Christopher Pyne’s The Insider passes the Bob and Nancy test

It’s well known he had little time for Kevin Rudd. But in his new memoir, Christopher Pyne is even less generous to Julia Gillard.

Mark Knight’s cartoon from February 25, 2009

The politician once dubbed Australia’s most irritating by this newspaper’s columnist Graham Richardson sets a test for himself early in his memoir, The Insider, although he doesn’t lay it out explicitly.

When 25-year-old Christopher Pyne entered federal parliament in 1993 as the Liberal member for Sturt, he was then its youngest MP. He went on to become a senior minister and leader of the House of Representatives.

He is an unabashed high achiever and self-promoter, whether he’s boasting of his place in what he calls the political solar system or claiming singular credit for South Australia’s defence industry.

Despite these prerequisites for political survival, Pyne does have an acute self-awareness that’s not so common in the often inward-looking world of our national capital.

As he says, it is easy to become caught up in the zeitgeist in Canberra, the place where the “salons of ambassadors and high commissioners” sit among the highest per capita city dwellers in the land.

To guard against being swallowed by the insularity of parliament and its surrounds, Pyne adopts the Bob and Nancy Stringbag test.

“Almost every time I had to make a choice from options available to the party or the government, I would ask myself, ‘What would Bob and Nancy think about that?’,” he writes.

This couple was from Pyne’s imagination, a middle-class pair representing middle Australia: “They enjoyed life’s simple pleasures — camping with the kids, buying presents and sweets for their grandchildren, having one too many shandies with their mates and girlfriends but not judging others for the same peccadillos. They see themselves as fair-minded and take their time to come around to change, but they got there on marriage equality and probably will on a republic when the current monarch is no longer on the throne.”

Pyne points out Bob and Nancy loathe being told what to do or what to think by self-appointed betters and, while they watch and listen to commercial media, think the ABC is the probably the best news service. “There are a lot of Bob and Nancy Stringbags voting on election day,” he reminds readers. Pyne’s memoir is readable, witty, intelligent without being dogmatic or argumentative, and, ultimately, entertaining. As far as the Bob and Nancy test goes, it passes. They would most likely say they like the author and didn’t think he had tickets on himself (even though he clearly does).

Christopher Pyne's new book The Insider

The bulk of the memoir focuses on the last 12 years of Pyne’s 26 in politics, from the dark and tumultuous winter following Kevin Rudd’s 2007 victory, through the wild ride of the failures and successes accompanying the leaderships of Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, and what were obviously the high points of the author’s time in Canberra, when he was in the leadership sanctum and one of two co-defence ministers.

His description of Rudd’s demise is abrupt and apt, noting the former prime minister’s failure to see the June 2010 partyroom revolt coming: “Rudd’s arrogance was so breathtaking that he couldn’t even see the floor when it rose up to hit him in the face.”

While he had little time for Rudd, he is even less generous when it comes to Julia Gillard.

After Gillard labelled him a mincing poodle following his appointment as the coalition’s manager of business in the house, Pyne says he shook it off but he didn’t forget what he regarded as an unnecessarily personal gibe.

Pyne chose as his target of revenge Gillard’s “building the education revolution” economic stimulus package, which was portrayed as wasteful spending on school halls. The policy was reduced to “a pile of political rubble”, causing Abbott to say to his colleague that Gillard had made the mistake of underestimating Pyne. “She had attacked me personally, and I had made her pay a high price,” Pyne writes.

Question Time in the House of Representatives in Parliament House in Canberra. PM Julia Gillard with Christopher Pyne and Tony Abbott.

The most contentious and controversial section of the book concerns the downfall of Turnbull and the election of Scott Morrison as Liberal leader.

Pyne asserts Morrison was not the scheming third man many Liberals suspect he had been during that crazy week in September 2018, described as being a mix of a “Whatever It Takes karaoke night” (borrowing the title of the Richardson memoir) and a madcap McHale’s Navy operation.

The account best laid out by senior political correspondent David Crowe has Morrison’s inner circle working on a fallback leadership position from the beginning of that week when it became obvious Peter Dutton was gunning for Turnbull. As Crowe recounts, one of Turnbull’s most loyal lieutenants, former western Sydney MP Craig Laundy, put together the pieces of these events and rushed to warn the prime minister’s key staff member Sally Cray. “We’ve been played,” he said.

Pyne says the fact Morrison was arguing the house should be adjourned the day before Turnbull was toppled is proof there was no “elaborate conspiracy” to replace the prime minister by outflanking the challenge from Dutton.

Many of Pyne’s colleagues believed Morrison was playing such a double game, and Turnbull still holds that view. It stretches credibility that someone as plugged into the zeitgeist as Pyne was not aware of what were at least contingency plans by the Morrison camp. Perhaps the ultimate insider is holding some insurance to still have some political credit in the nation’s highest office.

Those who live and breathe everything that happens in national politics may not learn any deep secrets from Pyne’s book but his target audience, Bob and Nancy, will swap anecdotes with their friends in cafes and workrooms.

Hilarious stories such as the time Pyne, suffering from a debilitating head cold, blasted some aerosol room sanitiser up his nose twice in Paris — sending him hurtling backwards on to his bed in the luxury Pullman — illustrate the author’s keen eye for a yarn and his endearing self-deprecation.

The book is vintage Pyne. He is a practised and accomplished storyteller and this talent shines when he is in full flight on his favourite topic: himself. Apart from a too long chapter on defence policy (the more succinct discussion of education is much better), the book doesn’t become too deeply entangled in the policy arguments of the past decade.

Pyne has a quite ordered view of how he sees the world, politically and beyond, and this book reflects that. It will sit comfortably on the shelves with another entertaining ministerial memoir, As It Happened, by Labor’s John Button.

Dennis Atkins is a freelance writer and critic. He was national political editor for The Courier-Mail in Canberra and national affairs editor for the paper in Brisbane.

The Insider, by Christopher Pyne, Hachette, 352pp, $34.99.