Transcript - Radio Interview - The West Live with Ben O'Shea - Monday, 19 April 2021
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
THE WEST LIVE WITH BEN O’SHEA
MONDAY, 19 APRIL 2021
SUBJECTS: Prime Minister and Labor Leader visits to Western Australia; vaccines; treatment of women in Canberra; Anzac Day.
BEN O'SHEA, HOST: Last week WA was treated to what I would call unofficial election campaigning, with both the prime minister and the leader of opposition, Anthony Albanese in town, but did either party cut through, did you follow the goings-on? Did you care? Joining me now is Federal Labor member for Perth, Patrick Gorman. Patrick thanks for being in the studio.
PATRICK GORMAN, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Thanks for having me on The West Live, Ben.
O'SHEA: Now, was Mr Albanese's visit overshadowed by the PM?
GORMAN: What I think we saw it was true evidence that Western Australia is going to be a big battleground at the next election. Now, Anthony was here for 4 days, Prime Minister was here for 4 days. I think that's a good thing for Western Australians and it's particularly good to see the prime minister finally show up after a 537-day absence. Now, I don't know any Prime Minister that was, you know 6 months before the pandemic he didn't visit, when the borders had been open for a number of months he still didn't visit. It was good to see him finally front Western Australians.
O'SHEA: Well, you talk about WA being a potential battleground state at this federal election that's looming. Last time around that wasn't really the case, and we saw a lot of election promises go to Queensland, which was seen as the major battleground state. Townsville got a new footy stadium, there was all sorts of largesse promised around the Sunshine State, do you think WA could be in for a bit of a boom when it comes to election promises?
GORMAN: What I want to see when it comes to election promises is federal policy that works as well in Western Australia as everywhere else. That's got to be the key task is making sure the things we do in Canberra for the whole nation benefit Western Australia as much as they do elsewhere. I think of things like childcare, something I'm really passionate about, making sure that we do something that makes childcare more affordable for families across Australia, including here in Western Australia, where we say some real pressures on a workforce that we saw the chamber of commerce and Industry WA come outside we needed to reform the childcare system. I think that's something we can do for the whole nation that would benefit Western Australia as well.
O'SHEA: Well, let's talk about Scomo's visit, he did a lot of stuff while he was here. He spoke in front the CCI, he went up to Kalbarri, he went up to Karratha and did some squats with Twiggy. He also went to the footy where he got booed. What were your takeaways from his visit?
GORMAN: I think Scott Morrison had some fantastic photo-ops but I don't really know what his message was, and I don't know what his policies were that he was here to sell, I think it was just a photo-op, photo-op, photo-op, and there was nothing actually new for Western Australia, and he didn't really seem to have learned his lesson about just how angry people were about his backing of Clive Palmer. He kind of said, oh, that's a matter between West Australians and Mr Palmer, and kind of pretended that he had nothing to do with it when for months, Scott Morrison and Christian Porter were backing Clive Palmer in the High Court, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of Australian taxpayers money in the High Court case.
O'SHEA: Well, Clive Palmer's certainly following him around, everywhere he goes he got asked about it. And now, the interesting thing for me though is that we saw Albo was here in WA as well, and a lot of people might like Albo more than Scomo, you'd think, but certainly the poll suggested that isn't the case as far as a preferred prime minister. People look at Scott Morrison, they might not necessarily love him, but they see a prime minister. Is there any issue with Anthony Albanese being seen as a Prime Minister of Australia?
GORMAN: Well, I would argue that the issue is, the problem is that Anthony Albanese isn't the prime minister and that's what I spend my time trying to change. I think the election is sort of four months away at its earliest, and it could be as late as May next year, so we are sort of seeing that work towards the real contest. At the moment those polls you mention, they're effectively hypothetical because no one can go and vote in a federal election today. But I've always said, federal Labor are the underdogs, Scott Morrison has spent a trillion dollars, in terms, or has got our debt up to a trillion dollars. He's put a lot of money out the door. He has been very generous over the last 12 months, he has led this nation through the pandemic. He has so many inbuilt advantages, so I don't kid myself for a second just how hard it will be to win the next federal election, but I think what I see in Anthony is someone who is authentic, is likeable, people can see that he could be the prime minister, and they can see an alternate future under a Labor prime-ministership, led by Anthony Albanese and that alternate future is sort of focusing on manufacturing, focusing on job security, focusing on making sure we make bigger steps and faster steps towards gender equality, and that's what we're offering at the next election.
O'SHEA: One thing the PM was trying to do while he was over here is convince West Aussies that his government played a big role in keeping the WA economy on track, keeping WA safe from COVID, and you can make the case that JobKeeper certainly did play a massive role in that. Do you think voters will look fondly at JobKeeper when they go to the polls, if it's in 4 months or if it's sometime between now and May?
GORMAN: Well, JobKeeper was essential, and Labor welcomed it. We voted for it in parliament because it was about making sure people can maintain that relationship for that period of time that we weren't sure how long the pandemic was going to run, and we knew that at the end, as the economic recovery started, we wanted people go back to the jobs they were in. And so it has been a successful program, I think we could have done a few things to tweak it. We could have done something for the Arts sector, we could have done something for the University sector, so there were people who missed out and that, I think, was a missed opportunity. As for how people see it at the next election, I would say that the success of this nation during the coronavirus pandemic was because of the workers and the citizens of Australia. I don't think you can really ascribe it to a particular politician or particular political party, indeed here in Western Australia we had a Labor state government, and a federal Liberal government. The only thing that's the same is the population of Western Australia, and in that sense, I'd say it's been a win so far for West Aust- for all Australians. Having said that I saw the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg on television yesterday saying we're still in the middle of this pandemic so let’s not put up mission accomplished signs up yet.
O'SHEA: Too early for that!
GORMAN: There is a long way to go.
O'SHEA: And, talking about the treasurer, he's in town this week. It's really a charm offensive from the Coalition directed towards Western Australia at the moment. What do you think the treasurer will have to say while he's in town?
GORMAN: Well, I hope he has an announcement on childcare policy, I mean, we know that's a huge cost driver in the budget, and something that he has been looking at. I want to see a bit more detail around that they going to do in aged-care in the budget. We had the Royal Commission, which has said that we simply aren't putting enough money in to deliver the sort of care that Australians expect, so I'd like to see the treasurer outline more clearly what they going to do in aged care. I'd like to say some contrition or acknowledgement from the treasurer that some of their programs that he has funded, so sports rorts, some of the community safety rorts, and other regional rorts I'd like to see him kind of acknowledge that that's not the way forward in this budget and onwards, because that has been, I think particularly for West Australians, where they've seen a lot of money not go into their local community, that's been quite a frustration, so some contrition there would be good from the treasurer. As for what else, I think he's a very ambitious man and he'd like to Prime Minister one day and I look at everything that the treasurer does through the prism of his own personal ambitions.
O'SHEA: Talking about those personal ambitions, how much do you think the issue of, you know, the treatment of women, particularly in Canberra, is hanging over the PM? And will continue dog him going forward?
GORMAN: I just want this government to acknowledge, what so many hundreds of thousands of women and men in Australia are saying, which is that the treatment we have seen and the behaviour we have seen at the highest levels in the parliament, and in terms of how the government manages these issues is unacceptable, and it will never happen again. We look at the experience he Brittany Higgins had, and I think the nation is lucky that Brittany Higgins is such a strong spokeswoman for herself and able to advocate so clearly for the standards she expected vs the experience she had when she was sent over to Western Australia, out of mind out of sight during the 2019 federal election campaign. So, we've got to raise the standard, it simple as that.
O'SHEA: Is Labor doing that? Are Labor was doing that right now?
GORMAN: Yes, if you look at, we have implemented within our party organisation, obviously we're not the government, I wish we could do more on the government benches. But, as the opposition we've implemented standards, we've implemented a code of conduct, we've implemented a range of reporting mechanisms to make sure that people feel that they can come forward if they have a complaint and that all be resolved, they're the two pieces. You've got to be confident in coming forward, confident that it will be resolved. But we need to see is a huge shift in our nation, that means doing something about the gender pay gap. It means doing something about the incredibly low rights of convictions for victims of sexual, well, for perpetrators of sexual assault, so that victims feel like they receive justice. It means making sure that women feel that will be believed if they come forward, and it means making sure that the parliament looks more like the country. Now, you look at the Labor Shadow Cabinet, 50% of our front bench on the Labor side federally is women. Huge contrast to what you see when I look over, I sit in the house of reps chamber when you look over at the government the Coalition Liberal government, it's not as representative as it should be, and I think it all starts from that building. If Canberra can get it right, if parliament can get it right, if we can say that we've raised the standard, that we're leading the way, that's how you bring people along.
O'SHEA: But it's fair to say, this is a national problem, it's not just a Liberal problem.
GORMAN: We've always said that it's a national problem, and it's the federal government that should show the leadership on this. I've argued for a number of years, and I've written in the West Australian newspaper before, that the Liberal Party should have quotas, because then you'd have both major parties having an affirmative action system that would improve the quality of representation in a parliament.
O'SHEA: Talking about Federal Government problems, the vaccine rollout is high on that list of problems right now, national cabinets meeting this morning. They've gone back to a war footing to try and get this rollout back on track, have they stuffed it up?
GORMAN: We, we need to get it back on track and I did actually have a moment of wondering where the Prime Minister was here in Western Australia spending day after day with his photo-ops, I did wonder, should he actually be locked away in Canberra sorting out this mess? Because sometimes I sort of thought, maybe he's hiding from the vaccine chaos by coming over to WA, and I hate it when our state is used like that, but I might just be a little bit too cynical,
O'SHEA: He's been hiding from WA, it must be bad if he's hiding in WA.
GORMAN: But, simply, we didn't do enough in terms of signing the vaccine contracts in the peak of the pandemic last year, and that has left us behind. We haven't got the logistics right in terms of making sure that we can roll out vaccines. I looked at the data before I came in today, 224 vaccines were administered in Western Australia on Saturday.
O'SHEA: Laughably small amount.
GORMAN: Now, I reckon they served more Big Macs at Northbridge McDonalds on a Saturday, like, it is just pathetic. That, to me, doesn't a war footing, that, to me, says huge complacency. And what we know is that we are in the middle of this pandemic. We can't be complacent. We need to have the plans in place, and clear communication with the Australian people, don't do this 'no timelines, we can't tell you, it's all up in the air', that's destroying confidence. Give people confidence by showing them your plan. Allow the opposition to scrutinize it, because that's actually how we end up with the best policy outcomes.
O'SHEA: And how we get people to trust the vaccines, because that's a big problem at the moment, hesitancy from the general public AstraZeneca in particular is a source of that hesitancy. There's a very real chance that, supposing Labor gets elected at the federal election, you guys are going to be the ones who have to continue this rollout because very few Australians will be vaccinated at that point. How will you do it differently?
GORMAN: The thing that you've seen in the consistency of the Labor Party and our now policy approach to the COVID pandemic is the with always put the health experts front and centre. That's how we dealt with the borders question here in Western Australia last year, it was about saying all this is what the health experts say we need to do to stop the spread. And again, we let the health experts speak, we listen to them around the efficacy of the vaccines, around the safety of the vaccines and the safeguards we need to put in place. That's our path out of this mess. So I just want to see health experts front and centre, and that's what we've said all along, and at least then, you're consistent. That means that when you get good news, that people go, well the health experts have said this and everyone's happy, you got a solid policy basis for doing so, and when you have things that might be a little bit less encouraging, you can at least accept that based on the best health advice available to us, we have great public health officials here in Australia, in our universities, in our public hospitals, in our public service. Let's use all of them, and if we do that will get through this.
O'SHEA: I'm going to let you go Patrick, but before I do, Anzac Day is just round the corner, there’s a piece in the West Australian today by our Indigenous Affairs reporter, Rangi Hirini, calling for Indigenous veterans to lead the Anzac Day Parade as they do in Canberra. Would you support that?
GORMAN: Look, I won't tell the RSL how to run their parade, they've been doing that for decades and decades, but I think it's definitely worth considering. Obviously, we are lucky here in Western Australia to have an Indigenous War Memorial at Kings Park, in my electorate. It would be good to see more such memorials across Australia, which was also outlined in that opinion piece, and I'm sure before too long we will see Indigenous veterans leading ANZAC Parades across the country.
O'SHEA: Yeah, I think it's right to do, like these were people who were fighting for their country and weren't even recognised as citizens, which is just an incredible sacrifice and they deserve all the recognition they get. Federal Labor member for Perth, Patrick Gorman, thanks for being on The West Live.
GORMAN: Thank you Ben.
ENDS