TOM CONNELL, HOST: It's 11:30, so that's why we're bringing you this panel that you all wait for it this time. Joining me live, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman. And, he's got a new title, he felt a bit left out, he didn't want to be a former MP. So, it's the current NSW Liberal President, Jason Falinski. Should we start the show? Patrick, congratulations to Jason. What do you make of his ascension? His latest ascension, latest job?
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE: It's one of the most sensible decisions that the NSW Liberal Party has made in very long time. In fact, its common sense approach has shocked me, even all the way from Western Australia. But I do congratulate Jason, and I'm actually a big believer that people should engage in their political parties. Whatever it is that you believe, if there's a political party that shares those beliefs, to get engaged and do something about it. I'm not going to say that you should go and join the NSW Liberals -
CONNELL: - I was just going to say, it sounds like it. If that's what you believe in - join the Liberal Party? Is that what you're saying?
GORMAN: Well, look, if the Liberal Party has to exist and they have to have a President, I'm glad its Jason.
CONNELL: Jason, I don't want this to go for too long. You want 10 seconds response, then? This is feeling a bit "kumbaya" to me, but I started it, I guess.
JASON FALINSKI, NSW LIBERAL PARTY PRESIDENT: Tom, I'm going to spend the next three weeks explaining all this effusive praise from the Labor Party. This could do me a lot of damage. Thanks, Patrick.
CONNELL: He's a double agent, we know that.
GORMAN: Here to help.
CONNELL: All right, let's start with the real questions. Patrick: Liberal Party saying that they want to push for support so that people who are on welfare can actually earn more. This does make sense, doesn't it? Because the effective marginal tax rate for earning extra money when you're on welfare is something in the order of 50%. That doesn't make sense, does it?
GORMAN: Well, if you look at this rate, which is that you can earn up to $150 before you start to lose those allowances, that's the rates that Mr Dutton thought was reasonable when he was in Cabinet when they set it at that rate in 2021. And when it comes to the proposal from Mr Dutton, this will actually push about 50,000 people back onto the welfare system. So, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And I think, obviously, when Mr Dutton's out there asking for people to support an idea that he's been banging on about for eleven weeks, it's reasonable to expect that he's actually done the costings. I went and checked the Parliamentary Budget Office website this morning to see if those costings were there. They are not. We have not seen a proper costed policy from Mr Dutton, and that might be understandable if he had lots of policy ideas. This is the one policy idea he's put forward.
CONNELL: Okay. There's a bit of a sneaky line you put in there, I thought. 'Push people back onto welfare.' People out there and working would now be eligible for a welfare payment and have more money for them or their family. That's a bad thing?
GORMAN: Well, which is why we want to see what is the actual detail of this policy. Where are the costings? And -
CONNELL: But when you say 'push people onto welfare,' that's what it does. That's an interesting way to describe -
GORMAN: These are people who have made a choice within the current rules, that have operated for a number of years, to go and seek more work. To earn more -
CONNELL: But they didn't make a choice to not get the welfare payment.
GORMAN: No, they've made a choice to go and earn more, to work more. They are in the labour market, and that's a good thing. And if you stay in the labour market, they don't leave the labour market. But we have to make choices about where we want to support people. The choice we made was to prioritise that $40 a fortnight increase in JobSeeker to prioritise. And I think the thing I was worried about when I read the papers this morning, was that Mr Dutton was potentially going to hold up that bill, which would have meant that 57,000 single parents would have missed out on the payments.
CONNELL: Jason can clear that up for us. Are you actually, as a party, going to oppose the Jobseeker increase? It sounded like probably not.
FALINSKI: We're obviously in talks with The Labor Party because the one thing that we want to see is we want to see Australians better off. We don't want to see any Australian left behind. We want to see all Australians better off. And that's why this proposal by Peter. Dutton is such a good one. Because the truth is that people who are on welfare, often when they move into paid employment find themselves worse off. That is that they face actual taxes of greater than 100% when you take into account the reduction in welfare. Now, the one thing that I thought the Labor Party and the Liberal Party agreed on was the best form of welfare is a job. Unfortunately for The Labor Party its now trapped in this coalition with the Greens and the Teals and they don't believe that. You know, they believe in the 'Cassandra Goldie' of the world, which is that people should be on welfare for as long as possible and a lifetime, if that makes a difference. And what we know is that, and Pat knows this too, that when people are on welfare, there are a whole bunch of negative outcomes. And that's why the sole purpose of a welfare programme should be to get as many people into employment as possible.
CONNELL: And the Jobseeker element though, that extra $40. You're not actually opposing that? You think the money would be better spent elsewhere, but there's not going to be MPs voting against it, from the sounds of things?
FALINSKI: My understanding, Tom, unless something's changed in the very recent, that that won't be opposed. But, look, there are a lot of discussions going on down in Canberra, as you're aware, and as Pat is aware. So, hopefully all those things can be resolved and we can get on with the job of making as many people's lives better in the Australian community as possible.
CONNELL: Alright? Now, the policy you criticised, Patrick Gorman, I'm being told it's fully costed by the PBO and announced? So?
GORMAN: I said, as I just did, Tom, to your viewers, which is: I went and checked the PBO website. They tend to once, a party has released a full costing that they have contributed to, they tend to put that on their website.
CONNELL: Maybe there's a lag there. 1.4 billion, I think.
GORMAN: But maybe it's finally out. We've been waiting eleven weeks. Eleven weeks for one piece of homework from Mr Dutton.
CONNELL: Well, 1.4 billion, apparently. A reasonable price tag?
GORMAN: Tom. I couldn't find the costings before I walked into your studio. I hope you'll be able to see them as I walk out.
FALINSKI: Well, because, as Patrick is well aware, as he's done costings through the PBO himself, that you can ask for the costings to be kept confidential and that's why he's not seeing them on the website. I'm not sure what Patrick's asking for. Is he asking for the PBO to release them publicly, or?
GORMAN: No, no, I think Mr Dutton should release his costings. I've been saying that -
FALINSKI: Well, he has -
GORMAN: - since the day after Budget, where he announced this policy at Budget way back in May -
FALINSKI: - but Pat he has -
GORMAN: - no costings announced, but he's responded to the pressure -
FALINSKI: - no, but he announced the cost of it. No, he hasn't responded to any pressure. He simply announced an idea that gets more Australians into employment.
GORMAN: - if I walk out of here and there's a properly costed policy -
CONNELL: What's properly? So, do you want the - so the price tag's out there. You're saying the full information, Patrick Gorman, what are we probing for here?
GORMAN: This is a complex area of policy. It would be reasonable to expect we know both the costs of -
CONNELL: You've got to trust the PBO, though, this invention of Julia Gillard and the Crossbench ten years ago that helped Oppositions being able to give credible numbers and meant that -
FALINSKI: - all good ideas come from Julia Gillard and the Crossbench, Tom.
CONNELL: Anything? Do you want to sign that one off? We're meant to do other topic. We've got 33 seconds for it, Patrick? Housing. I'm just going to go to it. You don't get a response to that. Do the Greens have a point, Patrick, on housing? Because you're saying, here's an annual amount, the maximum it can contribute is $500 million a year. That's nothing for social and affordable housing, and it's not as much as is needed. So, 'better than nothing' seems to be that the best slogan for this.
GORMAN: The Greens don't have a public policy position, they've got a perpetual campaign when it comes to housing. That's what they want. They are not interested in governing. They are interested in perpetual campaigning. It'll be a minimum of $500 million a year invested in social housing. Now, Jason just trotted out the line; 'the best form of welfare is a job.' Well, I'd say to the Greens, the best form of investing in housing is investing in housing. This is $500 million that could be invested that they are choosing to block. And we saw again, the Greens housing spokesperson out there saying, oh, no, we've got to keep blocking things in the Senate as an option. I mean, that's not constructive. That's not looking to support people into housing. They might not like the financing model, and that's up to them but they have to be honest with people that they are blocking something that went to an election that the people of Australia endorsed in May last year and would build 30,000 additional homes that the Greens and the Coalition are holding up in the Senate.
CONNELL: It'd be a shortfall -
FALINSKI: Tom, can I add, the Greens are just despicable frauds on this. They are complete and utter frauds and I listened to Max Chandler-Mather on your programme before we came on. I mean it is absolutely humiliating that the Prime Minister has to deal with someone who has no idea what he's talking about, who has no theory on what he's saying, who at the same time is arguing for more social housing, is up in his own electorate campaigning against it. The reason we have a housing crisis in this country is because of the Greens and people like Clover Moore. And it is long past time that the Australian media started calling them out on it instead of indulging their fantasies and pretending that they care about anyone but themselves.
CONNELL: Alright. Not sure if that's commentary on me on indulging fantasies, but I've got a thick skin if it is. That's okay. Final question to you, Pat. And I guess Jason gets to go too. You wanted to talk about the Rockingham by-election, which yeah - is this your final sort of legacy tribute to the great Emperor of the West, otherwise known as former Premier Mark McGowan?
GORMAN: Well, I started the programme congratulating, Jason, so, I guess I can end the programme congratulating Magenta Marshall, the new Labor Member for Rockingham. She's going to make an incredible contribution to the state Parliament. It was great to be there on Saturday, handing out to support her. The Liberal Party do have some explaining to do as to why their primary vote in Rockingham, as we saw, is still stuck with a one in front of it. I think 17% of the primary vote, that that must have hurt. I know that Michaelia Cash in particular, was out there doorknocking, letterboxing, speaking at the campaign launch. Threw everything in to trying to get a Liberal up in Rockingham. To get a 17% primary vote would be an ego-damaging blow for Michaelia.
CONNELL: Feels a bit like celebrating hard when Australia beats Scotland in the cricket or something. Jason, feel free to use that line if you want.
FALINSKI: Well, I won't, Tom. And I apologise if I got under your thick skin earlier. It wasn't aimed at you, Generally speaking. What I will say is, if Pat's worried about Michaelia's ego being hurt by this result, he should assuage himself that I'm sure she's okay today. The fact of the matter is that there was a massive swing towards the Liberal Party in this seat. We were hardly campaigning seriously. It was Premier McGowan's former seat -
GORMAN: You had two hundred people out there doorknocking two weeks ago!
FALINSKI: And I understand why Patrick's out here today. Talking up a result where there was no contest. What Pat wants to avert everyone's eyes from is recent polling in Western Australia that shows that if there were a statewide election in WA, the Labor Party would lose and that's the impact of just one Premier leaving in Western Australia. I'm sure we'll see a few more leaving before now and their next election. Yeah.
CONNELL: 54-46, that poll. If you believe that, good luck to you. I'm trying to remember the company that did it, because I now sound like I'm sledging them and I don't know if I should or not, but I've done it anyway. Jason, Patrick, if we all still have a job, we'll talk next week or next fortnight. Thank you.