SUBJECTS: Ministerial responsibility, private health insurance rebate, Youth Allowance.
FRAN KELLY:
In this election year, we've got our two resident pollies on RN Breakfast. Cabinet Minister Chris Bowen and Opposition frontbencher Christopher Pyne join us in our Parliament House studio for Polls Apart this morning.
Good morning to you both.
CHRIS BOWEN:
Good morning, Fran.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE:
Morning, Fran.
KELLY:
Christopher Pyne, let me start with you. Just wondering if the Opposition's running out of steam on its attack against Peter Garrett. Where else can you go? The PM's clearly going to stand by this Minister.
PYNE:
Well Fran, the difficulty is that the Prime Minister won't sack a Minister who clearly should be sacked, and the Minister won't resign and clearly should resign. So we're in a similar situation to that which the Opposition found itself in with Carmen Lawrence back before 1996. Now, that issue bled for the Keating Government in those days for months and months and months until finally Carmen Lawrence succumbed. The same thing happened with Ros Kelly.
Now, some people give Kevin Rudd a big tick for being prepared to stand by a failed Minister presiding over a maladministered scheme because they'll say, "Well that's good old Labor tribal loyalty". But unfortunately the Westminster system requires that Peter Garrett take responsibility for the, some that are saying now, 165 house fires, the 1000 electrified roofs. There's 240,000 houses that have unsafe or shoddy insulation and four deaths.
KELLY:
Okay. Let me just stop you there, and certainly there were more recent evidence than going back to the Keating Government for a Prime Minister standing by Ministers. John Howard showed a distinct inclination to let go of Ministers after his first [inaudible], when he lost seven or so of them. So I think it's both sides of politics.
But this does bring us to this whole issue of Ministerial responsibility. Let's hear the definition from the PM yesterday on Ministerial responsibility as it referred to Peter Garrett.
[Grab] KEVIN RUDD:
I think the proper definition of Ministerial responsibility is as follows: one, that a Minister when charged by Cabinet with the implementation of a program has commissioned through his department appropriate risk assessment as to what measures should be put in place for the proper implementation of the program; secondly, that the Minister then acts appropriately in response to the departmental advice that the Minister receives in the implementation of that program.
Against those core measures I stand by the Minister, as I did last week, as I'll do next week.
KELLY:
Chris Bowen, is that it? Now Ministerial responsibility is if you do what your department tells you, well, that's okay?
BOWEN:
Well, no Fran. I don't think in fairness that's what the PM said.
When you're a Minister, you get problems put to you all the time. You get issues that get identified, things brought to your attention. The test is: do you act? Do you take on board the concerns? Do you get expert advice and do you act on that advice? And on the information you have before you at any given time, not with the benefit of hindsight, with the information you have before you, do you take appropriate action?
And on any test, in my view and objectively, in any test, Peter Garrett passes that test.
KELLY:
Have we shifted the test, though? Didn't it use to be simply 'the buck stops with you, Minister'?
BOWEN:
But the buck stops with you if you take action, if you get advice and you take action and you act on the information you have before you at that time.
Now, the Opposition now says, "Well, you know, we would have acted differently". Well, Malcolm Turnbull took a very similar scheme to the Cabinet. Can they objectively and honestly look you or anybody else in the eye, Fran, and say, "We would have made different decisions, we would have overturned the Australian Standard, we would have said the Standard isn't good enough, we would have said the Building Code isn't good enough".
KELLY:
Okay.
BOWEN:
Now, it's very well to make those allegations in hindsight. Objectively and fairly, with the information you had before you at that time, Peter Garrett acted accordingly, and as you say, Fran, I think they've run out of puff. They're getting shriller and shriller. We saw Simon Birmingham –
KELLY:
I don't think I said that.
PYNE:
Let Fran have a word in, she's the host.
KELLY:
No, I just want to clear up this definition of Ministerial responsibility before we move on and you two can have a go at each other.
But Christopher Pyne, I just wonder what your definition of it is, because I remember Senator Amanda Vanstone, when she was Immigration Minister, seemed to redefine it too, as her job as Ministerially responsible was to stick around and fix the problems, fix the department. Is that the new definition? That could be argued what Peter Garrett's doing.
PYNE:
Well, what we're talking about is the Rudd Government, and the definition of Ministerial accountability that Kevin Rudd talked about before 2007 is now quite different in Government. It's another broken promise from Kevin Rudd because, as we are getting used to with him, he is all talk and no action. So before the election he had a definition of Ministerial accountability, which he applied in the Australian Wheat Board scandal, which said if Alexander Downer hadn't read thousands and thousands of cables that had come into his office, he was either negligent or culpable.
Now that's completely changed because Kevin Rudd's in Government and that promise about Ministerial accountability has gone the same way as the promises about whaling and hospitals and all the others that we're getting used to from Kevin Rudd now.
KELLY:
So just briefly, your clear definition on Ministerial responsibility?
PYNE:
The Westminster system requires that a Minister is responsible for the actions of his department. If those actions lead to deaths, to house fires, to shoddy insulation, to a completely failed program, the buck stops with that Minister and he is responsible.
KELLY:
Okay.
BOWEN:
Well, Chris used to be Minister for Ageing, and there are difficulties in every portfolio. Ageing is no different.
PYNE:
It's a very difficult portfolio.
BOWEN:
Bronwyn Bishop had them, she didn't resign when there were deaths in the Ageing sector. Christopher Pyne didn't resign when somebody died in a nursing home.
PYNE:
No.
BOWEN:
And we didn't call for his resignation because if you act on the information in front of you, if you deal with it, then you have met your responsibilities as a Minister.
PYNE:
Nobody suggests that if a Defence Minister sends Australian troops to Afghanistan and they perish, then somehow the Defence Minister must immediately resign.
The difference is that when a Minister is given warnings – 21 warnings in this case – and doesn't act decisively to deal with them, and instead keeps putting off a decision for months and months and months, then common sense suggests that he has abrogated his responsibility and he must resign. It's as simple as that.
KELLY:
I'm going to jump in here now because we've only got a couple of minutes left today. We've got K. D. Lang coming up in a moment, she's eaten up a bit of our time today.
BOWEN:
Well, we can't get in her way.
PYNE:
She's much more interesting than Chris Bowen and me.
KELLY:
But Chris Bowen, the Government has problems in the Senate. It looks like you've got a $1.9 billion hole in your Budget because the Senators voted down your means test of the private health insurance rebate, and now the Youth Allowance looks like it's going to get blocked too.
What's wrong with the Government's management of the Senate? Why can't you get anything through?
BOWEN:
Well, we don't have the numbers, Fran. We need every non-Government Senator –
KELLY:
Sure, you don't have the numbers, but you and most other Governments.
BOWEN:
Well, we've got quite a bit through the Senate, but look, under Tony Abbott's leadership, the Liberal party has taken the view that they should oppose for opposition's sake.
Now, take the private health insurance and Youth Allowance, which you raise. I mean, I would appeal to Christopher, the Youth Allowance is a very serious issue. We really need to increase the number of people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds getting to university in this country, Fran.
PYNE:
Which it is.
BOWEN:
And from the bush. The number's been going down. And we really need to tackle this issue as a nation. The Bradley review recommended changes to Youth Allowance. And if Christopher and Tony Abbott could just put the politics aside and let through this very important change and let us pay the Youth Allowance to a targeted group to increase participation rates in university, I think the nation would say, "Well, good on you Government and Opposition for getting together, putting the politics aside, and putting through an important reform which is important for the social justice of this nation to let more kids from challenged economic backgrounds go to university". Let's get on with it.
KELLY:
Christopher Pyne, a quick response from you before we say goodbye this week.
PYNE:
Well Fran, the decision to support private health insurance and not allow the Government to break its promise about private health insurance means testing was made under Brendan Nelson, not Tony Abbott.
KELLY:
Broken promises? Maybe it was a non-core promise.
PYNE:
Well, with Labor, most promises are non-core promises.
The decision to stand up to and stand up for rural students and to oppose retrospective legislation, which is the Youth Allowance legislation, was made under Malcolm Turnbull. It's nothing to do with Tony Abbott's leadership.
Let me say this Fran: the Coalition will stand by rural students, who will be harmed by these changes to Youth Allowance, and will not support retrospective legislation. We've said that all along. Our position has not changed.
BOWEN:
Every Vice-Chancellor in the country says, "Pass these reforms". Do you know better than them?
PYNE:
It's my turn. Surprisingly, it's my turn.
Well, the Vice-Chancellors are always very supportive of the Government. We know that.
BOWEN:
[Sarcastic] They're always the stooges, the Vice-Chancellors.
KELLY:
Christopher Pyne and Chris Bowen, we've got to wind it up. You can continue talking, sit in the studio as long as you like after we're off air, but thank you very much again for joining us again on Breakfast this Wednesday morning.
BOWEN:
Always, Fran.
PYNE:
Thanks, Fran.