The political life and times of Christopher Pyne

Christopher Pyne has been one of Australia’s most relentless, obsessive and polarising politicians — loved and loathed by opponents and Liberal Party colleagues alike.

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Christopher Pyne has been one of Australia’s most relentless, obsessive and polarising politicians, loved and loathed by opponents and Liberal Party colleagues alike.

Throughout his record-breaking career, he has retained the indefatigable self-confidence that 27 years ago propelled him to an audacious preselection victory in his eastern Adelaide seat of Sturt.

Back then, Mr Pyne had been a Liberal member since age 16 and on the party’s state executive since 20 — positions he retains.

He stunned the party by taking on Adelaide establishment figure and Sturt incumbent Ian Wilson — and defeating him in the bitter preselection battle.

Soon afterwards, on March 13, 1993, he was elected, becoming the Sturt MP as a self-confessed “impetuous 25-year-old”.

On the eve of his retirement from politics, Mr Pyne, 51, is now the longest-serving non-Labor member of the House of Representatives from South Australia.

As he says in his statement released to The Advertiser, he has been a backbencher for ten years and a frontbencher for 16.

Four prime ministers have appointed him to their ministries, in portfolios including Defence, Industry, Education and Ageing.

He has been in the federal Liberal leadership group for a decade, in Cabinet and Leader of the House for almost six years.

In his statement, Mr Pyne, an aficionado of American politics, quotes Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those that have much but whether we provide enough to those that have little.”

He argues he’s tried to keep that creed as his lodestar throughout his career.

“I’ve had a fortunate life, so I believe that those who have been given opportunities have a responsibility to work to give others the same opportunities. I hope I’ve sometimes succeeded,” Mr Pyne says.

His legacy will be the $200 billion build-up of Australia’s military, the largest in peacetime, and particularly the $90 billion in naval shipbuilding projects centred on Adelaide.

The linchpin of this, the $50 billion future submarine project, had been bound for Japan under former prime minister Tony Abbott.

State and federal politicians across all parties campaigned for the project to be Adelaide-based but Mr Pyne was the most senior decision-maker, the most influential at the Cabinet table.

Interstate commentators and rivals were aghast at perceived pork-barrelling but the defence projects are set to transform South Australia’s industrial base for generations to come.

Throughout his career, Mr Pyne’s ceaseless politicking has been mixed with a dose of humour and character that inspires allies and infuriates opponents.

In an interview with The Advertiser to mark his 25th anniversary in federal parliament last March, Mr Pyne recalled an “audacity of youth” that resulted in him, as he described in a later book, in 1993 telling Liberal leadership aspirant John Howard: “You’ve had your time. We’ll never go back to you.”

“My greatest regret would be being elected as an impetuous 25-year-old,” Mr Pyne told The Advertiser.

“Looking back, I realise that, at 25, while I thought I knew plenty, I didn’t know very much at all and I probably made some early, career-limiting moves that I wouldn’t repeat as a 50-year-old.

“I might have shared my opinions a little too freely with my colleagues in Canberra.”

IN HIS OWN WORDS — CHRISTOPHER PYNE RESIGNS

This brashness contributed to him being frozen out of senior jobs for much of the Howard government, even though by 2003 he had been in parliament for a decade.

He was a factional warrior for the Liberal Moderates when the Right controlled the state party, spearheaded by former finance minister and Howard right-hand man Nick Minchin.

Complicating the task for Mr Pyne, SA had four senior Cabinet ministers in the Howard government: Mr Minchin, Alexander Downer (foreign affairs), Robert Hill (defence) and Pyne confidante Amanda Vanstone (immigration) — also godmother to Mr Pyne’s daughter, Eleanor.

This logjam at the top was compounded by Mr Pyne being a well-known backer of the-then treasurer Peter Costello’s oscillating ambition for the prime ministership.

In a congratulatory video message for a party celebrating his 25th anniversary on March 13 last year, the-then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said: “Christopher Pyne is mischievous and magnificent. Indefatigable, incorrigible and impossible.”

Mr Pyne is known to have been greatly affected by Mr Turnbull’s leadership implosion last August, mainly because of the self-destruction of the government and party.

But he infamously threw his Moderate numbers behind Scott Morrison, at the expense of friend and popular leadership choice Julie Bishop, when Mr Turnbull’s leadership was terminated. Previously, Mr Pyne had been a key lieutenant of Mr Turnbull’s in the internal campaign to stop the Right’s Peter Dutton seizing the prime ministership.

Throughout his career, Mr Pyne has been a factional warrior, with his Machiavellian plots largely hatched out of public view. But, in mid-2017, he infamously told party allies gathered at a Sydney bar that Moderates like him were “in the winners’ circle”, overcoming “many decades when people said the party was swinging to the Right and we were finished”.

Mr Pyne’s longtime associate and fellow Moderate James Stevens — Premier Steven Marshall’s chief of staff — is likely to win preselection as the Liberal Sturt candidate for the May election.

Like Mr Marshall, Mr Stevens, 35, is a former Michell Wool executive and is viewed as a federal frontbench contender.

It is likely Mr Pyne will throw his support behind his campaign manager for the past four elections, thus engineering his succession and, as often during his career, keeping one step ahead of his political rivals.