Television Interview - Sky News Newsday
Subjects: Hamas-Israel conflict, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament Referendum, Quantitative Tightening and United States Economic Outlook
TOM CONNELL, HOST: Welcome back. There's been criticism of people gathering in Sydney last night to celebrate an Hamas attack on Israel which has killed 700 people. These were the comments of a prominent sheikh that happened last night.
SHEIKH: I'm smiling and I'm happy. I'm elated. It's a day of courage, it's a day of pride. It’s a day of victory. This is the day we’ve been waiting for.
CONNELL: Joining me live, assistant Minister of the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman, NSW Liberal Party President Jason Falinski. Patrick, to start with; your views on what we just saw there?
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE: There is no place for celebrating the deaths of civilians in Israel. What we've seen in these attacks is abhorrent. It is deeply concerning, what we are seeing in terms of these awful attacks from Hamas. I'm like all Australians; just absolutely beside myself every time I pick up and look at the news over the last two days. It's really, really concerning. And obviously we've shown strong support for Israel's right to defend itself. And obviously, every Australian wants to see this very worrying situation where we've seen hundreds of civilian lives lost, come back to some form of order as soon as possible.
CONNELL: These pictures could be going round the world, more rallies. What would be your message to anyone thinking of going to such a rally?
GORMAN: Look, I don’t think there’s any place for celebrating the deaths of civilians.
CONNELL: That simple?
GORMAN: That simple.
CONNELL: Jason, this is, broadly speaking, your neck of the woods, your city. What's been your reaction to what you just saw there?
JASON FALINSKI, NSW LIBERAL PARTY PRESIDENT: Look, it's appalling, Tom. I mean; revenge is easy, peace is hard. What has occurred here is - let's not gild the lily -were crimes against humanity and war crimes. The targeting of civilians in a military operation is a war crime. There is no place to celebrate that. And all Australians, regardless of where they come from on this issue, need to condemn that. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth only leads to a world in which everyone is blind and no one can eat anything. What needs to happen here is people need to come together, not to celebrate what is clearly a moment of great division.
CONNELL: Alright, yeah. Plenty more reaction to this, as I've been alluding to earlier in the show, an analysis on where to next in this situation. I do want to ask you about a couple other topics, though. So, Patrick Gorman, the Voice, interesting push from Jacinta Price. She wants companies to come clean and say how much they've been donating to the Yes campaign. Is that fair enough?
GORMAN: Well, what we do have is a robust system of donation disclosure in Australia. That's the same for referendums as it is for general elections. We acted as a government to ensure that in the legislation that governs this referendum, supported by the Opposition, I'll note. But what Senator Price is proposing now is that after the referendum, we continue, and the Opposition wants to continue driving this division that they've been stoking for months and months. And this is the same No campaign who won't even tell us whether they've taken money from Clive Palmer, and if so, how much they've taken. What I think we need is actually to make sure that we keep the focus on the decision the Australian people are about to make. This is a decision for them. The ads get turned off on Wednesday under the blackout provisions. It's time for the Australian people to make their decision about what I think is a very simple proposition to finally, after 122 years, recognise our first Australians in the Constitution and to listen to them.
CONNELL: Jason, it does seem a slightly strange call in the sense that this will be revealed, just not right now, because of the sort of time lag on donations. So, we find this out, right? We'll find out what companies donated what.
FALINSKi: Well, Tom, you and I have had many robust discussions over the years on this programme about real-time donation disclosure. Now, I'm being told that when it impacts the Left, when it impacts people who are somehow not advantaged from real-time disclosure, we shouldn't be so concerned. The Teals are all in favour of transparency until it comes to actually uncovering what they've been up to. Labor and the unions are all in favour of transparency when it comes to employers, but just not when they're giving money to them. We all know how this happened. We all know that Industry Super used their proxy adviser, ACSI, to demand that large corporates in Australia hand money over to the Yes campaign. But no one wants to talk about that because no one wants to take on the truly wealthy and powerful in our society and, actually, so that all Australians can see what's really going on in their country
CONNELL: Not sure I've heard a big push from the Liberal side yet for real-time disclosure. You're right to point out that the Teals, in particular, have been fans of it, but just pointing out that it's been within the remit of previous governments - hasn't necessarily been something they’ve pushed for. I do want to ask about legislating for the Voice, though. It's intrigued by this, Patrick Gorman, the Prime Minister, saying this wouldn't happen because the Australian people would have voted no for it. But what if there's a national Yes vote and it's not carried by the states? Wouldn't that be the overall will of the Australian people supporting this? Why already rule out legislation if the referendum doesn't pass?
GORMAN: Well, what we are asking for is the legislative power to legislate for a constitutionally-enshrined Voice. That's what would happen next, so yes, if the referendum is successful -
CONNELL: But you can legislate regardless. It won't be in the Constitution. You can legislate, so why rule that out if there's still a chance? You're saying vote Yes, we can still win this thing. If you win on a national -
GORMAN: - I am saying that, yeah -
CONNELL: - so, if you get that national 50 per cent plus and you don't win all of the states, sounds to me a lot like a normal federal election where you'd say you'd have a mandate, why rule out legislating already?
GORMAN: The request was very simple for a constitutionally-enshrined Voice to Parliament. That's the question in front of the Australian people on Saturday. We've still got about 16 million Australians to vote and have their say on this proposal. And we will listen to the result that the Australian people give us. But if you want to see a Voice legislated, then vote Yes.
CONNELL: Well, if you want it in the Constitution, vote Yes. If you want to see it legislated, politicians do it. This is what I don't quite get; it’s meant to be totally transformational for First Australians -
GORMAN: - but then, Tom, you've got a big question; under which constitutional power would you legislate a Voice? Would you do it -
FALINSKI: The race power.
GORMAN: - under the race power? Is that Mr Dutton's proposal?
FALINSKI: Pat, I'm surprised that this is even an argument. There isn't a single constitutional expert in Australia who disagrees with the proposition that the Parliament already has the power under the current Constitution to legislate for a Voice. I’ve never - are you arguing that-
CONNELL: Are you saying it's not possible legally? Pat?
GORMAN: No, I'm just saying that the way that would be appropriate to legislate a Voice is to do it under the power that will be granted by the Australian people in Section 129, if they choose to do so this Saturday, so we can have a legislative Voice in recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the first people -
CONNELL: I understand what you're trying to pass initially. I'm just not quite sure why you've ruled something out ahead of time when you don't know what the result is going to be. It could be a national 50 per cent, which you’re still saying is possible.
GORMAN: I mean, hypotheticals about if a state votes this way, a state votes that way -
CONNELL: - but the PM has already entered into the hypothetical. He said he wouldn't legislate, so I'm saying why is he entering into that hypothetical? That's the question.
GORMAN: Because the proposal we've put to the Australian people consistently since we were elected was for a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament. The Australian people -
CONNELL: But this is a question, if that's a No and yet it's a 50% Yes, is what I'm sort of adding to the hypothetical. If you like that's a bridge too far.
GORMAN: I think, if you want to see a Voice legislated vote yes.
CONNELL: Jason, what about the Coalition from here, or the Liberal Party in particular, which has opposed this referendum? Would you look at some form of legislated Voice? Because the agreement, I think, from most sides, is that the gap's not being closed sufficiently well, so what do you think of a Voice that wouldn't be in the Constitution but could just be at the behest of Parliament?
FALINSKI: I think it's a logical pathway to go, Tom. I mean, I'm with Patrick. The vote's not over yet. I hate people who presume outcomes before the Australian people have spoken, so I'm not going to presume to know. But if they were to say No to a constitutionally-enshrined Voice, I think that the proper path forward is legislated Voice where there can be experimentation undertaken. We can see what models look better or work better at least, and how that works. And then it can be elevated to a Constitution change if that's deemed appropriate.
CONNELL: We had polling, Patrick, that had, I think, 22 seats in total that were going to succeed in this, which is pretty dire. Your seat was one of the standouts. Is this something that's really only appealed to the true progressives in the nation? And does that show that the failure of Labor to win over the middle ground?
FALINSKI: I reject that, Tom.
GORMAN: I think this is a deeply conservative proposal and I would encourage all of your viewers to see it in those terms. It is to use our Constitution, a conservative document, to recognise the first peoples of this nation. It is conservative in that it leaves the power with the Parliament to make matters relating to the functions and powers of the Voice. It is conservative in that it has been consulted on for more than a decade, gone to this path of constitutional recognition. I hope that we see a large majority of electorates across the country on Saturday support this proposal so we can bring Australians together and get on with the work of reconciliation.
CONNELL: Jason, I'm left with you. I know you didn't like that last question, but I'll just have to write that down and think about it later because you wanted to talk about quantitative tightening. I don't know how many viewers I'll lose when you start on this. This is basically the Fed in the US saying, ‘hey, we do need to keep tightening the economy and not getting people to spend.’ Are you worried? Is the global economy situation or outlook pretty dire, do you think?
FALINSKI: Well, Tom, I think the real issue here is that the bond markets are essentially saying to the US Government that they don't have infinite capacity to purchase US Treasuries. Now, if the US Government can't place government debt in the bond markets or can only do so at much more expensive rates than they've currently been doing, then the flow-on implications to countries like Australia, and particularly our state governments and I'm looking at Victoria at this point, is, I think, very meaningful. And judging by the article that the three of us were looking at in the Wall Street Journal, this is something that will emerge in the middle of next year. So, unless state governments start taking corrective action now to get their budgets back into balance, they could be in a position where they're having to make drastic cuts in the middle of next year, which would be at precisely the wrong time to be doing that.
CONNELL: Okay, alright, well, we've bookmarked that. We've got it out there. Jason, Patrick - thank you. We'll talk in a fortnight’s time when all of this referendum will be over. But I'm sure there'll be talk of it when we come back.