ABC Sydney Drive - Richard Glover Political Forum

SUBJECTS: Federal polling; carbon and mining tax; praising children

Excerpts only.

Pyne: Good morning Richard, good morning Nathan.

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Pyne: Good afternoon. Its 42 degrees here, give me a break.

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Pyne: Well Richard I don’t think the Prime Ministers stabilising at the end of last year had anything at all to do with her speech about misogyny which was rubbish and tripe and juvenile in the extreme.

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Pyne: Well I think people; well I think the lovies of the inner east in Sydney thought it was marvellous.

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Pyne: No, all of that coverage Richard, if I could actually finish one of my sentence’s without being interrupted, was all online. None of it actually made it in to any of the print editions. But the excited press here in Canberra, in Australia wanted to try and pretend it was some kind of world vetting speech, but actually it was juvenile and embarrassing. In my view, in fact the only reason the Government stabilised at the end of last year was because they had a litany of announcements that went on for weeks and weeks and weeks but announcements are not delivering policy, they’re not addressing cost of living, job security, border protection, the economy. Since the beginning of this year it’s been quite clear that the Prime Minister has the mightiest touch in reverse and everything she has announced or tried to deal with she’s botched and bungled and of course the Australian public are sick of the Government thinking entirely inwardly. They’re all talking about Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, they never actually talk about the things that matter to Australians who are trying to pay their bills and keep their jobs.

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Pyne: The carbon tax. Well, the Carbon tax is impacting on cost of living and as much as it might have left the press, it hasn’t left the minds of the voters. And in my marginal seat of Sturt here in Adelaide people raise the carbon tax with me on a very regular basis.

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Pyne: No it hasn’t been. And one of the very few explanations that the public can come up with for rising prices is the carbon tax and the Prime Minister has totally failed to sell any other message. So on the carbon tax, people think it’s responsible for cost of living. The boats keep arriving; we’ve had 25,000 arrivals since the Prime Minister took over. On the mining tax it raised $126 million when it was supposed to raise $2 billion.

Pyne: That’s right.

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Pyne: Exactly, we would abolish the mining tax. But the point is the Government has booked $15 billon of expenditure on the mining tax and its raised $126 million. Now you can’t run a household budget that way, let alone the national budget. And the Prime Minister has failed to sell any of these messages, while the whole time the Labor Caucus is focussed completely on Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard and the soap opera that this Government has become.

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Pyne: Well perhaps they shouldn’t have compromised. I mean that was a failure of this Government. I mean we would abolish the mining tax in total because we think the mining tax is very poor for the economy. Labor tried to introduce a mining tax and in their gross incompetence managed to raise a tax, introduce a tax which raises no revenue which only highlights what a joke they are when it comes to managing the budget and the economy.

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Pyne: Nathan, you know honestly none of those mining companies are as big as the Australian Government and the Australian Government.

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Pyne: But the Government did engage in advertising especially around the carbon tax, but also the mining tax. But can I just say..

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Pyne: But if the Government had a clear bead on what they were trying to achieve and could get that message out to the Australian public, then they would be on an even footing. But the truth is that the Government didn’t know why they were introducing the mining tax other then the need to raise more revenue, and couldn’t explain how it would interact with State royalties which were already collecting tax. And as you know as a former Premier of New South Wales, royalties are an important part of your budget. But the Government couldn’t explain why they had to have another tax on top of that and who owns the mines.

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Pyne: But the Government hasn’t made that case Richard, have they? The Federal Government hasn’t made that case.

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Pyne: Well Richard I can’t say that I’m an expert on shooting in forests in New South Wales; it’s a long way from my bailiwick. I would say that I’m not a great advocate for the use of guns; in fact I’ve never even fired a gun. But in terms of populations like goats and donkeys and pigs and foxes etc. there is an argument for keeping those populations to a minimum and eradicating them if possible. There would be places where it would be quite safe for that to occur in National Parks. But you know, I don’t want to break with the O’Farrell Government on an issue that, which I am not exactly an expert. So I’ll bow to the experts in the O’Farrell Government ensuring they’ve done their due diligence.

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Pyne: Well you have to work with the Parliament that the people give you, whether it’s in the State or Federal arena and of course..

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Pyne: Well, I wasn’t, yes she is. And she was prepared to sell her sole in order to do so and Bob Brown when he was the Leader and Christine Milne, two most powerful people in the country and she was very happy to do that.

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Pyne: No I think you misunderstand me. I was saying that you do have to work with the Parliament the public give you and Barry O’Farrell has to work with the Upper House he was given as did Nathan Rees as did John Howard. And John Howard when he was the Leader managed to introduce the goods and services tax and hold an election before it was introduced with the use of the, with the work of the Democrats, so you do have to do that. And that’s the way the Parliament works. I mean Julia Gillard, sure she’s worked with the Parliament she’s been given, she’s been quite happy to break her promise about not introducing a carbon tax in order to keep the Greens support, and goodness knows what she promised Tony Windsor and Robert Oakeshott to get them to break with their electorates and support a Labor Government, but that is democracy as we know it.

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Pyne: Well Richard I’m an unabashed high praise father. I’m sure it’s because I‘ve spent half the year travelling outside Adelaide, so I have four children I think I praise them as much as I possibly can. I think you can never have too much self confidence.

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Pyne: Perhaps not quite as in such a routine fashion but I do try and hang my praise on some achievement. But the, I do think we over analyse these things, I think common sense is the, should be the watch word, you know when someone does something that they deserve to be praised for they should be praised for it. But I do think children need to be built up rather than to be, have their spirit crushed.

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Pyne: This is true and I think my mother and father might have been in that brigade.  But I managed to overcome it.

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Pyne: Well I must admit I do go to my children’s tennis games and remember when my mother used to wind down the window of the car and sort of shout helpful suggestions to me as I was trying to get to a lob or get to the back of the court. I try not to do that now.

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Pyne: You missed it again! You missed it again, she used to say

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Pyne: It was great.

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Pyne: It’s bru. There was a wonderful YouTube of the whale from New Zealand and the pelican who was called Bru which was very amusing, you should look it up.

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Pyne: Pleasure.

ENDS.