Liberal frontbencher Chris Pyne on ABC891's "Two Chrisses" segment, Matt & Dave's morning show, 20 April, 2009:
Journalist:
Well are you a
member of a group – it’s been dubbed ‘the big swinging dicks’? It
effectively sounds like a very macho group that can throw their weight
around within the Coalition, and they’re out after Julie Bishop.
Pyne:
The first thing is: let’s be absolutely
unambiguous about this. I am not a member of any group that is
undermining Julie Bishop. We’ll be completely clear. I am 100% behind
Julie Bishop. I support her as Deputy Leader. If there was a ballot
for Deputy Leader tomorrow I would not be a candidate, and I would be
supporting Julie Bishop.
So there’s no doubt in my mind – or Julie Bishop’s mind by the way, who I speak to very regularly because we are good friends – that the suggestion that I am part of any kind of campaign against her is true.
Secondly can I say that Opposition are dog days – there’s no doubt about that. And there are two types of people in Opposition. There are the people who try and get out of Opposition and back into Government, by holding the Government to account, by formulating policy, by trying to get hits in on the Government as often as they can, to get us back into Government at the next election.
And there are those people who don’t have the wit or the capacity to do that, and therefore they spend all their time trying to tear people down within the same party and damage our prospects of winning. They will be in Opposition for 2, 3, 4 or 5 terms if they don’t learn their lesson. We know who they are in the Liberal Party. They’re not very good at hiding their tracks. They are destructive and negative forces.
The vast majority is in the former category. I am in the former category. Those people who are in the second category should get out, because they’re not doing anybody any good.
Journalist:
Are you going to help your Leader expose these people?
Pyne:
My Leader is doing a perfectly good job at defending our Party and holding the Government to account…
Journalist:
But if you know who’s undermining Julie Bishop, and that this is untenable, well who are they?
Pyne:
My experience in politics…
Journalist:
If it’s not you?
Pyne:
Well it’s not “if
it’s not me” – it is not me. I am 100% supportive of Julie Bishop and
she knows that. My experience in politics is that peer group pressure
is the most effective way of pulling recalcitrant people into line.
Journalist:
So is Malcolm
Turnbull going to call these people into his office and bang their
heads together, and say stop leaking, and stop undermining Julie Bishop?
Pyne:
What happens in politics is that colleagues know
who is doing the damage. They know who’s doing it. These people are
not clever enough to attack the Labor Party and hold them to account,
so they’re not very clever at hiding their tracks. We know who they
are, and so do my colleagues. Peer group pressure does actually work
in politics, because it’s not much fun being excluded and shunned when
you’re in Canberra twenty weeks of the year, and that will work.
The overwhelming majority of the Coalition is 100% supportive of Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop. The situation in Opposition is that there will always be these kinds of ridiculous stories, and you just have to live with it, and get on with it. Now I’m getting on with it. I’m fighting the Labor Party. I’m formulating Education policy. I’m holding the Government to account, and I’m going to keep doing my job.
(Chris Schacht: It doesn’t matter whether Christopher Pyne is involved or not – there are problems inside the Liberal Party. “Being Deputy Leader of the Opposition? Goodness me – one of the worst jobs you could imagine”…)
Journalist:
Christopher Pyne, you know who you’re talking about. Are we talking about a dozen people? Half a dozen people? Two or three?
Pyne:
One or two people
can do this kind of damage. I believe it is one or two people. Look
Schachty says that Christopher Pyne has admitted that there’s leaking
and infighting going on. Well you don’t have to be blind Freddy to
notice that there are people who are being anonymously quoted in the
newspapers destabilising me, destabilising other people within the
Coalition. And this is the great patheticness of these people. They
hide behind the courage of talking anonymously, on background, off the
record. They don’t come out of the shadows and try and actually talk
about policy. You only need one or two people to cause this kind of
trouble.
Journalist:
And you’ve never done anything like that – to take out an opponent within your own party?
Pyne:
Most people would
say that … I’m a transparent and very straight-forward political
player. That’s why I have lots of good friends, and that’s why I have
opponents. And that is the simple matter of being in politics. You
can go into politics for sixteen years and you can never offend anybody
and you can leave politics without ever making a bump on the public
consciousness. Or you can actually fight for what you believe in. And
I am a fighter in politics, and I will leave politics at some point
hopefully remaining someone who stood for something at some time in
their life.
