Darwin Mix 360

SUBJECTS: Question Time; Nuclear Waste dump in Northern Territory; Labor’s dysfunctional Government; Our Plan

E&OE................................

Journalist: I have been promising this all morning. Good morning to Natasha Griggs, the Honourable Federal Member for Solomon. Good morning Tash.

Natasha Griggs MP: Good morning Pete.

Journalist: And Christopher Pyne, the Manager of Opposition Business in the Federal Parliament, good morning and welcome.

Hon Christopher Pyne MP: Thanks Pete. Good to be here.

Journalist: I am a big fan of yours, Pyney. I find Question Time probably better than the 3 Stooges ever were.

Pyne: Who’s Larry?

Journalist: Do you make up your points of order? Like do you have a book of Christopher Pyne’s exclusive book on points of order?

Pyne: You will never guess who taught me about points of order – so I better tell you. Wilson Tuckey.

Journalist: Right, yeah, I remember.

Pyne: I was elected in 1993 and I showed some aptitude for the standing orders so Wilson Tuckey got me to sit behind him in the chamber and he would say ‘watch this’ and off he’ll go and do a point of order. And you know for all of Wilson’s faults that people sort of say about him as a parliamentarian because he was a bit rough around the edges sometimes, he had a very good grasp of the standing orders in federal parliament. He was a good teacher and he taught me the old fashion way of doing things. So on the inside of my standing orders booklet, I shouldn’t tell you this of course this is a trade secret someone will probably steal it now…

Journalist: Probably Albo…

Pyne: Yes, is all the most used standing orders; I write them in my own handwriting. And every time they have a new standing order book, I take the front cover and I re-write them out so I remind myself of them so that whenever I need to, I quickly have in my own handwriting my own standing orders what to leap up and ask about.

Griggs: He is impressive isn’t he…

Pyne: I haven’t written my own book but I have written one page of it.

Journalist: I find Question Time fascinating particularly when you and Albo, Anthony Albanese, go toe-to-toe because he is quite an entertaining and polished performer as well.

Pyne: He is a street fighter and I like actually Anthony Albanese in a funny old way as two old street fighters probably do.

Journalist: He has got this wonderful saying that he loves taking it up to the Tories.

Pyne: He does.

Journalist: He obviously is very good at taking it up to the Tories because he didn’t get boned like the rest of them, did he?

Pyne: No well you see the Labor Party can’t do without him. There is nobody else on the government side that has any of the skills that Anthony has in terms of being Leader of the House and managing the parliament. And honestly if he was on the backbench, well the whole show has basically fallen apart but I think it would come down like a house of cards if Anthony wasn’t there as some sort of ballast. So that makes him a most valued player for the other team which means we have to take him out.

Journalist: Right.

Pyne: As best we can.

Journalist: How do you intend to take him out, Christopher?

Pyne: Well we have been trying for three years. But he is quite resilient, he is resilient.

Journalist: Well in the good old days in the Territory, when you wanted to take someone out you just took them out in the car park and took them out.

Pyne: Or took them fishing?

Journalist: And never bring them back?

Pyne: That’s right.

Journalist: So things have changed.

Pyne: It’s like that terrifying scene in that movie Australia where the Northern Territory businessman got pushed into the river when the croc was coming near him, that sort of made us all terrified coming near rivers in Darwin and Northern Territory, but not true of course and no one would dare do that here.

Journalist: Is Kevin Rudd done and dusted?

Pyne: No, no. Kevin is like that parrot in Monty Python – he is just resting, he is resting. And his supporters are very much preparing for a challenge in June, I think I said on Insiders a week or so ago I was getting texts from Labor members which sent them all into a spin of course, saying that there was 72 days to go, and that was about 8 or 9 days ago so I think they are planning a late June leadership ballot but you know it is an embarrassment for the country and it is very bad for our business community and so on to have this constant hopeless government. We need a change.

Journalist: Kevin’s last tilt at the leadership, was that actually….look I might dip my toes in the water and see how close the numbers get so that when I really do have a go I am going to be fine. Because I mean because it was pretty close.

Pyne: Was this the go last week or so ago?

Journalist: Yes

Pyne: Yes, that was the most recent.

Journalist: Episode 3.

Pyne: Yes, that’s right.

Journalist: Get on the page, Pyne.

Pyne: Yes that’s right. Well it happens so often it is hard to keep abreast of developments. My understanding of what happened that day is that Simon Crean believed he had the green light to do what he did. Otherwise he would never have at 1 o’clock in the afternoon in the middle of an apology to the children of forced adoptions have gone out and stolen the limelight from those people which I thought was a really rank act of timing, but Simon would never had done that because he is basically a decent person if he hadn’t thought he had the green light. My understanding is that he did think he did have the green light and as the afternoon progressed it became clear that Kevin was a few votes short and so he threw Simon overboard. But that is the kind of toxic relationships that exist within the federal Labor Party in Canberra and why no one is focusing in Canberra except the Opposition on what is good for the Australian public.

Journalist: Yeah, that is question I wanted to ask, I mean in the lead up to September… September is not that far away.

Pyne: No…

Journalist: How can Labor possibly afford not to have the likes of Simon Crean, Chris Bowen and so on leading the charge?

Pyne: Well the A-team is on the backbench and the C-team is on the front bench. And to use an easy description, the adults in the room like Martin Ferguson and Simon Crean and John Faulkner, don’t forget because he left some time ago, for them to be on the backbench and not taking part and to have these kids if you like who are more interested in factional brawls…

Journalist: You have a bloody nerve, Pyney, you have a bloody nerve you have come in here and used the F-word…

Pyne: Factional brawling?

Journalist: No, Ferguson. We can’t stand a bar of him up here.

Pyne: Is that right? What’s he done?

Journalist: The waste dump. The nuclear waste dump.

Pyne: Ah, Martin Ferguson and his nuclear waste dump. Of course we were going to have that in South Australia and it ended up in the Northern Territory.

Journalist: Well that’s where it should have bloody been, that’s where it should have gone.

Griggs: That’s right Christopher, that’s where it should have been, in South Australia.

Pyne: Well The Advertiser ran a filthy campaign against the nuclear waste dump and that’s why it ended up in the Northern Territory.

Journalist: No, it wasn’t The Advertiser’s fault. It was the fact that the South Australian Premier didn’t have the balls to accept the people’s verdict.

Griggs: To say no. I said no.

Journalist: Gutless prick.

Pyne: Well you know one of the interesting things about the, one of the interesting things - he is gone of course...he is retired.

Journalist: And so he should have, too.

Pyne: He is in London now in Stoke House having a great old time.

Journalist: Ah one of those little appointments.

Pyne: One of the wonderful appointments, fabulous job for Mike Rann – a wonderful appointment - I use it sarcastically of course. You know when that campaign was being run by the State Labor Government against the nuclear waste dump, the truth was that there was more waste being held in the CBD of Adelaide at places like the two Universities in the city and the hospitals than was every planned to be stored at a nuclear waste dump in outback South Australia. But it was a testament to how you can stoke fear and run a campaign of misinformation as was run against the Howard Government’s proposal at that time.

Griggs: Well you know Warren Snowdon and Trish Crossin both said that they didn’t support the nuclear waste facility in the Territory. And then both of them voted for it so you know that is a reminder for Territorians that they said one thing before an election and then they did one thing after an election.

Pyne: And they will do the same thing this time.

Journalist: That whole process has left a very dirty taste in the mouth of many Territorians because it just highlighted the ability for constitutional thugs like Ferguson to just pull a few tricks out of his back pocket. I remember I had him on air on this program and it was almost sheer bloody arrogance about it, you know, it was just you’re going to get it you’re going to cop it and then when I was on council we had these goons from Gillard’s office and what they were doing was it was their job to sell the bloody waste dump at Muckaty Station and when I made the point about our constitutional weakness because we are not a state this goon turned around and basically told me I was a dickhead.

Pyne: Well that is a bit rough. I don’t know you that well to be able to make that assessment, Pete. The truth is I supported statehood for Northern Territory when the referendum was put and I don’t understand why Northern Territorians didn’t vote for it. Because honestly….

Journalist: It was politicised.

Pyne: It was obviously the sensible thing to do. As you know the Northern Territory used to be part of my great state before about 1911 I think.

Journalist: Then you flogged us off.

Pyne: And I wish we never had done so, I wished we hung onto Northern Territory. It would have been better for both South Australia and Territory given us more strength and more numbers. I was very disappointed that your referendum didn’t pass, but I don’t think there are any plans to hold it again.

Journalist: It is back on the agenda, constitutional convention, fingers crossed.

Pyne: When’s that being held?

Journalist: Later in the year.

Griggs: Later in the year.

Pyne: Well it makes sense, the only thing you’ve got to overcome of course is the issue of how many Senators a northern state would have. The state of Northern Australia or whatever it would be called, it would have 12 according to Australian Constitution and that might be a bar to a lot of people in Canberra wanting that to happen because they would see that as a flood of new Senators but of course in the end it would probably break in the same way as it breaks in most states.

Journalist: Well how many has Tasmania got?

Pyne: Well they have 12 and they also have 5 lower house members.

Journalist: Yeah.

Pyne: South Australia has 11 lower house members because of the peculiarity of the constitution; it is based on the number of people, not number of voters. So I have got 100,000 voters in my electorates. Whereas in Tasmania they have more like 57,000 voters in their electorates.

Griggs: And I have 60,000…

Pyne: And you have 60,000 and so you know people talk about gerrymanders but the way the constitution is framed because it is based on population not electors, South Australia has the highest number of electors per state.

Journalist: Ok, we are getting close to time. In the lead up to September it would appear to me that tactically you guys don’t have to do a lot, you just have to keep your noses clean?

Pyne: Well the most important thing we can do, Pete, is to outline our plan for a new Australian government. So we are going to abolish the carbon tax, we are going to abolish the mining tax, we are going to bring back the Australian Building and Construction Commission to put a strong policeman on the beat of construction sites. We want a paid parental scheme that is a workplace entitlement and not a welfare enticement. We want to bring back, we want to get the debate on education away from funding which is an operational matter and on to values things like teacher quality, robust curriculum, parental engagement, principal autonomy. Everyone knows that this government is a terrible government, that it is focused on itself, divided and dysfunctional and that it now wants to attack people’s superannuation and if it comes for your neighbour’s today it will come for yours tomorrow. What we need to do for the next 5 and a half month is outline our vision for the future so people say that well we know that this government is broken but we want to make sure that what we put in its place is going to do a good job for me on cost of living, job security, border security and economic management.

Journalist: Christopher Pyne, great to talk to you.

Pyne: Thanks Pete.

Journalist: Tash – no doubt we will catch up again soon.

Griggs: No worries, thanks Pete.

Journalist: Member for Solomon, Natasha Griggs.

ENDS.