Transcript - Two Chrisses - ABC 891 - 31 May 2010

SUBJECTS: Federal Adelaide Campaign; Adelaide Oval Redevelopment; Government Advertising

David Bevan: On the issue of religion and the Liberal Party, we have a Muslim man going for pre-selection for the Seat of Adelaide for the Liberal Party. Christopher Pyne, what can you tell us?

Christopher Pyne: Well, you're talking about a man called Houssam Abiad. Houssam is pretty well known in the Adelaide business community in particular and particularly the young business community. He was part of the Governor's leadership forum a few years ago and he's run a successful business called Digimob. And it's terrific that he's offered himself for pre-selection for the Federal Seat of Adelaide. He is a Muslim, but whether he was a Muslim or a Hindu or a Catholic is neither here nor there. As a candidate he is a person of substance and ability, but that's a matter for the Adelaide pre-selection college....

Bevan: Ideally that should be the case, but he is a Muslim and he is standing for pre-selection in an important seat; they're all important in Federal elections. But, just yesterday on ABC Radio there was a big debate about banning various kinds of dress in Europe; aimed at the Muslim community. Your Liberal colleague, Cory Bernardi has got a lot of publicity in the last few weeks with his call to ban the Burqa. These are issues which directly touch on the Muslim community. So it's not neither here nor there is it?

Pyne: It's certainly an interesting aspect to his candidacy. I think that's the best way you can put it. I don't think Houssam should be chosen or rejected - and I'm sure you're not suggesting that - on the basis of his religious persuasion.

Bevan: Not at all, it's a really interesting candidacy.

Matthew Abraham: And Alexander Downer in the Australian; David Mason's story, has backed him. "'He's young, yet has a wealth of practical business experience, a high level of education and academic behind him,' Mr. Downer said, "'Houssam has also been recognised for his hard work and ability by a number of credible and reputable organisations. He has far more experience and energy than the Labor member,' who is, as we know Kate Ellis

Chris Schacht: Good old Alex. Of course he'd say that wouldn't he; that Kate Ellis has no experience; happens to be a minister, elected twice, got a pretty good track record already. However what I'm interested in is that Alexander Downer has always been identified with the conservative faction of the Liberal Party. He's endorsing him. Chris Pyne's speaking very glowingly of this candidate, from the moderate faction. Cory Bernardi who is out on the right wing of the conservative faction, will he support him? That will be very interesting. All I can say is that the issue in the election won't be what your religion is. The issue should be fought on who's going to be the best Government for Australia. And if this man is a good Liberal candidate, we've got a better member, that's Kate Ellis and she'll win.

Pyne: That's very confident. I'd say a bit over confident C1.

Schacht: No, no. Kate Ellis is a good member as a minister; as the president of Australian Volleyball, she delivered the money. I am the president of Australian Volleyball. She is the Sports Minister and she delivered in the budget a very good outcome for all Australian sport.

Abraham: I'm glad you're putting your vested interests out there.

Schacht: I always admit my vested interests. It's a good vested interest too.

Pyne: There are some very interesting issues in the Federal Seat of Adelaide. Local issues, putting aside the very important issue of funding for volleyball; there are some very important local issues. The Adelaide Oval redevelopment, the continuation of the Clipsal 500 in the East Parklands, the Royal Adelaide Hospital Redevelopment, which is extremely unpopular in Adelaide, in the Southern part of the electorate the suspension of local government planning rules in order to build the school hall rip-off program. There are a lot of local issues. The Islington rail works is an issue to be and Kate Ellis as the local Member of Parliament has believed with her eight and a half per cent margin that she can weather all of those issues. But, of course Jane Lomax-Smith learnt to her great cost that people do vote locally and of course they should. They put the interests and of their local communities and themselves first and that's what a democracy is all about.

Abraham: But you wouldn't put her in the same camp as Jane Lomax-Smith in terms of being aloof and not listening to the electorate. I don't know if you'd be able to do that with Kate Ellis.

Pyne: I think there is an issue about how people will vote whether somebody is aloof or somebody is seen perhaps to be a bit of a good time minister who's always being photographed in fashion shoots and so forth. There are different kinds of members for different kinds of seats, but one thing is important; the people of Adelaide are interested to know what Kate Ellis thinks about the Adelaide Oval redevelopment, what she thinks about the Royal Adelaide Hospital, what she thinks about the suspension of local government planning rules, what she thinks about the Clipsal 500. And whoever our candidate is for Adelaide, and C1 and I have talked about this, if you actually transpose the results from the state election to the seat of Adelaide, it would be a two per cent Liberal seat. There are now Liberal members in Norwood, Adelaide and Unley, and Kate Ellis and the Labor Party would be very unwise to take that seat for granted.

Abraham: What were you saying about the fashion?

Schacht: This is really getting to a level of "we're going to accuse you." Because she's wearing good fashion clothes and has a couple of fashion shoots this is something negative about her. If that's the basis of the Liberal Party campaign, they've got a problem. This issue in Adelaide, and all the metropolitan seats in the coming Federal Election; 98 per cent of the people in the end will vote on whether they want a Labor Government or a Liberal Government. Do they want Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister or Tony Abbott? That will be the overwhelming issue; economic management. The issues that Chris has mentioned, local issues may be worth one or two per cent at the most. If we're losing Adelaide, we're going to be losing the election. If we can't hold Adelaide, we'll lose the election, because that means a big swing is on across metropolitan Adelaide. And it also means there must be a swing on elsewhere in Australia. It's as simple as that.

Abraham: Chris Schacht, do you concede though that if you overlay the state results, Adelaide is vulnerable?

Schacht: Absolutely, and if you overlay to a number of our Federal seats, and I've said on this program for years now, out of the six Labor held seats in this state, five of them are marginal. And they've all been won by Labor in the last two Federal elections other than Port Adelaide. So there are five seats at stake for the Labor Government federally in South Australia at the next election. And Adelaide is one of them.

Bevan: This discussion segues nicely then into a discussion about Adelaide Oval. First of all do you think that Adelaide Oval

Recording interrupted

Schacht: And the major issues at a Federal Level. That's what people will vote on.

Bevan: The people who'd be really upset about digging up the parklands are not likely to be in the strong Labor bits of the electorate anyway.

Schacht: I don't think Kilburn or Blair Athol is going to be as upset about the issue compared with the residents living around the immediate area around North Adelaide. That is true.

Bevan: Did they vote Labor at the last election?

Schacht: Even at the last Federal Election they did not vote Labor. I don't know the exact figures.

Bevan: What about the "doctor's wives"?

Schacht: Maybe some doctors wives. But we're not going to win or lose this Federal seat of Adelaide on the suburb of North Adelaide. If large middle class areas and lower middle class areas elsewhere in the seat choose to vote against the Labor Government on the issues of economic management and leadership, we will then be in big trouble. In all of Australia, not just in Adelaide.

Abraham: I know we've talked a lot about Adelaide Oval and Chris Pyne has raised it in the context of the Seat of Adelaide, but somebody sent us an email. Ian MacLachlan has taken to sending out as he says, "I feel it timely to instigate a weekly email update to all SACA members because there's been much speculation surrounding the Western Grandstand debt published and discussed in the media." I think that's you Chris Schacht.

Schacht: I even got that statement forwarded on my email from my wife when I was in China. I read it with some interest.

Abraham: However we've had an email from somebody who's looked closely at SACA saying they don't think SACA does have a debt. What they think it happening is that the Western Grandstand is being built using largely taxpayer money already. There have been significant grants to SACA and now they're going to sell it back to the taxpayer.

Schacht: The taxpayer, State and Federal, Labor and Liberal all promised to give $50 million dollars to build the western stand. And as I understand it as of two weeks ago the State and Federal Governments have given $45 million and the last five million is to come from the Federal Government at a certain stage of the building of the western stand. So that's $50 million dollars.

Bevan: So that's got nothing to do with the redevelopment?

Schacht: Nothing to do with the redevelopment. So the taxpayers have already paid $50 million for the redevelopment, which is overwhelmingly for the members (of SACA).

Abraham: Well no wonder it's almost debt free.

Schacht: No, the thing is even though they got that $50 million, in the last annual accounts Mr Maclachlan said we've borrowed an extra $67 million dollars, which is a debt.

Abraham: I understand it that they had a business loan facility with Westpac, which they didn't touch.

Schacht: I haven't seen evidence of that either way. All I know is that at the last Annual General Meeting he said they had borrowed that money from the Westpac bank. Now, the western stand is costing close to $100 million. That last figure from Mr Maclachlan I got at the AGM was $92 million, which has probably gone up. So already, even with the Federal and State Government money, will they still have to touch that line of credit? And the big issue for members, and I'm one of them, is what's the increased revenue the new stand will bring in to pay for $50 million plus or the $67 million dollars they've borrowed....

Abraham: Because it's mainly for members isn't it?

Schacht: Overwhelmingly for members.

Abraham: So it's probably not....

Schacht: So it increases the seating capacity of the Oval by about 5000 seats, which overwhelmingly is for members.

Bevan: So why did the taxpayer give SACA 50 million dollars to build a stand for members?

Schacht: Both sides agreed to do it. I actually congratulated Mr Maclachlan at the last AGM on his success in bringing Liberal and Labor, State and Federal parties together to get that amount of money.

Bevan: But we're getting back an asset we helped build.

Schacht: Well, I have to say that's a very fair way to put it and that's why I've argued strongly that the State Government should intervene on this and put a statutory authority in place to take control of the rebuilding of Adelaide Oval and do it properly and put a stand over it. Ok...

Pyne: It's got to be somebody else's turn.

Abraham: (inaudible)

Schacht: On the weekend down at football park there was pouring rain and 16,000 people turned up to see Port Adelaide play. Plenty of them had to sit in the rain, even in that stand. The new stand they're going to build, a lot of people are still going to be standing on the grass on a wet hill in that condition.

Bevan: Chris Pyne?

Pyne: What this says to me is that we cannot get straight answers from anybody about the Adelaide Oval redevelopment. By the time you finish listening to C1 and Kevin Foley and the SANFL and SACA and the Crows and the AFL, the public must be as confused as I am because nobody can work out what the hell is going on, where the money is going, where it's coming from and what it's being spent on. This is what everyone said would happen during the state election, when this Adelaide Oval redevelopment was supposed to blow the Liberal Party's new stadium out of the water. What this does of course is go to the competence of both the State and Federal Labor Government's, which is blaringly on display as not being competent. And this would have all been avoided if the Government had accepted the Liberal Party suggestion of building a new stadium on the rail yards rather than moving the moving the Royal Adelaide Hospital. We don't want to lose of the wood from the trees. The Liberal Party's policy was a new stadium. It wouldn't have had all these complications. By the time C1 finishes explaining what's going on, everyone must be in a complete state of confusion. And this is a serious issue because it's apparently taxpayers' money. It's a Federal Government issue because the Federal Labor Party are buying into this with Federal taxpayer's money and Kate Ellis is the Minister responsible, in her own electorate.

Bevan: Barry from Stirling, good morning.

Caller 1: Good morning gentlemen. Something that's been bothering me with a really basic piece of spin for a long time is, C1 and C2 do it when it suits them, we call this taxpayers money. It just doesn't look like taxpayer money to me, it looks like Government money. And if we don't like what they're doing with it then we've got to vote and we've got lobbying power. If we just call it government money....

Pyne: It's taxpayer's money Barry.

Abraham: I'm sure the Government would prefer we did that, because in a way it removes the pain doesn't it? Well where does Government get its money from?

Caller 1: It sounds like its sugar coating it to me. By calling it taxpayer's money, you coating it with something dirty. We gave it too them because they collectively deal with things that we can't as individuals. If we don't like what they're doing with it then we can vote them out and we can go out there and lobby and join different party's and do a whole bunch of stuff. It just looks like a rage trigger to me.

Bevan: Barry, thank you for your call. A rage trigger?

Pyne: Well I wonder what Barry thinks about the $38 million dollars Kevin Rudd is using of taxpayers or government money in this so called national emergency, which is more of a political emergency about opinion poll numbers to sell the great big new tax on mining. Do you realise that Kevin Rudd has suspended all the rules in relation to government advertising.....

Abraham: Well, we do because we've just spoken to Tony Wright about it.

Pyne: Exactly, well Tony Wright is a "Daniel come to judgement" on many of these matters....

Bevan: What does that mean?

Pyne: It comes from....

Schacht: St Ignatius Jesuit teaching.

Pyne: You might remember the play the Merchant of Venice. Shylock used to say every time the judge was ruling in his benefit that Portia was a "Daniel come to judgement," which was suggesting like Daniel from the Bible he or she could do no wrong.

Schacht: I'm very impressed that a Liberal could quote Shakespeare. That's unheard of.

Pyne: One of the things that we do agree on C1 is that it's very important to have people in Parliament that read their Shakespeare.

Bevan: Are you two angling to get back into the Strewth column in the Australian? Last time you were banging on about Plutarch's Lives of the Athenians and now it's Shakespeare.

Pyne: Shakespeare is very mainstream. If Shakespeare is not mainstream anymore then what on earth is going on.

Abraham: I think what's mainstream is Master Chef.

Bevan: "Daniel comes to judgment" means you have an innocent before you?

Pyne: A "Daniel comes to judgement" is a person who always makes the right decision.

Abraham: Praise those.

Bevan: Oh, Ok. So Daniel is doing the judging.

Schacht: All I can say is that person who just called in would be also upset that John Howard spent over a billion dollars on advertising all sorts of things.

Pyne: Hang on, we didn't suspend the rules and declare it a national emergency.

Schacht: You had no rules at all. You had no rules at all other than when the next election date was and spend another 500 million dollars. You spent a billion dollars plus. You had no rules other than when John Howard said "spend it".

Pyne: This is the first time a Government has declared a national emergency because it can't sell its own message. It's already watered down the rules. What we have here is a political emergency which is the declining figures of the Prime Minister and his approval. It's disgraceful and unprecedented.

Bevan: Chris Schacht, former Labor Senator, can you explain to us what it the emergency which justifies this advertising campaign?

Schacht: I heard what the Government said. The impact of the miner's campaign is going to be substantial in this public debate.

Bevan: Is it an emergency?

Schacht: The Government says it is. All I can say is on this issue of government advertising, and I said it when they (the Liberals) were in and when we got in, State and Federal, is that I've never been overly happy about it for one simple political reason. I think the community is pretty cynical when they see that sort of Advertising from Labor and Liberal.....

Bevan: We should also say that you are also a director of the mining company Marathon resources.

Schacht: I am a director of a mining company.

Abraham: Are they joining the campaign against the tax?

Schacht: I don't think we have that much money to be able to put in any money at all. Our chairman has issued a statement on behalf of the company expressing concern about the super profit tax and that's the position of the company.

Abraham: And Chris Pyne, a "Daniel come to judgement" is someone who makes a wise decision about something that has previously proven difficult to resolve and it says here on the computer, "this doubtless alludes to the Biblical character Daniel who was attributed with fine powers of judgement. In Daniel 5:14 in the King James Version, "I have even heard of the the Spirit of the Gods is in there and that light and understanding and excellence and wisdom is found in thee." The first use of the phrase as we now know it was in Shakespeare's the Merchant of Venice 1596. "Shylock, 'A Daniel come to judgement yeh, a Daniel oh wise young judge how I do honour the."

Schacht: You got that one. No wonder I'm a humanist, after listening to all of that.

Pyne: The Merchant of Venice is one of my favourite Shakespearean plays, along with Julius Caesar and Macbeth.

Schacht: As leader of the moderate faction, Julius Caesar is all about backstabbing and no wonder you love that play.

Pyne: Front stabbing, front stabbing.

Schacht: Well, I ran into one of your colleagues yesterday and he had some very kind remarks about your role Christopher, as leader of the moderate faction. So I think it is appropriate that Julius Caesar is the political text you would follow.

Bevan: He has a lean and hungry look.

Schacht: (inaudible)

Bevan: Glen from Adelaide. Hello Glen.

Caller 2: Hello Matthew, David and C1 and C2. I'd just like to remind C2 of a specific case and that was just before the last Federal Election the then Howard Government spent a whole lot of money advertising its Workchoices legislation. And funnily its justification was exactly the same as current Government's and that was it was designed to combat a scare campaign from the union movement. Quite frankly I don't think the Government is justified in spending money on the campaign for the mining tax, but I don't think the Howard Government was justified in spending on advertising the Workchoices legislation.

Bevan: Maybe Glen it would be a good idea if we could hand over control of these things to an independent body.

Caller 2: Yes, I'm probably in agreement with what Bob Brown's trying to do.

Pyne: Which is exactly what Kevin Rudd said he'd do before the last Federal Election. He said we'll have an independent auditor general run these ad campaigns. He suspended that a couple of months ago and before the 2007 election he said that political advertising was a "cancer in the democratic system" and now he's declaring a national emergency so he can spend more taxpayers money under suspended rules in order to try and save his political bacon.

Schacht: Well, will you adopt Mr Rudd's policy...

Pyne: Mr Rudd's policies aren't worth the paper they're written on.

Schacht: On this issue of advertising, what will you actually at the next Federal Election promise....

Bevan: Will you adopt Bob Brown's position?

Schacht: Bob Brown's position or would you adopt even Kevin Rudd's position and not change it? That's what you're going to have to say at the election Chris.

Pyne: I'm not the spokesman for the Shadow Special Minister of State, I'm the Spokesman for Education. What I'll say to you though is a so called "cancer in the political system" in November 2007 has become a national emergency of epic proportions. I remind you we're meeting at the time of a national emergency. Does the Government want us to offer them a national unity Government?

Schacht: You will therefore adopt a clear cut policy, no more of this advertising if you win the next election.....

Pyne: You can't even defend it. You were asked to (inaudible)

Schacht: I bet you at the next election have a weasel amount of words, Eric Abetz will be putting out, I think he's the shadow minister in this area, that says you won't stick to.....

Pyne: My good friend, you were asked before whether you thought it was a national emergency and all you could say was the Government said it is so it must be. I mean, even you couldn 't defend it.

Recording Ends

Full program available at: http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2010/05/31/2913932.htm?site=adelaide