Transcript - Sky News with Tom Connell - Thursday, 11 March 2021
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS NEWSDAY WITH TOM CONNELL
THURSDAY, 11 MARCH 2021
SUBJECTS: Tourism package; JobKeeper; McGowan Watch; Clive Palmer.
TOM CONNELL, HOST: Let's go live now to my panel, Liberal MP Jason Falinski, from the Labor Party Patrick Gorman. Gentleman thanks both for your time. I might start with you Jason. Everyone we've talked to throughout to Sky News about the Government's loan scheme, business say basically, they won't be taking it up. And that was the case with the last similar loan scheme. Is this just something the Government puts out there because it doesn't cost any money really?
JASON FALINSKI, LIBERAL MP: Tom once again with the cynicism. I just don't understand where this all comes from. Look, think it's a great scheme. It's a great way of easing people back in people back into the economy and normal economy after COVID. We're going to see 800,000 tickets at half-price which is to generating demand. This is about kick-starting a sustainable recovery where people aren't reliant on government payouts and government support but are reliant on their Innovation on their entrepreneurship and on creating goods and services that other Australians want and are willing to pay for.
CONNELL: Patrick, we've got the Government's plan essentially post-JobKeeper and JobSeeker. So, what are your thoughts on it?
PATRICK GORMAN, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Well, I've got to say, I've been quite underwhelmed by the discount tickets proposal sitting here in Western Australia. Nothing to support Busselton Airport or the southwest of Western Australia. Nothing to support Kalgoorlie. Really, it's sort of Perth to Alice Springs or Broome over east. It's pretty tiny. And when you think that the Council of Small Business Australia this morning have said they're expecting some 100,000 to 300,000 people to lose their jobs at the end of JobKeeper, a few discount air tickets is fine but it's not a comprehensive plan.
CONNELL: Well it's not the whole plan, it's 800,000 tickets. I mean WA can't get all of them. You've got a few locations, I think you've done better than Victoria and New South Wales and they mostly actually kept they borders open and helped tourism businesses, didn't they?
FALINSKI: I was going to say, I didn't think Western Australians wanted us from the east to go there?
GORMAN: Jason, you are welcome any time. You can stay at my house if you like.
FALINSKI: I'm the exception!
GORMAN: You can come to North Perth.
FALINSKI: Have you checked that out with your other -
GORMAN: But I would probably prefer you go and support one of our hotels who are doing it incredibly tough in the Perth CBD who will get no benefit from this package.
FALINSKI: Well maybe if your Premier keeps the borders open long enough to get over there that would be helpful.
CONNELL: I want to get to the Premier in just a moment.
GORMAN: This is the Prime Minister Scott Morrison's plan.
FALINSKI: Oh, we only want to talk about the Prime Minister! Oh, okay.
CONNELL: The CBDs are probably struggling the most out of anywhere and there's nothing for them, Jason, why not?
FALINSKI: Well that's not true, Tom. I mean, you know, when the economy does well everyone in the economy does well.
CONNELL: Yeah, but there's nothing specifically for CBDs is there?
FALINSKI: Oh okay, so unless we're specifically giving away money to people, they're not getting any help? I mean, what this plan is about is sustainable aggregate increases in demand across the economy that benefits everyone. It's not about you know, let's give money to people for free. It's about creating an economy that is sustainable and benefits everyone in Australia. That's what these plans are about. JobKeeper was about keeping-
GORMAN: Jason, I don't think you understand your Government's own policy.
FALINSKI: Even in Western Australia, if Mark McGowan would leave the borders open long enough, we want to encourage people to go to Western Australia to spend money and get the economy moving right across the continent.
CONNELL: Let me ask you about that, Patrick. We've sort of got "McGowan Watch" now on this program. The latest comments he had to make around borders were that even with the vaccine, even months out from now he said "we reserve the right to use this measure. We'll have border closures in the arsenal". He said, because "we want eradication". Is that really still the right focus on COVID once the vaccine roll out is months in, for eradication?
GORMAN: Well, let's start with a few facts. Fact one is that, come Monday Western Australia's borders will be open to every state and territory in the Commonwealth. Fact two is that the vaccine roll out is well and truly behind schedule. I know Jason is not even going to interrupt me on that because he knows it's true.
FALINSKI: If you want me to interrupt you I can.
GORMAN: Fact three, Western Australia has continued to make these decisions based on health advice and the Premier has simply said that's the approach that has seen our whole nation do well throughout 2020.
CONNELL: What's the health advice going to be in six months? He's actually saying eradication. Zero cases.
GORMAN: Tom, I can't tell you what the health advice is going to be in six months, and no-one in Australian politics should try and pretend that they could, from the Health Minister or the acting Health Minister.
CONNELL: Let me ask you this in a really simple way: should the aim still be months from now, with the COVID vaccine roll out that will be a lot further progressed, and all vulnerable Australians in months will be vaccinated, is eradication still the best approach at that stage?
GORMAN: We should continue to make decisions based on the health advice. That is the best approach. That's what Australia has done so incredibly successfully throughout this pandemic. I don't want to start putting arbitrary boundaries on how you respond to that health advice when indeed -
CONNELL: But that's a pretty simple question about eradication.
FALINSKI: Tom, can I say, you can't, I can't, Patrick can't tell you what the health advice will be in six months’ time, but I can tell you one thing, Mark McGowan will still love locking up Western Australians in six months’ time and he will take any opportunity he can to put the Border up because he thinks it gets him votes. So, it's got nothing to do with the health advice, it's got everything to do with politics.
CONNELL: Let me just ask one more time Patrick, before I come to you Jason, you're not off the hook just yet. But Patrick, eradication, once the vaccine is rolled out is that still a good policy?
GORMAN: Eradication has worked incredibly well in Australia throughout the last 12 months. How things continue through, once the vaccine roll out is well and truly progressed, and I think that is already on behind schedule. It is time. You need to wait to see that piece of work being done. I think putting pressure on people to say, "what happens when the vaccine roll out is done?" when we haven't even seen that any, I haven't seen the speed that was promised. There was one time when the Prime Minister in fact said that by the end of March, we would have 4 million doses in the arms of Australians. Currently there are more vaccine doses in cold storage in Australia than there are vaccines in Australians.
CONNELL: Jason, it is behind isn't it, the vaccine roll out?
FALINSKI: Tom, well. Yes, it is behind, and the fact of the matter is that you know, as the head of the Department of Health said, as the former Chief Health Officer said, we don't have a burning platform in Australia. We're not in a sprint for the vaccine. We're about getting the vaccine out safely and that is one of the benefits we have to have managed this pandemic virtually better than anywhere else in the world. When you look at New Zealand, which is in a similar position to us, they don't even start rolling out, even start it, until the second half of this year.
CONNELL: The platform wasn't burning when the Government made their pledge, and 4 million became April by the way, I'll be fair to the Government, once we knew more about the AstraZeneca jab and when the second jab could be administered, but even that's going to be way off. They seem to have either underestimated the issues or we don't have the systems in place, they're not as good as we thought they would be for a vaccine roll out of this type.
FALINSKI: Yeah. Well, this is the first time we're rolling out a vaccine of this type. I mean, this is the first time we are doing mass vaccination on this level. And yes, there will be at any time you do something for the first time, you will be learning things that you didn't know you had to learn.
CONNELL: Let me just ask you this quickly as well, on borders should the federal government reassert itself on borders? And if that means a High Court test case down the track if borders are going up for, in your view, no good reason other than votes, should the federal government, should the Commonwealth say "now hang on, we're in charge here".
FALINSKI: Ah well, my view is that it shouldn't come to that and what we need to do-
CONNELL: Right, but if it does?
FALINSKI: Well, when it does why don’t you ask me the question then? We're not at that point and hopefully we'll never be at that point. The question always is that Australia was built to be whole and was meant not to have borders and once this pandemic is over let us hope we never revisit what we’ve had to have in the last 12 months.
CONNELL: Do you agree with that, Pat?
GORMAN: I do. I think that what we've had in last year, a very unfortunate episode with Christian Porter and Scott Morrison backing Clive Palmer in a High Court case, I hope we never see a situation like that again. These things should be able to be maturely talked through, leader to leader, state and federal. I've always said, these are not measures people enjoy, they've just been medically necessary for the protection of Australians.
CONNELL: We'll end with that Kumbaya moment of sorts. It's as close as we'll get, I'm sure. Patrick, Jason, we'll talk again next week.
ENDS