Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Assistant Minister for the Public Service
TOM CONNELL, HOST: Joining me now Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman, who's sadly not with Jason Falinski this week, he's in the US. We decided didn't we Patrick that getting him on at midnight or a bit later might be dangerous for Jason, meanwhile -
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE: Well I understand right now Tom, Jason is actually doorknocking the wine bars of Washington DC. It's very good of him to do that, investing in our diplomatic relations, and I wish him well.
CONNELL: Maybe he can be a diplomat of some sort one day, I think he'd have a certain charm to him. Let's talk nuclear power. Nothing diplomatic about what Labor is talking about in this regard. You rolled out a map this week, you walked out with your own easel and then threw a few nuclear reactors on it. I mean, this is pretty obvious scare campaign, isn't it? We know where they'll be broadly, they'll only replace where nuclear fired power plants? Is it, is it up, is it sort of incumbent on you not to sort of, you know, exaggerate or whack these wherever you think they could go randomly, but wait until the policy comes out and have a mature debate about it.
GORMAN: But where is the policy Tom? I mean, it was supposed to be out at least 10 weeks ago. And I think it's pretty reasonable that if I ask on behalf of Western Australians, is Mr. Dutton planning to build a nuclear reactor in Collie? I think it's reasonable to get an answer to that question. And unfortunately, what he's telling us is that he knows where they're going to be, but he won't tell the Australian people. Now, I think the other thing is that there's a lot of coal fired power stations that have come out of the system over recent decades. I've got an old coal fired power station in my electorate in East Perth. I mean, is Mr. Dutton saying that that might be a site for putting in a nuclear reactor? I mean, these are pretty reasonable questions. And I think when he can't tell us a single costing, he can't tell us a single location, this really does sound like every time he says nuclear energy what people are hearing now is an excuse for climate inaction.
CONNELL: Well it's coming, the policy is coming. We can debate the merits of it then. But what about the principle of it? Let me put this to you - modern nuclear power rolled out in a geologically stable country, such as Australia, that is relatively safe isn't it? Nothing is entirely safe. But that is relatively safe, isn't it?
GORMAN: I think if you spoke to most Australians they'd say, would you prefer the safety of renewables? Or would you prefer to go down this long, complex road of nuclear reactors. I think people are going to choose renewables, and that's the path that we've chosen because it's the lowest cost path, it's the fastest path. And it means that we'll have the energy to do all of the advanced manufacturing, the energy to power our important critical minerals facilities and much more across Australia. Renewables is how you do that. And I think unfortunately -
CONNELL: We'll see what they do choose.
GORMAN: We want to talk about what -
CONNELL: But let me put the question again, because that wasn't the question, around what Australians would choose. Your view as someone you know, learned, who looks at this sort of stuff. We're not talking about a Chernobyl are we, this is a very different technology, the modern nuclear power plant. And it's a country with high safety standards and stable formations as well, it would be relatively safe, wouldn't it?
GORMAN: But what we know is that Mr. Dutton is not telling us exactly which technology he's choosing, he's not telling us where he would store all of that nuclear waste that would be generated by his five, ten, fifteen nuclear reactors across Australia. He's not telling us what the build time would be. Nor can he give us any assurance that we do have the skills to build all these nuclear power plants that he's talking about. So what we know is that we've got the capability to uplift the skills -
CONNELL: So we're gonna see Labor hold up a three-eyed fish?
GORMAN: Well, I'm a fan of Blinky as much as anyone else when it comes to great Simpsons references, but I think for Mr. Dutton this is a question about his credibility as Leader. If he's got a plan, he should show it to people. If he's got costings, he should release them. And if he thinks that this is the way forward, then let's have an argument about whether this is indeed the way forward for Australia to become that renewable energy superpower. Our plan is one that we're implementing right now. Mr. Dutton's plan will require billions and billions, tens of billions of dollars and will take fifteen, twenty years or more, if he even can get it together.
CONNELL: One of the problems of Labor's plan is the amount of renewables look like they're going to underachieve compared to 82% by 2030. So just pointing that out. Let's talk about Direction 110, this is the next iteration announced today by the Immigration Minister. Now does this make it clear because in this Direction 110 it says the number one priority of the Australian Government is safety of the community. This makes it pretty clear and stark doesn't it, this was not in Direction 99, and it should have been. Can you be upfront with voters about that?
GORMAN: The Minister for Immigration has been really upfront when he's been asked about these questions in Question Time. He's said that Direction 99 wasn't giving the outcomes, it wasn't being interpreted as we expected it to be. And that's why he took the appropriate decision to implement a new Direction, that's Direction 110. For your viewers, they should know that comes into effect in two weeks' time. We have acted very fast to get that in place. In the meantime, Minister Giles has been cancelling about 40 visas in the last week, again, taking the action that he can as Minister. And this is a strong, clear direction to the AAT to put community safety as the number one priority.
CONNELL: So this one is clear. You mentioned that he said it wasn't interpreted. But are you willing to say to voters and just be upfront and go, look, if we put this in Direction 99, it would have been a better outcome, we should have.
GORMAN: What I'll say is that Direction 110, which is the one that Mr. Giles has announced today, is the right way forward. We take responsibility for making these tough decisions. We've made a tough decision and we're implementing it.
CONNELL: Patrick Gorman, before I let you go, just quickly you were doorknocking as well yourself this morning. Be honest - what's the feedback you're getting where they say 'you could do a bit better here'.
GORMAN: One of the things I had this morning was someone who asked me about what we're doing to ban vapes. And they say, 'what are you doing to get rid of all of the vapes' and I thought, 'I'll be upfront, I'll tell him that yes, we're putting some legislation through Parliament.' I didn't think he was going to be particularly excited about what we were doing. And then at the end of the conversation he said, 'you guys are doing a great job because I'm a music teacher, and I see my students using those vapes. Anything you can do to get them out of their hands, keep it up.' So that was an unexpected bit of feedback. Sometimes people say, 'oh, you haven't doorknocked me before.' So I say 'well, better that I'm here now rather than never.' You get a bit of that feedback. But generally people are happy with what we're doing on Tax Cuts. They're happy with the Energy Bill Relief that we're delivering in partnership with the WA Government here, and I was speaking to a sole trader who was very happy about the extension of the instant asset write off.
CONNELL: Sounds like you'll ride back into the seat 90+% primary vote by the sound of that, everyone's happy even the people who are not. We'll let you go there. Got your blue tie on in honour of Jason Falinksi. So good of you to represent him Patrick Gorman, thank you.
GORMAN: Thank you.
