Transcript - Meet The Press - 6 June 2010

SUBJECTS: Upcoming Federal Election; BER; RSPT; Border Control Issues

Paul Bongiorno: Hello and welcome to Meet the Press. There's no mistaking the intensity of election year politics in Canberra. Staff at Parliament House have received their flu shots but it seems nothing can inoculate against 'poll fever'. The temperature raised as mining executives descended on the national capital. This year their conference had all the fervour of a revival meeting.

Grab 1: Come what may, we will be heard and we won't be silenced.

Grab 2: You have the Opposition and the mining industry saying that the Government's proposed changes to taxes represent a knife to the throat of the industry. What a load of balderdash! What a load of absolute bunkum!

Bongiorno: On Tuesday, Newspoll showed approval for Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott nose diving, and voters flocking to the Greens.

Grab 3: Don't give me a premature promotion.

Bongiorno: The National Accounts on Wednesday showed the economy still growing thanks to government stimulus spending.

Grab 4: There will be a lot more Australians, there will be a lot more tradies and there will be a lot more small businesses that will either be out of work or out of business.

Bongiorno: That didn't stop the Opposition ramping up its attack on Julia Gillard's schools building program.

Grab 5: Obviously the Member for Sturt does not want his schools to benefit from the more than $93 million that they have had under Building the Education Revolution.

Grab 6: I ask the Prime Minister, will he overrule his minister and do what every commonsense Australian knows needs to be done and stop the reckless spending?

Bongiorno: Manager of Opposition Business, Christopher Pyne is a guest. And later, Labor strategist, Bruce Hawker. But first, what the nation's papers are reporting this Sunday, June 6. The Israeli navy has boarded another aid ship heading for Gaza. The 'Sunday Age' reports unlike the bloody interception of last week that left nine dead, the navy seals met no resistance. The Irish flagged ship with its cargo of humanitarian aid is being escorted to the port of Ashdod. The 'Sunday Telegraph' says asylum boat 133 arrives. Two boats carrying 85 asylum seekers arrived in Australian waters yesterday bringing the total to 133 for the year. One was intercepted just north of Ashmore Reef, the other sought assistance when its engine failed. The 'Sun Herald' says faulty plastic cases for the 60,000 laptops being rolled out for New South Wales schools are being recalled after cracking the computer screens. The manufacturer has promised to cover all costs. The 'Sunday Mail' has Sam's slam run ends. Aussie tennis star Samantha Stosur fell to Italian Francesca Schiavone, 6-4, 7-6. The Italian at 29 becomes the sport's oldest and lowest ranked first-time champion. And welcome to the program Christopher Pyne. Good morning Mr Pyne.

Christopher Pyne: Good morning, Paul. It's good to be with you.

Bongiorno: Let's go to the state of play in politics. Another opinion poll yesterday shows that the Coalition is heading Labor in Queensland. There is no doubt that the Coalition is more than in there with a fighting chance. Isn't it time now that we actually know what you are going to do rather than just hear all the criticism of the Federal Government?

Pyne: The federal election is due in about October, November of this year. There is plenty of time between now and the end of the year, or the election, for the Coalition to roll out its policies and we will be doing that because it is certainly true that we have spent, since December last year, being a very viable Opposition and highlighting the flaws of the Government - the Emissions Trading Scheme, the Pink Batts disaster, the School Hall Rip-off program, the Boat People disaster which is unfolding every day as we've seen this weekend and of course the most recent being the Mining Tax. Between now and election day, we will be talking about what we would do if we were elected and you will see more of that as the months progress.

Bongiorno: Going to your area of education, we saw in that clip before that you are asking or demanding the Prime Minister to freeze the $5 billion still to be allocated for building the education revolution. Are you going to freeze it or are you going to dump it?

Pyne: No, what we've said is that we don't believe it is commonsense for the Government to be spending $5.5 billion from July the 1^st this year when the handpicked investigative task force that the Government has put together is reporting in August. Commonsense would say, why wouldn't they be delaying that spending until after the task force has reported so they can see what the recommendations of the task force are and implement them? We are not planning on cutting the School Hall Program at all. What we have said we will do it is that exactly the same way as the non-government schools have been allocated money, we will allocate the money directly to the Government's schools that's left, it's still $5 billion let's not forget, that's a very large chunk, and we will let them get the value for money using their local architects, their local builders, people on the governing council who want to do things, and they will get the same value for money that non-government schools have got.

Bongiorno: That sounds fairly straightforward but aren't you also promising, isn't the coalition also promising, to freeze public servants and you are highly critical of the state public service? How are you going to deliver that? Are you going to email it directly to schools, the money?

Pyne: In exactly the same way as we ran the Investing In Our Schools Program in the last government where the money went directly to principals and governing councils and we said, you tell us what you would like to build so that your school is getting what you need, we will pay the money directly to schools. We will say, what you want to do with the money? As long as it is reasonable and feasible, we will tick off on that. We will not be using State Government bureaucracies. We have seen with the NSW State Government what that has meant which has been billions of dollars of waste and fees being paid to contractors that aren't legitimate.

Bongiorno: You seem to be promising to be doing more with less. Joe Hockey, the Shadow Treasurer during the week seemed to indicate that as a result, there could be money left over to be put to other purposes beyond schools?

Pyne: Put it this way, Paul, if a school has been allocated $3 million, at the moment they're getting probably about $1.5 million to $2 million of value, which is absolutely outrageous. We have said, if you manage this program and say the program comes in at $2.7 million with money left over, we will come to some arrangement with you about whether you might keep part of that or whether you keep all of it, or give some of it back to the Coalition or to the Government. There might well be some savings but no school won't get what they want in this program whereas under Labor, schools that have been promised classrooms or gymnasiums have ended up with canteens and covered outdoor learning areas at much more expensive prices and not what they wanted in the first place.

Bongiorno: During the week you joined a protest against a New South Wales school canteen that would be built for over $600,000. The minister replied this way.

Grab 7: The NSW cost estimates. So let's be clear, estimates, and you can't pick them up and therefore extrapolate right around the country.

Bongiorno: Isn't it a fact that a lot of the attacks on the cost and cost overruns are in fact estimates from you and the opposition? The Minister there points out that the $600,000 sure, is on the website, but is not necessarily what's going to be paid?

Pyne: Julia Gillard has a honeyed tongue Paul, and has managed to try and pretend in every one of these incidents that somehow it is everybody else's fault but hers. It is the coalition's fault or it's the NSW government's fault or it's the school's fault or the principal's fault, it is never Julia Gillard's fault. Everyone knows Paul, that there has been an enormous rip-off in the School Hall program. Even in estimates recently, the Department said they could not necessarily account for where the $5 billion of spending had received value for money. The Auditor-General said nobody could guarantee that there had been value for money. It's a shame I think...

Bongiorno: A lot of principals were very happy with it. The same Auditor-General found 95% of principals were very happy with what was going on in the program.

Pyne: That was a bit of sophistry because the graph that indicated 90% of principals were included non-government schools and of course they had been very happy because they had been paid money directly and got value for money. If you take the non-government principals out, there is a separate graph, which shows that they are very unhappy - that the Government school principals are very unhappy.

Bongiorno: We'd better go in this break. Coming up, when the panel joins us, the Government accuses the Opposition of being mouthpieces for the big miners. And one big miner, Queensland's Clive Palmer seems to enjoy the attention.

Grab 8: I am the single, most evilest Australian that's ever lived, according to the Prime Minister. I'm responsible for all of the crime, all the underworld, all the bad things. But what we really want to do is save the jobs of all Australians.

Grab 9: I find it, however, passing strange that Clive Palmer could refer to Marx, Engels and Rudd coming from a bloke who by all reports has made most of his millions from Chairman Mao's China.

Bongiorno: You're on Meet the Press with the Liberals' Christopher Pyne and welcome to the panel, Steve Lewis, from News Limited and Stefanie Balogh from the Courier Mail. Good morning Stefanie and Steve. The Opposition is running hard with the miners against the proposed resources super profits tax. Tony Abbott is on a special mission.

Grab 10: As an Australian, I have a stake in saving this industry and that is what I will do as long as there is in breath in my political body.

Grab 11: This Government does not here...does not stand here as the puppet of parts of the mining industry as those opposite do. This Government stands here to act in the national interest on behalf of all Australians.

Stefanie Balogh: Mr Pyne, is it a bad look for the Coalition that there is not daylight between you and the miners? Are you open to accusations that you are doing their bidding?

Pyne: Stefanie, the Coalition is not in the least bit embarrassed to be standing up for the mining industry, not in the least bit embarrassed. Every Australian knows that in the same way as in the '50s and '60s this country road on the back of the sheep, we now know that we ride on the back of the mining industry. There is no reason at all why the Coalition should not stand up for what we know is right, which is a strong mining industry and not the most heavily taxed mining industry, which is what it would be if the Government is re-elected at the end of the year. The only way to stop the mining tax from wrecking the future standard of living of ourselves and our children is to change the government at the end of the year.

Balogh: You've just raised the issue of embarrassment there. There seems to be have been internal coalition discussion about Clive Palmer's role in this. Should he gag himself? Is he helpful to your cause?

Pyne: What Clive Palmer says or doesn't say is really a matter for him. The last time I looked we are still a free country.

Balogh: He is a donor to the Coalition.

Pyne: He is a donor to many different charities and political parties and organisations and football clubs and rugby organisations and so forth. This isn't about Clive Palmer, Stefanie. I could just have easily have countered by saying, David Murray, the Chairman of the Future Fund, has an exactly the same as Clive Palmer and Rod Eddington, the businessman of choice of Kevin Rudd before the last election has also said the same thing as Clive Palmer. The obsession with talking about Clive Palmer with the Labor Party is simply spin, and it is very unattractive to pick on one individual Australian. What the Coalition is doing is standing up for the mining industry, standing up for a good standard of living for ourselves and our children and future generations which will be ruined if the Labor Party gets its way and imposes this tax on the mining industry. We will continue to stand up for it.

Steve Lewis: Mr Pyne, you are attacking the government for imposing a new tax in the mining sector, but Tony Abbott is planning the same tactic in terms of paid parental leave, a 1.7% tax on business. Isn't the Coalition just being hypocritical?

Pyne: The difference between us and Labor, Steve, is that the Government is proposing an enormous new tax, 40% super profits tax on all the mining industry into the future and retrospectively. What we are saying is we want 3,000 of the largest corporations in Australia out of 700,000 corporations, just 3,000, to pay 1.75% levy on their company tax in order to be able to fund paid parental leave for all workers, whether they're in small business, medium-sized business or big business. There is a massive difference. Equating the two is not the same. Kevin Rudd is the one that is slip-sliding around on this mining tax issue and if they were so confident about their position on the mining tax, why did they hide Kevin Rudd five times this week in Question Time and avoid him being called to account to give a speech about this on five different occasions.

Lewis: The same could be made about you in terms of the Shadow Treasurer not being available to answer that National accounts, but let's move on Mr Pyne. The polls are showing that the Coalition are very competitive, we saw that with yesterday's Galaxy poll in Queensland and yet the support, the approval of Tony Abbott continues to slide. You are well known Malcolm Turnbull supporter. How concerned are you that your leader is going south in the polls?

Pyne: I'm a well-known Liberal Party supporter. I support the leader, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Brendan Nelson and I will support leaders into the future if I continue to remain in parliament into the future. Tony Abbott is doing a great job. The Greens are the recipients of a period of transition at the moment between people who are very disappointed with the Labor Party but haven't yet decided to support the Coalition. That is perfectly understandable. There are a large body of people who are parking their vote with the Greens because they are deeply disappointed with the Prime Minister, particularly and quite personally disappointed with him because of the promises he made to them before the last election which he has quite blithely broken throughout this term, culminating in the shelving of the greatest moral challenge of all time, being the Emissions Trading Scheme. We will see what will happen with the mining tax. Will he back down on that, will he stick to his guns? Either way, he's either going to destroy the budget or destroy the mining industry. It's a very difficult choice for him to have to make.

Bongiorno: During the week, Liberal veteran Petro Georgiou gave his farewell speech. The courage of his convictions cost the retiring Liberal any chance of a ministry in the Howard government, and as he said goodbye he contradicted the current leader's boat people pitch.

Grab 12: I do not believe we have lost control of our borders. I do not believe that people smugglers determine who comes into Australia and who doesn't.

Lewis: Mr Pyne, do you agree with Petro Georgiou that we have not lost control of our borders?

Pyne: I think it is transparently obvious that the current Government has lost control of our borders and our border protection policy since August 2008 have led to well over 6,000 people coming here in an unauthorised way. In the last two days, we have seen four more boats arrive. That doesn't mean that I don't enormously Petro Georgiou and regard him as a very close, personal friend. I do. The last time I looked at the Liberal Party, we were the party that celebrated a diversity of opinion and Petro has been a great example of that. I think he is a terrific guy. I am very sorry he is leaving Parliament and I respect his right to have a different view.

Balogh: Mr Pyne, he is leaving and with that is a voice of criticism of some of the policies on boat people. Returning to the Pacific solution, are you playing the race card on this issue?

Pyne: No Stefanie, what we're doing is retelling and reconnecting with the Australian public that if they elect a coalition government at the end of the year, we will return to the kinds of policies which stopped the boats coming in an unauthorised way. Let me add, there is nothing compassionate about a policy that encourages young people and their families and their children to make perilous journeys across rough waters and dangerous waters to get to Australia. What the Rudd Government has done is put the sugar back on the table so that people smugglers have a product to sell. That has led to dangerous journeys and loss of life. There's nothing compassionate about it.

Bongiorno: Thank you very much for being with us today, Christopher Pyne.

Pyne: Thanks, Paul.

Ends