ABC 7.30

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview – ABC 730
Monday 27 July 2015

SUBJECTS: A Letter To My Children, female representation in Parliament.

SABRA LANE: There are many titles one can use to describe my next guest: federal minister, Manager of Government Business, fixer, father of four and now author. At 47, Christopher Pyne, the federal Member for Sturt, is a political veteran. He's been in Parliament for more than 22 years and this week he's published a memoir covering his life and time in Canberra. It's called A Letter to My Children. To discuss the book and other political issues, I'm joined by Christopher Pyne, who's in our Canberra studio. Minister, congratulations.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Thank you, Sabra, and thank you for having me on the show to talk about it. It's nice to have another subject other than just daily politics to talk about.

SABRA LANE: The book in part is about why you chose a life of politics. Has it been worth it given what you've missed out on seeing with your four kids growing up?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well that's a very good question and I try and answer that in the postscript to the book. So the book really runs to 2007 and then to avoid offending any of my current cabinet colleagues, I've tried to stay away from current events. But in the postscript, I've tried to answer that question: is it worth it? And the answer to that is: absolutely, it is, because I wanted to write a book to try and explain why public service is an inherent good in itself, but also to explain the allure of politics, and I think in the end, the answer is that what's alluring about public life is the chance to do things. And to do things, you have to be in government, and being in government, being a cabinet minister is really the pinnacle of being to able to get things done. So yes, after 22 years, it has been worth it, to be a minister in the Howard Government and now a minister in the Abbott Government.

SABRA LANE: Your oldest daughter said to your wife, "If you wanted all these children, why did you go into politics?" That must've hurt when you heard her say that.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well it was interesting because at the time - as soon as Carolyn told me that, it suddenly made me think when Louise Adler said that I had a book in me, who's the publisher of Melbourne University Publishing, I thought I probably do have a book in me and that is to explain to my four children about why I chose to be away half the year or more, at least half the year, and that's why it's called A Letter to My Children 'cause the whole book is trying to explain the answer to that question: if you wanted to have four children, why would you choose to be away for probably two-thirds of the year? And hopefully I've answered that question in the book.

SABRA LANE: Your father, Remington, died in his 50s. He's a well-known eye surgeon. And initially, you wanted to follow him into medicine, but he didn't want you to do that.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No. He made the very correct assessment that because I hadn't studied maths or science in Year 11 or 12, I would be pushing it uphill, the proverbial, so I'd be better off doing what my family had done for generations, which was going back to the law. So I went back to the law, and as my grandfather said, took up the family trade, which is being a lawyer. But then I went into politics very early in life, and I'm glad I didn't do medicine 'cause after all that study, if I'd become an ophthalmologist like he was, it would've seemed to have been a waste to then spend it in politics. But the other part of my book of course is the - the other half of the book is really about my father because it also says in this book that public service is not just about being elected to Parliament. You can serve other people doing all sorts of things and my father served other people by being an eye surgeon for three decades and hopefully making a big difference in many people's lives.

SABRA LANE: So, many people would wonder: why write the book now? Many politicians leave it till after they've left politics and you've already said that you've written up until 2007, so maybe there is another book yet to be written.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well there could well be a second book, Sabra. I've left plenty of time for a second book. I wrote it now because I felt the time was right. Louise Adler had asked me to write a book many years ago towards the end of the Howard Government and I didn't think it was the right time. But when Eleanor asked that question after two decades of being in public life as a member of Parliament, I did feel I had a story to tell and there was a question to be answered and I wanted my father to be remembered through the written word. And you can't write about something in 1,000 words for a newspaper in the way you can in 70,000 words for a book. A book is the only way you can comprehensively deal with a subject, and in this case, it's the subject of public service.

SABRA LANE: You wouldn't have your career without the support of your wife Carolyn.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That's right.

SABRA LANE: Has the Liberal Party done enough to encourage working mothers into Parliament, into safe seats and into senior roles, like the roles you've had?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look, I couldn't agree more that I wouldn't have been able to have this life without my wife supporting and looking after me, and it's a real question about whether women in the Liberal Party have that same level of support from their husbands, who are by and large of course in careers of their own. And it is a subject that we need to focus on as a party because the number of women representing the Liberal Party in the Senate, for example, has not increased, it's declined and we need to address that subject. We need to make it a lot easier for younger career-minded women to choose public life, to choose politics and to choose families at the same time with the support, if not of a husband or a spouse or a partner, of a network of people who can make that happen or we'll not get the very important input that women provide to cabinets, to Parliaments, to party rooms, which I think we have suffered in the last decade or so in not having enough women in our party room.

SABRA LANE: OK. Labor's just put forward a quota of 50 per cent are women by 2025. What - does the Liberal Party need to set itself a target like that?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I don't believe in quotas and I don't believe in targets, but I do believe in people being elected on the basis of merit. But of course, if merit isn't achieving the outcome that you want, then other measures need to be looked at to ensure that we are attracting women to Parliament, and not just women whose children have, for example, grown up and moved out of home or women that never chose to have children, both of whom are very welcome in politics. But what the Labor Party's been able to do is have women who have their children in Parliament. Now, the most recent example of course has been the Member for Kingston, Amanda Rishworth, and Kate Ellis. We have Kelly O'Dwyer, who recently gave birth and congratulations to her, the Member for Higgins, but that is a rarity in our party that needs to be commonplace in Parliament for young women to feel they can go into politics, have families as well and have careers and it's something that in the Liberal Party we need to put a real effort into and I know Peta Credlin, the chief-of-staff, for example, has that as a priority for her encouraging other women to be part of the power structure of our nation and not just observers of it.

SABRA LANE: Bronwyn Bishop has been a very strong friend of yours right from the start. The travel expenses story has been following the Government now for days. Backbenchers, Government backbenchers in marginal seats are alarmed. Some think she should go. Has she spoken to you and should she go?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well yes, I have spoken to Bronwyn. I speak to Bronwyn a lot and Bronwyn is a very good friend of mine and she did make a mistake, obviously, and she admitted it was an error of judgment. I don't think anybody would suggest it was a good idea to take a helicopter from Melbourne to Geelong. And she's paid the money back plus a penalty. But Bronwyn is a great example of a woman who has made a very successful political career. She's been at the centre of media attention for decades and she's never been backward in coming forward. That does make her a target of course.

SABRA LANE: Should she go?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, I don't believe she should go. I think she's doing a superb job as Speaker. She understands the standing orders. She understands the Parliament. She knows when to pull on the reins and when to let the Parliament run. And I'm sure that this matter will blow over. She has said it was wrong and I think she'll certainly learn from that mistake, as I’m sure we all will learn from that mistake, but I don't think the penalty of losing the speakership would match the crime.

SABRA LANE: Christopher Pyne, thank you for talking to 7.30 tonight.

[ends]