Transcript - Sky News with Tom Connell - Thursday, 17 June 2021

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS NEWSDAY WITH TOM CONNELL
THURSDAY, 20 MAY 2021 

SUBJECTS: Vaccine rollout, Unemployment, Scott Morrison, QAnon

TOM CONNELL, HOST:  Look, I'll start with you, Pat.

JASON FALINKSI, LIBERAL MP:  Anyway, Tom, we've got to go.

CONNELL: You jest, but you know, something will happen in a minute. What do you make of this? It's a very cautious approach. Does it give more confidence? People sort of go, well, it's shifted to 60 now. It might go to 70. Maybe nobody wants AstraZeneca. Now, we know it's a very relatively safe vaccine.

PATRICK GORMAN, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA: It is a safe vaccine. But, as you know, I've always erred on the side of caution when it comes to the health approaches that we take. We should listen to the health advice. But the real problem we've got here in terms of the supply of vaccines isn't that we're saying here's a caution around one particular vaccine for a particular age group. The problem we've got is we don't have enough vaccines from other suppliers here in Australia. And that's something that has been clearly a problem for a long period of time. It's clearly a problem the government could have resolved had they acted differently last year. We gambled everything on AstraZeneca. That was the government …

CONNELL: Was it everything? How is it everything? We've got multiple other vaccines. It's not everything on AstraZeneca.

GORMAN: Well, for a period of time, it was, that is a fact.

CONNELL: By the time we had the vaccine rollout in Australia, we had others available. So there was never a gamble. Just because you have one first doesn't mean you had everything on that.

GORMAN: And what we've got from the Prime Minister now is, having told us earlier in the year, it's not a race, his words not mine, he's now saying, and he said it on this network earlier today, they're going to have to sprint at the end of the year. So we've gone from not a race because of these challenges, which were always … the health officials would have given them advice, these are new vaccines that are going to be challenges. They should have looked ahead and that the Prime Minister now has the solution that we've got to sprint at the end of the year, his words, I'm really concerned.

CONNELL: I'm not paying the gamble, but I'm going to pay the sprint. I think that's not a bad point. You usually do sprint in a race.

FALINKSI: You do. You do.

CONNELL: If you're any good at it.

FALINKSI: Yes

CONNELL:  So it's not a race yet,

FALINKSI: But as you can see, I'm a born runner, so.

CONNELL: I wasn't going to say anything about it. 

FALINKSI: That's why you keep me around, so I can say for you.

CONNELL: I look like a runner, but trust me, I'm not. But. What's the answer here, I mean, a sprint is a race, isn't it? So it's not a race until we have to somehow meet this December deadline we gave ourselves. So we will be racing at the end.

FALINKSI: Yeah, I guess we will be. I mean, the fact is that you needed to get the logistics in place. It was always going to be a scale up. We faced, and I disagree with Patrick, we faced unanticipated challenges. From what the Italians did to the advice from ATAGI, which of course, Tom stands for...

CONNELL: The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation.

FALINKSI: That's only because you have it in front of you.  But we've had the change of advice from ATAGI. We've had the Italian thing. We've had all that sort of stuff happen. And we're always going to have logistical challenges in getting a vaccine to everyone. So it's going to scaleup.

CONNELL: So, what do you make? Because you mentioned the Italian thing, the criticism of Europe was that it was too conservative to limit it or oppose it. Now we're being very conservative. This will have some impact I think on vaccine hesitancy. People not wanting AstraZeneca. I mean, health advice is never one thing. It's a menu. What do you think of today? Is it too cautious?

FALINKSI: Well, I mean, you know, I don't have medical training. I'm in no position to argue with the ATAGI. You know, you and I share similar views about, well, if this is so dangerous, why are we pulling a whole bunch of other things off the shelf? But look, at the end of the day, the you know, the goal is to make sure that any Australian who wants to be vaccinated, is vaccinated by the end of the year. That's what we'll be sprinting towards.

CONNELL: Can't run, not a doctor. There's a big list of no's so far.

GORMAN: Do you hold a hose?

FALINKSI: Yes, I do hold a hose, though, my garden would say to you, not as often as I should.

CONNELL: Pat started in decent form today!

FALINKSI: He has, let's see how he finishes. 

CONNELL: Spin this one for me, Pat. JobKeeper ending, that was going to be disaster. More than 100,000 jobs created in the past month. Unemployment way below pandemic levels at 5.1 per cent. What do you think of that?

GORMAN: Oh, look, every Australian in a job is a good thing. That's where Labor's concerns were grounded. We were worried about people getting past JobKeeper out without a job and without security.

CONNELL: So they are they not concerns now?

GORMAN: Well look, they were appropriate concerns to raise. But obviously, I welcome good news. People having a job is good news. And you would expect the opposition to advocate to make sure that we don't leave anyone behind as we go through what are,

CONNELL: Labor's warnings haven't come true, have they?

GORMAN: Look, these are, as Jason said, these are unprecedented times. There are things that are going to come up from time to time. And, you know, if you want to talk about broken promises or things that people have said that didn't come true, why isn't every Australian back who's stranded overseas, why weren't they were back by Christmas?

FALINKSI: Well, they were.

GORMAN: Is every Australian going to be fully vaccinated?

CONNELL: Well the same number were, I don't want to go into that.

FALINKSI: Well that's unfair.

CONNELL:  Well, they weren't.

FALINKSI: But they were! Yeah, we said in November, everyone who is overseas, we will get back by Christmas. And we did, but then there were another 30,000 or 40,000.

CONNELL: People have been stuck for a year because they couldn't get back because of limitations on flights, and who was booking business class and so on.

FALINKSI: What?

CONNELL: That's true.

FALINKSI: You're trying to say that there was some people who didn't come back to Australia because they couldn't fly business class?

CONNELL:  Yes, yes, yes.

FALINKSI: What, and that's on us? Well, sorry, that's on all of parliament?

CONNELL: It's the system of getting back. But the point is there wasn't an orderly queue. If you number 30,000, and then 30,000 people get back, you're not going to get back, that's the problem. Aren't your constituents telling you about this?

FALINKSI: Yeah, absolutely. Most of it is about people trying to get out to see friends, family, ones that they care about. Yeah, but, I mean, we said in November, the Prime Minister said in November, everyone who is overseas who is waiting to get back will get back. We got that number of people.

CONNELL:  That number. That's the difference.

FALINKSI: What? Because there are some people who refuse to come back-

CONNELL:  Not refused.

FALINKSI:  And would only fly business class?

CONNELL: No, it wasn't, the issue was,

FALINKSI: Yes.

CONNELL: There were a certain number of quarantine spots. There were a certain number of places on the plane.

FALINKSI: Yes.

CONNELL: Airlines were bumping people, unable to get on,

FALINKSI: Oh, because there were some people willing to pay more?

CONNELL: They should have put that in the talking points.

FALINKSI: You've got a thing about talking points. 

GORMAN: Neither of us have got talking points, you're the only one with talking points!

FALINKSI: What, you don't want people to be informed when they come on your program?

CONNELL: Informed is good.

FALINKSI: Okay, informed is good. Yeah, well, I feel like I know more now than I did when I came in. Well, ATAGI, and also …

CONNELL: We did look that up in the ad break. I feel as though we're moving towards far, so let's throw one more in. Are you going to go your hardest over the Prime Minister over these QAnon links?

GORMAN: I wouldn't use that terminology. I think what's important is that the Prime Minister answers the questions that have been put to him, over a period of time. I think that's a reasonable expectation.

CONNELL:  What specifically?

GORMAN: The nature of, you know, the nature of his engagement with this individual, particularly around the speech that he gave. I mean, that's a pretty serious,

CONNELL: You want him to come out and say, here's how I know him, you know, no he didn't put the word ritual in my speech.

GORMAN: But, the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister has, let me finish Jason. 

FALINKSI: But wasn't ritual in the report?

CONNELL: Ritual was in the main report, but the support notes or whatever you call it.

FALINKSI: So it was pulled from the support note?

CONNELL: The word was in there within the whole context of the Royal Commission.

FALINKSI: So that's my question is why, what? Oh, sorry.

GORMAN: I think the questions are, you know, Four Corners is a serious program.

FALINKSI: Well it was.

GORMAN: It has aired serious concerns about the Prime Minister's relationship with this gentleman. I think it's reasonable that if there's nothing to say here, I think it's reasonable that the Prime Minister comes out and answers these,

FALINKSI: This is like saying, prove to me William Shakespeare didn't write Romeo and Juliet. I mean, this is what this is what Four Corners is doing these days. We are going to throw out-

GORMAN: Jason, if William Shakespeare was the prime minister of Australia today, I'd have a lot of questions, including his citizenship!

CONNELL: So on that serious note, Patrick, Jason, good to talk.

BOTH: Thank you, Tom.

ENDS