View Point

SUBJECTS: Media Reform; 457 Visas; Parliamentary behaviour; Gonski reform

E&OE................................

Hon Christopher Pyne MP: G’day Chris, good to be with you.

Chris Kenny: Look I want to go to this media regulation issue first up. Now a lot of people have been railing against it not least of course the Daily Telegraph and people from News Limited media, like myself, as well as a lot of other commentators who don’t have a direct stake in it of course. But certainly Stephen Conroy does have a point doesn’t he in that when it comes to content, newspaper content he is talking about independent oversight of self-regulation so no matter what you think about it, it’s hardly going to change the game over night, is it?

Pyne: Well Chris you know for hundreds of years of newspapers one of their chief jobs has been to poke fun at politicians, going back 400, 500 years. And some of the rags that have been around about politicians for hundreds of years have been absolutely staggeringly ghastly. But the point is you know that freedom of the press and we rely as politicians on our, on the public to know to make their own judgement about whether something is over the top or not. And I think they do make that judgement, I don’t think we need an independent regulator determining content in our newspapers we never have had one and of course it very much depends who gets put in charge of that job. Now Labor might say they’re going to choose a very Liberal as in a small ‘L’ Liberal regulator to fill that role, but what if they don’t. What if they choose somebody who, like Bob Brown has been railing against the News Limited press or the Murdoch press for most of his political career. Now quite frankly we don’t need to put ourselves in that position in the first place because we don’t need an independent regulator of this kind curbing our press freedoms.

Kenny: Bob Brown as the public interest advocate, that’s an interesting suggestion. But, it does make the point.

Pyne: It’s possible.

Kenny: But even still I mean I obviously I agree with you when it comes to the media freedom issues here. Even if the legislation were passed this week we would not see a dramatic change in what the media was doing and what they’re publishing and their rights once that Public Interest Advocate is in place, would we? This would be a very much a slow burn.

Pyne: Well possibly, possibly not. I mean I thought the low point of last week beside the race baiting by the Prime Minister on 457 Visas, which was a very low point. But I thought the other low point was when Frank Bainimarama of Fiji welcomed the new media laws and congratulated Australia for following Fiji’s lead. Now Fiji has a very closed press and I don’t know if he was tongue in cheek I have a feeling he was probably quite serious. But when Australia is being parodied on the world stage for trying to close down our freedom of the press you know that we have a desperate Government and you know its time is well and truly up.

Kenny: Well Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is standing firm although he doesn’t seem to be completely optimistic about getting his legislation through, he’s certainly standing firm by the principles and here’s what he said this morning when he was defending the package.

Stephen Conroy quote

Kenny: Christopher Pyne do you buy that? It’s not really government regulation it’s an independent oversight.

Pyne: Well Malcolm Turnbull in Question Time last Thursday pointed to a section in the Act which entirely rebuts Steve Conroy’s points this morning. I have a feeling knowing Steve Conroy and his lack of attention to detail that he probably doesn’t even know what’s in his Bill. This is an attempt by the Government to create a massive distraction to give the Prime Minister another week where she can hold off the Member for Griffith’s leadership ambitions, that’s what it’s about that what everything this Government does is about. The interest of the public are very much third and fourth priorities for this Government. Number one priority is the Prime Minister’s survival and that’s what this media law is all about.

Kenny: Now one thing that has amazed me throughout this debate even though it’s only been going a week or so is the number of journalists who have come out and actually defended these measures, or made excuses for these measures. Quite prominent among them have been some ABC journalists but there have been others. Now we all know journalist tend to be left leaning, that’s not a whinge, that’s just a fact of life. But I would have thought the one thing that most journalists were united on was freedom of speech, keeping government out of regulating media content. Has this surprised you that the journalism’ profession or craft whatever you want to call it hasn’t been unified against these laws? And if so, maybe they’re not so bad.

Pyne: Look I think everyone’s entitled to their opinion. I mean that’s the beauty of our country isn’t it? That’s what we’re talking about. Everyone is entitled to have their own view and their own opinion and I think if there are some journalists who support these laws, well you know I think they’re wrong headed and have made a mistake. But they are entitled to that view. The vast majority of the media and journalists in particular are aghast at what the Government is proposing and Malcolm Turnbull has prosecuted the case against the laws very successfully. And I don’t know whether the Government will proceed with them at the end of this week or not. But in terms of these journalists who support these laws well sometimes people make a different, have a different view to me and on this occasion I think those  journalists are wrong.

Kenny: Are you comfortable with Senior ABC journalist’s defending this policy given, given they are on the tax payer’s purse and that they’re expected to be completely politically unbiased and you would have though, I meant here are only three reasons why you would support these measures and one is you think the Government’s policy is the right way to go in a partisan way or you have some sort of pathological hatred for newspapers or you’re seeing some intellectual merit in this that none of us, none of the rest of us can see because the Government certainly hasn’t pointed to any problem that needs addressing. I’m just wondered, wondering whether you were concerned about the way the public broadcasters are handling this.

Pyne: Well that’s the key point isn’t it? I mean the Government hasn’t actually pointed to any mischief that these laws are designed to alleviate. They haven’t given us any examples. Now in Great Britain we had the issue of the phone hacking; you could understand if there had been hacking by phone hacking in Australia by journalists or by media outlets that the Government could be justified in taking some steps against that. But there’s been nothing like that here in Australia, and that’s what points to it being a distraction. Now whether the ABC or some of its journalists or some its commentators support these laws is a matter for them. The public I don’t believe supports them and I think politicians have got to take the rough with the smooth. I’ve been in Parliament for twenty years Chris and sometimes stories have been printed about me that I haven’t liked. But the truth is I think that the, you give the public the whole person and you say judge me on what I have done in the last twenty years and you assume that the public won’t believe, you know, really vile stories that get printed about politicians every now and then.  But it just comes with the territory I’m afraid and if you don’t like that, you’ve chosen the wrong profession.

Kenny: Well do you think these laws will actually get through Parliament? Do you think the Government may be forced to withdraw them this week?

Pyne: Well I was very surprised that Chris, that Steve Conroy was stepping away from the laws today. He seemed to be giving himself wriggle room because last week he said the laws would be voted on by the end of this week come hell or high water and if they didn’t pass it would be on the head of the Parliament, but he expected them to pass. Now, I, usually the crossbenches, my experience in the last two and a half years has been they almost always roll over and support the Government. So it wouldn’t surprise me if they do that again, they often talk tough but when it comes to the actual vote, they very very rarely vote with the Opposition.  So I think in the end they will put the vote and in the end they probably will get it passed. That’s a matter for the crossbenches, the Opposition will definitely vote against it.

Kenny: If the Government were to either lose the vote on the floor of the Chamber, or withdraw the legislation because they know they can’t get it through, would that be a blow to Julia Gillard’s leadership? Would that set off, would that trigger a chain of events within the Labor Party Caucus do you think?

Pyne: Well it would be another blow to Julia Gillard’s leadership. Julia Gillard seems to lurch from one leadership crisis to the next and while we are in the mists of March of course which is the time that we’re supposed to be preparing the Budget in May, the only issue in Canberra for Wayne Swan and Julia Gillard is their own survival. They should be focussing on the Budget, instead they are focussing on winning the day to day political battle internally. So if their media laws go down, then yes it will be a blow to Julia Gillard’s leadership. Most self-respecting Prime Ministers who are governing as badly as she is would have resigned out of embarrassment long ago. But she hasn’t done that so I assume she will simply cop it on the chin again and move on.

Kenny: Alright, I want to talk to you about Parliament, obviously you run the Oppositions tactics in Parliament, a lot of people have talked about how robust and nasty Parliament has been in the last couple of years, some people say it’s the worst it’s ever been. But just a little snippet to remind people how heated it got last week. Here’s the Speaker Anna Burke-

Anna Burke quote

Kenny: Well there’s the Speaker having a go at the people in the Gallery but after a very unruly day. Christopher Pyne you run a lot of Motions, you and Tony Abbott run motions against the Government almost daily when Parliament sits and there’s a lot of course robust rhetoric end the like, have you played a role in dragging the standards of Parliament down?

Pyne: Well Chris a couple of things, I would point you to Hansards going back 110 years because whenever talk about the standards in Parliament throughout the history of our Parliament they’ve said it’s the worst time ever, that the standards are the lowest they’ve ever been and that stack comment has been made time and time again dating back to the early part of the last century. In fact when the first Speaker died in the Chair he was complaininga bout the low standard of Parliament, parliamentary behaviour. So I think we should keep it in perspective. That said I think this Parliament because of its nature as a Minority Government that convinced crossbenches in previously conservatively heartland seat to support the Labor Party has been a very acrimonious one, and the Prime Minister really takes the blame for that. She has to lead by example, and she leads, her example is to be snarly, snide, sometimes slightly hysterical at the despatch box attacking Tony Abbott.

Kenny: I think, I do think we see a bit of cut and thrust from both sides of the despatch box.

Pyne: Well I’m sure, yeah, we fight our corner and that’s what you’d expect us to do.

Kenny: Yep.

Pyne: Our job in the Opposition is to hold the Government to account. I will fight my corner of the battlefield and do my part to ensure that the Government doesn’t get away with blue murder. But when John Howard was Prime Minister he led by example and his example was to be respectful, to be, you know, strong and challenging of the Opposition but he certainly didn’t get down in the gutter like Julia Gillard has. In fact Kevin Rudd was even a better Parliamentary performer than Julia Gillard has been, she has a very snarly, snide attitude in the Chamber and it infects the whole place.

Kenny: Well, I do need to ask you just quickly about education before I let you go. The Gonski reforms we’re going to hear more detail about these from the Government yet, but I want to ask you, under the Governments model it’s going to put the Federal Government right in there deciding on the funding model for every school in the country. Do you think it’s time that we step back from that, will you in government, should you win government, actually leave this to the States, leave the funding of each school to the States. Of course that is the public schools rather than the Catholic and Independent schools.

Pyne: Look Chris I don’t think that the Federal Government should be interfering and intervening in every aspect of State responsibility. As a matter of principle I don’t think the Federal Government should be taking over decisions that are being made by the State Government’s about their own schools. Now the Federal Government has a big funding responsibility of course because we have a large amount of money and we fund both government and non-government schools. But I think the Government has been very short on detail, we are now in to mid-March, and the sector both States non-government and government yet don’t yet know the funding model, if you could imagine that it will take about 18 months to introduce it, and they expect the sector to introduce it by December 31^st. But in principle I think the Federal Government should do its jobs as well as it possibly can and where have responsibilities now for things like curriculum, for teacher quality, for parental engagement and principal autonomy. But in terms of the day to day running of schools, the remuneration for teachers, performance pay, hiring and firing of teachers, that is done by State governments and the non-government sector and so it should be. And I don’t think the national school improvement plan it is the right direction for the Government to go in, it usually means more bureaucracy, more central control not always better control.

Kenny: No doubt we’ll come back to that issue over coming months. Thanks for joining us from Canberra Christopher Pyne. Congratulations on twenty years in Parliament, you’ve spent half your life in Parliament already.

Pyne: I know, it’s kind of crazy and it’s gone very very fast of course, but hopefully twenty years more if I’m lucky.

Kenny: Oh dear, I wouldn’t wish that upon you, thanks for joining us.

ENDS.