Chris Pyne

Chris Pyne – The Insider: Politics, Party and Parliament

Chris Pyne was the Federal Member for Sturt for 26 years.

He was Leader of the House and held a number of senior Cabinet ministries, including that of defence.

Pyne’s autobiography ‘The Insider’ is a fantastic account of life in the Canberra Bubble but also a deep dive into serious public policy and defence policy in particular.

Misha Zelinsky caught up with Chris for a chinwag about his career in politics. They talk about his bruising preselection in his 20s, the politics of politics, the horror show that was the 43rd Parliament, the task of rebuilding Australia’s military capabilities, what’s holding back an Australian nuclear industry, dealing with a rising Chinese Communist Party superpower, how the west can address the Uighur challenge and why politics shouldn’t be personal.

Show notes:

@mishazelinsky @diplomates.show

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Misha Zelinsky:

Chris Pyne, welcome to Diplomates, thanks for joining us.

Chris Pyne:

What’s it called?

Misha Zelinsky:

Diplomates, get it?

Chris Pyne:

Diplomates?

Misha Zelinsky:

Yeah.

Chris Pyne:

Oh, that’s cool.

Misha Zelinsky:

Yeah. It’s a pun.

Chris Pyne:

Indeed. Diplomates.

Misha Zelinsky:

Thank you for coming on.

Chris Pyne:

It’s a pleasure, Misha, thanks for having me.

Misha Zelinsky:

Oh well, very excited to chat to you. So being through, we read your book recently and there’s many things we can talk about particularly around current affairs but I wanted to start at the beginning of your political career. I was quite struck, you’ve basically effectively blasted your way into parliament at a very young age.

Chris Pyne:

Yeah, it’s true.

Misha Zelinsky:

Maybe I was just thinking, what was that like? And then upon reflection, how do you look back on that? I mean to go in there in the way that you did must have been quite an extraordinary experience.

Chris Pyne:

At the time it seemed like the most normal thing to do, which is very unusual. But I guess, I decided to go into parliament when I was in about year 10 and I was 15 and I thought, well, I’ll be the member for Sturt because all the power is shifting to Canberra and so I like state politics but not enough to go into it. I thought, well I’ll be the member for Sturt because I live in Sturt, and I’ll do that in about 10 years. I thought that seemed like a plan.

Misha Zelinsky:

So you set yourself that timetable?

Chris Pyne:

I did. And I left school and I joined the Liberal Party, the Burnside branch, the Young Liberals and the Liberal Students all in the same day in December 1984, which was the orientation day at Adelaide Uni. I became president of all of those things and by 1992, and ’91 really, I thought… Well, actually Ian Wilson, my predecessor who’d been in parliament for 20 something years, since 1966, and then he had a three year break. Another guy challenged him called Jim Durden in late 1991, and so I spent about a month ringing the opinion makers in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide in the Liberal Party saying, “If Jim Durden wins, there’s only two safe seats in Adelaide, Sturt and Boothby, and I don’t really have any claim on Boothby so maybe I should be running.”

Chris Pyne:

Because secretly I was planning always to be running. They all said, “Oh yes, you must give it a go.” So in January I nominated against Ian in 1992, and got preselected on April 28th 1992, and it was the most hideous preselection. When you say I blasted my way in, it was a record breaker for South Australian hideousness. We had two appeals to the Party Appeal Tribunal, we had QCs and barristers and lots of terrible media, an independent liberal ran against me, Michael Pratt was the independent liberal and there were no confidence motions at every meeting and it was just ghastly. But, on March the 13th I raised the trophy above my head and I had won. So yes, I did blast my way in and at the time it seemed kind of like this is what you’re supposed to do.

Misha Zelinsky:

And looking back on it now?

Chris Pyne:

Looking back at it now I think Misha, I must have been completely crackers to think that a 24 year old would end up in parliament and they should then be chosen soon after for the ministry. When I arrived in Canberra of course I was a bit like a fish on a bicycle. John Howard would have looked at me thinking what am I supposed to do with him? The first thing I’m going to do is keep him out of trouble because 25, I mean I’m not sure how old you are but when you’re 25 you think you know it all. Of course you don’t.

Misha Zelinsky:

You do. I’m 37 now but I certainly did at 25.

Chris Pyne:

And because you don’t know very much so I think I probably arrived with a lot of affront, and I was fortunate to be taken under the wing of people like Robert Hill and Amanda Vanstone and Steele Hall and David Joel and of course they quickly snapped me up and popped me in their house in Kingston, Hall, Joel and Hill. So they kept an eye on me and that’s the way it went. I stayed there for 26 years.

Misha Zelinsky:

And so you mentioned John Howard.

Chris Pyne:

Yes.

Misha Zelinsky:

Now, your first term in ’93 through to ’96 was a pretty tumultuous term, there was a lot of leadership changes.

Chris Pyne:

It was, yes.

Misha Zelinsky:

In your book you reflect on the fact that you famously chose to back a different horse in the leadership challenges up against, when John Howard was making his comeback to the leadership. Do you want to take us through that and how that impacted on your time in the Howard government, I suppose?

Chris Pyne:

Well, I made a kind of rather catastrophic choice in March 1993. John Howard ran against John Houston straight after the election so it was literally mid-March, and he came to see me and said he was seeking my support and we had quite a lot more in common than people probably thought, because I’m a small liberal South Australian, and he’s a conservative New South Welshmen, but he’s right about certain socially conservative issues like euthanasia and abortion and things like that, and stem cell research, I was always pretty conservative.

Chris Pyne:

So he asked for my support and I said, “Well of course, John, you’re yesterday’s man and we’re not going back to you and the best thing you could do really is probably get out of politics and find something else to do.” And remember he was 48, so I’m now 53 so I’m thinking to myself now what a complete fool he must have thought I was. I thought it was tremendous because I’d always been a peacock person, I was on the federal executive of the parties, a peacock person and state executive in South Australia as a peacock person and all of my general group were all peacock people. So I thought I’d really kind of nailed it. I went home and told everybody who were all speechless of course, and said, “You did what?”

Chris Pyne:

I told them and they said, “But you know, he’ll never forgive you.” I said, “I don’t care, he’ll never be the leader again. He’ll be gone.” They said, “Oh my goodness, but that’s shocking.” They said, “He’ll never get over it. And he might be the leader.” I said, “Don’t be ridiculous, of course we’re not going to elect John Howard.” I was the last person still trying to find a candidate to run against John Howard. Two years later we took over from Downer and actually he wrote in his book, Howard wrote in his book that I was still trying to find Peter Reith to run against him because I was so aghast of course that he’d come back, and he’d never forgiven me, understandably so, for being so rude, which it was, it was rude.

Chris Pyne:

He didn’t really forgive me for a long time. I think he also thought, well, I’ve got four cabinet ministers from South Australia, and McLaughlin and Hill and Vanstone and Downer and then Minchin, and he’s very young, so it’d be very sensible if we just let him kind of find his feet for a while. So I found my feet for 10 years, but luckily because I’d started so early I was only 35 when I finally had found my feet and became a minister.

Misha Zelinsky:

And you and John Howard’s relationship, did it recover over the years?

Chris Pyne:

Oh yeah, completely. Well, because obviously he was a very tremendous success, he was prime minister for 11 and a half years, so I think he’s a pretty happy fellow, and in his post political career he’s clearly a happy person in a good place, unlike some prime ministers.

Misha Zelinsky:

Not a miserable ghost.

Chris Pyne:

Not a miserable ghost. And I think over time, well he always thought I was good at attacking the labor party. So that counts for a lot, as you know, in politics. If you can swing the cudgel against your opposition.

Misha Zelinsky:

Well, against your own as well.

Chris Pyne:

And against your own side as well, I mean there’s a certain level of respect that you gain from being able to do that, and he knew I was pretty good at that. So he gave me that job of investigating the electoral fraud of the Queensland Labor Party in 2001, which I did, and John Faulkner and I became great mates. Not because he liked what I did but because he rather respected my complete lack of regard for the rules. And then after that, Howard appointed me to the Department of Secretaryship and then the ministry. So yeah, no, we definitely… And now when we catch up we always have a good chat, so there’s no problem with me and John Howard.

Misha Zelinsky:

Well it’s good to know.

Chris Pyne:

’93 is a long time ago.

Misha Zelinsky:

That’s true, that’s true. So you make your way to the senior team by the time the Howard government loses in ’07, but then you become a very senior part of the Abbott opposition, once Abbott gets into the leadership. Now, that, the second term of the Labor government with Gillard as prime minister and it’s a minority government, was a pretty brutal time, it was remembered as a brutal time in Australian politics.

Chris Pyne:

It was.

Misha Zelinsky:

You were the leader of opposition business so you’re leading the opposition in parliament.

Chris Pyne:

I was the spear tip.

Misha Zelinsky:

Indeed. So what are your reflections or observations of that time?

Chris Pyne:

It was messy and ugly. It was a really ugly period. The Liberal Party doesn’t like being in opposition because we regard ourselves as the managerial class, so managers need to make decisions and get things done. So the problem with opposition is it really goes against the grain of most liberals who go into politics.

Misha Zelinsky:

Labor doesn’t like being in opposition either, despite what you may-

Chris Pyne:

No but they’re good at it, they’ve done a lot of it. They’re very good at being in opposition.

Misha Zelinsky:

Oh man.

Chris Pyne:

Whereas the liberals find it very hard. So whenever we’re in opposition it’s a terribly bad time for the Liberal Party, and we change leader constantly and one side’s always trying to take over from the other, and good people fall by the wayside, which is always a bit of a pity in life, not just politics. And you lose elections and people give up and think I’m going to get out because there’s no point in staying or sticking around here. So there’s a pretty unhappy kind of atmosphere when you’re in opposition in the Liberal Party. And if the leader doesn’t look like they’re going to win, the party has no compunction about cutting them down. Whereas Labor will stick with a loser leader forever, like they did for Arthur Calwell and people like that and Dr. Evatt. I’m not just talking about recently, I mean like a long time ago.

Misha Zelinsky:

That was the history, certainly, before the [crosstalk 00:11:15]

Chris Pyne:

And they stuck with Gough and then they stuck with Gough right through to 1977.

Misha Zelinsky:

That’s right.

Chris Pyne:

Because they couldn’t believe their luck.

Misha Zelinsky:

Changing it from Haden to Hawke was actually a big shift culturally for the party.

Chris Pyne:

Big shift, yeah, big shift. So opposition was awful and then in the 43rd parliament, of course, we felt like we’d won the election because we had more seats than Labor, which usually means you’ve won, and your party managed to suborn Robert Oakeshott and Tony Windsor of course, into supporting the Gillard government, which we found very galling because they were in two conservative seats, they had never voted Labor since federation. Yet they were both supporting a Labor government.

Chris Pyne:

So it was very difficult for people to get over that, and people think that the coalition used to attack Gillard all the time because she was a woman. It had nothing to do with her being a woman, it had with her having the job that we were supposed to have. Whether she had been a woman or a man didn’t make the slightest difference. We just felt that she shouldn’t be the prime minister because Tony Abbott should be, and that Robert Oakeshott and Tony Windsor should have supported us and logically, that’s pretty fair. Could you imagine the men before Wollongong and the men before Newcastle, supporting a Liberal government to stay in power and Labor thinking oh that’s fine, no problems with that. It’s not going to happen.

Chris Pyne:

So we didn’t feel that way, we felt very annoyed about it, and so therefore that came out a lot in the vindictiveness of the 43rd parliament, and then Peter Slipper became the speaker and it was taking one of our numbers off the floor which made it even worse. The whole Craig Thompson thing was really unpleasant, and of course if Gillard had had a… if the prime minister had had a majority to speak of, they would have asked Craig Thompson along before but they couldn’t so they were clinging to this politically very unattractive corpse, really. Not a corpse, but politically unattractive person, dragging it around for… It must have gone on for 18 months, the whole Craig Thompson saga.

Misha Zelinsky:

Yeah, I’m just trying to think. It certainly went for a while.

Chris Pyne:

Oh it was ghastly.

Misha Zelinsky:

It was a political millstone.

Chris Pyne:

Shocking. So that’s why the 43rd parliament was so unpleasant and as I write in my book, our view was since the Labor government has really stolen the election from us by taking-

Misha Zelinsky:

I’m not sure I can agree with that.

Chris Pyne:

No of course not, by taking Oakeshott and Windsor.

Misha Zelinsky:

I mean they’re entitled to make decisions as parliamentarians.

Chris Pyne:

Of course, yeah. And we’re entitled not to like it. So we felt well it’ll be war on all fronts at all times, and that’s what we did, and I was the kind of field marshal. Which I’m not particularly proud of, by the way.

Misha Zelinsky:

Do you look on it as a time that you would take back or just you had to do a job so you did it.

Chris Pyne:

I had to do a job so I did it. Our job was to make the government’s life as unbearable as possible because they had done the wrong thing by democracy, is to give these tub thumping speeches about how it was the greatest crime against democracy since King Charles had arrested the speakers of the House of Commons.

Misha Zelinsky:

Engaging in a touch of hyperbole.

Chris Pyne:

But sometimes I used to have to get myself into a rage on the basis of not very much to go with. So getting into a bit of a hyperbole would probably be one of the few things that could fill the time, I think. [crosstalk 00:15:06] I opposed the sitting schedule once, things had got so crazy.

Misha Zelinsky:

Well you guys also were denying pairs, as I recall, as well.

Chris Pyne:

Not really, we never denied a pair, there was talk of denying pairs, but we didn’t deny pairs at all.

Misha Zelinsky:

No? I’m trying to remember.

Chris Pyne:

We didn’t. There was a lot of talk about it but we didn’t do that. Not unless somebody was clearly trying to… People still get pairs refused if they haven’t got a good excuse. You can’t just hop in a bus and go on a picnic and ask for a pair. People need pairs because they’re sick or something or they’ve got some particular family thing that they’re doing.

Misha Zelinsky:

It makes it hard, though, right? I mean just reflecting, the government’s got tight numbers now, it does make it hard for ministers to do their jobs when they can’t sit on their toes around you’ve got to make a vote in house and it does give oppositions opportunity to wreak havoc, right?

Chris Pyne:

Yeah. But the parliament’s the parliament. This is what I always used to say to my colleagues when they say, “I want to go home, I want a pair to go home early.” So actually no, no. The parliament, everything other than the parliament is a bonus. You got elected to the House of Representatives and that’s your number one job.

Misha Zelinsky:

There 150 at the time, it’s not like there’s-

Chris Pyne:

And if you do anything else, that’s nice for you, and I happen to do other things besides being a member for 16 of my 26 years, but everything else is a bonus. So no, the parliament doesn’t exist for you to be happy, you have to be in the parliament as your number one responsibility.

Misha Zelinsky:

Now you mentioned your ministerial career. Now this is a foreign policy show so we could go through your whole career, but I think the defense portfolio is probably the area that I’d like to talk more about. Now, you spent a lot of time in your time in the portfolio, spending a lot of money but rebuilding a lot of capability. I’m kind of wanting to… Maybe you can explain very quickly, obviously it’s a huge area, but why was this necessary in your time and maybe you can give a sense of how big the scale of this project actually is. Because you’re talking hundreds of billions, now hundreds of billions are being spent through COVID, maybe it’s not such a big deal, people kind of lose sight of the numbers, but the scale of these projects is enormous.

Chris Pyne:

Well, I guess the best way to describe it is it’s the biggest buildup of our military capabilities since the second world war. And of course in the war, most of the budget’s turned over to the defense of the nation, so it’s a very big deal to have the largest buildup of our military capability in 75 years and it’s financially between now and 2030 about 270 billion. That’s just in capital expenditure, by the way, that’s not in running costs. When I was the minister it was 205 billion and so the extra 65 billion is those last three years between 2027 and 2030, because my period took that to 2027.

Chris Pyne:

Why is it necessary? It’s necessary because the world is a really dangerous place, and getting more dangerous. And it’s necessary because our great and powerful ally, the United States, has said very clearly to its allies we want allies not protectorates. The Abbott government, to its credit, and then the Turnbull and Morrison governments said, “Well, we agree with that.” It’s not fair to expect the United States to do all the heavy lifting in protecting our international rules based order and our values based foreign and defense policy. It’s not fair for candidates to spend less than a percent of their GDP on defense because they know that the Americans will always be standing alongside them. Nor for Germany to spend less than 1% or Great Britain.

Chris Pyne:

Countries that have held themselves out as the protectors of liberty and freedom around the world and then underspend in defense. So the Abbott government said, “We’ll spend 2% of GDP on defense.” That’s what the Americans asked us to do as allies, and they asked all of their allies to do that. Now I think at the time, when I left, we were about five out of the NATO plus allies countries were spending 2%. We are proudly one of those. Now it’s obviously well past 2% because of COVID. So it was necessary one, to be a good ally. It’s necessary two, because we live in a very turbulent world, and to break that down the Indo-Pacific is one of the most insecure places on the planet.

Misha Zelinsky:

You’ve said that there’s a prospect of war in the Indo-Pacific.

Chris Pyne:

I think there is a prospect of war in the Indo-Pacific. Of course there is.

Misha Zelinsky:

Why is that?

Chris Pyne:

Well, what I said in my speech to the Adelaide University graduation ceremony was that five years ago I think the chances of war were less likely and now five years later they’re more likely than they were in 2015/16. So I haven’t said that there’s likely to be war in the next 5-10 years, which some of the less sophisticated media have reported, I said that the chances are more likely now than they were five years ago.

Misha Zelinsky:

That’s probably true.

Chris Pyne:

That’s a statement of fact. The reason for that is probably primarily because China has discovered that it can press its claims over the South China Sea or Hong Kong or the Uyghur minority in western China and the consequences have not been dramatic. Sure they’ve faced some criticism around the world but nothing happened. So the next obvious place that China wants to unite with the mainland is Taiwan. Despite the fact that China has only governed Taiwan for four out of the last 100 years, 100 more actually, more than 100 years. The reality is they see it very much as part of China and it’s traditionally been a province of China and I think that that makes it a flashpoint.

Chris Pyne:

Do I think there will be a war in the Indo-Pacific? No, I don’t, but I think it’s more likely than it was five or six years ago and I think it would have been more likely if the Trump administration had been reelected, and I’m glad that the Biden administration was elected for that reason alone.

Misha Zelinsky:

Well, they’ve got a different approach to allies, certainly, than the Trump administration did.

Chris Pyne:

And also Donald Trump had an unusual approach to foreign policy.

Misha Zelinsky:

To say the least.

Chris Pyne:

Well, unfortunately it’s so serious and it would be nice if it wasn’t, but like the Kurds, when he decided to throw the Kurds under the bus and allow the Turks to cross the border and reclaim that territory and we still don’t know what happened to all the Kurds in that area of course, that was really the end of it for me. I thought he’d done a good job on Iran and China, I think he’d done a poor job on North Korea, but that was the problem with Donald Trump, it wasn’t a coherent strategy. There were moments, flashes of great outcomes, possibly because the advisors that he had in those areas he agreed with, like John Bolton on Iran, for example.

Chris Pyne:

But these other really unusual decisions around the Middle East for example, I thought well he’s a dangerous person to have in the White House and that’s dangerous for us, because if China thinks they could unite Taiwan militarily without there being any significant consequences, I don’t think they’ll want to do that but they’re more likely to throw that dart if there was a Trump administration than if there was an orthodox administration in the White House, Republican or Democrat.

Chris Pyne:

So I think that was an important thing to change the government there, and obviously, as I said in my speech to the students, we have to work tirelessly to avoid a war in the Indo-Pacific because it’s not an academic exercise, it would be catastrophic and it would be catastrophic for Australia. So it has to be our number one priority in foreign and defense policy.

Misha Zelinsky:

And so we’ll get to China, I want to talk about in depth, you raised a lot of interesting points there, but sticking with the kit we’re buying, you were involved… Certainly there was some politics involved in it but the decision around the subs and whether or not we were going to go with the Japanese option or whether or not it was going to be built in Australia, the French sub won out. What is the reason why that is the superior choice for Australia? It’s a wonky question, we’re very interested and a lot of people who listen to the show are, and also probably a followup to that, is there a reason why Australia couldn’t have nuclear given that it has advantages in terms of its ability to stay under the surface of the water?

Chris Pyne:

Well, the French submarine won the contest because it came first in the competitive evaluation process, it’s as simple as that, so it was the best of the three offerings. Probably because the Japanese Sōryū class and the TKMS submarine were not designed for Australian conditions. Whereas the Barracuda class French submarine is of a size that suits Australia’s unique requirements, which in layman’s terms, basically we have two different seas and one is warm and one is cold, and we have a lot of coastline and a lot of sea to be responsible for, which means we need long range submarines and we therefore need to have large submarines and they need to be able to operate in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, and the Barracuda class was probably more able to be adapted to an Australian version, which has now become the Attack class.

Chris Pyne:

So the reason the French won was there’s no great science to it, they simply won the competitive evaluation process and the Japanese didn’t. And that’s what competitions are about. In the military not everyone can get the first prize, it’s not like the egg and spoon race in grade three. So that’s why they won and why not nuclear? Well, because we don’t have any kind of nuclear industry.

Misha Zelinsky:

We don’t have a sub industry either, though, right?

Chris Pyne:

Well, we do.

Misha Zelinsky:

Well, we have the Collins class.

Chris Pyne:

We have the Collins class submarine.

Misha Zelinsky:

But that’s still a decision of government to really build that up, I mean you could do nuclear if you really wanted to.

Chris Pyne:

You couldn’t.

Misha Zelinsky:

Why?

Chris Pyne:

Because you’d never get a piece of legislation through an upper house in this country that would allow nuclear anything. We can’t even get a radioactive nuclear waste dump.

Misha Zelinsky:

Yeah, that’s right, South Australian Weatherill government looked at that a few years ago.

Chris Pyne:

Weatherill government, Wran government, every government. It’s the most obvious thing in the world, is to have a low level nuclear waste dump in South Australia or the Northern Territory.

Misha Zelinsky:

Bob Hawke was a big proponent of that.

Chris Pyne:

Big supporter, and we can’t even get that up. We’re close to it, I think, but it’s still far away.

Misha Zelinsky:

So you think it’s a politics thing rather than a capability thing? Are we selling ourselves short militarily because we can’t get the politics to stack up or are you comfortable with the Barracuda class?

Chris Pyne:

The Attack class submarine will be the regionally superior submarine. So we’re not selling ourselves short in a military capability sense at all, and the chief of the navy and the chief of the defense force gave us very clear advice along all those things. What you’ll find an issue in defense and foreign policy defense is that every retired commodore, admiral, and air force marshal, leftenant general, is an expert on what the government should be doing.

Misha Zelinsky:

And the media will give them a run if they’ve got something to say.

Chris Pyne:

The media will always give them a run so they only need one person out of the many, many, many thousands of people that are available out there to say something different to what the government’s doing and they’ll get a run. So you’ll always have an audience of people who oppose the F-35As or the combat reconnaissance vehicles or the infantry fighting vehicle or the kind of missiles that we use or the submarines or the hunter class, whatever it might be. There’ll always be somebody. But government’s got to make decisions. And you get this thing about nuclear a lot in the eastern states and it’s because New South Wales, for example, is not a manufacturing state. So they’ll talk about… I mean, there manufacturing here, but the manufacturing states traditionally-

Misha Zelinsky:

There’s a nuclear reactor here.

Chris Pyne:

Yes, there is at Lucas Heights, but it’s in their culture of course, states like Victoria and South Australia. So it’s such a parlor game talking about nuclear submarines, and I always have to stop myself from getting worked up about it because there’s no nuclear engineers in Australia, there are no courses at university in nuclear science or nuclear engineering, there’s no legislative apparatus for nuclear anything in this country. The Greens would never allow anything to ever get through an upper house. Probably Labor wouldn’t either. Then you wouldn’t be able to maintain and sustain your submarines in Australia, you’d have to send them to somewhere like Guam, because we don’t have any nuclear capabilities for sustaining and maintaining a nuclear submarine.

Chris Pyne:

You would need to be able to convince the public the have nuclear submarines stationed in Sydney or Henderson in Perth, and we can’t even get a nuclear waste dump in the middle of the desert. And yet apparently, the public are going to embrace this idea of nuclear submarines. It’s just never going to happen. It’s like me willing myself to have blonde hair and blue eyes and no freckles as a child, and wondering why it can’t be. That there are some things that can and there are some things that can’t be, and nuclear submarines will never happen in this country and it’s an argument for doing nothing. It means that you wouldn’t have any submarines while we had a 50 year argument about it. Now, we should have had a nuclear industry from the ’50s like other advanced, developed countries. But we didn’t, and we haven’t got it so let’s just get over it and get on with it.

Misha Zelinsky:

Okay. Reasonable points. We could go on with this, but reasonable points.

Chris Pyne:

I could talk about that-

Misha Zelinsky:

No, no, I’m sure we both could. But I wanted to get into China, the China challenge. It is the challenge, right, for modern Australia and future Australia. You were in parliament a quarter of a century, give or take.

Chris Pyne:

I know, 26 years.

Misha Zelinsky:

What as your observation of the way China changed during that time and the way the relationship evolved from perhaps it was not a great deal to a principle trading relationship to increasingly more strategic challenge.

Chris Pyne:

It’s an interesting question and it’s a good question and basically my political career traversed that period of change because Deng Xiaoping said in the 1980s, late ’70s, ’80s, he said China needed to hide its strength and bide its time. That really was the policy for 30 to 40 years, while China strengthened its middle class, its capabilities. People don’t realize, I think, that back in the ’50s and ’60s and ’70s, and then the ’80s, China was a terribly backward economy. You’d know that, because you study these kinds of things, but most people wouldn’t know. Very, very poor. And still going through famines and so on because of government policy and just because they hadn’t been developed as a developing nation like Australia or other countries like Australia.

Chris Pyne:

But in the last 40 years, that’s changed dramatically. I’ve forgotten the name of the town next to Guangzhou in the Guangdong province, but in 1981, the Chinese government decided to create a new city next to Guangzhou. It was a fishing village. Now there’s 23 million people there.

Misha Zelinsky:

Yeah, wow.

Chris Pyne:

And it’s the thriving financial center of what used to be the Cantonese part of China, which has now become much more multicultural. And over that last time, and in the time that I was a member of parliament, China quite rightly has taken its position as a first world superpower. It was always going to happen, by the way. China’s always been a superpower, except for those hideous 150 years.

Misha Zelinsky:

The so-called century of humiliation.

Chris Pyne:

Exactly. Which started with the opium wars and finished around the end of the second world war. Other than that period, which the Chinese feel very keenly and rightly so, China was a superpower and it’s a superpower again and there’s only two superpowers. Doesn’t matter what the Russians say or what anybody else says, the Russian’s economy is the same size as Australia. Slightly smaller sometimes and slightly bigger other times, probably because of iron ore prices are slightly smaller at the moment. China and America are the only superpowers in the world.

Chris Pyne:

So the west are talking about China as though it’s surprising, not quite right that China would want to flex its muscles, is a complete misunderstanding of the Chinese history and is extremely patronizing and suggests that people who say things like that still see China as the century of humiliation, whereas the Chinese see themselves, quite rightly, as an extremely sophisticated, intelligent group of people who are amongst the world’s leaders in the last several thousand years in new inventions and medicine and military hardware, writing and art and everything else as you’d expect, as a sophisticated civilization would be.

Chris Pyne:

So we have to get into that mindset. What we need to convince the Chinese of is it’s in their interests to support the international rules based order and it’s the international rules based order that has created the circumstances in which China can be a successful trading nation which is lifting its boats and lifting all its people out of poverty. It’s not a coincidence that that’s happened, it’s because of the west and China cooperating economically through the international rules based order.

Chris Pyne:

And that needs to flow through to the way they see their position in the world as a superpower, and that everybody can get along and everybody can keep lifting their people out of poverty and getting better educational health and housing outcomes, and that therefore military conflagration is in no one’s interests.

Misha Zelinsky:

It never is, though, right. You’ve painted the picture there almost, the old thesis of China’s going to rise economically and then become democratic and be integrated into the-

Chris Pyne:

I don’t know if it will or it won’t.

Misha Zelinsky:

I mean, evidence [crosstalk 00:35:19] Yeah, sorry. Evidence seems to suggest today on Xi Jinping that that’s not happening.

Chris Pyne:

Not happening, no.

Misha Zelinsky:

So how does the world deal with this challenge? Because the Chinese Communist Party is asserting its Chinese power and I think the world can reckon with a Chinese superpower but it struggles to reckon with an autocratic, outwardly projecting nation that doesn’t respect democratic neighbors, et cetera. So how do you actually reckon with that challenge?

Chris Pyne:

Well, 20 years ago I was definitely in the party of people that thought that the economic liberation of China would lead to political liberation.

Misha Zelinsky:

I think most people were.

Chris Pyne:

I think most people were. And I think the west approached it that way with absolutely every goodwill and intention. What we’re facing now is a Chinese Communist Party that is quite happy to have the liberalization of the economy but doesn’t appear to have any great interest in the liberalization of the polity in which they live. Now, whether that will continue forever, I don’t know. China today is very different to the China of Mao Zedong, it’s different to the China of Deng Xiaoping. Will the China of the next regime be different to Xi Jinping’s? Probably.

Misha Zelinsky:

But we don’t know when that will be because Xi Jinping’s now the ruler for life, right? That in itself is a big shift.

Chris Pyne:

Well, that’s right. But time keeps moving regardless, and Walt Disney has been cryogenically frozen but I think he’s still waiting a bit to come back. Unfortunately, time moves on and there will be change. And look, I trace it back to Tiananmen Square actually, which most people don’t talk about of course because it’s quite a painful period in China’s history. I think before Tiananmen Square, China was definitely on a path to economic and political liberalization, and that Tiananmen Square was such a shock to the rulers of the Chinese Communist Party that they realized that democracy and the Chinese Communist Party probably couldn’t coexist.

Misha Zelinsky:

Not in the way that they understood it.

Chris Pyne:

Correct. So I think that all came to something of a shuddering halt. That said, if you travel in China, I don’t know if you’ve traveled much in China?

Misha Zelinsky:

I haven’t.

Chris Pyne:

I’ve traveled in China. It isn’t a monolithic, a homogenous CCP hard faced society. Like most major countries of the world, the capital is the most reflective of the government, so Beijing is clearly definitely a government town. But the further you get away from places like Beijing to the commercial places in China, like Shanghai and Guangzhou and so on, it is much more free than you would expect from what you read in the media.

Chris Pyne:

So I’m very optimistic about China. I don’t think there will be a war but I think we need to be extremely hard headed about what we want in the Indo-Pacific, and then we need to make sure China doesn’t misunderstand our position.

Misha Zelinsky:

So then how do we deal with… At the moment we find ourselves in the midst of Chinese trade punishment or coercion, however you want to frame it. You’ve also got enormous examples, certainly over the last few years, around foreign interference, gray

Misha Zelinsky:

type of tax. How do we actually push back on that in the way you’ve described? How do you actually explain to China that this is unacceptable in a way that is politically viable as well?

Chris Pyne:

Well, we’re fortunate Misha because we have economic resources. So a country like Australia can invest in its defensive capabilities, and we have, especially in the last five or six years. Even if there was a change of government, I think it would be hard for Labor to reverse a lot of that. I think some of the people in the-

Misha Zelinsky:

Labor’s very supportive, I mean the sub thing for example is largely bipartisan, I think, right?

Chris Pyne:

Yeah. But you’ve got a left who doesn’t really like that, and we don’t. So the last time-

Misha Zelinsky:

I love the left, those that are listening.

Chris Pyne:

The last time the Labor Party was in power they cut spending in defense dramatically in real terms by 19%, which was quite awful, and as we know got down to 1.56% of GDP. But I don’t think they could do that again, because one, there’s so many decisions are being made, and two I don’t think the people who fill the positions in Labor these days would see that that was a good thing to do. And as we already discussed, the foreign and defense structure that we currently face is different to what it was when the Gillard and the Rudd governments were in power.

Chris Pyne:

So we have to invest in those capabilities to defend us in the gray zone, in the cyber world. We have to make sure that, and we are doing this, and this is all bipartisan, things like the Australian Signals Directorate and ASIO and ASIS and the Office of National Intelligence are all properly funded and supported. The smartest people are being employed there that we are getting cutting edge capabilities and technologies for defensive and offensive cyber. Because that’s what other countries will understand, they will recognize that Australia is not running down its capabilities, in fact it’s doing the opposite, and that therefore our interests need to be taken seriously.

Chris Pyne:

And our interests are not, we’re not asking for territorial gains or anything, we want free and open markets, we want free movement in the sealanes of the Indo-Pacific and the air spaces, we want free movement of people and money, open trade. These are things that will actually be good for us all and that’s why I’m optimistic because the human condition is to want to do better. It’s not the human condition to want to go to war. It’s kind of the last thing anybody wants to do.

Misha Zelinsky:

And so there’s what we want and there’s what we can get. Australia by itself, we’re an important country, we’re a middle power, we’re a wealthy nation, but numerically small. We’ve got a good regional defense structure, et cetera. But do you see in terms of, you talked a lot about Indo-Pacific, which is a relatively new construct but the Quad, you know United States, Japan, India, and us. Do you see that as a big part of this architecture of keeping China honest in its interactions with the rules based order in the way you’ve described?

Chris Pyne:

I don’t see the Quadrilateral as a containment policy. I don’t think that would be in anybody’s interests. I think it’s a useful structure for four like-minded countries that see the Indo-Pacific in a similar way, Japan, India, Australia, and the US. I think it will become an important tool, if you like, in the shed of things we can use to do exactly what I said before, free and open markets, liberal trade policies, et cetera. It isn’t a military dialogue, it is a dialogue. Although the Malabar military exercises are, I guess, the extension of the Quad dialogue but it’s not formal, but it’s an important military exercise in the Indian Ocean.

Chris Pyne:

I don’t think it’s nearly as important as the Five Eyes, though. Because there’s nothing that separates the Five Eyes on any policy matters of significance. Obviously New Zealanders don’t like nuclear ships visiting them, the English ships don’t have to visit them. But the Five Eyes is probably… Well, it’s not probably, it is our most important defense relationship because the sharing of information and intelligence is the surest way to avoid mistakes.

Chris Pyne:

As the minister for defense and before that in the defense portfolio, I used to say I think the more intelligence everyone gathers from all sides, we don’t want to be spied on by anybody of course, but the reality of the world-

Misha Zelinsky:

It’s happening.

Chris Pyne:

The reality of the world in which we live because of satellites and so forth, it’s hard to avoid. But more information leads to more considered decision making and removes misunderstandings. Wars in the past have started because of misunderstandings. The first world war is probably the most classic example of nations not being able to stop mobilization once mobilization had begun despite the fact they didn’t want to have a war, and all ending up for four years with the flower of Europe being slaughtered, which could have been avoided.

Chris Pyne:

So the good thing about intelligence gathering and therefore supporting our apparatus and agencies that do so is that it avoids misunderstandings. So I think we need to keep investing in that as an important priority, and we need to be able to defend our interests, but also we need to do that in concert with our friends and allies in the region. So ASEAN’s very important, the Five Eyes is very important because it’s an intelligence sharing structure, and obviously there are five anglophone countries and they all have a history, they all come from the same route, which I used to say to the English with that emphasis, as a republican.

Chris Pyne:

But the ASEAN nations, they really do rely on a country like Australia by the way. Because they know we’re a very reliable friend. We’re the first country outside ASEAN to be in ASEAN, by the way. To be ASEAN Plus. Very early in the piece, too. So those relationships are important with the Singaporeans, the Vietnamese, the Philippines and others. To make sure that they know they’re not alone and that we need to act together. There are two superpowers but there are 20 odd other countries in that region outside the South Pacific, there’s 40 plus if you include all the countries of the South Pacific, but certainly in the Asian corridor there’s 20 countries that together, in operating in concert, can make a difference. So I’m a multilateralist as well.

Misha Zelinsky:

That I think is critical for Australia. Now, one final question on China.

Chris Pyne:

And you’ve got to be able to do it all.

Misha Zelinsky:

Yeah, absolutely. Walk and chew gum.

Chris Pyne:

It’s not a binary choice. Which some governments in the past, without mentioning, sort of felt that you’re either a bilateralist or you’re a multilateralist. Well, actually you can’t be one or the other, you’ve got to be all of it.

Misha Zelinsky:

Now, one final question on China relating to… A sort of ethical question for the west, but it also bumps up against politics, a question relating to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. This is a bit of a diabolical challenge for a lot of western countries like Australia, other countries increasingly around the world, Australia have not done it yet, but are calling out what’s happening there as a form of genocide. How do you see the west’s responsibility, countries like Australia, dealing with this issue that’s occurring, these horrible reports we’re seeing, horrible reports about torture of Uyghurs et cetera. How do we handle that when China makes it clear that it’s a red line for its regime, of the Chinese Communist Party in particular.

Chris Pyne:

It’s very difficult. It’s a humanitarian policy area and I hesitate to say it’s hard to get to the truth. I mean clearly there is a truth about Uyghurs being clearly a put-upon minority in China. The Chinese regime, the Chinese government has a very clear view that they’re not a put-upon minority. So there’s an argument that they’re not agreed facts. Which makes it difficult for governments, doesn’t make it difficult for amnesty or for humanitarian organizations to call out the Uyghur minority situation but it does make it trickier for governments. So what you’ve got to do when you’re in government is you need to put those issues on the table and discuss them like adults and say, “We are concerned about reports about Chinese treatment of particular minorities.” The Chinese will counter with, “We’re concerned about the reports of the treatment of indigenous people in Australia.” And they’ll point to-

Misha Zelinsky:

That’s about whataboutism though, right, isn’t it, in a way?

Chris Pyne:

Well of course, and it’s about they’ll point to indigenous deaths in custody and all these other things.

Misha Zelinsky:

Which is shocking but nevertheless are reported and understood-

Chris Pyne:

I’m not putting them on the same level, of course not. But I’ll say that’s what the Chinese government will counter with, and we obviously have our houses well in order as any country can on these matters and always try and do better. There’s no suggestion that there’s any Australians persecuting minorities.

Chris Pyne:

But in diplomatic discussions and meetings with ministers of defense, do you stop the discussion about the Uyghurs and not move on to cooperation and South China Sea and Taiwan and Southeast Asia, or do you say right that’s our view on that and you know our view, and then you have to obviously move on to other matters. So you maintain your ethical values based foreign policy and defense policy, but we’re not Switzerland, we’re not Sweden. We do live in the Indo-Pacific. We do have to get along with our neighbors. And we do have to find ways to engage. We can’t decide that we’re not going to engage with Beijing because of the Uyghurs. So we just don’t have those choices. You have those choices if you’re a member of Greenpeace, but you don’t have that choice if you’re a member of the Australian government.

Misha Zelinsky:

You can see increasingly the world is taking the view that it’s prepared to call the CCP out on this question.

Chris Pyne:

They’re doing that, the world is doing that.

Misha Zelinsky:

Should Australia join them?

Chris Pyne:

We have done that.

Misha Zelinsky:

Now, we can probably talk about that a lot as well but we’ve got to keep moving along.

Chris Pyne:

It’s difficult to talk about genocide, because it’s too easily thrown about, this phrase genocide. And people are still arguing about the Armenian genocide because the Turks say that there wasn’t an Armenian genocide, and of course the Armenians go clearly the evidence is that there is, was.

Chris Pyne:

At the end of the day, how is it going to advance the interests of anyone to keep talking about semantics? About words like genocide or not genocide. Terrible things have happened to people throughout history, whether it’s the Armenians or the Jews, and we have to learn from those terrible mistakes, not debate them endlessly.

Misha Zelinsky:

Now I want to switch back for the last part of the show to your career. In your book-

Chris Pyne:

That’s a good thing.

Misha Zelinsky:

Your favorite topic, no? In your book you talked about wanting to be prime minister throughout your career. In the dying days of Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, as that was playing out, you reported that a colleague said to you, “You know it can’t be you.” As in you can’t be leader, you can’t be prime minister. How’d that feel, did that hurt?

Chris Pyne:

It didn’t hurt, no.

Misha Zelinsky:

How did it feel at the time, knowing that perhaps the ambition would never be fulfilled at that point?

Chris Pyne:

I thought that’s true.

Misha Zelinsky:

A politician who has self-awareness? No, come on mate, that can’t be right.

Chris Pyne:

I do have self-awareness. I’m a pragmatist, I thought to myself well of course it can’t be me because it can’t be Julie either. So I couldn’t be on the one hand saying that the moderates are going to have to back Scott Morrison because otherwise Peter Dutton will get elected, and as much as I like Peter Dutton, and I do, and we catch up a lot, and there’s nothing personal about my observations, I just thought that if he was the leader we wouldn’t win the election. Because I thought he would be popular in Queensland but not popular elsewhere. And I thought Scott Morrison will probably be able to straddle the different interests that support the coalition.

Misha Zelinsky:

Which has proven out, I suppose.

Chris Pyne:

Which has been proven to be true, of course, I should get a medal for it. And I thought, well Julie, obviously Julie, as much as I like Julie very much and I would have liked her to have been the prime minister, I couldn’t on the one hand be saying Julie Bishop’s not going to beat Peter Dutton but say oh actually you should support me, when I was in exactly the same position. I wasn’t going to get elected leader because I come from South Australia, I’m from the moderate faction, I’m very clearly a smaller liberal. It would have been very hard for the party to unite under me, it did under Scott, much to his great credit.

Chris Pyne:

So look, it wasn’t said but it was a moment where I thought to myself, yeah, that’s right. That opportunity’s never going to present itself to me, and they’re moving to the next generation. It was certainly the time that I started thinking that this might be it for me, I might have had my run. Because they’re not going to go back to me now, they’ve moved on to Scott and Josh. Scott and Josh got elected in 2007 or 2004 I think, in Josh’s case. It might have been 2007. No, I think it was 2004. And I got elected in 1993, I’m a Howard era minister.

Misha Zelinsky:

You need a 25 year old first NMP to tell you you can never be leader, mate.

Chris Pyne:

Well, I didn’t need it, I had one of my older colleagues and good friends. And I thought well that’s true, they’re moving on to the next generation now and I can either stay here and serve for another 20 years, or I could do something else. At 51 I thought probably it’s time to do something else. So yes, it wasn’t sad, it was just kind of… It was a pivotal moment.

Misha Zelinsky:

Looking back on your career, you had a lot of ups and downs, but any regrets? And perhaps what’s your best day and your worst day? I’m always curious about people that have had a long career in politics.

Chris Pyne:

My worst day in politics was the day that Malcolm Turnbull was defeated as prime minister.

Misha Zelinsky:

Why?

Chris Pyne:

Because Malcolm’s a star.

Misha Zelinsky:

He was a previous guest on this show. You just followed him.

Chris Pyne:

And Malcolm should have been prime minister for a long time and Malcolm was a change agent for the country.

Misha Zelinsky:

So why wasn’t he prime minister for a long time, if I can probe the…

Chris Pyne:

Because he wasn’t given the chance, really. He was always undermined by the people who he’d replaced on the first one. Not the people individually, but the-

Misha Zelinsky:

Group or…

Chris Pyne:

The group that was supplanted by Malcolm and his group never really gave Malcolm a chance. While they certainly didn’t initially undermine Malcolm, when Malcolm stumbled you can either protect the leader and help them or you can push them under the bus. And there were clearly a group of people in the party room who, whenever Malcolm wasn’t perfect or stumbled or made a slight error or caught the curb as he went around the corner, made sure that we knew about it.

Chris Pyne:

That made it hard, so it was a sad day because Malcolm Turnbull is the kind of person who should have been a longstanding successful prime minister, help changed the nation, moved it to another plane, and unfortunately he wasn’t given that chance to do so. Now his enemies of course, and his opponents will have a different take and they’re perfectly entitled to have a different opinion. My opinion was he was the kind of person that could be a great prime minister be he wasn’t given the opportunity, the free reign from some people that he should have been, and of course he made mistakes, we all make mistakes. Best day of my political career was April 28, 1992.

Misha Zelinsky:

Which was?

Chris Pyne:

The day I was preselected. I’ve never got over it. It was the greatest day of my political life.

Misha Zelinsky:

Given you said you went through a hell of a time it must have been a great victory, right?

Chris Pyne:

Oh yes.

Misha Zelinsky:

At a young age, too.

Chris Pyne:

I was 24. Obviously there were great days being sworn into the cabinet, the day I was sworn into the ministry with John Howard, that was a very memorable day because it was really just me and him because I’d replaced Santo Santoro if you remember. And so he and I went out to the government house together, and they had a certain poignancy given that 10 years before I’d cruelled my pitch. So there were other great days in politics, winning elections is always a great thing. But I won nine elections and I was cabinet minister and minister in different portfolios, so those days start to meld into one, whereas you only win one first preselection.

Misha Zelinsky:

Sure, no, I can understand that. Now, culture. A lot of discussion about political culture at the moment. You’re someone that probably thrived in parliament, you enjoyed the theater of political combat it would be fair to say I think.

Chris Pyne:

Definitely.

Misha Zelinsky:

So what reflections do you have on the challenges that we’ve seen in 2021 about the political culture and what is the answers in terms of improving it?

Chris Pyne:

Well, I think one of the reasons I survived in politics and left it in relatively good order with most of my colleagues, both Liberal and Labor and Greens for that matter, is because I saw it as a debate. So it wasn’t a personal thing. So my job was to talk about my arguments, and hone those to the best possible level and find the holes in my opponents’ arguments and highlight those and tear down their position. It wasn’t to be personal.

Misha Zelinsky:

Unless Labor wins an election in a minority government, right?

Chris Pyne:

But it still wasn’t personal.

Misha Zelinsky:

No, I’m joking.

Chris Pyne:

So I’d give lots of speeches in the chamber railing against the hideousness of the Gillard government and their illegitimacy, but nobody ever used to think I’d crossed the boundaries into being personal. And you know, one day-

Misha Zelinsky:

So you can play it hard without playing it personal is what you’re saying.

Chris Pyne:

One day I made a mistake and I accused Greg Combet of having a slush fund because do you remember the AWU workers slush fund?

Misha Zelinsky:

I do.

Chris Pyne:

And he was so furious about it.

Misha Zelinsky:

Greg gets very upset if he’s-

Chris Pyne:

Maligned.

Misha Zelinsky:

Well, if his integrity’s called in question.

Chris Pyne:

Totally. He was so furious about it, I thought goodness gracious I’ve obviously touched a raw nerve there, maybe I’ve made a mistake. Anyway, so I asked some of my labor friends if I’d got that wrong, and they said completely wrong. That’s exactly the opposite of what Greg Combet would have done. So I rang him after question time and I apologized and he was very good about it, but that’s very rare. Most people don’t apologize in politics when they’re wrong.

Chris Pyne:

So I think there’s a difference between playing the ball and trying to win for your team and personal vituperative behavior. And I hopefully didn’t fall into the second. The problem in the parliament at the moment of course is that the culture does need change and there aren’t enough women in politics, and Labor has a lot more women than the coalition does, and that needs to change.

Misha Zelinsky:

Shouldn’t there be quotas?

Chris Pyne:

I don’t support quotas but that’s because I think quotas work against women in a different way, which is that yes they might win, get into parliament, but they’re looked at always as not necessarily getting there because they’re on merit, which I think is wrong but I think it’s a perception of some people and the South Australian Liberal Party, for example, has just preselected three women out of four seats, and three saved seats. It can be done with the right attitude from the leadership and from the party membership, so I don’t think quotas are necessary, but if they end up with quotas I’m not going to be upset either, it’s not something that I’m passionate about. But some people are, I’m not.

Chris Pyne:

I think there needed to be more women. When I became leader of the house I changed the sitting hours, so that we ended every night by eight o’clock, the adjournment would start at 7:30 and parliament would start at about nine o’clock in the morning because I thought these mad late night sittings to 11:00 or 2:00 AM or 4:00 AM were all completely crackers. I think the public thought it was all crackers as well.

Misha Zelinsky:

Well, you can’t be making good decisions late at night.

Chris Pyne:

No, and everybody drinks too much because they’re stuck in the house and they can’t do anything and nobody wants to sit there at their desk working on a brief at 11 o’clock at night, so people would have a drink, so there’s too much of that culture. That’s dissipated a lot because the sitting hours changed. But it’s a funny hot house atmosphere. Have you ever worked in parliament house?

Misha Zelinsky:

Not in the federal parliament but I spent a fair bit of time there for work so I’m familiar with it.

Chris Pyne:

So it’s funny, 4000 people plus, all come together for 17 weeks a year, all away from year, and they’re there for a specific period of time, a specific job, and they’re all very similar people because they’re all political people. So it’s not like a village. Everyone calls it it’s like a village, it’s not like a village because in the village you’ve got the baker and the candlestick maker and the real estate agent and a whole bunch of people who don’t work and people who do work and kids who go to school.

Chris Pyne:

In that place, there’s 4000 people all very similar. And so it’s unusual. So it doesn’t surprise me that the culture is now being called out, I think it’s a good thing that it’s being called out. I do think that it needs to reset and I think the public want everyone to get back to governing and opposing, if you’re on the opposition, but I do think the solution to this problem is… I mean, the capital should have been in a major city. It should have been in Adelaide or Brisbane or-

Misha Zelinsky:

It was a deal, essentially, between Sydney and Melbourne that would have-

Chris Pyne:

It was a deal because the Sydneysiders didn’t want it in Melbourne and the Melbournians didn’t want it in Sydney, so they had to put it within 100 kilometers of the New South Wales Victorian border on the New South Wales side, so it kind of ended up being where it is and Canberra is a lovely city and I like Canberra, but it’s an entirely artificial community. It’s now become a proper city, to be fair. When I first got elected in 1993, when I first worked for Amanda Vanstone it was a bit artificial. But if it had been in a city like Adelaide or Brisbane, rather than Sydney or Melbourne, or if they’d been able to agree that it should be in Melbourne then of course it would have been different because people would have gone home. So they would have been working in parliament house but they would have gone home at night as opposed to motels or hotels or whatever, or share houses. So it would have been a different culture. Interesting if that would have made a difference to our politics. I think it would have.

Misha Zelinsky:

Now, could pin you down, chat here for hours and hours but we’re getting towards the end. Now, I can’t let you go without answering the famous lame question of Diplomates.

Chris Pyne:

Diplomates. That’s the lame part.

Misha Zelinsky:

Oh, indeed. It’s a lame pun with a lame final question and a terrible segue.

Chris Pyne:

Good.

Misha Zelinsky:

So I’m keeping with tradition. Now, the question of course is you’re an Australian guest, foreign guests have to invite Australians, but you’re an Australian guest so you can invite foreigners. Three foreign guests to a barbecue at Chris Pyne’s, who are they and why?

Chris Pyne:

And they can be dead?

Misha Zelinsky:

They can be dead.

Chris Pyne:

I would have Alexander the Great, Constantine and Napoleon Bonaparte.

Misha Zelinsky:

Wow, okay. Three big figures of history and a long way back. Why?

Chris Pyne:

Because I’d like to know what drove them to be such change agents. What made them think that they could take an army of a few ten thousands of Greeks and conquer the modern world and get all the way to India and think they could change the world in which they lived at the age of 20-something, and why Napoleon Bonaparte thought he could go to Egypt and create a new empire in the east and how he could think that he could transcend Islam and Christianity and create a new religion and a new civilization. It must take extraordinary self-belief. And Constantine changed the western world because once he initiated Christianity as the state religion of the empire, it was probably… I think it’d be too self-regarding to think you could have Jesus Christ over for a barbecue, so I would leave him out, but Constantine, he changed the world in which we live entirely because Christianity has been the greatest force for the shaping of the western world in our entire history. So I’d like to know why he thought that was a good idea.

Misha Zelinsky:

Well, three outstanding guests at a barbecue, but you’ve been an outstanding guest on Diplomates so thank you for coming on the show and much appreciate it, Chris Pyne.

Chris Pyne:

Thanks Misha, thanks for having me.

Misha Zelinsky:

Pleasure.