Doorstop - Adelaide

Subjects: Coalition’s response to issues raised in ALP Campaign Launch EO&E........... PYNE: Mr Rudd devoted a large part of his speech to attacking Tony Abbott. He mentioned him 26 times, at one stage mentioning him 15 times in 300 words. The truth is Kevin Rudd again is obsessing with Tony Abbott. He had the usual relentless negativity running his scare campaigns, making up stories about Coalition's policies, telling lies and not offering the Australian public any hope that the future under a Labor government would be better than after the last six years. We have seen the chaos and dysfunction and division of Labor in the last six years and if Labor is re-elected in six days what will continue is more chaos, more division, more dysfunction. The launch didn't change any of that. He announced new policies. Again, most of them not costed. And importantly with Kevin Rudd, you always have to look at what he does, not what he says. So he says today he wants it take over the TAFE system but then we remember six years ago he was going to take over public hospitals and six years later, he's done no such thing. That is just one example where Kevin Rudd says one thing and does the other. Kevin Rudd's very long on announcement and very short on delivery. He didn't mention in his speech today any of his recent thought bubbles, he didn't elaborate on moving Garden Island to Brisbane or the Northern Territory having a different company tax rate to the rest of the country. Or his $115 billion very fast train that everyone knows will never happen. Didn't talk about his fringe benefits tax increase which is going to hurt the car industry. So with Kevin Rudd, what you see with him is not what you get. The opposite is the case with Tony Abbott. REPORTER: You're criticising him for attacking Mr Abbott but surely at this point in the election campaign that is happening both ways? PYNE: Well, Kevin Rudd said four weeks ago that he wanted to end the negativity. He said he was going to instruct George Wright, the federal director of the Labor Party, to not have any negative ads and what we have seen since then is a wall to wall Labor Party and union funded negative ad campaign. And today he spent most of the campaign speech attacking Tony Abbott. Now, this is another example with Kevin Rudd. You have to look at what he does, not what he says. He says he wants positive campaigning but when he campaigns it’s all wall to wall negativity. REPORTER: You mentioned how Rudd criticised TAFE cuts. What do you think of the TAFE cuts and do you think a federal takeover is necessary? PYNE: Well I think it is an unusual thing for... Kevin Rudd to attack Jay Weatherill in the way he has today. Jay Weatherill cut 150 TAFE jobs in South Austrtalia last year and it seems an unusual option for Kevin Rudd to take, where he's hurting South Australia with the car industry tax, the FBT increase, moving defence jobs from Adelaide to Brisbane, damaging South Australia's electoral prospects for the state Labor government by criticising them for cutting TAFE. But the truth is we will look at all of Kevin Rudd's policies, of course we will, and if they there are good ideas in them, then the Coalition will adopt them. But I remind everybody, six years ago, Kevin Rudd said he would take over public hospitals. He didn't do it. He said he would end the double drop-off by building 260 child care centres. Never happened. He said he would build 2650 Trade Training Centres. He's built less than 10 per cent. And he claims he wants to have a national takeover of TAFEs. But what is the reason for that? REPORTER: Would you consider that though, would the Coalition consider that takeover? PYNE: Well, there has been no case made for a federal takeover of TAFE. No case made at all. It is just another Labor thought bubble, just another Kevin Rudd distraction because he hasn't actually laid out the grounds for why the national government would do a better job with TAFE than the state governments. REPORTER: The Tools for Trade initiative, can you confirm that you will continue that and if so would you up the funding to what Labor has announced? PYNE: Look, I'm not going to get into all the detail about Kevin Rudd's policies because the truth is, Kevin Rudd has put a whole lot of ideas out there today, a whole lot of thought bubbles over the last four weeks, and what we have to look at with Kevin Rudd is what will actually ever happen. Now, the Coalition, the Tools for Trade policy, of course, is a Coalition policy. And so it is nice that... it is flattering that he's copying the Coalition yet again but I’m not going to dissect each of these policies because the truth is it is very unlikely that Kevin Rudd, if he is elected again on Saturday, will ever do any of it. REPORTER: But is that Tools for Trade initiative staying under the Coalition? PYNE: Well the Tools for Trade - there is a Coalition Tools for Trade policy. So if Labor wants to copy it good luck to them. We're not going to get into some Dutch auction with Labor in this election. Mr Rudd has not shown where the money is coming from, as usual. And he's throwing hundreds of millions of dollars around, as usual, while at the same time he says that there has to be savage cuts in the Budget and there is a massive blow-out in the debt and the deficit. REPORTER: He said this morning he's up for the fight despite the polls. Do you think there is going to be a fight or it will be a white wash as the polls have predicted? PYNE: I think the election will be very close. Every federal election is very close. This is my eighth federal election and there is never a massive gap between the parties. And so therefore the Labor Party will put up a fight, of course they will and so they should. Winning an election and wanting to govern for the good of the country is a very important privilege and you should make sure that you lay out the reasons why people should vote for you and do it in as rigorous way as possible. Winning from Opposition is like climbing Mount Everest and Kevin Rudd has all the advantages. He has $12 million... a union campaign that will be spent this week on advertising so the air waves will be blitzed with union-funded negative advertising on Tony Abbott. So there is every reason to believe that Kevin Rudd could win the election and worse than that there could be another hung parliament and Labor will do a deal with the Greens again. So that kind of unsettled political landscape is not good for the country. So it’s important people vote for a Coalition candidate. In spite of maybe liking their local Labor candidate, they might be a good bloke or a good woman, but they’re still Labor and if people vote them then we could end up with a hung parliament. REPORTER: Do you think we are going to see any dirty tactics in this final week? PYNE: We have already seen plenty from Labor over the past 4 weeks and over the last 3 years so nothing would surprise me, when they’ve got their backs to the wall, they’re likely to turn to the dirty tricks campaign, the chum bucket, as I’ve called it before, and we’ll have to wait and see, I hope that doesn’t happen but with Labor you have to expect the worst. REPORTER: Tony Abbott has described both sides of the Syrian regime as ‘baddies’, do you think that is sophisticated enough rhetoric for a potential PM and do you think he’s ready for foreign policy? PYNE: Look I think he’s actually extremely sophisticated because most people see the world through a good side and a bad side and that you have to choose one or the other, it’s actually more sophisticated to recognise, as Penny Wong hasn’t today, because she’s not very sophisticated when it comes to foreign policy, that in fact in the Syrian civil war, both sides are very unattractive. Neither side is one that you would describe as being the western side, or the side that the western civilisation would normally support, neither side are covered in glory, so it’s actually more sophisticated to recognise that, than to try and pretend as Penny Wong does, that there’s somehow cowboys and Indians and one side is good and one side is bad. In the Syrian conflict it’s important to understand that both sides are deeply unpleasant and that trying to choose a side is a very foolish thing to do. REPORTER: Tony Abbott has confirmed that he’ll be announcing more further job cuts, er sorry, further cuts to the budget closer to the election. Do you concede that people might think that that’s you hiding something or not wanting to give away bad ideas? PYNE: Sure, I’ll answer that in a second but also returning to the previous question, it’s also unacceptable to be lectured by the Labor Party about foreign policy when Kevin Rudd, after the Copenhagen conference on climate change, described the Chinese as ‘rat-something’ but I won’t use the language, so Kevin Rudd’s not in a position to be lecturing anybody when he describes our Chinese partners in Asia in the most unsavoury and unflattering terms possible. But it’s typical of Kevin Rudd to think that he can lecture people on everything. We have announced most of our policies, there’s still a few of our policies left in the next few days. When all of those policies have been announced, we will deliver a budget bottom line and it will be well in advance of the evening before the election which is what Labor did in 2007 and 2010. REPORTER: Would you concede that some might think you’re putting it off though because it will be bad for voters? PYNE: No, and most of our policies are already announced, most of our savings are announced, our spending measures have been announced throughout the campaign. This is really just part of the ongoing pointless scare campaign that we get from Labor because Labor have nothing positive to say about the future, as we saw again today in Kevin Rudd’s campaign launch speech which was all about the past, all about Tony Abbott and there’s no new ideas, no fresh ideas about how to make Australia a better place. Okay, thank you very much. Ends