Transcript of Radio Interview – FIVEaa, Two Tribes – Wednesday, 20 February 2019

Subjects: Sturt poll, Banking Royal Commission.

HOST: It’s a big good morning to Christopher Pyne and Anthony Albanese.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning gentleman.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Good morning everyone from sunny Canberra.

PYNE: I hope this won’t be like ‘Behind Closed Doors’ last week, which took us off.

HOST: Yes.

HOST: It sounded like an actual transcript I thought, Chris.

HOST: You’ve been immortalised.

PYNE: It was very, very funny, I must say.

ALBANESE: Well I’m offended.

HOST: Why were you offended, Albo?

ALBANESE: Just because I can be … (inaudible).

PYNE: You were being parodied, whereas I was being promoted.

ALBANESE: Well you start from a lower base.

PYNE: You’re a curmudgeon. You’re a curmudgeonly old Member, that’s your problem.

HOST: Albo, have you caught up with the latest poll figures for Sturt? Christopher on a pretty good wicket based on what the Advertiser released this week – 59-41. You must feeling quite comfortable, Christopher?

PYNE: Well Anthony’s been in Adelaide campaigning against me and whenever he comes my vote goes up.

ALBANESE: I’ve got to say, I have only ever been to Sturt to do good things for the people of Sturt as a Minister, because someone had to do it, someone had to look after them.

PYNE: The only person who helps me more in Sturt is Bill Shorten. I’d like to get him into my seat a few times before the election.

HOST: So you’re not bracing yourself for a Frank Pangallo pitch or anything, Chris?

PYNE: Well I think the most interesting part – well two interesting things about that poll was the complete disappearance of the Xenophon factor. They got 22 per cent at the election and in that poll, and of course, it’s only a poll and the only poll that really matters is election day, they were down to one and half per cent. But the other thing I thought was interesting was that Bill Shorten has such an enormous unfavourability. Fifty per cent of people had an unfavourable impression of Bill Shorten, which always puts a smile on Anthony’s face of course, because he was the people’s choice. He should have been the Leader of the Labor Party.

ALBANESE: Now you’re just being mischievous.

PYNE: Me? Stop it.

ALBANESE: Far be it for you to be mischievous.

PYNE: I’m blushing. I’m blushing on the phone.

HOST: Hey guys, at eight o’clock…

ALBANESE: I don’t think Sturt’s on our target list.

HOST: No, I think you’d let that one go through to the keeper.

ALBANESE: But we will be having a very, very close look at Boothby I think.

HOST: With the help of GetUp! by the sounds of things, not that they have anything to do with the Labor Party or the Greens.

ALBANESE: No, with the help of Nicolle Flint being one of the first signatories which knocked off Malcolm Turnbull.

HOST: Here we go. We want to talk about banks. We revealed in ‘Breaking at 8’ that the ANZ has only now just become the very first bank to get out there on the front foot and say that they are not just deeply apologetic for what was revealed in the Royal Commission, but that they are actually going to start putting in some real reforms to prevent a repeat of that. This is the big hope for you guys, isn’t it Chris, that between now and the election you actually get the banks doing a bit of self-flagellation and saying they are going to make changes.

PYNE: Well there’s two important things about that. One is that, yes the banks do need to take responsibility for their own actions, and what was revealed in the Royal Commission was startling and shocking and I’m glad the banks, at least some of the banks, are starting to understand that they have to put a bit of effort into changing their reputation. The second thing about the Royal Commission is that we responded, the Government has responded to all 76 of the recommendations, and we are still waiting for Labor’s response. It’s quite remarkable that they made so much of it and they failed to respond to it.

HOST: What do you think, Albo, can the banks be trusted to do this themselves?

ALBANESE: Well we know that they can’t be. That’s why we had a Royal Commission in spite of Christopher and his mates voting against it 26 times. That’s why we need structural reform. That’s why the Parliament should sit next week and the week after and for as long as need be to put through legislation that puts in place the structural changes that are required. We put forward five issues yesterday that should be dealt with through legislation and the Government should be having the Parliament sit. That’s what we are elected to do, to legislate, and we should do it.

HOST: We’re going to wrap it up there guys. You know why Chris? We’ve got to play Two Tribes again and we know that apart from Two Tribes…

PYNE: When we’re featured…

HOST: Sorry we’re going to play Blakey again. We know you are big fan, so we don’t want to cut Blakey short.

ALBANESE: Well that makes one of us.

HOST: Playing with fire, Albo.

HOST: Good on you guys. Albo, Chris Pyne, we’ll do it all again next week. Thanks for that.

PYNE: Look forward to it.

[ENDS]