Transcript - ABC Lateline - 1 December 2009

SUBJECTS: Tony Abbott as new Liberal Leader

(greetings omitted)

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Joining us in our Parliament House studio is the manager of Opposition business - still the manager of Opposition business, I might add - Christopher Pyne.

Thanks for being there.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE, MANAGER OF OPPOSITION BUSINESS: Good to talk to you, Tony.

TONY JONES: Did you vote for Malcolm Turnbull today?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I did.

TONY JONES: In both ballots?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes.

TONY JONES: So, he was certainly the most moderate Liberal leader you've served under. Are you sorry to see him go?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look, I think Malcolm Turnbull was a sensational leader of the Liberal Party. He stood for what he believed in and advocated his philosophical direction for the party. He's - he took over at a very difficult time in Opposition. Opposition's always hard, but especially in the first term after you've lost an election after a long period in government. I think he deserved to be supported today. And he wasn't and the party's made its decision, very narrowly: 42 to 41. Tony Abbott is a person that I have known and admired for 17 years, and I think that he will take the party to the election with gusto. As he says, it'll be a real contest. We'll certainly know the difference between Labor and Liberal on election day, which is a huge plus in politics, and I give him my absolute full support and commitment to do what I can to get rid of this government. But we now have to start focusing on Labor, Tony, rather than ourselves.

TONY JONES: OK. Alright. You can focus on Labor in a moment. We've just had a big day in Liberal politics and we are intent on talking a little about that. I mean, you've just dumped what you call a sensational leader. It doesn't often happen, does it? And I'm wondering: by the sound of it, you would probably quite like to see him come back one day as leader?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look, the future is the future. Today we need to reunite behind Tony Abbott. What we owe our supporters, our party members, our donors and those people who want to vote for us in the future is a united team with a clear direction for the election. It's not a day for commentating ...

TONY JONES: OK, but you've made the point the future is the future. Do you anticipate that he will make a comeback at some point?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, what Malcolm has said today, Tony, is that there'll be no by-election in Wentworth. He won't be resigning. He certainly won't be taking his bat and ball and leaving the field. He and Lucy will spend the summer thinking about whether he recontests. I hope he does recontest, because I think we need people of Malcolm Turnbull's calibre in Parliament. We also have a new leader, who has real character. I think what you see is what you get with Tony Abbott, and I think the public will respond well to that, especially over the coming months when he's given the opportunity to outline his vision for Australia, and most importantly to do what we're supposed to be doing, which is holding the Labor Party to account.

TONY JONES: Alright. But if Malcolm Turnbull sits on the backbench, given that he only lost by one vote, he'll be this huge centre of gravity - another potential leader. It'll be like when Peter Costello was sitting there over the shoulder of other people whom he probably would regard as lesser mortals. Don't you think that's going to be a bit of a problem for any leader?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look, I don't believe that will be a problem, because we are now at the point where, so close to an election, that Tony Abbott will be given ...

TONY JONES: How close?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think the election will be on March 6. I think the Government will call a double dissolution election if the ETS is voted down this week, which I assume it will be, because they won't send it to a Senate inquiry, and I think they'll be rushing off to the polls, because that was what the ETS in my view was all about. That's why it wasn't brought back into the Parliament months ago. That's why they left a three-month gap - so they could bring it back and it could be a double dissolution trigger. So I'm under no illusion that we'll be at the elections on March 6th. I think the temptation for the Labor Party will be too great.

TONY JONES: The Howard conservatives have scaled the heights again. What does it mean for moderates like you? I mean, do you just have to make a seamless transition from Turnbull loyalist to Abbott loyalist in 24 hours with all that entails?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Tony, I believe that the Liberal is a broad church. It always has been. I think it's noteworthy that the two people that Tony Abbott confirmed in their positions today at 9.30 this morning, as soon as he was elected, were Joe Hockey as shadow treasurer and me as manager of Opposition business in the House. Both of us would be regarded, for those people who want to apply labels, as moderates in the Liberal Party. So ...

TONY JONES: So he needs a couple of prominent moderates to give himself a bit of street cred', does he?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, I think what Tony Abbott indicated immediately is that he's going to be an inclusive leader. Sure, he'll lead from the front, but he also will be the sort of person that wants to bring everybody with him. He recognises that Joe Hockey and I are two people who can continue to do our jobs and hopefully do them well, and I think he wanted to send a very important signal to everyone. But the Liberal Party's always been made up of people from right across the spectrum. That's why we are the Liberal Party. We're not a Stalinist organisation where everyone has to be the same kind of person.

TONY JONES: OK. We don't have that much time. Do you reckon that Tony Abbott will be a John Howard-style of leader, because he certainly sees him as a political mentor, and indeed someone from whom he takes a lot of his cues?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, there's two aspects of John Howard I hope Tony Abbott is like: one, the sort of person that includes everybody in his shadow cabinet, as John Howard did, included a range of people; and two, I hope he wins four elections in a row, because that would mean that we're back in government and not this dreadful Labor Government.

TONY JONES: Yes. That's optimistic. What happened to the evolution in the Liberal Party, that Ian Macfarlane talked about on Four Corners, from John Howard to Malcolm Turnbull. It was an evolution - he believed, Macfarlane believed, that Turnbull was a modernising force. Now you appear to have gone back in the other direction, towards the John Howard-style of leader.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I think you completely underestimate Tony Abbott. Tony Abbott is much better and well-rounded character than you are portraying him. The Tony Abbott I know is the person who I went to the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands in South Australia, when he was minister for health and I was his parliamentary secretary, and actually found out about the problems besetting Indigenous people on the ground; who now spends at least a month every year in Cape York working as a teacher - as a volunteer. I mean, people - I know Tony Abbott extremely well, and the way that he's been characterised by the press is not the full story. And I think he'll be given the opportunity as Leader of the Opposition to tell that full story, and people will see quite a different person.

Could I just add to that? I know we haven't got much time. Every leader, every government, is different. Tony Abbott is not John Howard; he's Tony Abbott. And he will lead a different Liberal Party and a different government when he wins the next election. Malcolm Turnbull was a different leader leading with a different style. That is the way of politics. Tony Abbott is not trying to replicate John Howard. He'll be Tony Abbott, and people will either love him or loathe him, but they'll certainly know where they stand with him.

TONY JONES: Ian Macfarlane also said that an emissions trading scheme was part of that change - the evolution from John Howard to Malcolm Turnbull. A month ago, you told us the same thing: ""We believe in an emissions trading scheme."" Is that still the case?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, we took an emissions trading scheme to the last election. We believe in climate change action. I believe passionately in climate change action. An emissions trading scheme is one tool in the tool box. The problem with this emissions trading scheme is that the Government hasn't explained it to the people. They don't understand it. Barack Obama is not ...

TONY JONES: In spite of the fact that you appeared to understand it well enough to cut a deal with the Government on how it should look, all agree on that and then renege on a deal.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, I think the Coalition understands this emissions trading scheme. I'm talking about the general public. The people I speak to in the electorate, they say that they don't understand very much about this emissions trading scheme, but they want action on climate change. And I want action on climate change and there's many ways to bring that about. Barack Obama doesn't believe that he needs a piece of legislation to go to Copenhagen, but this Prime Minister seems to think he must have. We've agreed on the targets that he can take to Copenhagen of 5 per cent. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that the targets that the Government is setting aren't more ambitious, because there's so much we could do in the area of renewable energy and elsewhere in terms of the ...

TONY JONES: How high should the targets be, do you believe?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, other people, other very respectable organisations like Frontier, have said that targets could be as much as 10 per cent. But, I mean, that's not my job, to set targets. We've agreed with the Government that we'll accept their 5 per cent target. But I think the Government is dragging its feet in so many areas of renewable energy.

TONY JONES: The fundamental question is how you actually reach the targets. Tony Abbott said tonight the new policy would not be a unilateral ETS. Do you understand what he means by that?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: What he means by that is that we will have a far-reaching climate change action policy, but we won't set it unilaterally before the rest of the world's even had an opportunity to indicate what they will do.

TONY JONES: So - we're nearly out of time. So I just want to just confirm what you're saying here. I mean, effectively, what it appears you're saying is, for example, if the United States agrees on an emissions trading scheme, Australia could have one as far as the Liberal Party's concerned which is in sync with that. Is that what you mean?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, I think what Tony Abbott is saying is that we'll have a comprehensive climate change action policy. It'll cover renewable energy and the other ways of reducing our carbon emissions. And we will also make sure what we are doing is not going to put Australian jobs at risk, not going to expose our trade-exposed industries to unfair competition from overseas, and it'll be informed by what happens in Copenhagen in the next couple of weeks; it'll be informed about what happens in the United States, which is obviously extremely important. Because there's an underlying feature here: whatever the United States does - the rest of the world will also model their emissions trading schemes in the future on what the United States does. So therefore, we'll obviously be informed by what they eventually decide, if they go down the track of an emissions trading scheme.

TONY JONES: Christopher Pyne, so much to talk about, so little time.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Indeed.

TONY JONES: We thank you for joining us live on the program tonight and we'll see you again soon.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That's a pleasure.

(ends)