ABC News 24

SUBJECTS:  Prime Minister’s speech; Mal Brough E&OE................................ Lyndal Curtis: Thank you Scott, Christopher Pyne welcome to ABC News 24. Hon Christopher Pyne MP: Thank you Lyndal. Curtis:   You know the date the election will be held on. Does this change the year you had planned? Pyne: Well no it doesn’t, in fact the Prime Minister announced the date for three reasons today. Firstly, because she had a speech that was light on in terms of policy detail and they’d built it up as the major policy speech of the year. Curtis:   But she would have known that once she had announced the election date nothing else would really get the sort of attention it would get without it so maybe the speech was framed that way. Pyne: Well I think the speech had a big build up to be a substantive policy speech. There was no substantive policy in it, no blue print for the country and so she’s announced the date of the election campaign to give herself tomorrows headline.  And, I think secondly announcing the date as early as this is designed to head Kevin Rudd off at the pass. I think we all know that the Kevin Rudd forces spent much of January  planning whether they could challenge the Prime Minister again and of course it makes it much  harder now to challenge a Prime Minister during an election campaign and we are effectively now in an eight month election campaign. And thirdly of course, having it on September 14 means that the final accounts for the financial year 12/13  which  would show a massive deficit won’t actually be published until September  30. Curtis:   But, but you’ll get the update from Treasury early in the election campaign anyway so you’ll, you’ll have a pretty clear idea whether, where the budget would be placed. Pyne: Well there’ll be the Budget. Curtis: And you’ll have the Budget not long before that as well. Pyne: There’ll be the Budget in May and there’ll be PFO  during the election campaign but of course the final accounts that are published on September 30 are the actual figures for 12/13 and I’m quite confident and I think most people are that it will be a massive deficit and of course the Prime Minister.. Curtis: But you’ll find out.. Pyne: Promised on 200 occasions that she would deliver a surplus. Curtis:   You’ll get a pretty clear idea of that in PFO so, so there won’t be much change between the middle of September and the end of September. Pyne: Nothing is as good as the final accounts and I think everyone accepts that. So she’s tried to head Kevin Rudd off at the pass which may or may not be successful. She had to have some kind of announcement today because she had no detail for the future of Australia in her policy speech that was built as a policy speech.. Curtis: But, but she .. Pyne: ...and this avoids the final accounts on September 30. Curtis:   But, but she did didn’t she outline the sought of things she is going to do this year talking about the education reforms, talking about the National Disability Insurance, give us an idea of her priorities, talk about her focus on jobs, about the problems that are being caused in Australia because of the high dollar, she hasn’t, she’s also foreshadowed budget cuts she hasn’t said what those are yet but that that puts her in the same position, that puts the Government in the same position as you because you’re not saying what budget cuts, how you would fund your policies and you may not say until the election campaign. Pyne: Well she billed this speech as announcing spending cuts. Now she hasn’t announced any detail at all except an election date, which is designed to wipe away the last two years and reset the clock because she’s desperately trying to find a new way to change the political environment. I think the Government expected to have a much better year over summer and come out ahead in the polls and they’ve found that hasn’t been the case and so… Curtis: But the polls have tightened up a bit in the last few months. Pyne: Well not by much, they haven’t changed that much and if you’re out on the ground talking to electors like I am, you know that Labor is in dire straits. What she did do in this speech though Lyndal is she did indicate that Australia was not paying enough tax. She said we were a low revenue economy. In other words that Australians needed to pay more tax to pay for all the Government’s promises. Curtis: She didn’t say that though, she was spelling out why there has been a fall in revenue, saying that with mining in the investment phase, it doesn’t generate as much revenue to Government as it will in the production phase. She wasn’t saying – she didn’t say in the speech that Australians needed to pay more tax, wasn’t she simply outlining the reality of the situation that revenue has been falling? Pyne: But the implication Lyndal is that you have $120 billion of new spending promises that you’ve already announced, you’re also saying that there’s low revenue coming into the budget but you haven’t announced any spending cuts. That leaves one way for governments to find money and that is in higher taxes. Now we know this Government has already increased taxes or created new taxes on 27 occasions. So the public have no certainty about what taxes they’re going to be paying? What taxes are going to be increased to pay for the Government’s $120 billion black hole? That’s what she needed to outline today and she hasn’t done it. Curtis: But the public will know won’t they well before the election what the Government’s doing because the Government has a budget in May. It will not will it know what you’re planning to do because you haven’t yet announced the details of how you’ll pay for your policies apart from a tax increase for paid parental leave and there’s no commitment yet to announce that even before the election campaign starts is there? Pyne: Well it’s interesting the way you put the question Lyndal because what you’ve done of course is exactly what happens in an election campaign. So the Prime Minister’s announced an eight month election campaign, the Government’s now behaving like an opposition refusing to tell people about their spending cuts or their new taxes… Curtis: They’re behaving like you then? Pyne: But we are the Opposition, they are supposed to be the Government there’s still 8 months left of this parliamentary term to run… Curtis: And they’ll have a budget to explain these things. Pyne: And we will between the time of the budget and the time of the election, there will be announced costings by the Opposition for all of our policies. That’s what you expect from an opposition. Curtis: Will that happen before the formal election campaign starts or will it not happen until the election campaign starts and the Treasury’s economic update is released? Pyne: Well we can’t announce anything about our spending, about our tax policies, about our relief for individual Australians until there is a budget and then between the budget and the election day, people will get the full picture of where the Opposition will take us should we be fortunate enough to be elected. But the Government on the other hand is already behaving like an opposition eight months out of the election, refusing to detail where there tax increases will be, refusing to outline spending cuts at the same time promising $120 billion of new spending commitments.   Curtis: You say the Governments behaving exactly like an Opposition does in an election? Pyne: They’re supposed to behave like the Government. Curtis: But isn’t this exactly what a government does. That it’s the details of what it will do economically on the spending side and the revenue side comes in the Budget and it will have a Budget before the election. Pyne: Well last year’s Budget had a whole lot of commitments about delivering a surplus.  On December 20 the Government abandoned its commitment to deliver a surplus, it promised it 200 times.  They’ve abandoned that commitment, so why would anybody believe anything the Prime Minister says between now and election day.  We know she lied about the Carbon Tax.  We know she promised a surplus. We know she promised she wouldn’t challenge Kevin Rudd, we know she said she wouldn’t bring back the Howard Government’s Pacific Solution.  On all of these issues, the Government, the Prime Minister has shown she is untrustworthy.  Why would we believe anything the Prime Minister says and today was her opportunity. Curtis: So will you believe the figures that will be contained in the Budget?  Will they be enough for you to base costings on? Pyne: Well I trust the Treasury but I don’t trust Wayne Swann and Julia Gillard to keep the promises that they make and I think this election will be about trust and about competence.  Who would trust this Prime Minister’s promises when she hasn’t delivered on any of them?  I mean who would forget the 2,600 trade training centres?  They delivered 200 of them. Curtis: But you’ve also got quite a big spending program.  You’ve got tax cuts, we don’t know how much those tax cuts will be or how they’ll be funded; you’re scrapping two taxes and keeping some of the spending associated with those taxes, Tony Abbott wants to see cranes over the skies of cities, he’s promised lots of road funding so you’ve got quite a lot of spending and we don’t know yet how that will be paid for, do we? Pyne: Well, we’ll know between the time of the Budget and the time of election day where as with this Government today was the Prime Minister’s opportunity to outline her, how she was going to fund her $120 billion of unfunded promises.  We know on education for example, she described it as a moral crusade today yet last year in MYEFO she cut education by $3.9 billion.  So on the one hand, you look at what the Labor Party does they’re cutting education while they’re promising to increase spending on education.  Now, which one is to be believed?  I’d rather believe what they do rather than what they say. Curtis: A final question Mr Pyne.  You still have confidence in Mal Brough as your candidate in the Queensland seat of Fisher given everything that Justice Rares said about his dealings with James Ashby? Pyne: Look the issue to do with Mal Brough is well and truly done and dusted, he’s the pre-selected candidate. Curtis: Mal Brough hasn’t spoken about the issues that were raised in the Judge’s findings. Pyne: Well look, the Prime Minister has questions to answer about why she defended Craig Thomson for two years in the Parliament and continued to take his vote.  She has questions to answer about why she jettisoned Harry Jenkins in order to put Peter Slipper into the Speakership, which didn’t end well.  Now Mal Brough has the confidence of the LNP, I hope he will be elected by the electors of Fisher and I’m sure he will have a glittering career ahead of him.  The Prime Minister needs to answer questions about how she’s managed the Parliament for the last two and a half years which has been both opportunistic and in many cases dishonest and they’re the questions that need to be asked of her about how the Parliament is managed. Curtis: Christopher Pyne thank you very much for your time. Pyne: That’s a pleasure. ENDS.