Radio Interview - 6PR Live with Oliver Peterson
Subjects: Reserve Bank’s interest rate decision; Staffing boost at Services Australia Australia-China Trade Relationship Prime Minister's visit to the People's Republic of China; Latest Newspoll figures; Infrastructure Investment Pipeline Review; The Albanese Government’s targeted efforts to reduce the impact of inflation.
OLIVER PETERSON, HOST: The Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman joins me live on 6PR today. Patrick, good to catch up with you.
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE: G'day, Oly. How are you?
PETERSON: Yeah, not too bad. Getting a lot of feedback on the interest rate hikes today. I heard Jim Chalmers, and we played some of what the Treasurer had to say a few moments ago, saying, the Government's doing its bit. You're a member of that government, are you doing enough?
GORMAN: We are doing everything we can without adding to inflation. And that's the really difficult but important path that we have to walk. That is; trying to do things like cheaper medicines and make sure we're backing bulk billing doctors and cheaper childcare, without just putting too much money into the economy, which would actually just make the inflation challenge worse. So, it is - having said all of that - none of that takes away from the fact that this is really hard news for many households in Perth to hear. We get that, and that's why we're trying where we can to help people out.
PETERSON: Inflation is still that big problem because today Michele Bullock saying it's 5.4% - still well above that 2 to 3% target - and the risk of inflation remaining higher for longer has now increased. Petrol is something I heard your Treasurer also say, Jim Chalmers, being the main driver of inflation last quarter. Should we be cutting the fuel excise again?
GORMAN: Look, it's not one of the plans that we're putting forward at the moment. We recognise that it does hurt people's budgets. A range of things that are driving this inflationary pressure and some of this is coming out of a war in Ukraine that we would all wish weren't the case, but it's the reality that we've got to deal with. Where we've tried to help, it has actually helped reduce some of those inflation numbers. We've seen that in terms of the efforts we've done around helping people out with Rent Assistance if they're on various Centrelink payments, we've seen that where it's helped out with people with childcare. But in terms of that measure, that's not one of the things we're looking at right now.
PETERSON: By the way, if you'd like to talk to the Assistant Minister, to the Prime Minister, the Member for Perth, 133 882, here is the Prime Minister a short time ago, Anthony Albanese, on the outcomes of his visits to China:
[Excerpt]
PRIME MINISTER ANTHONY ALBANESE: It provides an opportunity for us to move forward with common interests. In the interests of Australia and in the interests of China has been stabilising the relationship, and there is no doubt that this visit has helped to assist that process. The next step, if you like, towards stabilising the relationship, which is so important for Australia's economy and also important in terms of security and stability in the region. Dialogue is always a good thing. And when China represents more than one in four of our export dollars - and more than one in four of Australian jobs depends upon our exports - this is an important relationship. Our meeting marked, as well, a recommencement of our annual leaders meetings. And today, I of course, invited the Premier to visit Australia, a country here has visited on a number of occasions.
[End of excerpt]
PETERSON: So, Patrick, do you think it's been worth it, the visit the Prime Minister has taken to China?
GORMAN: Of course, this is the first visit we've had from Australian Prime Minister since 2016. And what we get in the West, Oly, is that these relationships mean jobs. And the one thing, if I can decode all of that for your listeners; it's about jobs. And we recognise that there are some things where Australia and China have very different views and very big disagreements. But you can't deny - and you see it everywhere throughout Western Australia - that our trade relationship has been to the betterment of people in Western Australia, it's been to the betterment of Australia as a whole and it's been to the betterment of the Chinese people. And we've seen over the last year or so we came to office, there was about $20 billion worth of trade impediments, blocking things that we weren't able to sell in the way that we would like. That $20 billion of trade impediments down to $2 billion. And again, that just means more trade, more markets and more access for Australian producers, which is a great thing.
PETERSON: Gary's just come through saying, ‘using a racing analogy, my impression is the Prime Minister is now more interested in the big dance on the international stage rather than the little dance in our wonderful country.’ Do you think it's time he gets home?
GORMAN: Look, I don't think there'd be many of your listeners who wouldn't pretty quickly connect the huge benefits to Australia of the meetings that the Prime Minister's had, both in the United States and in China. Clearly, in our interests, in terms of some of the exciting work that we've got going with AUKUS with our friends in the United States, the United Kingdom, in terms of the important trade relationships we have with China, and in terms of stabilising that relationship. Now, some of this stuff you have to do face-to-face, and I think we all know that when you've got important relationships, whatever job you do, there are some things that are always best done face-to-face.
PETERSON: Newspolls obviously probably put a bit of a shock through the Labor Party this week.
GORMAN: The thing I know, Oly, is that there's a poll -
PETERSON: Polls come and go, that’s what you're going to tell me, aren't you, Patrick? You only look at the polls on election day?
GORMAN: Look, I do read the Australian newspaper. I'm not going to pretend that I don't read the Australian newspaper. I read a range of newspapers, I read the Financial Review and others as well. But what we know is that you get these polls every couple of weeks. This one will be different to the next one and the next one after that will be different as well. What I think, though, is I think we know that when governments are just reading the polls and it's the only thing they read, they're not good governments. We had that with the Morrison-Dutton Government and it wasn't a good government. So, we're just going to get on with doing what we said we would do. The plan that we took to the Australian people, those really basic things like getting wages moving, making sure we invest in Medicare, all of that sort of stuff, that's what we're going to get on. You know you can talk about anything, Oly, but I know that you can talk about the polls as good as the rest of them. So, I'll leave the commentary on what it means for me and my colleagues to you. We'll just get on with the job we were elected to do.
PETERSON: Sure. So, here's a bit of feedback from David in Como. He says ‘not everyone has a child in childcare and needs cheaper TAFE. Please make fuel cheaper because everyone uses it and you're not doing enough to help regular families.’ Has he got a point there?
GORMAN: David, what I’d say is; you've always got to look at what's going to give us the best bang for our buck. One of the other things that we did do when we came to government was try to get wages moving again, we did that and saw some significant movement in the minimum wage, 15% pay rise for people in aged care. And we think ultimately if we can get wages moving, that helps people, whatever, whether you drive, whether you catch public transport, et cetera. I note that also, though, we are investing in some of those things that do help on this. We've got a big partnership with the State Government around electric buses to help expand and future proof the bus network here in WA. We had Catherine King out - actually - today. She was out doing the next steps of that work. So, like I say, when there's this big inflationary pressure, we're trying to walk and work really carefully not to make that inflation pain worse.
PETERSON: And talking of the inflation pain, the Treasurer Jim Chalmers as well, saying Sunday that there might have to be a cancellation or delay of about $30 billion worth of infrastructure projects. Any WA projects in the gun?
GORMAN: I think, again, my colleague Catherine King, who is having to look at those really difficult decisions where, again, we have to choose how much the actual Australian market for construction can handle. Right now, she's doing that work. We haven't announced the list of where some of those reshaped projects will go for any state or territory. We're not sort of leaving WA out there, we're just getting this done because if our projects are resulting in huge cost overruns, that's not good for Australian taxpayers. If our projects are meaning that it's putting too much pressure in the domestic construction market, that's not good for people that are trying to build more houses. We get that. We've got to be pretty serious about it. We've tried to go through it in a pretty open and transparent way with all of the state governments, all of the state infrastructure Ministers, but it's Minister Catherine King's job to announce the outcomes of that review.
PETERSON: So, some WA projects may be altered or put back on the shelf for a little while?
GORMAN: I think you've already seen some commitments around some of the ones we know are particularly important to the State Government around continuing the Bunbury Outer Ring Road and other projects. So, we are listening very carefully. But as for the announcement, I'll leave that to Minister King.
PETERSON: You're hiring more Centrelink staff as well, Patrick, to try and clear some of that backlog and the issues people have trying to access welfare payments because the blowout times have doubled for people trying to access a pension payment or other welfare payments like a child care subsidy. Is it also the reflection that more Australians are doing it tough, that they're having to knock on the door of Services Australia to get some help?
GORMAN: Well, what we know at the moment is we've actually got very low unemployment and that's something that's in large part a credit to the private sector who've been able to sort of keep Australia's economy going so strong. But also, I think, because we've been able to make sure we get some of the balance on those big economic calls right, in terms of not overheating the economy, but not taking too much out. But the people who rely on Services Australia, I mean, it's people who are trying to get support for - it might be a parenting payment, it might be applying for the pension after decades and decades of hard work. What we want is we want that to be an easy, smooth experience, not a frustrating one. What we saw in the Robodebt scandal was that people were not treated like human beings. We had a system that was not showing respect to Australians and so we've responded to what the Royal Commission told us, which is: ‘you’ve got to put people back at the centre.’ And so in doing that, we want to make sure that when people go to get help from a government agency - that their taxpayer dollars fund - that it's actually giving them assistance. So, 3000 more staff back into frontline roles, that helps. I've been to Centrelink sites in Albany, Geraldton, Morley, just in the last few weeks. I know how hard the people in those Centrelink service centres work, but when there's a queue going out the door, there's not much they can do about it. So, we want to back them and mean know, Oly, one day when you and I, we've worked hard all of our lives - some of your listeners might question whether I've worked hard or not – and we go to get our pension or our Seniors Card, that there's actually a service there for everyone, whatever your needs. And it's just about treating people with basic dignity if they need that support, and not wasting half a day on the phone, or wasting half a day sitting at Morley Centrelink in my electorate, for something that takes about five minutes to do. So, that's what we're trying to do.
PETERSON: Patrick Gorman, Thanks for your time, We'll catch up soon.
GORMAN: Thanks, Oly.
ENDS