Transcript - ABC 891 - Two Chrisses - 15 Feb 2010

SUBJECTS: Julia Gillard's 'anti-tattoo' statement; Peter Garrett's Insulation Programme controversy; preferential voting; outcome of the SA State election

(greetings omitted)

Matthew ABRAHAM: ...so when [Tony Abbott] makes statements that [virginity] is not something you give away lightly and he was seen there as old-fashioned, giving advice to women and he should butt out. And yet Julia Gillard has given an interview over the weekend where she says women shouldn't be getting a tattoo. You know, maybe I'm getting older but she's giving advice to young women and yet nary a whisper. There's the suggestion that there's the old double standards at work there in The Australian...

Chris SCHACHT: Well, for The Australian to suggest double standards is the height of hypocrisy. I mean, that paper was...

Christopher PYNE: ...that wasn't the question.

SCHACHT: I know, but let's just start with that point, shall we?

PYNE: just give the answer!

SCHACHT: Well, I haven't seen Julia speak about tattoos and I have to say that tattoos are a mark on you for the rest of your life so if you put a big tattoo on your back or your head or something like David Beckham, who's got something all down the back of his arm. I just wonder what he's going to look like when he's 50. I think the argument about virginity is that if he was talking to his own daughter that's fine, but if he had a son, would he have said the same thing to his son? Don't give up your virginity easily or capriciously and I think that a lot of people say that these matters have been discussed within the family and that's where they should say.

ABRAHAM: Julia Gillard told The Sunday Telegraph in the ""House Rules"" column that women who are heavily tattooed and she thinks it's big mistake. ""I don't like it as an image."" She expressed her fear that ""raunch culture"" had gone ""too far"" and worried about the representation of women!  I'm a big fan of Jennifer Hawkins but it's pretty absurd when we are having a debate about if she's a good role model if she's having a photo taken of her and leaving it untouched. Now to the question, Chris Schacht, if you can keep to the question this time, what would be the outrage? There would be!

SCHACHT: Well I don't think there would necessarily, would be...

ABRAHAM: But if Tony Abbott had said that, you'd be all over it! He'd be an old fuddy-duddy, blah, blah, blah...

SCHACHT: hang on. When he was talking about the double standard, when dealing with sexuality, there's a great deal of comment and people are saying ""why is women's virginity being treated differently than male's virginity?"" When you're talking about...

PYNE: that wasn't the question.

SCHACHT: What I'm saying is when you're dealing with it ...when you're wanting to talk about sex and about virginity there are people who are taking about a double standard.

ABRAHAM: But what the question is, really, I think that Tony Abbott ended up facing. And I think Julia Gillard is saying...

SCHACHT: ...but he's saying that one of his daughters said in Women's Weekly about Mr Abbott her father said that and she actually said that's a bit of a, you know...

PYNE: do you want me to save you?

SCHACHT: Well she said it's a bit of a...in the Women's Weekly...and it was Tony, so probably Mr Abbott...it showed that he had three exceptional daughters who had made their own way in the world. Now in their late teens and early twenties and he and his wife should be very proud of them, and Chris Pyne...

PYNE: let me have a go...

SCHACHT: ...he's another Catholic, Saint Ignatius...

ABRAHAM: easy on...

PYNE: don't start attacking the Catholics and the Jesuits. Are you having a bad morning?

SCHACHT: No, I'm having a very good morning.

PYNE: Well let me have a go this morning and give a better answer to your question. I think that what's happened in the Labor Party is that Julia Gillard has been 'hoisted on her own petard', as they say. It was fine for her to criticise Tony Abbott for answering in a straightforward way that I think most Australians would like, having a Leader who says what he means and means what he says. Julia Gillard, of course, when asked about women's tattoos and revealing photographs, nobody is allowed to criticise her about such a thing and she has been exposed, as it were, for having a double standard. All it tells me is that the attacks on Tony Abbott for the last fortnight about his daughters and so forth, were just about trying to diminish him. Nobody really believed he had actually done anything wrong. Labor overreacted. I think that Labor very much overreacted.

ABRAHAM: Does he not make these statements enough though? I mean, at least Julia Gillard had a bit of a discussion going on there and she said 'maybe I'm a bit conservative' and so on. And she was talking generally. I was wondering whether Tony Abbott fails to factor that in?

PYNE: I was out at Gilles Plains on Saturday morning and again yesterday 'supermarketing' on Saturday and on Sunday I was judging a Lions ""Youth of the Year"" comp yesterday. Lots of people talked to me about the issue of Tony Abbott being straightforward and they were...can you stop stirring your coffee? I mean, this is radio. We're not in Vaudeville, you know, you just want to ruin my answer!

SCHACHT: You can't handle a bit of pot stirring by me?

PYNE: You look like you're about to leap right out of a bush, you look like Dame Washalot in a pantomime.

David BEVAN: I'm watching him, he looks like he's in a world of his own.

PYNE: He's not himself this morning. Will someone get him a lap rug? The point is that at Gilles Plains, where people heard that he was just giving advice to his daughters, it put a whole different point on it. He was advising his daughters, not all women! He was talking about his daughters!

ABRAHAM: Chris Pyne, you're not in every shopping centre in Australia, explaining what it meant.

PYNE: I don't have to be, imagine if I was, though?

ABRAHAM: But meanwhile, I noticed in one of the advertisements for the [Adelaide] Fringe, Max Gilles is doing, not Paul Keating or John Howard but Barnaby Joyce. Is this a bit or a danger when you're Finance Spokesman and key to any Government getting elected, that you're seen as a caricature? As a figure of fun?

PYNE: I think the big story out of last week about who was doing a good or a bad job was the story about Peter Garrett and the insulation programme. The Barnaby Joyce distraction was designed by the Labor Party to get everyone's minds off the facts that the insulation programme was an absolute fiasco!

ABRAHAM: Now you're not answering? It can't be as complex as that, your Finance Spokesperson was saying...

PYNE: ...I'm happy to talk about Barnaby Joyce, the comments that Barnaby Joyce made were exactly the same as comments Paul Keating had made twelve months beforehand and Labor did not make a comment about it last year...

ABRAHAM: ...Keating said that the US was in danger of defaulting on its loans.

PYNE: I doubt it very much. That's what Barnaby Joyce was saying. He was putting on the table that debt is a critically important issue. Sure he uses colourful language

ABRAHAM: but the question was, is he using inaccurate language?

PYNE: Last week Kevin Rudd was confusing megatonnes and gigatonnes and you completely ignored it. Talk about double standards. Apparently, everyone knows millions and billions so when they've made a slip it's the end of the world? Kevin Rudd said gigatonnes and megatonnes and nobody even mentioned it.

SCHACHT: He said Australia could default...

PYNE: ...Paul Keating said it too. The United States was close to defaulting and I didn't see the Labor Party all over Paul Keating. Labor is keen to create a distraction from the fiasco of the last week. It's all about spin and not about substance!

ABRAHAM: I suppose the difficulty for you is that Paul Keating is not the Opposition's Shadow Financial Minister. Barnaby Joyce is.

PYNE: And Peter Garrett's the Minister responsible for the insulation programme and that is a much more important issue.

ABRAHAM: Where do you get that? We're just talking about Barnaby Joyce.

PYNE: There are thousands of possible electrified households. There have been 81 house fires. Four deaths. Sure, Barnaby Joyce used colourful language but quite frankly there is a very disproportionate response to a much larger issue. This is whether the Minister should resign over the maladministration of the programme he's responsible for.

ABRAHAM: Isn't that a bit like saying the Minister for Defence should resign if soldiers are killed? At what point can you stop Ministerial responsibility?

PYNE: There is a direct link with a Minister who decides to push $2.5billion dollars out into the workplace to spend on insulation. And has been given...

ABRAHAM: wait, $2.5billion?

PYNE: $2.5billion. Just on the insulation programme. This is just the insulation programme. $2.5billion. It has blown out by,some estimates say, a billion dollars. He's been given seventeen warnings, going back to February 17^th last year. Now, in the Minister for Defence's case, everybody knows that when you go to war there will be some risk. What this Minister didn't do, even when he was warned by his own Departmental officials and officials in State and Territory Departments on April 29^th, was to take any serious action and four people died as a consequence.

ABRAHAM: Chris Schacht?

SCHACHT: Well I want Barnaby Joyce to be the Shadow Finance Minister right up to Election Day because he's going to be worth a few votes to the Labor Party. He's just appears to be a bit of a fruit loop in what he says. He said that Australia appears that it could default on its borrowings. Now our public borrowings are amongst the lowest in any developed country...at the most 12-14% of GDP. America and Great Britain are way ahead of that. We're going to keep talking about that. People are going to keep saying that we are not going to be defaulting on our debt because our debt is very low. The big figure last week, better than any opinion poll for the Labor Party, was the unemployment figure, which went down to 5%. In South Australia, it's under 5 and down to 4. We've got the lowest unemployment in Australia which is unheard of. In my 40 years in politics we're down from the top, we're now the lowest one. That is the big figure.

ABRAHAM: I remember the big aspiration of the Olsen Government, John Olsen, which was to get South Australia's unemployment to the national average...

SCHACHT: ...and now it's below. We were consistently a percent above it but now we are below the national average. I think the statistical benchmark might have slipped or was even distorted over the last couple of months but no matter how you look at it, the Rudd Government can say that the stimulus saved Australian jobs. Rann can say that the restructuring jobs saved the economy and we now have the lowest unemployment. That is the most significant figure than any figure from the last week.

ABRAHAM: Now, Peter from Murray Bridge has called in. How are you, Peter?

Caller PETER: Good, how are ya? I'd just like to ask Christopher Pyne, under the rules of the Peter Garrett...if he should resign, the President of the IAC should resign because of the death on his watch. That's my question.

PYNE: Well, that's a good question because the point about Westminster Ministerial responsibilities is that a Minister is responsible for the activities that occur in their portfolio. That is not a problem. But if there has been maladministration and a Minister has been given seventeen warnings about the potential fatalities that could occur, and at least some of those warnings were about potential fatalities. Others were about house fires and others were about unregulated activity. Others were about training. Seventeen warnings going back twelve months and he doesn't act in a serious way to respond to the queries...that is when the Minister becomes responsible. The Westminster System relies on Ministers bringing their common sense to the table... The Minister for Transport is not responsible for every road death that occurs on the road but when the Minister for Environment, when he's warned seventeen times about a programme which is potentially fatal and he doesn't act, that is when action is required.

SCHACHT: Well I thought that the answer Peter Garrett gave when explaining what he had done. What he'd done in the protocols and the quality of the work and the issues about implementing it and relying on States for setting the standards of working and etcetera. Constitutionally, he made a good effort. Now, whether it was 100% the best effort he made as Minister, I know as I was a Minister and you were too...Chris, and we all make our best efforts on advice and make things improve. We're not always successful.

BEVAN: Can you think of anybody who's actually fallen on their sword? The only person...as a Minister that I can think of is Ian MacLachlan. He fell on his sword...

SCHACHT: ...Joel Fitzgibbon...

BEVAN: ...yeah but he said something along the lines of...

SCHACHT: it was found out that what he'd said in the Parliament was probably different to what had actually happened. He had his meeting and then he tendered his resignation as Defence Minister last year. There have been resignations and the one in Parliament, as Chris knows, if you even inadvertently mislead Parliament you are in a fair bit of strife. That is the first principal and I support that. It'll be often an issue of semantics about whether you mislead parliament or not and how serious...unfortunately how Labor and Liberal over fifty to seventy years, the Westminster System has evolved so you have your Department and is not exactly held against the Minister whether it's Labor or Liberal.

ABRAHAM: Do you think that that's a pity?

SCHACHT: I think it's a bit of a pity, in a way. I'm not saying this particularly about Garrett, I'm just saying about this particular point in time and that's been an evolution of how we've slightly changed the Westminster System compared to a 19^th century view where you were held responsible but people now say that Departments are so complex that a Minister can't know everything that is going on...

ABRAHAM: Gundt from Heathfield. Hello Gundt.

Caller GUNDT: On the point of this where do you stop with Peter Garrett...the fact of the matter is that this is where you start from. That you should resign when you stuff up...

ABRAHAM: Gundt, thanks for your thoughts. Tim has called. Hello Tim.

Caller TIM: I worked in the building industry as a ceiling fixer so I've got a question for Christopher about this sudden respect for the building union and their warnings on industrial safety. Because I think the moral outrage has been confected. They ignored and treated with contempt the building unions when they were in Government. Can he give me now the guarantee they will treat with respect the building unions and their safety warnings?

PYNE: I haven't said I'm any great fan of the building unions or, in fact, the ETU. But what I have said is that the CMFEU, the building division of it, the ETU were two Unions that were giving warnings to the Minister over the last twelve months. He wasn't just being given warnings form the electrical contractors associations and if he decides he doesn't want to listen to business, that's fine. He was also warned by his own movement, the Union movement. He was also being warned by Gail Gago, the Minister here in South Australia. He was being warned by Victoria as well as all the State and Territory Departments that had a hookup on April 29^th. They were simply saying...this was a disaster and needs to be fixed.

ABRAHAM: Jo from Flagstaff Hill, hello.

Caller JO: Hi, listening to Chris Schacht and his comments about lower employment. Am I being naive that the Government Stimulus Packages for schools and all the building taking place makes the result for lower unemployment? One wonders what will happen in six months when they've finished? What will happen to unemployment?

SCHACHT: Well certainly the school building is part of the stimulus package but there were also direct payments made to people. Cash payments to encourage people to spend and that goes back to September, November 2008 when the world financial crisis occurred like a tsunami sweeping over the Western world. That was the response and today, or in the last week, senior leaders of the IMF World Bank have said it was the quick payments of cash to stimulate the economy by various Governments including certainly the Australian, that had the biggest direct impact. No-one disputes the package and that our unemployment would be now 300 000 or thereabouts...higher than without the stimulus package. That's 300 000 Australians...

PYNE: ...I think Kevin Rudd said 112 000...

SCHACHT: ...well if you look at the figures...

PYNE: ...it's $400 000 per job! It's very expensive.

SCHACHT: Yes, and we've still got the lowest public debt...

PYNE: you're out of your mind! Labor doesn't care about debt. They don't care about spending someone else's money...

SCHACHT: ...we've kept it the lowest out of any country...of any major trading country and that is an achievement which no other country has been able to do.

ABRAHAM: Bob from Norwood. Hello, Bob.

Caller BOB: There's this constant picking on Garrett over the insulation. Now all this building work is under regulation from State Governments. They provide the inspectors, they provide the licensing and what they should be doing is ensuring that when building work is done it's done appropriately. Withdraw the licensing if they're doing the wrong thing and then they get prosecuted. If an electrician doesn't do quality work, he can be prosecuted. And another thing is the residual current devices in these houses. It's quite possible that none of those four people would have been electrocuted because they estimate that eight out of ten deaths would not occur. Would not have happened.

ABRAHAM: Gentlemen, can you address the issue of preferences and how they work?

PYNE: Well there is a little confusion about preferences because people think that when they get a 'How to vote' card, it's the preferences the candidate has allocated to other candidates in an election. Of course the truth is that every individual voter allocates their preferences. So where someone says where my preferences are going to go...say Family First decides to preference me in Sturt, to take an example. Somebody thinks 'Family First is going to give 100% of their preferences to Christopher Pyne' but the truth is that each individual voter allocates their own preferences, not the Party. So the card is just a guide, you turn up at the ballot box and somebody gives you a guide. If you want to follow it, then good luck to you.

ABRAHAM: The Party's own candidates also lodge?

SCHACHT: For the Lower House in South Australia and the Lower Houses...

PYNE: ...not for the House of Representatives though...

SCHACHT: ...a ""How to vote"" card...if you want to go around with a hospital voting, etcetera. The electoral official, the person in a bed can say ""you're voting in this seat, you're voting postal. What you have here is each of the ""How to vote"" cards from registered Parties."" If you want to read them and take advice of them, that's up to you. If you don't want to, it's still up to you.

ABRAHAM: In the Upper House?

PYNE: You vote either one above the line...Family First, for example...then if Family First has registered a ""How to vote"" card and you vote 1 in their box, then their preferences that they've registered will be your preferences in the Upper House. You can also vote the whole...

ABRAHAM: ...go below the line.

PYNE: I always vote below the line.

ABRAHAM: You have to keep the people occupied.

SCHACHT: I always vote below the line, too.

BEVAN: Now in the House of Assembly, where Government is decided, what you are saying is that the registered ""How to vote"" cards are an influence because you're handing the cards out and people might say ""this is the Liberal card, this is Family First. I like them so I'll just do what they tell me to"". It has an influence, but it's not a requirement.

SCHACHT: No.

BEVAN: But that influence can be so...when you get down the seats like Chaffey, where Karlene Maywald is facing a real challenge there and how all those people challenging her for the seat allocate their preferences. It's no doubt going to have an influence on their preferences.

PYNE: Interestingly on the last election day in Sturt, there was one person handing out 'How to vote' cards to me and there are at least either nine or ten people handing out cards for Parties or particular issues. That was very, very confusing and to give you an example of exactly how it changes the vote, on election day the amount of votes for people aside from Liberal or Labor was much higher in Sturt than it was by pre-poll vote or by postal vote. Because it was that all those people handed out 'How to vote' cards there was mass confusion with people just making up as they went along.

ABRAHAM: This is why you both love sending out pre-poll votes?

SCHACHT: Pre-poll votes and postal voting information. When you can go to the Polling Office two weeks before the election. When you go down there, the two major parties can usually round up somebody to hand out the 'How to vote' cards, usually by the Electoral Office doors for Labor and Liberal. They're the only ones you get so you get a higher percentage of people using those cards than you get on Election Day. You've got to say it's advice only, it is not compulsory.

ABRAHAM: ...who is going to win the election?

SCHACHT: Well as I've always said on your show, the last election was the highest margin Labor ever got on two-Party-preferred...

BEVAN: ...just answer the question. He's suffering from altitude sickness folks...

SCHACHT: Just let me finish, I find it very hard to believe that two elections in a row we'll be able to repeat that and as the Labor vote drops, we will lost some seats. The Labor party will be returned with a reduced majority but still an absolute majority in the Lower House and I think they'll end up with around 25, 26 seats.

ABRAHAM: 25 or 26 seats so a majority, not a minority Government. Christopher Pyne?

PYNE: I think there is a mood to swing against the Government. I have no doubt about that. I think Labor will outspend the Liberals 4 or 5 to1 between 20^th February and 20^th March which will have a telling impact on the outcome. I think they will be forced into minority status and they will not retain 24, 25 seats in their own right and I think it will depend on how many and which Independents win. For example if the Liberals pick up Frome and maybe a left-leaning Independent picks up one of the Western suburbs seats...I think it's possible. I don't think you can say who will form the Government but I think it's easy to say that the Rann Government will not form a majority Government in its own right.

BEVAN: Christopher Pyne says Government formed dependent on the Independents but Labor won't form Government in its own right and Chris Schacht says Labor returned with 24 or 25!

(ends)