Mix 104.9 Darwin

SUBJECTS:  Anthony Albanese & Craig Thomson; Peter Beattie; GST

E&OE...............................

Presenter: The Leader of Opposition Business in the Federal Parliament – Christopher Pyne, good morning.

Christopher Pyne: Good morning Pete, how are you?

Presenter: Good to have you back on 360 Pyney.

Pyne: Always good to be with you.

Presenter: You weren’t invited the other night to the drinks with Tommo and Albo?

Pyne: [Laughs] No. I think Mr Albanese is regretting what he regards as a coincidental event because it kind of de-railed the Labor Party campaign for a couple of days. It still is.

Presenter: Yeah. We actually did a parody this morning, [sings] ‘we’d love to have a beer with Tommo, cos Tommo’s my mate. We drink at the local brothel, where the atmosphere is great…’ Yeah anyway. Hey – have the Labor Party got any parachutes left? I mean they’ve just used another one on Peter Beattie.

Pyne: You raise a good point. I mean Kevin Rudd said five weeks ago that he was sick of command and control from head office, or Sussex Street, in the Labor Party, so he was going to open the windows and doors and let some democracy into Labor and since he’s done that he’s knifed three Labor candidates, who were already preselected and out campaigning and put three new candidates in without even a by your leave to the local Labor Party rank and file so what we always see with Kevin Rudd is look at what he does, not what he says because he’s a fake and he’s a phony and the public’s starting to see through him again.

Presenter: Pyney, there’s also rumours going around Brisbane – I was talking to our Brisbane newsroom a little bit earlier on, that there’s now talk of parachuting former Brisbane Mayor Jim Soorley into the contest against Wyatt Roy in the seat of Longman.

Pyne: There is. That rumour is circulating in Brisbane and what is goes to Pete, of course is that the Labor Party has spent the whole first week of the election campaign talking about themselves, talking about which unions are giving them money, and which unions aren’t. Which candidates are running for what seats and who they can bring in from outside. They’ve got 29 days left to explain to the Australian public why they should vote for this chaotic, divided and dysfunctional government. They’ve had a week with Anthony Albanese missing his alarm clock, so he can’t do interviews, having drinks with Craig Thomson – probably to talk about securing Thomson’s vote in the next parliament. But what about cost of living, what about job security, what about border protection and economic management. These are the issues that are killing Northern Territorians and that is what they want to know about – who’s going to solve their problems.

Presenter: One of our biggest issues here in the Northern Territory Chris is the carve up of the GST. And there’s conflicting and confusing signals coming out of both camps. Is our share of the GST safe?

Pyne: The GST share of Northern Territory is safe as houses. Just as safe as South Australia’s and Tasmania’s. As you know, I come from South Australia. Tony Abbott has said over and over again that he has absolutely no control over the carve up of the GST, that’s a matter for the Grants Commission and that he has no plans to make any attempt to alter that. The Labor Party on the other hand are sitting on a report that they’ve already received from a review of the carve up of the GST and they won’t release the report and nor will they respond to it and say what their view is. So Labor is sitting on that report, I assume until the after the election in the hope that they will win and then they will see what they can do. But the Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania have absolutely nothing to fear. In fact they’re going to be better off economically because at least the Liberal Party have a plan for growing the economy starting with a company tax cut of 1 and a half cents which will hopefully get the economy moving again and restoring confidence.

Presenter: Just getting back to the GST, as an outsider looking in. Doesn’t a marginal increase in the GST rate and the inclusion of food and perishables actually makes sense?

Pyne: Well, Pete the problem with increasing the GST is that people are already feeling significant cost of living pressure because of the Carbon Tax being introduced, pushing up electricity prices. They are already feeling job insecurity. The last thing we need is to increase the GST that would add to the cost of living burden, just when families are struggling now to pay their bills. So there’s no possibility the Coalition will go there.

Presenter: Ok, alright mate, I’ll get out of your hair. Let you get back to the fray and no doubt between now and September 7 we will catch up again.

Pyne: I look forward to it.

Presenter: Thanks Chris. Bye.

ENDS