Transcript - Sky News Interview with Tom Connell
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS AM AGENDA WITH TOM CONNELL
THURSDAY, 23 APRIL 2020
SUBJECTS: School openings; economic recovery plan.
HOST, TOM CONNELL: Let's go to our next guests in the program. Joining me live one of our familiar panels the first time back in a while. Given everything that's been going on, but Jason Falinski from the Liberal Party and Labor MP Patrick Gorman join me. Let's hope for some good connections, gentlemen, as we do this show with a bit of a difference this morning. I'd like to begin with schools. Jason Falinski on this one. It is interesting when you get sort of different messages, is it not, out of different states with Victoria taking a hardline approach saying avoiding the spread is the reason they can't go back to learning in person in schools and yet you have other states contemplating you know partially bringing back students. Does that just show it's not necessarily firm health advice but you can interpret it how you'd like to.
JASON FALINSKI, LIBERAL MP: Well "interesting" Tom I think is a nice way of saying. I mean the health advice has been firm from day one which is that students are safer at school than they are anywhere else. It's important that we get, you know, students educated. Education is incredibly important and that's what we've been saying from day one that we don't want anyone's education impacted throughout this virus any more than it needs to be. Victoria is obviously going down a different path for reasons that they will need to explain fully. But you know what we do know is that the health advice doesn't support the actions that they have taken.
HOST: I mean health advice though again it's how you interpret it to some degree because it can talk about low risk. There's no such thing as no risk. You get advice and then you decide how to act.
FALINSKI: Yeah but Tom this is the problem I think throughout the Western world at the moment that we have this culture of safetyism where you know people expect us to be able to say no one under any circumstances will ever get harmed. Well if you want to go down that path none of us should be driving cars. None of us should be drinking coffee. Indeed none of us should be eating any food because there's never any absolute guarantee that none of those things have no risk attached to them. Yes there is some risk but it's an incredibly low risk and indeed compared to other things that students get up to when they're not at school it is much further down the scale of low risk than what they're doing at the moment. So the health advice has been very clear from day one that the best place for students to be is at school.
HOST: Are there some hoodlums around your area now Jason Falinski with more time on my hands?
FALINSKI: Mate we don't let hoodlums on the northern beaches. You know that.
HOST: Patrick Gorman, on that note I'll go to you. School's opening - don't interpret anything into that. But you've got some unions running a campaign urging parents to keep their children away from school. In some cases contradicting official advice of that state's premier. Is that an issue?
PATRICK GORMAN, MEMBER FOR PERTH: Well before we go on to that important issue the unions, I'll just say on Jason's thing about "safetyism", I don't really know exactly what he's getting at. But it is still safe to drink coffee, I've got coffee from Modus. One of the great local cafes in my electorate. So shout out to Sam and Toby and the team at Modus - no safetyism is going to stop you guys selling coffee.
HOST: Well there you go, there's a free coffee for Patrick Gorman, I think.
FALINSKI: Are we allowed to advertise on Sky?
GORMAN: Sky would be dead without advertising, Jason - it's the free market.
FALINSKI: It is! I encourage it.
GORMAN: But on the serious question of what the teachers unions are doing I respect the right of the teachers unions to stand up for their members. But on these big national issues we should be informed by the science the science tells us that the Chief Medical Officer, the medical officers here in Western Australia, are saying it's fine for kids to go to school indeed of the options available, it is the safest place for them to be and speak to me. I don't have aged children but my son's been in day care throughout this crisis. I've been very comfortable with him going to day care. So I'm very comfortable with that school's reopening and think many will look forward to it.
HOST: Okay let me ask you this then, Patrick Gorman. There's a letter from a private boys school principal in WA - he's also head of the Independent Schools Association, that's saying it's only for parents, that is school you know person to person, only for parents working in frontline services occupations. Any other family wanting to send their kids needs to call the principal to explain themselves. That's not in keeping with the state's policy. Is that unacceptable right now?
GORMAN: Well of course I'm a strong supporter of independent and non-government education and I feel I should disclose, given that letter, you've just quoted that my dad is the deputy director of the Independent Schools Association here in Western Australia. So I'll just put that on the table.
FALINSKI: Wow it started with the coffee and now it's onto the independent schools.
GORMAN: But independent schools by their nature have that right to do things different than what the government would do. That is the whole principle behind independent education is that parents have choice and …
HOST: But not going against what attendance should be, they don't have a right in there, and I'm not trying to ruin the next Gorman Christmas here but what do you make of that letter that asked parents to call up and explain unless there's some sort of frontline service job that if they want to go to school that's the way they have to do it doesn't that contravene what should be happening.
GORMAN: I can imagine a lot of schools are trying to manage the loads of how they return some students to school and some students continuing to learn online. And of course I support parents' choice if they feel it's best for their children to stay at home, they should have that choice but if you need the kids going to school they should be allowed to go to school. The medical advice to say is safe to do so hopefully by the time schools open here in the west next week, we will have a little bit more harmony and I completely support what the State Government's doing and what the State Government's advising schools to do.
FALINSKI: And for the record Tom, I also support what the Western Australian Government is doing as well. I think it's leading the way nationally on this issue.
HOST: All right. Good to hear. We'll no doubt discuss that issue in a couple of weeks’ time and as long as it's not too awkward for you, Patrick Gorman. What about when we move on to economic reform right now. Apparently the company tax cut is back on the cards, Jason Falinski. It's a interesting time to bring it back. What's the argument here?
FALINSKI: All of the argument is and it's nothing new. The big challenge that the Australian economy has been facing for some time is how do we increase productivity in our economy. And we all know how to do that. I mean it's no mystery. You need more innovation in the economy. You get more innovation when you reward people who take risk and you forgive people who when they took risk ended up failing, because you know for every success, there's 10 failures. What we know is in the Australian economy at the moment what we do is absolutely the opposite. So when people take a risk and make a success of it, we hit and punish them as much as we possibly can. And when people fail for no other reason than that we're having a go. We make sure that we never forgive that failure and we keep punishing them for as much as for as long as we can. We have a series of regulators in Australia starting with ASIC, who frankly speaking are just not doing a good job at either protecting consumers or doing sensible regulation of companies and other people to ensure that we get that sort of innovation and productivity we need in the Australian economy.
HOST: I wonder what it means for the budget. We might need to touch on that next time because we're nearly out of time and I'm not trying to be better at sticking to time calls - that's my 2020 resolution.
FALINSKI: Have you been spoken to by senior management?
HOST: I wouldn't say senior. Patrick Gorman, your approach to this? I mean Labor's approach at last election around the economy was mainly adding more taxes. That can't be the approach this time round. The economy is not going to handle more tax imposts as it tries to emerge from COVID-19.
GORMAN: Look I'm really open to a sensible discussion about economic reform. I completely agree with Jason. We do have a productivity problem in this country and this crisis is an opportunity to have that discussion and to have a whole range of ideas on the table. I'm always concerned when we just rush to the old ideas that have been thrashed out in good times and thrashed out over many years as the corporate tax cuts have been. I notice that Nev Power, a great Western Australian, has said that we need a tax system that encourages more investment into Australia. So I think that something should also be on the table but I'm happy to have a mature national discussion with all parties involved. I notice Christian Porter, West Australian Liberal minister - federal Liberal minister from Western Australia - noted today that he would be willing to sit down and have a mature conversation with Sally McManus from the ACTU. If we can have a mature conversation I think we can get some really good outcomes - bring the states in, bring the ACTU in. But let's not just rush to one solution in terms of corporate tax cuts because we've been around that roundabout a few times and the reality is I don't think that it's the smartest or most innovative policy that's ever been put on the table.
HOST: All right well we'll see where the discussion goes there's going to be a lot of ideas put up at the very least perhaps some more willingness to consider them I think we can welcome you back. Good to have you back. Gentlemen.
GORMAN: Good to be back.
HOST: For Patrick Gorman, maybe a few more books for Jason Falinski, more plants. Just a slight imbalance there so we'll see if he can.
FALINSKI: Yeah, I was thinking that myself, Tom.
HOST: Yeah. All right. Good to chat. See you.
ENDS