Transcript - Sky News with Jenna Clarke - Sunday, 16 May 2021

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS WITH JENNA CLARKE
SUNDAY, 16 MAY 2021 

SUBJECTS: Federal budget, vaccine roll out, international borders

JENNA CLARKE, HOST: Joining me now is Labor MP Patrick Gorman and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. Guys, thank you so very much for joining us on your precious Sundays. First up, I must have to touch on budget. What’s everyone thoughts? Patrick, what do you think of it?

PATRICK GORMAN, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Well, it's a lot – as Labor's been saying this week – it's a lot of money with very little reform. The one that really struck me was the $3.2 billion for aged care where we had these $10 a day payments per resident. But there's no guarantee that that goes into food, no guarantee it goes into extra care hours. I just feel like there's a huge missed opportunity. I mean, my view is that government should squeeze every dollar, spend it as carefully as possible and try to get the biggest bang for your buck. And when I look at things like that, which is a huge spending program, it just doesn't really feel like the government has tried as hard as they should have, particularly in the middle of a pandemic.

CLARKE: Pauline over to you. We heard from your counterpart, Malcolm Roberts, the other night. You guys were just moving through the motions, you’ve obviously been very busy in the Senate. What's your initial hot take on the budget handed down? Were you shocked at what you saw?

SENATOR PAULINE HANSON, LEADER OF PAULINE HANSON’S ONE NATION PARTY: Budget and they're predicting there could be an election by the end of the year, about October, November. The infrastructure, again, we see a lot of money that's being poured into infrastructure, but it won't happen for years and years. So it looks good on paper, but does it actually move forward to get the infrastructure built that's needed around the country? Also, with the budget, they’ve poured a lot of money into mental health, into aged care and also into the NDIS, which is going to be another $13 billion added to it and the last budget was about 25 billion. So NDIS is growing exponentially. What I’ll say about this is, is the services that is required, we don't have the skilled people in this country to do it. In 1996, I was told then that we would be lacking nurses in this country. They did nothing about it. Labor or Liberal never did anything about it in providing the services. So we're going to have all this money being poured into these industries, these departments, and we don't have the skilled labour.  Now, you were talking to the Minister before that they said they've put on these apprenticeships. Can I tell you that was my program. I actually went begging to them to start up this apprenticeship scheme in 2018. They didn’t want to take it up because they're quite happy to bring in skilled migrants from overseas, not giving the jobs to the Australian people. So now they see how successful it is, until we start getting our kids and talking to them what programs they should be getting into, open up the TAFE colleges again, we're not going to have the skilled migrants because they want to open up the migrants coming in from overseas to fill these positions. That's their plan. It always has been. I believe, the home grown Australians filling these jobs is the best way to go with it.

CLARKE: It sounds like you are both well and truly into campaign mode. As you touched on Pauline the federal election couldn't be too far away. Patrick, what are your thoughts on it? Do you think that – I guess being the Federal Member for Perth – you've seen an extraordinary result in the state election just a couple of months ago. How do you think it's going to go for ScoMo and his cohorts?

GORMAN: Well, it does look like the prime minister and his team are gearing up for an election sooner rather than later. This was an election budget and it was about dealing with a range of political problems they've had over the last four or five years. It doesn't really do much to get ahead of any of the challenges we have over the next four or five years. And that's something that I think is quite a concern because obviously elections should be about the future. They should be about how we make sure we invest in our young people, how we make sure that everyone has a place to call home. Those are the things that we should be debating. And instead, we had this budget that was sort of about dealing with as many problems as possible.  But I think I've said before, I think Western Australians, they went to the polls in March. They've got to go to the polls for local government in October, and they'll probably be going to the polls one more time in 2021.

CLARKE: It's going to be a very exciting time because they do like democracy sausages, but I don't think they're going to enjoy having to go back a third time. Pauline, just to go back to what Patrick touched on with Anthony Albanese’s budget reply, and I think one of the core messages there was no Australian left behind. What was your take on that? Did you find some solace in the fact that he kind of did lean into some of the things that you've been talking about for the past couple of years, being that women and children in domestic violence situations will be looked after, universal childcare and a focus on the regions. What was your take out from the budget reply?

HANSON: Look, Jenna, I think it’s the same old rhetoric that we hear every time and they don't have the answers to it. You talk about domestic violence, OK, people can get a – against their ex-partner or their current partner – a domestic violence and claim I’m in fear. So that warrants a domestic violence and that's not good enough. And the whole fact is that if you're in a relationship and you say, well, look, honey, you're spending too much money on shoes, I think you should rein in your spending, that's another domestic violence. The perception that people have domestic violence is about physical abuse. It's not. And until we actually rein it in and we clarify what is domestic violence, it has to stop. I understand. I've been in my past life and I know what domestic violence is about. But the fact is that we can't use it to destroy people's lives and their ability to actually have access to the children. And I find, and I've said this all along, there are men that face domestic violence, they’re not being stood up for or spoken about. Twenty five per cent of domestic violence is actually from women. So I feel for women and children. We need to protect those people, by all means, but really get to the guts of what domestic violence is about. We throw a lot of money at it, people pushing their own agendas here. It causes marriage breakdowns, parents not seeing their children. And it's a huge problem that we have. But stop making it based on sex and until we deal with that. Look, jobs is very important for our youth coming through. I don't think Governments see it. They’re short term vision. I don't see the long term vision for our country whatsoever. Stop pointing out the old same old rhetoric, what you're standing for, what you're going to do. They are the Government. People are depending on us to make the right decisions for their future and the future generations. I see a lot of politicians fail to do that because it's all about getting themselves elected beyond the next election.

CLARKE: Look, I think we all have very different takes on your thoughts on domestic violence Pauline. But I think one thing we might all be on a unity ticket about is the vaccination rates of Australians. And we hear that Scott Morrison today wants to ensure that all Australians that are vaccinated are uninhibited by state borders or hard borders around the country. Patrick, what do you think of ScoMo’s announcement today?

GORMAN: What every Australian wants to see the Prime Minister stand up and say is, when are they going to get vaccinated? What is the actual plan? Because all of these other pieces about opening international borders and telling people where they can and can't travel, it's all just hypothetical at the moment until we actually have a proper vaccination plan. I think it's completely unacceptable – more than a year into this pandemic when we keep seeing these announcements from Health Minister Hunt and others that they've signed all of these vaccine agreements – that an Australian under 50 still can't go online and find out exactly when they will be eligible for vaccination. And that, to me, is just an absolute failure of public administration. Until that’s sorted out, everything else is very hypothetical.

CLARKE: Pauline, what do you think about the vaccination program? How’s it been rolling out? How’s it been received in Queensland?

HANSON: Well, look, I’ve made it quite public, I won't be having the vaccination. That's my choice. It shouldn't be mandatory for any Australian to be forced to have the vaccination. I don't have the flu shot. I don't have any vaccinations. That is my choice. I will take control of my body and what I put into it. Now, the whole fact is that I am very concerned if they make this mandatory, which I will never have. And I believe that Australians have the right to have that say. We don't know the full effects of what the vaccine will have. AstraZeneca, you know what that vaccine has caused problems in people's health. Pfizer is supposed to be a lot better. But Ivermectin, I've heard that's been given to three and a half billion people around the world and it actually does work. So I'd like to see the true science behind this, not forcing people to have it.

CLARKE: Not about the science, I'm talking about the vaccination announcement today that Scott Morrison would like to see more Australians have unimpeded access around the country. What do you think about that announcement?

HANSON: Well, it's up to the Australians. If they want to go and have it done, unimpeded access. Well, it's up the Australians if they want to have it. It's up to individuals if they want to actually have it. Has he got the vaccines to actually vaccinate them. He said they would have the numbers up higher than what they have now. Australians are actually pulling back. They don't particularly are rushing in to have the vaccination.

CLARKE: Indeed. Well, Patrick Gorman, what are your thoughts on the international borders opening up in the budget, tentatively mid-2022. What are your thoughts on that? How was that received in caucus?

GORMAN: Well, obviously, we never talk about what happens in caucus. So nice try, Jenna. I'll give you a ten out of ten, even on a Sunday evening you didn’t slip me up there. But, when it comes to what we’ve seen in the budget, I mean, we've seen a number of misstarts when it comes to the assumptions around vaccinations and the international border opening. I was quite surprised to see in the media this morning that there was a range of Liberal backbenchers who are out there calling for an earlier reopening of the international border. I would have thought that five days after the budget, that's quite a slap in the face for Treasurer Frydenberg. I mean, he's just spent the last six months putting this document together and his colleagues are out there saying, oh, well, yep that was last week, now we want to talk about something else. I don't know what's going on in the Liberal Party, but I thought when you've got the biggest spending budget in Australia's history, you might be able to sell it for more than five days.

CLARKE: Yeah, it's kind of like Beyonce releasing Lemonade, then moving on to her Coachella performance. Indeed. Senator Pauline Hanson from the One Nation Party, thank you so very much for joining us. You take care over there in Queensland.

HANSON: My pleasure.

CLARKE: And the Federal Member for Perth, Patrick Gorman, thank you very much for joining us.

GORMAN: Thank you Jenna.

ENDS