Doorstop - Sydney

SUBJECTS: Labor chaos; Liberal education policy Pyne: Well this morning the Labor Party chaos and confusion continues to reign whether it is putting in doubt the carbon tax revenue, moving to an emissions trading scheme. So they started with an emissions trading scheme then it moved to a carbon tax. Now it appears they’re moving back to an emissions trading scheme, whether it is the reversing of the change to the NewStart Allowance which would also be a hit to the Government’s revenue. In my own portfolio, yesterday we had the new Minister for Higher Education, who’s my fourth Minister for Higher Education in four months, putting in doubt the issue of caps on student places and saying they might reverse the higher education cuts and then today, having followed a meeting from the National Catholic Education Commission yesterday the Prime Minister and Minister for Education are putting in doubt the start date for the new school funding model and so there is more chaos and more confusion from a Labor Government that is reeling from constant change and uncertainty. The Australian public have had a thorough gut full of this uncertainty. They’re already anxious about their jobs; they’re anxious about cost of living increases; they’re concerned about the open door policy when it comes to border protection; they’re concerned about who is actually managing the economy and managing the Budget and now in education, they not only have the Minister for Education at the university level putting in doubt the higher education changes, they also now have the Minister for Education Bill Shorten, who has no credibility or background in education, putting off the new school funding model. The Coalition has said from the beginning of this process that the Government has left it far too late, that it is not possible to introduce a new school funding model on the first of January next year and now we have the Government agreeing with us and saying that they will put it off until the first of January 2015. Yesterday I said that Bill Shorten needed to explain how much money schools would get in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The Government’s response has been to say ‘let’s put it all off for twelve months’. The Coalition welcomes that. We believe that the new school funding model should be put off for twelve months. That would give an incoming government the time to sort out the chaos and the mess that Labor has created. Whether it is a Labor government or a Liberal government we should not be rushing the states and the non -government sector into trying to introduce a new school funding model in six months’ time which quite frankly they haven’t physically got the capacity to do. So if the Government puts the new school funding model off for a year we will welcome that and in fact, I have made that promise to the former Minister Peter Garrett on many occasions, in writing to him, in press releases and in media appearances I have said if the Government finally admits that they have got it wrong, that they have left it too late; we won’t play politics with it, we won’t try and make political points out of it; we will simply accept that and move on and try in the next twelve months, if we are elected to fix the chaos that Labor has created. Just briefly, I’d also make the point that Laurie Ferguson the Member for Werriwa has belled the cat today in the Daily Telegraph. Cracks are already emerging in this so called new, united Labor Government. He has pointed out that Federal Labor has New South Wales disease. That they have a constant churn of Leaders, that the revolving door of Labor Leadership goes on and on, whether it’s Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard or Kevin Rudd again or Bill Shorten down the track. The truth is that Labor is presiding over a wreckage of disunity, dysfunction and division and Laurie Ferguson is right to say that the New South Wales disease has come to Canberra. Presenter: Bill Shorten has said today that they are not going to put it off to 2015 and that it will go on in 2014 as planned, are things perhaps a little less chaotic then you are saying? Pyne: No, no. I haven’t said Bill Shorten said that, I said his spokesman has apparently said that. Well a spokesman making such a remark doesn’t actually have any serious credibility. I mean is the spokesman running the Government now, or is the Prime Minister? Presenter: (Inaudible) Pyne: Well the Prime Minister and Bill Shorten have put out there in the paper’s today that they are open to putting it off for 12 months and we’ve said that we would welcome that – they should do it. A spokesman coming out and saying that’s not right is not clearing the confusion up, it is only adding to the sense of confusion. Is an unnamed spokesman running the Government of Australia or is the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education running the Government of Australia. It only adds to the general carnival atmosphere that surrounds this Government, that in fact a spokesman is being sent out to clear up as an important matter as a new school funding model. If the Government wants to put that to rest they should come out and do a press conference, the Prime Minister and Bill Shorten and clear up the mess they’ve created in the last 24 hours. Presenter: Well a number of media outlets have been told by a spokesman that these reports are inaccurate. So if we shouldn’t be believing what is in The Australian and we shouldn’t be believing the spokesman, who should we be believing? Pyne: I think you should believe the Prime Minister and the Minister if they come out and do a press conference and face the scrutiny of the Press Gallery and actually clear up a number of matters. They need to clear up the reports in the papers today which has clearly a staged leak at the Minister or Prime Minister’s office to try and ameliorate concerns in the non-government sector and the State’s about the start date and they need to clear up if the extension from June 30 is two weeks as was reported on the weekend or whether it is a month as was reported today. They need to clear up whether the higher education cuts are going ahead or not going ahead because Kim Carr raised the respecter of that changing yesterday. They need to clear up whether the student cap on university places is going to come back in place or whether it’s going to stay lifted to the demand driven system. What we’ve seen since last Thursday is Kevin Rudd trying to pretend that somehow this shift of state has been righted. The truth is we are seeing more and more confusion. Whether it’s on the emissions trading scheme and the carbon tax, higher education, school education, and the NewStart allowance changes for single mothers? Whether the budget will be blown by all these apparent new policy positions and if the Prime Minister and Bill Shorten come out and say that the schedule is remaining the same, I think you can put some credibility in that but I don’t think a spokesperson is good enough. Presenter: You’ve said that there has been a delay in the start of the federal Governments plan… Pyne: Sure… Presenter: ...the Government seem to be saying that it’s not delayed, so it possible it could start next year? Pyne: No, I don’t think it’s possible that it will start on January the 1st. I don’t think schools can get it right. If you speak to the States and to the non-government sector, they don’t yet have a data set that they can reply on to determine their funding model for next year. Nobody from the Government has yet told the school sector how much money they will get in 2014. Let alone in 2019. These rivers of gold are apparently going to flow in five or six years’ time but next year people have to pay their bills in their schools and they don’t know. So the data in Parramatta, the Catholic Bishop of Parramatta has indicated that it could be a 23 million dollar cut next year. Now we’re in July, and it typically takes between 12-18 months to implement massive changes to school funding models and yet the Government has given the sector less than 6 months to implement this new school funding model. The only States and territories that have signed up to it are New South Wales, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory. No state or territory has indicated they are any closer to signing up to it. It is a chaotic, confused mess and the idea that in 6 months that will all be resolved is quite frankly a fantasy land. Presenter: You say that the Government is chaotic and confused; can you tell us what the Coalition is committed to education wise? You’ve talked about already about how the Coalition is committed to the current school funding model, and education equality. What else are you looking at education wise? Pyne: Well firstly, we will release a full, detailed education policy well in advance of the federal election. But, we have already put a great deal out there in terms of education so, we would immediately roll over the current socio-economic status funding model for at least 12 months to give the sector and the government and the states and territories time to sort out the chaos that Labor has created. We would keep the current AGSRC indexation rate – which the whole sector knows how that works. So therefore they would have certainty about school funding. We would be focussing on issues like teacher quality, and producing the best teachers possible from Universities. We would focus on expanding independent public schools and giving more power to principals and local communities to run their own schools. We believe parental engagement follows from that and we are going to review the curriculum to make sure that it is as robust as possible. That dub tails into issues like the Reverse Colombo Plan, the two way street Colombo Plan that we have already announced. The 40% target for foreign languages in Year 12 over the next 10 year period. So we have announced a lot of education policy that said, we will be able to put all of that together in one comprehensive document before the election. But the idea that we don’t have an education policy is really more rhetoric from the Labor Party or the press than it is actually a reality. Presenter: How are you going from if Gonski reforms given that Labor and the Greens are likely to dominate the Senate, well they will dominate the Senate after July 1, and the way polling is looking at the moment, it is looking increasingly unlikely that the Coalition will have a majority of seats even after July 1? Pyne: Well we are not going to reply on the polls to determine our polices, number one. Number two, if we win the election and hopefully we will, we would expect the Labor party to respect the mandate that the people would have given a new government and there can be no doubt that the public is well aware that we think the new school funding model is a bad deal. It is a 325 million dollar cut over the next 4 years to schools. That’s on top of the 4.7 billion dollars of cuts to higher education, apprenticeships and training, early childhood. So why would we implement a 325 million dollar cut to schools over the next four years? Presenter: But why would Labor allow you to unpick it? Pyne: Well because they lost the election. I mean there’s a funny thing about democracy, one side wins and one side loses, it’s a zero sum game. And if Labor loses the election and then expects to frustrate a new government’s mandate, I think the public will take a very dim view of that. Now, you will counter with the Coalitions opposed their carbon tax policy. Well, they promised not to introduce a carbon tax, so far from frustrating their mandate we tried to keep them to their mandate not to introduce a carbon tax, they lied about that and nobody could be under any illusions that they know that the Coalition’s policy is to keep the current funding model for 12 months, until we have the time to sort out Labor’s chaotic mess. Presenter: (inaudible) Pyne: Look, I don’t think it’s such a signature reform. The Julia Gillard and Peter Garratt have talked about this new school funding model for months and months, there isn’t a national agreement to introduce the new school funding model; that requires states and territories to sign up to it – they haven’t. One of the first thing that Kevin Rudd said when he was re-elected Prime Minister in the coup last Wednesday night was that they would review the entire new school funding model – he wants to change the name of it, which is apparently the most important thing he could bring to education in Australia. I don’t think Labor is as committed to this new school funding model as the previous Prime Minister was… Presenter: Mr Pyne. Let’s talk about time lines. You don’t have an election date yet, how are you approaching that? Pyne: Sure. Well, the Prime Minister should name an election date. I think the public are thoroughly sick of the circus that passes for a government in Canberra at the moment. He should name an election date; it should be as soon as possible. The last election was in August 2010, the next election is due in August 2013. Not in November, not in October. It’s actually due in august. When the former Prime Minister announced September the 14th that was a date beyond when the election was due. The Prime Minister should call an election date for August because that’s when it’s due and we should give the people an opportunity to make a choice between a chaotic, dysfunctional and divided Labor party and a united Coalition with a plan for the future. It’s a once in a generation opportunity to make a very clear choice and that date needs to be set. Presenter: And without giving too much exposure to the vandals, were you rattled at all by the graffiti? Pyne: Yes, terrified, absolutely broken. I’m a broken man (laughs) I think the Graffiti said, “God loves Gonski” but I think god loves us all and I hope he likes Mr Gonski as well, who I know very well. No, I’m not very rattled by graffiti – in fact it looked very much like the same graffiti that had been sprayed on the Labor Party headquarters, “happy now, Kevin?” of the week before. So, graffiti is a bad thing, vandals should save their painting for artworks rather than people’s walls. But no, I’ve been in parliament 20 years, I don’t think a bit of graffiti is going anybody too much. Presenter: (inaudible) Pyne: Well, I think the Australian local government association should advise the Government to pull the referendum. It is off the rails, it’s Labor’s latest mess that they have created because we don’t have a certain government in Canberra that is getting on with the business of government. We have a Labor party that is playing pass the parcel with the Prime Ministership that is treating government like a trophy; we’ve lost eight Cabinet Ministers. We have a whole brace of new people in the Ministry; we have the C team in Government in Canberra and their latest mess is the local government referendum.