5AA Two Tribes

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

5AA Two Tribes with Anthony Albanese

12 December 2018

SUBJECTS: Space Agency; Shipbuilding achievements; Labor Party National Conference; highs and lows of 2018

JOURNALIST: I think they promised Christmas carols or carolling at least last week. Christopher Pyne and Anthony Albanese, good morning to you.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning gentlemen, and Happy Christmas to your listeners.

JOURNALIST: That’s very kind of you, Chris. Happy Christmas to you too. G’day Albo, how are you going there mate?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Good morning. I’m going very well, it’s a slow end of the year. I’ll be in Adelaide from Friday until next Tuesday.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You sound like a three-toed sloth. Why are you speaking so slowly?

JOURNALIST: Because he knows he needs to be careful coming to Adelaide at the moment. You were going to be putting the space centre in Canberra, weren’t you?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That was their announcement. It was Kim Carr’s announcement that it was going to Canberra.

JOURNALIST: We’re space mad this morning. Kim-Il Carr. That’s right.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Space mad.

JOURNALIST: Have you got space fever Chris?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m very excited – another high for South Australia, the Australian Space Agency, coming to Lot 14. We worked closely with Steven Marshall of course, and the Federal Government to achieve that. It comes on top of the centre for defence industry capability based in Adelaide, again, something that I delivered as the Minister for Defence Industry. Tomorrow we’ve got big announcements about the ships and the submarines. Two of the biggest projects in Australia’s history – the offshore patrol vessels started its construction in Adelaide more than a month ago. Perth, the pacific patrol boats delivered to Papua New Guinea, and the two joint strike fighters landed on Monday, so I’m having a great week!

[Laughter]

JOURNALIST: Christmas has come early.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Christmas has come early. It’ll keep coming if you re-elect the Liberal Party.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: He certainly had jam for breakfast this morning.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: What did you have? What did you have Valium? He’s just looking forward to the ALP National Conference on the weekend.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: It’s breakfast radio so I’ll leave it there.

JOURNALIST: So Albo, you’re coming for what – this is the ALP Conference. Apparently, business observers have fallen over themselves to see you guys in action.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: They are actually.

JOURNALIST: What a strange way to spend your money.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: It’s pretty full. People want to chat to us. Why wouldn’t you?

JOURNALIST: Are you going to be on your best behaviour?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: When there’s a rabble on the other side. It makes a change to the interruption. Yesterday we had Craig Kelly who was actually going to join the National Party in order to avoid having to face a Liberal if he lost preselection. That’s why Scott Morrison intervened. I mean this is just bizarre stuff.

JOURNALIST: On a serious note though, for you guys, partly because they’re so open in their structure, Labor Party National Conferences, and I’ve gone to about five I reckon, they can become a bit unruly. There’s often an opportunity for the leader to be embarrassed by members of the party not singing from the same song sheet. Is there a chance that that might happen, particularly on the question of border protection. Are you lockstep with Bill Shorten on that issue?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Look, the party in three days, four hundred delegates will always be a little bit untidy. That’s the truth. That’s the benefit though of being transparent about the fact that we’re a party of ideas, people who’ve been elected, are accountable to the people who voted for them. We now have direct elections, so people will have run on a platform for their particular electorate, that they’d raise an issue in a certain way, and they’re entitled to do so, but what will come out of the process is a platform that unites the Labor Party, that everyone then can get behind, and that’s the basis, that’s not the policy of course, but that’s the basis of the values that we take forward and then the parliamentary party, makes up a specific policy that we take to the election, of course we already have more policies out there than any opposition in living memory ever has.

JOURNALIST: ok, it being our final Two Tribes for 2018, it’s time to get a little wistful. Christopher Pyne what are your highs and lows of the year?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well one of the highs of the year was Steven Marshall getting elected in South Australia in March. That was definitely a high. Getting the biggest ship building and submarine building projects underway in Australia’s history has been a high. It’s going very well, and if the worst were to happen and Labor wins, it’s going to be hard to undo it, given that they did nothing in six years, so I’m very pleased to have locked that in, and the lows, well I never see any of those. I only see happy sides.

JOURNALIST: That is a cop out.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Silver lining for every cloud.

[overlapping chatter]

ANTHONY ALBANESE: The Government is falling apart.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m a glass half full man. One of the lows of course is Labor ending the year dismantling the offshore processing, which is going to let the people smugglers back in.

[overlapping chatter and laughing]

JOURNALIST: You can’t make the low to be a sledge…

JOURNALIST: What about the little period where the Prime Minister vanished again?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: When was that? When did that happen? I can’t remember that period. I blot out anything unhappy. I’ve only got my happy face on, like the mother in Strictly Ballroom.

JOURNALIST: Let’s not follow Malcolm on Twitter then. What about you Albo, have you – your low would probably be the excellent result that Bill Shorten got in that by-election earlier in the year, wouldn’t it?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Not at all. I always [inaudible] the Labor team, and I think it is the case that one of my highs is having the benefit of listening to Christopher’s extraordinary optimism as all around him go to absolute rubbish.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We’ve got you right where we want you.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: We’ve got 55 percent of the two party preferred vote.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You’re not on the ropes, you’re on the canvass.

JOURNALIST: It’s only a flesh wound, Albo.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m going to have to help you up at some point I think.

JOURNALIST: It’s like the rumble in the jungle – It’s a parallel universe. ScoMo ropodopes.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You’d be surprised.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: That’s right, it’s going so well.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I wouldn’t get overconfident Anthony. You’ve lost from here before. I’ve seen it.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: It’s going so well.

JOURNALIST: Hey guys, we’ll wrap it up but can we say, this is our last segment for the year, so to you Chris, and to you Albo, it’s not always the easiest segment to manage, but we really do appreciate the candour that you bring, in your discussion of national affairs and the good humour. That’s a lot of fun, catching up with you every week. You’re two of the genuine heavy hitters of politics and you know it’s great having you on. Our listeners appreciate it too, so have a great Christmas.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You know what I think a high was, when after one of our segments, Russell Crowe tweeted out, that’s what politics should be – people having disagreements but being respectful. That had a whole lot of retweets and coverage, and I think that’s what Christopher and I try to bring.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Thank you very much David, it was very kind of you to say.

JOURNALIST: Not at all.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look forward to next year!

JOURNALIST: We’ll do it all again next year.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You can double our salary next year.

JOURNALIST: Done, easy, done.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: The Government will win every seat, next year.

JOURNALIST: We will find out. Thanks guys. Chris Pyne, Anthony Albanese, our final Two Tribes for 2018.