australia’s history. And of course in defence industry we’ve been getting on with the job of creating thousands of news jobs, just this week down at Osborne I announced 200 new positions to keep the ASC workforce intact, ready for the offshore patrol vessels and the future frigates to start on schedule, and the submarines. So we’ve been getting on with the jobs, sure social media creates this constant sense of crisis, and I think the mainstream media sometimes feels the need to compete with that, but the government itself has been getting on with the job and I think the public see that.
JOURNALIST: Yet given all that Chris you’re handing out how to vote cards this Saturday in a seat you hold by 10%.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I like John alexander and I want to see him get elected.
JOURNALIST: What about you Albo?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: My wife likes John Alexander so she wanted me to go over there and hand out how to vote cards.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: They’ve had a shocker, that’s the truth and the fact that John Alexander is struggling in a seat that he got 60% of the 2 party preferred vote on just a bit over a year ago. A bit over a year ago our primary vote in Bennelong had a 2 in front of it, and Cabinet [that] Ministers are flying in from all over the country to hand out how to votes on Saturday says it all.
JOURNALIST: If he can bring his magic touch from the seat of Sturt who knows Albo, maybe you guys are getting ahead of yourselves.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The old Midas touch.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: I accept that Christopher has some qualities of which people in Sturt, some of them actually see, but in Bennelong I think they’ll just say ‘what is this guy doing here?’
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: They’ll say ‘it’s nice to see you and I will vote for John Alexander’ with my winning smile, and I’ll hand them a how to vote card.
JOURNALIST: Hey guys it’s been a lot of fun this year.
JOURNALIST: Absolutely.
JOURNALIST: It’s been impossible to control at times, this segment, but you guys have broken a lot of stories.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It can get a bit rowdy.
JOURNALIST: Yes it does get a bit rowdy.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: We’re a bit out of control but that’s your fault, you’re supposed to control us.
JOURNALIST: Yeah I know, impossible task. I feel like razor Ray or indeed Bill Harrigan to put an NRL spin on it. Albo, Chris Pyne, have a very Merry Christmas and happy New Year and we’ll start it all again in late January, good on you guys.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Thank you very much.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Same to you and all your family.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s been terrific, thanks a lot.