Morning Doors, Parliament House

E&OE TRANSCRIPT Doorstop – Morning Doors, Parliament House 25 March 2014 SUBJECTS: Mining Tax Repeal Bill; Senate by-election; the Speaker; Section 18C of Racial Discrimination Act; Senator Sinodinos CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Bill Shorten has an opportunity this week to pass the Mining Tax Repeal Bill in the Senate and to genuinely put his money where his mouth. When he is in Western Australia he says he is against the mining tax, when he is in Canberra he votes to keep the mining tax and he can’t have it both ways otherwise he will run the risk of being regarded as ‘two-faced Bill Shorten’ - the man of a thousand faces, the man who wants to be all things to all people and show the lack of leadership that we suspect that he consists of. So Bill Shorten has a test this week, he can vote for the abolition of the mining tax, which will help to grow jobs in Western Australia. The mining tax is an anti-Western Australia tax, Western Australians know it and he could help them to grow their mining industry, secure their jobs and improve growth in Western Australia if he passed the Mining Tax Repeal Bill this week. QUESTION: Tony Burke says people are fast losing patience with the Parliament and he was reflecting on the Speaker in a way, in a roundabout way, but he said that it is resembling a protection racket for Tony Abbott answering questions. What is your response to that? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well you know it is flattering that Tony Bourke is trying to steal my lines from the last Parliament, but he will have to come up with his own lines. The truth is that he would like to pick a fight with the Speaker, because as a Manager of Opposition Business he thinks that will be a useful distraction from the fact that the Opposition doesn’t have any policies, any plans, any strength of character. They are led by a man who says one thing in Perth and another thing in Canberra. But the truth is that Bronwyn Bishop is doing a very, very good job and my advice to the Opposition is to stop being as rude as they are to the Speaker. I have never seen such an ill-mannered, rude group of people to the person who is in the chair and I have to say that when I was the Manager of Opposition Business for five years I never spoke to Anna Burke or Harry Jenkins or Peter Slipper in the way that Bill Shorten, Tony Burke and Anthony Albanese and Mark Dreyfus speak to Bronwyn Bishop. It is verging on bullying. Now I know Bronwyn Bishop pretty well, she is a pretty tough character and I am sure she can take it but that doesn’t mean that the Labor Party should be allowed to get away with the incredible rudeness that they demonstrate in the chamber. QUESTION: Do you believe she is fair? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think she is extremely fair and reasonable and I think if the Opposition behaved better they wouldn’t be in the position where they are constantly being pulled up by the Speaker for their bad behaviour. I would also make the point, they make no effort at all to draft their questions in a way that are within the Standing Orders. And the Speaker very generously allows these questions to stand and the Prime Minister, to his great credit, takes the opportunity to answer these questions in spite of them being argument, conjecture, full of epithet and they are not typed questions. The Opposition is doing a very poor job in Question Time so Tony Burke is trying to cover his embarrassment for being an inadequate Manager of Opposition Business by attacking the Speaker. QUESTION: How is it fair though to deny Labor points of order before they have even been made? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Because the Labor Party is simply taking the same point of order over and over again to try and disrupt the proceedings of Question Time. QUESTION: But she doesn’t know that until she hears it? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look, I was a Manager of Opposition Business and I was pretty feisty when we were in Opposition. I know full well what the Opposition is doing, they know that their points of orders are not within the Standing Orders and they are simply trying to disrupt the business of the Parliament. But if Bill Shorten really wants to show some maturity and some leadership, he would cast the repeal of the Mining Tax Bill this week in the Senate. It is an anti-Western Australian tax and Bill Shorten is anti-Western Australian if he continues to support it. QUESTION: Did George Brandis go too far yesterday with Senate by suggesting that Australians should have the right to be bigots? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well George Brandis can answer for his own statements. What he was trying to convey, was that the best antidote to a bad argument is a good argument. It is not shutting down the bad argument. That is the point, but you will see over the coming days and weeks that we will develop further our policy to abolish section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act and replace it with something better and George will make those announcements in the fullness of time. QUESTION: What do you mean replace it with something better, the commitment was to repeal it in full? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, we said in its current form we would repeal it. QUESTION: So, replace it better meant what? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well replacing it in its current form, getting rid of it in its current form, means it is going in its current form, it doesn’t mean that nothing would be there in its place. QUESTION: That wasn’t specified before the election, though. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, Latika. We said that we would abolish it in its current form. Which means there is a form that will replace it. QUESTION: And what would that look that? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That is an announcement that the Attorney-General will make in the fullness of time. QUESTION: What would you favour? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That is an announcement that the Attorney-General will make in the fullness of time. QUESTION: Craig Thomson gets sentenced today. Will there be quiet celebrating in the Coalition ranks today? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, I don’t think so. The whole Craig Thomson scandal has been a stain on the Labor Party, a stain on the union movement. A stain on the other major political party and on the union movement are not cause for celebration. It is a sadness that Craig Thomson thought that he could steal $24,000 worth of Health Services Union workers money and it is a sadness that he was preselected by the Labor Party to represent them in Dobell and they protected him for years to hang on to his vote, well after it was quite apparent that adverse findings have been made against Craig Thomson. So no celebration from us, just a sense that the Labor movement of today is not the great Labor movement of old. QUESTION: It is looking bad for Arthur Sinodinos at the ICAC, isn’t it? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Latika, I don’t comment on the daily gossip and scuttlebutt that comes out of the ICAC or my colleagues or anywhere else. QUESTION: But well hang on, you certainly did when Craig Thomson was the focus on investigation, or several so… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well there has been no adverse finding made against Arthur Sinodinos and I fully expect that he will be entirely able to retake on his position as Assistant Treasurer at the appropriate time. [ends]