Topics: 2016 election results; Medicare scare campaign; Prime Minister’s speech.  

E&OE…

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

I  am joined now by Senator Scott Ryan live from Melbourne, thanks for your company.

SCOTT RYAN:

G’day Peter.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

You walked in there with Malcolm Turnbull, you were one of the key guys that brought him in. If he doesn’t get a majority, or even if he gets 76 seats – good call, bad call?

SCOTT RYAN:

Before we make assumptions about what is going to happen with the count, let’s just give the AEC a couple of weeks to do it. We are getting some pretty significant  results through now. I think,  and I still strongly believe, that the Coalition was in a better position electorally given the change we made than we were before it.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

Okay, so in other words, that Galaxy poll a week account that suggested that things would be worse without a change had you not instituted what you instituted in September, you believe that has validity?

SCOTT RYAN:

I don’t recall the detail of it, but I think, as a couple of my colleagues have said, I think we were in a more electorally competitive position. Even though we didn’t do everything perfectly by any stretch of the imagination. But we were in a more competitive position having made the change.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

And having made the change – I am of the view, for what it is worth, that you can form government as a minority government, and you may well have discipline, it may well descend the way that the Gillard government did, that will be something that will play out over time, it will depend how colleagues and others react. But I believe for the Turnbull gamble to be a success, you need to form a majority government. I don’t think 55 people voted for a change of Prime Minister to achieve a minority government at the end of it. Would you accept that?

SCOTT RYAN:

I don’t think it is right to say ‘the people’ as if they are one entity voted for a specific outcome, there is 13,14,15 million individual decisions that have come to, again in Australia, a particularly close election. So I think we need to view it that way. In the end, I have worked in opposition and seen government s that have started out in minorities and ended very strongly – like Steve Bracks – yet we have also seen where we had the Rudd-Gillard experience where a couple of personalities ensured that was not going to success, as well as some significant broken promises by the Gillard government. I still think we are a chance of getting to 76; we are getting some pretty significant numbers through. Even this morning our lead in Chisholm has now grown to 412. So I am increasingly, I might even use the word confident, but I am increasingly optimistic about Chisholm –

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

(Interrupts) but let’s call a spade a shovel. Chisholm is neither here nor there. You are going to get Chisholm, I will put that in your column for you already. The ones that you are going to struggle with though –

SCOTT RYAN:

(Interrupts) You’re not the AEC Peter! (laughs).

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

(laughs) If I was, maybe this count would be done by now. It has been unbelievable! Why do they take Sunday and Monday off straight after an election? What are they, a unionised workforce?

SCOTT RYAN:

I think, to be fair, the AEC made some pretty significant changes to custody of ballot papers after the debacle in Western Australia last time. So, if the custody of ballot papers and safe transport of them is an issue, then I will give them that day.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

(laughs) Fair enough, let’s try to keep things above board there. Particularly over in WA, there has been some suggestion of something going on in Cowan. But, more broadly, the seats that are going to decide this election. Would you agree,  that whether the Coalition does or does not pick up two out of the three of Flynn, Herbert, and Capricornia. If you win two out of those three you probably get to your 76, if you don’t win 2 out of those three then you probably don’t. Would you agree with that?

SCOTT RYAN:

That doesn’t count Hindmarsh and Cowan –

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

(Interrupts) I am giving them up.

SCOTT RYAN:

Okay, well, I have to admit that I am not. Particularly Hindmarsh, because they did actually count half the postal votes yesterday, so I think we will get a more accurate result out of Hindmarsh today if they count at the same speed, if they do the rest of the postal votes. With only provisional and absentee votes to come. I think you are quite right. If we do pull back the lead in Flynn, which some of my colleagues are quite optimistic about, then I think that gives us a very good chance of getting to 76.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

Realistically in Hindmarsh though, the way that absentee and pre poll tends to go, it is unlikely that on the flow so far in Hindmarsh that you would get Hindmarsh. You would need something to change.

SCOTT RYAN:

I don’t know if that is quite true. It is fair to say that the first batch of postals did not close the gap as much as the Coalition might have hoped. And absentees and provisionals traditionally haven’t been as helpful. But there has also been a decline in absentees and provisionals partly because of the substantial increase in pre poll voting. So, I think, let’s just wait and see how the second half – or 60 per cent – of postal votes go, because that will effectively indicate fairly clearly a result for Hindmarsh. They might get through that today.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

By the way, you should know this, my understanding is that in Flynn, on the first postal vote  count in Flynn, the LNP is getting 64 per cent and on that basis you would win the seat by as many as a 1000 votes even though you are down by almost 2000 at the moment.

SCOTT RYAN:

Flynn has been something that my Queensland colleagues and my National colleagues have been saying don’t discount it. And this is exactly what they have been saying could happen. Obviously, I hope they are right and I hope that trend continues.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

We will find out, it is a key one I think. If you don’t get Flynn, then as I say you have to get both Capricornia and Herbert and you are more likely to get one of those than both of them. Let’s move onto some policy discussions. The Prime Minster in his, well it was almost like a quasi-victory speech, when he said he believes or he has been advised that he can form government. He railed about what was going on with the Medicare scare campaign. And While I can understand his anger, not one mention of all of the colleagues who had lost their seats, not one thanks to the Liberal Party supporters, indeed the personnel that had handed out all the how-to-vote cards, and not one word of recognition that despite the scare campaign there was a situation nonetheless there was obviously some voter concern around the Government and healthcare, whether exploited or not is something that government needed to remedy. He did some of that yesterday, he should have done it on the night though, shouldn’t he?

SCOTT RYAN:

I am not going to publically judge speeches of the Prime Minister on television Peter. I think he made a quite frank speech yesterday where he took responsibility and outlined a couple of elements. There will be plenty of time to talk about the strengths and otherwise of the campaign. At the moment he is quite right to focus on formation of government. Because that is what the people are interested in, they are not as interested in the campaign machinations, they are interested in the policy outcomes for them and who forms government. There will be plenty of time to talk about the strengths and otherwise.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

What he did do yesterday, as you noted, he did sort of recognise, I suppose, while he is frustrated and angered and thinks it is inappropriate the lie that the Medicare scare campaign was based on – the idea of privatisation of Medicare – nonetheless it obviously tapped into some voter concerns on the Government’s attitude toward healthcare. That needs to be more than rhetoric if you are returned as a government doesn’t it? There needs to be some sort of policy look at this. What kind of things could be in the mix?

SCOTT RYAN:

I think, and I will say it openly Peter, this is my reflection on Sunday and I didn’t think this at the time. If you go back through the history of this issue through the Liberal Party, in 1990 Peter Shack had a press conference where he said we didn’t like Medicare and we don’t have an alternative – it didn’t do the Peacock opposition very good. Those who were involved in the 1993 campaign will tell you that Medicare was nearly as potent, if not as potent an issue as the GST. John Howard made sure Medicare never became an issue in his time. And in fact, when it did become an issue in 2003 and 2004, Tony Abbott as the Health Minister was given the responsibility to stop it becoming a political issue for the government – quite successfully I might add. In hindsight – and as I said this is not something I was saying at the time, not something I thought before Saturday – the issue of the Medicare co-payment in 2014 and the ability for Labor to use new campaign techniques, and public sector unions targeting vulnerable voters, I think we underestimated the fact that Medicare had become an issue again in people’s mind. An issue that previously might not have been a matter for public debate – like the rebate levels or the payment system – actually resonated a little bit more. Partly because Labor had been running a misleading campaign for a couple of years, but partly because we didn’t follow John Howard’s playbook, and that is: don’t touch Medicare.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

So, would it be your view that the sorts of things that need to be on the table – I am not saying that you’re suggesting a change, but they need to be on the table for possible change – things like the six-year freeze to the Medicare rebate?

SCOTT RYAN:

SCOTT RYAN:

No, I think this is something that needs to be the product – it needs to be something that the government discusses, because clearly, like you said, there was some concern that allowed completely misleading claims to resonate in a way they couldn’t resonate previously (inaudible)

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

(interrupts) So it should be on the table?

SCOTT RYAN:

Well no I’m not going to actually go into particular measures here. I think there needs to be a discussion about it, and we need to think about it and need to understand that yes, this is a concern the community has. They regard it as a totemic policy issue and we need to view it through that prism. And as I said, just to clarify, I didn’t think the rebate would resonate the same way because it was Labor’s policy, but clearly it allowed those who campaigned against us to misrepresent it.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

So, the rebate, possible some of the other policy measures around pathology, these are all things that you agree should be looked at, they’re obviously not on the table –

SCOTT RYAN:

(interrupts) No, I’m not letting you put words in my mouth. What I’m saying is that we need to understand why the community concern was there for Medicare in a way that wasn’t there when John Howard was Prime Minister. And I do recall for example, Kevin Rudd didn’t campaign on Medicare, he had to campaign on state public hospitals partly because John Howard and his health minister at the time, Tony Abbott, were successful in making sure Medicare was not a political issue for the Coalition government then. We need to understand why it was now, and address those concerns.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

Senator Scott Ryan, we appreciate you joining us so soon after the election. The result, when do you predict it will be known, the end of the week?

SCOTT RYAN:

I think at the end of the week we should be getting a pretty good result in three or four of those key marginal we discussed earlier.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

Okay Senator Scott Ryan thanks for your company.

SCOTT RYAN:

Unless it’s down to a dozen votes.

PETER VAN ONSELEN:

Yeah well we’ll find out I suppose, then there will be recounts galore. Thanks for your company.

(ENDS)