5AA Breakfast

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

5AA Breakfast with David Penberthy and Will Goodings
9 December 2015

SUBJECTS: Jobs and growth in SA under the new innovation and science agenda;

Compere: Christopher Pyne and Anthony Albanese join us, talking all things federal, state and in between. Christopher Pyne, good morning.

Christopher Pyne: Good morning Will, good morning Dave, good morning Anthony.

Compere: Anthony Albanese, good morning.

Anthony Albanese: Good morning lads.

Compere: Gentlemen, we’ve been talking this week about the $1.1 billion innovation package that was unveiled by Malcolm Turnbull a couple of days ago. Now Christopher, you were the minister responsible for the package, and the PM urged you to – and I quote him here – unleash your inner revolutionary in applying yourself to the task. Do you think that the model you’ve come up with is going to help revolutionise the jobs landscape here in South Australia?

Christopher Pyne: There’s absolutely no doubt about that. This is a transformative reform; I’m very excited to be responsible for it, particularly as the senior South Australian Cabinet Minister. This is happening because Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister wants to drive a jobs and growth agenda around the ideas boom, following the resources boom. It’s great for South Australia, and it’s great for South Australia because it will support our incubators at places like the University of South Australia, it’ll support a new research impact metric, which means that universities like the University of Adelaide that have a heavy agricultural research priority will benefit because they have practical outcomes from their research, and this is going to make the industry and university collaboration much stronger, and that will give us a real advantage.

And all our universities do great health research around biomedical, and so therefore the Biomedical Translation Fund to turn those good ideas into jobs and growth will be a benefit to South Australia. And for the automotive industry, the innovations connections, which brings a researcher from a university into a small or medium enterprise to help them turn a good idea into a new product or service will advantage the automotive industry, which is emerging from the trough that it’s been in for the last year or two.

Compere: So Chris …

Christopher Pyne: It’s great news for South Australia.

Compere: So Chris Pyne, by how much should the South Australian Treasurer, Tom Koutsantonis revise up his predicted job growth in South Australia?

Christopher Pyne: Well goodness, I wouldn’t want to attach myself to the star of Tom Koutsantonis or the South Australian State Government …

Compere: Well he’s predicting 0.25 per cent job growth – what should it be, in light of this package?

Christopher Pyne: Well it should be- well I mean, that’s an impossible question to answer obviously because we haven’t yet seen the benefits flowing through from the package. There are short term benefits, like changes to the way we deal with taxation of small and medium enterprises and start-ups, and capital gains tax and income tax; they’ll have an impact short, medium term. There are longer term impacts by investing in science, technology, engineering at maths at schools and universities and pre-school. We’re going to bring new entrepreneurs here through visa arrangements. It’s a comprehensive package. As a lot of people have said, they’re one surprised. Ian Chubb, the Chief Scientist, who David and I would remember from university days was never really regarded as a great supporter of the Liberal Party – he says it’s exceeded, wildly exceeded his greatest expectations. That is a big positive.

Compere: Hey Albo, there seems to be an uncharacteristic outbreak of love between Labor and the Coalition over this. Your side of politics is – despite a bit of quibbling about who came up with some of the ideas first – you are welcoming the general direction of it. But you’re someone who has always represented working class people with a great deal of passion. My question in the South Australian context, for people who have grown up working in a sort of production line type environment, how do you shift them across from the old economy to the new economy?

Anthony Albanese: Well that’s a challenge, and it is good that there’s a level of bipartisanship on the need to transform our economy, the need for innovation, the need to create new jobs in new industries. The world doesn’t just stand still. But I do notice that Christopher just said, the problems that the automotive industry faced in the last year or two, well that’s called the election of the Abbott Government that basically told the automotive industry to wrap up …

Christopher Pyne: Oh really? I mean, Mitsubishi closed under Labor. I mean, let’s not be part of this, Mitsubishi closed under Labor, and so …

Anthony Albanese: The Government- the Government- I gave you a chance, Christopher. So the Government told the automotive industry basically to rack off from South Australia. That’s what happened.

Christopher Pyne: No.

Anthony Albanese: So there is- and in terms of some of the changes, you know the CSIRO was cut by $110 million. It’s good that that money’s been put back but it would have been better if it wasn’t cut in the first place. The Government needs to take off the table the abolition of ARENA, South Australia is of course ahead of the rest of the country when it comes to renewables, the abolition of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation that’s doing such fantastic work promoting private sector investment and they need to get serious about the National Broadband Network. I mean it is now half the speed but double the cost what they promised and the NBN- if there’s something that consistently runs across all the new industries, it’s access to high speed broadband services.

Compere: Can I ask you both in fact about Tony Abbott for just a moment, Chris Pyne given that he’s writing a column now for News Limited Newspapers, it appeared- the analysis of which appeared on the front page of the paper today, his comments continue to get massive traction in the community whenever he does speak publicly. Is there a danger that Tony Abbott is a bit like the Prime Minister in exile at the moment?

Christopher Pyne: No not at all and I mean Tony Abbott is a backbencher in the Government, he wants the Government to be re-elected. He’s a person with a fine policy mind. He wants to make a contribution and none of the things that I’ve heard him say or write are at odds with either his government’s policies or the current government’s policies and we- I welcome him to the debate. He’s a great advocate.

Anthony Albanese: I bet you don’t Christopher because he’s out there causing enormous grief. You’ve had in the last week of Parliament Ian Macfarlane defect from the Liberals to the Nats, you’ve had enormous disquiet and there’s no doubt that Malcolm Turnbull enjoyed a very strong honeymoon, but last week in Parliament you just had to walk around the building to see the little cabals of Abbott supporters gathering and talking to each other and plotting to cause some difficulties..

Christopher Pyne: No, you wish. You wish.

Anthony Albanese: I think Joe Hockey’s comments yesterday were pretty extraordinary when he said the only reason why he’d hang round in Parliament was to pay back people who removed him and that’s one of the reasons why he moved on to be the US ambassador.

Christopher Pyne: You guys spent the week on old politics, bagging the minister and the polls indicated zero changes [indistinct].

Anthony Albanese: I didn’t make- I didn’t make Joe Hockey make that statement yesterday, nor did I organize for Tony Abbott to do the Sky News interview yesterday, or The Daily Telegraph column today.

Christopher Pyne: Poor old Bill Shorten went overseas for a week and his poll rate still went down. He wasn’t even in the news for a week and he went down another point.

Compere: Hey Chris Pyne, can I ask you though, on this situation with Ian Macfarlane who is the former industry minister who is defecting from the Liberal Party to the National Party, should he be rewarded for effectively betraying your party with a return to Cabinet?

Christopher Pyne: Well that’s just really an internal thing in the Queensland LNP because the LNP is both the Liberal Party and the National Party. Now they’ll work that out in Queensland and the LNP state executive will sort that out and there’ll be some kind of resolution arising out of it. I can’t [indistinct]…

Compere: But whether he returns to the ministry’s not an internal thing, that’s an external thing because that gives him hands on the policy levers, influence over people’s lives.

Christopher Pyne: Well it depends on- it depends on a whole range of things, all of which have to be worked out internally within Queensland. I don’t think the public care one way or the other whether…

Anthony Albanese: It’s called the ministry in Canberra, Christopher.

Christopher Pyne: … whether Ian Macfarlane’s in the National Party, the Liberal Party or quite frankly whether he’s a Cabinet minister or whether the Nationals have got more than the Liberal Party, I don’t think people are talking about that over the breakfast table this morning.

Compere: But a lot of Liberals would care if he was back in the Cabinet wouldn’t they?

Christopher Pyne: I think what they’re talking about is about my innovation package and the enormous jobs and growth potential this package represents. This is one of the biggest packages in Canberra ever.

Compere: Hey Albo, we’ve been calling him Mr 15 Per Cent, we had to re-nickname him Mr 14 Per Cent this week. Bill Shorten has a real chance of getting beaten by the margin for error in Newspoll soon isn’t he?

Anthony Albanese: Well what we’ll get down to is the debate about the policies and this week, indeed tomorrow the Federal Government’s taking a plan for a 15 per cent GST to the states in terms of COAG but they’re pretending but they’re not doing that…

Christopher Pyne: Because we’re not.

Anthony Albanese: Even though the modeling’s out there. Well you can’t have it both ways. This is a government that says it wants a mature debate and a discussion about increasing the GST and every time it’s raised, every time…

Christopher Pyne: It’s a state and territory tax, Anthony.

Anthony Albanese: Well are you ruling it out Christopher? Please give…

Christopher Pyne: It’s a state and territory tax, my friend, so they…

Anthony Albanese: Give Pembo and Will a scoop here, Christopher. Increase the ratings of the fine 5AA by ruling it out now.

Christopher Pyne: We’ve already increased their ratings by coming on their show…

Anthony Albanese: Yeah but rule it out. This will give them a national profile, which they deserve.

Compere: We’re going national.

Compere: Yeah.

Christopher Pyne: Today we’re all going national.

Anthony Albanese: Which they deserve. Come on Christopher just say there will be no increase.

Christopher Pyne: Let me finish!

Anthony Albanese: You can do it!

Christopher Pyne: Jay Weatherill and Mike Baird are the people who put the GST on the agenda…

Anthony Albanese: You can do it.

Christopher Pyne: … and we’re happy to have that debate but it’s not our tax, it’s their tax as you well know.

Compere: Hey guys we’re going to have to leave it there and this is our last Two Tribes for the year.

Anthony Albanese: He hasn’t said the one line he has to say.

Compere: There are more positions on…

Christopher Pyne: I think the one line you’ve got to say is you won’t challenge Bill Shorten for leader.

Anthony Albanese: Give him (*) momentum, momentum.

Christopher Pyne: When you going to take over from Capitalist Bill?

Compere: Merry Christmas guys.

Christopher Pyne: He’s gone very quiet now.

Compere: Are you getting each other a present for Christmas?

Christopher Pyne: Yes.

Anthony Albanese: Oh. I wonder what it will be. We’ll see each other on Friday morning, so…

Christopher Pyne: I’m going to give him space, some space from me. Give him a break from me.

Compere: Time apart.

Anthony Albanese: