Transcript - AM with Sabra Lane - Sunday, 14 March 2021

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
AM WITH SABRA LANE
SUNDAY, 14 MARCH, 2021

SUBJECTS: WA State election result.

HOST: Well, joining me now is Patrick Gorman, the Federal Labor member for the seat of Perth and before entering the federal arena, he was the secretary of the WA Labor Party branch for three years from 2015, and he was an adviser to former PM Kevin Rudd. He joins us now from Perth. Good morning. Labor looks like it's got 51 seats out of a 59 seat parliament. The Liberals are set to lose, possibly, party status, although Ben Morton disputes that the numbers there at the moment. What do you put the victory down to?

GORMAN: Well, first, thank you for having me on the program, Sabra. And first, a huge congratulations to Mark McGowan and his campaign team. They have been one of the most disciplined and consistent governments that I've ever seen. And I think in terms of what we saw in Mark McGowan's COVID response, he was always putting the health and interests of Western Australians first. Remember when he was doing some of these changes around COVID and hard borders early in the pandemic, there was no guarantee that they were going to be popular measures. He was just putting Western Australians first. And people have seen that disciplined, stable leadership and they've liked it and they've said, we actually want this guy - whatever is thrown at Western Australia over the next four years, we want this person, Mark McGowan, in charge.

HOST: Federally, the Liberal Party has had a stranglehold on Western Australia. But in this election, Labor has managed to pick up state seats, South Perth, Churchlands and Bateman Liberal Party jewels even Mark McGowan thanked those who voted for his party for the first time, rusted on voters who'd switched. What are the federal implications, if any, here?

GORMAN: Well, we have seen seats that are not in one hundred years, did Labor ever think that we would hold. Heading into last night's count, we would still thought that 2017 result could have been the high watermark and the fact that some of those seats, as you mentioned, South Perth, Scarborough and others have fallen into the Labor camp, shows just the resounding support for Mark McGowan and his team. When it comes to the federal implications, I would always precaution people to say don't be complacent, don't rely on a state result, possibly six to 12 months out from a federal election, to give you any comfort. While it's encouraging that a record number of West Australians have voted Labor, federally, Labor are definitely the underdogs and the Liberal Party in Western Australia have a huge advantage over us. They've got a large number of ministers, a large number of our long-term incumbent members in those seats. We do have a redistribution, which will be interesting to see what that does both on the Labor side and the Liberal side. And I note the Liberal Party's submission was to abolish the Labor seat. So, it's going to it is going to be tough for Labor to win Federal Government. And I'd also note that Scott Morrison is a far more cunning and skilled politician than Zak Kirkup.

HOST: Is it a foregone conclusion that Scott Morrison in the Coalition will be re-elected, given that voters are rewarding leaders for COVID management?

GORMAN: Well, they're rewarding leaders for COVID management, where they've managed COVID well. I think that's probably the important thing to note. And when you sit here in Western Australia and you look at how the Prime Minister and his team have managed COVID, it is not lost in the memory of Western Australians that Scott Morrison and his Attorney-General, Christian Porter, sided with Clive Palmer against Western Australians in the High Court to try and tear down Western Australia's COVID response. That was still an issue in this campaign up until the final days, and West Australians aren't going to forget that quickly.

HOST: What about also the Liberal opposition's energy policy shutting down coal fired power within four years? This might fuel those who are in Federal Labor to adopt a less progressive agenda and give, well, momentum to Joel Fitzgibbon.

GORMAN: We heard earlier former Liberal leader Mike Nahan say that one of the problems with the Liberal campaign, with the lack of policy development and that really showed through in this policy, in that on the one hand, they were saying he is a uncosted investment in renewables, but on the other hand, they weren't providing any practical plan for the transition for the people of Collie. So, the real lesson out of that is that everyone knows renewables of the future, even Mathias Cormann, now that he is leading the OECD, he was greatly missed in Western Australia during this campaign by the Liberal Party. But he's a convert to the power of renewables. We know that that's the future. You can only do it if you give people a credible path for those communities that will be affected by change and the Liberal Party failed to do that. Only Labor is the party that can do that careful planned transition that every economy in the world is going to go through over the next 30 to 50 years.

HOST: Okay. Patrick Gorman, thank you very much for joining AM this morning. Patrick Gorman is the Federal Labor member for Perth.