ABC Insiders

BARRIE CASSIDY: Okay well that's the Sunday papers and now we'll go to Adelaide where we're joined by the Leader of the House and Minister for Defence Industry, Christopher Pyne. Good morning, welcome.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Barrie, it's nice to be back on Insiders again, it's been a while.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Thank you. Now why do you think Malcolm Turnbull felt the need to publicly contradict Tony Abbott in the Parliament? Was it a case of him running out of patience?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look Malcolm Turnbull has not contradicted Tony Abbott. The truth is that Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott are entirely united on the fact that there was never an arrangement to dilute the Howard Government gun laws. In fact quite the opposite, both the Abbott and Turnbull Governments imposed a ban on the Adler lever action shotgun of more than five rounds, which under the Howard Government laws, would have been allowed to be imported into Australia, classified as catagory A, and sold to consumers.

BARRIE CASSIDY: You're seriously saying there was no contradiction between the two positions?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well you can pause and break down particular phrases and words, but the simple truth is -the issue here is, was the lever action shotgun allowed into Australia? The answer is, no it wasn't. Under Howard Government's gun laws it would have been allowed into Australia. So Labor spent the week trying to pretend that there'd been a deal for guns for votes. It was another Mediscare lie campaign...

BARRIE CASSIDY: [Interrupts] There was an email that said precisely that. There was an email from the Minister's office that said precisely that.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, what that said was that we would impose a sunset clause on the ban - which is very sensible...

BARRIE CASSIDY: [Interrupts] In return for a vote in the Senate on another matter.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: So that the states and territories wouldn't simply allow the ban to go on forever, not being able to actually address the issue. The states and territories have to classify weapons. They need to classify this one. They met again on Friday, and once again failed to classify. The sunset clause was to make sure that this thing didn't go on forever, unresolved.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Are you saying then that Tony Abbott wasn't admonished, and there was nothing to admonish him about?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think there's a storm in a teacup occurring here where the Labor Party are much more focused on the game of politics, rather than the outcomes that the public are looking for. And last week we had an excellent week. We passed the backpacker tax issue, we passed the ABCC, the Registered Organisations Commission, vocational education and training reform, the appropriations bills, and even the plebiscite. So in four days we passed six different important pieces of legislation. That's what the public are expecting us to do. Keep getting on with the job. Labor will do anything to distract people from that. And the facts are the public are recognising we're just getting on with the job.

BARRIE CASSIDY: And do you think it's a good strategy then for you to turn a blind eye to what's going on between Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott when the public can see for themselves that it's a problem?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I don't think that there is a particular problem. The Government is very united behind Malcolm Turnbull and his team, and that is overwhelmingly obvious to the public. And I'm not going to be distracted, and neither is the Government, by people in the Labor Party who want to stoke the flames of division, when in fact the division really is between Anthony Albanese and Bill Shorten. Anthony Albanese clearly wants Bill Shorten's job. Last week we had a major conflagration about the putting Kimberley Kitching into the Senate from Victoria. Gavin Marshall was taking a political hatchet to his own left colleagues, like the member for Scullin, and the member for Jagajaga, and the member for Ballarat. There is civil war going on in the Labor Party, and they are busily trying to distract people from their own civil war, by creating red hearings on our own side.

BARRIE CASSIDY: And all of that would have got a lot more coverage had it not been for what was going on on your side.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well it was a week where we tried to talk about unions and the Labor Party's shackling themselves to the CFMEU, and continuing to stand up for the CFMEU. And they tried to distract people by talking about guns and the cards fell where they fell.

BARRIE CASSIDY: There's a lot of media analysis lately though suggesting that Labor's got it all over you on tactics and strategy. Do you accept that you have to lift your game?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Not at all. The Truth is we are getting things through both the House of Representatives and the Senate. And the commentary said after the election that we would not be able to get anything through the Senate. They said the 11 crossbenchers meant that it was going to be an even harder Senate than the last Parliament. In fact the opposite has been true. We've passed the omnibus savings bill, we've passed important reforms through the Senate. We are getting on with the job. We've got the CFA legislation through the Senate. We're getting more legislation through the Senate than we did in the last Parliament, because Malcolm Turnbull has the skills necessary to work with the crossbench. And the crossbench is open to talking to us about our program, and it's getting through. So quite the opposite, in fact we are doing a lot better than Labor did in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd period, or in fact even the first two years of this Government, where the Senate was quite obstructionist. They've been much more cooperative.

BARRIE CASSIDY: It does seem though that every time the Labor Party calls a stunt, you fall for it.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That's rubbish. They are opportunistic Barrie. A couple of times they have taken advantage of errors on our side. They try stunts every day, and they don't succeed. And the media don't report those, fair enough. I'm the leader of the House, and I'm getting stuff done.

BARRIE CASSIDY: [Talks over] When you say they don't succeed; you had people leave the Parliament early, you had the day when the Senate had no work to do, you voted against yourself in the House of Representatives

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Big deal, Barrie.

BARRIE CASSIDY: It seems as if they're working.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It's entirely inside the beltway. Inside, insider, gossip, it makes no difference to the business of Government, and everybody knows it. Sure it might get a run on the nightly news and everyone goes back the next day to their jobs exactly as we are. We've been sitting for weeks now, there've been a couple of teething problems, the Government is getting on with the job, and getting legislation passed through both the House of Representatives and the Senate. And that is the real test of our success. The test is not whether every now and then the tyre wheels scrape the curb as you go around the corner.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Alright I want to ask you about a National Audit Office finding on Coalition education advertising when you were Minister. The Government claimed in advertising that they would pay around a half of undergraduates degrees fees. The National Audit Office says your party mislead the public – the true figure was nowhere near 50%.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the National Audit Office is entitled to its opinion but it is wrong. As the Minister for Education I took the advice of the Department of Education, which was that the number was about 50/50. I can tell you that there were many different estimates floating around at the time – the Greens even had their own estimate, Barrie. Everyone had an estimate, everyone was an expert – but the truth is I simply took the advice, as a Minister should, of the Department of Education, and the Department of Education’s advice was that 50/50 was the fair figure.

BARRIE CASSIDY: The National Audit Office says it was 39.5% - that is a long way from 50/50 – and you say they are wrong? The National Audit Office is wrong?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well sometimes they get things right, sometimes they get things wrong – on this occasion I took the advice of the Department of Education and I’m very comfortably.

BARRIE CASSIDY: While you were preparing this advertising, the Department received internal legal advice that your claim saying 50/50 could be found to be engaging in deceptive conduct. Did you see that advice?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Do you think you should have seen it?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I was advised by the Department of Education, Barrie, that 50/50 was a fair figure to use and I used it.

BARRIE CASSIDY: When you see this sort of thing though, doesn’t it take the sting out of your attack – your legitimate attack – against the Labor party over Mediscare?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [Laughter] You have got to be joking, Barrie. That is a wonderfully long bow – the truth is the Labor Party’s Mediscare campaign was a pack of lies. They send around text messages to millions of Australians purporting to be from Medicare – they have people from the CFMEU ringing old ladies at night after 9 o’ clock, terrifying the hell out of them that we were going to abolish Medicare or privatise Medicare. I mean, please, lets compare like with like.

BARRIE CASSIDY: But when you’re telling students that you’ll pay 50% of their fees when in fact the National Audit Office says the figure is 39.5% - that is not a stretch – that is misleading people.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think that is a wonderfully long bow and I give you full credit for it – but a disagreement over whether it is 40 or 50% Commonwealth funding for students at universities – compared to their private contribution – bares absolutely no correlation whatsoever to Labor’s hopelessly misleading, totally dishonest – and quite frankly they’re proud of their dishonesty – the think it helped them win a whole lot of seats. When we raise it in Parliament or in question time they laugh their heads off – so they actually think being dishonest and deceptive is a good way of campaigning – which might be why they’ve only won one election in the last 20 years.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Alright I want to ask you a question that was asked of a Minister on another program this morning – does your Government still have confidence in the Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Barrie, it is a serious question and I’m sorry that Gillian Triggs has allowed herself to get dragged into politics in Australia. The Human Rights Commissioner and her position should be above politics and Gillian Triggs, I think, has made substantial errors of judgement in commenting on the political process and in commenting on politicians. The interview in which she roundly criticised one political party –which was then reported and then she said it was taken out of context – was a mistake on her part. I feel very disappointed that the position of Human Rights Commissioner has been politicized in this way, but whether the Government has confidence in her or not is a matter for the Prime Minister and Attorney-General. I think Gillian Triggs, I’m sure she has a perfectly good will towards what she’s trying to do and she needs to stay out of politics and stick with human rights.

BARRIE CASSIDY: It would be a tough business for anybody wouldn’t it – to be running that position at the moment?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, lots of other Human Rights Commissioners have never been heard of – they’ve just got on with their job. Unfortunately, Gillian Triggs has managed to end up with a very high profile and I’m sure if you asked her she would probably be as disappointed and surprised as anybody that the Human Rights Commissioner has become a political figure, when of course they should be an administrative one standing up for the rights of Australians.

BARRIE CASSIDY: I want to clear up just one thing finally, about who is the most senior Minister. The Minister for Defence Marise Payne or the Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne – who is the most senior?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Barrie we are like Phobos and Deimos, the two horses that drew the chariot of Mars. We are as equal as each other, no one is more senior, but the sum is greater than the parts.

BARRIE CASSIDY: It has been suggested Marise Payne is senior in the portfolio and because you’re Leader of the House, you’re more senior in Cabinet – in the Government itself.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, that is not the case, we’re equally senior to each other. We have two senior Cabinet Ministers in the defence portfolio – it’s a huge undertaking. The Turnbull Government has embarked in a massive national endeavour – we need to spend almost $200b over the next 10 years growing defence capability in this country. It is a very serious portfolio and a serious job, and we’ve made more decisions – Marise and I – in the last 100 days, than Labor made in six years in office so it’s working. Anyone who’s on that panel knows – Laura, Mark and Nicky and you Barrie – that Marise and I are very old and very good friends – we lived together in Canberra, when we were in Canberra and we could not be more closely associated.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Thanks for your time this morning – appreciate it.