RN Breakfast

Subjects: Election Results; Ministerial arrangements

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

HON CHRISTOPHER PYNE MP:

Good morning Fran

FRAN KELLY:

A 6.6 per cent swing to you in your seat taking the seat of Sturt from marginal to safe, congratulations.

PYNE:

Thank you Fran.

KELLY:

The Coalition goes into Parliament now with it looks like around a 30 seat majority. That’s a tremendous result, a tremendous victory but are you disappointed that the Liberals only picked up half the swing against Labor?

PYNE:

No I’m absolutely stoked that the Coalition after six years is back in Government. I wouldn’t have thought six years ago when I had just been defeated in Government I certainly didn’t believe we’d be back in power as quickly as we have been. We’ll probably have between a 34 or 40 seat majority so we thumped, absolutely thumped Labor in this election building on a 14 seat win in 2010, so we’ve basically had a landslide over two elections 2010 and 2013. Labor can try and gild the lily as much as they like, they have been comprehensively thumped and given us at least three years of very bad Government and are back in Opposition again.

KELLY:

With that kind of majority, would you care to predict how many terms that will give you in Government?

PYNE:

No because as we’ve seen the public can change a Government if it gets it wrong, but as long as we do the job we are elected to do, then there is no reason we can’t be in Government with the public’s support for a long time, but that will mean needing to be a good Government and I think we’re up to it.

KELLY:

Nevertheless some very surprising results on the night, the rise of the Palmer United Party got a very strong showing I think over 5 per cent of the vote, the Coalition a strong majority no doubt about it, but the Coalition only picking up half that swing against Labor of what do you think happened to the primary votes up for grabs, why the splintering?

PYNE:

Well the Palmer United Party essentially replaced all other protest parties of the right so the One Nation Party the Katter Australia Party were essentially outplayed by the Palmer Party and that is why Bob Katter’s seat is still in doubt in Kennedy. There is always a protest party of the vote and the Palmer Party picked it up. And the Green vote fell 3 per cent across Australia and he picked up that as well.

KELLY:

What’s your prediction as to what will happen in Sophie Mirabella’s seat of Indi and also in the seat of Fisher where Mal Brough is standing for the LNP but there is a tussle there in the voting numbers of Labor and the Katter Party that might change things?

PYNE:

Well the number of pre-poll votes and postal votes were so high, Fran, that a lot of seats that were called…

KELLY:

The Palmer Party, I beg your pardon, sorry I was wrong there, the Palmer Party, go on…

PYNE:

That’s all right. There were so many pre-poll and postal votes in this election because people were so clearly made up their made and wanted to get on with it that a number of seats that were called on Saturday night are now back in doubt so there are now eleven seats that are in doubt where on election night there were about two and I thought that would happen because so many postal and pre-poll would tighten up the contests on behalf of the Liberal Party. So it is not absolutely clear, we might well end up with at least 92 seats and Labor closer to 55 and 60. And we don’t know yet whether Bob Katter will win or even Clive Palmer in Fairfax. My prediction is that Sophie Mirabella will do better with the postal votes and probably win, just, just win. And in Fisher I don’t think that Mal Brough will lose Fisher but it will be a messy count.

KELLY:

Now, we’re listening, you’re listening to RN Breakfast, it’s twelve minutes to eight and we’re talking to incoming minister, Christopher Pyne. Christopher Pyne, Tony Abbott has been promising stable government. It’s pretty hard to guarantee predictable government given the Senate make up at the end of this election because you are going to have eight cross benchers from very disparate group, it’s really hard to promise, isn’t it, that you are going to be able to deliver on your policy promises?

PYNE:

Well Fran there is a lot of votes for the Senate to go and often the predictions about Senate results early on don’t match the reality in the end because postals again, and pre-poll, tend to favour the major parties so we will have to wait and see how that ends up but honestly the ones that are, seems to be, getting elected from cross parties to go on to the cross benchers, I think all of them are centre-right parties, not left or centre-left parties. I think it will be much easier in fact for a Coalition government to deal with a crossbench dominated by centre-right parties or individuals rather than Greens or Labor. If there is a choice between a Green or Labor Senator being elected or a centre-right party being elected, I will always take the centre-right party because they are more likely to listen openly to our agenda whereas the Greens and Labor are always closing their minds to it.

KELLY:

Considering the number of micro parties, independents in play though still at this election, is it time we looked at how we elect the upper house?

PYNE:

Well potentially. I mean it is not part of our policy platform at this stage but every election there is a review of the election. The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters conducts a review and this was the first election in which there seemed to be a very determined and organised campaign to run micro parties which we have seen in NSW before. And there seems to be an industry growing of how to elect micro parties to the upper houses which I don’t think is necessarily healthy but the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters will look at that I’m sure and make recommendations.

KELLY:

And one of Tony Abbott’s first tasks is announcing his ministerial line-up, what can we except given there is people sitting on the backbench like Christian Porter, like Paul Fletcher, like Josh Frydenberg, do you expect new names in the ministry?

PYNE:

Well I expect the Shadow Ministry to largely be the ministry. It’ll depend of course whether everybody in the ministry, the Shadow Ministry, wins their seats. Sophie Mirabella’s seat is still in doubt. But I think the answer is most people who served in the Shadow Ministry can expect to be ministers. Tony Abbott has said that himself. But that in the end of course is a call for him as the leader. There are very talented people on the backbench and the middle bench and coming in to the Parliament for the first time. But I think the front bench that Tony Abbott has had for four years has served the country well and served the party well and I can’t see too many changes.

KELLY:

Christopher Pyne, I guess that’s going to make you Education Minister, congratulations again and thank you for joining us.

PYNE:

Thank you so much.

[ENDS]