Thursday 26 February, 2009
a classic Q&A
Julia Gillard referring to Christopher Pyne as a "mincing poodle" and Tony Abbot calling Kevin Rudd a "toxic bore" were no doubt responsible for questions about politicians behaviour in parliament. Is this current “debating” approach working? And are politicians ignoring issues of interest to the Australian public? With Bill Shorten on the panel viewers took an interest in disability support. What care and support can the public expect? Finally, the environment and education were also of interest.
Please note, to collate this graph we have counted only the questions submitted by the audience via sms and the web during the program.
JOHN COGHLAN: Now the question is - after the decision by Pacific Brands to lay off 1,800 people yesterday, it appears we'll be all wearing someone else's socks and jocks in the future. Does this signal the slow death of manufacturing in this country?
TONY JONES: I start with Bill Shorten.
BILL SHORTEN: No, it doesn't. The decision, though, is terrible for people who have been affected by it - the employees. I used to in a previous life as a union rep look after the metal trades of the Coolaroo plant, which is just shutting. It's dreadful. For, the challenge for our government is two-fold. We've got the global financial crisis, which has to be dealt with through stabilising the credit market, stimulating the economy and investing in jobs, but specifically the question which I'm most interested in is what happens to the workers who work at Coolaroo and Wentworthville? We're going to offer them retraining, which is I think a very practical thing. Manufacturing can survive in this country. We need it to survive. We've put some policies into place to support manufacturing generally, but I know what it's like when the people will go home and talk to their kids that night or their husbands and wives and see it on TV the factory's closed. I think...I know that the government's pretty motivated to try and help each of those individuals be retrained where they can. it's just terrible news.
TONY JONES: Bill Shorten, is it, this kind of slow death, is it the inevitable consequence of having to compete with other countries that have cheap labour and should - and many unions would like to see Australian jobs protected as a result of that?
BILL SHORTEN: We don't...the government doesn't think that manufacturing is a province OF China. We can make things in this country. In fact, we need to make things in this country because otherwise we'll lose price control over what we buy on the shelves anyway. We need a car industry, we need a steel industry, we need an aluminium industry. These are good things. These are things which an independent economy needs. It is not inevitable, but some products that we make, which can be produced far cheaper with far lower labour, which are just commodities, well, we're in trouble. Brooms, I used to look after rope workers. The reality is we don't make rope here any more because it can be made a lot more cheaply elsewhere, but there's plenty of things in manufacturing where you can premium price it. It goes on the value of the brand. Europeans have dealt with these issues. You can make sure it's got sustainable production, environmental values. We can compete in manufacturing in certain markets, but not everything that we used to make 20 and 30 years ago.
TONY JONES: Christopher Pyne, let's hear from you.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, obviously we're very worried about the loss of jobs at Pacific Brands, but also loss of jobs at other places. So we lost 400 people in Albury this week and today Lend Lease announced 1,700 employees across the world of which I think 340 will be in Australia. Of course, with Lend Lease, they are a property development corporation, so what they've done is unfortunately looked at the $52 billion of packages in December and February and factored that into their decision, which is very concerning for the economy because it means that even with those packages, they decided that there isn't going to be able...that they aren't going to be able to sustain those 1,700 employees worldwide. So that's a very serious concern for the Opposition. Obviously on a personal level, we're very worried about people that lose their jobs. Over the last sort of 11.5 years, two million jobs were created. The crisis of the last six months is leading to jobs being shed. What the Opposition have said is that we think that bringing forward tax cuts would help people to have permanent income changes, and last December the Treasurer said that the recovery would be in areas like socks and jocks and polo shirts and so forth. He might regret those words because of what's happened with Pacific Brands, and obviously with the December package didn't have the impact that the government hoped. Now the Opposition hopes that the $42 billion package does work, but that remains to be seen.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: I mean, the interesting thing is if you go back a little further in history, in the 18th century India and China controlled 70% of the world's wealth, and it's obviously not going to be long before they've got it back to 70% of the world's wealth. The other worrying thing about outsourcing jobs like manufacturing to China, or places where there is cheaper labour, is that we were assured that that would be replaced by the finance and services sector and jobs like that. What's the sector that's just gone belly-up completely? The finance and services sector. So how many more jobs can we outsource? And the other thing is that there's this assumption that jobs that can be done with menial labour will always find a cheaper place to do that, and we'll do the things like the intellectual copyright, we'll do the software development. Well, India's disproved that theory. I think it's a little patronising to think that there's always some eternally cheaper source of labour somewhere that you can off-load the jobs you don't want to do and we'll have the good ones.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Especially when you think that Bollywood is now bigger than Hollywood.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: Well, indeed. And they'll turn around and say...and what happens when the Chinese turn around and say, "Right, now we'll start charging the proper price - price for your underpants".
TONY JONES: Hold that thought, hold that thought gentlemen, because we do have another question from the audience that looks at what can be done and it comes from Eddy Swat.
EDDY SWAT: My father-in-law dearly wanted to be here to ask this question, but he's at home a guttered man because he's been laid off by Bonds and so I'm here on his behalf, but he tells me that management there regularly told them that they were still profitable. In addition to that, and unlike what's just been said, the sales of socks and jocks had increased, and in addition to that, even, only in the last few weeks Bonds have invested millions of dollars in new machinery. So I'd question what the Opposition is doing and I do suspect this is just a cheap smear campaign, but my question to the panel is - should governments continue to subsidise corporates like Bonds, even in a downturn, and...well, I guess if you're subsidising corporates like that, what does that do and does that challenge the idea of liberalised free market?
TONY JONES: OK, I'm going to hold the politicians back for a minute because I want to hear from the rest of our panel, and let's hear from Sabrina Houssami.
SABRINA HOUSSAMI: Certainly I do think that it's important for the governments to keep on subsidising just so that we can see some sort of an income going to the companies, and they have a sustainable source of money with which to support jobs and with which to potentially create them. When you hear stories about them putting their funds elsewhere into their own infrastructure, especially machinery which will potentially lay off more and more people, it becomes a question more of compassion, I think, than practicality. You know, at what point do companies become these machines that just rely on low cost, you know, that just rely on outsourcing and what's the easiest way to make money, and when do they forget about the people who work for them and the people who rely on them to create lifestyles for themselves? It's just so sad to see and I hope that we can see a return to that as the economy increases once more.
TONY JONES: Let's hear from our ethicist Leslie Cannold.
LESLIE CANNOLD: Well, it's a good question because it makes me think about maybe the fact that we need to raise some questions about whether we want to keep going with the same ideas about how the economy should run. I think that the tiny silver lining of the disaster that we're having with the economic meltdown is it's giving new voices a chance to come into the conversation. We've been very down-the-line strict about how the economy should run, it's a neo-liberal economy, hands off, laissez faire. Anybody who questioned it was just laughed out of the room, and now there's going to be an opportunity for some people who have been laughed at for a long time to come in and start putting their ideas forward, and maybe it will be that at the end of the day we decide that the whole free market idea really wasn't quite what we were after, maybe we didn't want free trade, we wanted fair trade, maybe we want some more balance of home-grown product with overseas product regardless of how cheap it is for us as consumers at the end of the day, and I hope that that's one of the good things that can come out of this tragedy.
TONY JONES: Jonathan Biggins.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: On that subject? Yes. Well, I agree. I mean I think that whole notion of looking at economies, what I don't quite understand, we're trying to re-stimulate the economy to get the economy back to the point that got the economy in the bad position it was in the first place, and that doesn't make any sense to me. The other thing, and you can tie it in, you know, the Luddites can't have got it right, really, didn't they? I mean they predicted 200 years ago...
JONATHAN BIGGINS: No, excuse me, let me finish, if I may. The Luddites in a - in a sort of curious way, I mean ok, sure, we've got free trade, we've got the benefits of the industrialised society, that's all very well and good, but there's this other little sort of thing hanging over our heads, despite what the denialist may say, called global warming etc, and I find it also curious that people aren't able to respond to that challenge in a new and innovative way. Surely this represents one of the great opportunities for the free market and capitalism to get off its butt and find a solution to it. It's like the music industry. As soon as the CD was introduced, it saved the music industry because they could put the back catalogue out on a new technology. That opportunity is there waiting, and I think it's very encouraging that President Obama is actually making noises in that direction.
LESLIE CANNOLD: But just to make a quick comment about that, one of the new economic theories that I hope comes out, and has been very suppressed, but it's something that's been talked about a lot in New Scientist, is new thinking about the economy that takes into account this idea that we are a world of limited resources and therefore we really can't keep dealing with the world as though the inputs to the economy are endless. The world is limited, we have to start perceiving it that way, and that will...
(CHRISTOPHER PYNE SCOFFS)
LESLIE CANNOLD: Exactly, and people used to laugh.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think they still are laughing.
LESLIE CANNOLD: but they're not going to...no, they're not going to be laughing any more because...
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, they might be.
LESLIE CANNOLD: I don't think so.
TONY JONES: I'm going come to you, but I want to hear Christopher Pyne first. do you disagree with any of this?
JONATHAN BIGGINS: What was that snort of disbelief?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think Leslie...
LESLIE CANNOLD: A snort of the past. A dinosaur of all snorting.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: A snort of disbelief based on Leslie's claim that we've been running a laissez-faire economy and so we're now reaping the whirlwinds of our yesterdays. We are so far from a pure laissez-faire's economy it's a joke. We have had a heavy regulatory regime in the finances sector, which is why we don't have the same issues with the subprime market that the Labor Party - that the Labor Party, it's there, they're the blame for everything.
TONY JONES: Yeah.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: They are to blame for everything. But the United States has had - we had over the last 12 years set up the most sensational financial system that when the Asian financial crisis occurred, all the Asian countries wanted to borrow our financial system as their model. So I'm snorting at the idea that we run this pure laissez-faire economy.
TONY JONES: All right, I just want to quickly bring you back to the question because...
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: yeah, this debate is cold comfort to our fellow's question on behalf of his father-in-law.
TONY JONES: But you weren't asked - no, the question was about subsidies and, I mean your government...
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You've got your jobs. You two have got jobs.
TONY JONES: One moment, one moment - let me just...
BILL SHORTEN: You've got Tony Abbott's job.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: No parliamentary pension, no superannuation fund. I'm a small business.
TONY JONES: OK, among other things you're accused of running a smear campaign by the questioner. Can I just ask what the questioner meant by that?
EDDY SWAT: Well, obviously - my father-in-law works on the shop floor. He has firsthand information about whether the orders are increasing or decreasing. Now unless this is a fake economy they're running at Bonds, they're obviously increasing production and he's actually had quite a lot of overtime, so new machines, overtime, increasing production, it's certainly contrary to what the Opposition's saying.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the Opposition's not standing up for the management at Pacific Brands, I'm not sure why it's the Opposition's fault.
EDDY SWAT: But you use that as an example, as a specific example that the government's rescue package doesn't work, but...it was contrary to that, that sales actually were supposedly increasing.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well what we know is that Kim Carr, who's the Minister for Industry, rang the chairman of the company three weeks ago when he first heard that there were some troubles. Apparently the chairman of the company told him there was absolutely nothing that they could do and that they would be going ahead with these retrenchments. Now whether the management is telling the truth or not, I mean, I don't know that, I'm not part of the Pacific Brands management, but I do know that anyone who's lost their job is in a very bad situation. This debate about, you know, laissez-faire versus, you know, more regulation, is cold comfort to the people who have lost their jobs at Pacific Brands. What we need to do is create an economy where the government is small, where taxes are low and where business can get on with employing people and expanding and making profit so that we can get out of the situation that we're in.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Hang on, hang on - in 2000, it worked spectacularly.
TONY JONES: Hang on guys, this is an side argument. I might take some questions from the audience in a moment, but first I want to hear from Bill Shorten and the government's position on this, and critically should these factories be subsidised and should there be an attempt to give them big enough subsidies that they remain in Australia?
BILL SHORTEN: Well, Eddy in regard to your observations on behalf of your father-in-law, and this is going to answer your question, Tony, how long has your father-in-law worked at the company for?
EDDY SWAT: At this company, 12 years.
BILL SHORTEN: 12 years. See what I know happens, because I know that there were jobs created in the last ten years. The Libs would say that was due to them, I'd say it was partly just due to the economy, an activity...
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: we had nothing to do with that.
BILL SHORTEN: No, no, no. But no, no but I'm just trying to - I didn't interrupt you.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes, you did.
BILL SHORTEN: Well, it was a joke.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You did.
BILL SHORTEN: Sorry, I'll speed up because I know there's many other questions people want to get to. On the disability support pension, which I've got responsibility for, what concerns me is that a lot of the people, and that pension increased from half a million at the time of Keating to 750,000 by the time the previous government were changed, the fastest growing pension in Australia, what happens is there are a lot of redundancies going on in manufacturing all through those 12 years, and what happens is that people don't get retrained. They've often - a lot of these employees at these companies have carried injuries, but because they want to have their job, they never put in a compo claim, but once they're in their 50s and 60s, no-one's employing them because they're old or because they were migrants and they weren't, you know, regarded as not easy to re-employ by prejudicial attitudes in the community. They end up on the DSP. So I think there is a value in this government having a research and development policy so that you've actually got engineers and you've got people working on fashion and brands. The textile and clothing industry can have a future in this country if we produce really good products, but the other thing which is bugging me about the debate is that there's been a lot of people thrown on the scrap heap, and I do think that this government is trying to answer the question what happens to your father-in-law when the job's no longer there. Pacific Brands, you know, poor old Pacific Brands, they were part of Pacific Dunlop. We've had unfortunately in the '70s and '80s, a whole lot of manufacturing combines in Australia. I can name them because I was there when some of them closed - Southcorp, Email. These companies used to be household names. This place in Albury was actually Ion, it was BTR Systems who make transmission drive, then it became Ion. Now it's in its latest incarnation. This company in Albury has been on the edge in the past. In fact, in one case because the management just stuffed it up colossally. So I think in future of manufacturing, we need better quality managers. I do think there's a role for government to work with these companies, but I do think that some of these companies should have an obligation to blokes like your father-in-law.
TONY JONES: You didn't entirely answer the question. Very briefly these companies, in particular, were subsidised for a long time, tens of billions of dollars actually out of the previous government. So why now did you offer them extra subsidies to try and keep them here and should you have offered them more and would they have stayed if you did?
BILL SHORTEN: I don't - I don't know. What the company said three weeks ago, to Minister Kim Carr, there's nothing we can do. There's nothing you can do, they've made the decision. They did say in their report...
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Did he make any suggestions?
BILL SHORTEN: Well, they did say, what they did say is that - because I thought it might get raised about the stimulus package as opposed to your father-in-law. They did say Christmas trading was strong with the December 2008 result ahead of December 2007. So the stimulus package is doing its bit. I suspect this decision, the die being cast some time ago, and I'm not sure that Kim Carr could have changed any of this outcome.
TONY JONES: OK, we do have a question right up the back. The gentleman's had his hand up for some time there. Let's hear from him.
MAN: In the last couple of days the United Kingdom has been reported into the newspapers that it's actually interested in moving its manufacturing offshore to help it reach its Kyoto limits for its manufacturing. Surely does that not open a window when we use smarter technology, we're developing analytics, our universities are developing better manufacturing management and better manufacturing programs, doesn't that create an opportunity for us to be able to take up the slack and be in direct competition with these other countries, using a smart Australia rather than just considering to be the lucky Australia?
TONY JONES: Brief answer on that Christopher Pyne.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I endorse that entirely. I think that's a very, very useful contribution. One of the clear ways that Australia can help reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions and those of the world is investing very substantially in technology, and you'll find some people across the world will say that almost every dollar that is going to be spent on various schemes to reduce emissions should be spent on new technology, but it's only by new technology that we're going to be able to have a really lasting impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Now I don't necessarily buy up to that entirely, but I do think what you're saying is absolutely right and we should be investing very heavily in new technology.
TONY JONES: Quick answer from Bill Shorten.
BILL SHORTEN: Yep, yes, and a couple of specific examples, I mean I agree with you, that's why we're trying the green car initiative fund. Why not build cars for the future rather than cars which people were buying 10 years ago? Also we've announced last week funding more apprenticeships. If you want to have a manufacturing sector, you've got to have people who can work in these sectors. So they're a couple of practical things to reinforce your point.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: I'd just like to quickly say it's not often you hear the words "UK" and "manufacturing sector" in the one sentence.
TONY JONES: Less and less often. OK, remember Q&A is live, it's interactive. Send us your question via SMS at 197 55 222 or go to our website abc.net.au/qanda. Just send us a message or even a video question, and here is a video question from Will Armstrong in Darwin in the Northern Territory.
WILL ARMSTRONG: Why do politicians believe it to be appropriate to speak to their colleagues with such vile rhetoric? How do they explain their behaviour to our children?
TONY JONES: OK, we've had a bit of a gloves-off week in politics. Julia Gillard with ABBA-loving, mincing poodles and attack-dog Dobermans and Tony Abbott calling the Prime Minister a toxic bore. A lot of us might argue, though, it's pretty tame stuff compared to Paul Keating's greatest hits. Jonathan Biggins.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: I mean, really, it's like being hit over the head with a wet lettuce, isn't it? I mean, I'm sure a lot worse things are said. I mean, Tony Abbott of all people to call anyone a toxic bore.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS AND APPLAUDS)
TONY JONES: Christopher Pyne, wipe that grin off your face.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, he's a great friend of mine and he's tremendously good company. There's nothing boring about Tony Abbott. Indeed, he's just toxic. I walked into that one. Thank you. Got that one right in the jaw.
BILL SHORTEN: Just pick on me, not the comedian.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: I mean, it's probably not very pleasant to be on the receiving end of comments like Julia Gillard, but I mean she's been on the receiving end far worse herself. And I think, you know, that that's the great shame about parliament at the moment, is it's so beige, it's so bland, and you long for a Killen or a Keating. You know, you want someone who can come and dismiss Peter Costello in one sentence - all tip, no iceberg. Four words, thank you very much.
LESLIE CANNOLD: I actually sort of agree with that and sort of disagree with that. On the one hand I think if it's going to be theatre, then I want it to be good, and a lot of the comments - I mean Keating was, I think, you know, just beyond belief how clever he was, but I do think that larger question of whether or not the way parliament conducts itself like a boys' club and a sledging match and all of these things which are very off-putting, we know they're very off-putting to women. I think in general they don't engender any respect for the institution. I think we're all very cynical about politics, and I think often the reason why is because we look on and we can see a process that looks like it's really not as serious and legitimate as it might be where the people who are sitting in seats, very important seats, you're representing people, you're representing people. There needs to be a recognition that you're playing a role. It's not about your ambition, it's not about who you can't stand in your party, it's not about...
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I love everybody in my party. They all love me too.
TONY JONES: Yeah, and then they wake up.
LESLIE CANNOLD: I've actually been through the process of watching a bill go from a twinkle in someone's eye all the way through the law, and it's really quite a terrifying process for the ordinary person to stumble into because what you realise is that the issue of substance, it is the last thing anybody's paying any attention to. It's all about the politics of it, it's about the personalities. I think it would be wonderful if it could be different. If it's not going to be different I think it should be amusing, but I would like it to be more like the judges, the way - can I just say this last thing? The judges, what they do, you know how they have the wigs and the robes? They actually do that because it's a way of them erasing who they are and taking on a role, and I would like to see a lot more of that amongst our politicians.
TONY JONES: We should have the "we"s and the "Torys". OK, Sabrina Houssami, are our children being damaged by the bad behaviour of politicians, which was the essence of the question?
SABRINA HOUSSAMI: I can't promise that a lot of kids really watch politicians how they debate, for sure, but say they were to hear from their parents what had been said by a parliamentarian, it's disappointing, isn't it, that that's the sort of role model that they have to look up to. Not that I'm saying that as politicians you must stand as ideal members of society at all times. You're human beings first and you're flawed as a result...
TONY JONES: I think Bill wants to deny that.
BILL SHORTEN: No, I'm listening, I'm not interrupting. I'm just trying to cheer myself up.
SABRINA HOUSSAMI: I think it's the height of egotism to think that you can get just, you know, get away with being so vindictive and not be called up on it,
BILL SHORTEN: I don't think it's that vindictive.
SABRINA HOUSSAMI: For sure? Don't you think so?
BILL SHORTEN: There's a lot of which never get seen. It's not what sells - it's not what sells newspapers, and the media reports those interchanges. I'm a parliamentary secretary which is an arcane term. I'm not a backbencher, I'm like a baby minister. In Question Time we don't get to ask questions, we don't get to answer questions, we just get to sit there. At least Christopher gets to ask questions.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Sure. Good ones.
BILL SHORTEN: Yeah. Yeah, obviously he sacked his speech writer.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Don't think Joel Fitzgibbon minds getting those questions.
BILL SHORTEN: But the point about Julia Gillard and that interchange which some people are referring to, she does a fabulous job, and I think she is a very good parliamentary debater. But I just would caution people 98% of what goes on in parliament is a lot of hard work which will never reach the headlines. It's members of parliament speaking and legislating. I actually think that some of the criticism's fair but there's a lot of genuine people from all parties who are working very hard doing their hours and they're very committed.
TONY JONES: OK, we actually have a question about that interchange you're referring to. It's from Mullan Dumphies - Dumforce, I beg your pardon, sorry.
MALIN DUMFORS: Well I'm Swedish, so I was wondering why Julia Gillard involved ABBA when she picked on Christopher Pyne. You know, doesn't she have more poignant references to draw from?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well ABBA in Australia was ABBA's most successful market outside Sweden, for their entire career. I mean who doesn't love ABBA? It's ridiculous. If you want to get somebody on the dance floor at a wedding, they play ABBA.
LESLIE CANNOLD: And as long as they spell your name right.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: They all jump up and have a dance.
LESLIE CANNOLD: She's mentioning ABBA. It's a good thing.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think when we start attacking ABBA, it's a bit unAustralian to attack ABBA quite frankly. There's nothing wrong with ABBA, there's nothing wrong with Cold Chisel.
TONY JONES: Are you suggesting the Swedes wouldn't do this?
MALIN DUMFORS: No, I don't think they would be calling each other like John Farnham loving bulldogs and things.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: It does raise the point, I mean how does a poodle know what ABBA is? And I mean, I agree with Bill though, and Christopher to the extent that I think politicians, they cop an awful lot but they cop more from the general public than they do from each other, and it is very true, there is a great separation between politics and parliament and government, and part of the problem is I think that the whole, I mean, I think the press gallery has an awful lot to answer for, and what's happening - extremely in the last six months to a year, and you were a master of this yourself...
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The ABC is to blame.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: No, it's finding your pet gallery member who you will leak certain things to. And you all play off the journalists, and the journalists desperately trying to get in there, I mean to the point where we now have political coverage is more gossip columns than political reporting.
LESLIE CANNOLD: Or like a football match.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: And that's what the journalists are fascinated by is the personalities, the sniping, the bitching, the tactics, the strategy.
LESLIE CANNOLD: Who's ahead, who's behind.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: The Fisheries Act, dull as dishwater, who wants to know about it? That's actually where most of it is, but unfortunately you're in the business of being re-elected, so maybe you feel the need to indulge in that kind of...
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Can I say I've been in parliament for 16 years, and Question Time is an hour and a half of a sitting day, and that is all it is. The rest of the day is legislation and committee work and dealing with trying to make Australia a better place on both sides of the House. I don't always agree with the Labor Party on the things that they want to do, obviously, and I'm sure they don't agree with the things the Liberal Party has done or will do, but we are all trying to make Australia a better place. You don't spend a long time in parliament, you don't fight tooth and nail to get in there against people within your own party first in pre-selection and then actually out in the electorate just for the fun of it. You do it because you think you're going to make a difference. Question Time is theatre. It's the theatre of the day, but it's important, and why it's important is because where a minister or even a prime minister who is not performing, therefore is probably not doing the best job they can for the country, is brought down by the Opposition, it's where the accountability...
BILL SHORTEN: Or a shadow minister.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Or a Shadow Minister. It's where the accountability really hits the road, where the rubber hits the road, and it's important that that be done for transparency, and I... Question Time and the argy-bargy is really not important. I've been watching the public for 16 years. When when nothing is really happening in Question Time, they're all sitting back and talking to each other, and when there's a bit of a row going on, they're all on the edge of their seats having a look to see what will happen. And you know, sometimes it's interesting. It could be a lot funnier, that's true, but it's an important part of the Westminster system.
LESLIE CANNOLD: But I also think it's a confusion to say well, just because our motives are good - I don't mean to question anybody's motives here.
BILL SHORTEN: This week's a good example.
LESLIE CANNOLD: Wait a minute, your motive is good, your motive is good. Most of the politicians' motives I've met are good. That doesn't translate from what I've seen into a parliament that's functioning, I think. No, we're functioning pretty well. I mean as as a country and as a system, and a country is a system, I think our system works pretty well, and I think, you know, we have elections every three years, everyone gets a vote, there's... basically there's no boat rigging. The Government does its job, the Opposition does its job. It's not a one-party state. I mean, we're a great country.
TONY JONES: We get to the point where the politicians agree with each other, so it's time to move along.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I think Bill's motives are...
BILL SHORTEN: When we disagree everyone says we're not doing it properly, when we agree you're all suspicious.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Exactly.
TONY JONES: I'm perfectly happy. Let's move along. You're watching Q&A live. Go to our website abc.net.au/qanda, to send your questions in. Here's another video question from Felicia Shukor in St Kilda in Melbourne.
FELICIA SHUKOR: Assalaam Alaykum, Sabrina. Hi, how are you? My name is Felicia Shukor from Melbourne. I'm just like you, a young modern Muslim woman, Sabrina, living in Australia. My question to you is - in today's world people often judge someone by their looks and appearance. What do you think about the glass ceiling in companies and organisations where women are still overshadowed by men when we are doing the same job? What's your opinion about that?
SABRINA HOUSSAMI: Certainly I think that glass ceiling effect does exist. It's just an unfortunate fact that so many women do find themselves doing the same jobs that men do for a lesser income. It's also a sad fact that so many of the men are occupying positions at the higher level, which you see all the time with a male and so rarely with a female. But I think it gets worse when we talk about the glass ceiling that occurs for women that come from cultural or ethnic backgrounds as well. You'll find that...I actually know people, personally, who have had to send in resumes and change their names to an Anglo-Saxon one and actually achieve the same job that they'd been originally rejected for with the exact same qualifications. So, you know, it's a really sad fact, and it's something that I think as a modern Australian Muslim woman myself, I look at and I think my goodness, you know, I have so much more faith in my countrymen, and I should think they have enough faith in me and my kind that we can provide the same services that any other Australian can, that we count ourselves amongst you as human beings first, Australians second, and that we're really just here to live the same lifestyle that everyone else is.
LESLIE CANNOLD: I always find it heartening when you see young woman who are really straightforward and straight up and down about the fact that they do want to go some place in the workforce, and I think what tends to happen with this conversation and where it's ended up where we are now, is that women...the big barriers is motherhood. So there's all the barriers that you've spoken about and I agree that they're completely there, but the real barrier for women is motherhood, and this is the point where a lot of women leave the workforce, they struggle to get back, and it's very, very difficult for them to get up to the top again, and so all the complexities come in. Is it really about, you know, discrimination, or is really what's going on is that women don't really want to be at the top as much as men do, or maybe it's the fact that they dropped out and so it's not fair that they should be at the top when the man was there the whole time working so hard. So we've actually not, I think, got down to the nitty-gritty as to the complexity as to why woman are stuck where they are, which is happily not where they want to be, and I think it's fantastic women keep speaking up and saying that they'd like the problem to be looked at in greater depth. Maybe the politicians could convene a round table to talk about all of these really real problems and see if we can solve them.
TONY JONES: Jonathan.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: I've read an interesting study that showed that most women get to be appointed the CEOs when the company is in trouble.
LESLIE CANNOLD: Just like premiers.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yeah, Labor Government.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: The recession should be boom time for female CEOs.
TONY JONES: Sounds like you might be about to appoint an opposition leader who's a woman.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Where's that? Where's that?
TONY JONES: Just going on that sort of...anyway, what are your thoughts about the question we're asking?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, my workforce that I've existed in for 16 years is politics, and I think it's fair to say - I'd be interested in Bill's view, but I think as the women in politics reach the top, get closer to the top, as you...
TONY JONES: You get rid of them. There is no shadow treasury position.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You just don't get rid of them. It's...I mean there are many examples of this. Cheryl Kernot has been on this program with me, Julie Bishop recently, Carmen Lawrence when she was a Minister, Natasha Stott Despoja. The further women rise up the tree, the greater the expectations of them.
TONY JONES: Julie Bishop was on this program. That was the point I was making.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: She's terrific. The greater the expectations that are put on them, and the media I think quite frankly do go after them in a way they don't go after the men at the top of a tree, and the expectations become ridiculous, and I think the worst example is Cheryl Kernot. When Cheryl Kernot was in the Democrats, she was lauded by the press, she was the darling of the media. As soon as she joined the Labor Party and became one of the two major parties, the whole environment changed for Cheryl. There was just a complete pursuit. Now, look, I don't have any truck with Pauline Hanson at all. I hope she - I'm sure she won't win a seat, I'm absolutely certain of that in Queensland.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: She'll get her money for running.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I don't know. Do they pay for votes in the Queensland? I'm not sure that they do. With Pauline Hanson was a bit the same - the more profile she achieved the more the media were determined to tear her down. I don't know why, it's the culture of politics perhaps, or it's the culture of business. The more women become threatening perhaps the more the boys club together. I'm not sure.
TONY JONES: Let's hear from Bill Shorten.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You're very powerful.
BILL SHORTEN: Thank you, Chris.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: A very powerful man, no-one attacking him.
BILL SHORTEN: In terms of...I mean, the politics, Julia Gillard, Jenny Macklin, Nicola Roxon, Tanya Plibersek, Maxine McKew, Labor's got some - and plenty more by the way, there's so many more. It's really amazing to watch, but I'm interested in the observation that the - the lady in St Kilda asked about the glass ceiling. It exists in the workplace, and anyone who says it doesn't exist isn't working out what really happens, and there are so many times you see women either drummed out because of paternity-maternity reasons or the way decisions get made. We still don't have wage equity in Australia. Women do not get paid the same as men across the spectrum. But there's another group who I think miss out when you go to the issue of looks and appearance, and it's not trying to have a misery competition between different groups, equity groups, but when you have a disability and you fight for a job, good luck to you if you can even get the job agency to offer - to recommend you, and you know, there's thousands of people with impediment, and many of them hold down senior jobs no problems, but there's others who would never get an interview because of how they look, and so I do think that discrimination is alive and well, and it shouldn't just be up to other women to battle through, it shouldn't just be up to someone in a wheelchair or someone with a mental illness or someone who might have some form of impairment to have to do the fighting. The rest of us, the people in this audience, the Government, the Opposition, have got to start saying it is prejudice and we don't have any time for prejudice. So I've got to say, the question on women, I think, has been well answered by everyone else, but can you just give a thought, next time you see an executive search agency, just see if you've got a disability or if you've ever had a worker's comp claim, see how you go getting a job. So I think Australians, we're not malicious but we can sometimes be very ignorant.
TONY JONES: Another question from the audience comes from Geoff Quinn.
GEOFF QUINN: Can the panel comment on the use of words describing, say, someone like Sabrina as a Muslim rather than an Australian beauty, any more than you would describe Christopher Pyne as a Catholic Liberal MP?
TONY JONES: Good point. Sabrina?
SABRINA HOUSSAMI: You'd be shocked how much it comes up that I am Muslim when the media are involved. You'd be shocked how little it comes up when another Miss Australia who comes from a Catholic background doesn't even have her religion mentioned. You'd also be shocked at how many people basically read newspapers, and we have articles that are completely fabricated, so we have quotes that are completely made up. For example, I will be asked, "Has the Muslim community supported you in your ventures as a beauty queen representing the country internationally?", and I'll say, "You know what, they have supported me, and I'd really rather not talk that much more about the Muslim community, because I'm representing Australia as a whole."
BILL SHORTEN: Hear, hear.
SABRINA HOUSSAMI: Thank you. And the next day my friend, in the papers, you will see that Sabrina said she's received death threats from the Islamic community. So I think, well, the media really has a lot to answer for. And we as people - I do encourage you all to think twice the next time you read something, particularly about a minority group, because so often the media is just stirring up antagonism, and they're not telling the truth, they're even making up stories to sell, and we as consumers lap it all up. So please don't, don't believe it, it's bullshit.
TONY JONES: Leslie.
LESLIE CANNOLD: Well, I wonder, Sabrina, whether one of the reasons that people want to mention the fact that you're Muslim is that there have been so many stereotypes in the public domain lately about what a Muslim woman is, what she looks like, what she's about, what a Muslim man is, what the religion is. We've been swimming in ignorance. And so all of a sudden there is someone who breaks the stereotype and you're a shorthand for saying, we don't understand anything, we don't really know what we're talking about, and to me that can only be a good thing. And I recognise that you're a sort of a pawn in that. But I think you're serving - you're really serving us well because we need to be reminded that we don't really know what we're talking about.
SABRINA HOUSSAMI: Thank you, Leslie. It's lovely to have the opportunity to remind people, but so often the media doesn't give you that speaking ground. I mean, if they ask you, you answer. And, as I said, then they'll write something or they'll say something completely different, which is why live television is such a wonderful thing because no one can misconstrue what's been said. No one can rewrite what's been said, yeah, it's all just the truth coming out.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think there is a little bit of a danger in what Leslie said. I agree with Leslie and I agree with Sabrina absolutely, but I worry that the reason why Sabrina is, you know, seen to be part of the community is because Sabrina looks very much like the rest of the community, and so therefore she is a role model. But we shouldn't regard Sabrina as different to somebody who is in full purda. The person in full purda is a human being who deserves full respect as well.
LESLIE CANNOLD: Of course, nobody's saying that.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, I'm not saying you are, but I just think there's a danger in the media saying, "Let's put Sabrina up there because Sabrina looks like us, so therefore, you know, she's a good role model." But she's a human being, the person who is in full purda is a human being, the Aboriginals who live amongst us in the city, who work amongst us with coats and ties - you know, people say, you know, "These are good role models", but the person who lives a tribal lifestyle in Central Australia, they're a human being too, they should all be treated exactly the same way.
SABRINA HOUSSAMI: You are so right. I wonder how often the role model is the mainstream ideal.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Sure, of course, that's the whole idea. Isn't it?
SABRINA HOUSSAMI: Yeah, that's such a good point.
LESLIE CANNOLD: But I wonder whether or not, always, I guess what I was trying to talk about was not so much role model as the idea that you are someone who is countering a stereotype, so it makes us question that whole thing. I hate that role model stuff. I hate it. I think it's so unhelpful. No one should have to serve as a role model for other people.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: Look, I'm happy to serve as a role model for radical something or other. Radical atheism.
TONY JONES: We'll make sure, Jonathan. We'll put that into your title next time.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: Well, it never served as an impediment in my beauty queen career, I have to say.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Short lived.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: Yeah, short lived, very short lived. Yes, but, I'm not a big fan of religion per se, no offence to anyone who is, but I'd be happily identified as RA.
TONY JONES: We'll make sure it's on your CV next time we introduce you. We have another video question, this one from Felicity...sorry, we have people in the audience who want to ask questions. Well, we'll come back to you, but in the meantime we have a question from Felicity Touzeau, in Melbourne, Victoria.
FELICITY TOUZEAU: In this economic climate, how do we ensure that people with a disability are still given opportunity for employment?
TONY JONES: Very straightforward question. We have the Shadow well, Minister I should say, the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities. Let's hear from him first.
BILL SHORTEN: Thanks, Felicity. I mean, it sort of actually follows on a little bit from some of that discussion about the way we look at people, and the way people get reported. We've got 1.2 million Australians who've got a profound or severe disability, and they get the bottom of the the barrel treatment. Let's be honest. I'm gonna keep banging on wherever I can about this. It's not only just employment, it's home ownership, it's educational outcomes. They've been ignored for a very long time, unfortunately. In terms of employment, there are some employers are doing a good job, but the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is far higher than people without impairment, and we've got this problem that we tend...it's not the person with the impairment who's got to change, it's the rest of us. We've got to stop looking at someone and worrying about whether or not they are in a chair, whether or not they can hear, or what their standard of vision is like, or whether or not they've go an episodic mental illness, and start looking at the whole person. So Brendan O'Connor and Julia Gillard have announced some new initiatives. We're working on some more. We're freeing up some of the pension laws so people with impairment can go to work. But we really need the private sector, and the Federal Public Service to lift their game. So that's what we're going to do.
TONY JONES: Just a quick question on this score. I think you're building 20,000 community houses, is that right? Part of the...
BILL SHORTEN: Social housing.
TONY JONES: Will all of those be fitted for disabled people?
BILL SHORTEN: Most of the stock is going to be new housing. All of that will have universal design principles. Jenny Macklin and Tanya Plibersek, they are the senior people, so all of the housing, and most of it, which is all the housing which is new, which is most of the 20,000 units, will all have universal design principles. What we're also going to do is buy some existing stock, and retrofit it, and get it up to a standard. Some of that will not be have the universal design principles in it because it's pre-existing stock, but most of the housing will have universal design, and I put a plea in to the property developers when you're building your new housing estates - sooner or later we're all going to get old - I mean, that's the plan - and we're going need to have universal access. So I think, once upon a time we said housing was too expensive to make it green, it was too expensive to put a water tank in, to expensive to have insulation - not any more - but in terms of people say it's too expensive to have... Whoever thought that a toilet doorway should be 700mm wide? Where was that written in the Bible? You know, it's not there...or, you know, the atheist book.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Is that written in the Bible?
BILL SHORTEN: No, it's not.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: That's why I don't believe in it.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I'm glad we cleared that up.
BILL SHORTEN: So why don't we make it 920mm wide? That's all. So I think there's plenty we can do there too.
TONY JONES: Christopher Pyne, briefly on that.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I can't disagree. I can't disagree with Bill.
TONY JONES: If we move into a recession, if this country goes into recession, the pressure on spending will be tremendous, and often the spending that falls off the back of the truck is spending on people with disabilities and that sort of thing.
LESLIE CANNOLD: We've already lost maternity leave.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, that's another issue. I was the Parliamentary Secretary for disabilities when we were in government in the halcyon years of the Howard era.
(Jonathan Biggins speaks in an old man's voice) Those were the days...
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Those WERE the days. That's what people say. And, look, I can't disagree with anything Bill said about issues to do with disabilities. I had the difficulty of transitioning businesses that were business enterprises, which people used to in the old days used to call them sheltered workshop, which is happily no longer a term that we use - interim or modern era where they paid correctly, where they paid their workers properly, and I think Bill's taken that responsible over. And there is no doubt that in difficult times, people with disabilities will find it harder, and we'll have to make sure we support them better.
TONY JONES: A hand shot up in the audience there, there's a lady with her hand up for a little while.
WOMAN: Hi, I'd like to ask, particularly Bill, what do you think of Brendan O'Reilly's suggestion that we have something like Medicare for a national disabilities scheme, that was, you know, funded through taxpayers?
BILL SHORTEN: The proposition which the...what was your name, sorry?
BILL SHORTEN: The proposition Marie's raising is - goes to, we don't fund disability properly in Australia. I mean, what happens is - if a child can't go to school, we say, "Well, that's wrong, a child's got to go to school." But if a person with a disability can't get proper funding, we say, "Well, we don't have enough money." So when did that happen?
WOMAN: A long time ago!
BILL SHORTEN: I know. I know when it happened, but when did we all sign on to that sort of passive aggressive sort of discrimination? There is ideas around which I'm attracted to, which looks at how can we provide individualised funding and lifetime support so a person can participate. If we stop looking at a person with a disability as charity, and actually as a human being, as someone who can contribute, as a consumer, as a market - we're going to do a lot better. So I'm interested in his idea.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: There is something we can do right now for people with disabilities, and I hate to come back to me because I know I've had a turn on this, but if you've got children with a disability at school, and you are in the public system, then you get supported by state governments. If you move your child from the public system in most states to the non-government system, you lose that support from the state government. Now, that is discrimination in my view and that's something that this government...and we would support them, could fix right away. We could deal with that right now.
TONY JONES: OK, what I'm going to do is go to another questioner. We have a question from Margaret-Anne Otton, and it relates to some of these issues.
MARGARET-ANNE OTTON: Yeah, Bill Shorten, you gave an undertaking at your last appearance on the Q&A show in September, that you would look into extending the autism package funding to all children with disabilities needing early intervention. Nothing has happened so far. It won't be early intervention if something isn't done soon. You said that night that all children requiring early intervention should be entitled to services, and I spoke personally about my own experience and daughter. This isn't the case. Can you give an undertaking of when this is going to change? Not just for me and my family, but for all the other families out there?
BILL SHORTEN: The point you made the last time we spoke on this show was really powerful, and you raised an example which most people wouldn't have even been aware, including me. Without going through the full diagnosis of your child, it's...your child has a global developmental delay not otherwise defined. In other words, the symptoms - there's symptoms that there's - a person who needs assistance and intervention, but it doesn't fit into a funding criteria, so when you raised it I went back, and that's why I've written back to you twice, and I've spoken to you by phone since then - is that it seemed to me impossible that the situation you're describing could actually be the case. And what is shameful is the situation you are describing is the case. And I've been in touch with the Head of the New South Wales Department, and we've had a series of meetings, and I've been and talked to four other departments, and I said, "This can't be right." So what I can say to you is that in order to change the appropriation - and these are technical issues that Chris knows far better than me - when you get taxpayer money, you've got to put it through legislation and Parliament. We have an appropriation on the autism package. For other developmental delays, they're not including in that package, so what we're working on is how do we have an early intervention strategy for children such as your own, but other forms of impairment, so we're currently now proceeding, lobbying and within the budget process, how do we get an early intervention package which is more extensive, and covers all impairments. That ain't going to happen in this budget.
MARGARET-ANNE OTTON: And that's exactly my point.
BILL SHORTEN: No, no, it is but...
MARGARET-ANNE OTTON: you know, it won't be early intervention.
BILL SHORTEN: Oh, I appreciate that.
MARGARET-ANNE OTTON: These things are sorry, I don't mean to cut you off but you did refer me to DADOC. And to be honest with you, and this is feedback you'll get from a lot of families, it's actually a lot more stressful for us having to deal with that as well as trying to care for our children, and to, you know, become speech therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists ourselves, because we're not getting the support. What we're getting is a run around from one - just being bounced from one - Federal to State. It's not happening. It's not early intervention if it doesn't happen now.
BILL SHORTEN: Again, like I spoke to you after the last show, I'm...one more quick answer, I'm conscious that other people will have other questions. I have found an area, and I've got some really good innovative public servants, and I said, "This is not acceptable." We've - Jenny Macklin's just reformed the Family Support Program. It is possible through - I'm hoping - through lobbying and just rejigging the Family Support Program, that it might be possible to include the global developmental delay in a category receive some assistance. It's early days yet, but as late as six o'clock tonight I was speaking to people in Canberra, and I said, "Well, I'm going to be on TV again and I've got to have something which is more than just no." But we'll talk further after this.
MARGARET-ANNE OTTON: And just quickly - just one quick other thing. I went to a meeting recently with other carers. I'm very focused on my own situation at the moment, early intervention, but actually this is something that's affecting all carers with children, you know even with carers with adults. Mothers who are still looking after their, you now, children in their teens, 20s, 30s, 40s at home, and they're also given the feedback they're not the getting the support.
BILL SHORTEN: You are correct.
MARGARET-ANNE OTTON: So, you know, what does it say for us going ahead?
BILL SHORTEN: Well, I'll tell you the one thing I will say beyond that. If Australians started demanding political parties to have tip top disability policies, and they would allocate their vote based on that, some of the basic systemic problems you're describing wouldn't happen.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: But the trouble is, as far as I can see, that all this has to be paid for, and if you're going to advocate smaller government, and if you're going to advocate tax cuts every five minutes, no one's going to pay for it.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: When we had a surplus of $22 billion it wasn't being paid for.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: Excuse me. Well, exactly.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It's part of the new government. They had $22 billion and that's now gone.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: Until you get a complete shift in the ethical framework of the society, where you don't pay a bloody CEO of a minerals company $8 million to go, and yet you can't fund any of these programs because there's not enough money, until there is a complete shift in the ethics of what is it we can afford, and what we should pay for and what we shouldn't then that's going to be the story. Go and ask that guy for some money. He's got heaps.
TONY JONES: That's a throw, in a way, to a question that we have been sent in. Remember you can send you questions by email, video or join the studio to ask them yourself. So go to our website - the address is on the screen right now how to do it. Here is a web question, it's just come in, from Lee-Anne James from Narrabeen in New South Wales. Surely most Australians are outraged Sol Trujillo could be paid out $30 million in this economic climate, especially since Telstra is looking to job cuts.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: I just said it.
TONY JONES: Yes, I know.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: He must've been watching. You can ring up Sol.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Can I comment on that? President Obama had something very interesting to say about that in his address to the Congress yesterday, our time. A fellow in I think Miami, who was paid out $US60 million after his retirement from a bank, divided the $US60 million between the 392 employees currently in the business, and the 72 that had left in, like, the previous two or three years, on the basis that he'd been in this business, he'd known many of them since he was seven years old locally. So he actually divided his pay out between all the other workers - I suppose he kept his 1/465th, whatever it is.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: That's very good of him.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Maybe Sol Trujillo might want to do the same with the Telstra employees.
TONY JONES: Not a bad idea.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: Can't see it happening. There's only 30,000 or something.
LESLIE CANNOLD: I think the problem is that we have not even as a society got to the state where we've been able to say, you know, more than it's obscene. Like every time this sort of thing happens, every time we hear about who is on the richest list, and who's getting paid - what CEO is getting paid what, there's you know, politicians come out and they express outrage, and then business goes on as usual. And I think we really do have to get to a point where we say, "This is what we think should happen. Like let's say, for argument's sake, somebody at the bottom of a company the person at the top should only be making ten times that, that should be the max", or maybe we'll think it's seven, or maybe we'll think it's 15, but we should have actually have a public conversation where we get ourselves straight about what we think, and then we should start finding ways to put pressure, so all the yak, yak, which is really just distraction. It's all so we can go, "Yeah, yeah, that's wrong," and then the conversation moves on, and it really is wrong. It's fundamentally offensively wrong.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: We did have that. In the 1970s, the average CEO to basic wage was nine to ten times.
LESLIE CANNOLD: And in Japan it's ten times.
BILL SHORTEN: At BlueScope Steel, when I was the union rep for the steelworkers, I moved a resolution that the senior executive shouldn't get more than 20 times the average median wage in the company. The company went off their brain that we moved the resolution at the shareholders' meeting. We were Communists and all the other sort of pet names of the Liberals.
TONY JONES: So you're in government now, what are you going to do about it?
BILL SHORTEN: Well, let me tell you the story. Let me tell you the story, because what we did, is we moved...it was a shareholders' vote, we got 9% of the vote. So let's all understand, we all want to rein in excessive wages. Now, we sold Telstra I'll use the word "we" - some people sold Telstra. The shareholders...
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, you sold the Commonwealth Bank, Qantas...
BILL SHORTEN: Yeah, the shareholders...
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: CSL...
BILL SHORTEN: People don't like in politics "he said/she said", Chris. That's why we get on the nose sometimes. What I'm saying about - what I'm saying about is the shareholders at Telstra have got to demand to do something. Kevin Rudd has made some comments today about the need to rein it in. And he is looking at some options on how it can be done. But if you're really fired up about Sol Trujillo, and you think it's wrong because it is wrong, and if you're angry about it, and you should be angry about it, then tell all the shareholders, who are your neighbours, vote this stuff down.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: You can't though because it's the institution that have got the bulk of the votes, and they are going to protect their own backs. I mean they all sit on the common boards.
BILL SHORTEN: Institutions are more responsive, if you bother to educate people on what goes on. If the public sees this as intolerable, and has an organised point of view on it, institutions do actually ultimately reflect the people power.
LESLIE CANNOLD: The Government is shovelling money into some businesses at the moment, and certainly it seems to me that one small little wedge of opportunity would be that if a government hands over money, and it says, "We're handing over this money because we want to save jobs, and we're not doing it because we think you're great, we're doing it for the economy as a whole, and for people who lost their jobs", I think that should be one of the criterion. And we should say very, very clearly, "And don't think you're using this money for, you know a great bail out package or a great high salary".
TONY JONES: Very briefly, because we are nearly out of time, but if we guaranteed the banks, does the government then have a say over the remuneration of senior bank officials in private institutions?
BILL SHORTEN: I think it's going to be a big step for any government to start setting the wage ceilings in private companies. So I'm not going to tell you what you... I'm not going to make a promise that I don't believe is going to be kept, but I do think it's appropriate that the banking sector and the others - there's going to be a comeuppance if they steal and...no, bad word. If they are just...I take that back. If they just simply...
JONATHAN BIGGINS: Allegedly.
BILL SHORTEN: If they want a golden handshake, if they want a golden parachute and then there will be a reckoning on it.
JONATHAN BIGGINS: But I don't believe we can tie all our budget to it. Here's a figure to leave you with. The last quarter of 2008, the top 50 financial firms on Wall Street gave out Christmas bonuses of $27 billion. That is ridiculous.
TONY JONES: OK, that is probably the best comment on which we could leave that discussion, because it's all we have time for tonight. Please thank our panel for facing the Q&A audience tonight - Jonathan Biggins, Christopher Pyne, Leslie Cannold, Sabrina Houssami and Bill Shorten. OK. Next week we'll be joined by two of the economic heavyweights of Australian politics - Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner, and former Treasurer Peter Costello, along with advertising guru Geoff Cousins, magazine editor Sally Warhaft, and opinion editor Rebecca Weisser. So if you want to be there to ask the questions go to our website. Register to join the studio audience - abc.net.au/qanda, or send us your question online. And don't forget, we're looking for short satirical videos to show on the program. You can upload your entries on to our website. Tonight we'll end with a video mash from work experience Boy Wonder Keiran Ricketts of Tweed Heads. Goodnight.
This riveting episode of Q&A began with a discussion of the news of the day, the decision by Pacific Brands textile manufacturers to sack 1850 workers and move its manufacturing operations offshore despite receiving tens of millions of dollars of government support in recent years. A video question from Will Armstrong in the Northern Territory raised the issue of MPs’ language, specifically remarks about Christopher Pyne being a mincing poodle and Kevin Rudd a toxic bore. A Swedish audience member, Malin Dunfors, complained tongue-in-cheek about Christopher being depicted as an Abba listener. Swedish politicians, she said, would not call each other John Farnham-loving bulldogs. A young Muslim viewer from Melbourne, Felicia Shukor, asked Sabrina about the glass ceiling that kept women down in the workplace, and audience member Geoff Quinn queried why someone like Sabrina was always given the adjective “Muslim” while Christopher, for example, was not described as “Catholic Liberal MP”. When the discussion switched to disability services Bill Shorten was challenged repeatedly by audience member Margaret-Anne Otton, who had confronted him on Q&A in September last year over early intervention programs for children with disabilities. Nothing had happened in the interim, she said, and it wouldn’t be early intervention if something didn’t happen soon. Bill urged all voters to put pressure on their political representatives to ensure that better outcomes for those with disabilities were achieved. The program ended with a web question from a viewer complaining about the massive pay-out for outgoing Telstra boss Sol Trujillo at a time when Telstra was looking at job cuts. All in all a fascinating hour of discussion that left audience members feeling entertained and informed. As one remarked: ‘Intelligent, thoughtful and genuine, with appropriate humour that didn’t detract or divert. It demonstrated that good TV doesn’t require conflict to work.’
You can watch a video or read the transcript of the complete program from this page (see above) or watch Q&A on iView. The Q&A video is published here at about 2am Friday morning while the transcript and iView editions are published about 2pm each Friday afternoon.
Before entering Parliament Bill Shorten was one of Australia’s best-known trade union leaders. As secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union he was a major player in the national industrial relations debate and gained widespread prominence for his role on the scene of the Beaconsfield mine disaster in Tasmania in 2006.
As a key member of the Victorian ALP’s right-wing Centre Unity faction for more than 20 years, Bill was always expected to pursue a career in Parliament. He was elected to the seat of Maribynong, covering Melbourne’s outer northern suburbs, in the 2007 election and was promoted straight to a senior role as Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services.
Bill is one of a new breed of Labor politicians who are expected to take senior leadership roles in the party through the Rudd years and beyond.
Born in Melbourne in 1967, Bill graduated in arts and law from Monash University and – unusually for a trade union leader – completed a Masters in Business Administration from Melbourne University. Apart from his union and political activities he also served as interim CEO of the Australian Netball Players’ Association and on the advisory board of the Australian Cricketers’ Association.
Read articles and watch reports about Bill Shorten.
Christopher Pyne was 25 when he entered Parliament as the Liberal member for Sturt, in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide, in 1993.
Christopher was born and raised in Adelaide and graduated in law from Adelaide University.
He became active in politics as a teenager and played a prominent role in the South Australian Liberal Party, as president of the Young Liberals and as a member of the State Executive.
Factionally aligned with the moderate wing of the party and known as a supporter of former Treasurer Peter Costello, his opportunities for advancement under John Howard’s leadership were limited. It was not until March 2007, eight months before the government lost office, that he was promoted to the front bench as Minister for Ageing.
Following the election Christopher was runner-up in the contest for Liberal deputy leader and was given the portfolio of shadow minister for justice, border protection and assisting the shadow minister for immigration and citizenship. After Malcolm Turnbull took over the party leadership he was promoted to shadow education minister and in February 2009 was given a strategically crucial role as Manager of Opposition Business in Parliament.
Since 2003 Chris Pyne has been Patron of the Labrador Retriever Club of South Australia.
Christopher is married to Carolyn and they have four children, Eleanor, Barnaby, Felix and Aurelia.
Read articles and watch reports about Christopher Pyne.
Jonathan Biggins is an actor, writer and broadcaster. He has appeared on film, stage and television, and is probably best known for his satirical comedy work.
A former host of ABC TV’s arts program Critical Mass, Jonathan is currently director of the Wharf Revue for the Sydney Theatre Company and a regular contributor to the Good Weekend magazine. His latest book is The 700 Habits of Highly Ineffective People, and his most recent stage role was as Peter Sellers in the national tour of Ying Tong – A Walk With the Goons. He is about to appear in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties for the STC.
Jonathan was born in 1960 in Newcastle, in NSW. His parents met doing amateur drama at university, so the passion for theatre runs in the family. By the age of seven, Jonathan was an acolyte in a production of Twelth Night.
He went to Newcastle Boys High which he claims was a fairly intimidating place to be if you weren’t great at sports or maths. However once he joined the debating team, and went on to win the state finals, things started looking up. All good training for a Q&A panellist.
Jonathan’s stage appearances include The Importance of Being Earnest , A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Orpheus in the Underworld, and the Gilbert and Sullivan Savoy operas Ruddigore and The Mikado .
On TV, Jonathan has starred in The Dingo Principle and Three Men and a Baby Grand, satirical sketch television comedy programs for which he was a writer/performer with Phillip Scott and Drew Forsythe.
His film credits include Thank God He Met Lizzie and Gettin' Square.
Read articles and watch reports about Jonathan Biggins.
Sabrina Houssami is a former Miss World Australia and current Miss World Asia . She represented Australia at Miss World 2006 contest in Poland, taking out third place.She is an active charity ambassador, and has helped to raise over five million dollars for charities across the world. This work has seen her travelling to East Timor, Malaysia and Singapore to assist with causes there.
But Sabrina is not just a beauty queen. She is a member of Mensa, with an IQ in the top 2 per cent of the global population. She is currently a Liberal Studies student majoring in Psychology and English at the University of Sydney. She works part-time variously as model, motivational speaker and events host.
Sabrina was born in 1986 in the Sydney suburb of Kemps Creek. Her father is Muslim Lebanese and her mother Indian. She successfully weathered some very sensational press reports around the time she first decided to enter beauty contests. While headlines screamed “Muslim girl defies Muftis” , Sabrina had in fact entered the contests with the full support of her local community.
Sabrina currently lives with her parents and younger sister, Abbey, in her home on the banks of the Georges River, and aspires towards a career in the media upon completing her degree.
Read articles and watch reports about Sabrina Houssami.
Dr Leslie Cannold
Dr Leslie Cannold is a bio-ethicist, researcher, writer, commentator and an Honorary Fellow at the School of Philosophy, Anthropology, & Social Inquiry at the University of Melbourne, and lecturer at the Centre for Gender and Medicine at Monash University.
Leslie is a member of the ethics panel of the Infertility Treatment Authority, and the research member of the Victorian Department of Human Services Human Research Ethics Committee. She is also President of Reproductive Choice Australia, a national coalition of pro-choice organisations that played a key role in removing the ban on the abortion drug RU486 in 2006.
Leslie is author of the award-winning The Abortion Myth:Feminism, morality and the hard choices women make . More recently she wrote What, No Baby ? which made the Australian Financial Review's top 101 books list for 2005. The book documents the lives of contemporary women who plan to have it all – marriage, motherhood and work – yet have been derailed by reluctant men and insatiably demanding jobs.
Leslie was born in New York and moved to Melbourne at the age of 23. In 2005, she was selected as one of Australia's top 20 public intellectuals .
Leslie is well versed in the moral dilemmas and debates currently surrounding the areas of work/life balance, gender issues, business and medical ethics. She regularly addresses professional organisations, community groups and students and is the resident ethicist on Brisbane radio 4BC. Leslie currently writes a weekly column called Moral Maze, which appears on Sunday s in Sydney’s Sun-Herald.
Leslie is also the lead singer of the Melbourne-based rock cover band Speedy Fish.
Read articles and watch reports about Dr Leslie Cannold.