Today Show

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview – Today Show With Lisa Wilkinson & Anthony Albanese
Friday 12 February 2016

SUBJECTS:

LISA WILKINSON: Anthony Albanese and Christopher Pyne join us now to make sense of it all, good morning gentlemen.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Good morning.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Lisa, good morning Anthony.

LISA WILKINSON: Good to have your company, Christopher I’ll start with you, Barnaby Joyce, elected leader of the nationals last night, is this the beginning of the end for the Coalition?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: This is a coalition Lisa that has lasted since 1923, people are often predicting the end of the Coalition but since 1923, even when the Liberal Party could govern without the Country Party in 1975, 1977 and 1996 we still chose to stay in coalition so we’ve got to be about one of the tightest coalitions in the world, ever, and we absolutely welcome Barnaby Joyce and Fiona Nash as the new leadership team of the Nationals, I think they’ll be progressive, forward looking, hardworking, and I think it’s a great new era for the Nationals. In saying that obviously I pay tribute to Warren Truss, who I think has been a great leader of the national party over the last eight years but he deserves to go when he wants to go and he’s retiring this week as we’ve seen.

LISA WILKINSON: But Barnaby and the PM have got to be uneasy bedfellows don’t they? The PM believes in climate change, Barnaby does not, the PM encourages foreign and particularly Chinese investment, Barnaby does not. And Barnaby is actually on the record as saying quote “I don’t like liberals”.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well he likes me and I like him and I’m a Liberal and he’s a National.

LISA WILKINSON: You are not the only one in the Liberal Party Christopher as much as you would like to think so…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Someone should have told me that a long time ago! Look Malcolm and Barnaby are a great team because they are yin and yang in politics, they represent all sides of the political spectrum except of course socialism, and as a consequence they will be a very, very formidable electoral team but also they will be good for Australia because Barnaby has a particular skill at connecting with rural Australia, of course as leader of the national party you’d hope that would be the case, and I think Malcolm is extremely well respected right across Australia particularly in the cities though, where obviously where he comes from…

LISA WILKINSON: OK you’ve done the big sell…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: He’s going to be great.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: The last time Malcolm Turnbull was the leader of course, Barnaby Joyce helped to neck him, he led the charge. These two don’t like each other, they don’t agree on fundamental policies, and we’re going to see I think a great deal of conflict within the coalition, just like we see a great deal of conflict between Malcolm Turnbull of old and Malcolm Turnbull of new, he’s conflicted with himself on climate change, marriage equality, all these things that he said that he stood for that people were thinking that there’d be a change from Tony Abbott well we’ve got a different suit but the same policies.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think Anthony’s wishing that Barnaby was leader of the Labor party, because he’s stuck with Bill Shorten.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Poor old Christopher Pyne thinks the Liberal Party was around in the ‘20s Menzies hadn’t even formed it then Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It was called the Nationalist Party Anthony do your history; do your history my friend.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: it was the UAP but anyhow.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Actually it wasn’t, it was the Nationalist Party, and it became the UAP in 1932.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Indeed.

LISA WILKINSON: What remains to be seen is whether anyone can work with the man who threatened to euthanise Johnny Depp’s dogs.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well you know, I think overseas, when Barnaby Joyce ‘Acting Prime Minister’ is going to be pretty interesting.

LISA WILKINSON: It certainly will. Alright moving on, Christopher a reshuffle is on the cards this weekend, are you aiming for a promotion?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’ve got all the promotions I need Lisa, I’m the Minister for…

LISA WILKINSON: Innovation and Science is exactly what you wanted to do?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science at a time when the Prime Minister is absolutely focused on innovation, and industry, and science, I established the National Innovation and Science Agenda in December last year I’ve got a lot to do, I’m leader of the house, I’m in the leadership group, I’m the Member for Sturt, I’ve got plenty on my plate. I don’t want to change my portfolio one iota.

LISA WILKINSON: Well Stuart Robert’s got plenty on his plate at the moment as well, isn’t it time he was stood down?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look Stuart’s had a challenging week…

LISA WILKINSON: To say the least.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: These weeks come and go in politics but it has been challenging and obviously there is an investigation being conducted by Martin Parkinson the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, that’s the appropriate thing to be doing. When that rules to Malcolm Turnbull he will make a decision. I mean Labor’s position on this Lisa is that there should be an investigation and the guy should be sacked at the same time, so they want the penalty to be applied before the investigation.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Labor’s position is pretty clear which is that Stuart Robert has declared himself guilty as charged, the rules are very clear. The rules are that you can’t act as a private citizen in the interests of a company while you are a minister. And this week we had in Senate Estimates, we had the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirm that both the Chinese government and the company would have thought that he was acting as a minister. This is a junior Defence Minister going to China in the interests of a private company, not telling the Department of Defence that he’s a junior minister for, not telling Foreign Affairs and Trade, attending meetings with a Chinese government minister, with the company present but no one from The Australian bureaucracy in terms of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This is game over, everyone knows it. Stuart Robert knows it which is why he stonewalled every question that he got this week.

LISA WILKINSON: Would you be comfortable with somebody conducting themselves that way remaining on the front bench Christopher?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Lisa it would be wrong of me to pre-judge Martin Parkinson’s investigation of the matter.

LISA WILKINSON: Alright so it’s a non-answer.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: This parrot is dead Christopher, …dead parrot sketch Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: He’s been running this joke all week, it’s not your joke it’s Monty Python’s joke.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: …Going into the shop and saying… he’s nailed to the cabinet table, it’s absurd.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You’ve been running that joke all week its worse than my Zsa Zsa Gabor joke which I’ve been running all week. You can’t get any more blood out of that stone!

ANTHONYALBANESE: It’s much better graphically though Christopher…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Zsa Zsa Gabor’s had more of a run this week than she’s had in years and years.

LISA WILKINSON: This is morning TV, we do not want to turn people on their computers..

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: She’s still alive by the way, Zsa Zsa Gabor.

LISA WILKINSON: At 99, isn’t that impressive?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Unlike Stuart Robert’s ministerial career, she’s still alive.

LISA WILKINSON: The problem you’ve got though Anthony is the PM has now got an opportunity to refresh the Government, the front bench, leading in to the election; they’re well ahead in the polls this has got to be a problem for Labor.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: What do you mean an opportunity to refresh? Since the last one? The last refreshing was about a month ago, this is revolving doors when it comes to…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: September Anthony. Not a month ago.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You have all these vacancies, all these vacancies occurring, there’s now at least, been at least 5 changes to the ministerial team since Malcolm Turnbull took over. You have Tony Abbott, clearly the Stuart Robert issue is a proxy war for Tony Abbott versus Malcolm Turnbull. You have leaked documents including Tony Abbott’s letter and the letter to Tony Abbott from Stuart Robert which didn’t mention the private company business, it just mentioned going to China. that suddenly appeared out there in the media. The chaos and the division within the government is front and centre, which is why Malcolm Turnbull hung on to Stuart Robert until parliament got up for a one week break.

LISA WILKINSON: Alright final question to you Christopher, you ruled out a GST increase yesterday, did you have the Prime Minister’s backing to do that?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well we’ve said and the Prime Minister has said all week Lisa that the case for a GST increase has not been made. The treasury modelling indicates that if there was a 50 per cent increase in the GST it would have a very marginal impact, if any, on GDP growth, now we’re a practical government that wants to create jobs and growth. I’ve always been sceptical about increasing the GST because it’s a tax that falls most on those who are least able to pay it and I don’t think that that is a fair exchange, to increase personal income taxes on those who are most able to pay it. But we will take a tax reform package to the election, it will involve significant reform, because we have a plan about how to create jobs and growth, we are doing it now, we have created 300 and 1000 jobs in the last 12 months whereas all Labor wants to do is talk about insider games in Canberra about who is fighting with who.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well we’ve wanted to debate the GST and you’ve just said exactly what I’ve said on this program two or three times when we’ve been asked…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well we’re in agreement.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You said you wanted a debate and then you squibbed it.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We’re in agreement, you should be cheerful about it.

LISA WILKINSON: Alright well the governments got a lot of work to do because there were warnings this morning we are about to officially become the most taxed country in the world so good luck with that one. Good to see you Anthony, good to see you Christopher, have a great weekend, over to you Karl.

[ends]