Transcript - Radio Interview - Noongar Radio - Monday, 24 January

MARK PATRICK, HOST: I've got Patrick Gorman on the line. The Member for Perth and Shadow Assistant Minister for Western Australia, welcome to Noongar Radio, Patrick.

PATRICK GORMAN, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Good morning, Mark, and thank you to you and your listeners for having me on the program.

PATRICK: Wonderful. Okay Patrick, the Premier's announced that there is a delay with our border reopening. Do you think he's made the right call?

GORMAN: There are no good or easy decisions in this, and I think there are many people who just know how much, how difficult it's been for the state government navigating this pandemic. When I, and I've got to say, for myself, you know, I was absolutely gutted when I heard that, because I know how many people in my community have been looking forward to be out of the family or get family members back who have been stuck in sort of some pretty dangerous situations in the east coast, where there have been large outbreaks of COVID. But what I've always said, and what Labor's always said, is that we back the Premiers when they listen to the health advice. We don't question that and we're not going to start now. And what the Premier made very clear was that this was a decision based on the health advice, which have changed because the circumstances have changed. And what I think people expect from politicians, and you don't see it enough really, is that when the facts change, when circumstances change, we have to change the positions we've held. So it is the right decision. But I understand for many people, it's a very heartbreakingly difficult one to hear.

PATRICK: Okay, well, thanks for that, appreciate that. There's a federal election coming up over the next few months, and what is it that you're hearing from people out in the community? And what do you believe this election will be fought on?

GORMAN: Here in Western Australia it's going to be an election that is fought on the core question of has Scott Morrison understood our state, has he attacked our state, or do we need a party and a government who are really going to stand up for Western Australia? I've sat in the Parliament when Scott Morrison has, you know, was defending his decision to back Clive Palmer in the High Court against our state. I was shocked when I heard that he called it cave people because we were living safely without COVID. I remember when he said that, you know, we should all follow Gladys Berejiklian instead of Mark McGowan lead. It's been a pretty messy couple of years. And so what I would urge all West Australians to think about is, can we really afford another three years of this chaos, and mess, and disrespect for our state? The most recent challenge, of course, being the criminal shortage of rapid antigen tests or those at home COVID tests, which we're going to feel in the next few weeks here in Western Australia. Scott Morrison didn't order enough. It's going to hurt us all.

PATRICK: The federal government hasn't really, as far as I can see, and this is just my opinion okay? I've watched this from the beginning. I was fully aware of what was happening in Wuhan in December 2019. I seen the text and the tweets that were coming out from the doctors and being transferred backwards and forwards across the world from different doctors with different expertise. And I'm sure the government must have been aware of those things too. Why do you think the reaction was so slow?

GORMAN: I think it the nature of this government. It's a government that says that every problem is someone else's responsibility. Nothing is the Prime Minister's fault. And what I really believe is that if you are the leader of the country, if you are running this nation, you have to be looking to the future. And that doesn't just mean looking to the future in terms of the good. It means listening to what the World Health Organisation, as you note, were saying in December and January about the severity of this new COVID-19 disease that we were just learning about in December 2019, January 2020 and saying, well, I'd rather be overprepared than underprepared. And the problem we have with this government is that that's been a cycle of behaviour. They were a bit too late to bring in JobKeeper. They were too late when it came to ordering vaccines, and now we're like the last, we're at the back of the queue when it comes to getting rapid antigen tests. So it is about whether you're a proactive government or reactive government. And unfortunately, I think this government has been too reactive, and Australians have paid the price for their jobs and paid the price for their health.

PATRICK: And over 3000 of them dead.

GORMAN: Sadly, yeah, it's been, it really is heartbreaking to think about, in any area of health policy, preventable disease and death. And I think where COVID has come on very suddenly and taken people's loved ones, it's particularly challenging.

PATRICK: I find it very difficult listening to press conferences that refer to things such as pre-existing conditions. And I said on the air the other day, it's like saying that somebody with a pre-existing condition died in a plane crash, but they had a pre-existing condition. It seems to me that it's a fairly ridiculous stance to take.

GORMAN: I accept the need for the health professionals to provide comprehensive health data. And one of the things I think has been good in Australia, and people have appreciated it, is getting that transparent data about number of cases, the nature of those cases, the age profile. But I agree with you, I'm an asthmatic, so I would be classified, if I was to be hospitalised or passed away due to COVID-19, I'd be classified as a pre-existing condition. And so, yeah, I do, when I hear those numbers, I think about that too.

PATRICK: OK, I'm glad somebody else is thinking about it apart from me. So let's go on to this. What are your policies, what are Labor's policies going into this next election on First Nations issues? And how do they differ from the Liberals and even from the Greens?

GORMAN: Yeah. Well, what we really want is to make sure that we build the architecture for a truly long-lasting partnership with Indigenous Australians, First Nations People, we don't want to be just saying, here's everything that we are going to impose. We look at the nature of the way Linda Burney, our Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs, has put together our policy platform. That's been a really key part of what she's been saying. The most important deliverable for us is to make sure that we deliver on the intent and nature of the Uluru Statement. We know that so many of the challenges our country has can only be resolved through a true listening partnership. So that means a constitutionally enshrined voice for Indigenous Australians through the Parliament. We've said we'll do that referendum in our first term if we're elected. We will actually get that done. We will rewrite the structure of Australia to make sure that Indigenous Australia has a permanent, locked-in voice, and that will help us deal with so many of the policy challenges that we have. We've also said the Community Development Program, the CDP, we'll get rid of that. We're going to get rid of the privatized cashless welfare card, which has been rolled out in a range of communities. We are going to change the way that we deal with truth-telling by embracing the concept of the Makarrata Commission, making sure that we have a much more honest conversation in Australia about the terrible historical treatment of Indigenous Australians. The other piece is that we can't avoid the fact that if Labor is elected in the middle of this year, we'll still be in a pandemic, we'll still be tackling with COVID. And so we need to partner with those Aboriginal-controlled health organisations and make sure that we are helping when it comes to backs at the vaccine distribution. Sadly, there are still 100,000 First Nations Australians in Australia today have not had a single vaccination dose. That is a policy failure. That's a policy failure we'll be very focused on addressing urgently if Labor is elected.

PATRICK: Excellent. OK. The election itself. Now I've heard rumours, and I know, and I admit that they are only rumours, that the government might well be thinking of just having a half-Senate election in May and putting off the House of Representative election until September. Is there any truth to that? Have you heard?

GORMAN: I would be the last to know. I'm an Opposition Member from Western Australia, so you know, I often talk about how the Prime Minister doesn't think about Western Australia much I can tell you. He doesn't consult with the West Australian Opposition MPs much either. That's definitely a possibility, and that's obviously how our constitution is set up. But if the Prime Minister was to choose to do that, he could give that advice to the Governor-General. It would look quite desperate, and I'm sure that would weigh on the Prime Minister's mind. But to call a sneaky, half-senate only election would be unprecedented in modern Australian politics. And I would say that the Australian people could only come to one conclusion, which is that he is scared of what people might say to him through the ballot box where he himself is up for election.

PATRICK: All right. Okay, so you wrote last year that you were in favour of changing the date of Australia Day. Why is that?

GORMAN: I reflected on this over many, many months and after many, many conversations with Indigenous and non-Indigenous leaders in Western Australia. For me, I felt that the date no longer brings our country together in the way that it once did. I love Australia Day and I love Australia. But what I've seen is that now it's a date that causes so much hurt for people. I'd much rather that we have a date that allows all Australians, be they First Australians or more recent arrivals, to come together and celebrate all of the history of our country. Now my view is that the path to do that is that it would be something we obviously take advice from an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. That would be the only way that it could be led into, that was how it was recommended. And I should note purely that this is a personal view. The Labor Party does not advocate changing the date, the Labor Party, of course, leaving it on the 26th of January. And so, it's just a personal view. But I felt strongly enough about it that I felt that I should be honest with my community about where I stood on that issue, and I also felt that it was better to talk about it in the context of being away from the date, when we're not in the absolute heat of the moment, which is where we are right now in Australia, where anyone who comments on it, it kind of becomes more of a battle rather than an open conversation.

PATRICK: Which is what it should be all the time, really. So, what's your reading of the support for a change like this with your Labor colleagues?

GORMAN: Look, I'll let others speak for themselves. I was really clear that it was a personal view, and I don't want to let the other people may have other things to say over coming days. There was a very good piece I should note from Linda Burney in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday, which just talked about the need to continue a conversation about what Australia Day means for different people. And I thought that, that piece really touched me, it just talked about what it means from the point of view of an Indigenous leader in our community in terms of Linda. It talked about what she saw and what she felt we needed to hear. And I just I think that's a really good piece, if you want to see a really clear piece of thinking from a leader within the Labor Party, I'd go and read that piece from Linda Burney. And there are a range of different views. But I think the most important thing is that we build that piece of architecture that Indigenous Voice to Parliament enshrined in our constitution, so we can hear the most important voices on this debate.

PATRICK: Thanks for answering that question, and I appreciate that. So, will you be joining the Invasion Day rally at Forrest Place on Wednesday?

GORMAN: No, I'll be at Australia Day citizenship ceremonies. I'll be joining the City of Stirling and I'll be then joining the City of Perth. My view is that Australia Day is a special day. It's something that we should where we celebrate our country. What needs to change is the date. Now, my role in that is as a Member of Parliament is to go out and put my views, as I did last year. Other people, I'll always support people's right to protest and have their voice heard. So, I love that we live in a truly free country where people can put forward those views, but I won't be attending.

PATRICK: Okay. Well, thanks for answering all those questions this morning for me, Patrick. I really appreciate you being on Noongar Radio with me this morning. Member for Perth and Shadow Assistant Minister for Western Australia, Patrick Gorman, everybody.

GORMAN: Thanks for having me on Mark and I'll be in the studio next time in February.

MARK PATRICK: Excellent! Look forward to it.