ABC 774 Melbourne,Sunday Nights,John Cleary,2 March 2008
JOHN CLEARY: Religion, politics, power and belief. Christopher Pyne is the shadow, well formerly minister for aging and now a shadow minister for justice and boarder protection and assisting on immigration. And Ursula Stephens is senator for New South Wales and shadow - oh not shadow, and the Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector in the Rudd Labor Government.
Ursula Stephens, when it comes to an area like the one that you're parliamentary secretary for, social inclusion, it's one of those areas in which your background and your beliefs, you must see it as an opportunity for them to play out here in a way which is consistent, that is, you see here is a chance for me to exercise who I am as a person in the fullest sense?
URSULA STEPHENS: Yes, I think that's absolutely right, John. It's a wonderful opportunity for me to live and breathe the politics that's in my heart, I suppose.
But I think more importantly than that, it actually, the social inclusion agenda is very clearly something that is being picked up, not just here in Australia but, you know, around the world.
And it comes back to the kind of observations that Hugh Mackay made about Australians sort of waking up to the fact that there's more than greed and materialism, that, you know, we need to be concerned more about poverty and economic justice. And people are starting to want to do a lot more about that.
So people are growing more concerned about the gap between those who have and those who don't have in our society.
So, for me this is a very wonderful opportunity to actually drive an agenda that I think is personally very important but also for the nation is very important.
JOHN CLEARY: There's a festival of ideas, a summit of ideas coming up, the Prime Minister has called it. Social inclusion is one of the nominated areas.
URSULA STEPHENS: Yes it is.
JOHN CLEARY: Are you getting the opportunity to put a few items on the list?
URSULA STEPHENS: Oh absolutely, absolutely. We have - we're working to shape up a social inclusion agenda within the government and across the government which is an exciting new way to think about some of the most pressing problems that we have in our society.
So the 2020 summit, we'll be able to actually pose some of the more serious questions that really are about not just short term political gains but actually thinking across a generation of how we actually change…
JOHN CLEARY: [interrupts] Well give me your top three.
URSULA STEPHENS: …society. Sorry?
JOHN CLEARY: Give me your top three.
URSULA STEPHENS: My top three?
JOHN CLEARY: Yes.
URSULA STEPHENS: Yes, certainly. First of all I think that we're going to have to do something, we are doing something about a national child protection strategy that really focuses on investing in families and protecting children.
And secondly we're committed, as Kevin Rudd has so clearly said, about reducing the 17 year gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian's health and by doing that, we actually go to the nub of focussing on Indigenous disadvantage once and for all.
And for me the third specific issue that I can care about and I'm concerned about, is ensuring that we have strong regions in Australia and that we're able to support regional communities and regional economies and communities.
So that's the three things from me.
JOHN CLEARY: Now all of those, one could have a discussion about quite healthily on both sides of the parliament and come up with reasonable views.
But Christopher Pyne, you indicated there are some issues in which you need to take a stand that go to the heart of your faith, and some issues in which Ursula may find it difficult with you.
You mentioned, for example, stem cell research and other things; these are issues that there is great diversity of opinion in the community. And some of those are issues which need people to take a very strong personal stand, sometimes at some cost on, even within their own party.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think there's no doubt that when these issues arise and they're issues typically like euthanasia, cloning, stem cell research, RU486, they become very polarising in your electorate and it's a very testing time. Because the majority, in most of those areas, tend to take the view that if there is a new research or if there can be something that suits the utilitarian view of our society, then it should be adopted and the politicians shouldn't stand in the way.
There are others that say, well these are matters of great principle. And I take the view that human life and respect for it is really a defining characteristic of a civilised society. And that embryonic stem cell research and then cloning were major gaps in the way we respect human life.
Unfortunately in the those votes, as Ursula and I both experienced, the majority was on the other side of the chamber, but that didn't mean it wasn't important to say what one believed about the life issues at some cost in the electorate.
There was certainly a campaign against me in the last campaign from those people who didn't share my views about these issues and I guess it's a campaign that will continue. But that's politics. If you don't stand up for what you believe it, then you really have no purpose of being there.
JOHN CLEARY: Well let me ask you, Christopher Pyne, about another issue which has just been resolved in the last few weeks, but which a number of people took a very strong stand on and a view on when it occurred. Because it now is in your - you're the shadow minister responsible for these areas. The issue of the deportation to Serbia in 2004 and the granting of the Labor Government this week of the right to stay in Australia of Robert Jovicic, the guy who'd been born in - well born in Serbia but came to Australia I think before he was three.
And because of a loophole in the law and his criminal activities in Australia, the Australian Government took the opportunity to deport him. And he didn't speak the language, he was isolated on the streets and wasn't - if it hadn't been for the intervention of some Australians at some cost to them, I think, in terms of the government getting a bit angry with them, Jovicic could have well have languished and starved in the streets of Serbia.
Now how can one possibly justify the use of a loophole in the law to do that sort of thing to people?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well John, that is a good question but it is a question that is more rightfully put to the former immigration ministers who, over some time, I think starting with Philip Ruddock and then Amanda Vanstone and then Kevin Andrews made those decisions.
JOHN CLEARY: But you were in the party.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yeah but I wasn't the least bit aware of that case until it was publicised less than a year ago.
JOHN CLEARY: Did you make your voice heard in the party room about what you thought about it?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I had an ongoing dialogue, particularly with Amanda Vanstone and Philip Ruddock about immigration matters and I was very successful as a member of parliament in intervening on many cases.
If that gentleman had been from my electorate, then I would have been in a position to act on his behalf, but I wasn't approached to do so and I was acting over the last 15 years on behalf of the constituents from my own electorate.
JOHN CLEARY: Yes, but you're somebody who says principles should apply across the board here. I mean, you can narrow it down and say, oh yes it's not my bailiwick so I don't have to take a view on it. But here is an - surely it's something that goes to the heart of our understanding of what it is to be human and what justice is?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I don't have all the facts relating to that gentleman's case in front of me and I wasn't given any notice that this would be raised tonight, so I couldn't have made any enquiries about it.
I understand from Amanda Vanstone talking to me about this in the years gone by that there were good reasons for decisions that were being made by the government at the time. But I can't…
JOHN CLEARY: Do you think there could be…
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …comment on them because I don't have them in front of me.
JOHN CLEARY: Do you think there could be any reason though, in principle, why somebody should be subject to what really is the medieval law of exile, particularly when he didn't have - and there's two questions of course, there's the question of exile and there's the question of let the punishment fit the crime.
Now can the immigration law and should the immigration law be used in that way? I'm asking you from your point of view now of having some role in that portfolio.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think that the immigration portfolio should be used to ensure that a number of things happen in Australia, that we have the skills that we need to grow the economy in the way that we want to grow it, that act in a humanitarian and compassionate way, which is why we have a humanitarian aspect to our immigration policy, and to protect our borders and that's why we had a strong border protection policy.
I think there have been cases in the past, both Labor and Liberal, where compassion and a sense of social justice could have been more of a feature than was demonstrated by both Liberal and Labor governments.
And when that happens, I think it's always very disappointing. My mind goes back to the case of the Chinese woman who was deported to China to a fate that was well known to those who were involved in the case.
JOHN CLEARY: Indeed.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: And that was a very - that was a very disappointing and depressing moment. But in politics, John, you can't always win and you have to make the decision, as William Wilberforce had to make, do you stay in it and try and make a difference or do you say, well there's bad things that happen, so I'm going to disappear into my own little world and just make sure that what I'm doing is fine.
JOHN CLEARY: Yes I guess what I'm getting at is, yes there are those cases and you're absolutely right, but there are also cases in which you can choose to bow your head and submit in order to survive, so that you can say, I live to fight another day, rather than stand - take a stand on principle.
And in some cases in recent years, you've been in a government where people's lives have been at stake over this issue. And the Jovicic case is, I think, one of the clearest.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well when my father gave me a book called Ego Timoris which was I, Thomas More which was the life of Thomas More, written by William Roper, his son in law, he wrote in the front, principle not preferment is everything.
And I think many people who follow politics would say, I wasn't actually preferred over the 15 years that I've been in politics and 11 and a half years of the Howard Government and one of the reasons for that was because I was known to be a person who wouldn't have always toe party line but was quite prepared to stand up for what I believed in.
JOHN CLEARY: Ursula Stephens, the ground on which you take a principle, principle stand can be very difficult. The stem cell debate was in some ways rather easier to navigate because votes on conscience were allowed.
URSULA STEPHENS: Uhum.
JOHN CLEARY: But there are some issues which are absolute non-negotiables. What are the non-negotiables for you in politics, particularly when it comes to individuals?
URSULA STEPHENS: Well I think that the non-negotiables, as Christopher has said, are really the life and death issues for me. It's quite clear in my mind where I stand on all of those things and, like Christopher, I was sitting on the minority benches when many of those votes occurred.
But I think the approach that you have to take to whatever debate is going on in the parliament and particularly the difficult ones, is that you really have to understand, if it's a piece of legislation you have to kind of think about what the implications are and what the consequences of it are going to be, and then you have to square it off in your own mind of where you stand on it.
JOHN CLEARY: See I guess, I guess, I mean it's a bit easier for you than Christopher. Let me put it a difficult way, it's still a hypothetical though. What would you have done if there had been no conscience vote on an issue such as stem cell or cloning issues and you had to make a stand which would have led you, if you maintained your position, into conflict with the stand being taken by you party?
URSULA STEPHENS: Well we have some internal processes if things are difficult like that within the party, and I certainly would have spoken to the leader of the party at the time and indicated why I couldn't support something as fundamental as that.
So, and I feel quite confident that on those important issues, you know, our views would have been accommodated. So there are internal processes where things are tough and you always get a chance to actually express your concerns about any of the issues that are before the parliament within our party rooms, and to also speak to the leader.
Now of course it would be the Prime Minister, if I had concerns about any legislation I would be able to speak to him about that.
JOHN CLEARY: You're on Sunday Night on ABC radio, give us a call, 1300 800 222. Our guests are the Honourable the Senator Ursula Stephens, Senator for New South Wales and Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector and Christopher Pyne, member for Sturt in South Australia, formerly minister for aging in the last Howard ministry. And after a long career and still a young man in parliamentary terms, entered parliament in 1993 at the age of 25 and still with us at the age of 40 and looking as bright and chirpy as ever.
Christopher Pyne, one of the characteristics people note about you that you've brought into your parliamentary life and career is that you, in many of those debates we see you, you always manage to keep a bright and optimistic outlook. Does that go really to your sense of that ultimately you're secure in who you are, I guess, as a person, that is, you know what you believe, where you're coming from and to a certain extent we all need to have that?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I'm glad to hear that I convey a sense of optimism, John. I don't set out to convey a sense of optimism, so that's - perhaps I should try and convey more gravitas, I'm not sure that conveying optimism is de rigueur in politics these days.
Look, I think it comes from the fact that I very much enjoy what I'm doing when I'm in parliament and in politics. I love the fact that politics gives you the opportunity to be an advocate for what you believe in and I have firm passionate beliefs about small government, about maximising individual freedom, about standing up for the principles that I think are making our country great.
JOHN CLEARY: Well let's talk about that for a moment. This issue seems to be the dividing line between Labor and Liberal at the moment, it's a pretty narrow dividing line these days, it seems that all people of goodwill will agree upon the same things.
But there are issues which you are attempting to tease out there which do indicate that there are still divisions which are profound.
What is it about your Christian faith that leads you to think that individualism is more important than sort of collectivism, if you like?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think individualism gives people the freedom to live the life they wish to live as free as possible from interference from the state. Now from a religious point of view, I guess that is borne in the fact that Australia started as a state that had a determined and set religion, and my state of South Australia, as a colony, had no set religion and for that reason has grown - has grown as a very liberal state in comparison to other states.
I don't believe that the states should have a role in determining the way people choose a religious life or not and how they should govern their lives, I guess it just flows right through that.
So maximising individual liberty, reducing taxes so that people make their own decisions about how they spend their own hard earned resources, I think that's an important aspect of liberalism which may not be present in the Labor Party.
JOHN CLEARY: What do you do about fundamental concepts, religious concepts like greed and self interest, that really the state is seen to mediate against the excesses of greed and self interest and self destructiveness that, if you like, original sin predisposes us all to?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I, like Robert Menzies who was my party's founder, don't believe the state's role is as a mere keeper of the ring. The state has a very important role but it shouldn't have a big footprint that governs choices.
So, for example, when there was a choice between, as a member of ministerial councils as I have been for the last four years in the area of drugs and in the area of food safety and so on, when there's a choice between whether the state should have the role or whether the individuals or business community should make the decisions, I tend to trust the individual and business before I trust government.
Whereas Labor states and the federal government now tend to put government first and the individual and the market second.
Now I believe the first people you should trust are the individuals to make the right decisions. I don't think government make collectively good decisions.
JOHN CLEARY: Let me put a critical point to you then; some have said the excesses of the market are sort of Darwinian, winner take all, [indistinct] tooth and claw, is hardly the sort of society which the prophets of the Old Testament were calling people to.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Sure, but there's no necessity to believe that - there's a choice between the Hobbesian world of dog-eat-dog or the Marxist theology of the government controlling the market. There has to be a happy medium in between where the government has an important role in keeping the ring and making sure people aren't falling through the cracks and everybody is coming along with the group generally and the individual being given as much freedom, maximising their freedom, to make their own choices.
It's not a black or white choice, there's a great deal of grey in the middle, and the problem with saying the Bible says that the market itself can't govern, well, quite frankly, nobody believes the market should be total laissez faire and hopefully nobody believes anymore in a Marxist state but hope that there is definitely a grey area in the middle. But Labor, I think, falls on the side of more government control and the Liberals fall on the side of less.
JOHN CLEARY: And I guess Ursula Stephens, it's a matter of personal judgment as to where along that continuum one wishes to stand?
URSULA STEPHENS: Yes, I think that's absolutely right, and I think that one of the issues that came through in the federal election was that people were looking for a government and a party that still had its moral compass. And that was a phrase that was actually mentioned quite regularly throughout the election campaign.
JOHN CLEARY: So what, you're suggesting that the Howard government had lost its moral compass in a surrender to the market?
URSULA STEPHENS: Yes, I think so. I think what we saw was an economy and an economic agenda that was kind of rewarding wealth over work and the value of work, and you saw that through the whole WorkChoices debate, and favoured the rich rather than the poor.
So we saw people saying this is the politics of enough. We don't need this, we need to be a much more generous and more compassionate society and we want to re-engage in building a civil society. That seemed to me to be a very important message that came out of the election campaign, and the change of government.
JOHN CLEARY: On Sunday Night we're talking to Christopher Pyne, Liberal Member for Sturt in South Australia, and Senator Ursula Stephens.
If you want to give us ring we've got time just before we finish in a few moments time, to take a call or two, 1300 800 222. Give us a call on Sunday Night on ABC Radio around Australia.
Ursula Stephens, let me continue with you for a moment. If we're going to say that the boundaries in politics really are about arguments, not about the extremes where some in society would like to place us, but really about an argument about the middle, the Labor Party these days could hardly be described as - well a few years ago it jettisoned the old socialist platform.
What is there that holds the Labor Party in any form of moral framework today any more than the Liberal Party is held to one?
URSULA STEPHENS: I think that there are still the fundamental principles that underpin Labor's policies and approach and most of that relates to making sure that we have a safety net, that we have a strong community and that we have systems of government that ensure the people are treated fairly and that we look after those who are least able to look after themselves.
So whether they're the old or the poor or the mentally ill, we ensure that we don't leave them to the vagaries of the market and that they have the services that they need, that we all live together as a civil society and we learn from those people and we value those people in our community as much as we value those at the top end of town.
JOHN CLEARY: Christopher Pyne, it's a pretty hard ask for both of you now, isn't it, to really make a case which distinguishes Liberals from Labor in the way that was traditional up until, say, the late 1980s or even into the 1990s, where John Howard did cast such a distinctive conservative role.
This teasing of the difference is going to be part of the hard yards that you as a shadow minister now have to undertake.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well John, I don't necessarily agree with you, but I think even something that Ursula said tonight immediately concerns me, the difference between Liberal and Labor.
Ursula said that the Liberals had allowed the gap between the rich and the poor to grow and it left the poor behind. In fact, what happened under the Howard Government is that there was a greater transference of wealth from the wealthiest to the poorest in the last 10 years than at any other time in our history, because of a combination of growing wages, tax cuts and direct government payments to families from the higher tax payers to the lowest.
So the Liberal Party philosophy of growing the economy, getting everyone a job and supporting the family actually had a measurable impact on the standard of living of the poorest people in Australia. It was a massive transfer of wealth.
Now it will be very interesting to see under the Labor Party with their handling of the economy and their very outdated views as put by Ursula tonight about the redistribution of wealth, whether in fact the same thing happens in the future.
JOHN CLEARY: There you go, Ursula, a challenge; the gauntlet.
URSULA STEPHENS: If I have a minute to respond to that, how can I not respond.
JOHN CLEARY: Yes.
URSULA STEPHENS: I think that there's one thing to actually be talking about a transfer of wealth, but there is also the whole notion of those people having a quality of life and feeling that they're cared for within a society, and that's why are people feeling so unhappy; why are we seeing levels of suicide and depression and mental illness just increasing?
It's because people aren't being cared for as a community and a society. That's the real difference.
JOHN CLEARY: Let's take a couple of calls before we move to the news, on Sunday Night on ABC Radio around Australia. Let's say hi to Jonathan in Sydney.
Hello Jonathan, welcome to the program, what would you like to say?
CALLER JONATHAN: About two years ago I think it was, I lived in Christopher Pyne's electorate and it was an immigration issue. I'm Australian, have been for I imagine about 40 odd years of my life. My wife, she's Canadian, we came to Australia with an 18 month old child, we'd been married for about four years, and there was a bureaucratic stuff up on one of her forms coming into Australia. So she actually had to leave Australia.
I actually rang Christopher Pyne's office twice and I never got a call back regarding that issue.
So I was just wondering what the senator says in regard to his earlier comment about the gentleman not being in his electorate, the Serbian gentleman.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well look, I don't know about Jonathan's situation. If he rang my office and didn't get a call back, it surprises me a great deal, but it's sloppy staff work. Obviously I don't answer every phone call that comes to my office, and he was let down I can tell you that we do about half a dozen immigration matters a week in my electorate office. We're certainly not slack when it comes to that, and we have very good outcomes.
So I can only assume that on those two occasions he was let down badly by either volunteers or staff who should have done better, and I apologise to him.
JOHN CLEARY: Jonathan, we can't pursue that issue any further here tonight obviously, but I guess Christopher Pyne, if Jonathan wanted to contact your office even though he's in Sydney now, it's still worth following up.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: What I'd do is I'd love to know from Jonathan if he wants to contact me through my website, he can email me or he can phone me, of course, he can phone me tomorrow at the office. But if he wanted to send me an email I'll respond to that through pyneonline.com.au and I'm happy to have a dialogue with him and find out who he spoke to in my office; whether they were a man, whether they were a woman, whether they were young, whether they were old and even if he got a name, because I'd love to know the answer to that question.
JOHN CLEARY: Jonathan, thanks for your call, we will have to move on. Mary in Mitcham.
Hello Mary, welcome. Mary's not there, she's left us.
Richard in Belmore, hello Richard. Richard, are you there?
CALLER RICHARD: Hello.
JOHN CLEARY: Yeah, hi.
CALLER RICHARD: Yeah, hi. Australians generally are horrified that other countries make themselves bureaucracies and we're proud of our secular state. But parliament opens with two prayers, one of which is the Lord's Prayer. As an agnostic I'm appalled by this; how can we do that, call ourselves a secular state dedicating the whole parliamentary sitting to God, it's ridiculous.
JOHN CLEARY: The place of religion in politics. Christopher and Ursula, perhaps a brief response to you both on that; you've clearly reflected on it yourselves?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think the prayer at the beginning of parliament is part of the tradition of the parliament and I don't disagree with you that it does seem slightly anachronistic, but I don't think there's any harm in calling on a higher being to try and help us to make better decisions on a daily basis.
URSULA STEPHENS: Yes, I totally agree with Christopher on that one. I think that while we all argue for a separation of church and state, I think that the Lord's Prayer is something that is quite traditional in many parliaments and is just one of the practices of the parliament.
JOHN CLEARY: It is one of those things, Ursula just briefly, and Christopher too, and this will be a final reflection, it does actually speak to us a community rather than as a group of individuals. Christopher.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think it reflects our tradition as a Judeo Christian community. It doesn't in any way exclude other faiths and I don't think - I think it probably encourages us to think of community and working together as a group.
JOHN CLEARY: We'll have to leave it there. Ursula Stephens and Christopher Pyne, it's been very good of you to join us tonight, we appreciate it, on Sunday Night on ABC radio.