Transcript - Two Chrisses - ABC 891 - 28 June 2010

SUBJECTS: Political assassination of Rudd; mining tax

Matthew Abraham: Christopher Pyne is in our studios. Good morning to you, C2.

Christopher Pyne: Good morning, Matthew and welcome home.

Abraham: Thank you; Federal MP for Sturt, Shadow Minister for Education and Manager of Opposition Business in the House, Christopher Pyne. And C1, Chris Schacht, former Labor Senator, former ALP State Secretary, good morning to you Chris Schacht.

Chris Schacht: Good morning. Good morning everyone, good morning C2 and as you say, a week is certainly a long time in politics.

Abraham: Yes, and Chris Schacht, where are you by the way?

Schacht: I'm in Sydney Airport. I just got back overnight from a week in China, and I have to say when the news got to some of our Chinese friends that there'd been a change of the Prime Ministership, they all looked a bit awkward and stunned because that's not the way the Communist Party in China operates, let me assure you.

Abraham: What, they're more gentile than the right faction in the Labor Party?

Schacht: (inaudible) nothing like what the Liberal or the Labor Party do in our democracy, and I'm very glad of that.

Abraham: Well, some may say that the leadership of the Labor Party was decided by faceless people and some MPs didn't even know what was going on.

Schacht: No, but I....

Pyne: The Cabinet didn't know what was going on.

Schacht: The only reason the so called "factional leaders" could be involved in the change of the leadership is if they had had so many comments from their own backbench and other colleagues that they were very unhappy or disturbed or disquieted about the performance of the Prime Minister. Factional leaders cannot force a change in a ballot unless the broad section of the caucus of the parliamentary Labor Party wants to go along with it.

Abraham: Chris Pyne, would you be worried now though; because - well it's always good to knock off one leader because it's a scalp on Tony Abbott's belt, knocking off the man who was the most popular - because you pose a threat to them? But we're now seeing in the latest Newspoll Labor's primary vote doing exactly what they wanted, that it's now up to 42 per cent. So, those people who parked their vote with the Greens and may have been flirting voting for Tony Abbott are back with Julia Gillard.

Pyne: Well, I think both of your points are very good ones, but the first point is significant and that is that last December the Coalition was facing a complete wipe-out in the election if it had been held then, and seven months later thanks to the Opposition being extremely effective and highlighting the waste and mismanagement, the failures that boat policy has caused, school hall programs, pink batts etc, the dumping of the emissions trading scheme and the mining tax, the Prime Minister has been assassinated by his own factional bosses and union leaders. That's actually an enormous achievement from the Opposition's point of view in showing how bad the Government was. In terms of the Newspoll, it would have been extraordinarily surprising if there wasn't a honeymoon for Ms Gillard. That was the whole reason why the Government changed the leadership. They haven't changed the policy, they haven't changed the Government, they've just changed the saleswoman in this case. The product remains the same. They were looking for a leap in the polls. If they hadn't had a leap in the poll I think they would have been absolutely crestfallen. A honeymoon is a honeymoon; no doubt Ms Gillard will capitalise on it by calling an early election. And this is all part of the trick. Changing to Ms Gillard is part of the trick.

Abraham: (inaudible)

Pyne: No, but I think the Australian public are smarter than that. I think when an election is called, they will sensibly consider which party has been responsible for the pink batts disaster, the school hall rip-off program, the three boats arriving a week with asylum seekers, the junking of the emissions trading scheme and the great big mining tax, and I think they'll make a much more considered assessment than simply the basis of changing the salesperson.

Abraham: Chris Schacht, you would beg to differ I'm sure?

Schacht: Well, I think I would have expected there to be a boost in these polls. In that sense I don't disagree that much with C2. That was what the change was all about; was to get the Labor primary vote back up to the 40 per cent range, which means if the Labor Party can maintain that will comfortably win the next election, and all the marginal seat holders will hold their seats. I notice, that even from afar as China, reading on the internet that Mr Abbott said this is all about factional control. One of the most extraordinary things about the change in leadership in terms of Labor history is that the leaders of the right wing faction on behalf of their own members, and they're the biggest group in the caucus, had to beg a member of the left to become leader.

Abraham: They didn't have to beg that hard.

Pyne: (inaudible)

Schacht: Hang on, that's the point I'm making. It is extraordinary in one sense that the leaders of the biggest faction, the right wing faction, had to go and had to find, and you might say that about talent, C2, had to go and continue to pressure, and for a long time she refused. Until last week it blew up and she decided to, for most of those reasons given in stories in the press over the last three days, she decided to go and do it and won unopposed in the end. But it is in my view an interesting development in the history of the Labor Party that the biggest faction, the right win faction had to go and plead with a member of the left wing faction to become leader of the Labor Party. She is now in a very strong position that, "I don't owe you"......

Abraham: But that's what Kevin Rudd said too. Kevin Rudd said, "This is a - we are breaking away from this system." And he was in a strong position.

Schacht: Yeah, but his position was undermined....

Pyne: He said he wasn't going to be beholden to the factional leaders, and he wasn't. And he paid the price.

Schacht: Hang on, let me finish. The reason he lost wasn't through factional leaders. They were representing, obviously, a strong view across all factions that people wanted a change. Otherwise it wouldn't have occurred.

Abraham: Christopher Pyne?

Pyne: The most chilling interview I watched, and the one I think that's been commented on most by members of the public was Paul Howes on Lateline on Wednesday night.

Abraham: I saw that.

Pyne: When he said with absolutely no sense of embarrassment that the Australian Workers Union Executive had a phone hook-up that day, just a phone hook-up and decided they were withdrawing their support. And that was the end. The Prime Minister was deposed by the union bosses who run the Labor Party and there's no from it. And all those people I've worked with over the last 12, 15 to 17 years; those Labor leaders like Anthony Albanese and Lindsay Tanner and Stephen Smith were all basically impotent. They all swagger around Canberra saying they call the shots, but at the end of the day what happened was the union bosses simply said to the people they put into parliament, "We'd withdrawing our support boys and girls. It's all over red rover."

Schacht: Well, even if those only reliant on the AWU had said they'd follow that instruction....

Pyne: (inaudible)

Schacht: They did not have a majority. I keep saying the only reason this occurred is that a broad cross section of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party members have got to the position that they didn't want to have....

Pyne: C1, I was there.

Schacht: That they didn't want to have Rudd as Prime Minister.

Pyne: C1, I can tell you without any embarrassment.....

Schacht: But you're a Liberal MP, what do you mean?

Pyne: I tell you what, they were so shocked. They were all talking to everyone they could lay their hands on, on Wednesday night and Thursday. And the Cabinet Ministers, the Cabinet Ministers I spoke to, who I know quite well having worked with them for a long time....

Schacht: (inaudible)

Abraham: Let's hear this.

Pyne: I'm Manager of Opposition Business; I deal with them a lot. They were utterly and totally taken by surprise. The decision was not in the cabinet's hands. They....

Abraham: They weren't unopposed to it?

Pyne: They were finding out - yes many of them were completely opposed to it - they were finding out about it on the ABC Television News. That's how much this (inaudible) is controlled by the faceless factional bosses of the Australian Workers Union, of the Health Services Union, the Electrical Trades Union and others. Not by the elected members of Parliament. And quite frankly, we can dissect this as a political competition, but I actually think it was a very dark day for democracy; that the Prime Minister elected by the people.....

Abraham: You must be really worried about Julia Gillard then?

Pyne: No, this hasn't happened in 110 years of our federation before. I mean, this is not an insignificant thing. A Prime Minister in his first term....

Schacht: What did you lot do last December?

Pyne: We are not in Government, Schachty and you know there's a huge difference. You had three Leaders of the Opposition before 2007. We've had three this Parliament. Leaders of the Opposition, quite frankly, they come and go. A Prime Minister in his first term, to be put to death in his first term has never happened in 110 years.

Schacht: You, Chris Pyne, you and your faction did everything to try and get rid of John Howard before the last federal election.

Pyne: He was there for 11 and a half years.

Schacht: And you failed.

Pyne: He was there for 11 and a half years.

Schacht: And you failed and you all went down to ignominious defeat as a result.

Abraham: Let's go to John from Victor Harbor. Hello John. Welcome to 891 mornings.

Caller 1: Good morning. I would like to ask why we don't have fixed terms, a four year fixed term government in the federal in the federal government. I think personally that would be a lot better.

Abraham: We have it here in South Australia. Do we have better government.....

Schacht: A maximum of three years and within certain - broad rules - the Prime Minister can go to Governor General and call an election at any time but to stop that you have to have a referendum to change the constitution

And should you - I suppose is John's view....

Schacht: I'm not overly enthusiastic about locking in an absolute four year time.

Pyne: I don't - I agree with C1 I think that a four year time fixed has not been beneficial to our democracy - to SA - I think we're seeing with the state Labor government in this state - well there's not an election until March 2014 we can basically behave like, you know, a Boss Hogg and The Dukes of Hazzard between now and when we have to face an election. We have a very, very long election campaign... don't you remember The Dukes of Hazzard, Matthew?

Abraham: But I mean you've switched from Shakespeare...

Pyne: inaudible

Abraham: You've been quoting Shakespeare and the other guy?

Pyne: The Dukes of Hazzard...

Abraham: And now we're...

Pyne: Well I'm eclectic... I have a great gasp of many different media...

Abraham: Well next you'll be quoting Ghana... I Dream of Jeanie...

Pyne: Well that was a great television program as well...

(inaudible)

Pyne: Well what we're seeing is a very long election campaign which for twelve months run before March of each four year cycle - nothing happens in that twelve months - but for the other years we see the way that the Deputy Premier and now the Attorney General and Premier behave because they think well we're not accountable to anybody. In NSW they have fixed four year terms, and they'd be desperate to have an election there to get rid of that dreadful Labor Government. But I think that flexibility is important.

Schacht: Can I just say that even if we didn't have four year fixed terms - back to the old three year terms - does he believe that the NSW Labor Government or an unpopular Liberal Government would say 'Oh Gee we're very unpopular we'll go call an election early and kick us out early'. Of course neither Labor nor Liberal would have done that if they have a ... inaudible

Pyne: Morris Iemma said on the weekend and last Friday that what had happened is the way the NSW Labor Party treats their leaders have come to Canberra. It's all about patronage. It's all about power. It's all about influence. It's not about the people. And if Morris Iemma would have known it would have happened to him he might have called an election and let the people decide.

Abraham: Chris Schacht going back to you, well if Kevin Rudd really had his radar up, you know this is a theoretical question so I'm just interested to hear your view on it, but if he'd really had his radar up, he could have called an election before these factional bosses got rolled? So let's say he called an election two weeks ago... inaudible

Schacht: He certainly could have.

Abraham: He could have been prime minister but weakened after the election

Schacht: you raise a very good point is that the weakness that Kevin Rudd had was that he wasn't really in tune with the feeling across a broad section of the federal parliamentary Labor party. And if he had been he may have well called an early election and taken action much earlier to realise that there was a lot of disquiet. But in the end that disquiet would lead him to be defeated as leader. And that I think in political terms of you know, Bob Hawke or Paul Keating... Gough Whitlam... they all had a radar of their own - they didn't rely on their staffers - they talked to people often people didn't like to hear what people said but they consulted - they listened and so on. That is possibly the main weakness of Kevin's position. He didn't see it coming because he wasn't in tune with what his own parliamentary Labor party were commenting about.

Abraham: Okay stay with us C1 and C2. We talk to them because they both are and have been players in the system and also know a lot about these sorts of things - what keeps somebody in office and what doesn't. In just a moment Norbert from Bugle Ranges has been waiting patiently and we're going to come to him he wants to talk about the mining super profits tax. It's twenty two past ten.

Station Break

Abraham: Norbert from Bugle Ranges waiting patiently. G'day Norbert.

Caller Norbert: Good morning gentlemen. Thank you for having me on. Now, my question here is why is there this insane haste and frenzy to rip and mingle each other to the ground as fast as possible in record-breaking time and would it not be a fact that future generations would may well be grateful if we left some in the ground... and soil and connect it to that ... and the events in the last few days where we have a Prime Minister effectively politically assassinated... What sort of state is our democracy in? Is it not effectively bleak business - that is the background power?

Abraham: Norbert, thank you. Chris Schacht, well you're on the board of a mining company Chris Schacht?

Schacht: Yes and I just came back from China and I have to say in global economic terms I don't think any country can sit and say we're not going to allow - we have the great fortune to have a range of good fortune like iron ore, coal or gas or oil or aluminium or uranium or whatever, if the worst of the world needs it for improving their living standards - it is very difficult for any country to sit out and say no, we're not going to let them dig it out because in 100 years it will be worth more - you cannot in the modern global economy - if we said to china or India or the 3^rd world developing economies - no no you can't have - you've got no iron ore or coal but you can't have ours to increase the living standards of their own people then you really will have a very tense international world.

Abraham: Interesting. Chris Pyne?

Pyne: Well I think Norbert raises a very good point regarding the assassination of the prime minister. I think Paul Kelly in the Australian wrote a very good piece on the weekend what the Labor party had finally done at a national...

Abraham: No no, well Norbert's point was about the mining...

Pyne: Mining tax...his second point was about the state of our democracy ... I'll come to the mining tax second.

Abraham: Okay.

Pyne: And I'll deal with the assassination after...

Abraham: Yeah, alright.

Pyne: Paul Kelly pointed out that basically the way the Labor party operates which is a sech pool of personal influence and family relationships and money... donations and closeness to developers in NSW and therefore the job of the premier is to get those people into government. The whole thing is predicated on government being able to give patronage to people. At the national level that is what has now happened at the national level. Therefore the NSW Right attitude has come to Canberra. That is why Mark Arbib, David Feeney, and Don Farrell's era and the factional bosses have become infected with the NSW disease. In terms of mining, well with the mining industry, it's 50% on our export income...

Abraham: Or they just changed leaders because they wanted to win the election... and let's just deal with Norbert's question...

Pyne: inaudible

Abraham: No, no because I know what you're going to do here. You'll successfully not talk about the mining tax ...

Pyne: I want to talk about the mining tax.

Abraham: Well Norbert is saying why don't we leave it in the ground?

Pyne: Well I'm going to say why we shouldn't leave it in the ground. We shouldn't leave it in the ground because the mining industry is 50% of our export income and the mining industry gives Australia the standards of living that we have now become to expect. It has given us the revenue that helped the previous government to pay Labor's debt and go into surplus and so meant that we could weather the Global Financial Crisis better than anybody else because we started in a better position effectively with a household without a mortgage with cash in the bank with no debt, no credit card debt, better than the household next door with a mortgage, credit card debt and no cash in the bank .That's how we should look at it. That's why Australia weathered the Global Financial Crisis. There are almost an infinite amount of minerals in the ground in Australia. Taking them, they're not going to suddenly disappear in fifty years or a hundred years - they predicate our economy and our standard of living and we ask this generation - but this generation we're in is not about leaving - the next generation poorer off than we have been.

Abraham: Okay. Costa from the Recycling Truck. I'm with Two Chrisses - C1 and C2 - twenty seven past ten on 891 mornings. Hello Costa.

Costa: Good morning gentleman and Chris as well.

(laughter)

Abraham: They're both Chris's but anyway...

Costa: (inaudible) To give you some of your own euphemisms back... who were the successful and inbred of backstabbing (inaudible) that backstabbed Malcolm Turnbull rather than allow him to honour an agreement brokered by him Ian MacFarlane and Penny Wong and putting Tony Abbott in, in lieu of the ETS?

Abraham: Pretty good question Costa.

Schacht: Couldn't have said it better myself.

Abraham: Chris Schacht you're saying you couldn't have said it better yourself? But in terms of the bastardy, patronage, back room deals, backstabbing...

Schacht: Have a look at the mess of the Liberal Party at the last state election. They had three deputy leaders in South Australia in a week because they're all killing each other ... factional disputes have been going on for forty years...

Abraham: Well Costa's question ... (inaudible) well we do appreciate you helping out...

Pyne: Well C1 would like everyone to believe that a defeat of a leader of the opposition is the same as a Prime Minister. Now, I think that most people in the public that that is probably untrue because opposition leaders are not democratically elected by the Australian people.

Abraham: By neither is the Prime Minister!

Pyne: Yes, he was.

Abraham: No, no, no - this is one of the great frauds of the...

Pyne: For all intensive purposes, at the last election, the people voted between John Howard and Kevin Rudd. They voted for their local candidate, that's true, and a parliamentary party. But let's not pretend...

Abraham: We did not elect our leader here.

Pyne: You don't think that this is the presidential style elections in Australia?

(inaudible)

Abraham: If it was, you see this is one of the great ... I thought, one of the great jarring moments from Kevin Rudd, you know, the press conference he gave before he got rolled and that was if I got elected leader by the Australian people. No, you got elected as a local member ...

Pyne: (inaudible)

Abraham: No, he wasn't even elected the leader of the Labor Party...

Pyne: The parliamentary party, he was.

Abraham: Not by the people...

Pyne: Not by the people.

Abraham: The people elect their local MPs... he wasn't elected Prime Minister by the people Christopher Pyne.

Pyne: So we don't have presidential style elections ...

Abraham: Christopher Pyne how can ...

Pyne: Since when did we stop having presidential style elections?

Abraham: Well Chris Pyne can you tell me, did you get a vote? For Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister?

Pyne: No. But let me say this to you...

Abraham: Can anybody in South Australia in the last state election...call us in... did anybody of you vote... (inaudible)

Pyne: Well this is obviously your view but most people at the last state election assumed it was between Mike Rann and Isobel Redmond...

Abraham: I know that but it's run...

Pyne: I'm talking about the effect of the ballot...

Abraham: But it is wrong to say that the people elect the Prime Minister. It is wrong.

Pyne: Okay, put it that way. Technically you're correct.

Abraham: Thank you.

Pyne: Because the parliamentary party chooses the leader in the largest parliamentary party... but I think most people know out there that the posters on the Sturt phone booths are the posters of Kevin Rudd on November 26, 2007 - not posters of, you know, everybody else. They were Kevin Rudd's posters.

(inaudible)

Schacht: Chris Pyne I had a look at a ballot paper - the formal ballot paper -

Pyne: Kevin Rudd on the 'How To Vote' card...

Schacht: And on the ballot paper - people could not vote for Kevin Rudd or John Howard.

Pyne: And I'll tell you something else - all the posters of my previous opponent had a photograph of Mia Handshin and Kevin Rudd!

Abraham: Chris Schacht?

Schacht: Chris Pyne, just remember that if you want a system whereby people directly vote for the leader of a country - like the president or Prime Minister - put up a proposal as a referendum to the people to change our system from what is the Westminster derivative whereby you vote for your individual Member of Parliament. And those Members - if 51% of them get together to form a party they then select the person to be the Prime Minister. That's our Westminster system. (inaudible) In the Liberal party ... you've changed and sacked Prime Ministers. You sacked John Gorton and put Billy McMahon in ... after Gorton got elected in 1969 you changed and put Billy McMahon in.

Pyne: No, sorry - wrong.

Abraham: Hang on, hang on.

Schacht: You have a ballot...

Abraham: Gentlemen. Calm down.

Pyne: Gorton's second term... you're factually wrong.

Abraham: Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen. Calm down.

Pyne: Well he's not telling the truth.

Schacht: You were still in diapers in 1969.

Abraham: Chris Schacht thank you and Chris Pyne - I think we'll agree to disagree.

Pyne: Well there's a factual error. C1's trying to pretend that John Gorton was defeated in his first term. He wasn't. He was defeated in his second term. Kevin Rudd's been defeated in his first term. Obviously C1's commitment is that he's not going to put Julia Gillard posters on all the polling booths in Sturt at the next election.

(inaudible)

Abraham: I don't want to start a fight.

Schacht: John Gorton had been elected - been appointed -elected by the parliamentary Liberal party to be Prime Minister after Harold Holt drowned. He then won one election and then you chopped him down with Billy McMahon.

Pyne: If that's true, why did they change leader?

Abraham: Now Chris Schacht, I think you two need to continue this over a mobile phone conversation because we are in a bit of a loop but thank you C1 former Labor senator and ALP state secretary...

Schacht: See you in the studio next week to have this out with him.

Abraham: With your speedos and boxing gloves?

Pyne: Take a valium. Go to bed.

Abraham: Chris Pyne. Duke of Hazzard - thank you. Glad you're up at least in the current century or the previous century. Chris Pyne, Liberal MP and Shadow Minister for Education and Manager of Opposition Business in the House.

Ends.