Transcript - Radio Interview - 100.0FM Noongar Radio - Friday, 29 May 2020

RADIO INTERVIEW
100.9FM NOONGAR RADIO
FRIDAY, 29 MAY 2020

SUBJECTS: Reconciliation Week, Uluru Statement of the Heart, combating racism, representing Perth in Federal Parliament, Newstart, WA’s coronavirus response.
 
MARK PATRICK, HOST: My name is Mark Patrick. This is the Breakfast Show and I've got an interview this morning with Patrick Gorman an MP, the local member for Perth in the Federal Parliament. Good morning Patrick. Can you hear me?
 
PATRICK GORMAN, MEMBER FOR PERTH: Good morning Mark and good morning to all your listeners.
 
PATRICK: Thank you very much for being on the show today. I have a question. Reconciliation Week. What does it mean to you guys?
 
GORMAN: I think for us as politicians it's a reminder that we have not come far enough and there is a pile of work still to be done. It's now three years since we've seen the Uluru Statement from the heart. And personally I'm disappointed about how little progress has been made on advancing that agenda. And then when you think about here in the community of Perth, I think it's quite a hard Reconciliation Week. It's normally a time that so many of us come together. Normally we would be at Ashfield Oval for the big Reconciliation Week celebrations and performances and everything else. I think it's a really tough time for a lot of people who would normally see this is a big opportunity to get together, and particularly for performers and artists who would be often at this point in time have a lot of work on. That's one of the things that I really feel is you feel that gap in your soul that there is just not as much life, music and dance and everything as we would normally have at this time of year.
 
PATRICK: Yeah that's the thing we're all missing isn't it? It seems to be the biggest gap in people's lives at the moment which is why they're turning to social media. Lots of live streaming going on though. Lots of live streaming artists and all of that. Are you getting into any of that? There's another one on Monday, on WA Day, called SOTAStream, I keep mentioning. I've been mentioning it on the show all week and that's the arts performing artists down there are doing a show down at Freo Social.
 
GORMAN: Oh lovely.
 
PATRICK: So they are streaming it live to everybody. So that would be cool. All right.
 
GORMAN: Oh yeah. I think getting under the streaming a bit and  it's a lovely thing. I think there's a lot of artists who are incredibly generous with their talents but I do worry that it's destroying the business model of a lot of people who are sort of giving and having to give away for free things that we would normally pay a fair bit of money to have someone performing at our events or perform or you know to go to a live concert. So while I think the technology is amazing and it's a sort of reminder of how lucky we are to have all of these things available to us, I do worry that it's not a sustainable business model for many people who we need to be making music and we need to be making creative content.
 
PATRICK: Definitely, definitely. OK. So you say that you're disappointed with what's been going on with the Uluru Statement and reconciliation in general - what do you think should be going on?
 
GORMAN: I guess what I say is that we saw people from all over Australia come together to create that statement, do it in good faith and hope they would have got a more holistic response from the Government. I would like to see some proper progress towards agreement making, some proper progress towards truth telling and did see in the paper today some reports that the constitutional recognition referendum, that is the passage of my electorate neighbour Ken Wyatt might be delayed until the next term of Parliament. Now, I think Australia, while I recognise that the coronavirus challenge has made things very difficult, I think Australia is a big enough country that we can actually do things for our long term in terms of recognising our first Australians in the Constitution while at the same time tackling the immediate health challenges of the coronavirus.
 
PATRICK: Yeah we're big enough to walk and chew gum at the same time.
 
GORMAN: Exactly.
 
PATRICK: Yeah. I believe that's true too. I also think that there are a lot of people out there, particularly white fellas out there, that are getting pretty annoyed with all the racist garbage basically that goes on. There's the slanging matches that happen in the media and in all of that from those extremists from all sides basically and most people entirely sick of that and that tends to put them off the subject itself.
 
GORMAN: Yeah, and I think you mentioned that sort of people turning to social media and things - we are seeing, unfortunately, an increase in racist language and that unfortunately is not something that is focused on any particular group of people at all. It's sort of driven by hate and you see that hate are sometimes targeted at Indigenous Australians.  Sometimes, we've seen that targeted of it at Chinese Australians.
 
PATRICK: We've seen it targeted at people who wear facial coverings, head coverings that are unusual to our country.
 
GORMAN: Surely the one lesson out of this health challenge we're in the middle of at the moment is that every human has an innate value, every human has a set of fundamental human rights.
 
PATRICK: I couldn't agree more.
 
GORMAN: Hate doesn't get you anywhere. It corrodes the soul.
 
PATRICK: Yes it does. Yeah but I think a lot of that hate comes from ignorance.
 
GORMAN: Yeah or insecurity.
 
PATRICK: Oh that's definitely right.
 
GORMAN: People who are who are feeling really isolated or possibly experiencing some mental health challenges they haven't experienced before. People who are worried about their security of their employment status and the reality is none of those things are excuses. But we've also got a look at people who say well "how do I help you stop being so angry at fellow humans" and how do I actually educate you and make you realise that this is actually, not only is it disgusting, but also it's not good for you as someone who might be putting out all that racist garbage.
 
PATRICK: Well lots of people seem to thrive on the fact that they can make a comment and get enough people to not like it. It's kind of weird. They love stirring the pot and they seem to have a tendency to be anonymous to using strange names and having different accounts so they do just stir people up.
 
GORMAN: I find it hard to understand. But you know there are academics and others who research what it is that drives that in some people's minds. It's bizarre.
 
PATRICK: It is bizarre and that's why I like to call it out for what it is basically - it's just dumb, it's idiocy really and I call it out whenever I see it so I would like  ...
 
GORMAN: Can I say Mark, I think we all have a responsibility when you say racism to call it out.
 
PATRICK: That's what I was going to touch on.
 
GORMAN: It's something that we have to do more regularly than is sometimes comfortable and sometimes in uncomfortable settings - in your workplace or your social circle. But it's really important because otherwise what we'd call casual racism becomes ingrained racism and then it becomes publicly sprouted views and hatred.
 
PATRICK: It becomes endemic doesn't it. It moves and it becomes like a pandemic. It's like a pandemic of racism. Okay let's talk about that you've been in Parliament for just over two years now.
 
GORMAN: Yeah almost two years. I'm coming up on my two year anniversary soon.
 
PATRICK: So how are you enjoying it?
 
GORMAN: Look I think it's a real privilege and it is at times tough and it can be tough on the people around you. My wife and my two year old boy, he was only nine months old when I was elected. So sometimes you still have to juggle all of those things but it's a real privilege. I feel like, well I know I've got the best electorate in the country in terms of the electorate of Perth. It is a beautiful place. It is a diverse place. It's somewhere I'm very proud to represent in the Federal Parliament and the challenges that you have are the challenges of helping people fix major things in their everyday lives. You look at what the Government and the Parliament has done recently in terms of increasing Newstart to help people throughout this pandemic. You look at what's happened ...
 
PATRICK: But that's only temporary.
 
GORMAN: Yeah. I would like to see some level of permanent increase to Newstart because I think what we saw when that level was increased was an acknowledgement that for 30 years now it's been too low and people haven't been able to survive.
 
PATRICK: It's about 25 years since it actually able to keep people out of poverty. 25 years. It's crazy.
 
GORMAN: And no one would wake up one morning and say I want people, I want my neighbours to live in poverty.
 
PATRICK: That seems to be the course for the opposing party though, doesn't it?
 
GORMAN: Look I hope they see sense on Newstart in September, that's when the increase runs out. It is something that the Government is going to have to deal with over the coming months. People also deserve certainty when it comes to their income support payments. That means telling them sooner rather than later what it's going to look like over the long term because all I know is the people who receive payments will see some of the most careful budgeters in Australia.
 
PATRICK: They have to be.
 
GORMAN: Exactly. And therefore we can give them the decency to say, here's what to look like over the long term, I think they will be able to do the best they can with what, you know, the small amount of Government support they get.
 
PATRICK: Yeah totally agree. Totally agree. So do you get a lot of ... when you're in a situation like you are where you don't have a shadow ministry or anything like that and they're still feeling you out as a member in that area.
 
GORMAN: Yeah, they're kicking the tyres to work out ...
 
PATRICK: How does that work for you? Like what sort of tests do they put you to?
 
GORMAN: Well I guess the tests are you do a lot of work in the committee space, which is where a lot of the Parliament's work is done. People are interested in the ideas and the things you're passionate about. For me, I care a lot about early childhood education, education generally in making sure that people get opportunity. Infrastructure. Supporting our tourism operators and I think here in WA we've got some fantastic tourism operators who again are doing it really tough right now. And also just sort of getting a sense of the collegiate atmosphere. And that's one of the things I think people do forget, that what they see what they see on TV about Parliament is that they see the conflicts. The reality is it's actually a lot of people behind the scenes working together to fix things. It's just that quietly working behind the scenes to fix things isn't particularly exciting television.
 
PATRICK: No it wouldn't be, would it. It's not high drama like it is when you have Question Time. And basically it's a show, isn't it?
 
GORMAN: Yeah. I think people need to recognise that there is a performance art to politics and that's an important thing too, because that's what makes engaging and I wish more people were engaged in politics, because the more people that actually have their voice heard - be it through political parties or being active citizens - the better outcomes we'll get.
 
PATRICK: Well good, because I always encourage that here when I'm on the air, getting people involved and paying attention to what's going on and that's one of my objectives in coming in here and talking. So what do you think of the way that WA has handled the lockdown, the COVID thing? How are we doing?
 
GORMAN: I think we're doing a lot better than we expected about six or seven weeks ago. That's been a real credit to Mark McGowan and Roger Cook and the thousands of public servants. One of the things that we forget is that actually, yes there are political leaders who announce decisions, but there are thousands and thousands of people who do all the work to implement those decisions and I think the stuff we see like the police who are managing the border checks through to health officials who are monitoring data and other things. And I think what we're seeing is that actually Western Australia has really not only a good system of government and a good Government but also a co-operative approach both co-operative with the Federal Government but also as a community. I just think, I've seen so many people just go to help each other because this is just kind of get on with it not quite a whinge about the restrictions placed on them just go "yep let's dive in there and do what we can.
 
PATRICK: That's good.
 
GORMAN: I was a Whipper Snapper Distillery in East Perth - they turned their whole operation from making whisky into making hand sanitizer over the course of a few days.
 
PATRICK: Yeah it's amazing how great Australian industry is at pivoting. We're now producing all sorts of different things that we actually need.
 
GORMAN: And we need to have more manufacturing in Australia. That's probably one of the other big lessons out of this is that we do have some very good advanced manufacturing here in the West. I think of the Henderson ship precinct and I think of the Malaga industrial precinct in particular, but we could do so much more and we probably need to do more  to create jobs for our young people, create opportunity for export and it gives us more self-reliance which is always a good thing for an island nation.
 
PATRICK: Excellent, excellent. I'm glad to hear you talking like that. That's exactly the sort of thing I want to hear. Well thanks very much for coming on. Patrick. I really appreciate this.
 
GORMAN: Thanks Mark, I appreciate it too. 

ENDS