Hon Patrick Gorman MP Television Interview – Sky News 17 June
TOM CONNELL, HOST: All right, let’s check in on the week in politics, joining me Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman, and former Liberal MP for Mackellar, Jason Falinski. Why don’t we begin with you, Jason, I know you’re coming in on the long run up on the Government’s roundtable on productivity. I don’t know if they’ve formally invited the Opposition, but they say all good ideas are going to be welcome. So do you want to put something forward in the sort of spirit of bipartisanship?
JASON FALINSKI, FORMER LIBERAL MP FOR MACKELLAR: Yeah, how about tax reform? How about industrial relations reform? How about housing? And you know, finally, how about education? We have too many Australians paying too much and getting too little while vice-chancellors at our universities spend more and more money on administration and themselves. Why don’t we start there, rather than forgiving debt, why don’t we stop people from having to run up debt? Our housing market in Australia is the biggest public policy failure in, I think, in the history of public policy. We have more habitable land than any other nation on the face of this planet, but we have housing more akin to the costs of Hong Kong and Singapore. And let’s not get started on industrial relations, where the Fair Work Commission has recently found that people working for Australian companies in the Philippines are subject to Australian workplace laws. Everywhere you look, there is regulation after regulation after regulation, and all it is doing is making us poorer, and it is stealing our future from our children.
CONNELL: All right, if you’re in charge of this, get Jason along. He’s got ideas. Patrick, I’ll start with an easy one for you. Can you pick out something Jason said there, with which you are in furious agreement?
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: I think we’ve seen this on this programme before Tom, which is when it comes to housing I agree with Jason. That we do need to take action to remove some of the regulation that is challenging our nation from building the houses that our people need. And I think when Jason was talking about some of that housing regulation, I hear him talking to some of the Liberal Councillors that I engage with here in the West sometimes, Members of the Liberal Party, who sometimes spend more time opposing housing than they do approving it. I think we can do more there when it comes to making sure that we get good quality housing that Australians want. Housing is central to our Government’s plans. We have been the ones in the parliament for the last three years fighting for more investment in housing. We are the ones who’ve been using the National Cabinet architecture to look at ways that we can work with the states and territories to get more houses built. And we are the ones who are putting this front and centre as we talk about what we can do when it comes to productivity. I recognise that people having a safe place to call home enables them to engage in the workforce, enables them to do that further education. And I think Jason is a student of history, and I think your viewers would know the recent history when it comes to university costs and TAFE fees is that Labor are the party that go out there trying to make it more affordable for people to get the skills and education they need and deserve –
CONNELL: Just ignore that one for a moment, Jason –
GORMAN: – the Liberal party jacked up university and it was the Liberal Party –
CONNELL: Patrick let me ask you this –
GORMAN: who went to the last election that was just a couple of months ago, saying they want to abolish Free Tafe. So –
CONNELL: Patrick, let me ask you this, Patrick, thinking about reform, and the big, bold reform that’s happened over the past few decades has always had unpopular elements to it, but it has been transformative. Think of floating the dollar on the Accord with Hawke, the GST with Howard. What is Labor’s version of that? Doing something you think is worthy, but that will not be universally popular, that isn’t just spending money. Do you have something you can point to so far or in your future plans?
GORMAN: Well, I can point to a very exciting speech coming up at the Press Club on Wednesday by the Treasurer Jim Chalmers, where he’ll outline more of our plans. I understand that the President –
CONNELL: So that will have a transformative –
GORMAN: – of the Press Club, the one and only Tom Connell, will be there.
CONNELL: Yep love the plug. But that’ll have, what, a transformative element. That’ll be, you know, akin to the GST, floating the dollar, that’ll have people talking. It’ll be controversial, but Labor says it’s worth doing. That’s, that’ll be in the speech will it?
GORMAN: Well what you’ve seen from Labor time and time again is that we will do what is necessary in the national interest. We’ve done that, as the Prime Minister outlined at the Press Club the other week, we did that when it came to energy policy. We’ve done it when it came to tax reform, of those stage three tax cuts, but we made sure that they were more cleverly targeted to give support to Australians on low and middle incomes who are facing serious cost of living pressure. We’ve done it when we’ve transformed TAFE, making sure that education is available without those huge fees.
CONNELL: That’s spending money though –
GORMAN: Getting the skills that we need. But –
CONNELL: You’re going to struggle to, you know, lose lots of voters by saying he’s spending some more money.
GORMAN: But what I know about lasting productivity reform is that you need to have a broad level of engagement, and that’s what we’re seeking to do in August, and you want to get some level of political support –
CONNELL: Will you get Jason invited? Can you get Jason an invite?
GORMAN: Beg your pardon?
CONNELL: Will you get Jason invited Patrick?
FALINSKI: [Inaudible]
GORMAN: Oh, look, there’s lots of people Tom, who are always keen to have a seat around the table for these discussions. Jason’s a fine writer. I read what he puts out, and I’m sure that, if he writes a –
CONNELL: So just keep writing. You’re not coming.
GORMAN: – submission to the Productivity Commission.
CONNELL: I can read between the lines.
GORMAN: Jason writes a submission, I’ll look forward to reading it.
CONNELL: Okay, Jason, on that big reform that isn’t always popular, was that missing from the Coalition’s last time in office? Perhaps there was some arguments that was put up early around budget repair, but not actually followed through on. What would be your response to that?
FALINSKI: Yes, Tom, you’re right. It was missing. And Tom what I also want to say to you is what you just heard from Patrick there is all rhetoric and no action. I mean, this productivity roundtable is so un-innovative that they can’t even come up with a new shape for the roundtable. I’ve advocated that Patrick come up with a trapezoid table, but he informed me that the regulations to achieve that would be so difficult that they couldn’t possibly have any other table but a round one. And that, I think goes to the heart of the problem of the innovation agenda in Australia, and the problem that we’re having with productivity. We can’t even change the shape of the table.
CONNELL: All right, I’ve actually got to leave it there. We’ve left a bit on the table, pardon the pun. I think Patrick’s a rhombus man. I can just tell it, but we’ve got something to get to. I apologise, Patrick, Jason, we’ll talk next week.
GORMAN: Thanks Tom.
CONNELL: Thank you.
https://ministers.pmc.gov.au/gorman/2025/television-interview-sky-news