Transcript - ABC 891 Two Chrisses - 27 July 2009

SUBJECTS: Isobel Redmond; Schools stimulus debacle; emissions trading scheme

(greetings omitted)

Abraham:

Chris Pyne ... the Premier's twitter dated July 24, that's Friday, 6.20pm, 'I don't believe gossip about Pyne wanting to change seats, maybe it is a Marshall plan to run for Sturt after doing a Nigel Smart in Norwood'

Pyne:

... I think it must have been the 25th because I think he posted that after - goodness knows what the Premier is doing on twitter all day long, he must be bored with being Premier of the State ... that was Saturday I think because I saw him at the footy ... and the Premier was there with Vini

Abraham:

...are you thinking of switching Seats to a safer seat?

Pyne:

... absolutely out of the question, I love being the member for Sturt, I love serving the people in the eastern and north eastern suburbs, the Premier is just trying to create mischief because he's obviously bored with being Premier, which is why he spends all his time on twitter ... I'm fascinated that he is so engrossed with me, who's even bothering to write posts on twitter about me

Abraham:

Chris Shacht, Isobel Redmond, big profile in the Sunday Mail, we know that in her library is the Encyclopaedia Britannia of the great works...

Schacht:

It's not surprising that the new leader, who is basically unknown to the South Australian public that the Liberal Party would arrange to have major interviews, get those full profiles ... I know if I was in the Liberal Party I'd have trouble speaking now because she's banned swearing ... my wife says I swear too much ... the other thing I noticed was she declared herself an agnostic with Christian values ... not often a leader of a major party in Australia these days has the courage to declare that they're not a true believer of Christianity and in that I think she's probably going to appeal to some small Liberal people in the community and that's a vote she's got to get to get anywhere near doing well at the next State election...

Abraham:

It's going to do well in marginal Seats in the north eastern suburbs in the bible belt ... I bet Michael Atkinson is letterboxing that as we speak on his bicycle ... then he'll be down the Christian fundamentalist churches down south, every letter box, 'would you vote for an agnostic?'

Pyne:

Bob Hawke was an agnostic...

Schacht:

He's probably the last major leader of... a Prime Minister

Pyne:

So an agnostic is someone who is not certain, an atheist is determinately against the idea that there is such a thing as a god, I'm very happy practising Catholic and I believe in God...

Schacht:

... I would say Isobel Redmond is starting off way behind the eight ball, is starting to fill out the gaps in who she is as a personality and that is what she has to do because she only has eight months to take on the person who's been leader of the Labor Party for 15 years and is a very well known commodity in South Australia...

Bevan:

Its one thing to get your profile up ... you need a profile ... but what sort of a profile? Is this the message that she needed to get out with a very limited amount of time?

Schacht:

Well it was a long interview clearly in the next month or so she is going to have to state a couple of major policy issues that differentiate her and the Liberal Party from what Mike Rann is doing ... that is a big ask in only less than eight months til the election ...

Pyne:

Well Isobel Redmond was certain to have colour pieces written about her by the newspapers because she's a new commodity in politics ... I reiterate that the Federal team and the State Liberal teams are quite distinct entities and I'm much more concerned and interested in the fact that the Federal Auditor-General has announced an unprecedented audit in to the schools stimulus debacle the Federal and State teams are quite distinct ... the Auditor-General has announced an audit in to the schools stimulus debacle

Abraham:

We'll get there, but we're talking about Isobel ...

Schacht:

Isobel doesn't have to deal, fortunately for her with that maniac Wilson Tuckey, who politically did more damage to your leader and your standing ... than anybody else I can think of

Abraham:

Can we finish with Isobel? Christopher Pyne, what do you think of the image that came out? Briefly looking at it, I look at somebody who doesn't like swearing, admitting to passing out drunk in her last time she had a drink...

Pyne:

It was over 20 years ago...

Abraham:

I don't blame her ... children have ended up reasonable human beings, is an agnostic with Christian values, has a block of land, she's sort of growing things on it, what do you think?

Pyne:

I think she will appeal to the Australian public and at the next election she will do very well

Abraham:

Now you obviously don't want to talk about Isobel Redmond ... even though you have an ideal opportunity to praise her, but on to the Auditor-General

Pyne:

I did, I praised her, I said I think she will appeal very much to the South Australian public and at the next election I think she will do very well because she's a real politician, unlike the spin and substandard politician that we have leading the State, who's more concerned about twittering than they are about actually dealing with unemployment, interest rates and other issues that affect South Australians.

Abraham:

Chris Pyne, why have you got a bee in your bonnet? You say it's an unprecedented intervention by the Auditor-General, but you could say that about everything the Auditor-General does ... they haven't run a spending program like this in schools before, so the Auditor-General is having a look at it

Pyne:

What's interesting about it is that the Auditor-General usually runs an audit over a Government program when its completed, when there's been concerns raised about it after its finished, the school stimulus debacle is right in the middle of the spin it's $14.7b ... education was to be the centrepiece of the Rudd Government's entire agenda ... he wanted to be remembered as the education Prime Minister so it forms a centrepiece of it, Julia Gillard is the Minister and up until now the media have given her a very good run ... it's very interesting that the Auditor-General has stepped in and said I'm going to audit a program midway through ... I've been raising concerns about the schools stimulus spend ... Julia Gillard and the Government has steadfastly reduced to ask the Auditor-General to step in ... and he has chosen to do it off his own volition ...

Abraham:

You've got many schools in your electorate, which ones do you think don't deserve the stimulus money?

Pyne:

I don't think anybody begrudges spending on infrastructure in schools, particularly primary schools ... Burnside Primary School, they are getting a whole new school courtesy of both the State and Federal Government spending, about $10m, Stradbroke Primary School is getting new expenditure we all support, I mean who would begrudge our kids, the next generation...

Abraham:

You apparently.

Pyne:

No I don't begrudge it, don't put words in my mouth... I don't begrudge the spending, but all also taxpayers expect value for money and they don't expect waste and mismanagement ... sure, spend the money on whatever the schools need ... but spend it wisely, make sure taxpayers get value for money, don't waste and mismanage it. Julia Gillard said the school in the northern suburbs of Adelaide were only getting spending on things that they could move to the new ... so called super schools, which I don't really like anyway ... instead we find out they're being spent on running tracks, toilet blocks, how are they going to be moved? So there's a lot of holes in this, a lot of skimming by the State Government, the State Government has cut its spending on infrastructure by 12%, I could go on and on ...

Schacht:

The Auditor-General does all the time step in ... when programs are completed. Let me make a prediction, the Auditor-General will find that in some of the processes, in the time available, should've been done in a slightly different way ... there were paper work that wasn't properly done, but no one will argue that the money going to schools, just as Chris has had to defend, he wants the money spent on his schools in his electorate, in the end the Liberal Party will not go around saying they shouldn't have built this at Burnside or Stradbroke ... or whatever, so raising it, is that I'm not surprised the Auditor-General, it's a big program, has said and this is what the Auditor-General's job is, if I'm really interested about what's happening in Federal politics at the moment, apart from the problem the Libs have got over the Wilson Tuckey etc, the big issue the Prime Minister is on the front foot is about reshaping the health system in Australia, there is a fundamental issue about how much of the health system of Australia will be transferred from the State's to the Federal body, that is a fundamental issue about long term health of Australia ... the Prime Minister is on the front foot with that and all the papers I read on the weekend, I never saw a comment, even this morning ... from the Liberal Party

Bevan:

How is the Prime Minister on the front foot of this if he's backing away from this promise before the election to take over?

Schacht:

No, no, he said, I saw it on the internet last night, he said he's promised that there could be a referendum still stands if the State's don't deliver on improving the -

Pyne:

He said it two years ago and the deadline was June 30 ...

Schacht:

...he said again yesterday, that is not dead, it's still an option he has

Pyne:

What, he's going to write them a very firm letter... like in Team America?

Schacht:

... what is happening here is that the Prime Minister is setting the agenda

Pyne:

Hans Blix!

Schacht:

the Liberal Party are responding and the best they can do this morning is say ...

Pyne:

Is he Hans Blix? ...the deadline's already passed ... it was June 30 ... he has only reiterated his firm words!

Schacht:

... it's in the first term of the Government, all I can say is, well I didn't see any comment from the Liberal Party over the weekend pointing that out that you've just pointed out here, they are dead silent ... the Liberal Party Federally is in a terrible mess as of Wilson Tuckey abusing the leader of his own party and getting away with it ...

Pyne:

He has been trying to get us on to Wilson Tuckey for 15 minutes... Wilson Tuckey is one member of eighty members in the Liberal Party room. He is a special kind a character as we all know. He has been in Parliament since the early eighties. He has strong views, he has said similar things about John Howard, Peter Costello, Brendan Nelson, now Malcolm Turnbull. The terrific thing about the Liberal Party is that we are a broad church and a genuine democracy. This come as a terrible surprise to C1 as he comes from a tradition where everybody is controlled and told how to vote and what to do and if they don't they get the flick.

Abraham:

When you call him a special type of character, is that a euphemism?

Pyne:

...He has his own style about him... and people would not assume, quite frankly, the man on the street... the man on the Clapham omnibus would not regard Wilson Tuckey as representing the views of the Liberal Party room.

Abraham:

Why would he have such a big influence over the climate change policy?

Pyne:

He doesn't... because the media are blowing Wilson's views out of all proportion he doesn't have any influence to that extent over the policy of the Coalition with respect to the emissions trading scheme. We actually proposed an emission trading scheme when we were in Government, called the Shergold emissions trading scheme, we have said that we will try and improve this current legislation that most people regard as a dog of a policy, it is a friendless policy, friendless from the Greens, from the Coalition, from industry, from business. The only people that support this policy are the Labor Caucus, and I think many of them, I know that many of them are very nervous about it and say so privately that they are stuck with, as they describe it, a dog of a policy.

Bevan: 

...you'll be painted rightly or wrongly as being anti-climate change and Kevin Rudd will be pro climate change...

Pyne:

What the Leader, Malcolm Turnbull showing strong and real leadership on Friday committed us to, was a set of principles, and the ball is now in the Government's court to determine whether they're prepared to be proactive, whether they're prepared to be bipartisan or whether they're just going to play petty politics with the climate. If they were genuine about having the best emissions trading scheme they would negotiate with the Coalition because they're not going to get a good emissions trading scheme out of the Greens, and we've shown that we're open to negotiation... The Coalition position is that we will a set of agreed principles with the Government. They've set a deadline for August 13 as the vote. By that point I strongly believe that the Government will want to negotiate because they will want to amend their legislation themselves, they know that it needs to be improved. The American legislation could end up being vastly different from ours. We don't as an Opposition, want to export jobs and export emissions. Nobody thinks it is sensible to pass a piece of legislation that ends up seeing industry move to the United States or elsewhere, and emitting into the atmosphere - it's the same atmosphere by the way, I'm sure everyone realises that. A bad piece of legislation is simply going to export emissions and export jobs, so it is actually much more complicated than just doing something about climate change, we all want to do something about climate change, I agree, but it needs to be sensible so we don't ruin the Australian economy and so that we don't just export the emissions overseas.