5AA Adelaide Radio

JOURNALIST: Two tribes time on a Wednesday morning, Anthony Albanese and Christopher Pyne join us, I think Albo’s somewhere in Western Queensland, Anthony Albanese good morning.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: G’day, greetings from Roma, the Queensland Roma not Italy’s Roma.

JOURNALIST: Yeah, not too many votes in Italy’s Roma I wouldn’t have thought. Christopher Pyne good morning.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I know where he’d rather be.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Now you’re bring mean I’ll tell the Member for Maranoa you said that

JOURNALIST: Speaking of Queensland guys and for reasons we’d rather not we’ve been talking about it a lot this morning following on from the tragedy yesterday at Dream World. You’re two guys with young kids and fully appreciate the Gold Coast and the worlds have in the DNA and the fabric of holiday making in this country, can we start by just getting your thoughts on that horrible situation yesterday, we might start with you Albo.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Look it’s a devastating tragedy. I’m at a regional tourism conference here in Western Queensland where you have tourism operators from the Gold Coast and the conference began earlier this morning, the breakfast, with not surprisingly a minute silence. It’s extraordinary that this has happened. It’s a terrible tragedy for the families involved.

I’ve been on that ride with my son, when he was little, about ten years ago and it’s just good fun. And you expect to go to those Gold Coast attractions, have a great time and remember it for the rest of your lives. Unfortunately for the families affected by this tragedy it’s a struggle to see how they could get over it.

JOURNALIST: Have you ever done the pilgrimage to the worlds Chris with your kids or?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No yet no but my children did go to Disney World outside Paris in April this year so they sent me fabulous photographs from there while I was at home campaigning, I should add that we paid for that trip ourselves just in case.

Look it’s a terrible tragedy and it’s one of those random events that really just knocks everybody’s stuffing out because you all think gosh that could’ve been me, could’ve been my kids, it could’ve been anybody that I knew and I think the whole family last night at home in Adelaide were, and I was there, were just kind of devastated and thinking golly that could’ve just happened to anybody what a random act and for the family’s children to be there witnessing it must’ve just been one of the most hideous unimaginable experiences so I’m sure we all send our deepest sympathies to them all and just hope they can get their lives back together.

JOURNALIST: Yes, no absolutely. Now moving on to politics, this question mark over Bob Day who has obviously said that at some point sooner rather than later he is going to be exiting the Senate on account of the collapse of his home construction firm, is it a bad look Christopher for the government to be considering still taking his vote to support the building commission legislation?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No of course it’s not, Bob Day hasn’t set a date for his resignation, he’s announced that he intends to resign and then he’ll put a date on it but he hasn’t actually resigned until he’s left the building, until he’s left the Senate so until that point he is doing his job just like every other Senator in the same way as when an employees says they’re resigning and sets a certain date for their resignation or whatever happens in a workplace they still work until the day they’re gone and to suggest that we shouldn’t take his vote is ludicrous, especially from a political party that accepted Craig Thomson’s vote for the entire time that he was in the Parliament when he’d just ripped off the workers in the Health Services Union, I mean it’s epic hypocrisy from the Labor Party.

JOURNALIST: To you Albo, Craig Thomson who did use his HSU credit card for all sorts of horizontal activities, he’s the big chink in your armour when it comes to demanding that Bob Day’s vote not be accepted isn’t he?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well not in our armour but in Christopher’s, it’s a pity this is a radio interview otherwise you could show on TV Christopher dashing for the doors where he got to be called the gazelle in that famous Youtube video that is set the Benny Hill music. He panicked and kept saying that we shouldn’t accept the vote, that he didn’t have a right to vote in the Parliament. They can’t have it both ways, look…

JOURNALIST: But that was inadvertent though wasn’t it, I mean Labor knowingly and deliberately courted Craig Thomson’s vote didn’t it?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: No he was an elected Member of Parliament, he said he wasn’t resigning and he continued to vote as a cross bench Member of Parliament, that’s what happened as he was entitled to do. This bloke’s political career is finished just like the patience of his creditors. And he said he was resigning, he announced that in great fanfare, he said goodbye to everyone and now he’s back, this is absurd and it just shows how desperate the government is.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: But what happens in the workforce when somebody says they’ve found another job and they’re leaving in four week’s time and the boss says, ‘okay you can work for four weeks.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well when they shake everyone’s hand and they say goodbye and say I’m out of here then that’s it, they’ve gone.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No they haven’t…

ANTHONY ALBANESE: That’s what he did, he announced it.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: They often stay in the workplace for a month or more.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: But he announced that he was going.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: How ridiculous, you know this is absolute nonsense, it’s a massive denial from the Labor Party…

ANTHONY ALBANESE: He announced he was going…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: And what it proves is the Labor Party is desperate to protect the CFMEU, I mean when are you going to face up to the fact that…

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You’re exposed, your hypocrisy, it’s you above all people who kept arguing, you actually had this bizarre sort of fake pair…

JOURNALIST: Speaking of comings and goings and…

JOURNALIST: This is turning into a bit of a preview of the Mundine-Green fight if we’re not careful here.

JOURNALIST: I think they’re slightly older that Chris and Anthony though, that’s the difference.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You’ve got to keep control of Anthony Albanese, you’ve got to keep control of him, he’s out of control.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Congratulations that could Adelaide win that fight by the way. A great tourism event it will be for my mate Leon Bignell. He’s going to referee it I understand.

JOURNALIST: We’ll take part in it. Christopher, Newspoll earlier this week had Malcolm Turnbull below the preferred Prime Minister rating that Tony Abbott had before he was ousted. Did Malcolm Turnbull make a rod for his own back referencing Newspoll when removing Tony Abbott, only for him now to fall to that level?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Will, we are two and a half years away from an election and I am not going to commentate on every single poll between now and the next two and a half years. I think we’re getting on with the job of doing things that the Australian public want us to do like balancing the Budget, creating jobs, investing in the Defence Industry, all of those things like the ABCC and the registered organisations commission and the idea that we’re going to commentate on every single poll for the next two and a half years I think the public have had a gutful of that. They just want the Government to be allowed to get onto the job and that’s what I’m doing.

JOURNALIST: Hey Albo, what did you make of the fact that for all the government’s woes Bill Shorten hasn’t exactly sort of blossomed into Mr Popularity? You wouldn’t be too upset about that would you?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well I think 52-48 three news polls in a row is a pretty good outcome for the Labor Party.

JOURNALIST: Despite the lead in your saddlebag of Bill Shorten as Leader?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: What matters is the Labor vote and the Labor vote has us ahead. Malcolm Turnbull has become Malcolm ‘Turmoil’, like it’s chaotic over there.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You’ve got to get someone else to write your material.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: They don’t know what is going on over there.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Are you writing your own material again?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: They are hopeless.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: If you listen to the commentary in Canberra you’d expect that the Newspoll to be 60-40 Labor’s way. The fact that its 42-48 simply proves the public aren’t interested in the Labor Party because they’ve got no ideas.

JOURNALIST: We’re going to leave it there, sorry guys. Chris Pyne, Anthony Albanese always good.