ABC Radio National

E&OE TRANSCRIPT Radio National –with Fran Kelly Date 25 February 204 Subjects: Craig Thomson, Education and Health Funding   FRAN KELLY:  Christopher Pyne is the Manager of Government Business and the Minister for Education, he joins us now in our Parliament House studios. Minister, good morning. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Fran. JONATHAN GREEN: Why should the Federal Parliament say sorry for Craig Thomson’s lies? CHRISTOPHER PYNE:  Because the Parliament, in spite of being criticised over decades of harbouring politicians that sometimes are accused of gilding the lily does take telling the parliament the truth very seriously. It is part of our tradition that you mustn’t lie to the Parliament. Craig Thomson’s statement’s to the parliament, which he then didn’t dispute in the court case, suggests that he most grievously misled the parliament in an attempt to salvage his own political career. He defamed under parliamentary privilege people who couldn’t respond on their behalf in the chamber. FRAN KELLY: And that’s why he will be called before the Parliamentary Privileges committee. I mean a parliamentary apology is a national event in this country, the stolen generation, the forced adoptions, the British child migrants. Does a HSU official, maligned as they may be, really belong on that list? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think you’re making a quantum leap Fran. Nobody has suggested this is an apology along the same lines as the stolen generation except you. . FRAN KELLY: I’m just reading your motion, that this house expresses its regret and apologies to those individuals named in the speech. I mean it is an apology from the Federal Parliament isn’t it? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We are apologising on behalf of the parliament for one of our members egregiously misleading the parliament and telling what appears to be lies in the parliament which then when the court  case occurred he didn’t dispute the facts of the case. Now it wasn’t possible for him not to despite the facts of the case and for that statement he made in the parliament to be both true. As far as we’re concerned the Health Service Union members, who are amongst the poorest workers in the country, were severely ripped off by their national secretary to tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, $270,000 of which were used for his re-election campaign, which we believe Labor should pay back if they want to keep faith with the health service union workers, and that’s a matter that Bill Shorten will need to answer for, but I don’t think you need to elevate this motion to the same status as the Stolen Generation. I think that is a massive exaggeration and it would be peculiar if because we made an apology to the stolen generation that we could never ever again express regret without it being compared to that apology. FRAN KELLY: Wouldn’t it be peculiar too if the parliament now expresses statements of regret and apologies, and these words do have a particular place in the lexicon of the parliament, to every person who misleads somebody in the parliament. As I say again we have the Privileges Committee for that, Craig Thomson will be referred to the Privileges Committee, which is how these things are done, you’ve included in this apology the spending of $267,000 or more than that of those HSU members funds on Craig Thomson’s re-election campaign. Again to apologise for that in this way rather than just refer it to the Privileges committee, is this an attempt to draw Labor and Bill Shorten into this debate again? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: This is an entirely appropriate response of a parliament that wants put behind it the three years of a hideous the hung parliament under labor when Craig Thomson’s vote was kept by labor, they paid $350,000 of his legal fees in order to keep his vote and Senator Dysastiari admitted as much in the newspapers. They suborned Peter Slipper to move from the Liberal Party to the Speakership in order to remove that vote from the Coalition. This was a very tawdry parliament and this apology motion expressing regret to the Health Services workers union and apologising to those people defamed under parliamentary privilege is an appropriate response for a parliament that wants to be taken seriously and wants the people to understand that we believe lying to the parliament is unacceptable. FRAN KELLY: Again Minister, and I will move off this, you talked about the hung parliament and this being an element of that. There was a time of course when the Howard Government for a while relied on the vote of Mal Colston, former Labor then independent Senator. He was found guilty of rorting. The Senate never apologised that I can recall for rorting his entitlements. This is a new behaviour for the parliament. Is this going to be a new standard? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Fran, the very nature of a precedent is that it’s done for the first time. In 1955 two journalists were jailed, Fitzpatrick and Brown, by the Parliament. It’s never happened since. It happened once but it was a precedent. This is an apology which we think is appropriate. Just because it hasn’t been done in this circumstance before doesn’t mean it should never be done. FRAN KELLY: The Privileges Committee can impose jail terms of up to 6 months and fines of up to $5,000 if a breach of privilege is found. Is that what the Government wants to see if Craig Thomson is found guilty of a breach of privileges and misleading the Parliament? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well that is very much a matter for the Privileges Committee and I wouldn’t want to comment on their deliberations. This motion is quite a separate aspect of this issue. The Privileges Committee had a referral yesterday to it a motion that I moved which was supported by the Labor party. It wasn’t quite as Tony Burke put it they supported it last time and they’ll support it this time. In fact they didn’t oppose it last time. Nevertheless the Privileges Committee will investigate this matter they will then recommend sanctions if they decide that there has been a deliberate misleading of the house, which is in their gift to decide, then the parliament will act on those recommendations. FRAN KELLY: Your listening to RN Breakfast it’s 18 minutes to 8. We’re speaking with Education Minister and Manager of Government Business Christopher Pyne. Minister in your own portfolio you have promised no education cuts before the election now the Prime Minister has signalled very clearly there will be cuts to education spending in the long term. Where are you going to cut. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Fran that’s not what he said. I have read the speech. He said that the current growth in education and health expenditure is un sustainable and that is true. Labor has been spending massively beyond our means for the last six years. He didn’t flag that there would be any cuts to health and education. FRAN KELLY: He said we must reduce the rate of spending growth in the long term. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Correct FRAN KELLY: Well that suggests things will have to be cut to do that doesn’t it? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No it doesn’t it suggests that the growth in health and education spending needs to be arrested. FRAN KELLY: ok well what does that mean, what will it be limited to do that. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It means rather than what Labor has done for the last six years which is grasp every idea floating past and fund it with borrowed taxpayers money we will be much more careful about how we spend tax payers money. And that’s what we were elected to do. FRAN KELLY: Does that mean the money set aside, for instance to match the better schools funding model will be reduced after the next three years. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Labor has left us with a $123 billion of accumulated deficits, with debt rising to $667 billion Fran. It’s not possible, it’s simply not possible for the economy to keep absorbing that massive level of debt and deficit that Labor envisaged. FRAN KELLY: I understand that Minister I’m just wondering what you see will change then? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well we’ve already indicated we have found $1.2 billion that Bill Shorten ripped out of the schools funding model for the next four years and I delivered the nation school funding model by bringing Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland into a model that they weren’t part of. So we’ve already added $1.2 billion to education Fran. We’re not cutting it, we’ve added it. FRAN KELLY: Alright Minister thank you very much for joining us. CHRISTOPHER PYNE:  It’s a pleasure.