Sky News - Showdown

SUBJECTS: NSW teacher strike; Boat people policy

E&OE…………

Michael Kroger: Christopher, welcome.

Christopher Pyne: Michael and Mark, good to be with you. I think this is going to change television for all time your show tonight.

Kroger: I think you’re probably right. Christopher, let me ask you first of all about a strike that is taking place in NSW tomorrow. A very important issue, the state government there want to give devolved power back to school principals. 50 per cent of the new staff they’re going to be able to appoint. They’re going to be in charge of 70 per cent of their own budget. This has caused a furore in NSW. The teachers union has gone berserk. They’re calling a mass strike tomorrow; closing down school right across NSW, but isn’t this type of policy the policy you want to implement federally and how are you going to deal with teachers unions across the country because this is the type of response they’ve had to the NSW Government’s policy?

Pyne: Well, Michael, the NSW Teachers Federation is a cross between East Germany in the 1960s and North Korea in the present time. They are so out of touch with what is going on around the rest of the country, let alone the rest of the world. What parents are choosing is when they can afford it they’re moving to non-government schools. So, what you have to do is look at what non-government schools do differently to non-government schools and meet the market. The one thing that determines the difference between government and non-government schools is the capacity of principals to actually run their schools.

The NSW Government is doing exactly the right thing. The NSW Teachers Federation’s best client is an underperforming teacher. So the NSW Teachers Federation will do everything in their power to stop principals having the power to hire and fire their underperforming teachers. I support what the NSW Government is doing. It’s exactly what the Coalition will do should we get into power federally and Peter Garrett and Julia Gillard have been absolutely silent on the issue. We haven’t heard a peep, yet they claim it’s their policy.

Kroger: How do you deal with the loonies like the NSW Teachers Federation and their counterparts around Australia? If you get into Government and try to implement the same policy, we have national strikes around the country. What does the Federal Government do?

Pyne: The NSW Teachers Federation is one of the most militant unions in NSW and the state government is right to take them on. The Commonwealth doesn’t run any schools in NSW, but we do have a very substantial purse, which can determine government policy and what parents want and what students need is a robust curriculum, principal autonomy and teacher quality. If the NSW Teachers Federation gets in the way they’ll really have the parents to answer to in the end. It is the power of democracy that will drive this reform and the Coalition in a federal government sense, if we get to power, will do everything we can to support Queensland, NSW, South Australian and other states who want to move to principal autonomy, including taking on the union.

Mark Latham: Well, I think you’ve got the parents on your side. I’m sure of that and there’d be very little parental support in NSW tomorrow for this rogue strike, but will you have the support of the states? Traditionally the Liberal Party supported the federal system of government. It would be very unusual indeed for the federal Liberal Government in Canberra to try and run all the schools around the country. I’m sure you’ll have objections from various state ministers, Labor and Liberal. You mentioned that you don’t run any schools, but have the power of the purse. What will you specifically do with the power of the purse strings to ensure this policy is enacted throughout the country?

Pyne: NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia are all moving in this direction of principal autonomy. We won’t have to do much to convince them. Labor in Tasmania, of course both Labor state government aren’t moving in this direction, but we spend billions of dollars every year from the commonwealth on essentially programmes in the states; working with the states through national partnerships and the Commonwealth will have to use its financial muscle to say to the states that are recalcitrant’s on principal autonomy that we expect them to introduce the kinds of policies that we know parents want. As the father of four children of my own I know what I want for my children and that is a traditional system of education that produces the outcomes and the standards that parents want. If Labor State Governments refuse to play ball we do have the power of the purse to say we won’t be giving you federal taxpayers’ money to run programs that we don’t support and if you run the programs we do support we will give you the money.

Kroger: Chris, you might remember the 2004 election, which was a very fine election.

Pyne: I remember it well.

Kroger: A very good election, but it was alleged our friend Mark here had a hit list of schools slated for cuts in federal government funding. Is there a hit list now that the Government has got on schools in relation to federal funding?

Pyne: It wasn’t really Mark’s policy. It was Jenny Macklin’s policy and Mark was left holding the baby of a very bad policy, but Jenny Macklin had a private school hit list that had 64 schools on it that would lose money under a future Labor government. The truth of course that I can reveal tonight is that it wasn’t actually Mark Latham’s policy. It was Jenny Macklin’s, but that’s now history.

Latham: That’s true, I endorse the policy.

Pyne: You did.

Latham: Of course I did, I released it. The idea it was a hit list is just Liberal Party propaganda and rhetoric in that the needy catholic school, and all the needy independent schools were going to benefit, but there was also a recognition that school need changes over time and the 64 schools you mentioned were clearly over funded. Now Chris, are you going to maintain the fiction that there is not a single school in Australia that is over funded in terms of distribution of public money. Is that your position?

Pyne: Well Mark, the Coalitions position is the Liberal Party will not support any policy that reduces funding to schools in real terms in the next four years, because we think schools should have certainty of funding. The 64 schools, private schools hit list from Jenny Macklin has now turned into the 1170 schools, private schools hit list because that is the number of schools that funding maintained since the SES funding model began and Labor refuses nationally to say that they will continue to be supported, it even refuses to say that schools will be indexed at the current rate of funding of 6%, that’s 2600 schools. So Labor has a real problem in school education funding and that is why we haven’t seen a policy since 2004. In 2007 and 2010 Labor simply rolled over the SES funding model, they rolled over and went doggo on the funding model they hated from 2001. I think in 2012/2013 they will do exactly the same thing. I predict they won’t have a policy on school funding; they will simply roll over the SES funding model, because if we really knew what they wanted to know, nobody would vote for them.

Latham: Well Chris, I know your tricks, I used to debate you on Lateline and you haven’t actually answered my question. Do you think there are no schools in Australia over funded in terms of the distribution of public resources? Is that your position?

Pyne: I don’t believe that there are any schools currently that are not getting the funding that they should get, and if I had a policy in the future it would be to lift the boats, not to reduce boats. Parents have the right to know what the funding for their school is going to be. Principals and governing councils have a right to plan for the future and the government if they want to cut schools, non government school funding let them go ahead, and the Coalition will guarantee that funding for the next election and beyond.

Kroger: Chris, one of the most alarming surveys I have seen in the last decade was released two weeks ago by the Lowey institute, and the Lowey institute survey said that only 39% of 19 to 29 year olds supported democracy as the best form of government, which I found to be utterly extraordinary. Now, god knows what people younger than that think. Is there a case for studies in democracy to become part of the national curriculum, because if less than 40% of people in the twenties think that democracy is the best system, then god help us all mate.

Pyne: Yea, well I think that the issue there is the Australian Democracy hasn’t been under existential threat since the Second World War since the defeat of Japan, and hasn’t been under threat since the end of the Cold War. Of course, the Soviet Union and their Allies wanted to change Australia, like the United States until the fall of the Berlin Wall, and of course we won the Second World War. So I think our democracy amongst many people is very much taken for granted. But I do think if it was ever under threat, there would be a visceral response from the public in support. In terms of your question, there is a civics programme in schools, I’m not sure it hits the centre of the target. I think the national curriculum history subject should have made very significant focus on where Australia has come from, why we are the kind of country we are, and that requires a study of Western civilisation, it requires a study of the Magna Carta, the English Civil War, right through to the current era, and why we do support the Rule of Law and why we believe in the Westminster system of democracy. I think that is lacking from the current offspring’s of the national curriculum.

Kroger: Well whatever civics programme that they’ve got at the minute Chris, I put it to you that I don’t think it’s working. If less than 40% think democracy is the best system, and that’s people 20 above, it’s not working. Are you prepared to commit to include in the national curriculum a subject on studies in democracy? Because clearly, people are taking it for granted, the system of government we’ve got in this country they are taking it for granted if that’s what they think. That’s an unbelievable, it’s frightening statistic.

Pyne: It is a frightening statistic and studies in democracy should be part of our history curriculum. You can’t study Australian history without studying how we’ve become a democracy.

Latham: Well, make it compulsory to watch this program Chris, that’s the best thing you can do as Minister.

Pyne: Everybody is watching this program.

Latham: Can I ask you about refugees. Are you embarrassed by Scott Morrison’s performance in the media over the last 36 hours? The fact that he is unable to answer any questions as to what concessions the Coalition will accept in return for passing through the Malaysian deal to try and prevent the terrible tragedies, drowning children, drowning families on the seas between Australia and Indonesia. Surely you must have reservations about the way in which the Coalition are putting their case to the Australian people.

Pyne: Well, only today Mark, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison made it very clear that if the Government will accept our amendment that offshore processing can only occur in a country that has signed the UN Convention on Refugees then we’ll pass their bill.

Latham: That’s a fraud Chris. It’s a fraud because it knocks out Malaysia, which is the Government’s policy.

Pyne: Malaysia is a dud policy, Mark. It’s the worst possible policy imaginable. Since they announced it there have been 8000 boat arrivals and it’s got a cap of 800 on it. So, it’s already a finished policy. If they had the Malaysia Solution it would already be oversubscribed. It’s a complete lemon of a policy. There’s a better way; temporary protection visas, reopening Nauru and turning back the boats when it’s safe to do so. That’s our policy, but we’re prepared to say to the Government if you pass our amendment that offshore processing can only occur in countries that have signed the UN Convention on refugees we’ll pass your bill tomorrow. The Government is so supine Mark, that they haven’t even ever put the Malaysian Solution to a vote in the House of Representatives. If you were still leader of the Labor Party you would have taken the Parliament on. You wouldn’t just allow the Parliament to stop you from putting a bill to the Parliament.

Latham: (inaudible)

Pyne: Julia Gillard said last year she was going to make us come into the Parliament and line up one by one to have our votes recorded. They’ve never even put the bill, so let’s see the Labor Party do it.

Kroger: Chris, I can’t understand why there’s a focus on the Opposition. Labor aren’t in Government with the support of the Coalition last time I looked.

Pyne: That’s right.

Kroger: Where are these bloody Greens? Why aren’t the press focussing on the fact that the Greens ought to be the ones compromising? They’re supporting the Government. They’re keeping the Government in office. Where are these people on this issue? We know they’ve got an extreme policy like on most things, but why doesn’t Gillard go cap in hand to Christine Milne and say, “you’ve supported our Government. I need your support on this. Can you help me?” Why isn’t that happening?

Pyne: There are two critical points. Number one, the Government changed the Howard Government policy and that’s why there have been 18,000 boat arrivals since August 2008. The Howard Government policy worked. Labor changed the policy and it’s all their fault, nobody else’s. That was even before they were in alliance with the Greens. Secondly, they are in alliance with the Greens and Julia Gillard should say to the Greens, “this is a matter of confidence. If you don’t support our border protection policy, I’m off to Yarralumla,” and have an election. She should have the courage of her convictions if she really believes in them.

Latham: Chris, let me give you a tip, when you get out of politics, you’ll probably come to understand how petty and juvenile the its all their fault rhetoric sounds when children and families are drowning, drowning as a direct responsibility of the policies of the Australian Parliament, and the Australian Government. You really do need to meet the Government half way. Knocking out their Malaysian solution is not meeting them half way. The Liberal Party had some integrity on this and I think some heart, some common compassion, they would meet the Government half way and say look you can have your Malaysian deal but give us Nauru, the Government said they would do that already and give us the temporary protections visas, perhaps you could push them in that direction and actually get a mature sensible visionary solution to this that goes beyond the politics of, its all their fault.

Pyne: Sure, Look mark if they come back and say they are prepared to re-introduce temporary protection visas, that would go a long way to solving this problem, there is no doubt about it. When we introduced the temporary protection visas, the boats stopped coming. If the Government came back and said well re-introduce temporary protections visas, I am sure the Opposition would talk turkey. But they haven’t done that, they simply expect us to accept their dud policy, it’s awful, awful that people are drowning in the North West seas of Australia, it is terrible. It would not be happening if the Government had strong border protection policies that took the sugar off the table. The Indonesians are always saying, once you put permanent residency back on the table the people smugglers had a product to sell again.

Latham: No one disputes Labor’s got it wrong but really you need to meet them half way and I haven’t heard anything out of the Coalition other that what you have just indicated then that there is any inclination to meet them half way. The idea that the Coalition after all these years, I mean you were there battling in the Howard Government, a small l Liberal trying to get some attention to you and human rights conventions you were a lone voice. You and Petro Georgiou, you could have met your little society in a phone booth, the fact that the Liberal Party now has concerns for human rights conventions, I’ve got to say is one of the greatest jokes I have heard in Australian Politics. It’s a fig leaf you are using to cover the fact that the Coalitions wants to keep this issue running, that’s how people objectively would look at this. Labor’s had it wrong for ten years, I’m afraid you’re getting it wrong in recent times

Pyne: Well if your guys were prepared to meet us on temporary protection visas I am sure we would be prepared to talk turkey, but they haven’t ever indicated that. In fact, Julia Gillard hasn’t picked up the phone to Tony Abbott, has not sent him a letter, has not sent him an email, and has not asked for a meeting. Yet she demands that the Opposition negotiate, she doesn’t want negotiations she simply wants more political rhetoric as her leadership falls apart.

Kroger: Christopher Pyne, well leave it there, thank you very much for making time available for us tonight on showdown and no doubt one day well talk to you again.

Pyne: It’s a great pleasure.

ENDS