The shadow education minister, Christopher Pyne, took metaphor mixing to new heights during his interview with Leigh Sales on Lateline last Tuesday night.
Here is a transcript of just the first few minutes, equipped with a few comments about his performance:
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Christopher Pyne, thanks for joining us.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE, SHADOW EDUCATION MINISTER: Pleasure, Leigh.
LEIGH SALES: Julia Gillard said tonight that she’d be willing to have a second debate against Tony Abbott. He’s said that he’s unlikely to accept. But you’ve been calling for more debates. Why not accept?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Tony Abbott wanted to have the three debates that the Labor Party promised to have in the 2007 election, that they said was vital for democracy, which they then rejected at the beginning of the election because they thought they didn’t need to have any debates, believing that they were ahead in the polls and would therefore win the election.
Never mind that this argument is barely believable, given the Coalition was begging for another debate just a couple of weeks ago.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Now, Julia Gillard’s campaign is quite clearly off the rails.
Key message one. Building a train-wreck metaphor.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We had more evidence of that today when she was trying to trick people into believing that somehow she was listening to the faceless men of the Labor Party …
Key message two. Important to keep stressing that Bill Shorten and Mark Arbib and Paul Howes don’t have faces. Taps into fears of thuggery. Needs reinforcing soon.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: … now she isn’t listening to the faceless men of the Labor Party …
NOT THAT SOON!
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: … saying she was the real Julia today, the fake Julia yesterday.
Key message three. Mustn’t revisit Tony Abbott’s admission that he can’t be believed unless he’s written his own comments down.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The point that people made to me today was how do we know whether she’s tricking us now?
Key message three. Bitterness is driving this. Just three months ago Labor was asking “How do we know whether Tony is tricking us now?”
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: So she wants to have another debate, because she thinks that will help her get her campaign back on the rails.
Key message one. Still building a train-wreck metaphor
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: But we’re not in the business of jump together tune of the faceless men …
Key message two. No wonder the train’s derailed. The drivers can’t see because they don’t have faces.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: … of the ALP. They’ve told Julia Gillard she needs to have another debate.
Tony Abbott’s schedule is basically locked in. He has a plan to visit electorates right across Australia, right up to election day. And we have a whole lot of other priorities that are more important than salvaging Julia Gillard’s disintegrating campaign.
Key message one. Mixing up the metaphor now.
LEIGH SALES: But schedules can always be changed, as we both know, and regardless of the Prime Minister’s motives, you’ve been asking for three debates. Why not take up this opportunity?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The Labor Party had a chance to have three debates in the election campaign.
Repetition.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: They thought they were being clever by rejecting the Opposition’s call for them to keep their own promise. Now that they are in freefall in terms of their disintegrating campaign …
Key message one. Really mixing up the metaphor now.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: … they’re demanding that the Opposition jump to their tune.
Hopefully Leigh won’t ask what kind of tune a free-falling disintegrating campaigner plays.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, the faceless men of the ALP …
Key message two. Obviously we haven’t quite got it yet.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: … might run Julia Gillard, but they don’t run the Liberal Party.
Catchy quote, attempt one. On a roll now, never mind that the quote is trite and predictable.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Tony Abbott runs the Liberal Party. He’s the leader of the Opposition. And he has a schedule of events planned right through to Election Day …
Repetition.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: … and we are not going to simply change our schedule just because the faceless men of the ALP …
Key message two. Just slipping in a subtle reminder here for those still not clear that Bill, Mark and Paul have no exterior countenances on their craniums.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: … have told Julia Gillard “You need a debate to salvage your campaign”.
Key message one. Getting the derailed key message metaphor back on a salvageable track.
LEIGH SALES: You say they’re in freefall, but conversely, is Tony Abbott now scared to debate Julia Gillard now that he has the upper hand in the polls? Is it a case of nothing to gain, everything to lose?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Julia Gillard said five weeks ago that the government had lost its way. Now she has admitted today that the campaign for the Labor Party has lost its way.
Key message one. So let’s get this clear, the free-falling disintegrating, salvageable and derailed campaign is lost? Maybe it drove off the rails, got lost in the vicinity of a cliff, fell off and then disintegrated while playing music?
LEIGH SALES: That doesn’t address my question. Is Tony Abbott scared to debate her now?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I think the proof of the pudding has been in the eating.
Must not blame the faceless people for eating the pudding. That wouldn’t be credible.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Tony Abbott wanted to keep the debates going on Channel 9, on the Today show every Friday morning.
As soon as Julia Gillard became Prime Minister the faceless men of the ALP told her …
Key message two. OK the faceless men can talk, but they definitely can’t eat pudding.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: … to stop those, so she did. Tony Abbott was more than happy to keep them going every Friday.
Then Tony Abbott said he’d be prepared to have three debates.
REPETITION.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Julia Gillard had been part of the Government’s promise to have three debates. They squibbed it.
Now they’re demanding another debate, in yet another sign of the desperation of the ALP campaign and we aren’t going to jump to the tune of the people who are running the ALP campaign out of ALP headquarters.
Key message two. Perhaps they stay indoors because they’re too ashamed to come outside because they don’t have faces?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We will decide our schedule …
LEIGH SALES: They will accuse you though of course of running scared given how many times you have called for there to be more debates.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well there’s only one campaign that is running scared in this campaign at the moment, Leigh, and that is the Labor Party campaign with Julia Gillard …
Key message one. You’d be scared too if you were free-falling while lost and disintegrating and coming off the rails and having no prospect of attaining salvation while being run by men who hide inside all day because they have no skin on their skulls.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: … bizarrely today describing herself as real Julia and yesterday it was apparently fake Julia and for five weeks has apparently been fake Julia. But the number one question is: is she telling the truth now or was she telling the truth yesterday?
And I don’t think the public are going to put up with this pantomime …
More like a freak show.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: … of an ALP government for very much longer. The public are getting very sick of an incompetent, dysfunctional, disintegrating …
Key message one. Yeah, I think we’re getting the general idea.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: … government full of the most poisonous people you can imagine in politics.
Almost as poisonous as the people in the Coalition who shafted Malcolm Turnbull recently. But at least they have faces. In fact they look quite like Tony Abbott.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s time to change the government, stop the boats, reduce the debt and deficit and put the government in the hands of people who’ve done it all before and done it well.
Catchy quote, attempt two. Actually, it’s just the mantra.
Throughout the campaign, Andrew Dodd is analysing standout interviews to pick apart the pollie speak. Check out his dissection of Wayne Swan on The 7.30 Report here.
This is what gets me
Abbott admits that he cracks under pressure and will say anything, says he is then isn’t for cliamte change then for Workchoices then its burreied & cremated and is an admitted ecnomic ignoramus and yet Pine accuse Gillard of being changeable.
The talks about faceless men when there is a whole cohart of plotters in the back rooms pulling Abbotts strings
I don’t know what is worse is the smug prissy Pyne pushing such rubbish and then accusing the Rudd of being all spin, the failure of the press to call Abbott to account or the incompetence of the ALP failing to show up how bad Abbott is & taking him on
I’m ashamed of Labor’s application of homophobic epithets to Christopher Pyne.
Julia Gillard described him as “mincing”.
The Pav says he is “prissy”.
If Labor thinks it can win the election by alienating the social progressives in its base, they have really lost the plot.
Dear John,
I never even considered Pyne’s sexual orientation and still don’t. I don’t even know what it is and simply don’t care.
I do not consider the word ‘prissy’ has any homosexual relevance particulary when it is prefaced with smug. Just as I don’t consider priggish or prim to be.
If you do then it’s your problem not mine.
As to Gillard calling him mincing I would agree it’s perhaps a bit out of line but not much and there is an argument that could be mounted that the word initself not inappropriate.
How irritating it is to hear politicians say it’s “a pleasure’ to be interviewed.
As far a I can recall Alexander Downer was the first one to trot out this phrase, especially after he’d taken a grilling from either Kerry O’Brien or Tony Jones – insincerity dripped from his lips. It was a particularly ludicrous phrase to use when Downer was ducking and weaving around the Australian Wheat Board kickback scandal. To say he found pleasure in being interviewed was stretching credibility, even for a politician.
In fact, if a politician says “it’s been a pleasure” and actually means it then it’s an indication the interviewer was remiss.
At the end of the day, when all is said and done, it will all come out in the wash. Ha, now who is speaking in ALP platitudes.