Transcript - Therese Rein

7/30/2019 Transcript - Therese Rein

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CampaignTranscript

TRANSCRIPT OF THERESE REININTERVIEW WITH JOHN LAWS

2SM29 AUGUST 2013

E & O E PROOF ONLY_____________________________________________________________Subjects: Thereses name; Leaders debate; Trivialisation of politics andcampaigns; Murdoch news coverage; Labor values; Paid Parental Leave.

_____________________________________________________________

HOST: Hoping to keep her dream alive, I imagine, is the wife of the PrimeMinister, Therese Rein, who happily for me is in the studio. Good morning,Therese, and welcome.

THERESE REIN: Good morning, J ohn.HOST: A lot of people say - why isnt she Therese Rudd?REIN: Really?

HOST: Yeah.REIN: Well, why isnt Kevin, Kevin Rein?

HOST: (Laughs). No, I cant accept that. Were talking about tradition. Why do

you choose not to be Therese Rudd.

REIN: Kevin and I got married at the end - on the week that I finished doing mythesis, so I just completed my honours degree - my qualifications are in my nameand Im an independent person.

HOST: But its kind of a traditional thing. I dont want to make a meal of it, but itssort of a traditional thing, isnt it? In English speaking countries that you take yourhusbands name.


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REIN: Well, Kevin and I had a conversation about it - and it was about a minutelong. It went- so will I change my name to yours? Therese Rudd - it doesnt feellike me and will you change your name to mine? No. Will we hyphenate? No. Sowe will keep our own names.

HOST: Well, well done.REIN: And weve been married now for nearly 32 years.

HOST: Have you really?REIN: We have.HOST: 32 years. A long time.

REIN: Its a long time.HOST: Never a cross word?REIN: (Laughs). I dont think anyone should say that or could say that.

HOST: I agree with you. Is he good fun to live with that husband of yours? REIN: Yeah, very playful, very playful.

HOST: Ive heard that before - that he does have a good sense of humour.

REIN: Great sense of humour.

HOST: Sometimes people say that he doesnt look like he has a sense ofhumour, but Ive heard he does have. He likes pranks a bit too, I think.REIN: He has a wicked sense of humour. He loves to play and you know, thekids growing up with him loved to rough house with him and he loves to play withJ osephine now, our new granddaughter.

HOST: Ill bet. Ill bet. Were you helping to lobby members of the audience at theRooty Hill RSL club, last night?REIN: No, I just went and said hi. I went and said hi and I said Hi, my namesTherese, whats yours? Thanked a couple of them for their questions. I thoughtthe questions last night were fantastic. I thought they were thoughtful; they werethought-provoking and I thought they resulted in a really good conversation -probably the best weve seen, out of the three debates.

HOST: I agree. I agree. Do you like Tony Abbott?


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REIN: Ive personally met Tony Abbott a couple of times, only and Im sure hisfamily love him.HOST: I didnt ask you that question. I said, do you like him?REIN: I can say that I really love my husband.

HOST: Youve been living with a politician too long, Therese.

REIN: I think Im not really here to comment on what the Leader of theOpposition is like. I think the Australian people have seen Tony Abbott over along period of time and they know, and they will draw their own conclusionsabout him. So, its not actually about what I think. Its actually about what the

Australian people decide to do here - thats what elections are - and theyreactually meant to be more about a contest of ideas. Theyre meant to be moreabout a vision of what Australia is and can become; what our opportunities are asa nation. And I think that reverting to kind of personality politics, which is whatweve seen a lot of, weve seen a lot of character assassination, weve seen a lotof trivialisation of real issues and I think that does a disservice to our democracy,personally.

HOST: Well, it probably does, but just back to your opinion. You may think thatyour opinion is your opinion and not very important - I can assure you that,particularly the women of Australia would be fascinated by your opinion of other

people and the situation generally.REIN: Well, I can talk about the situation generally - what I think is that we haveseen the trivialisation of the national debate. I think weve seen constantdistractions by furphies, frankly, like I notice one of the papers today says thatKevin spoke for six minutes longer last night.HOST: I saw that, it was a headline for gods sake.REIN: It was a headline for gods sake.

HOST: Yeah.REIN: And Im not taking the Lords name in vain - it was a headline. So insteadof talking about the ideas that were covered, it was a trivialisation and its anytime anyone starts to get into talking about policy - and policy matters because itchanges peoples lives. Thats why politics matters, it can change peoples livesfor the better - like the National Disability Insurance Scheme, for example,changes peoples lives for the better and that matters. You can hear Im getting abit het up here that matters - and do we have fair education? Do we have fairhealth access? Do we have a National Broadband Network thats going to enable


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business and innovative ways of delivering education and health to people inremote and rural Australia, that matters. What kind of engagement with Asia that matters. What we do about our climate and about our environmentalsustainability that matters. You can hear the frustration in my voice - what I getvery frustrated with is the trivialisation of the national debate and throwingfurphies about peoples characters this way, that way, every way, and I thinkits demeaning. I think its demeaning to our democracy. I think its demeaning tothe participants and I think it creates so much noise that we cant actually havewhat should be the exciting conversation in our democracy at the time of electionwhere we are choosing alternatives. We cant have that conversation becauseweve got the noise about oh, well, I dont know what people are wearing orwhat they look like or stuff, just nonsense and stuff.

I find it really frustrating and find it really disappointing and the reason for our

family that were involved in this, is not for money. Kevin was earning moremoney before he ran for Parliament.

HOST: Youve got a dollar too.REIN: Its not for money. The reason people become involved in politics is thatthey want to - they want to serve the country.HOST: Well, one would hope thatd be the reason. Im not sure it always is. Imsure it is in relation to your husband.

REIN: I certainly know in our family it absolutely is, why we do this, because weactually think these things matter.HOST: Ok, but wouldnt you think that Tony Abbott would do it for exactly thesame reason?REIN: Im sure that on both sides of politics, on both sides of the House and inthe minority parties that people are giving up their time, their family time, to servetheir communities and theyre participating in this great democracy because theythink there needs to be a fair, open debate about which direction we go in and Ithink that is, I think that is across the board.HOST: A lot has been made about the supposed anti-Labor coverage in paperslike the Daily Telegraph and the Courier-Mail for that matter, do those headlinesbother you?REIN: I think its fair to say when we see someone we love being vilified that is,that is really difficult - that is really difficult - and I remember when Kevin wasPrime Minister between 2007-2010, that there was some really vicious adsrunning that were being put out by the other side and its fair to say that that and


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some of the vilification and the distortions that have happened, that have been insome of the papers, that its difficult to see that.

What keeps us going is the purpose - why are we, as a family, and why is he asa person, putting his life energy and his effort into being involved in nationalpolitical life? Because he believes in the country. He believes in the future of thecountry. He believes that we can be even greater than we are today.

HOST: Well, I hope we all believe that. We should. We should always believethat this is always room for improvement. You consider him the man to help tomake those improvements and I imagine Tony Abbott believes hes the man tomake those improvements. Its up to the public. Its up to the people of Australia.

REIN: It really is.

HOST: Theyre the ones who will ultimately decide. Do you think that yourhusband would have been rude to the make-up artist? I mean that was aheadline too.REIN: That was a headline, and I have been very worried about her well-beingbecause I think she did something that makeup artists and other people whowork with people in public life and actors dont normally do, and that is she puther opinion out into the public on Facebook, but she probably didnt think it wasgoing as far as it was, so I have been concerned that she has personal support,and

HOST: Do you think she needs personal support? REIN: I think that she may have found herself in the centre of a storm that sheprobably didnt anticipate. Do I think Kevin was rude to her? I dont at all. I think,just as your probably like a little bit of quiet time before youre preparing for ashow and you want to be able to focus, I think she was looking after him twominutes before he was going on, or a few minutes before he was going on, andhe was the opening speaker. There were no notes, so he was going on to speak,in a debate which is about the future of the country, so yes, he was probablyreally engaged. Did he ask her, you know, how she was, or, I dont know, I think

he was probably really just focussed and prepared. Was that rude? I dont thinkthats rude. Personally, I dont think thats rude. I know before I speak, and Ispeak quite often, I like to be able to get into the zone and focus and justprepare, because what Im saying matters.HOST: Yeah, well it certainly matters to you, and it certainly hopefully matters tothe people who are listening. But a lot of people are always going to be critical,cant win em all can you?REIN: No, I think thats true.


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HOST: Difficult question for me to ask has he got a short fuse? Does he losehis temper?REIN: I think I think everybody from time to time loses their temper.HOST: Not an answer, Therese, not an answer.REIN: No, he doesnt have a particularly short temper. He doesnt have aparticularly short temper, and I think when I look at people who worked with himin the Prime Ministers Office before, who worked with him in the ForeignMinisters Office when he was Foreign Minister, who have chosen to stay withhim when he was a backbencher, who are continuing to work with him now - hehas people who he has been working with for years, and years, and years, and

years - and, he is a compassionate man; he is a passionate man; he cares aboutwhat he is doing, but hes not particularly short tempered, no.HOST: Do you think he has done something to offend Rupert Murdoch?REIN: I dont know what Mr Murdochs agenda is.

HOST: Do you get the impression that hes certainly not on-side? REIN: It would be difficult to imagine that he was on-side. I dont know what MrMurdochs commercial intentions are, or his objectives are. I dont know what he

wants to achieve with a change of Government. I dont know what he wants toachieve with communications laws or cross-media ownership laws, or anything. Idont know what he wants to achieve. But it would be difficult to say that he wason-side.HOST: Drawing a long bow, I think. What will he do if he loses?REIN: Well, we havent actually talked about that. Im not particularly worriedabout that. We have about eight and a half days left before the Australian peopledecide. Hes very, very focussed on getting whatever he can of Labors messageout there so that people can make a real decision on the substantial matters, and

not on the trivial.HOST: Youve had a pretty close up look at the degree of dysfunction within theLabor Party over the last six years. Its impossible to deny that there hasnt beendysfunction there, its been a bit of a mess for a while. Why do they deserveanother three years in office? Put Kevin aside, why does the Labor Party deserveanother three years in office?REIN: Labor values - which is why were members of the Labor Party - Laborvalues are about fairness, fundamentally.


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And, we saw that with getting rid of WorkChoices. People felt - when I wentaround Australia in 2007 I spoke to lots and lots of people in shopping centresand all over the place, grandmas, grandpas, mums and dads would come up tome and would say Im really worried about the working conditions of mygrandkids or my kids. So, Labor values are fundamentally about fairness. And itdoesnt just go to workplace fairness and things like paid parental leave, whichwas a major innovation of this Government, but it also goes to fairness for agedpensioners where theres been an historic, really, shift to indexing aged pensionsthat happened under Labor in the last six years. So that fairness extends also toeducation and great educational opportunities for all because education changespeoples lives, and it also extends to access in health and to dental care, andnow, to disability care.

Labor at its heart is about fairness, and is about nation building, and thats why Ithink Labor deserves another three years.HOST: Why do we even have paid parental leave? If people cant afford to havechildren they shouldnt have them, should they?REIN: Depends whether you want a shrinking population or not.HOST: I dont know, I bet your mum didnt get paid parental leave. There mighthave been that silly thing called child endowment which was about fourpencehapenny a week or something.

REIN: It was about fourpence hapenny and she did get child endowment.HOST: That was it. I mean this paid parental leave now is pretty expensive forthe country.REIN: Well what I think is that Labors scheme on paid parental leave is fair, soeverybody who is working full-time would get paid the same amount. It supportspeople to have children, and we want people to have children. In a lot ofadvanced, in a lot of Western economies, the employer pays here theGovernment pays, because they didnt want to put an impost onto employers and

add to their costs. So, I know, in Sweden, where I lived way back in 1981-1983,they have a really long paid parental scheme paid parental leave scheme bothfor the mother and for the father and what that enables is both parents to beinvolved in early childhood parenting.HOST: So in other words, when somebody has a child, suddenly two peopledont go to work?REIN: No, no. What happens is that both its assumed in Sweden that bothparents will be involved in parenting and they take turns. And it means that for


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the first couple of years of a childs life they have one parent or the other withthem. So, thats another country and thats a lot further than Australia has gone.Australia has provided, I think its 12 or 13 weeks at maybe the minimum wage,so that enables people to have babies, and have some income coming in. So Ithink thats fair.HOST: Yeah, when you put it that way I guess it is fair. Whos going to win theelection?REIN: Whoever the Australian people decide, and I hope its Labor.

HOST: Youre not confident?REIN: I hope its Labor.

HOST: You have lived too long with a politician.REIN: Am I confident that the Australian people will make the right choice? I amconfident that they will. I am very confident in our democracy. I think people seepast furphies and distractions and the trivialisation and they care fundamentally,and we saw that in the great questions that were asked last night. They carefundamentally about real issues, and about real policy, and Im very confidentthat they will make the right decision for this country.HOST: Therese, thank you very much for coming to the, my humble abode here,

and spending some time with us. Apart from anything, its nice to see you againand I hope it wont be too long before we talk to each other again.REIN: I look forward to that too, J ohn. Thank you for having me.HOST: Its a pleasure, thank you very much.

ENDS

Communications Unit: T 03 8625 5111 www.alp.org.au

Author ised by G. Wright, Aust ral ian Labor Party, 5/9 Sydney Avenue, Barton, ACT, 2600

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Transcript - Therese Rein