Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Assistant Minister for the Public Service, Assistant Minister to the Attorney-General
TOM CONNELL,HOST : Joining me now Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman, and former Liberal MP and continuing free market champion, Jason Falinski. Jason, what did you make of this? What could Peter Dutton do here that would sort of fit with those crucial Liberal values we hear so much about?
JASON FALINSKI, FORMER LIBERAL MP:Indeed, Tom, I mean, I think that it is incumbent upon the Opposition and the Government, really, to look at the role that they've played in making insurance unaffordable in Australia, and indeed, most of the recommendations out of the Hayne Royal Commission didn't protect consumers. It led consumers to becoming uninsurable risks. And sure, if insurance companies aren't pricing their products correctly, are profiteering, are doing the things that most of their critics claim, then you need to produce evidence and certainly threats of divestiture are extreme threats, but what we saw in California recently is how, frankly, regulation can indeed leave most people without insurance. And that's something that we should be very worried about in this country, because that's the road we're heading down.
CONNELL: So, sounds like you're relatively on board, albeit want to see evidence. Pat, is the market somewhat broken, and what's the role do you think for Government?
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Well, we know there are challenges when it comes to the insurance market. What we've seen is that with successive natural disasters, we've had to have in some areas, governments step in to help people rebuild their homes and other locations. In other areas we've had to invest in building back better, as we've done, as you saw the Prime Minister talking about in Question Time last week. But I think what's really unfair for people who are looking at their insurance bills, is for Peter Dutton to put out a thought bubble like this with no detail, no costings, no explanation of what will actually happen, and not even support from within his own Coalition. We saw David Littleproud out today saying that he didn't support this change. I think they need to have an urgent meeting of Shadow Cabinet, get together, tell us what their actual policy is, because these sort of thought bubbles this close to an election is deeply disrespectful to the Australian people.
CONNELL: I want to ask you, Pat, around the story today in the Financial Review. It talks about the interconnector being built between South Australia and the rest of the grid, that already it's facing a $1.5 billion blowout. Does this allude to the fact that current estimates around transition, the transition to renewables could actually be a lot higher?
GORMAN: Look Tom, I don't want to comment on a commercial build that's happening, and I'm sure there's a lot of negotiations happening there. I won't comment on that. What we know is that making sure that we get more renewables into our energy grids is how we get the cheapest possible energy to households and to businesses. That's what we're focused on. That's pretty sensible.
CONNELL: But this event was -
GORMAN: These interconnecters -
CONNELL: It was announced by Transgrid.
GORMAN: Let's be honest -
CONNELL: So isn't this, you know, you talk a lot about the nuclear cost and fair enough, but you've got to talk to this cost too, don't you? It's been announced. It's not scuttlebutt.
GORMAN: Look, I'm not across the details of this announcement Tom. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I know every energy company in Australia and what they're announcing. What I'm going to say to your viewers though, is that to get energy to the households and businesses that need it, we have to build this transmission infrastructure. And what we know, is that the cheapest form of energy is renewable energy. Jason knows that. You know that. Your viewers know that.
CONNELL: Well, the cost keeps blowing out. It might put a bit of question mark over it, although I normally email you both with the topics and I've realised I haven't, so I don't know if I've given you an exit ramp there. Sounds like it. Jason, let me ask you this one, you're laughing at my lack of organisation I can see. We're yet to hear from Peter Dutton the short term element around gas in particular. But do you think it's fair to say a key part of his announcement can't just be extending the life of coal fired power plants, because that's actually when they get less reliable themselves?
FALINSKI: Well, Tom, my understanding is that Ted O'Brien has announced that they believe that the transition fuel to nuclear and renewable energy is more gas in the system. And I mean, to be quite blunt with you, that is exactly the pathway that all those countries that have seen massive decreases in emissions have used. Now, Australia under the Coalition, reduced its emissions by 19%. Under the Labor-Green-Teal Coalition, emissions have gone up 3%, and the conversation you just had with Pat there is indicative of why. We have Simon Holmes à Court spend all his time arguing about what models do and don't show, but Australians are seeing in real life that their prices are going up, emissions are going up, and reliability is going down. You don't need to model that. Australians are seeing that, and that's why Chris Bowen is one of the most unpopular Energy Ministers in Australia's history.
CONNELL: Alright, let's move into the broad element of a bit of prediction. Jason, interested in particular how you think the, well, the community Independents, you might call them Teals, at least some of them have teal in their corflutes. How are they going to fare this time around? Because it's one of the huge discussion points. And there's a question mark, how much the Coalition or the Liberal parties target them with policies. What do you think is a pass mark for the Liberal Party, in terms of the six that community Independents hold at the moment?
FALINSKI: Well, Tom, you should be calling them Teals, and the Canberra press gallery should be calling them Teals, because it's fiction that their independence has long and truly, I think, been disproved. And why we're still having this discussion three years on is just farcical, and goes to the point that we have one of the shallowest debates in politics in this country, of all major Western democracies. But leaving that aside, the pass mark for the Liberal Party is to get a majority of seats in the lower house, that's the only thing that matters. It's the same pass mark that the Labor Party has. And we need to develop policies that build a future that the vast majority of Australians both want to sign up to and believe we'll deliver them a more prosperous future.
CONNELL: So to that end, if we're in a situation on election night where the Coalition sort of gets to 73, but doesn't pick up any of the Indies or Teals, will that be on the Coalition to have failed to woo that sector, if you like, that group? That type of seat?
FALINSKI: Well, self evidently, it will have been. If people aren't voting for - we have, we have some excellent candidates. We've got Ro Knox, we've got Tim Wilson, we've got Amelia Hamer, we've got Jaimee Rogers, we've got Gisele Kapterian, we've got James Brown and Trevor Evans, Tom White. The list goes on and on, if you put them up against any of the Teal candidates who currently sit in those seats, or Green candidates; Maggie Forrest in Ryan, you would have to say at a local level that we definitely have put together the better team, the better candidate with the better ideas. So if we are not winning those seats, then it is a failure on our behalf to communicate to the Australian electorate what our hopes and dreams are for them in the future, and to demonstrate that we can deliver those. That's our job between now and the election, it's no different for any other political party Tom.
CONNELL: Well, no, but it's a subset of seats from the last election. It feels bifurcated, if you like, so the reason I put up the question, but you're always entitled to have a laugh -
FALINSKI: Yeah but if we can get to 77 -
CONNELL: Pat -
FALINSKI: If we can get to 77 seats without having to win back Teal electorates, then we have succeeded. I mean, the question that you ask is not an unreasonable one, but how we get there is, you know, up to Australia.
CONNELL: Sure but the question I asked was, in the instance of falling short and getting zero of those seats. So I stand by the question I put to you.
FALINSKI: If we fall short then we haven't succeeded yes.
CONNELL: Alright, sure. Anyway, you've put me off my task here, Jason, I feel like you're a bit pedantic today. But anyway, you're allowed to be. Pat, what about just quickly, Labor -
FALINSKI: Well you didn't send us the questions.
CONNELL: - the Greens, I mean, I guess the main one is Griffith, but do you see the Greens as a similar existential threat?
GORMAN: Well, it's been nice to watch you and Jason play fantasy football there and speculate on what might happen in the future, obviously, when it comes to -
CONNELL: As if you're not getting the magnets floating around. Give us a spell, you're in the war room next to the PM.
GORMAN: Look, when it comes to the next federal election, what I know is that Labor stands a candidate in every single seat. Now, the Liberal Party can't say that. The National Party can't say that.
FALINSKI: Hang on you don't have candidates in 46 seats at the moment!
GORMAN: We will stand a candidate in every single seat in Australia. That's what we do, because we believe that every Australian should have the opportunity to vote for a Labor candidate.
FALINSKI: Not if you call the election on the weekend you won't.
GORMAN: You asked me specifically about Griffith. Now, Renee Coffey, I have known for some 15 years. She is an outstanding individual. She will make an excellent Member of Parliament if the people of Griffith choose to send her to Canberra. And what I remember is about this time last year Tom, what we had was the Greens party were running around saying they were going to win all these seats in every state and territory. I remember they were saying they were going to knock me off here in Perth. Well, if they've got some sort of a secret plan to actually get out and campaign in Western Australia, I haven't seen it. They seem incredibly worried about winning just a couple of seats -
CONNELL: There you go.
GORMAN: - in the Upper House.
FALINSKI: They're lulling you into a false sense of security.
GORMAN: I think more it tells you that the Greens and Adam Bandt always overplay their hand.
CONNELL: Will the Teals go better -
GORMAN: They always overplay their hand.
CONNELL: Will the communities, or the Teals as I've been instructed to call them by Jason. Are they going to poll better in Perth than the Greens then? Because obviously it's just Pat Gorman and daylight, according to you. So who's going to slide in there, into second spot?
FALINSKI: The Teals don't run against the Labor Party, though Tom, so Pat's safe.
CONNELL: They're putting someone up in Perth aren't they?
GORMAN: Across my electorate border, in Curtin, there is obviously a very hotly contested seat. In most of Western Australia right now, you would know there's a state election on.
FALINSKI: In a former Liberal seat.
GORMAN: If you go into Curtin, you would think that there's a federal election on and there's no state candidates running, because you've got the Liberal Party spending millions and millions of dollars.
FALINSKI: That's true.
GORMAN: You've got the Teals machine spending millions and millions of dollars.
FALINSKI: That's not true. That's true. That's true.
GORMAN: Well, I don't know, maybe Jason in in the Liberal Party, the corflutes and billboards are all just donated, and they just arrive for free. But as I drive around, it looks like there's quite a -
FALINSKI: No they're hand painted.
GORMAN: - being pumped in there by the Liberal Party. You've got some real artists, it's the only time the Liberal Party's supported the arts industry.
CONNELL: That's enough you two. Off the beaten track now. Jason, thank you, I guess.
FALINSKI: Well, this will teach you not to send us the questions.
GORMAN: Yeah, I guess so, and then Pat just floats above the electoral equation of seats, that's just beneath him, sure. Patrick, Jason, talk next week.
