Transcript - ABC News Interview with Jane Norman

TELEVISION INTERVIEW 
ABC NEWS WITH JANE NORMAN
MONDAY, 15 JUNE 2020
 
SUBJECTS: Victorian Labor; JobKeeper. 
 
JANE NORMAN, HOST: Well I'm joined now by Monday's political panel here at Parliament House. Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg and Labor MP Patrick Gorman. Thank you both for joining me today.
 
PATRICK GORMAN, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR PERTH: Thanks for having us.
 
NORMAN: Patrick, let's start with you because you are of course a Labor MP over in Perth. The National Executive we understand is moving to expel Adem Somyurek, it's unclear if he has quit first. Was this the appropriate action though to be taking today?
 
GORMAN: One hundred per cent it’s the appropriate action. There is no place for this sort of behaviour in the Labor Party and you've got to have very tough, clear, firm standards on these things. That's exactly the sort of leadership that Anthony Albanese has shown today, indeed, I think the work also that Premier Daniel Andrews has done in excluding and removing this gentlemen from his Cabinet within 12 hours of these extraordinary allegations. I don't make a habit of watching that program but it was just spectacular, the inappropriateness.Treating rank and file party members with disregard by seeking to distort the democratic process. There's no place for it. I think the National Executive, while I'm not sure if it has concluded its meeting, I'm confident it will take the appropriate action to remove this person from our party.
 
NORMAN: Patrick Gorman, you were of course the head of the West Australian branch of the party, the secretary over there. These branch stacking allegations as I mentioned are certainly not new but how do you stop it? What does the Victorian branch now need to do?
 
GORMAN: Well unfortunately there is a history of some individuals, it is not systemic, but individuals from time to time seek to exploit democratic political parties for their own personal ambition rather than policy ambition. We saw in Malcolm Turnbull's book that he acknowledged his role in branch stacking to get preselection for the seat of Wentworth. But you asked me about Western Australia, one of the great things that we did in the Western Australian branch just over a decade ago was ban the use of cash payments for memberships. That means you have to pay from a bank account or a credit card, making it really clear that the person who paid for the membership was the person who is applying to be or paying to renew their membership. That's something that I think should be a standard for all political parties across the country.
 
NORMAN: Is this something the Victorian branch of the Labor Party needs to bring in? This kind of reform?
 
GORMAN: Well we're going to see a range of reviews and we are within 24 hours of this happening but I can say that the banning of cash payment for memberships in Western Australia was something that was universally celebrated in the West Australian branch because it meant that you knew who your members were. And I've had party members in my electorate contact me today disgusted by what they've seen. But equally happy to see that there's been such swift, firm action. By 8 o'clock WA time you had Daniel Andrews having sacked this minister. That was that was good to see and I think they are strong press conferences from both Premier Andrews and Labor Leader Anthony Albanese was exactly what people would expect to see in the face of the sort of reports that we saw last night.
 
NORMAN: Andrew Bragg, let's bring you into the conversation now. You also were a party official but in New South Wales and for the other party, the Liberal Party. How much responsibility, you've sat now on the executive level,  how much responsibility would the Victorian Labor Party officials need to be taking in this case?
 
ANDREW BRAGG, LIBERAL SENATOR: Well Jane, I think this is a truly shocking episode but I'll let the facts speak for themselves or the program to speak for itself. I mean most people that come into politics or into public life are interested in advancing a cause or causes, it might be to improve super, it might be to advance national Reconciliation. But you do come across people that are interested in power for power sake and these are very dangerous people because they have no framework and no real interest in working for their constituents or for a particular policy agenda. So I mean, the is a question for me, that I would ask is: what does this mean for the federal MPs that have been named in this program, the Labor MPs, are they implicated, are they part of this power machine which seemingly has no interest in policy or outcomes for constituents?
 
NORMAN: Branch stacking though as I mentioned isn't a new thing, it's happening on both sides of politics. So we're just interested to know in New South Wales, in the Liberal Party how have you addressed this in the past? Because as I said, these allegations have swirled around just in this case the claims, the alleged misconduct, has been caught on camera.
 
BRAGG: Yeah I don't think we've ever heard such a colourful explanation as to why people would get involved in a political party, as you say there have been issues in both major parties from time to time. I mean Patrick's suggestion of ensuring there is integrity behind the payment is an important one. There is of course also a wider democratic mandate which you can extend, which we have done in the last few years in New South Wales, in my party where we give more people a say on preselections. That is a good way to dilute the power of the factional bosses.
 
NORMAN: Patrick Gorman just going back to you. You were an adviser to the former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who famously took on this so-called factional powerbrokers or faceless men of the Labor Party. You have described your reaction this morning but just how shocked are you that this alleged branch stacking behaviour is still going on in such a massive branch of the Labor Party in Victoria.
 
GORMAN: Well it was now some seven years ago since we, Kevin Rudd and the Labor Caucus, took some actions to further democratise the Labor Party and make sure that Labor members had a say in the election of our leadership. So these challenges of democratisation and giving true rank and file party members real ownership of their party is something that there's been a discussion over many years. I was shocked about the revelations last night and reading them in further detail this morning and I would also say the comments about some of this person's colleagues. I know Gabby Williams from her time working indeed in this building. She's a great person, she's doing a fabulous job as a minister, the language that was used about her has no place in public or private and to be honest I think that's language from 50 years ago. So yeah I was shocked.
 
NORMAN: And obviously Adem Somyurek has taken the fall for this today but just as I asked Andrew Bragg before, how much responsibility should the Victorian Labor Executive take for this? Both the secretary and the party president?
 
GORMAN: Well I think individuals who seek to distort democratic processes need to take responsibility for their actions and to kind of say that everyone is responsible for everything that happens in a political party is probably a step too far. There are going to be some pretty deep soul searching discussions across the Labor Party and, indeed, I hope that the Liberal Party and the Greens political party take the opportunity to say "well the best time to fight inappropriate conduct is not when you are in the storm of something but actually to get ahead of us to look at opportunities to prevent inappropriate conduct before it even happens". So hopefully it will lead to some good healthy discussion across all of our democratic political parties about how you preserve that democracy.
 
NORMAN: Okay we're moving on, the Prime Minister today has given a speech in which he outlined the pretty grim economic situation that we're in. He announced that the government will be fast tracking some infrastructure projects and also again made the point that the tens of billions of dollars in economic stimulus that's been rolled out in the midst of this crisis does have an end point. Andrew Bragg, the PM said in his speech this morning that to return to our pre-COVID economic state, Australia needs to increase growth by more than a percentage point above trend. Now that's very economic terms, but that's a lot, how is Australia going to do that?
 
BRAGG: Well Jane, the only way to pay down the debt and to improve the lives of all Australians is to get our economy to keep growing. And that's why, I think the PM is on the right track when he talks about difficult issues like industrial relations and training which have been in the too hard basket for too long. So if we can have a more flexible labour market, if we can have a better training system, that would be two immediate things that would help us create more employment in this country. Because after all we will have to pay down the debt and the government can't keep on permanently funding the wages of private sector employees forever. So there is a six month, I think, framework for JobKeeper has been a good one, it's injected a lot of confidence into the market but it's now currently under review and I think the judgment that the government makes about the end of that scheme will be some of the most important ones we make in this term.
 
NORMAN: Do you support the fact that it's legislated to go, let's talk about the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme that's legislated to end late September. Do you support that end date or should the government look at extending it out, particularly for those industries that aren't going to be able to  bounce back as quickly as others?
 
BRAGG: I mean JobKeeper has been a scheme that's been built and flown simultaneously, and it's been very successful. It was always designed to have a review in July and that review is now being undertaken by the Treasury. I don't see any case for wholesale extension beyond September. What I would put forward is you should provide support packages to sectors like international education and tourism and the arts after September If there is still government regulation or shut downs in place.
 
NORMAN: Like border closures for example, they are likely to open beyond, well maybe before next year.
 
BRAGG: Correct. So we've got to make sure we don't enter a dangerous space of governments providing the wrong incentives by having too many people taking a wage subsidy. So I think it's been very successful and I have supported the program heavily but I think beyond September there's no case for a whole of economy approach if we keep on going the way we're going.
 
NORMAN: Patrick Gorman just to finish on you with this, let's talk about the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme. Labor has been very critical of the fact that the government had massively overblown forecasts and it hasn't ended up supporting as many Australians as it was supposed to or was expected to. I suppose my question is can the government afford to extend such a massive program that's already costing tens of billions of dollars?
 
GORMAN: Well they've already started the wind back to help them deliver on the snap back. We saw the wind back last week for childcare workers, and actually I should say early childhood educators, I know they get very annoyed when we say childcare workers, they are professionals. They're trained early childhood educators. My apologies. But we've seen that start to happen. What I'm worried about is this review only looking at how they wind it back, not looking, and I agree with what Andrew said, we do need to look at something for the tourism industry. I've got tourism operators in my electorate, TASA on Beaufort Street who have been struggling because they can't book anything at the moment and they accept the reasons for that but they need support and JobKeeper turning off in September will cause them real problems.
 
NORMAN: What about a sector specific bailout package for tourism that the government has kind of been leaning towards recently how do you, where do you stand on that, Patrick Gorman?
 
GORMAN: Well you have to look at the economy as a whole and on a sector specific basis depending on what particular restrictions and regulations the government has in at a particular point in time. So really open to further support for tourism, the arts. These are things that we will need to continue to discuss but it shouldn't come out of another worker's pocket, is probably the principle I would say is that there are some people who are doing it tougher than others. We need to continue to look at how you help those people, not how you drag others down. I saw the Prime Minister today saying that people are going to have to start tightening their belts. I think people have tightened their belts a huge amount in recent times and indeed also been very generous out of their own pocket and helping others who might not have been eligible for JobKeeper or JobSeeker. So I was a bit concerned to see that sort of message from the Prime Minister saying well we're going to push this back onto people to tighten their own belts, rather than actually look at how you continue to help people who are struggling. These are huge challenges but the government has had now four and a half months since they set up their Coronavirus Operation Centre. They've had time to think these things through, to do the modelling. I accept the JobKeeper was something that was done quickly, but they can't say that it's all too hard or they haven't thought these things through. They've had time.
 
NORMAN: All right Patrick Gorman and Andrew Bragg. We'll have to leave it there. Thanks for your time.
 
BRAGG: Thanks Jane.
 
GORMAN: Thank you.
 
ENDS