Radio Interview - 6PR Drive with Oliver Peterson

PATRICK GORMAN MP
MEMBER FOR PERTH

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
6PR, PERTH LIVE WITH OLIVER PETERSON
MONDAY, 22 OCTOBER 2018

SUBJECT: National Apology, Wentworth By-election, Minority Government, GST reform

OLIVER PETERSON, HOST: At twenty to four, Patrick Gorman is the newly-minted Labor Member for Perth and he joins me on the program. Patrick, good afternoon.

 PATRICK GORMAN: Good afternoon, Oli, thank you for having me on the program.

 PETERSON: Is it a warm day over there in Canberra?

 GORMAN: The sun has started to shine, but it’s been a pretty moving day in Canberra. We’ve had the national apology to victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. So, yeah it’s been a pretty moving day.

 PETERSON: It has been moving, and of course, what usually takes place, like Question Time, has been cancelled and of course the whole nation grieves together and is united on this. It’s beyond politics. It was lovely to see, as well, former prime minister Julia Gillard was in the gallery for this, because of course this was something, the Royal Commission, that she gave the green light to. As I say, and Patrick you know this very, it goes beyond the political divide.

 GORMAN: Yeah, it was fantastic that Julia was there and warmly acknowledged by the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader and most warmly of all by those victims and survivors. It was just so special for them to have her here and I think it really made the day something memorable for them.

 PETERSON: We will get into that in a little bit more detail a bit later on the program. But Patrick, how many weeks is it now that you’ve been sitting in the Federal Parliament?

 GORMAN: My tenth week. It is my sixth week in Canberra, so it’s been more time here than in Perth which has been difficult but also allowed me to connect with colleagues and see what is an isn’t working in our nation’s capital.

 PETERSON: Of course over the weekend there was the Wentworth by-election. We don’t have a result yet, but it does look as though the Government has lost its majority and the Independent Kerryn Phelps will be the next Member for Wentworth. Can you believe that you will see another Parliament – of course you used to be a staff member when you saw a Parliament in minority government.

 GORMAN: Yeah, well, we are likely to have another minority government. I’m encouraged the Prime Minister has gone from his doom and gloom approach on Friday that it was going to destroy the nation to ‘we can make it work’. Of course, the obligation is on him to make it work. But that has been a pretty radical result from the people of Wentworth, who I wouldn’t normally describe as radical. They’re pretty straight-laced conservative voters, but, they’ve clearly sent a message, a massive 19 per cent swing against the Government. It will give everyone pause to look at the current policy settings, to see if the chaos is just a little bit too much for everyone at the moment.

 PETERSON: What should the government do, should it call an early election?

 GORMAN: I wouldn’t be looking to an early election if I was them. Not just for their own political sake, but you need self-reflection in this business. If you can’t reflect on your own performance, and you can’t reflect on whether or not the things you’re doing now are working, then you are going to lose touch with people. Closer to home though, I reckon that if I was the WA Liberal Party, I’d be begging Julie Bishop not to go. I’d be saying, ‘we saw what happened in a by-election when a popular local member leaves, Julie, don’t go, we need you to stay’, because a powerful independent in that seat could be very disruptive in WA.

 PETERSON: Well, Joe Spagnolo was reporting yesterday that she could be the last woman standing and she might be Prime Minister by the time we go to an election.

 GORMAN: I don’t think anyone of your listeners wants to see more turbulence inside the Liberal Party, or, for that matter, inside the National Party. I did see that article, and I had a little chuckle.

 PETERSON: Well you’ve been through this before. When you were a staff member and worked closely with Kevin Rudd, you saw the carousel really of Prime Ministers. We saw Rudd, Gillard, Rudd, Abbott, Turnbull now Morrison. Do you think the days of knifing leaders are behind us?

 GORMAN: I think it’s really important that we learn the lesson. On the Labor side, we learnt that lesson in the most brutal way, getting smashed at the 2013 election. But we also took action and that’s what I’d encourage the Liberal Party to do – is to take action, and go look at what can you do within your own processes. Remember, at the end of the day, it’s not set in the constitution how politics parties operate, it’s up to the parties themselves. What Labor did is we said we’re going to give our actually rank and file members more of a say and we’re going to make people take a lot more time if they’re going to make these changes. Because you can’t just have the revolving door – it doesn’t help anyone, it doesn’t help the policy debate and it takes the entire conversation away from what is the better plan for the National Broadband Network, to just, personality politics and sometimes, at the end of the day, your listeners just want outcomes. I’d like to be able to look people in the eye and say, ‘here’s what we’ve delivered’, rather than just ‘here’s a new person’. And I do think on the Labor side we’ve learned that lesson, like I said, in a very difficult way. But we’ve learnt it.

 PETERSON: And talking of outcomes, particularly for Western Australians, they’re very keen to make sure this GST legislation is going to pass the parliament. When do you think we’ll have some sort of an indication that everyone’s on board, particularly with those amendments that no State will be worse off?

 GORMAN: Look, obviously Labor called for the amendments and we were really pleased to see what was basically putting the Treasurer’s words into legislation, didn’t hold us up or cause us to see bickering between the two political parties. I want to see this legislation passed. I’m encouraged by what I saw from Chris Bowen on the weekend that his recommendation is that we support it. I think the legislation is being debated in the House tomorrow and I’m down to speak on it, for 15 minutes, if they’ll let me. It is good to get this done. It is nice that Western Australia is not going to be under some attack from the other states for taking anything of theirs. We’re just going to get what is our fair share and start getting those funds flowing into WA from next year. And I’m encouraged that Treasurer Ben Wyatt will be able to bank it his Budget, in our budget as West Australians. I think we’re there.

PETERSON: We’re there. Well let’s see the detail when it passes the Parliament. Patrick, thanks for joining us on the Monday Agenda. We’ll chat soon.

GORMAN: Thanks, Oli.

ENDS