Interview with Tom Connell - Sky News Afternoon Agenda

TOM CONNELL, HOST: Joining me, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman, and the former Liberal MP, Jason Falinski. Thanks both for your time. So, let's just try to figure out what this thing's about. Or you can tell me, Patrick, because you know. The economic roundtable, is it that Labor's still up for bold reform, whatever that might be, but you'll take the changes to an election? Is that the best way of summing up where your head's at at the moment?  
 

PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: This is about the sort of government that we want to be, which is one that recognises there are huge opportunities when it comes to economic reforms, that will make sure that our country and our people are more prosperous. But we also want to open up the doors. We are literally opening up the doors of the Cabinet Suite tomorrow, inviting in a range of leaders across business, trade unions, public policy, to come together, put forward ideas. 

We have had some 900 submissions, and in that, yes, you have bold ideas, and some of them slightly contradictory to one another, in terms of the different proposals being put forward to us. We are happy to listen, to facilitate the conversation and then look for consensus. Because that is what - 

CONNELL: So, to get consensus, do you not need to take things, necessarily, to an election?

GORMAN: If we can get broad consensus on things that are necessary for our country, to grab the opportunities in front of us, that is a good foundation, as the Treasurer has said, for the budgets ahead of us. If some of those ideas go to an election, that is not a bad thing, either.

CONNELL: Alright. Though you're having a bit each way there. Jason. Sitting there and just temporarily taking off your Liberal Party hat. What changes - could you pick one that you just say, 'gee, this would be good for the good of the country, the good of the economy?' 

JASON FALINSKI, FORMER LIBERAL MP FOR MACKELLAR: Industrial relations reform. Removing power from the ACTU, from the Fair Work Ombudsman, and bringing back law and order to Australia's workplaces. Allowing employees to speak to their employers about coming up with conditions to improve their wages and their lives. 

What we have seen since the Fair Work Act was introduced by Labor in 2008, is productivity go backwards, and real wages are now worse off than they have ever been prior to the election of Kevin Rudd in 2007. This country is going backwards - and it is going backwards at an incredibly fast rate. What you heard from Patrick there, is the difference between rhetoric and the reality on the ground, which is, that Australia's living standards are falling faster than they've ever fallen before.

CONNELL: So, there's been a few elections with a version of that being put forward by the Liberal Party. It seems, from where I'm sitting, to have failed to have resonated with voters.

FALINSKI: Which elections? 

CONNELL: Well, there was an election over - 

FALINSKI: Well Tom - 

CONNELL: - bringing back essentially. Well, do you want to finish the question? It's okay. You can have your go. I'm saying, feel free to disagree with me - 

FALINSKI: Oh, I will. 

CONNELL: - whatever the merits of your argument. 

FALINSKI: Okay, thanks for the permission. 

CONNELL: - whatever the merits of your argument - sure. Is there an element to which you've put similar arguments forward in the past, particularly around IR, and they haven't resonated with voters? And if so, why not?

FALINSKI: So we put these arguments forward in 1996. It resulted in the Reith Reforms to the industrial relations system, and by the way, that was after a number of reforms undertaken by the Hawke-Keating Government, which decentralised wage fixing in Australia. What resulted over the next decade was productivity increases at three per cent per year for that decade. 

What happened after the Fair Work Act was instituted in 2008, was productivity growth fell to one per cent and after Covid, it has fallen below one per cent. Which means that real living standards and Australians' living standards are falling rapidly. I think, Tom, that what happened in the 2010s was that we were living off the good work of the Hawke-Keating years, and the Howard-Costello years, and we have now run out of that runway. And so we are now living - the problem in economics is, there's a lag effect. So bad policy takes a number of years to take effect, and that's what's happening right now - 

CONNELL: Okay. 

FALINSKI: - and Australians over the next two or three years will reap the reward for all of the bad policy that has been instituted under this government.

CONNELL: I guess for my mind, more relevant recent history, would have been the Malcolm Turnbull Double Dissolution Election,1996. You can, you know, say, 'well that mattered, and voters rejected what happened.' But most - more than half of voters weren't voting in that election. Anyway. You're entitled to pull up your example. 

That's just what I was thinking of. Patrick, let me ask you this: polling today talks about how voters want to balance the budget, and they say 'cut spending overwhelmingly, not new taxes.' Does Labor agree with that? Because that means tough decisions, which, so far, in terms of spending the GDP, Labor just hasn't been willing to make. 

GORMAN: What it means is doing what we have done over the budgets that we have been proud to deliver. Which is looking at where we can find savings that are responsible and allow us to have more money to pay for the things that the Australian people and the Australian Government want to invest in. 

Investing in Medicare. Investing in more housing. Investing in Free TAFE. They are the things we try and free up money for. If you look at it, Treasurer Chalmers has delivered more surpluses than Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison - 

CONNELL: But they - 

GORMAN: - combined. 

CONNELL: - they were from those big budget earnings over things such as really low unemployment, high prices - the things we dig up. They weren't structural changes. You haven't made the structural changes to bring down spending anywhere near what it was pre-Covid. 

GORMAN: Well we - 

CONNELL: That's in the budget. 

GORMAN: We have done significant reform when it comes to the budget, and you can see that in the Budget Papers. But what you also see is that when it comes to what Jason was just saying - we did have, and we just had the data out last week, we did have 1.3 per cent real wages growth over the last 12 months. That is under the policies of the Albanese Labor Government. We continue to do things that make sure that this is not just about economic growth for growth's sake. It is about making sure that the benefits of that growth go to the working people of Australia. Go to the people who have, maybe, put money in their superannuation, now planning their retirement. Go to people who are actually out there, helping in our schools, our hospitals, in private enterprise. That is who we want to support. When the only idea the Liberal Party has, is to go back 30 years in time, the industrial relations policies of John Howard, it is not too far from now that we will see them bring out WorkChoices - 

CONNELL: Not too sure Jason said quite that, but - 

GORMAN: It's pretty close. He was pretty bold. I'll give Jason this, he is always bold in his ideas. 

CONNELL: Let me ask you this Jason. Voters always react to a scare campaign on cuts - 

FALINSKI: Well before you ask me a question, Tom. I need to reply - 

CONNELL: - and they always [inaudible] campaign on taxes being too high -  

FALINSKI: Yeah, that's great - 

CONNELL: - we're pretty short on time - 

FALINSKI: - scare campaigns are great. Tom, but the fact of the matter is - 

CONNELL: Well no, my point is - 

FALINSKI: - Yeah I understand - 

CONNELL: - my point is this - 

FALINSKI: But the fact in the matter is. Wages fell - 

CONNELL: - are voters getting what they deserve. 

FALINSKI: Pat is talking about a 1.3% increase in real wages in the last 12 months. He ignores the previous - 

GORMAN: That is good news. 

FALINSKI: - Twenty-two months when wages fell by 12 per cent. So was it bad news when wages fell by 12 per cent, Pat? What we are observing is a dead cat bounce of central wage fixing, and that's what happens when the ACTU is in charge of your workplace, rather than you. Rather than workers of Australia being in charge of their workplace. We've talked Pat about, you know, we've heard Pat talk about investments in housing, investments in health. They're not investments. They're spending. Something about investments in Free TAFE. TAFE isn't free. It still costs money. Someone else is paying for it. These are not reforms - 

CONNELL: Alright. 

FALINSKI: - we have racked up. You know, Tom, you talk about budget surpluses under - in the last term of Government, the amount of debt that the Commonwealth Government managed, went up $120 billion. That's what matters, not the off-budget spending - 

CONNELL: Well I didn't - 

FALINSKI: - that Jim Chalmers - 

CONNELL: - I'll just pull you up there. Didn't talk about budget surpluses -  

FALINSKI: - was able to shunt off so he had surpluses.

CONNELL: I actually didn't. Patrick mentioned that when - 

FALINSKI: You did. 

CONNELL: - I said [inaudible] conditions - 

FALINSKI: Well then Pat did - 

GORMAN: I think we know what's happening here. 

FALINSKI: No, I'm sorry. Sorry for getting you two mixed up - 

GORMAN: Jason is a little bit jilted - 

CONNELL: Here we go. This is a good time to introduce this - 

FALINSKI: Here we go. The personal attacks - 

GORMAN: Jason is a little bit jilted - 

FALINSKI: - we've run out of ideas, and we're onto the personal attacks - 

GORMAN: But I am looking forward to his written submission. I am sure he will share it on social media. I look forward to his contribution.

CONNELL: I don't think we've had any shortage of you being able to vent your feelings on the program, Jason - 

FALINSKI: You know what. For three years, Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers said, 'we're in opposition, not in government.' You guys are in government. You guys are the ones that have seen real wages decline to levels last seen in 2007. Why don't you come up with ideas instead of looking to other people - ?

GORMAN: We have got a record low gender pay gap. 

CONNELL: Pat, just to prove I can cut both of you off. Jason, somebody sent me this.

[Shows photo of painted portrait of Jason Falinksi at Young Liberals event]

FALINSKI: Oh, gender pay gap. We've reduced the wages of men. Oh, fantastic. Well done. 

CONNELL: Not sure - someone sent me this. I've been a bit busy today. I meant to do some research to what's happening here. It is of course - 

FALINSKI: Oh, sorry, was I stopping you from getting to this? Right, okay. 

CONNELL: Well, can you - what's happening here? Because this was sent to me, apropos of nothing. What's happening here, Jason? 

FALINSKI: Who sent it to you?

CONNELL: Apart from obviously - 

FALINSKI: Who sent it to you? Who sent it to you, Tom? 

CONNELL: I couldn't say that. Can you - 

FALINSKI: Did Pat send it to you? 

CONNELL: I'm not going to - it wasn't a member of a political party, if that helps you? What's happening here? Is this the esteemed - 

FALINSKI: No. That doesn't help - 

CONNELL: - of which you were held - 

FALINSKI: - so someone on the planet Earth, sent it to you - 

CONNELL: - rudderless ever since you were booted out of Mackellar? Is that the real issue with the Liberal Party right now? 

FALINSKI: I'd leave that up to you and Pat. I'm sure you two can make enough fun of me without me helping you out. 

GORMAN: How much did it go for Jason, do you know that?

FALINSKI: Well, what I can tell you is, Patrick, since you are - just between you and I. There was a bidding war for it. I think it went for around the $9,000 mark, but the person who won never picked it up. So, there you go. 

GORMAN: Like a good - 

FALINSKI: - $9,000 [inaudible] house - 

GORMAN: - like a good political auction prize. You could auction it again at the next Young Liberal Convention. 

CONNELL: Nine thousand dollars. No one will ever pay $9,000 for any form of a picture of me. So, I think you're doing all right, Jason. Let's end it on that note and see if that means - 

FALINSKI: I don't think that's true. Pat will pay nine and a half. I'd chip in a few.

CONNELL: You'd chip in? Well, that's good. All right. Look. We'll, talk next week - 

GORMAN: Speak for yourself Jason. 

CONNELL: Jason, Pat, it's always interesting.