TOM CONNELL, HOST: On a day out from the budget, few days out, we think, from the election. Joining me now Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman and former Liberal MP, Jason Falinski. Thank you both for your time. We've got pictures, I think, coming in from the budget for all of you excitedly wanting to see the pallets of paper, as Patrick just called them. Well, what we do know is in there, Patrick is a whole heap of spending and $2 billion in savings. That's it. Is this just a pre-election budget, too hard to actually go through and make some cuts there? So the budget deficit gets worse?
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Well, Tom, every budget has spending and new initiatives in it. This budget will be no different. When it comes to the significant savings we've made since we came to office, obviously we've had some almost $200 billion turnaround in terms of where deficits were due to be under the Liberal and National Party, to where we've been able to get them to now, and we'll see more of that detail tomorrow night. In every budget that we've put together, we've looked for savings, we've looked for ways to responsibly reduce Commonwealth spending where it's not necessary, while also investing in the things that people care about. And we make no apology for this being a budget that has a really strong, big focus on spending.
CONNELL: No apology for essentially, a lot more spending compared to saving? Is that just where we're at right now, that's the reality, isn't it?
GORMAN: There are some approaches that Peter Dutton and his colleagues have put forward that I reject. The idea that you'd sack 36,000 public servants, sacking public servants in every state and territory, leading to longer wait times for pensions, longer wait times for people to get their veterans' assistance, where they've served our nation in uniform. Yes we've rejected some of those ideas, and I make no apology for that.
CONNELL: Jason, have you been doing a sort of involuntary twitch every time the Coalition matches yet another big spending plan from Labor?
JASON FALINSKI, FORMER LIBERAL MP: Oh yes, Tom, or as we call them these days, investments, you know, because it's not spending, if you're making an investment. I mean, the overspending in this country is absurd. Debts gone up under this government. They've made no effort to save money. They've made no effort around productivity. This has been three years where they paid off their mates in the union movement and their mates in other service sectors. And the result of that is, is that we now have a budget that's out of control, inflation that's higher than it needs to be, and the you know, chickens are going to come home to roost, I suspect, after the election, but they're certainly coming home to roost.
CONNELL: So what do you make of the Coalition response? There's been a lot of matching, has there been too much?
FALINSKI: Yes, I think so Tom. I think that the big argument that is coming in this country –
CONNELL: What would you have liked to see them oppose?
FALINSKI: - is can we have a fiscally sustainable position. There are lots of - I mean, the specifics of what I think they should have opposed is, well, look, I think the Medicare announcement was a classic example where you had, under the previous government, the government I was a member of, the Liberal Party. You had bulk billing rates at 88 per cent. We're now going to spend $2.8 billion, is it Pat? $900 million of which will accrue to patients, $1.9 billion that will accrue to doctors or to the healthcare system. Which means that there's another hit to productivity and what we're doing, when if you just manage the system better, you can get the same results without spending other people's money. I mean, Tom we keep talking about, you know, David Pocock's been on television today talking about free this and free that. It's not free. It just costs someone else money. And what he's saying is, I don't want the people who vote for me to pay for that. I want someone else to pay for it. And I think all of us really need to start to realise that all these free things are not free.
CONNELL: When you look at that Medicare announcement on the surface of it, Patrick, we're talking about something like 30 per cent of the benefit going to patients. Am I missing something? Is the rest going to doctors? And that's a deliberate strategy to massively boost the pay of GPs?
GORMAN: What we want to do is to get some 4,800 GPs who currently aren't fully bulk billing practices, and get them back into bulk billing. What that will mean is that for nine out of ten visits to the GP, it will be bulk billed. Tom, I was a kid with asthma. I went to the doctor a lot as a child, and that was bulk billed. That was the Medicare that I grew up with. It's the Medicare I want for the next 40 years –
CONNELL: But on that spend, that extra spend, the amount that needs to be spent to get it up from sort of high 70s to 90. You know, the higher up that gets, the more expensive it gets because of the nature of it, you're effectively giving extra compensation to doctors who are already bulk billing. So am I reading that correctly? The quote Jason was giving there as well, that the vast majority of the money actually isn't going to patients out of that total spend?
GORMAN: The money will go to making sure that people get a fully bulk billed experience when they go to their local GP. That's where the money goes. We've been really open about it. You'll see all of our costings tomorrow night. You'll see all of our costings in the budget. And I give Jason huge credit for his honesty. He doesn't like, he's a traditional Liberal, he's the heart and soul of the Liberal party in New South Wales. He doesn't like these additional investments in Medicare. He doesn't like –
CONNELL: He won't like that you called them investments again, you've –
GORMAN: Well I think it is. I'll tell you that for me, investing in health is important. I think it's one of the things that makes Australia a great country. It's one of the things I'm really proud of. And if I've got a choice as an elected member of this Parliament to get more investments into Medicare, that's what I'll do.
CONNELL: Now, Jason, I know that you couldn't care less about sport so that loss of voice you've got it wasn't lamenting a referee or an umpire over the weekend, was it you watching the new corflute wars breaking out between the Teals and the Liberals, and bellowing at the television this afternoon?
FALINSKI: Tom, I've got to say it's been enjoyable to watch. There's a huge sense of pathos in this. When you know, you talk about integrity, but when you don't think anyone's watching, we all got to see what you're up to. I mean, can I tell Monique, that any pro-bono criminal lawyer, Monique, will give you this advice. Don't do the crime on tape. That makes it very, very difficult to defend what you did. And they've committed - you know, Simon Holmes à Court's got a lot of money, Monique, you should buy better criminal lawyers when you're doing this sort of stuff. I mean, it's just absurd –
CONNELL: Was the sign actually being removed from somewhere it shouldn't have been though?
FALINSKI: - and hypocrites, and we've finally seen it.
CONNELL: Just a bit of, you know, we talk about cutting down on government waste –
FALINSKI: I don't know, I don't know, it's not his job.
CONNELL: - we won't need police for these things anymore, we'll get a citizen along and they're sorting out illegally placed signs.
CONNELL: Yep, it was, they were investing in sign removal. I love it. Tom I mean, the fact is, you know, it's not the sign, it's that this is really, you know, when you pull the mask off, this is what's really behind the mask. It's a pretty nasty, brutal game, where we didn't want to talk about this today, I get it, but there are all these front groups that are popping up, like, you know, Hothouse, etc, which no one can seem to track back to anyone. They all appear to have funding that comes out of Climate 200 and it's just fundamentally dishonest and Pat, I got to say, we've all got to play by the same rules. Why is the Australian Electoral Commission allowing this to go on without actually forcing them to be upfront and honest about where their money's coming from? Because I think the Australian people, when they read these newspapers, would like to know that it's actually funded by a political organisation. So look, the sign is just a symptom of a much, much deeper and more serious disease.
CONNELL: Pat, you got, how do you feel about this? Is the AEC doing its job? Are you, I should know this, what are you, responsible for them in some way? Jason seems to think you should be fixing this up?
GORMAN: Firstly, I'll say that when it comes to the laws that we've introduced in this term of Parliament, it was to put further regulations around third party campaigners. We have done that, and that will kick in for the election after the one we're about to experience. When it comes to what we saw here, I actually think it's not the job of the AEC to run around policing everything. I actually think if you are standing for election, you take that responsibility on yourself. I don't think this was appropriate. I don't believe that the sign wars are what win elections. I think actually having good policies is what wins elections and having a good policy debate. This wasn't in that spirit, and I think it's obviously very embarrassing for the Member for Kooyong. I actually think there's 2025 Monique Ryan, we've got 2022 Monique Ryan, this was 2022 Monique Ryan. The people of Kooyong, like all Australians, value fairness, integrity and respect. This wasn't fair. This wasn't respectful. They had no integrity. It was the wrong way to conduct yourself when it comes to winning an election, and it's disrespectful to voters. And I'd just say to people you know, don't do activities like this, get out there and argue your case, especially when you've got millions and millions of dollars from Climate 200 buying you -
CONNELL: When you two agree so much, I just don't really know where to go with this. She has, we'll point out, the Member apologised, her husband as well. Wrong way to go about it they said, essentially. Jason, I'm going to end up with a pithy one for you. The approval rating of women for Peter Dutton comes in at 20 per cent according to Newspoll analysis. Why do women so dislike Peter Dutton?
FALINSKI: They just don't know him well enough, that's the problem here. You know, I think they should give him a chance. He's quite a charming guy. I think if they get an opportunity to sort of sit down and talk to him, I'm pretty sure he'll woo them off their feet. But look, I think that women are a key demographic for both -
GORMAN: It's not Married at First Sight Jason, it's an election!
FALINSKI: Yeah, sometimes though, Pat, you wonder, don't you? But look, I think that the Liberal Party has a lot of good policies that benefit everyone, including women. I think women are just getting to know Peter Dutton, and obviously, I think the more opportunity they get to see him in action, that numbers will go significantly higher than it is at the moment.
CONNELL: There you go. Well he'll be out there campaigning, maybe a few family moments and so on. We're going to go because I think you're just in a mischievous mood, Jason, you're going to get you in trouble, or me in trouble soon. We'll talk next week, Patrick, you as well, but thank you both as we finally end and we think this election campaign.