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  • Tony Abbott, Transcript - Election Result

    07/09/10

    Subjects: Election result; decision by rural independents; National Broadband Network; shadow ministry; the Senate.

    E&OE

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Thanks everyone, that’s very nice and I really appreciate the support and encouragement, it’s been terrific. It’s a disappointing day, it’s a disappointing result, but nevertheless, I could not have asked for more support from my colleagues, from my staff and from the Party at large.

    Ladies and gentlemen, the longest election is finally over. The Coalition won more votes and more seats than our opponents, but sadly, we did not get the opportunity to form a government. Obviously, I’m disappointed about that but that’s our system and I certainly am not going to let my disappointment at the result blind me to the great strengths of our system which I will always respect.

    I congratulate Prime Minister Gillard for being restored to office. For our country’s sake, I hope that she can be an effective Prime Minister in this term of Parliament. For our country’s sake, I hope that the Labor Party can provide a better government in this term of Parliament than it has over the last three years. For our country’s sake, I hope that the Labor Party can rediscover the soul that has been so lacking, particularly over the last half of the previous Parliament.

    My task today is basically to thank everyone who has worked so hard for the Liberal Party and for the Coalition over the last eight weeks. I particularly want to thank the 5.5 million Australians who put their faith and trust in the Coalition at this election – almost 700,000 more than voted for the ALP.

    Obviously, I want to thank my Parliamentary colleagues, led by Julie Bishop and Warren Truss. I could not have asked for more support. I want to thank the lay Party led by Alan Stockdale and Brian Loughnane, they have performed magnificently. I particularly want to congratulate all the new Coalition MPs coming into the Parliament who I am sure will be an adornment to a great institution, an institution which, incidentally, I think will be improved by the reforms that were agreed yesterday with the support of both major parties.

    I want to pay a particular tribute to my personal staff. I have been a staffer to a Leader of the Opposition. I know how difficult it is to be senior staff to a Leader of the Opposition and all of my staff have performed far above and beyond the call of duty. They have performed prodigies of work and service over the course of the campaign and I should pay a particular tribute to my Chief of Staff, Peta Credlin.

    I should also pay a special tribute to my wife and family. Margie and the kids have not always revelled being connected to a politician, they have not always revelled in that, but I have to say that the family has come together in a very special way over the last seven or eight weeks and I have been incredibly touched and grateful for their extraordinary contribution to the campaign that’s now passed.

    So, ladies and gentlemen, I now rededicate the Coalition to the task of Opposition. I believe that we will be an even more effective Opposition in the coming Parliament than we were in the last one. We want a strong Australia and we want better lives for the Australian people. To the extent that that is what the confirmed government delivers, we will give credit where it’s due. To the extent that it doesn’t, we will hold them ferociously to account because that is what the Australian people will expect of us. I rededicate the Coalition to the task of being a credible alternative government and that will be more important than ever given the inevitable uncertainties of the coming Parliament.

    QUESTION:

    Mr Abbott, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott both indicated that stability and the fear that maybe if you had been Prime Minister that we may have gone to an early election, might result. What’s your answer to that? Would you have gone to an early poll and were there assurances given to the independents, by yourselves and the National Party, that you wouldn’t try and interfere in their seats?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    I’m not going to go into great detail of what was discussed between myself and the independents other than to say in response to this particular question that I made it absolutely crystal clear that as far as I’m concerned and as far as the senior leadership of the Coalition was concerned, we wanted the Parliament to run full term.

    QUESTION:

    Mr Abbott, would you be standing for the leader of the Liberal Party and again and Ms Bishop, will you be standing as Deputy?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Well, can I answer first and then Julie can speak for herself. Yes, I will. I will be a candidate when the Party meets on Thursday and I want to say how pleased I am with the performance of the team, particularly the performance of my Deputy, Julie Bishop. I could not have asked for a stronger team. I could not have asked for a better Deputy. Julie?

    JULIE BISHOP:

    At the Party Room meeting on Thursday, I will be putting my hand up for the Deputy Leader’s job and I just want to take this opportunity while I have the microphone in front of me to pay tribute to the efforts of Tony Abbott since he became Leader of the Opposition last December. Tony transformed the political landscape in this country. He has secured a place in political history. As far as the Liberal Party is concerned, he brought us together in a way that many would not have imagined and he also made the Coalition even stronger. He’s proved to be one of the most effective Leaders of the Opposition in history and I believe he would have made a magnificent Prime Minister and on that basis, I would be honoured to serve as his Deputy again.

    QUESTION:

    Mr Abbott, just on that same issue, if I could fire a question, I suppose we did ask you on that day when you became Opposition Leader by one vote, you know, what your plans were. When you look back, are you surprised at how close you came to getting the keys to The Lodge?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Look, I think it has been an amazing journey over the last nine months. I don’t think anyone would’ve expected nine months ago that the Coalition would’ve come within a whisker of forming a government and, as I said, I’m thrilled to have been part of that, but it has been an extraordinary team effort and I suppose my challenge now is to ensure that I’m not the best Opposition Leader never to have become Prime Minister.

    QUESTION:

    Mr Abbott did you find out, presumably like Julia Gillard, that you weren’t going to become Prime Minister by watching the television screens?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    That’s correct.

    QUESTION:

    Can you set the scenario up for me? Did you feel that was coming? Did you get the indication that you were unlikely to get the numbers you needed?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Look, I was watching the Windsor-Oakeshott press conference on tenterhooks, as I imagine most of us were. I think everyone in this building had an extraordinary feeling of anticipation as that press conference started. Look, in the end, I wasn’t surprised or shocked, I was disappointed. I was, nevertheless, grateful for the opportunity over the last fortnight to put my case to the three country independents. I think that the Coalition offered regional Australia a historic new deal. I’m pleased that Bob Katter accepted that but I’m disappointed that the other two didn’t.

    QUESTION:

    Mr Abbott, do you envisage making changes to your senior line-up, like your finance, you know Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb and Ms Bishop in Foreign Affairs? Do you envisage a big shake-up of your leadership team or do you plan to keep people where they are for now and what role would you have in mind for Malcolm Turnbull to bolster the Opposition?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Ok, well first of all, I don’t want to get ahead of myself because there’s a Party Room on Thursday and the Party Room will have to confirm me in the leadership for my views on this matter to be of continuing relevance, but I have great confidence in my team and while inevitably there will be some changes, should that be up to me, I don’t think anyone should expect big changes. Now, on Malcolm, Malcolm is an extremely able person. I’ve always believed that he was an adornment to the Parliament. I’ll have to have a talk to him but I think he can expect to be a senior member of the Coalition going forward.

    QUESTION:

    Julia Gillard’s said that the message she heard from the voters is that Australia wants a new maturity in our Parliament, a new way of working together, a new spirit of openness. Is that the message you got and are you up to for that?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    I think what Australians want is good government, that’s what they want. They want good government that helps to deliver a strong Australia and better lives for the Australian people. So, I will do what I can do to ensure that we have good government. Now, that means being an effective Opposition, that means holding the Government to account. It means being a credible alternative. So, they’re my main tasks as we move into the new Parliament.

    QUESTION:

    Mr Abbott, do you think that the Parliament will run a full term or are you pretty hopeful and confident you’ll have another shot at being Prime Minister within say, one year?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    That’s really in the Government’s hands. I certainly won’t be rushing, trying to lead a rush to the polls because I think the public have just gone through the stresses and strains of an election campaign and I don’t think they would be particularly pleased to have another one anytime soon but in the end what happens will depend very much on the performance of the Government. If the Government performs well there’s no reason to think that a successful vote of confidence would be carried. If the Government performs badly well, then, a successful vote of confidence probably should be carried. At all times the test is what is best calculated to produce good government for Australia. If the Government is seriously incompetent it should be gone as quickly as possible. If it’s reasonably up to the mark well, then, it should enjoy a full term.

    QUESTION:

    When was the last time an Opposition ever thought an Australian Government was a good government? When’s the last time an Opposition in this country ever said that?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    I’m sorry. I missed that.

    QUESTION:

    When was the last time in this country that an Opposition ever came out and said, ‘oh yes this Government’s running a good government and we’ll leave it be?’

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Well, Fran, look, you’re probably at least as much of an expert on Australian political history as I am. As I said, my intention if the Government does well is to give credit where it’s due. If the Government does badly it will be held ferociously to account. Now, you won’t be surprised if as an Opposition I tend to focus more on what can be done better than what had been done well because that will be my task but the public will know whether the Government has performed well or badly and if it’s performed badly, well, it’s representatives in the Parliament will respond accordingly.

    QUESTION:

    The National Broadband Network was one of the things that Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor saw as a crucial area. Is that something your Party now has to re-visit, your policy on that as it’s now worked through Parliament?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Obviously in the course of the next Parliament we will re-consider our policies. That’s what political parties do in the course of a term of Parliament but I’ve got to say that I am very confident that the policies that we took to the election were the right ones. I think that the very big swing to the Coalition is a sign, given all the circumstances, that we did take good policies to the election. You can always say that maybe this policy or that policy could have been better argued in a particular circumstance but I think they were good policies and my strong suspicion is that the National Broadband Network is going to turn out to be school halls on steroids. I think it is going to be a mine field, an absolute mine field of waste and incompetence and you can be absolutely certain that the Opposition will be hyper-vigilant in this area. No competent Government would commit $43 billion in public funding to a project without a full cost-benefit analysis. The fact that this Government has done so I think is a very bad sign for competent government in the coming term.

    QUESTION:

    Are you worried about the pledge that rural consumers will now be a priority in that they’re broadband services will be subsidised and, that’s a pledge that Ms Gillard made today to the Independents.

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Look, let’s wait and see how things work out. I mean, you know, today I don’t want to engage in too much partisan rancour because for all the disappointment that I feel and that my colleagues feel at having come so far but not quite far enough, an election is a triumph for our system. The formation of a government, even a government which has scraped home by the skin of its teeth after a humiliation unprecedented in almost 80 years is still in its own way a triumph of democracy. So, I don’t want to get too deeply into partisan rancour. I just want to say that I understand that it is often necessary to subsidise services in regional and remote areas and certainly the policy that we took to the election envisaged quite significant subsidies for services in regional and remote areas. The important thing though is to get a good system at the best possible price and that’s what I don’t think we’re going to get with a National Broadband Network.

    QUESTION:

    Senior members of your front bench have said that they believe that the Independents didn’t enter into the discussions in good faith. Do you believe that they’d made up their minds earlier or that they were sincerely negotiating with you?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Look, I don’t accept that proposition that you put to me. A negotiation is at times a bit of an emotional rollercoaster and I certainly felt optimistic and pessimistic. I felt exhilarated and deflated in turns in the course of the last fortnight and I’m not surprised that my colleagues sometimes did and I’m not surprised that occasionally something of their mood was communicated to the outside world but I believe that at all times the three country Independents were doing their best to engage with both sides of politics and while, as I said, I’m disappointed with the outcome I think that they were acting in good faith.

    QUESTION:

    You’ve talked a lot about the Labor-Greens alliance in the Senate, but in the short term, say the next ten months or so, between the Coalition and Steve Fielding you guys can really hold the Government to ransom. At what point do you begin to make a judgement this next Government is being wasteful, say on the question of the NBN, and look is it within the realms of possibility on that basis of you going back to an election in the next 12 months, not so much on blocking supply but on a general block of Labor’s legislative programme?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Well, the only way we can have an election is if the Government loses a vote of confidence in the House and the Governor-General doesn’t believe that in the circumstances someone else can form a government. So, frankly…

    QUESTION:

    I’m talking about perhaps a double dissolution and have you spoken to Senator Fielding because he’s said he doesn’t think Julia Gillard deserved to be returned?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    I appreciate his views and I think that in the time between now and the next election everyone should try to give legislation proper consideration on its merits. If the legislation is deficient it should be rejected. If it’s good it should be supported and let’s see what happens. As I said, how quickly we go back to an election depends entirely on the performance of this government. If the government’s performance is so manifestly deficient that it loses a vote of confidence, if it loses the vote of no confidence in the House, well then it is highly likely that we will have an election but that is entirely in the Government’s hands and I certainly would not lightly move no confidence in the Government given the circumstances that we are now in and I wouldn’t expect people to lightly support such a motion.

    Thanks very much, thank you.

    [ends]

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