Doorstop - Parliament House

SUBJECTS: Asian white paper; McKew book; Wong preselection; Newspolls

E&OE………

Pyne: There’s are a few subjects I would like to touch on today and the first of those is the Prime Minister’s Asian white paper. And while the Coalition welcomes the Asian white paper, it will be hard not to, it is in the end a collection of 25 ideas. None of which are particularly original, all of which would be good ideas if implemented. But it is like a renovator who says they have got 25 good ideas for their home and then goes down and has a house party and spends the money on the renovations and then the renovations can’t happen anymore. This Government has a paper with 25 ideas. The Prime Minister says she endorses them all but where is the meat on the bones of this idea? The Government has spent the money it was left by the Howard legacy, they have a deficit and a debt you can’t jump over and yet again they’re trying to distract people with the idea that they will implement the Asian white paper. I remind people that in December 2009 the Government had a defence white paper, years later the talk about defence is not the implementation of the white paper but in fact cuts, savage cuts to defence. So no one should expect the Government to implement any of the 25 ideas in the white paper. If they would it would be great but the truth is they haven’t got any resources and they haven’t got the wherewithal to do it. Maxine Mckew’s book went on the book stands yesterday for sale. What it proves to the Australian public is that we know that we have a Prime Minister without any conviction, without any principle, without any policy, we have Prime Minister who was panic struck by the polls in 2012 and seized her opportunity to create mayhem in the Labor caucus. We know from revelations from Maxine Mckew’s book that she showed Labor members of the caucus internal Labor party polling that showed that Kevin Rudd was unelectable in a deliberate strategy of undermining her Prime Minister when she was the Deputy Prime Minster. We know that she fought for the Labor leadership not just the day she walked into Kevin Rudd’s office but in fact had been planning it for many months in advance and the truth of that is the revelations in Maxine Mckews book. On the issue of Penny Wong, Penny Wong has been placed down the Labor ticket in South Australia behind one of the faceless men of the Labor Party in Don Farrell. I don’t have anything particularly against Don Farrell apart from the fact he is simply a faceless man of the Labor party. But what this does is completely expose the fact that the Prime Ministers indignation about so called sexism was simply a manufactured campaign to distract the Australian public from the fact that the Government is not focused on the that things people care about. It was a manufactured campaign born out of Great Britain, where another campaign about misogyny was run against David Cameron which is also failed. It was a campaign of character assassination and if there was any truth at all to the idea that the Government thought that misogyny or sexism was an important issue in Australia Penny Wong would not have been placed down the ticket as a Cabinet Minister behind one of the faceless men Don Farrell.

Journalist: Given today’s news poll, has Tony Abbott run out of puff?

Pyne: Look today’s news poll is one of the many polls that in some respect rule our lives here in Canberra. The last two months the Government has thrown everything at Tony Abbott in a vicious personal smear campaign. It is a strategy out of the UK politics play book and the Prime Minister is of course is being advised by a senior Labor staffer form the UK.

Journalist: But its working is it not?

Pyne: Well in the last two months the Government has done everything it can to hurt Tony Abbott. He is absorbing this campaign, but the truth is that in all the important electoral tests in recent times, the ACT just a couple of weeks ago, Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, are actual electoral tests, New South Wales Local Government local elections. The Labor Party vote has tanked and the Liberal Party vote has risen. So when the public get the opportunity to actually put their money where their mouth is, they are not voting for this Government and they are not voting for them because they know that even in the last quarter electricity prices rose 15.3%, gas prices rose 14% their worried about their job security, they know that the borders are not being protected by this Government. So on the fundamental issues, cost of living, border protection, job security this is a failed Government, polls will come and go, but the truth is Tony Abbott is absorbing this campaign of character assassination. One that is born out of Great Britain and I think is alien to political culture in this country.

Journalist: Do you think voters see Tony Abbott as a misogynist or as being too negative?

Pyne: I think they recognise that Tony Abbott and the Opposition are holding a very bad Government to account for their failures. I think they also know that the Government has created a blizzard of distractions in the last two months. Dental Health Schemes, Gonski reforms that will never be funded, NDIS’s a campaign about sexism which been using sexism as a sword and misogyny as a shield which was exposed on the weekend by Penny Wong being dumped down the ticket on behalf of Don Farrell. The asian white paper, announcements about the Murray Darling Basin that start in 2019 that aren’t even in the forward estimates. There’s been a blizzard of distraction that the Government has tried to create and that does have an effect, of course it does but the Coalition will continue to hold the Government to account and we look forward to an election. If the Government is so confident and thinks it is doing so well then why are they hiding from the people?

Journalist: Alexander Downer said yesterday that Tony Abbott isn’t taking the fight enough to Labor in relation to the personal attacks against him. Do you think that’s true and do you think why what’s being reflected in the polls?

Pyne: Well, Tony Abbott is a humble man and he’s not self-regarding. And while he spent things like Saturday in the Fire Fighters Games because he’s a voluntary fire fighter, he doesn’t go out there and talk about his exploits helping to fight fires for the Rural Fire Service. He doesn’t talk about running marathons with a blind man and helping that man complete his first marathon. He doesn’t talk about all the good works that he does and did as Health Minister for Women’s’ shelters and so on because he thinks that’s self-regarding and he’s not into that type of personal aggrandisement. Now his strategy has been to ignore and absorb this personal campaign of vilification. In my view it will come to be seen for what it is – an attempt at character assassination- and the real issues that once an election is called will define the next election will be cost of living which is rising under Labor; job insecurity; falling investment in mining and industry; and the fact the Government has no solutions to border protection and overwhelmingly that you can’t trust anything this Prime Minister says whether it’s on the Carbon Tax, to the Mining Tax to the East Timor solution; the Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change, the list of Julia’s broken promises is endless and of course, Maxine McKew has exposed in her book that we have a Prime Minister is totally and entirely focussed on herself and her own political ambition and never puts the Australian public’s interest first.

Journalist: But is being too humble to his own detriment?

Pyne: Well, I think the Australian public like humility. Tony Abbott will let the facts speak for themselves. This is a Prime Minister who always puts her own interests before the Australian public’s interests. She campaigned for many, many months to remove Kevin Rudd and in fact, when I was in 2007. Not long after the election, one of Labor’s power brokers told me that Julia Gillard was already, in 2007-8 putting her people to use his words, into the positions of influence in order to undermine Kevin Rudd because she was going to seize power at the first available opportunity and when Kevin Rudd was the weak wildebeest in the pack, she pounced and tore him to pieces.

ENDS