E&OE…
RAF EPSTEIN
I don’t know if you think Malcolm Turnbull is substantially different to Tony Abbott as Prime Minister with regard to policy, it does look very much though like the way the Government works has changed. I have heard indirectly from Ministers that they feel they are getting a lot more “face time” with the Prime Minister. There is a remarkable article in The Australian today saying that: ministers will be the direct advisers to the Prime Minister on their portfolio. You would have thought that it was always the way, that the minister directed policy in their area. Senator Scott Ryan joins us, he is a Victorian Liberal Senator and he is also the Assistant Cabinet Secretary, so he plays an important role in deciding or at least collating what goes before Cabinet. Scott Ryan, good afternoon.
SCOTT RYAN
Good afternoon, Raf.
EPSTEIN
Is it the case that there is a significant difference, that ministers are now the chief advisers to the Prime Minister on their portfolio?
RYAN
I don’t think we should read too much into one newspaper article, sometimes journalists are known to inflate things. The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has made clear the point you made in your introduction that he expects that the chief adviser on communications to be Mitch Fifield, his Minister for Communications, his chief adviser on small business will be Kelly O’Dwyer his Minister for Small Business. He has spent a lot of time dealing with members of the new Cabinet and the new Ministry, and he has made it clear that he wants a highly deliberative and considered Cabinet process driven Government.
EPSTEIN
So, it clearly wasn’t happening under Tony Abbott.
RYAN
I think the truth is that government processes and the move of ministries in Cabinet reflect the Prime Minister. Without commenting on any specific points that you made earlier I will say that Hawke, Keating, and Howard Cabinets were all very different. They reflected the personalities, the priorities and the way that those three prime ministers worked. I don’t think the fact that things would be a little bit different under one prime minister to another is in anyway surprising.
EPSTEIN
Sounds like they are a lot different though, not a little.
RYAN
Without talking about the last couple of years at all, I think we shouldn’t read too much into one newspaper article. This reflects Malcolm’s personality and his experience in business and what he said publically, which is: he wants a highly deliberative form of Cabinet Government. I think that is very important these days because one of the ways we generate support for difficult public policies or even some of the very difficult issues you were just discussing when we have effectively semi-natural disaster circumstances with fires, is that people want to know the process was in place they want to know issues were considered, experts were called upon for advice and that the best available information was used to make decisions. When we become aware they are not working we explain why that is the case, as I mentioned last time we spoke, and why we might have changed tact.
EPSTEIN
Does process lead to different policy, or does it simply allows you to know that: hey, that policy is going to be tougher to implement. Does it actually lead to a change in policy or does it just mean that you are able to sell it better?
RYAN
I believe that there is both there. There is an old saying in politics, Raf, that I have always been a believer in: good policy is good politics. The former treasurer Peter Costello often said that, along with John Howard. I think the truth is that in most circumstances good process leads to better policy and that involves talking to stakeholders, talking to people experienced in the area, learning what went wrong in similar policy areas before. There are some new areas of challenge in government policy, the emerging threats in national security for one but many of the challenges we have in a lot of our public policy areas, whether they be how our schools work, how we get better value for money in health , they are not new challenges but the circumstances are new. So, learning from the mistakes of the past and the successes of the past and talking to people who are seeing, for example the growth in diabetes presentations in our hospitals, knowing that the growth and the burden of chronic disease and how we address that, that is an emerging challenge, so to look at how we manage that, let’s look at what we have done in the past. Good process does lead to better policy.
EPSTEIN
Scott Ryan is the Assistant Cabinet Secretary, Scott Ryan Brian Loughnane will no longer be the director of the Liberal Party, he is of course the husband of Peta Credlin who was much criticised as Tony Abbott’s chief of staff. I am right in thinking, aren’t I that he could not have stayed on when Tony Abbott had moved on?
RYAN
I have actually know Brian for over fifteen years since he was the state director in Victoria when we worked together, he was the state director and I was a junior member of a politician’s staff, I knew him before I knew Peta Credlin. Brian has served the Party with distinction through at least half-a-dozen elections that I have known him, and today’s announcement isn’t surprising. As he said, he had made it clear after the last election, and there were whispers around this before the election too, that he thought four elections were enough. I think we can look at Brian’s contribution as a very successful one.
EPSTEIN
But it is also the case that with Tony Abbott gone that he wasn’t going to stay? I am sure he did resign; I don’t know if anyone forced him to leave but he just couldn’t work with the new Prime Minister, he was seen as part of the problem wasn’t he?
RYAN
I don’t think we should read too much into the political gossip. When someone actually announces their resignation and states the reasons for it, I think absent of some overwhelming reason not to, for someone like Brian who has always been a reasonably straight shooter, then I think we can take it at face value with what he said. It is not a surprise to people, even going back to before the last election where there was a view and there were whispers that he had indicated that this was his last time. It is a very time consuming job, and so I think we can thank Brian as a member of the Liberal Party for his service over many years.
EPSTEIN
Just a quick question outside of your portfolio which I will try on you, we have a new board of the Climate Change Authority, I think they have signed five year contracts. The Climate Change Authority initially, under both Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt, that was something you tried to wind down and the Senate stopped you doing that, is it now no longer policy? Are you happy, does the new Turnbull Government want the Climate Change Authority to stay beyond the next election?
RYAN
With the proviso that it is not a direct portfolio responsibility of mine; one of the things that you learn, particularly as a Senator I might say, is that when you don’t have the majority in that Chamber you deal with the world the way it is and not necessarily the way you might have preferred it to be when you started out in Government two years ago. As I understand it, those appointments are there and the Authority will continue its work.
EPSTEIN
Beyond the next election?
RYAN
I would expect so, yes.
EPSTEIN
Thanks for your time.
RYAN
Thanks, Raf.
(ENDS)