Transcript - Doorstop - Parliament House - Monday, 15 March 2021

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
MONDAY, 15 MARCH 2021

SUBJECTS: WA State Election result; March for Justice; Allegations against Labor staff.

PATRICK GORMAN, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Firstly, this is my first time back in the building for about three months, having had some lovely paternity leave after the birth of our daughter Ruby, so I just want to say thank you to my colleagues for making that possible. But it is great to be back in Canberra. Particularly great to be back here after what we saw in Western Australia on Saturday. An amazing result and endorsement of Mark McGowan, strong leadership and his plan for jobs. It's a great result for Mark, his team, his cabinet, and Tim Picton, the state secretary of WA Labor. Congratulations to them all. And what we saw in The Australian today is that the Prime Minister, who knows why, but for almost eight months, he hasn't been to Western Australia. But today he has decided that he's going to do a blitz. He's finally going to visit the West. I hope he knows where it is. I hope he can find it. What we do know is that he will be able to find a hotel room in Perth because, as is happening all over Western Australia, our tourism sector is struggling. It is struggling partly because Western Australia's been left out of his latest tourism package. The big question I think the people are going to ask the Prime Minister, and it was asked to me on booths on Saturday, is why did you back Clive Palmer in the High Court? Scott Morrison and Christian Porter backed Clive Palmer and Western Australians are not going to forget that. It was a disgraceful act from the Prime Minister. The first thing he should do when he gets to Western Australia is apologise to the people of Western Australia for doing that. Finally, I want to say congratulations to the people of Perth and Western Australia for the peaceful but incredibly meaningful March for Justice that we saw in Forrest Place yesterday afternoon. Really proud of our community. To see so many thousands of people standing up and demanding that we raise the standard not just here in Canberra, but across the nation. I'm looking forward to joining the protesters whose demands are so simple and so reasonable that we simply raise the standard and that we support victims and we take concrete, meaningful steps to reduce the incidence of sexual assault and violence in our country.

JOURNALIST: Is it unreasonable for the organisers of the March for Justice to reject Scott Morrison's offer to receive a delegation to his office?

GORMAN: I think their request was that the Prime Minister come to their march. I think it's their rally. They have the right to choose how they conduct that rally. I think it's pretty reasonable. It's not like they're asking him to jump on a plane. It's just down the road. He can get there.

JOURNALIST: Will the unfinished business around the allegations against Christian Porter thwart any efforts for the Liberals to regain ground in the West?

GORMAN: I don't think these challenges are problems just in Western Australia. It's a problem for Prime Minister across the nation. He needs to show the leadership that I think the public feel that he has been lacking over recent weeks. In terms of challenges in the West, I think Prime Minister is number one challenges that he has forgotten the West Australian people for more than a year. He has sided with people like Clive Palmer over the health interests of Western Australians. He has left Western Australia out of his tourism package in a big way and Western Australia, like every other part of the nation, is suffering from a slow vaccine rollout.

JOURNALIST: There are women within the Labor Party threatening to come forward and make public allegations of poor behaviour that they have experienced by people within Labor. Should they be supported to do that?

GORMAN: We should support anyone, regardless of party, who has such allegations. We've always said this is not something that is out for one, simply for one party. This is a challenge of both the culture in this workplace and unfortunately in political life. I encourage anyone who has allegations to reach out and seek support, and that can be in a range of different ways. Obviously, the Labor Party has internal mechanisms where that's necessary. It's obviously the processes the Department of Finance run, but these are serious allegations and I think we should take them seriously.

JOURNALIST: How do you change that culture?

GORMAN: Cultural change is really hard. That's the truth of it. You change it firstly by how you treat people who have concerns and how you treat people who want to come forward. You show them support. You show that you believe them. You show that if they come forward, not only will they not have their career impacted, but they will be able to get to a resolution that allows them to feel that justice has been done. And I think that's what the protesters who are going to be here today are going to be asking for is a sense of justice. That's what's lacking in this building and I always say that here in Canberra, we should raise the standard. People shouldn't look here and say, well, that's not as good as the corporate workplaces or community workplaces across Australia. They should look here and say, we have raised standards. And not only that, ideally you set the standard, but it's going to be a challenge for all of us and it's going to take some deep thinking and a lot of honesty amongst people across the political spectrum. Thank you.