Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Assistant Minister for the Public Service, Assistant Minister to the Attorney-General
GARY ADSHEAD, HOST: Patrick Gorman, welcome to the studio.
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: G'day, Gary. G'day, to your listeners.
ADSHEAD: Good to have you here. Now, just in relation to this. So this is Peter Dutton, has said in the last sort of 24 hours that anyone who's in the public sector, Commonwealth-wise, who was given the right, who were given the right to work from home under the agreement of a decision, of course, by the Industrial Relations Commission, as I understand it, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, that they would undo that. Your reaction to it?
GORMAN: Well, I'll just remind Mr. Dutton of history, which is that in 2022 when he was in office, some 55% of Australian public servants were reporting they were occasionally working from home. Now it was well after we'd had the vaccinations rolled out, well after the pandemic. What we've sought to do since we've come to government is put some more rigour around that. There was actually no guidance for public servants about how that should be done across the public service. Myself, Katy Gallagher and others, put in that guidance. There was a decision of the Secretaries Board in March of 2023 to make sure there were principles for working from home. And I've always said this should be about making sure we have the talent that the Australian Government needs to make sure we can deliver high quality public services for the Australian people. And I also note that Jane Hume, who was the Shadow Finance Minister, who was out and about talking about this earlier today, saying both, they're going to sack these 36,000 federal public servants, but also they're going to completely abolish work from home. And I mean work from home works for the Commonwealth Bank, works for HBF, it works for RAC WA, it works for Fortescue. We're in the same talent competition. We need to get people here. But I went and dug out my Budget Papers, Gary, because, you know, I love to get facts.
ADSHEAD: Right, I can't wait. Did you dust them off or they quite recent?
GORMAN: Well, look, I printed them out. I'll be honest.
ADSHEAD: Alright.
GORMAN: But I wanted to have them here hard copy. You know, it's real. You can inspect them. I'll hand them over if you like. The Women's Budget Statement from 2022 and on the front page is Senator the Hon Jane Hume, Minister for Women's Economic Security. And what does that say? It says, quote, '...continuing to normalise flexible work for both men and women will help minimise this risk, support women's employment outcomes and enable men to spend more time on unpaid work and care.' Their own budgets - when they were in office - said that this was good for the economy.
ADSHEAD: Well, this was her talking at this speech that's now been jumped upon.
SENATOR JANE HUME [CLIP]: 'Well, there's plenty of studies out there that demonstrate that working from home actually decreases productivity rather than increases productivity. Now that is not uniform. There is always going to be a place for this. But the problem is, the current government have embedded a right into enterprise agreements for individuals to demand the right to work from home. Now that cannot work for everybody. And in fact, department secretaries, through the Secretaries Board and the Australian Public Service Commission, just as recently as 2023 developed a very common sense approach to this that said, working from home, arrangements should exist, but they should exist being through negotiations with individuals, with departments, with teams to make sure that we're getting the best out of our public service.'
ADSHEAD: Alright, so that's Jane Hume. Now she just addressed the Menzies Research Centre in relation to what she says the the Coalition would do if it should win government. Is it - I mean, are you getting feedback, though, from heads of department? They find that there are too many people that are taking up that right, and staying at home and not coming into the office?
GORMAN: Well, the feedback I get, when I go around and visit public service sites all around Australia. I was in Launceston, Tasmania last week, talking to public servants. The feedback they give me is that they want to be able to make the best possible contribution. Having some level of flexibility is what they expect from a modern employer who wants to keep the best possible talent. But Senator Hume just referred to those 2023 guidelines. They're still in place. It still requires that anyone who is working from home must do so on the basis of mutual agreement in the interests of the organisation for which they work. Now -
ADSHEAD: Well, I was going to say because, you know, if we look at it in terms of a pandemic, it prompted that situation, didn't it? It was a pandemic in a national emergency, and all the sort of rules and regulations and situations that went with it. So some, you know, some people are saying, well, why should therefore, people be able to continue on with that when it's not really, it's not really a balance? Is it? Because there's a lot of people in workforces that can't work from home.
GORMAN: Yep, and I've spoken to people who work for Australian Border Force, also in the public service, doing incredibly important work, and some of those jobs can't be done from home. And I completely understand that we've got to make sure that wherever it is happening across the public service that it is being done in the interests of the Australian people who those public servants serve. I did what we call the State of the Service. Where I go out and sit in front of public servants. Grilled for two hours all across Australia, I did that with here in Perth. We launched the Roadshow in Perth last year. I met with Tax Office officials who said they've been able to increase the speed at which they can get through some of their paperwork. Very detailed work, looking at making sure that they're detecting tax evasion and other things - they can do that work.
ADSHEAD: They're focused better at home.
GORMAN: At times. Yes. And so again, I just want the best outcomes for the Australian people. And what I think this debate, which really is just a old school 'bash the Public Service debate,' which we have pretty much every election. Driven by the Liberal Party, in my experience, is it's bash the public service is step one, and then sack and cut the public service is step two. And Mr. Dutton has also said that that's their plan - to cut 36,000 public servants from the Australian Public Service. If you apply that here, they try and pretend that they're all based in Canberra. Your listeners would know the truth. There's a lot of federal public servants based here in the West. About 1700 will lose their jobs in Western Australia under this plan. Now 1700 jobs out of WA under the Dutton plan. That's the equivalent, to put it in a sort of more 'retail political terms,' that's the equivalent of closing two iron ore mines in Western Australia. It's a serious cut.
ADSHEAD: 1300 222 720, if you're listening to this, Patrick Gorman is my guest. Of course, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, and, of course, the Assistant Minister for the Public Service as well. We're talking about Peter Dutton came out and said that those people that have been allowed under a union agreements to work from home, they would unwind that, should they become government when the election's called. Okay, he has walked it back a bit, because he seems to now be saying, from what I can read between the lines, that, you know, it's more about getting to those people who are refusing to not come into the office. Yeah, but I mean, if you, if you heard this sort of -
GORMAN: Where is Mr. Dutton's evidence for this? It's another 'evidence free policy zone.' These people do not exist. There is not a cohort of people who are refusing to do their jobs. Public servants are proud of the work they do. They are proud to do it. And when they talk about remote work for the public service, I'll also note that remote work can also include someone who might be working at the Tax Office in Northbridge, but a part of a team that's based predominantly in Canberra. So that means that that individual who might live in South Perth, they can make their contribution in the Australian Public Service. We get access to their talent, but they're helping out a team in Canberra. They're still rocking up to the office five days a week, and what we know is that that is more and more going to happen, because I want Western Australians to be able to make a contribution to the Commonwealth public service. We've got about 9000 of them who do that across WA. Why would we deny them the opportunity to work on other pieces of work, which might see them remotely being a part of a team based in Canberra, where they can sit at a desk in the Tax Office in Northbridge?
ADSHEAD: While I've got you here, if you don't mind, obviously that news - breaking news, which is in relation to threats about the opening of a Sydney mosque. I mean, what do you understand of that? How seriously you're taking the threat?
GORMAN: We take it incredibly seriously. Any type of threat like this is absolutely apparent. Any type of religious or racially-motivated violence is absolutely abhorrent to Australians. There is absolutely no place for it. Is being dealt with with the utmost seriousness. We've seen statements from the Prime Minister, statements from the Attorney-General, statements from New South Wales officials. What I understand is that New South Wales Police are investigating this matter right now. The AFP has offered assistance, the Australian Government will continue to do the work that we do through our agencies to make sure that this threat and any other threat is taken absolutely seriously. People should always be able to practice their religion freely and safely in this country. And you know, we all remember - I can remember where I was - when I first heard about that horrific Christchurch attack that was invoked in the messages that have been reported. That was something that devastated communities the world over in the days afterwards. I was outside the Northbridge Mosque here, with the community, where it shakes people to their core.
ADSHEAD: They sent me to Christchurch on that one, Patrick, so I was there, sort of, you know, in the hours after that. And the most extraordinary thing I remember, for three days of being there, around that mosque and quietly speaking to people, was the silence like you've never heard. You know, there were lots and lots of people that came to put flowers down, but it was just the silence around it. It was eerie. Just, of course, it, it was over the road from a park, and it was just this very strange atmosphere of disbelief, basically, at what had happened.
GORMAN: Yeah, Gary, thank you for sharing that. I can't imagine how it feels for you, having been there in Christchurch. But what I want to assure all of your listeners that there is no place for racially or religiously-motivated violence in Australia. Australians reject this. We find it abhorrent. Our agencies, police authorities will do all of the work necessary to make sure that people can continue to practice their faith in a safe and secure environment, which really should be any part of Australia at any point in time.
ADSHEAD: Not too much to ask, is it? Just in relation as well, you know, something that the federal government must be very preoccupied. It's the, it's the three warships, the Chinese warships, that are not that far off our coast, according to the Premier this morning, who sort of gave an idea that it was about 107 nautical miles, sort of south west of Perth. I mean, do we just wait for them to pass, and that's that? And we we just get on with life?
GORMAN: Well, what I can assure your listeners, Gary, is that every millisecond of every minute of every hour of every day, we know where these ships are. They are being tracked by Defence. They are being tracked very carefully. We've been doing that for a number of days now. We, a number of days ago, raised our concerns about the live fire exercise that was done without the appropriate notice. We raised that with Chinese authorities. What we do understand is that it is the right of vessels to navigate through international waters. Australia does that as well. I'm a strong believer in the importance of freedom of navigation. We need here in Western Australia, we're a trading nation. Without freedom of navigation, we can't get our goods to our customers. But what I want is a peaceful region. I want a peaceful Indian Ocean. And that means that we should all follow international law, and we should also all follow convention. And that means that when it comes to things like live firing exercises, Australia rightly expects proper notice, particularly by those who might be sailing in Australia's zone.
ADSHEAD: Last question, I need a yes or no because I'm running out of time, because I've got a pre-commitment to go to, but you've booked a venue on the 15th of March in relation to your campaign. Is that an indication of when we might get an election?
GORMAN: It's a good indication of when the state election will be over. Gary, it's as simple as that.
ADSHEAD: Well, that's true. It'll be over on Saturday. Patrick Gorman, thanks very much for coming in.
GORMAN: Thank you.
