The Project

Carrie Bickmore: Minister for Defence Industry, Christopher Pyne joins us now. Now Minister, some of these edits came from the Department of Defence. Should we be suspicious that your Wikipedia page says you’re six foot seven with piercing blue eyes of a jungle panther?

Christopher Pyne: But I do have piercing blue eyes Carrie, so that would not be untrue.

Carrie Bickmore: Did you write that in there?

Christopher Pyne: I haven’t looked at my Wikipedia site in years and years and years, since we had to stop it being changed when Wikipedia first started because of all the weird and wonderful things people used to post on my Wikipedia page. And it’s just a lesson to us all that you can’t believe everything you read on the internet. You can only believe what The Project says is true.

Carrie Bickmore: Well said. What do you think is worse? Is is worse that staffers are using department computers to clean up politician’s pages or that staffers are using department computers to post about fish?

Christopher Pyne: Look, I think all public servants should focus on their jobs everyday as should politicians and Cabinet Ministers and they do a bit of moonlighting on the internet changing Wikipedia pages, they should try and do it in a constructive and positive way. Some of these changes are serious, many of them are not serious, and as I said, it just proves that you can’t read everything you read on the internet.

Waleed Aly: You say that some of these are funny but also that some of the, are not, or quite serious potentially. The one about insulting the President of Iran doesn’t strike me as a great idea, coming from within the Australian bureaucracy.

Christopher Pyne: No.

Waleed Aly: Are there going to be any wrists slapped over this?

Christopher Pyne: Well I think they’ll have to find the perpetrators first, I mean, light-hearted Wikipedia changes are one thing, serious changes whether it’s about the President of Iran or the Holocaust are obviously not funny and just prove that we need to be ever vigilant within our many hundred thousand strong public servants just like every business needs to be vigilant to make sure people are behaving appropriately on the internet as much as they can.

Sarrah Le Marquand: Moving onto other issues, it looks like restrictions to paid parental leave will pass, although they won’t kick in until next July at the earliest. Minister, how did the Coalition go from the party offering the most generous parental leave scheme, to now arguably making it worse than it’s ever been?

Christopher Pyne: Well it’s not worse than it’s ever been, I don’t agree with that. The truth is that the Coalition is prepared to have the taxpayer fund 18 weeks guaranteed paid parental leave for new mothers based on the average income. And if you have a more generous employer scheme. Then we are saying you should access the more generous employer scheme and the taxpayers don’t need to pick up the tab. I think that is a very logical thing.

Timmy Little: Now Minister, I’m going to finish with a very hard-hitting question. That tape piece we just saw had some really, really just juicy facts in it and I need you to confirm or deny, does Tony Abbott have chimpanzee ears?

Christopher Pyne: He has boxer’s ears, which he would be the first to admit. Coming from far too many fights in Oxford and Cambridge when he was there. He was a boxing blue, so he mustn’t have been too bad at it.

Timmy Little: Minister, I didn’t even hear your answer, I was too lost in your piercing blue eyes.

Christopher Pyne [Laughs] That’s not the first time I’ve heard that by the way…

Timmy Little: That’s the first time I’ve said it…

Waleed Aly: Was the last time you heard it this morning when you were getting ready, looking into the mirror?

Christopher Pyne: Are you sure? That’s not what you said to me last time…

Carrie Bickmore: Minister, we’ll leave it there, thanks so much for your time tonight.

Christopher Pyne: It’s a pleasure.

JOURNALIST: Well I hope the constitutional crisis yesterday didn’t ruin anyone’s enjoyment of the Melbourne Cup.