ABC 891

SUBJECT: Holden; Trish Crossin; LGA referendum E&OE................................ JOURNALIST: Christopher Pyne… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning, gentlemen JOURNALIST: Mark Butler can we begin with you? As a former union boss, how do you respond to Holden’s call for workers to take a pay cut? MARK BUTLER: Well, I haven’t seen information this morning but I saw the 7:30 Report story on this last night and must say it’s still not entirely clear to me exactly what is on the table from Holden’s. The management was being a little unclear in the report about what exactly they were asking their workforce to consider but ultimately these things are a matter for negotiation between that workforce, their union and the company. This workplace a very strong history of good representation of the workforce and a very robust but productive series of negotiations. They’ve gone through these tough times before. They’re obviously legal restrictions in place about what can be negotiated down there but look, I have confidence in the capacity of the company of the unions to work that through. JOURNALIST: Well, Mike Devereux, the Holden boss also went on to list some of the constraints on the company, including the Carbon Tax. Now it’s the first time, up until now, Holden have been saying, in our interviews haven’t really been drawn on the Carbon Tax. But he was saying “yes” it is, does have an impact, not just on suppliers but on their operations as well. BUTLER: Well, with respect, I think the impact is pretty minimal and these wage negotiations again are also, I would have thought of secondary importance to the main game for Holden and that is the threat to the industry assistance, the co-investment that is in place first of all up until 2015, and then beyond 2015 that is very much been put in jeopardy by the Liberal Party policy on this. I mean that at the end of the day is the main game $500 million in cuts to automotive assistance that have been confirmed by the Opposition and potentially up to $1.5 billion in cuts beyond 2015. Cuts which Holden’s have confirmed would force their manufacturing off shore. JOURNALIST: Chris Pyne how do you respond to that, Shadow Minister for Education? PYNE: Well, I think it’s disappointing that Mark Butler would continue to say that subsidies are better than tax cuts. The truth is what Mike Devereux has done this morning on your program is ‘belled the cat’ …(inaudible) … he said if you remove the carbon Tax it disappears, Mike Devereux said there’ll be a benefit to our costs being lower in this Country no question. Now, there’s no doubt everyone knows, the Carbon Tax is making it more expensive to manufacture in this Country, because of electricity prices and electricity prices at Holden are a very big part of their expenses. If you reduce, if you abolish the carbon tax in fact, let alone reduce it because it’s going up on July the first, as your listeners know, and you abolish the Carbon Tax it reduces the pressure on electricity prices and lower the cost to Holden. But of course… JOURNALIST: Mike Devereux is looking for every penny that he can possibly save. The Carbon Tax would be in there, wages and conditions would be in there and Christopher Pyne the $500 million you’re going to cut from industry assistance, that’s got to be in there as well. PYNE: Well, subsidies are never as good as tax cuts. It’s better to give business the opportunity to flourish and their workers to be paid well than it is to use tax payers’ dollars to subsidise companies …would rather have … JOURNALIST: So Mike Devereux doesn’t know what’s good for him? PYNE: Mike Devereux knows that when the Howard Government was in power a system was put in place that involved up to a $1 billion between now and 2015 of subsidies to the car industry and then beyond 2015, over $1 billiom. So there’s $2 billion on the table for the car industry. Ford has now gone out of business or will be going out of business from 2016 which means there’s now only two car manufacturers to share that amount of money and the Productivity Commission the best placed person to indicate how to keep the car industry here. Now what we don’t want to happen is another Ansett. JOURNALIST: Well, you’re listening to Mark Butler and Chris Pyne here on 891 ABC Adelaide. Chris Pyne, we’ll come back to Mark Butler in a moment but Chris Pyne the local, the referendum on local government. Is the Coalition at all marching to the same tune on this? Tony Abbott supports it but apparently, behind the scenes there are many of your colleagues who do not. PYNE: Well I do think that the Local Government referendum has gone off the rails because of the Government’s decision to take in $10 million for the “yes” case, $500,000 to the “no” case which in Australia doesn’t smack of a fair go. Now, the Coalition is supporting the referendum going ahead but it’s Labor’s job to get it passed because Labor hasn’t laid the groundwork between now and the referendum for it to actually pass and because of the unpopularity of the Prime Minister and the Government, my concern is this referendum will fail because of other features. So I think Felicity Anne Lewis and the Australian Local Government Association should lobby the Government to withdraw the referendum. If it’s defeated on September the 14th it will be the third time that local government being recognised in the Constitution will have been defeated and no government will return to that subject for a very long time. I think in the best interest of local councils and local government, they should pick up their chips and pass on this referendum at this election and hope that we can do this in the next term of government. JOURNALIST: Mark Butler, do you think Chris Pyne has a point there? That if this is an important reform there is a danger it’s going to be swamped? BUTLER: It is an important reform and it’s important that it be done now. This issue has been as Christopher said has been tried before and it failed in the 70s and failed in the 80s because it didn’t have bi-partisan support. Frankly, I think we’re having difficulty working out quite what the Opposition position is. Barnaby Joyce was on ABC TV this morning saying they still supported it and certainly as the Shadow Spokesperson in this area did not indicate a position that we should withdraw the referendum the position that Christopher has just indicated so that’s a new position but this is now not just one of those things that would be nice to see in the Constitution because of recent High Court decisions there is now a very serious question mark over whether the Commonwealth, constitutionally can continue to provide very important funds like Roads to Recovery Funding, Black Spot funding, very important funds directly into Local Government to do important road safety projects or road upgrades so this is not something we can simply defer. We’ve thought we had bi-partisan support on this. Barnaby Joyce said as much this morning JOURNALIST: Mark Butler is anybody seriously suggesting really, that all those things will stop. That somehow the Federal Government won’t find a mechanism for continuing to fund Local Government? BUTLER: This is the mechanism. This is the mechanism, the High Court has cast … look I’m not a Constitutional Lawyer … JOURNALIST: So if this fails your roads will fall to bits, your rubbish won’t get collected, your recycling won’t get collected, your toy library will shut down … BUTLER: All of our advice is that because of recent High Court decisions, particularly a decision called Williams is that there is, there is a considerable uncertainty over our capacity to continue to provide funds directly to local government. We are doing the responsible thing, which is to try to fix a position identified by the High Court or a gap, should I say in the Constitution. And up until the last comment by Christopher Pyne, I thought we had bi-partisan support on this. Well, apparently not. JOURNALIST: Mark Butler, that’s the voice you are hearing there, the Labor MP for Port Adelaide and before that Christopher Pyne, Liberal MP for Sturt. Mark Butler do you agree with Labor back bencher, Doug Cameron that Trish Crossin, Senator Trish Crossin has been treated abominably? BUTLER: Well no I don’t. I don’t. I agree that is was a sad day yesterday for Trish, making her valedictory speech. She’s had a long career and you know a positive and proud career of 15 years I think representing the Territory in the Senate. But I think ultimately the decision that was taken around the pre-selection for our Senate ticket in the Northern Territory was the right one. It was a decision; I think I’ve spoken about on your program before that I supported. Because I think it is well beyond time that the Australian Labor Party had a strong Indigenous representative in its Federal Caucus. PYNE: I might just comment on that very briefly. I think it’s rather ironic that the Labor Party, which claims it stands up for workers and fair processes simply pulled in Trish Crossin to the Lodge and The Prime Minister told her, her career was over. She was just dumped and there was no process in the support of the worker there. Where was Trish Crossin’s union in the union dominated Labor party? JOURNALIST: Chris Pyne, you’re happy to have Cory Bernardi at number one on your ticket, your Senate ticket in South Australia? PYNE: Well that was a decision of the Liberal Party State Council. Cory has his own style about him and he has paid a high price for some of his remarks over the recent months and that’s a matter for the South Australian State Council of the Liberal party. But I can’t see it being returned to at this stage. BUTLER: With the greatest of respect, what Cory said yesterday is much more than a question of style. You know, while the Senate was considering legislation to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual preference, he re-introduced this quite vile reflection on people in homosexual relationships. PYNE: What he said, his comments have been dramatically twisted. And perhaps we should ask him what he actually said because I have to say, I’ve had about 1000 things that I have been following here in Canberra to try and serve the people and that those comments are not ones that I have studied closely because quite frankly I think that they are a side-show. JOURNALIST: Ok, we need to move on. Chris Pyne, thank you, Liberal MP for Sturt, thank you, we will catch you next Wednesday. And Mark Butler, Labor MP for Port Adelaide. Two key players, who join us on Wednesdays, thank you very much. ENDS.