Australian Agenda
17th
October 2010
Christopher Pyne
Sky News
Australian Agenda
Christopher Pyne
17th
October, 2010
Interview with Christopher Pyne, Shadow Education Minister
Australian Agenda program, 17th
October, 2010
Peter Van Onselen: Hello and welcome to Australian Agenda. I’m Peter Van Onselen. Well
the week started of accusations of bastardry and bitchiness, and next week the parliament will
debate the war in Afghanistan. To talk about those issues, we’ll be joined shortly by the
Manager of Opposition Business, Christopher Pyne. And a bit later in the program we’ll be
speaking to world renowned environmentalist and scientist, David Suzuki. But let me start by
introducing the panel, senior columnist for The Daily Telegraph, Piers Ackerman, columnist and
author, Niki Savva, and editor at large at The Australian newspaper, Paul Kelly. Thanks all for
your company. Let’s bring in now the Manager of Opposition Business, Christopher Pyne,
who’s with us out of the Adelaide studio. He’s one of the people that has been using some of
this language against Ms. Gillard. Mr. Pyne, thank you very much for your company.
Christopher Pyne: I’m sorry for the technical difficulties that have made it impossible for me to
be with you until now.
Peter Van Onselen: That’s okay. Thanks for outing that to all of our viewers; we were trying to
cover that up! But we’ll move straight into the interview. I just wanted to play something for you
for the benefits of our viewers, about what was going on with some of these comments by
yourself and others. Let’s have a listen, then we’ll come back for the interview.
Tony Abbott: It was, I think, a carefully laid political ambush. I mean that’s
essentially what it was.
Christopher Pyne: Trying to create the impression that Tony Abbott didn’t want
to visit the diggers in the field was not just an act of political bastardry, but also
back alley bitchiness.
George Brandis: It was manipulative, it was dishonest, it was Machiavellian, it
was utterly not a decent thing for her to do, and it was in my view sub-prime
ministerial behaviour.
Peter Van Onselen: Mr. Pyne, let me ask you. Put us out of our misery. Is this an orchestrated
campaign? Or is it just serious annoyance on the part of three senior members of the Coalition
acting independently?
Christopher Pyne: I don’t want to rake over the old coals from last week, Peter. But the truth is
that Julia Gillard’s performance over what should have been a relatively minor incident shows
that she is not prime ministerial material. Unfortunately we have a Prime Minister who has not
grown into the role of being Prime Minister. Kevin Rudd, John Howard and prime ministers of
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past years have grown into the role of being Prime Minister, and people have been proud to
have them representing us internationally. Unfortunately Julia Gillard is still a scrapper. She
still sees her role as pulling down the leader of the opposition, and she would’ve known full well
that Tony Abbott was going to Afghanistan the week later, and yet she tried to create the
impression that somehow her commitment to the troops was greater than his. Now there are
some taboos in Australian politics – one of them is not to play politics with soldiers in the field.
Julia Gillard crossed that, because unfortunately she is not up to being Prime Minister.
Paul Kelly: Just on that point, Mr. Pyne, we’ve got the Afghanistan debate coming up in
parliament this week. How much is this debate a test of Julia Gillard’s ability as Prime Minister
to handle foreign policy and strategic issues?
Christopher Pyne: Paul, the real test is whether she will support the objective of the mission in
Afghanistan, or whether she’ll simply adopt the same words that Simon Crean adopted when he
was leader of the opposition, when he didn’t really support the action in Iraq and said that he
supported our troops in the field. We all support our troops in the field. The question is, does
the Australian government support the objective in Afghanistan which is to stop Afghanistan
from being used as a place for terrorist activity by the Taliban? That is why we are there, to
remove Afghanistan as a training base and as a source of funds for the Taliban, who took
responsibility for the bombing of the World Trade Centre. The test for Julia Gillard is whether
she can actually support the Australian government’s objective in Afghanistan, or whether she
will simply use the weasel words of supporting our troops in the field in order not to offend the
Greens, with whom she is in alliance at the national level. That goes very much to this whole
new arrangement we have, where the Labor Party is in lockstep with the Greens, adopting
much of their ideological agenda, because of course in my view the Labor Party doesn’t stand
for anything other than getting and holding power.
Peter Van Onselen: Mr. Pyne, can I ask you, the Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, has
indicated that he would like to see Labor MPs free to express their opinions free of party
discipline on this issue of whether we should or shouldn’t be in Afghanistan, in this debate
coming up next week. Are you going to allow the same sort of freedom of discussion on the
part of Liberal MPs?
Christopher Pyne: Members can say whatever they feel like in a debate, especially a debate of
such national significance as one on our soldiers being in a military engagement overseas. I
don’t know if there’ll be a vote on this particular debate, because I’m not sure what we’d be
voting on. If the Prime Minister moves a motion, we’ll see what the motion says. But we have a
position as a Coalition where we support the action in Afghanistan, we support both our troops
and our objective and the mission, and I would assume most members of the Coalition would
agree with that position.
Piers Akerman: Mr. Pyne, aren’t the goals of the mission becoming somewhat blurred now,
given that the US says that it’s in some sort of talks with some sort of representation from the
Taliban? If the US is acknowledging representatives of the Taliban at a sufficient level to have
talks with them, what exactly are we doing there? Are we out to remove these people? Or are
we there solely to support the US alliance?
Christopher Pyne: Piers, I think it was Franklin Roosevelt said there was a time for ‘war war’
and a time for ‘jaw jaw’. In these kinds of activities, there’s always a time for military action and
there’s a time for talking. I’m sure the United States, its NATO allies and of course ourselves,
will not withdraw from Afghanistan until the objective has been achieved, which is that
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October 2010
Christopher Pyne
Afghanistan will not be able to be used as a base for terrorist activity again. I’m not sure what
the specific nature of the talks are with the Taliban, but I’m quite certain that the United States
would not invest so much blood and treasure in a war in Afghanistan, to withdraw from it without
having achieved its objectives.
Piers Akerman: But Mr. Pyne, the US has already said that it’s to begin withdrawal next July.
So no matter what the investment of blood and treasure, as you mention, is there already,
they’re looking to draw down their troops, regardless of whether the ultimate objectives have
been fulfilled. Our Defence chiefs have talked about a continuing Australian involvement for
four to six years from now.
Christopher Pyne: The Americans have a huge engagement in Afghanistan, obviously in troops
and equipment, far beyond the Australian involvement. So when they say they’ll be drawing
down on their troops, they’re not saying they’ll be withdrawing from Afghanistan until the job is
finished. If that involves negotiations with the Taliban, as long as those negotiations don’t put
the Taliban back in control of Afghanistan, then the objective will essentially have been
achieved, which is to make sure Afghanistan is not a base for terrorist activity directed at us.
Piers Akerman: Mr. Pyne, I don’t understand how we can ask our troops to kill Taliban, at the
same time as we’re talking to Taliban. Which ones do we target?
Christopher Pyne: Piers, in a war situation there is both time for military activity and time for
negotiation. I’m not privy to, and I don’t think any of us on this panel are privy to exactly the
nature of the talks with the Taliban, but eventually that will become clearer. But certainly the
United States and its allies, Great Britain, Australia and others, have not lessened their military
activities in Afghanistan.
Peter Van Onselen: Mr. Pyne, if I could ask you to stay with us, we’re going to take a break.
But when we come back, I’d like to talk to you about a range of other issues – the story about
Peter Slipper during the week, whether you think David Hicks should in fact receive royalties for
his new book, and a host of other issues attached to parliament coming back next week.
Please stay with us, but we’ll take a break. We’ll be back in a moment. You’re watching
Australian Agenda.
Peter Van Onselen: Welcome back. You’re watching Australian Agenda, where we’re joined
out of Adelaide by the Manager of Opposition Business, Christopher Pyne.
Paul Kelly: Mr. Pyne, we’ve had a furious reaction during the week to the release of the Murray-
Darling Basin report, farmers and irrigators and rural communities complaining about the extent
of water which will be returned to the river. As a South Australian can I ask, what’s your
response to the report and to its recommendations?
Christopher Pyne: Paul, it’s always been my view as a South Australian that we need to have a
balance between environmental flows and economic and social activity in the Murray-Darling
Basin. Three years ago the view of experts was that we needed 1,500 gigalitres of water
returned to the Basin in environmental flows. This report says we need 4,000. I don’t know
what’s happened in that three year period to have changed views so dramatically, but I think
that needs to be really closely examined. I think the politics of this are very interesting. On
August 10th, Penny Wong and Julia Gillard came to Adelaide in order to curry favour, particularly
with Greens voters, and said that they would purchase every drop of water that was
recommended in environmental flows by the Murray-Darling Basin plan, which of course had not
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yet been released. They said it didn’t matter how much the cost was, they would do exactly
what the plan said they would do. They’ve recoiled in horror this week in the face of the reality
of the plan, and because they have won government again, and completely backed away from
that promise. Now they have to be held accountable for the promise they made during the
election. Are they going to fulfil that promise of implementing the plan in full? Or are they going
to back away from it? Are they going to support the Greens, the Greens agenda, which Sarah
Hanson-Young has outlined very clearly this week, which is to support the plan, which they said
they’d do during the election? Or are they going to back away from it? This is the government’s
problem. They wanted to be in government, and they’re in government with the Greens. This is
going to be a very important test for how they perform in terms of supporting our economy and
supporting our people.
Paul Kelly: But this is also the opposition’s problem. Some senior opposition figures have
made it absolutely clear that they won’t wear this report, they believe these recommendations
will decimate some communities. Do you endorse those sentiments?
Christopher Pyne: Paul, we have never said that we would endorse the plan in its entirety, as
Labor did. We never said that we would implement the plan in exactly the way that it came
through. We said that we’d look at the plan, we’d be consulting with communities and we would
decide what could be done realistically. If you went to a shopping centre in my electorate in
inner Adelaide and said, do you want to keep the Murray mouth open for 92% of the year, they
would say yes. If you said, that will cost us the Riverland, we’ll have to close the Riverland
down, they would say, is this a trick question? The commonsense approach is to balance the
environment with the economy and with the social fabric of the Murray-Darling Basin. That can
be done, and the Howard plan of 2007 would have achieved it, especially through infrastructure
where we were putting $5.8 billion aside for infrastructure in water efficiency measures. I note
the government has spent an amazing $400 million. They don’t put their money where their
mouth is in their actions. They are all talk and no action. They have been using far too much
money for water buybacks, and not enough money for long term infrastructure improvement in
the Basin. Now we’re going to pay the price.
Niki Savva: Mr. Pyne, obviously everybody wants to see a balance between the environmental
security of the Basin, but also the economic safety of people around the Basin. Do you think the
government has gone about this the right way? Do you think they should have led the debate
more? Or do you think that using the bureaucrats as human shields maybe fired everything up,
and they should have been out there rather than sending the bureaucrats out there to try and
explain what was going on or what was being planned?
Christopher Pyne: Well Niki, your question really goes to the heart of the basis of this
government. Kevin Rudd got elected because he wasn’t John Howard, essentially. That was
their pitch from Labor. They said ‘vote for Kevin Rudd because he’s Howard-light’. Julia Gillard
got selected by the trade unions because they thought she could win an election, and now she’s
been selected by the Independents because they think she won’t go to an election. So this is
not a great basis for a government in the 14th largest economy in the world. Using the
bureaucrats is what the government does when they don’t have any ideas of their own. Since
the plan has been released, Tony Burke has disappeared from view. Why isn’t he fronting the
public meetings in Deniliquin and Renmark and Griffith and other places throughout the Basin?
The opposition is there, Simon Birmingham is there and the local members of parliament are
there to hear what the public have to say. Tony Burke is sending the bureaucrats. With the
Peter Garrett disaster this week on home insulation, of course Julia Gillard blamed again the
bureaucrats. It was the government that said the home insulation program needed to be rushed
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Christopher Pyne
out in two years rather than five, putting unacceptable pressure on the department. But Julia
Gillard yet again has turned around and blamed the bureaucrats. The Westminster system
requires that a minister and the Prime Minister take responsibility for failure. In this government,
failure is attributed to bureaucrats; success is taken on the shoulders of the Prime Minister and
her ministers.
Peter Van Onselen: Mr. Pyne, do you continue to hold the view that Peter Garrett should resign
as a minister, given that he’s no longer in a portfolio responsible for the home roof insulation
scheme, he’s now one of the ministers that you’re opposite, in education?
Christopher Pyne: Peter Garrett should’ve stood down in February of this year, in 2010. Before
the program that he has presided over, the home insulation debacle, even began, he was being
warned by the National Electrical Contractors Association that this was an unsafe and
dangerous program with which to proceed. The government put stimulus before safety, with
tragic consequences. Peter Garrett should have been sacked earlier this year. He certainly
should not have been promoted by Julia Gillard, as he was in this most recent reshuffle. It is
really a slap in the face to the families of those people who have died in the home insulation
debacle, the families who’ve lived in the houses that have been burnt, and a slap in the face to
the mums and dads of Australia with their children at school, that she would believe that Peter
Garrett should now be in charge of the national curriculum, of the school programs that the
government runs. Quite frankly, the most important part of the schools aspect that she has
presided over, the school hall debacle, has been taken away from Peter Garrett and given to
another minister, because that is the level of confidence Julia Gillard has in Peter Garret to
deliver a program. Clearly he is a minister drawing a salary without any substantive role, and he
should be not part of the cabinet, and a minister who can be doing that job should be given it.
Peter Van Onselen: Mr. Pyne, can I ask you, in your portfolio area of education, what would be
your solution to what universities are describing as a funding crisis, courtesy of there not being
enough money into the system, coupled with the realities of limits now on students from
overseas because of the changed visa arrangements? What does the opposition suggest as a
way through this?
Christopher Pyne: Peter, there is a lot of reform that needs to take place in higher education.
One of the pieces of misinformation about higher education is the idea that there aren’t enough
places for all the students knocking on the door of universities. The truth is that there is an
oversupply of places and there isn’t enough demand for places. The government keeps
announcing more places, because that gets them a cheap headline. But it doesn’t actually
make a difference to the problem, because every student that wants to go to university in
Australia is able to find a place in Australia. So what we have to do in higher education is from
the earliest stage give young Australians the idea that they can go to university. Overseas
studies indicate that that is best achieved through independence and autonomy in the school
system, that those countries where the principal has the greatest amount of autonomy in the
government sector are those countries where there is a high participation rate in higher
education. That is what we need to do in Australia. We need to give principals autonomy,
school communities independence, let them decide on their priorities, and stop trying to
centralise every decision. The reason the national curriculum is falling over at the moment and
has fallen over this week in particular is because it went from being a guide for schools to a line
by line, itemised curriculum which teachers must now apparently teach. Because unfortunately
with this government, they always believe government is the answer. They never believe that
individuals or communities have their own solutions. They always believe a bureaucrat is more
likely to have a better solution than a parent or a teacher.
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Christopher Pyne
Peter Van Onselen: Mr. Pyne, one final question before we let you go, David Hicks’s book is
out just in this past week. Do you believe after what he’s gone through that he should receive
royalties, even though he’s not allowed under the terms of his prosecution to profit from his
crimes?
Christopher Pyne: He should abide by whatever the terms were of his arrangement for the deal
he came to over pleading guilty to some of the crimes with which he was charged. The
effluction of time hasn’t changed that agreement, and that agreement should be abided by, if he
signed it in good faith and so did the other parties to it.
Peter Van Onselen: I understand. Thank you very much, Mr. Pyne, and our apologies to you
coming out of Adelaide for some of the technical difficulties we’ve had. We appreciate your
company on Australian Agenda.
Christopher Pyne: No problem.
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