Transcript - Sky News Panel with Jason Falinski

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
NEWSDAY
SKY NEWS
THURSDAY, 1 AUGUST 2019 

SUBJECTS: Raheem Kassam, Ensuring Integrity Bill, democracy reform

TOM CONNELL:  Jason Falinski and Patrick Gorman, thank you for joining me here in the studio. Gentlemen, thanks as ever for your time.

PATRICK GORMAN, MEMBER FOR PERTH: Thank you for having us.

JASON FALINSKI, MEMBER FOR MACKELLAR:  Yes, I'm also satisfied to be here.

CONNELL: Let's start with you, Jason Falinski. On Raheem Kassam, should he be allowed into the country?

FALINSKI:  Yep, yep, yeah.

CONNELL:  What’s the difference between his case in Milo Yiannopoulos?

FALINSKI: Well I don't know much about either to be honest, but I think in the case of this person, you know, you should be allowed to come to this country, you need to obey the laws while they're here, we enforce the laws that we have I don't agree with what he said,  but I'll fight for his right to say it.

CONNELL: Because when Milo was blocked from coming soon after Christchurch but he was talking about the attacks and said that's what happens when you essentially allow acceptance of what he called barbaric, alien culture - talking about Islam - and he was blocked for that reason. So is it only timing, because those comments aren't any worse are they than what we've heard from Kassam who said that the Koran is evil, is it only timing?

FALINSKI: Well I think it's mostly only timing but these decisions are made by independent people who have to assess it against a certain criteria. Look I'm uncomfortable with what he says, I don't like what he says, but what I do know is allowing him to say it and hearing the other side of the story is healthy for our democracy and healthy for debate in Australia.

CONNELL:  Patrick Gorman, Labor is saying block him.  What precedent does that set? Where does that draw the line?

GORMAN: The first thing is, the minister does have the power to decide who comes to this country and the circumstances under which they come. So of course the Minister should have a look at this. A few days ago I had never heard of this bloke.

CONNELL: Was Kristina Keneally doing his PR?

GORMAN:  Well I think it's unavoidable by the time this conference comes in a week or so, and I know that Jason is not attending and I give him full credit for not attending this conference, unlike some of his colleagues, but there is no doubt  that by the time this bloke arrives and says whatever it is he's deciding to say, which I'm sure he's being paid a healthy fee to say it, people in Australia will say, well why didn't anyone raise concern about these kind of odd  inflammatory speeches before they happen.

CONNELL: What's the case, can you lay out briefly the concrete closed case for blocking him from coming to Australia?

GORMAN: What we've said is that some of comments that he has made and the purpose for which he is coming is to say things that I don't think in many Australians at all would welcome. It is our country and on these sort of questions it's entirely reasonable that labour asks the Minister to look as to whether he meets all the tests required to get a visitor visa.

CONNELL: Well what does that mean? So is it the comment that the Koran is inherently evil? Anyone that said that blocked from coming to the country?

GORMAN:  The comments that I saw he made were about Nicola Sturgeon. I thought that particularly off. Again, I don't know this person well; I don't spend a lot of time -

CONNELL: They were abhorrent. They were in 2016, and he deleted that tweet. I mean again anyone that's sent out a tweet along those lines which was just crass stuff –

GORMAN: I mean really I couldn't tell you, I have not gone and looked at his Twitter account and all the things. Kristina has had the time to look at his history of commentary she's our spokesperson in this area, I think it's a reasonable thing to ask the Minister.

CONNELL: The comment about Nicole Sturgeon, is that a reason for banning someone from coming into the country?

FALINSKI: Can I say I think in politics and general public discourse in the Western world at the moment there's too much playing the person and not arguing against the ideas. So I don't know, like Patrick virtually anything about this guy and until Kristina stood up, I had no cause to know anything about him. The comments that I understand he's made are abhorrent and we should disagree with them, and we should make it very clear where we stay as a pluralistic society.

The difference between him and potentially Milo is that free speech has always been bounded by certain limits, for example you can't defame someone's character and you can't incite people to violence or disorder. I think at the time, and I wasn't obviously in a position to make these two decisions, these decisions are made at arm's length. The view was that Milo was trying to incite disorder through his comments about Christchurch.

CONNELL: And that was timing again?

FALINSKI: That's the line that you can't cross.

CONNELL: Alright, anything you disagree with there?

GORMAN: I think Jason makes some really good points, but also the Minister has more access to information than Jason or I, the Minister has standards in terms of how they exercise those powers, its entirely reasonable that the Minister  reviews the case and takes responsibility for those tests.

CONNELL: Let’s talk about a couple of aspects of the Union bill.

FALINSKI: When is CPAC by the way?

CONNELL: I believe it’s August 9 to 11.

FALINSKI: We will have time to talk about it then.

CONNELL: Yeah, we'll see. So the Union bill that's being put up at the moment, I just want to go through a couple of specific elements. One example being put up by Labor on the ensuring integrity bills around the Nurses Union, this is one theoretical example, where the nurses could take unprotected industrial action to protest unsafe staffing ratios in a hospital and that could lead to deregistration.

FALINSKI: No, that's not true.

CONNELL: Why not?

FALINSKI: Because they can be ordered back to work by the Fair Work Commission, but that doesn't trip the integrity bill where that is about militant recidivism that's on the basis –

CONNELL: Well that’s the civil actions as well isn't it so couldn't that be used as a trigger and a court would have to decide?

FALINSKI: No, no, well the Fair Work Commission or a court could decide on that particular issue but in that instance where it's about work health and safety, that would not trigger the legislation as I understand it.

CONNELL: And if it could, it shouldn’t ? Would you say that then?

FALINSKI: Well I think there needs to be nuance around that. I mean you can't have unsafe workplaces, and obviously unions and their work –

CONNELL: The key element there is the unprotected industrial action?

FALINSKI: People take unprotected action all the time and what happens is the Fair Work Commission orders them back to work. The issue would be if that is on an ongoing basis without a basis for them doing so.

But one of the defences for unprotected action is there was a work health and safety issue at that that particular work site.

CONNELL: All right so I guess it would hang on whether there was or not. The specific question I have for you, Patrick, on these entitlement funds. So Labor says employer funds should be treated the same way in terms of this interest earned on these entitlement funds as company funds. But the company funds are using company money and a union fund obviously is using union members’ money, so isn't there a difference there?

GORMAN: Well I think the initial argument the Government put around a number of these bills was they wanted to make the standards the same as they would be for corporations, and indeed now what we've got is a standard that's only going to apply to funds where unions are involved in the management of that fund. It won't apply to funds where they are only managed by employer groups or by employers. It's just that the Government's shifted their own goal posts in terms of saying, well if you're going to have standards let's apply them all equally.

CONNELL: If you've got a fun earning money and the companies had to come up with the cash they get interest on that or earnings they're entitled to use it because they're a company it's just about making sure the pot of money is there. If it's a union fund, well you don't want them to use the interest, you want that to stay in the fund and then members will have to pay less money.

GORMAN: Again, as I said last time, I am not the union fund expert in this building, and there's a fair few of them on the Labor side.

CONNELL: Who are they?

GORMAN: I’m sure they’ll self-nominate.

CONNELL: If you’re out there, tweet me.

FALINSKI: Connell. 1300. Talk now.

CONNELL: But do we have a better explanation of why, as I said company –

FALINSKI: I think your analogy isn't quite right. I think the analogy, the better analogy is not company versus union, the better analogy is insurance company versus a union fund. Because that's what they're doing, they're insuring workers entitlements and that would be something that would be regulated by APRA. And I think what we're trying to do in our particular piece of legislation is put them on an equivalency without over-regulating that particular union fund because they're not and general insurer. So they will still have a lot fewer safeguards than a general insurance company or a life insurance company.

CONNELL: Any response to that?

GORMAN: Well I guess the thing is that you're still going to have a situation under this legislation, if it goes through, where the funds that are employer run are under a different regime to those that have union involvement and that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. That’s hard to justify publicly.

CONNELL: I want to get on to one more thing that’s close to your heart Patrick Gorman, democracy reform. You’ve got a few ideas, you want every student to visit Parliament, you reckon it won't cost all that much even all the way from WA.

FALINSKI: Do we make them come back or do they have to sit a test at the end?

GORMAN: Arguably there are children in the Parliament every day. Not on Sky. Definitely not on Sky. The issue is, you think about Jason's constituents on the northern beaches of Sydney or New South Wales, his constituents can, if keen, can drive by car, their cost of access are far lower than the cost of access for a school in my electorate. I have been a Member of Parliament for a year, I've not had one school from my electorate visit this building.

CONNELL:  You're not taking it personally?

GORMAN: I'm not taking it personally. If it continues for a second year I might.  

FALINSKI: Put afternoon tea on.

GORMAN: If one of them visits I will.

CONNELL: So they get a free Scotch biscuit.

GORMAN: And I'm sure Jason would do the same for the schools that visit him. The challenge is that Canberra and democracy is something that everyone should be able to access equally. I think it’s important that children not only visit Parliament but also the National War Memorial, National Museum and some of the other things that are uniquely Australian, but also only here in Canberra.

CONNELL: And are they going to sit in Question Time?

GORMAN: Well I actually believe it would improve the standards. I know that many of us will sit in Parliament and wave to the kids as they visit. It’s a moment of joy, I know that if you have more young people, more future leaders in this building that they will actually improve our standards.

CONNELL: I’m in trouble; we've got a hard out.

FALINSKI: Of all the first speeches, what have been the highlights for you?

CONNELL: I have to go. Both of yours were the best. We do have a hard out.

ENDS