Transcript - Meet the Press - 30 August 2009

SUBJECTS:Stimulus package blow-out; stimulus signage at schools; Bradfield by-election

PAUL BONGIORNO:

The Manager of Opposition Business, Christopher Pyne, is a guest. And later the Nationals Deputy Senate Leader, Fiona Nash. But first, what is making news in the nation's papers this Sunday August 30? The 'Sun Herald' reports on the funeral of Senator Ted Kennedy - 'Farewell to a liberal warrior: US mourns the last Kennedy brother' the headline. At the funeral mass in Boston, the Kennedy family was joined by President Obama and a who's who of American society. The 'Sunday Mail' says 'Medicare's million-dollar doctors cashing in'. More than a thousand doctors claimed more than $1 million in Medicare benefits last year, with one GP alone claiming $1.4 million. The 'Sunday Telegraph' has '50,000 families can't pay their mortgage'. The big banks have been given mortgage payment holidays and hardship concessions to thousands of customers, revealing the true picture of the financial crisis. And the 'Sunday Age' reports 'Forgotten children to get formal apology'. The Federal government will say sorry to thousands of people who were abused or neglected as children after being placed in institutions or foster care. And it's welcome back to the programme, Christopher Pyne. Good morning, Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:

Good morning, Paul.

PAUL BONGIORNO:

Just going to the blow-out in the schools programme - for whatever problems there have been with that programme, don't the benefits outweigh the negatives? It's been a stimulus, it's provided jobs and provided much-needed refurbishment?

PYNE:

Well, Paul, the Coalition has never said that we don't think that schoolkids should have good facilities or infrastructure - clearly they should. But we've also said there needs to be a visceral-like focus on waste and mismanagement to ensure that taxpayers are getting value for money. We're now talking about a $16.2 billion project. That's a tremendous amount of money. It's a once in a generation opportunity to do something for schoolkids. What we've actually seen is profiteering by business, skimming by State governments, waste and mismanagement to the tune that the programme is now blown out substantially by $1.7 billion, which is very embarrassing for the government but more importantly, it indicates that this once in a generation opportunity is being squandered and the government needs to listen to what the Co-ordinator General has said last week and we await the Auditor General's audit to this programme to see what guidelines really should have been put in place but the horse may well have bolted.

BONGIORNO:

The minister says it's a sign of success. She says it's the demand that has led to the blow-out. Can you blame her for wanting to put signs on every school to show how well the Government is doing for parents and kids around the country?

PYNE:

Well, Julia Gillard would say that, of course, but what she hasn't said is that she's seriously asking people to believe that the Government thought one out of ten schools would say ""No, no. We don't want the $3 million. We don't need it."" Clearly that was never going to happen. You wouldn't want to stand between a governing council, a Parents and Friends or a principal and the opportunity to build some infrastructure or do something in a school, but she seriously expects us to believe that the department - herself - thought that that anything up to $700,000, schools would say ""No, we don't want any money."" In terms of the signs, I have no problems with the government putting up display signs praising Madam Leader and Dear Leader for their greatness, but when we're in government, once the project had finished, the signs came down. What is interesting about what this government is doing in a very cynical political ploy is they're demanding that the display signs stay in place until after the next federal election, even if the project finishes next month.

BONGIORNO:

We will come back to that. This is what Julia Gillard had to say. She rejected your complaints about the billboards outside those schools.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER JULIA GILLARD:

(Friday) It's a bit cute by half for the Liberal Party, that has always opposed this economic stimulus, has opposed every building in every primary school, every job that's been supported through economic stimulus, they're opposed to, to now enter into a criticism about this matter given its track record in government. We are just engaging in what has been standard practice.

BONGIORNO:

Well, the Deputy Prime Minister says 'standard practice'. You've released a letter today that you've written to the Electoral Commissioner. What is the main point you've made to him?

PYNE:

We're very concerned that the signs breach the political advertising rule around polling booths. Obviously, governments are not entitled to advertise themselves at a polling booth in the lead-up to an election. We're concerned these sign will breach that rule because they are blatantly and transparently party political and it may well be that those signs need to be removed before the election is called and I would like the Electoral Commissioner to give us a ruling on whether the signs are actually in breach of the political advertising rule at polling booths.

BONGIORNO:

And if they are, what, polling booths would have to be put somewhere else?

PYNE:

Well, if they are, it throws the whole thing into confusion. Either all the primary schools that are used as polling booths will no longer be able to be used as polling booths, so the Government's desire for self-promotion will disenfranchise or cause voters to have to find new polling booths they may be used to for decades or you may have an army of workers removing these signs when the election is called because they're in breach of the rules. Clearly this would be solved if the Government simply allowed the schools to remove those display signs once their projects have finished, which most voters would think was entirely commonsense. Once the project is over, the sign comes down. Julia Gillard is claiming this is standard practice. It was never standard practice in the previous government to force signs to stay up after a project had finished until a federal election was over.

BONGIORNO:

Julia Gillard says you're embarrassed by the fact you opposed the stimulus and you don't want the signs reminding voters in your electorate outside every school. Is that the case?

PYNE:

I think Julia Gillard is more embarrassed about the fact that she's becoming a jack of all trades and master of none. She clearly has too many jobs on and she's not doing any of them well.

BONGIORNO:

Time for a break. When we return with the panel, Malcolm Turnbull gets a lift in the polls, but will it be enough to turn his leadership around? And Kevin Rudd's hospital visits are becoming political candid camera.

WOMAN:

I would like you to do something.

PRIME MINISTER KEVIN RUDD:

OK. I always get worried at these points.

WOMAN:

I would like you to take over the hospital.

KEVIN RUDD:

(LAUGHS) Yes, well, I think you just got yourself onto television.

PAUL BONGIORNO:

You're on 'Meet the Press' with senior Liberal Christopher Pyne and welcome to the panel, Jennifer Hewett, the 'Australian'. Good morning, Jennifer.

THE 'AUSTRALIAN'S JENNIFER HEWETT:

Good morning.

BONGIORNO:

And Malcolm Farr, the 'Daily Telegraph'. Good morning, Mal.

THE 'DAILY TELEGRAPH'S MALCOLM FARR:

Good morning, Paul.

BONGIORNO:

Malcolm Turnbull's approval lifted four points in the Newspoll but it didn't seem to cheer him.

MAN:

First of all, congratulations on the improvement in today's Newspoll.

MALCOLM TURNBULL:

Just remember there's another one in two weeks. (LAUGHTER)

JENNIFER HEWETT:

Christopher, no-one in the Liberal Party, perhaps not even Malcolm Turnbull, seems very confident that this dire situation in the polls will turn around. Do you think there should be some kind of Christmas deadline for the leadership for that situation to improve, to make sure the Liberals are at least viable for the next election?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:

Well, Jennifer, the next election is not for good 12 months from now, so, in fact, what the polls say at the moment is quite frankly pretty irrelevant to the outcome of the next federal election. Malcolm Fraser always used to say - I know it's a very tired line, but it's still true - the only poll that counts is the poll on Election Day. I've seen governments enter elections well ahead when the actual starter gun is fired, but by the time they get to the election, things have tightened up considerably. It would be a sad day if political parties decided their leadership on the basis of Newspolls from one fortnight to the next. I think we're made of much tougher stuff than that.

HEWETT:

Well, of course, there's elections and there's by-elections. The timing of Dr Brendan Nelson's departure is very awkward for the party, to put it mildly. There's been a lot of talk about him being a nice guy, but do you think in choosing his departure now, he's actually guilty of an act of gross disloyalty to the party he once led?

PYNE:

Not at all. Being in politics is not a life sentence. People are entitled to leave it if they choose to do so, and Dr Brendan Nelson has decided to leave. I would simply say that this by-election is in no way a test of anything in politics. By-elections come and go, and if we take the Wentworth by-election in 1995 at the height of Keating's unpopularity when he had just cancelled the L-A-W tax cuts, the Liberal Party managed a 0. 1% swing to it and that was 12 months before John Howard led the party to a massive and crushing victory in March, 1996. So by-elections 12 months out from elections are actually pretty irrelevant. They get exciting to people outside the beltway, but don't mean anything to the outcome of elections.

MALCOLM FARR:

Is your problem, put very simply, the fact that it's nothing to do with leadership, or opposition policy, but the simple fact that voters think Kevin Rudd is doing a good job, better than you could do?

PYNE:

I think, Malcolm, the thing about politics in Australia is that - ""No-one wants to say their own baby is ugly"" is an old saying. The public just chose Kevin Rudd to be Prime Minister only about 18 months ago or almost two years ago. They're not about to turn around and say they made a mistake, so they will cut him a lot of slack for a long time. That makes opposition difficult and the real test of being in opposition is those of us who have the intestinal fortitude to fight it out - to come up with the policy development, to hold the government to account right through to the next election. Certainly the next election is going to be tough. No-one assumes that it's not going to be, but the ingredients are there for us to win it and we have to be united and focussed and I think we will do very well at the election. But opposition is difficult. No-one will wave a magic wand and say, ""Here's all the issues you need to get rid of the government."" The public will need to be convinced that Kevin Rudd needs to be changed and that's what we've got to do at the next election.

BONGIORNO:

On Tuesday morning before he knew that Dr Nelson was about to quit Parliament, Malcolm Turnbull said if Kevin Rudd insists on bringing back his emissions trading bill in November before Copenhagen, the Coalition will negotiate that afternoon. This was Dr Brendan Nelson.

DR BRENDAN NELSON:

(Tuesday) It defies commonsense, let alone violates the best interest of Australia, for us to legislate the most significant change in the economic architecture of this country with a new tax, before we know what the major emitters in the rest of the world are going to do.

MALCOLM FARR:

Now, Mr Pyne, what Dr Nelson said then is official opposition policy. Anything else is a Malcolm Turnbull add-on. Isn't that right? He was enunciating official policy, which is to have a vote on an ETS after Copenhagen?

PYNE:

Look, Malcolm, what we've always said is that we believe that the bill should not be debated before Copenhagen - that we should come back in February, because whatever happens in Copenhagen, that will inform the bill and the Emissions Trading Scheme that is established. So therefore, legislating before Copenhagen makes absolutely no sense.

MALCOLM FARR:

You'd like it in November, then?

PYNE:

But we're the opposition and we don't get to determine the Government's legislative agenda, if only we did, so of course we want it to be debated in February. We said that all along, but if the government brings it back in November - and they're perfectly entitled to do so - they could bring it back next week if they wanted to, by the way...

MALCOLM FARR:

You could block it then, too. You could block it then. You don't have to try to amend it. You could block it until after Copenhagen.

PYNE:

Well, you could do if you wish to, but on the other hand, you could also make sensible amendments and have a rational debate about an Emissions Trading Scheme, which after all, is our policy to have an Emissions Trading Scheme, so we will put amendments, we will negotiate with the government like we did on the renewable energy targets and if we can get an outcome we can support, we will do so. If we can't get an outcome that we can't support then we won't, but that's how politics works and we can't make that decision until we know what the bill looks like and until we know if our amendments are accepted or not.

JENNIFER HEWETT:

And how likely is it, do you think, that you will get an outcome you can accept?

PYNE:

I can't predict that, Jennifer, but I can say I think Kevin Rudd definitely wants to have an Emissions Trading Scheme in place before he goes to Copenhagen. His vanity seems to demand it and therefore I think the Government will be open to negotiate with the Opposition as they should be.

JENNIFER HEWETT:

And are you willing, as Tony Abbott suggested, to forsake your principles just for the pure politics of it?

PYNE:

No-one suggested that. What I've said is that we need to move amendments to negotiate with the Government. If we can get an Emissions Trading Scheme that is acceptable then we will support it. That is actually our policy - to have an Emissions Trading Scheme. Would I prefer the Government to bring it back in February? Yes, I would, and I think the whole Coalition would and that would be the commonsense thing for the Government to do, but they want to have a bill to wave about in Copenhagen and they're the Government - they get to set the agenda.

JENNIFER HEWETT:

The Nationals certainly don't agree with you on that. How viable is it given you have such a fundamental difference on such a fundamental policy to continue on in this type of Coalition on an issue like this?

PYNE:

Well, Jennifer, the National Party and the Liberal party are just that - they are a Coalition. We are two separate parties and therefore we are entitled to have two separate views about particular issues. We've had different views on different issues in the past. If we were one party, we would have merged as one party decades and decades ago. Instead, we've maintained our Coalition. The Nationals are entitled to go their way on particular bills if they wish and, quite frankly, we're entitled to go our way as well. So therefore it won't make any impact at all on the activities of the Coalition, regardless of what they do on the Emissions Trading Scheme. But I would remind them, of course, that an Emissions Trading Scheme was National party policy at the last Federal election as well.

MALCOLM FARR:

Mr Pyne, earlier in the year, Julia Gillard said you're a 'mincing poodle'. Is she liable to reassess that appraisal any time soon, because you've been snapping at her over the last couple of months.

BONGIORNO:

More like an Alsatian I would say!

PYNE:

(LAUGHS) Look, I think Julia Gillard likes to be involved in the politics of attacking the man rather than the ball. I prefer to attack the ball. What I've done over the last 6-12 months is highlight the fact she is a jack of all trades and a master of none. This week we saw a back-flip on the Youth Allowance, we saw a $1.7 billion dollar blow-out in the investing in schools policy, the schools stimulus debacle and we saw her back-pedalling on the award modernisation program. So far she's also, of course, had a $1.4 billion blow-out in computers-in-schools, and trading centres has been a flop of a policy. So I think most people are starting to realise that Julia Gillard is good at debating, she is good at delivery, but she's not actually good at, on the ground, making a policy work and that is where the rubber really hits the road and that is how people get judged.

PAUL BONGIORNO:

OK. We won't put you back in your kennel. Thank you for very much for joining us today, Christopher Pyne.

PYNE:

It's a pleasure, thanks.