Sky News AM Agenda
Kieran Gilbert and Mark Dreyfus MP
21 June 2010
8:45am
E & OE
Subjects: Newspoll, Penrith by-election, Prime Minister on 60 Minutes, National Broadband Network
KIERAN GILBERT:
Welcome back to AM Agenda. With me now our panel. The Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, Senator Mitch Fifield and Labor MP, Member for Isaacs, Mark Dreyfus. Gentleman, good morning.
MARK DREYFUS:
Good morning Kieran.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Good morning Kieran.
GILBERT:
Senator Fifield, first to you. What do you make of the poll? Tony Abbott’s up in the preferred Prime Minister rating. He’s certainly trying to ease the expectation though isn’t he at the moment?
FIFIELD:
I think you’ve got to give credit to Tony. He’s certainly put us in a competitive position. I think Tony’s plain speaking has stood us in good stead. But we’re still behind in the polls. We’re still very much the underdogs and there’s a hard road to hoe. So we certainly aren’t getting ahead of ourselves. First-term governments very seldom lose office so you’d still have to put your money on the government at this stage. But we are in a competitive position and there’s an expectation on us quite rightly to lay-out our future plan and we’re going to be doing that.
GILBERT:
Mark Dreyfus, you heard what Mark O’Shannessy had to say. He says this, what Mitch pointed to, is 100 percent right. Things are very competitive at the moment. I don’t think you need any scoop on that. The primary vote’s only 35 percent for Labor.
DREYFUS:
Well it looks like Mitch and I are in agreement that this is going to be a close election. We’ve always said that it’s going to be a close election Kieran and it’s because we’ve been taking the tough decisions. Building a stronger economy. Doing the National Broadband Network. Paid Parental Leave. Keeping the economy out of recession and when you are taking the tough decisions, you lose a bit of skin. So it’s going to be tough.
GILBERT:
You don’t think it’s anything beyond that? The back-flips. The broken promises.
DREYFUS:
I don’t. I think that this is going to be a tough election Kieran.
GILBERT:
So the emissions trading scheme isn’t playing out in your seat of Isaacs? People don’t think that you should have acted on what the Prime Minister said is the great moral challenge?
DREYFUS:
What people talk to me about mostly is the economy over and over again and there’s an appreciation that Kevin Rudd took the tough decisions to keep Australia out of recession. There’s an appreciation in my electorate Kieran of where we are on the unemployment rate at 5.2 percent. Because people are aware of what’s happening overseas where in other countries the recession is biting much more deeply.
GILBERT:
Mitch Fifield, you saw the Penrith by-election in Sydney. There’s a couple of federal seats of course, Lindsay and Macquarie in the Blue Mountains, marginal seats effectively. What do you think of that result and does it reflect in your view any federal issues, any federal personalities?
FIFIELD:
I think the voters of Penrith were massively focused on the shortcomings of the NSW Labor government and their manifest incompetence. They were very keenly aware of that. We had a terrific candidate in Stuart Ayres and Barry O’Farrell put his heart and soul into that campaign. But when you’re looking at a swing of 25-26 percent you have to start asking yourself if perhaps there’s a bit of a toxic edge to the Labor brand as a whole. Now you don’t want to extrapolate too much from a state by-election but I think there is a message there for federal Labor as well and that is that the public are very aware of Labor and the issue of competence.
GILBERT:
They’ve showed Mark Dreyfus that they’re willing to vote Liberal federally as well and over a long period in that area, the western suburbs of Sydney. Lindsay had Jackie Kelly as the local member for almost a decade. It looks if Mitch is right that the brand is off out there.
DREYFUS:
I think voters across Australia make a distinction between state and federal issues. What we’ve got in Penrith is a by-election on the back of a resignation of a sitting member and I think people well understand the differences between the Rudd government and the NSW state government. They know that they’ve got a very, very strong local member in David Bradbury with a very long association including having been Mayor of Penrith and they can make that distinction.
GILBERT:
Therese Rein and the Prime Minister were on 60 Minutes last night. I want to play you a little bit of what Therese Rein had to say in support of her husband. Let’s hear it.
Therese Rein: I’ve known him for nearly 35 years and I can tell you that what drives Kevin Rudd is compassion. That he cares deeply about people and that’s what motivates, I’m going to get emotional, that’s what motivates him and that’s what he cares about. He cares about the future of the country. He cares about people who are doing it tough and that’s what drives him and that’s who he is.
GILBERT:
Therese Rein on 60 Minutes last night alongside her husband. Maybe he should be using her a bit more. She comes across very authentic.
DREYFUS:
And what she said doesn’t surprise me in the least Kieran. Kevin Rudd like other Labor leaders before him like the rest of us in the Labor party cares about working families. Cares about people doing it tough right around the country.
GILBERT:
But the contrast between her and the Prime Minster last night, she was so authentic and it was very believable. The Prime Minister, he looked stressed and under the pump as he has been lately.
DREYFUS:
I’m pleased to see her at her husband’s side and saying the things that she did say.
GILBERT:
Mitch, any thoughts on it?
FIFIELD:
It would be truly shocking and stunning if Therese Rein didn’t say that she thought her husband was compassionate. I don’t think that that’s a stunning revelation. And sure, the Prime Minister, I have no doubt would like to do good things for the country. The problem is he’s no good at it. He’s a dud when it comes to being a Prime Minster. He’s a lousy leader. He’s a lousy administrator. Everything he touches turns to muck. It’s well and good to have great intentions but if you can’t do the follow through, you’re not doing your job.
GILBERT:
Mark Dreyfus, I’ll let you respond but I want to move on if I can. Just quickly.
DREYFUS:
I will respond by saying Mitch has apparently forgotten the work that this government did starting in October 2008 to keep this country out of recession and that is the most important thing we would point to and Mitch knows very well that Australia’s present economic position compares more than favourably to every other developed country.
GILBERT:
But aren’t you undermining that economic argument now with your fight with the mining industry? You’re undermining the economic debate and your credentials. The Treasurer yesterday accusing elements of the mining industry of strong arm tactics. Is that any way to engender confidence in industry?
DREYFUS:
The mining industry is running a ferocious scare campaign. This recourse super profits tax is part of the economic reform and tax reform that this government is engaged in. Negotiations are continuing Kieran.
GILBERT:
And there was a positive deal business wise yesterday, the Telstra deal. Telstra signing up to the government’s NBN Co and that’s good for certainty for that industry isn’t it?
FIFIELD:
There’s no certainty. This is a risky deal. The alternatives haven’t been tested. The feasibility study didn’t look at alternatives. The government is acting as though they’ve actually delivered something. Well they haven’t actually delivered any new connections under NBN Co and this deal is far from done. Telstra themselves said yesterday that there’s still a lot of work to do and there’s no guarantee that this deal will ultimately be signed up. So there’s a long way to go and it’s typical of this government who think, well let’s have a press conference, let’s be flanked by a few people and we’ve actually achieved something by doing that. We don’t think they have. We think it’s a bad plan and we’d scrap it.
GILBERT:
Unfortunately we’re out of time. We’ll continue the debate no doubt over the next couple of weeks. Mitch Fifield, Mark Dreyfus, appreciate it.
DREYFUS:
Thanks Kieran.
FIFIELD:
Thanks Kieran.
ENDS