Television Interview - Sky News Afternoon Agenda

TOM CONNELL, HOST: Let's get more from the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman. It's the reality, isn't it? Quite a lot within the Labour movement and MPs are pretty uncomfortable with this visit. What about you?

PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: I welcome the visit. This is an invitation extended by the Australian Government through Her Excellency the Governor-General and it comes in the wake of a horrific terrorist attack. And President Herzog is here to provide reassurance to the Jewish communities who live here in Australia. I welcomed him in Sydney this morning. I – 

CONNELL: Do you think his tone reassured people because there was stuff about, you know, he wrote on this bomb that was destined for the Gaza war? His visit was seen as inflammatory. Do you think the tone of his visit has made people think, ‘well, this is not about the war in Gaza?’

GORMAN: If you saw him laying flowers at the site of a terrorist attack, I think you would know that the tone of this is a very sombre visit.

CONNELL: Is the time right for changes to capital gains tax?

GORMAN: The time is right for the work that we are doing, which is the tax cuts that come in, in the middle of this year. The tax cuts that come in - 

CONNELL: That’s not work, that's done.

GORMAN: Well look, I don't think - if I talk to the public servants in the Australian Taxation Office who have to do programming work with - and I have met with them, some of them work in my electorate in Northbridge. They have to work with all of the accounting software providers. There is a lot of work to roll out those tax cuts. I can reassure your viewers, I am not doing the programming. That is a good thing. I will leave that to the very capable public servants, the Australian Taxation Office. Our tax policies are out there. We put them in the budget as we do every year. It is very much heavily focused on supporting low and middle income earners. That is what I am here to do. That is who I am here to support and that is what we are doing.

CONNELL: It's been interesting looking back at pre-election promises. Labor never promised before the election it wouldn't touch capital gains tax. Does that mean you're free to make a change that takes effect before the election? There'd be no broken promise?

GORMAN: What we were really open with the Australian people is that we would take a suite of policies to the election, including the instant tax write off that people will be able to do in the near future. The tax cuts that the other side was saying they would roll back. When it comes to other tax reform, we have also been open that we are having an economic reform discussion in this building.

CONNELL: You said ‘no’ to negative gearing changes, but not ‘no’ to capital gains tax. 

GORMAN: In this building, there was a discussion last year about how do you make sure we lift productivity and we get the economic settings right for Australia's future. That was a conversation that was very open.

CONNELL: I haven’t seen much since about it.

GORMAN: Well, we did say that would feed into the budget, but that is a whole range of things. It is about making sure that we do things to support small business.

CONNELL: Do you think voters are ready for a conversation about capital gains tax changes?

GORMAN: I have always got the highest of respect for voters and their capacity to engage in difficult conversations. But when it comes to that conversation, Tom, I recognise that what we are focused on at the moment is implementing the tax changes that we have already had conversations with the Australian people about. Tax cuts. Support for apprentices. Making sure that we have more support for small businesses. 

CONNELL: Okay. 

GORMAN: They are the conversations we are having.

CONNELL: Patrick Gorman, short and sharp. Bit pressed for time today. Thank you.

GORMAN: Thanks, Tom.

ENDS