Interview with Patricia Karvelas - ABC News Afternoon Briefing

PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: Patrick Gorman is the Assistant Minister for Employment and the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister. Zoe McKenzie is the Shadow Early Learning and Assistant Education Minister. Welcome to both of you. 

PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Thank you. 

ZOE MCKENZIE, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR FLINDERS: Thank you. 

KARVELAS: This Hamas statement, well, you know there are competing statements, but comments made from different figures of Hamas. This obviously has been a really big dominant issue. I'll start with you, Zoe. Hamas is a terrorist organisation. It's listed. Why should we be listening to them in our own discussions about what we should do for the future in the Middle East and our position there?

MCKENZIE: Well, I would suggest that's been the position from the very beginning. That we shouldn't be listening to a propaganda unit of a known terrorist organisation. But it would seem that, in listening to Hamas, the Prime Minister has reached a precipitous move in terms of the recognition of Palestine on the basis of conditions that will never be met before the recognition of Palestine becomes fact in September and that arguably, will never be met. What happens in terms of future elections in the West Bank or Gaza? Should there ever be future elections? You can't prevent Hamas or Hamas operatives or Hamas supporters running in those elections. So, it's a false promise in terms of the intention to recognise the state of Palestine, and one which has been based on the words of Hamas and the Hamas propaganda unit, which we know the Israeli Government has countered on many occasions. So it's a very misfounded intention on behalf of the Prime Minister and now the Australian Government.

KARVELAS: Patrick, what's your response to that? That's been a critique from the Coalition throughout the last two days? 

GORMAN: I just don't think you can extinguish the hope of the civilians who live in the West Bank and in Gaza that they want to have a state of their own. We have got to, as an international community, find the way through. That's what Australia is looking to do when we will formally recognise Palestine at the 80th meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York in September. We recognise that Hamas are a horrible terrorist organisation who do not share the aspirations of the Palestinian people, and indeed, they don't share our view that there should be two states. That is something that we've been really clearly saying. And on this question of the fact that in conflicts like this, where you do have terrorist organisations who have committed absolute atrocities, including on October 7, we all have to be aware that they are putting out absolute propaganda, and it's on all of us to ensure that we're not spreading that propaganda.

KARVELAS: So, Zoe has the Coalition been spreading their propaganda by seizing this, jumping on this, using this?

MCKENZIE: No, I don't think so, PK. I think what we've been trying to do is remind people that for the Israeli population, and indeed, to some extent for the Jewish population here, the atrocities of October 7, 2023 are enduring. I went on a bipartisan trip to Israel shortly after those events, it was in December 2023. And we met with people who had lost family members, who had witnessed or have had first testimony of rapes and murders through rapes, who had seen their family members killed, their houses burned, and their brothers and sisters taken away as hostages into the tunnels of Gaza. Many of them are still in those tunnels in Gaza. For them, that experience, that trauma of October 7, is enduring, and what they have to confront now is what appears to be a reward for that behaviour. The Palestinian people have wanted recognition for a long time, and we have always said that we support a two state solution, but one that comes in a time and pursuit of peace. That trauma remains real for the Israeli people, and to some extent it remains real for the Jewish people in Australia, who still have to endure regular attacks of anti-semitism, and yet we have said, through this move by the Prime Minister that we will recognise, and in doing so reward Hamas for that activity. Because but for where we are now, which is a response to what happened on October 7, there would be no recognition now. I should be clear, we do not agree with what is happening on the surface in Israel either. We have deep concerns about famine in that area, and we believe that there must be international pressure brought to bear on the Israeli Government to ensure aid is getting through. But that does not justify rewarding Hamas in this way for what is still an ongoing perception of terror and danger to the Israeli people.

KARVELAS: I want to change the conversation to talking about some of today's domestic news. Unemployment figures went down to 4.2 per cent. Patrick, you are the Assistant Employment Minister. It's obviously a good number, especially for people looking for jobs. But the consequence most economists are saying it this afternoon is that we're going to get fewer rate cuts this year, right?

GORMAN: Well, I'm pleased to hear that you raised the rate cut Patricia, because we saw that on Tuesday -

KARVELAS: - We had one, I'm talking about next month.

GORMAN: I don't speculate on the next decision of the Reserve Bank, but I definitely welcome the decision that they made on Tuesday, and I know that was welcome news for millions of mortgage holders across Australia. But what we've seen in the data that's come out today is, yes, we've got some 14.6 million Australians in work. Ten million of those are full time jobs. And you couple that with the fact that we're seeing a record low gender pay gap, that's been a real focus of our government over the last three years. I want to commend the work that the Finance Minister and Minister for Women, Katy Gallagher, has done on this, along with a range of ministers across portfolios. Looking to make sure that we do everything we can to narrow that gender pay gap. And to put those numbers into something real: for women working full time, that's an extra $250 on average a week in their pocket. That makes a huge difference. I'm really pleased to see the numbers. It's never 'mission accomplished' in government. You've always got more to do. But I'd rather be in Australia with low unemployment, low inflation, interest rates coming down. They're numbers that around the world people are looking at, and they're jealous of us, and rightly so. 

KARVELAS: Zoe, are people jealous of us? Because we do have low unemployment and interest rates are now coming down. Three rate cuts this year, it's nothing to scoff at.

MCKENZIE: Well, as we know, people are still paying hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars more on their mortgage versus when this government first came to power. But can I say I'm not really minded to what people are thinking overseas and whether they're jealous of us - I'm looking at our domestic economy. And I'm speaking to my small business owners. I had a couple of retail and hospitality owners in my office this morning talking to me about their fears for the future, some of the absurd proposals that are being put on the table by the ACTU, like moving to a four day week, even though you're being paid for five. Or indeed, the discussion here in Victoria of mandating two days work at home. Most of the people who work in my electorate, they're in stand up jobs. They're in trade. They're in turn up jobs, nurses, teachers, tradies, surgeons, you name it, agricultural workers, they don't get to work from home. And all the all the people who create the jobs, who create the businesses, who often don't take a paycheck for themselves until the business is thriving. They're looking at these proposals that are being thrown around in relation to the tax and welfare roundtable we're having next week, in abject horror. So I say enjoy these figures, because small business is wondering how they're going to make it all add up in months to come with the IR changes, would they bring down the line from this government.

KARVELAS: Would they be looking at things in horror though? I mean, like, there's lots of proposals that could actually really help business, right?

MCKENZIE: Well, some of the proposals that we're looking at in terms of productivity, having ruled out industrial relations changes and ruled out reductions to energy prices, the only thing left on the table is artificial intelligence. And artificial intelligence is already taking away some of the most basic desk-based and computer-based jobs, and will continue to do so. A Labor member herself told me a couple of days ago that her husband, working in a bank, can't employ anyone unless he can absolutely prove that the large language models now available can't do that job. We are already at a point where you've got to have proof of concept of employing a human and that will continue. And of course, the ACTU's absurd suggestion is to have a national AI authority and to force employers to go into more red tape negotiations with their employees about the use of AI. It's already here.

KARVELAS: It is already here. It sounds like you're a bit dubious about it? 

MCKENZIE: To be fair, I actually love AI and what it's capable of, but we have to be careful about using it for productive gain, not because we have rendered humans too expensive or too difficult to employ. So much of the employment changes we've made in the last three years through this government actually disincentivise employing humans and deeply incentivise employing machines. 

KARVELAS: Oh, I'll put that to you Patrick Gorman, as the Assistant Minister on these issues. Does that mean you need an AI Act?

GORMAN: Firstly, I think we've seen this sort of catastrophic talk from the Coalition before. They said, with our previous industrial relations changes, that the economy would grind to a halt. The data we're seeing this week clearly shows that the Coalition were wrong then, and I think it's fair to guess that they're probably wrong now on a range of things. Artificial intelligence, if we just bring it down to what it really is, it's just a massive increase in computer power. We've seen over the last 60 years of computerisation in Australia, jobs have changed. We've created new jobs that we didn't even know existed. I'm sitting in a studio now where the camera operators are doing it remotely from somewhere else. That's incredible technology. Didn't exist 25 years ago. Things change, and we accept that. When it comes to regulation of AI, the first thing is that AI has to be compliant with the laws that already exist in Australia. And when it comes to the future, I want to make sure that we get the benefits for the Australian people of this massive uplift in computer power. We'll keep having those conversations. And when it comes to the productivity roundtable next week, we are and I'll just remind Zoe and all of you -

KARVELAS: Very briefly, because I want to ask you something else -

GORMAN: - we will be looking for consensus. 

KARVELAS: Yeah, okay, all right, let's see whether you get to consensus. We've discussed it a lot already, throughout the show, just on the death of David Stratton this afternoon, that we've heard. Very sad. Film critic legend, really, of the small screen, but the observer of the big screen. First to you, Patrick, a big legacy.

GORMAN: David Stratton was a champion of Australian stories and of Australian cinema. Big screen and the small screen as well. And the lesson that I stumbled across in sort of reflecting on this, is he talked about his views on the movie The Castle, an iconic Australian film. And he said that he didn't like it when he first saw it. He didn't think it was very funny. And then he reflected, and he watched it again, and he changed his mind. And I think for all of us in politics, there's something we can take from that. Go and have a closer look. And it might be a time for all of us in Australia to go and watch an Australian classic tonight.

KARVELAS: I think that's a really - and The Castle is a good pick for that. I'm glad he changed his mind on that. Zoe, final word to you? 

MCKENZIE: I'm devastated. David was a big part of my childhood. He told me what to go and see when I used to have time to go to the cinema. So he is a great loss to this country. The shows that he anchored are a great loss to this country, and the time to go to the cinema is a great personal loss to me. But nevertheless, I accept.

KARVELAS: No, I was thinking that too. He really is an icon of our childhoods and growing up, isn't he? So it's a big thing for so many of us. You've been lovely guests, especially at the end there where all the political argy-bargy was over and we could remember David. Thank you so much.

GORMAN: Thanks, Patricia.

MCKENZIE: Thanks.