Radio National Breakfast

SUBJECTS: Andrew Wilkie, Fair Work Australia investigation of Craig Thomson

E&OE…

Fran Kelly: Christopher Pyne is in charge of parliamentary tactics in his role as Manager of Opposition Business.  Christopher Pyne welcome back to RN breakfast.

Christopher Pyne: Good morning Fran.

Kelly: Christopher Pyne, Andrew Wilkie says he expects to have a warmer working relationship with Tony Abbott and the opposition.  What does ‘warmer’ mean?

Pyne: Well I have always found Andrew Wilkie of all the independents who are government leaning, so who are Tony Windsor, Robert Oakeshott, Adam Bandt and Andrew Wilkie, to be the most independent of that group, the most prepared to consider the arguments of the Coalition. I think what he means is that he is no longer yoked to the government by his agreement, he is now a free agent because Julia Gillard has now torn up her contract and shown herself to be utterly untrustworthy, which I think many people thought. Andrew Wilkie has come crashing down to the realisation of what many people have woken up to, but because that agreement has now been torn up, Andrew Wilkie is now an entirely free agent.  What we now have is a situation where the government exists on the back of the vote of Craig Thomson a person, who is under investigation by both NSW and Victoria police and a 3 year old investigation by Fair Work Australia or it rests on the vote of Peter Slipper remaining in the Speakership and remaining in the chair rather than absenting from it for major votes.  So the Government is shakier than a wet dog left out on a winters night in the rain and I think the Australian people deserve an unambiguous government therefore we must have an election so the people can have an election that focuses on cost of living and job losses rather than on their own survival.

Kelly: (inaudible) You describe the Prime Minister as untrustworthy for backing out on the agreement with Andrew Wilkie over pokie reform but of course she could deliver on that promise if the Coalition would support the policy but you don’t and you won’t so why are you critical of the government for dumping it?

Pyne: Because very simply Julia Gillard became Prime Minister because she signed a 22 point agreement with Andrew Wilkie at the end of the 2010 election when she formed the government, the Coalition didn’t because we never supported Andrew Wilkie’s proposals for mandatory pre-commitment and the Prime Minister did.  Andrew Wilkie is the latest in a long line of victims that Julia Gillard has left behind.  Some would say she has left behind more victims than Richard III.

Kelly: It’s confusing for the voters to hear the Coalition on one hand say that you can’t trust the Prime Minister because she isn’t introducing this policy on the other hand you won’t support the policy and you don’t want her to implement it because it is bad policy.

Pyne: I don’t think it is confusing for the voters at all.  I think the voters know exactly what is going on.  The Coalition has it’s own pokies policy that it will release.  We never supported this one and Julia Gillard on the other hand did and in the same way as she has dispatched Kevin Rudd, Kim Carr, Lindsay Tanner, Harry Jenkins, she has now dispatched Andrew Wilkie.  All of these people are to save her own political skin, never putting the Australian people first, always putting Julia Gillard first.

Kelly: (inaudible) … had the Coalition been able to form government it would be in exactly the same position? Not necessarily been able to honour everything you promised because you don’t control the numbers on the floor of the House?

Pyne: Well Fran, if the government cannot deliver its promises it should call an election to deliver an unambiguous government in the House of Representatives that is either Liberal or Labor that can get on with governing for what the Australian people want to do which is cost of living, job losses and education…

Kelly: The Gillard government says it is getting on with government just fine as every Bill it has put up it has been passed and hasn’t actually failed to deliver on its platform or legislative reform/program.

Pyne: All the indicators in the economy show that people’s confidence and business’s confidence is at an all time low.  Last year there was a net loss of jobs.  All surveys indicate that business isn’t investing.  People are holding onto their money.

Kelly: Don’t you think that has more to do with the global economic situation than the domestic one?  The government can counter that by saying that the Australian economy is much more robust than most other economies?

Pyne: No, I think that the field evidence that I pick up out and about in my electorate and elsewhere in Australia is that people are very fearful of a government that one doesn’t keep it’s promising and two is introducing a carbon tax that it promised it wouldn’t introduce and three it is presiding over a parliament where they have to do things like rip up their agreement with Andrew Wilkie in order to hang on to power  because Julia Gillard is much more concerned to how the caucus is reacting to pokie reform than cost of living pressures or job concerns. 

Kelly: What is the coalition planning to do about that?  Are you gearing up for a vote of no confidence in the Gillard government and what would be the basis for that vote?

Pyne: A motion of no confidence should only be moved in the most serious circumstances.  When the Parliament returns, obviously we need to find out a great deal more information from Julia Gillard about what she and her office did and know about the Fair Work Australia investigation into Craig Thomson.  It beggars belief Fran that an investigation of this kind could be dragged on for more than 3 years.  We know that the Prime Minister’s office contacted Fair Work Australia at the beginning of that investigation and we have never had a clear statement from the Member for Dobell in the Parliament.

Kelly: Are you alleging political interference in the Fair Work Australia investigation into Craig Thomson?

Pyne: Well Julia Gillard has not explained why her office was phoning fair Work Australia 3 years ago to talk to them about the Craig Thomson investigation.  She simply bats away those questions in Question Time in the same way she stonewalled any genuine probing of her involvement in the protection of Craig Thomson.  Craig Thomson has never made a statement to the parliament in spite of the fact that all Members of Parliament who have faced these kind of circumstances in the past have done just that and he said he would.  So Julia Gillard has a lot of questions to answer.  Craig Thomson needs to make a statement to the Parliament.  We need to know the involvement of the government in Fair Work Australia’s investigation.  Why don’t Fair Work Australia meet with the NSW Police as NSW Police have requested? Eric Abetz wrote to Fair Work Australia asking some of these questions and the Parliament and the public have a right to know especially know, and because the government now relies on Craig Thomson’s vote to remain in power.  It is a tainted government relying on a tainted Member to remain in power in a grubby political deal.

Kelly: Two other issues on border protection, the Coalition has now announced the core of its policy would be to turn back the boats.  Yesterday on this program we heard from the former chief of the defence force that said not only that the policy would be dangerous but also would override international.  Your policy would be illegal basically.

Pyne: Well obviously we don’t have a policy that is illegal Fran because under the Howard government at least 7 boats that we are aware of that were turned around by the navy.  So I’m sure Admiral Barry is acting with all good intentions but the truth is that if that policy is illegal then it was illegal in the Howard government and it occurred 7 times and other countries have adopted or investigated adopting our policy especially in Europe over that period.  It is true that our policy is the same as it was in the Howard era and that it is we would bring back temporary protection visas and we would reopen Nauru processing centre and where possible where it was safe to do so boats would be turned around.

Kelly: And we know it is not safe to do so from that era and that people died – why would you risk that again?

Pyne: Tragically people are dying in great numbers in the last two years on Christmas Island and in the tragedy that occurred late last year, not because boats are being turned around but because of the government’s abolition of the Howard government’s policy.  People are drowning because they are trying to make the trip to Australia to get permanent residency. Now you raised the stakes of that question, I can assure you that there is not one occasion that in the Howard government where the navy turned back a boat that is liable to sink and yet since August 2008 since the Labor Party changed the policy people have drowned.

Kelly: That is not true intervention by the navy under Operation Relex, the boats did end up in tragedy and I’m not saying they caused the tragedy but people died.

Pyne: There is not one occasion where the navy turned around a boat that then sank.

Kelly: One final question, we are going to be joined by Industry Minister Kim Carr in a moment, Toyota has announced this 350 job cut from its Altona plant in Melbourne blaming the strong dollar and shrinking sales figures.  The government says your policy to support cutting assistance to the industry by $500m is callous, irresponsible and hypocritical given the way Tony Abbott has courted the blue collar vote.

Pyne:  Fran, the Coalition supports the billion dollar fund for the car industry.  A billion dollars is a tremendous amount of money.  If the car industry needs extra funds then it needs to make its case.  But a billion dollars of taxpayer’s money for the car industry is a very significant subsidy and the Coalition supports it.

Kelly: Christopher Pyne thank you very much for joining us.

Pyne: It’s a pleasure. Thank you Fran.

Kelly: Christopher Pyne is the Manager of Opposition Business in the House.

Ends