Doorstop - Melbourne

SUBJECTS: Prime Minister’s speech; Parliamentary Reform; Mal Brough; WA election; Education E&OE................................   Hon Christopher Pyne MP: Today the Prime Minister has to outline a substantial plan for the economy in Australia; she has to outline what the deficit will be in this year’s budget and future deficits, she has to explain how she will keep her promise to wipe-out net debt by 2021 which will require $30 billion surpluses every year from 2016, she has to cut the platitudes and the rhetoric and actually come up with the goods about where she is taking Australia, what her blueprint for the economy is. It’s not good enough for the Prime Minister to be giving her second National Press Club speech full of rhetoric and platitudes as she did late last year on education. In an election year the Australia public expect substance from the Prime Minister not more spin and hot air. And of course she has to pass a threshold test which is – Why should we trust anything this Prime Minister says about this year’s budget when we couldn’t believe her when she promised not to introduce a Carbon Tax, we couldn’t believe her when she said she wouldn’t challenge Kevin Rudd, we couldn’t believe her when she promised 200 times to deliver a surplus we couldn’t believe when she said she wouldn’t bring back the Howard Government Pacific Solution and the list goes on and on. So, the Prime Minister has to outline a substantive economic agenda today not just more rhetoric and she has to pass the threshold of why should we trust her today when we couldn’t trust her for the last five and half years. Journalist: Christopher Pyne, the Opposition says it’s serious about parliamentary reform, how can that be taken seriously when you look at your party behaving in Parliament this sitting period? Pyne: Well, the Prime Minister sets the tone for the Parliament and the Prime Minister has set a vicious and vindictive, point scoring, finger wagging tone for the last two and half years as Prime Minster. If Tony Abbott is elected Prime Minister, he is a genuine Parliamentarian, he cares about Parliamentary standards just like John Howard did and we didn’t have this lack of faith in the Australian Parliament during the Howard era that we’ve had in the Gillard and Rudd periods. In fact many people are hankering after Kevin Rudd’s period as Prime Minister because of the fact that Julia Gillard has so lowered the tone in the last two and half years. So, I’m putting on the agenda some ideas today, six or seven reforms that the Coalition would undertake that would restore faith in the institution of the Parliament.  Number one of those is a Prime Minister who leads by example. This Prime Minister’s example has been one of personal invective and a charmless attitude to the Parliament. Journalist: But if you’re talking about your Party’s parliamentary  behaviour you signed an agreement on Parliamentary  Reform at  last election why haven’t you lived up to those standards? Why is there a need for any other action? I’m not talking about Gillard Government I’m talking about your Opposition. Pyne: Well that’s a question you should put to Anthony Albanese who breached of course the agreement that we signed on the reinventing the Parliament on the first day of the parliamentary sitting. So, I know you’ve got these questions from Anthony Albanese’s office because he’s being saying them this morning on the radio but the truth is the Government sets the agenda. The Prime Minister sets the example and this Prime Minister’s example has been one of scorn and derision.  As a twenty year veteran of the Parliament I have a record of putting the Parliament first, if I get to be Leader of the House, if the Coalition gets to be elected I can assure you that we will raise the tone of the Parliament and we won’t have the bitter nasty point scoring that we have had from this Government in the last two and half years. Journalist: But how can Australians believe you and your Government will do that given your behaviour over the last 12 months? It has been quite destructive. Pyne: Well, the Oppositions job is to hold the Government to account and I think we have done that very effectively. But at no point have we stooped to the vicious, low and vindictive point scoring that Anthony Albanese and Julia Gillard have stooped to, so I’ve tried to lead by example. Sure I take the fight up to the Government that’s my job as Manager of Opposition Business and I will continue to do that right through to the election day but that is different from the personal and vindictive attitude that we have had from this Prime Minister. Journalist: How can the Coalition be taken seriously when you’ve preselected Mal Brough, who has been criticised by a Federal judge? Pyne: Well Mal Brough has been preselected for the seat of Fisher. The electors of Fisher will have a choice between him and Peter Slipper and the Labor candidate and others I imagine at the next Federal election. The Prime Minister took two years to decide that Craig Thomson, the Member for Dobell wasn’t a person of character that she wanted to have in the Labor Caucus. Julia Gillard plucked Peter Slipper from obscurity and made him Speaker over Harry Jenkins, a person of great respect and high standing in order to gain a vote on the floor of the Parliament, so if Labor thinks these are good questions to ask, they need to look at their own behaviour because they say people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Journalist: These are questions from the ABC, Christopher Pyne. Is Mr Brough surely now a tainted candidate who you’re supporting? Pyne: Mal Brough will be a fine and upstanding Member for Parliament should the electors of Fisher choose him as he was an outstanding Cabinet Minister and Minister. I wouldn’t say the same for Craig Thomson who of course the Prime Minister has stood by throughout his political career. Journalist: Today the Prime Minister is expected to unveil a whole range of cuts to entitlements for the rich and the middle class. Now she has said that the Coalition has been campaigning with no actual policies. When will you actually release your policies? Pyne: Well the Prime Minister has announced $120 billion of new spending commitments over the last four months. Today in her speech to the National Press Club she has to outline how they’ll be paid for. It’s one thing to try and buy the votes of the Australian public, but survey after survey show that the public want to know where these spending cuts are going to come from? How this $120 billion of promises are going to be paid for? And on the trust index of course, on one side of the ledger we have stacked up the promise she made about not challenging Kevin Rudd, that there’d be no carbon tax, the 200 times she’d promised there’d be a surplus, the 2600 trade training centres she promised, the 360 child care centres that she promised. None of these things have been delivered, so the Prime Minister has a very big threshold of distrust to overcome and we look forward to hearing her speech today, which we hope will be full of detail for how they’ll fund $120 billion of promises that they’ve made. But we’re not going to get into a Dutch auction with Labor. The Coalition has a record of good sound economic management going back decades and I think we can stand on our record, whereas Labor’s record is full of broken promises, borrowings, higher taxing and more spending. Journalist: Do you think that Tony Abbott should give into Premier Colin Barnett’s demands to see Western Australia get more of the GST for your party perhaps to have more funding for your election campaign? Pyne: Look I think Colin is a great fighter for Western Australia and I wish him absolutely the best of luck in the election in March and I hope that he will win. I would expect him to fight for Western Australia. We have indicated that we have no intention of changing the base or the rate of the GST. We will discuss with State Treasurers the issue of the carve up of the GST as more information comes to light on the  Government’s reviews and from the work of the Treasury Secretary, Martin Parkinson but at this stage we have no plans to change the way the GST is dealt with. Journalist: So if he holds onto the campaign funds, you’ll be fine? Pyne: I think Colin might have been engaging in some strong talk on behalf of Western Australia and he might well deal with that matter today as part of the Western Australian campaign. Journalist: (inaudible) Pyne: Well the Government hasn’t announced any new spending measures in education. They have talked very broadly about how they will embrace the Gonski Review but they’ve yet to actually put any meat on the bones. At the moment that turkey is all feathers and no meat. I look forward to them actually putting some detail on the agenda and the Prime Minister should do that today in her speech to the National Press Club. But you have to look at what Labor does rather than what they say. They cut in MYEFO $3.9 billion from the education budget. On the one hand they are cutting education and on the other hand they are promising to increase spending on education. But what I think we should look at is look at what they actually do, rather than what they say and that has been a record of cuts to education. Whatever the Opposition does will be affordable and achievable and believable, and what the Government does and I would bet London to a brick will be unaffordable, unachievable and unbelievable. Thank you very much. ENDS.