Transcript - Television Interview - Sky News with Tom Connell - Monday, 7 February 2022

TOM CONNELL, HOST: Welcome back. It's time for the panel that cuts through the spin, that gives you a real insight into what their parties are thinking, and their electorates as well. Jason Falinski is giggling before we can even get to the introduction. I'm not sure why, is that not true? And here's Patrick Gorman as well.

PATRICK GORMAN, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Thank you.

CONNELL: It is a panel.

JASON FALINSKI, LIBERAL MP: Patrick had to come four thousand kilometres to be here! Is this the first time we've been in the studio for a while too?

CONNELL: Quite a while.

GORMAN: And you rocked up on time, which is always a bonus.

FALINSKI: I rocked up on time, which is always nice, yeah. I'm a very busy person, you know.

CONNELL: We've moved on Monday. It's prime time, so I hope you don't disappoint.

FALINSKI: What are your ratings at this hour?

CONNELL: Hey, look out. Do we need to talk - more importantly, all of your colleagues are watching. I've heard it's really gathering momentum. Popcorn.

GORMAN: Now I'm scared.

CONNELL: In a good way!

FALINSKI: No Pat, it is true.

CONNELL: Well, he's $91 for leader. I don't know if we've ascertained what you're paying?

FALINSKI: Oh, I couldn't get a bet on for him, but I did get one on for you. You're at $71 to be the next Labor leader.

CONNELL: Labor leader?

FALINSKI: Labor leader.

CONNELL: I thought I was putting across a nice centrist view of what's happening, but clearly not. Do we need to talk about text messages?

FALINSKI: No.

CONNELL: No? It's a no from him.

GORMAN: Look, I actually agree, I think this Government is distracted by text messages and who hates who.

CONNELL: Is this you pretending you want to get on with real business, but really wanting to talk about text messages?

FALINSKI: Can I ask about Bob Carr, then? What do you think of Bob Carr on Twitter? A good combination? Bad combination? A sort of in the middle combination?

CONNELL: In interviewing, you've got to give them enough rope.

FALINSKI: Thank you.

GORMAN: I prefer his diaries.

FALINSKI: Mark Latham, Bob Carr's diaries?

CONNELL: Have you ever seen a disparaging text about the Prime Minister to a colleague?

FALINSKI: No, but please don't ask me about you. Please don't ask me if I've ever sent a disparaging comment about you.

CONNELL: I don't mind about me.

FALINSKI: Oh, you don't?

CONNELL: Never about the Prime Minister? Remember, your colleagues are watching.

FALINSKI: I have never.

CONNELL: And my phone's open to any of them.

FALINSKI: Oh my god, please people, give me a chance! No, I don't believe, no I've never seen a disparaging text message about the Prime Minister.

CONNELL: Wow.

FALINSKI: Yeah.

CONNELL: Okay. You might be the only one.

GORMAN: I just tweet out my disparaging thoughts about the Prime Minister, and I thought the party of free speech should do the same.

CONNELL: As someone who once worked for Kevin Rudd, do you think PMs, MPs ever text disparaging things?

FALINSKI: Do you think Julia said anything nasty about Kevin in a text message?

CONNELL: I would have thought the other way around. Look, Kevin probably doesn't watch if that's going to help your next truth bomb?

GORMAN: Look, I think what we've seen is that there's clearly some very unhappy people in the Liberal Party. It's not so much just that these texts have been sent, it's that they've been proactively leaked to a journalist, in the case of the Peter van Onselen story, that obviously Barnaby set a standard last week that he couldn't keep himself, you know, he was calling for …

CONNELL: He called for the leaker, and he didn't leak it.

GORMAN: Oh, okay. Oh, well.

CONNELL: Well, I'm just saying.

GORMAN: Yep.

CONNELL: That's it? Have you run into a brick wall now?

GORMAN: No, if you want to talk about texts the whole time, we can talk about texts the whole time.

FALINSKI: I want to talk about Bob Carr on Twitter, because that's a lot more funny.

CONNELL: Let's talk about a Federal ICAC, or anti-corruption body.

GORMAN: They'll get to the bottom of the texts! This is why you haven't legislated one, isn't it?

CONNELL: This is why you want it.

GORMAN: You knew the texts were coming!

FALINSKI: Are you suggesting the New South Wales Independent Commission against Corruption leaked Gladys Berejiklian's text messages?

GORMAN: No.

FALINSKI: Now, we know they go back ten years. Now there's a thought. There's a theory I haven't heard before.

CONNELL: This is an election promise.

FALINSKI: Yes.

CONNELL: And it won't even be presented to the Parliament legislation in the three years. That's a fail. That's a broken promise, isn't it?

FALINSKI: Yeah, it is. It is. It's disappointing. I really felt that we should have presented the legislation to the Parliament to at least get debated. I understand the argument that there's very limited time now between now and the budget.

CONNELL: There wasn't limited time in this term.

FALINSKI: But we don't have a time machine to go back into the past.

CONNELL: But it clearly wasn't a priority to make sure this happened.

FALINSKI: Oh, no, I don't think that's true. I mean, this has been going on for a very long time, as you know, as Patrick knows. But look, you're asking me? Yes, I'm very disappointed that there's not legislation being introduced into the Parliament for debate, even if it can't be passed in this term.

CONNELL: I want to go to you on this. So, in terms of public inquiries, which Labor is pledging to hold, under certain provisions, but there would be public inquiries if you introduce your body, your Federal Anti-Corruption Body. If there's an investigation into a sitting Prime Minister, what happens? Does that Prime Minister continue in the job?

GORMAN: Well, that's a hypothetical. Obviously, you want to give the Anti-Corruption Body the powers that it needs to find systemic corruption, to address it and to inquire. You don't want to be limiting that body. So, I don't want to deal with hypotheticals.

FALINSKI: So, you want an anti-corruption body without limits?

GORMAN: You want one that is limited, so limited that you're not even going to legislate it.

FALINSKI: No, seriously leaving all that nonsense alone, we have seen in anti-corruption bodies right around this country aberrant behaviour that goes to the very fact that you can't trust people with unlimited power.

CONNELL: Even just this if I can put this to you, people say that's fine, you step aside in a role and there's a public inquiry. If you're the Prime Minister, you can't step aside, can you? So, isn't there a problem if there's an inquiry into a Prime Minister?

GORMAN: Well, I think if you've got a corruption inquiry into a Prime Minister, obviously there is a serious question.

CONNELL: But they could still be exonerated, this is the problem. Because it's a public inquiry, do you really think a sitting Prime Minister of the day could continue while a public inquiry into a corruption allegation happens?

GORMAN: You have inquiries all the time into the actions of Prime Ministers now that don't step aside for a whole range of things.

CONNELL: Not a corruption inquiry. Do you think they could continue in that circumstance?

GORMAN: I think it would be very hard to see a circumstance, but I don't want to live in a country where you have Prime Ministers of such low integrity that we get to that point. That should be one of the purposes of anti-corruption bodies. It should not just be to investigate into corruption, it should be to raise the standard. To prevent corrupt actions from happening. You don't want to just be looking in the rear vision mirror, you actually want to be raising the standard and preventing corrupt actions from ever happening in the first place.

CONNELL: Very briefly on this in that situation, it's not like you can ignore corruption around a Prime Minister.

FALINSKI: Hang on, are you saying that we are? Hang on

CONNELL:. So, is the solution a private inquiry? And what happens to that information? How does it get out there to people?

FALINSKI: Well, I have always, as you know, because you and I have discussed this at length, I believe in a body that investigates corruption. But that those investigations should occur in-camera and when they have gathered a brief of evidence that they believe demonstrates acts of corruption have taken place, it should then be passed to the DPP for prosecutions to commence.

CONNELL: What if there is corruption that doesn't meet a criminal standard?

FALINSKI: Then it's not corruption.

CONNELL: It's never corruption.

GORMAN: It's just a colour-coded spreadsheet.

FALINSKI: Well, no, no, that is maladministration, I believe you're referring to.

CONNELL: Right, so what happens there?

FALINSKI: Well, as we've discussed, then they could issue a report or a finding saying this particular sort of behaviour was not corrupt, but it was certainly not within the bounds of what should have occurred.

CONNELL: Should that be an offence that means someone should resign, should that be a sackable offence?

FALINSKI: Well, it would depend on how severe the breach was, but that's what the ANAO does at the moment, and I think it's far more effective.

CONNELL: Has anyone ever gone because of an ANAO finding?

FALINSKI: There have been. Don't ask me who, but there have been. People have resigned.

GORMAN: In nine years of this government?

FALINSKI: In recent times? Once again, I'd have to, let me find out who that was and I'll tweet it out, but there have been people.

CONNELL: I'm sure that'll be at the top of the briefing sheet tomorrow.

FALINSKI: Well, Ros Kelly comes to mind, but that's quite a while back.

CONNELL: Just a little while back. 30 seconds, in fact, you've only got 10 seconds for this because I waffle on. Vaccine mandates, do they need to be reconsidered.

FALINSKI: No.

CONNELL: OK.

GORMAN: No.

CONNELL: At all? So going to a cafe in Victoria, you can't get in to one without a vaccine.

FALINSKI: Oh, you mean as the as COVID sort of drifts out? Well, yes, of course they'll be reconsidered.

CONNELL: What do you think about it right now, particularly on the broader population.

FALINSKI: I'm sure people are thinking about it right now, but the circumstances that exist now, it doesn't, what do you think?

GORMAN: I don't think it's a priority. I've always backed the state governments to make these decisions. And let's just remember, you know, I supported the Prime Minister when he was Social Services Minister in terms of mandating further vaccinations for children. A lot of these crazy protesters who are campaigning against this stuff now were completely silent.

CONNELL: Do we get into dangerous territory about calling them crazy protesters? We want to bring them back into the fold rather than push out to genuine anti-vaxxers. Because you talk about health advice, health advice might say, hey, if you make it mandatory, we'll drive up vaccination by two per cent, but there are social costs to it. Don't we need to weigh up the health advice increasingly?

GORMAN: But right now, I mean, what we need is to get people vaccinated, and like it or not, the vaccine mandates have been a successful measure to get more people vaccinated and keep more people out of hospital and having severe illness.

FALINSKI: They've also been limited too.

CONNELL: Depends what for.

FALINSKI: There's been aged care, health care, education.

CONNELL: Well, yeah, but in terms of getting into places. I've got a text from my producer asking if I want to take the panel over the break. But no is the answer, Cam. We better get them out of here.

FALINSKI: Oh, Cam!

CONNELL: That's not him. It's me.

GORMAN: It's us, actually.

FALINSKI: That's it, definitely bringing the trophy in next week.

CONNELL: When we come back, it will be just me, unfortunately.

ENDS