PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: I want to bring in my political panel to understand the first day back of Parliament. Patrick Gorman is the Assistant Employment Minister. Garth Hamilton is the Shadow Assistant Minister for Energy Security. Welcome to both of you.
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Good to be here.
KARVELAS: All right, starting on Digital Duty of Care, the Government has removed one of the biggest parts that your side of politics was complaining about, and that's the Minister having the right to decide big areas that should be essentially prohibited. That's now not there. The whole Parliament gets to decide. Isn't that better? And why won't you support it?
GARTH HAMILTON, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR ENERGY SECURITY: I think that's a very good step and that shows that there's a sensible and open approach by the Government on this, I hope that will continue. I'll be honest, I don't have great faith in social media companies. I don't think many people do. I think we do want to see our kids protected. But I think there's further steps need to be taken, one of which is some sort of carve out for media, so that we can have a conversation here PK. That may cross themes that are harmful, but could be an important conversation, you know - international conversation - to advance, you know, these topics that we have to deal with. I think that's a reasonable request. The Government's taken this step. I think there's a few more to go. But look, I can't express it more clearly, the Coalition does want to make sure that we're protecting children. And we do see the threat of social media companies ignoring any obligations whatsoever on that front.
KARVELAS: The reform, it seems that at this stage the Coalition won't support it, so, you need the Greens, but they want to do a whole lot of things to really boost this – penalties higher. Having the ability for people who are harmed to actually, you know, sue and get a recompense for their suffering. Are these things that you're willing to do or are you just going to hold the line?
GORMAN: Look, I'm not convinced from the proposal from the Greens, that we need to give more work for barristers like David Shoebridge, to go out and sort of have more legal work done. I think we want to make sure that we remove the harms. That is the intent of our legislation.
KARVELAS: But if you've been harmed, assisting people to have a better legal pathway, to have, to actually be able to answer that question –
GORMAN: Yeah, but the eSafety Commissioner already has a range of powers, and I don't agree with Senator Shoebridge who went and talked down Australia's world leading eSafety Commission and eSafety Commissioner. We have got a very strong system that we are looking to make even stronger. I would urge all members of the Parliament, whatever their Party, to look at the legislation, assess it on its merits and if they think that it will do something – and I'm not saying it's going to be perfect for every feed on every screen in the entire nation – but if they think it's going to do something to protect children and to give Australians a bit more of a say to push back against those massive multinational social media companies, they should vote for it.
KARVELAS: I want to change to another topic, and that has been really contentious today, and that's the live streamed execution in the U.S. Now, this obviously, kind of, is pretty alarming for people, especially in a country like us, we don't do that. But there has been a proposal to ban seeing it from the Greens. Should we be seeing it?
HAMILTON: PK I used to work in an office in Saudi Arabia where ‘chop-chop square’ was just out the window every Friday, people were executed. I can't think of anything more barbaric. And wanting to see it I think is a – I can't understand someone who would want to see it. I'm not someone who wants to ban things. I think you should be able to make that decision yourself. But yeah, one for me – I wouldn't encourage anyone to watch something like that.
KARVELAS: In terms of Australia making it clear we don't support this – David Shoebridge, who started at the beginning of the show, suggested that as a country that opposes the death penalty, we should be more active in actually doing that. Especially with our ally. Why aren't we, why didn't we hear Ministers today saying this is alarming?
GORMAN: Well, firstly, Australia does oppose the death penalty, and we oppose it in all circumstances. We have a really strong principled position that we've held as a nation for a very long time. And I would note to people who might think we're not doing anything about that - Mark Dreyfus, as our Special Envoy for Human Rights, is specifically working on advocating Australia's position to not just say that we don't like it when a country uses the death penalty, but to advocate our position that it should be abolished in every nation. That is our position and it has been and it's what we advocate for in international forums.
KARVELAS: Okay, why was everyone so careful. I mean, will you say the US is doing the wrong thing?
GORMAN: Well, I'd point your viewers to what even, JD Vance, as the Vice President of the United States has said, which is questioning whether that livestream will go ahead. It's scheduled for December –
KARVELAS: So, you hope it doesn't?
GORMAN: Well, so I'll point you to JD Vance –
KARVELAS: I don't want JD – no, no, no, no. You're not getting away with that. No. Do you want it to go ahead?
GORMAN: I don't believe that anyone should get the death penalty. So, therefore I don't believe that there should be any broadcasting of the death penalty. Simple as that.
KARVELAS: Do you agree?
HAMILTON: Yeah, I don't want it to go ahead. I think it's terrible.
KARVELAS: Yeah.
HAMILTON: Who the hell wants to watch that? Honestly, what a terrible thing.
KARVELAS: Yeah, it is. It's a pretty alarming thing. Okay, finally, and this one's for you, my friend.
HAMILTON: You’ve got a smirk.
KARVELAS: I do. Josh Frydenberg seems to maybe be suggesting or positioning to come back. Yeah, I don't think he wants to come back to work on backbench reports.
HAMILTON: What's wrong with backbench reports? They're an important part of –
KARVELAS: Do you think that's what he wants to do, though? Come on.
HAMILTON: Oh, look –
KARVELAS: Is he the leader-in-waiting?
HAMILTON: I'm very happy to see Josh, you know, expressing his interests. I'll give you the political answer. The only comeback I'm interested at the moment is Powderfinger. Australians want us to go forward. I've spoken to you on this many times, PK. The Liberal Party's gone through a period where we need to rebuild and have some new ideas and a way forward and a way ahead. And I think that's what we should be focused on. And right now, I am very happy that Angus Taylor has been doing the hard work on the policy front. And we've seen that. We've seen young backbenchers, Mary Aldred, come through and put her policies forward on the tobacco issue. I think that's been great. That's what we're showing. We are moving forward.
KARVELAS: So, you don't think – your issue is, let's not focus on past people. Is that what you're saying? Like it’s the past?
HAMILTON: I'm focused forward and I think most people want us to be doing that.
KARVELAS: Alright, I'm going to ask more bluntly. Maybe my question wasn't good enough.
HAMILTON: It was a very good question.
KARVELAS: No, it wasn't good enough. So, let me ask this. Does this distract Angus Taylor being able to do his job?
HAMILTON: Not at all. Not at all. It's great to see Josh expressing his interest, but we're getting on with the job. It hasn't stopped us from doing one thing.
KARVELAS: One of the criticisms from the former Treasurer is that the country's not being run well. There is economic malaise. A lot of people are really disappointed in the way things are going. Do you accept that that grievance people want an answer to, because they feel like Labor hasn't done a good enough job?
GORMAN: People can feel whatever they want. This is a free country. I'm not surprised to see Josh Frydenberg continue to criticise this Government as he did in the 2022 Election and as it looks like he wants to do in the 2028 Election. That doesn't surprise me. I'm not going to spend a lot of time – I know there’s a lot of conversation in the Coalition about whether there's so little talent inside their party room that they've got to go and bring Josh Frydenberg back to lead them. But of course, I imagine that Josh Frydenberg's criticisms of the Government will continue. It is what he did when he's in Parliament. It's probably what he's going to do to try and get himself back into Parliament.
KARVELAS: Can you have a leader from outside the Parliament?
HAMILTON: Probably. I'm not interested in one, though.
KARVELAS: No, no. I'm not saying you're about to battle it outside of the Parliament. But the idea – I mean, I think it happened with Hawkie, didn't it? Like he was outside the Parliament –
GORMAN: I think he was in the Parliament.
KARVELAS: Yeah. But they brought him in, like, you know, with the idea of becoming a leader.
HAMILTON: We just did Campbell Newman in Queensland. So, there is a - you know, that happened in Queensland and didn't really work out terribly well.
KARVELAS: No, it didn't work there very well.
HAMILTON: You know, so maybe that's not the case.
KARVELAS: Sometimes, though, as did happen in the history books, you look to somebody you think might be a good option.
HAMILTON: I'm very happy with where we're going.
KARVELAS: I've tried that 50 times. It’s time to end the show. Thank you to both of you.