Doorstop - Parliament House

SUBJECTS: Fairfax/Nielsen poll; Queensland and NSW Budgets

E&OE………

Christopher Pyne: Today’s polls are a direct result of a personal campaign of vilification against Tony Abbott. The Labor Party has spent the last few months, but particularly the last fortnight, demonising Tony Abbott in an attempt to destroy his character in the eyes of the Australian people and that has seen its benefit in today’s poll results. The Tony Abbot I know is a person who just last weekend went out with his local fire brigade to do a controlled burn off and spent Sunday leading a blind person to the end of his first full marathon. The Tony Abbott that I know is a Rhodes Scholar, a person with an Economics degree, a person that has more experience than any would-be Prime Minister in Australia’s history; experience in Government. The Labor Party is trying to demonise Tony Abbott in the same way as they did Campbell Newman before the Queensland Election. That didn’t work and this campaign won’t work in spite of a tick up in the polls today.

Journalist: Clearly the demonization of Tony Abbott has worked and you’re now in damage control mode. His personal approval is net negative 23%, the lowest since Malcolm Turnbull in 2009. How can Tony Abbott turn things around?

Pyne: Well James, Tony Abbott has been saying the things that the Australian people believe for the last three years. We as an Opposition are focussed on the carbon tax, the lies the Government told about the carbon tax, particularly the Prime Minister; about border protection; the cost of living; the $120 billion black hole that Labor can’t explain. Tony Abbott will continue to focus on the Government’s failings because that is what an Opposition should be doing as well as putting out our own positive policy prescription. In fact, just this weekend he announced that we would finish the Pacific Highway at a cost of $5.6 billion. Now Labor, on the other hand, have reached for the chum bucket. When Labor is losing, when they are desperate, when they have their back to the wall they reach for the chum bucket. They throw as much muck and burley as they can and hope that it will distract the Australian voter from the truth, which is that this is a rancid Government.

Journalist: But you just mentioned the carbon tax. 58% of voters say they are no worse off under the carbon tax. 34, just 34%, say they are worse off. Has this political strategy failed for the Coalition?

Pyne: Well there are a number of aspects to the carbon tax. One is the effect it is having on the cost of living, which even the Reserve Bank Governor, Glenn Stevens said last week would take some time to work through the economy, or the week before last in fact. So there is the cost of living aspect, the forcing up of the price of electricity and I can tell you if you come to my electorate the carbon tax is having a very deep impact. But there is a second aspect to the carbon tax and that is the bald-faced lie that the Prime Minister told before the last election when she said there would be no carbon tax under the Government I lead. It was a lie, the Australian people know it’s a lie and that is the issue that will haunt her right through to election day.

Journalist: Do you think the cuts to the public sector in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales have overreached and now people are starting to be concerned about that and what could flow to a Federal level?

Pyne: Well there are a number of issues in the polls today but Labor is speaking with forked-tongue about cuts to the public service. I think Wayne Swan has been responsible for about 1100 cuts to the Australian Tax Office in his own Department as well as about 100 in the Treasury Department. I think 3500 are slated for this year. But Labor will speak with hypocrisy because they will do anything to win the next election and that’s why they’ve been demonising Tony Abbott, particularly in the last fortnight. I think the Australian people will see through that by election day.

Journalist: The Coalition supported all those cuts, except for the Customs cuts. Is it really reasonable to criticise them on it?

Pyne: The Coalition has said that the Government has got us into a very bad economic situation. We have a massive deficit, we have a massive debt, we are borrowing $20 million a day to service just the interest on that debt. Now Labor will keep borrowing billions of dollars to cover up their hopeless economic mismanagement and the Coalition has said there is a better way. We think if we get the chance, we’ll return to the golden age of the Howard era when there were surpluses, there was no net debt, there was investment in infrastructure, there was lowering taxes, there were higher wages.

Journalist: But do you think in terms of the Federal public service the cuts will be in the order of the 12,000 flagged by Joe Hockey or will it be higher as suggested up to 20,000?

Pyne: Well I think people are throwing a whole lot of figures around…

Journalist: Your own side is.

Pyne: Well people are throwing a whole lot of figures around including the Labor Party who will talk about anything other than their own economic management. They’d much rather spend last week talking about New South Wales and Queensland than talking about the absolute failure of our border protection policies or the fact that there is no surplus and that we will have a massive deficit announced in next year’s budget if we make it that far in the election cycle. Of course they’d rather talk about every other distraction than their lie about the carbon tax.

Journalist: You are fully confident in the strategy the Coalition has, focussed on asylum seekers and the carbon tax, from here until the election?

Pyne: Well the polls go up and down. I think people will be surprised to discover that the Newspoll was 50-50 in May 2011. If you listen to the commentary you’d assume that the Coalition has been ten points ahead for years and years and years. Of course that’s not true. The polls do go up and down but I’m very confident that our strategy of focussing on the Government’s manifests failures as well as putting our own agenda out there for the Australian public is a strategy that will work on election day and I don’t think that Labor’s campaign of personal denigration of Tony Abbott will work.

Journalist: Today’s Nielsen Poll also shows that the popularity of Malcolm Turnbull is at 63% and a lot of Coalition voters would like to see a return to him to the Liberal leadership. Do you think that would start causing some ructions within Coalition ranks?

Pyne: No absolutely not. And I’m glad that Malcolm Turnbull is so popular, it is always better to be popular. But on the other hand the reason why the polls are as they are today is because of the campaign of personal denigration against Tony Abbott. And when Malcolm Turnbull was leader you might remember that when he exited the leadership he was deeply unpopular and again he had been the subject of a demonization campaign by the Labor Party. Some people always talk about the grass being greener on the other side, the Coalition is absolutely 100% locked in behind Tony Abbott. He will lead us to the next election and I hope we will be fortunate enough to win.

Journalist: Do you think all this talk of polls is rotting our teeth? Sorry, did you hear Andrew Leigh’s comment earlier today…

Pyne: Andrew Leigh is an academic; I mean he is a very nice fellow I’m sure. But polls are the daily fare of journalists and politicians need to respond to them.

ENDS