No regret or bitterness, no could've beens or wannabes, but a new chapter for Christopher Pyne.
More than half of his life has been spent in federal parliament, and the 51-year-old rolled through some achievements as he announced his retirement on Saturday. Establishing Headspace, the youth mental health network. Building submarines in Adelaide. Creating a national innovation strategy. Literacy and numeracy tests for teachers. "I've certainly had a go," Mr Pyne told reporters in Adelaide on Saturday. The 26-year parliamentary veteran will leave at the May election and go into private industry, rather than chase the leadership of the Liberal party. "There is a lot of could've beens in politics, and there is a lot of wannabes," Mr Pyne said. "Being leader of the party, that would have been a tremendous thing to do for the party and for the country, also for myself. "(But) I think I've covered the whole gamut of opportunities that have been available to me and I'm very fortunate." Mr Pyne is close to former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull but said the August leadership change did not affect his decision to quit. "I started thinking about (it) in January when I was down at the beach ... whether I wanted to keep going," he said. The defence minister's departure leaves Prime Minister Scott Morrison's front bench depleted just weeks out from the election being called, but Mr Pyne is confident the coalition can win the poll. "People have got to retire some time," he said. "Being in politics is not a life sentence." Mr Pyne entered parliament in 1993, and shortly after told future prime minister John Howard it was time for him to move on. The Adelaide MP was subsequently banished to the backbench for almost a decade. "I think I was a bit young at 25. At the time I thought I knew everything," he said when recounting the episode. "That led to some period in the freezer for me." His three children, aged 11 to 18, have all been born while he has been a politician and on the road regularly. "I think it will take some getting used to, me being around most of the year. But I'm sure they're looking forward to it. It begins a new chapter for all of us," he said. Mr Pyne said watching colleagues lose their seats before they were ready affected his choice. "I'm not leaving with regret or bitterness, nor have I been forced out of office in some hideous scandal," he said. "I'm not going into the tomb, I intend to be around in politics, in South Australia in particular, for a long time to come." Labor frontbencher Penny Wong praised Mr Pyne as a "worthy opponent". "He's irrepressible. He's tenacious at times to the point of ruthlessness and he's occasionally extremely entertaining," she told reporters. A full third of all the women in the coalition party room are now in Scott Morrison's federal cabinet after he added a record seventh woman to the government's inner circle.
Emergency Management Minister Linda Reynolds has come in from the outer ministry to take over Steve Ciobo's job as Defence Industry Minister on Saturday. "This now makes our cabinet the strongest level of female representation in the history of federation, and that is something that I would intend to continue should we be elected at the election in May," Mr Morrison told reporters in Canberra on Saturday. Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull had six women in their cabinets. Senator Reynolds, who was a brigadier in the Australian Army, will also become Defence Minister if the coalition wins the next election. "To every woman in the Liberal Party today ... you don't need to be a quota. If you are good enough, you can get in," Senator Reynolds told reporters. "I have been appointed not because of my agenda but because of my experience, and we have got many other women who equally are capable, and what the prime minister has done is demonstrated to them that they too can succeed because they have the talent." There are currently 21 women in the coalition party room - seven are now in cabinet, five others hold ministry or administrative positions, and two are former ministers. But at least eight of those 21 women are retiring at the next election or face losing their seats. Mr Morrison praised the preselection of a number of women candidates in Victoria and Tasmania, including the choice of Dr Katie Allen to replace the outgoing Kelly O'Dwyer. But Labor frontbencher Penny Wong said there was clearly a problem when only one in five coalition MPs was a woman. "The Liberal party seem to have this problem with preselecting women, seem to have a problem with promoting women and seem to have a problem with actually having women in their partyroom," she told reporters in Adelaide. Mr Ciobo told Sky News he would like a woman to replace him in his safe Liberal seat of Moncrieff on the Gold Coast. "I would love for it to be a women, I think there are some terrific women around who are interested in running for the seat," Mr Ciobo said. Scott Morrison's lips were moving, but the words he spoke about renewable energy came straight from Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.
The climate debate has consumed the coalition for more than a decade, with both former prime ministers laying down rules their successors have struggled to break from. Morrison made this week about renewable energy. It's important to undecided voters, and large parts of the Liberal party. But climate change is an old wound for the coalition, constantly ripping open and being stitched back up in painful ways. The scar tissue means Morrison can't stray too far from what's already been laid down. So on Monday he started with an extension of the Emissions Reduction Fund, which will get an extra $200 million a year over a decade. It was Abbott's scheme under his direct action policy, which replaced the carbon tax. The carbon tax was an entirely "liberal" solution because it put a market price on carbon, made polluters pay for it, and used the money to invest in renewable energy. Abbott's scheme instead used taxpayers' money to pay big polluters to change their dirty ways. Turnbull called it a "fig leaf" and fiscally reckless. It's not a shock that emissions, which were dropping under the carbon tax, started rising again under Abbott. When Turnbull took over he sought to replace it with the National Energy Guarantee, but everyone knows how that went. Abbott's fund represented the acceptable version of emissions reduction for the right wing of the coalition, so rather than change it, Morrison has extended it. "It is important to have balance in your emissions reductions policies. You’ve got to have the cool head as well as the passionate heart, which is our approach.," Morrison said in a 40-minute speech. Labor was less kind. "The ERF has been something we’ve opposed since it was introduced by Tony Abbott almost a decade ago," Labor frontbencher Mark Butler told reporters. "Remember at that time Malcolm Turnbull described it as a fig leaf to cover a determination to do nothing and a recipe for fiscal recklessness on a grand scale." Pumped hydro was Turnbull's vision instead, and he managed to sell sceptical right wingers on it. Perhaps because hydro power has a long history in Australia and in a more visceral sense it has a physical presence than 'airy fairy' wind and solar projects might lack. Concrete. Steel. Giant pieces of infrastructure holding back the forces of nature and bending them to humanity's will. The right wing was okay with it, so Snowy 2.0 was well in train when Morrison took over. A second Basslink cable and more pumped hydro in Tasmania was on Turnbull's agenda too - Morrison announced it all. "If you want to have a renewables future, you’ve got to have big batteries like this," Morrison said in Tasmania. The rules are set. Morrison is sticking with Abbott's vision for paying big polluters and with Turnbull's vision to get more reliable, renewable power into the system. Even as Labor is promising a stronger shift to renewable energy, Morrison is holding to the 26 to 28 per cent emissions cut Tony Abbott promised the world. The prime minister is not sticking his neck out on a new version of the National Energy Guarantee, which Morrison helped design and defended staunchly until the spill. He lacks time to develop major new initiatives before the May election, but he needed to quell pressure from his own side about a lack of climate policy. This week might have been the best he could do within the limits - a big investment in Snowy 2.0, more to come in Tasmania, and efforts to reduce emissions in line with Abbott's plan. But the prime minister had to play within the rules his predecessors laid down. Straying too far right now is a recipe for trouble. Will it be enough to win over undecided voters? Will it even be enough to hold on to progressive Liberals? Morrison doesn't have long to wait to find out. |
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