Transcript - Two Chrisses ABC 891 - 11 May 2009

(Lengthy discussion with Chris Schacht about his fear of the taxi drivers in Riyadh, where Schacht is calling from because he is at a Volleyball tournament.)

Journalist

Good morning Christopher Pyne

Hon Christopher Pyne MP

Good morning gentlemen, and let's hope that C1 (Schacht) gets back safely. We wouldn't want to be without him for the Two Chrisses.

Journalist

It would be very difficult

Journalist

Although there'd be some people in the Labor Party who'd be, you know...

Pyne

More people in the Labor Party than anywhere else actually!

Journalist

Now Christopher Pyne, it's an important week, because it's Budget Week. We were talking to Jenny Macklin before nine o'clock this morning about paid parental leave. Are you a supporter of paid parental leave?

Pyne

Well it's a very interesting week, David. And it's a very crucial week for both the Opposition and the Government. The Government is attempting a triple pike with somersault over paid parental leave. They know that their base want paid parental leave, and they're promising something off into the never-never. So it sounds like a shiny new toy for the electorate, but in fact it won't be delivered for some years into the future, and that requires another election to be held. And quite frankly anybody who puts their trust in Labor to deliver paid parental leave, into 2011-12 could also believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden.

It would be nice to think that they could achieve all these things but it's a very strange Government line at the moment.

On the one hand since December they've been spending money like Paris Hilton, and now they're saying that they have to be like Miser Meanie from Adventure Island and they haven't got any money to spend. Well of course they haven't got any money to spend. The public knows they spent it all in December and February. The public knows they have a tremendous deficit, a huge debt, and now they're trying to pretend that somehow they're being fiscally conservative. But the horse has well and truly bolted on that, and it's a very interesting line they're trying to get up.

(Discussion with Chris Schacht about maternity leave, broken promises and debt. Schacht points out that Australia still has one of the lowest levels of public debt to GDP in the world.)

Journalist

Chris Pyne do you agree though we are in extraordinary times? I mean it would be interesting to reflect, how would the Howard Government keep the Budget in surplus? I mean would you look at cutting programs, and if so, which ones?

Pyne

The truth is that we are always in challenging times in the Federal arena because the Federal Government is such an enormous aspect to the Australian economy, and the public can look at the record of the Howard Government, and we are not embarrassed at all if they compare it to the last eighteen months under Wayne Swan and Kevin Rudd. Because we can say with certainty that under the Howard Government, even though they experienced challenges like the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, drought and bad times in terms of the land, and other challenges like the credit squeezes and so forth, we ended that period with a $23 billion budget surplus; we had established the Future Fund and saved net $45 billion and paid off $96 billion of Government debt. So the public know that under the Howard Government, the reins of the economy were well in hand.

Now in the last eighteen months the Rudd and Swan Government has variously been fighting inflation early last year, constricting the economy, encouraging interest rates to be put up; months later splashing money around in cash splashes in December and February to try and stimulate the economy; and in a matter of weeks saying that there's no money in the Budget and everyone's going to have to tighten their belts. So the one thing we can say for certain is the Government has a different line on different days for different reasons, and they're not giving anybody any confidence that they actually know how to get us out of this mess.

The difference with Howard and Costello, and the difference with Malcolm Turnbull and Joe Hockey, is that I think people do believe that the previous Government and the current Opposition Leadership would be making a better fist at keeping the country in surplus, keeping the deficit small, and keeping us out of debt.

C1 (Schacht) is comparing us to all these countries overseas: well Australia finished the Howard era being described as the miracle economy of the world in the New York Times. And now suddenly as long as we're doing slightly better than all of our competitors - if you can say we are - then suddenly it's okay. But don't forget we were coming off a much better base than the Labor Party.

(Traffic discussion and station break.)

(Introduction to discussion of "Dodgygate", including different names for it)

Journalist

Chris Pyne you were saying that this is all really just a storm in a teacup, and not on the main frame. Interesting to see today John Hill, responding to the Liberals, who have tried to get an attack up about elective surgery rates in South Australia, and his headline is "Liberals wrong again on health. Just a week after Liberal Leader's forged documents debacle the Opposition has once again published completely incorrect and misleading claims, this time about elective surgery rates. Health Minister John Hill has had to correct the Liberal Leader and Deputy Leader's dodgy interpretation of figures." Is this the problem now, that is going to dog Mr Hamilton Smith and his team any time they attempt to get anything up on the public agenda?

Pyne

I think the public can well and truly see through Labor spin on this kind of rubbish. Now the reality is Labor doesn't want - John Hill, Mike Rann, Pat Conlon, Kevin Foley, Tom Koutsantonis - they don't want a proper appraisal of their performance. They don't want to be held accountable by the opposition. And so they're going to try to flick the switch to vaudeville rather than dealing with substantive issues. But the South Australian public are not interested in spin and froth and bubble: they're interested in substance. And they know that Labor is going to try and pretend that the Opposition gets everything wrong because of the issue with those documents a few weeks ago. But it will fade and it's irrelevant.

The truth is that - when I was out to dinner at an industry dinner on Friday night, a person raised this issue. Everybody else at the table wanted to talk about Tom Koutsantonis' driving record, and the fact that Mike Rann appointed him as the Road Safety Minister, and what that meant about Mike Rann's judgement. The assessment made by people was that Mike Rann didn't have control of his Government, and that what the factional bosses ordered, went. And that's why Tom Koutsantonis is still there as the Minister.

Journalist

And you're saying that's what everyone wanted to talk about?

Pyne

At the table I was at, this matter was raised, about these documents, by one person. Everybody else just brushed it aside and said nobody's the least bit interested. They wanted to talk about road safety - the fact that the Premier was accusing Martin Hamilton-Smith of having poor judgement, when what sort of judgement was it to appoint Tom Koutsantonis as the Minister for Road Safety, when he apparently had 60 traffic infringements, and that was the major issue. When I was out doorknocking in Dernancourt, when I've been supermarketing at Hope Valley, nobody is raising this issue.

(Chris Schacht disagrees. Discussion about donations.)

Pyne

To be absolutely frank, this is a very interesting issue for people inside politics, inside the South Australian Press Gallery, and the State Parliament, and I think it's a sad indictment on the fact that the Government wants to talk about this in order to keep the South Australian public's minds off their failures in terms of the health system, their failures in education, their failure to deliver a stadium for South Australia to be in the front ranks of sporting fixtures around the world, the fact that the Murray Darling Basin on our side of the border is still not secured in terms of water for South Australia, this desal plant took years to even begin, and only because of pressure from the Opposition. Land Tax is out of control, and causing tremendous trouble throughout my electorate, in the Eastern and North-Eastern suburbs.

These are the issues that people care about. They care about securing the economic base of the state, and they're wondering what happened during the seven Rip van Winkle years that have been the Rann Government.

(Talkback callers - Trevor asks what the Liberal solutions are. John asks if a tough Budget will undo the work of cash handouts. Schacht says it is reasonable to be tough on high income earners and get rid of 'middle class welfare'.)

Pyne

Well John from Golden Grove hit the nail on the head. Only a few weeks ago the Government was handing out $23 billion in cash splashes to people across the spectrum, because they said we had to spend, spend, spend in order to keep the economy going. Now, tomorrow apparently, we have to have a belt-tightening Budget because 1) there isn't any money, and 2) apparently the circumstances have obviously changed entirely in a matter of weeks, have they? This is the problem that the Government has. They are fighting inflation one month, pushing up interest rates the next, lowering interest rates later on, spending billions and billions of dollars of taxpayers' money, going into debt, and then turning around and saying all this was wrong! This was all a terrible mistake! Because we know we can never get that money back now. That money is gone forever. And Australians are not stupid. If they have a problem in their household because they've got too much debt, they don't get themselves out of it by spending a whole lot more money. And the public are scratching their heads wondering why they now have to have pain, when the Labor Party was left with a Budget surplus and no debt.

In eighteen short months they now have a massive deficit, an enormous debt, and still have to have a belt-tightening Budget. The Government has no idea what it's doing, and I think its starting to dawn on people.

(Talkback - Craig appreciated Christopher Pyne's article about hoon driving. Now thinks Rann is out of touch after voting for him last time.)

Pyne

Well I appreciate Craig's remarks about my column in the Sunday Mail yesterday. I wrote a column about hoon driving and explained briefly my own experience with hoon drivers. But I did make the point that it's just not good enough to say that we're going to crush hoon drivers' cars and that's apparently it. I mean that's just spin over substance from the State Government. What if the car isn't owned by the hoon driver in the first place? What if it's a stolen car? A better solution would be to build an off-street circuit for those people to be supervised and have a proper circuit for teenagers and others who want to drive fast with helmets and with older people mentoring them so we can actually avoid this terrible blight that's on our streets at the moment.