Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Assistant Minister for the Public Service
TOM CONNELL, HOST: Well the shows called ‘Politics Now’, we thought, why not get a politician to discuss some things? The Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman, is getting the privilege of being the first one to appear on the programme.
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE: You’re welcome.
CONNELL: Appreciate your time.
GORMAN: It’s good to be here. It’s very exciting that I don’t just get your wonderful questions, Tom, but that if anyone thinks you’re not doing well enough, there is three backups.
CONNELL: Trust me, they all have strong views on how I’m doing. What about this right to disconnect? And we didn’t hear anything about this until the Greens were talking about it. So, is Labor saying this is a good idea and you agree with it, or are you simply going, this is a quid pro quo to get the Greens over the line?
GORMAN: Obviously, we’re negotiating a range of proposals in what we put forward as the Closing Loopholes Package. Our priority has been for gig workers and for casuals who’ve been casuals for too long. That’s what we’re trying to get through the Senate. But the challenges that we’ve got when it comes to what’s happened with technology over the last 20 years and how that’s changed the work relationship, we’re really happy to have that conversation. I think the example that really struck me that makes sense is if you think about a teacher in a classroom from nine until three, doing paperwork and things for another couple of hours, it’s reasonable that you give them some level of industrial protection that they don’t have to respond to a student’s or a parent’s email at eight or nine o’clock at night.
CONNELL: Is it clear that that was happening beforehand? They can get an email, they don’t have to respond to it. Is this just legislation trying to find a problem here?
GORMAN: I think it’s about acknowledging that what you want is that not to have penalties for people who maybe don’t respond to that email that comes in at nine o’clock at night. Again, I mean, there’s a lot of industrial agreements that kind of work through these problems. Some protect a number of businesses already. The West Australia newspaper is an example the Ministers use, already has some of these protections in them. Other agreements recognise that people need to be contacted at all sorts of hours. So, I think this is just about recognising. The nature of work is changing. It’s reasonable to have some protections in there for people. But even an example of a cafe, and we just saw that before, if you’re running a cafe and you’ve got someone who calls in sick for work and you need to call your other employees to see if they can come in to cover the shift, that’s totally fine.
ANDREW CLENNELL, CO-HOST: But if there’s an employee takes a stop order to the Fair Work Commission, application for that, and that stop order is given and then disobeyed, can the Fair Work Commission under this fine the business?
GORMAN: I think what we always look for is ways of encouraging cooperation in industrial relations. I don’t want to get into a hypothetical about how the Fair Work commission would deal with a specific application for a stop work order. I think that’s something that I-
CLENNELL: But this is really integral to this debate. I mean, it’s okay as an Assistant Minister, I guess, if you don’t know the fine print of the legislation, but is it your understanding there can be penalties associated with this or not?
GORMAN: I think the focus, as I just noticed to Tom, we’re still talking through how we get this particular protection into the package where our priority, again is, casuals and gig economy workers. The intention is to give some rights to employees and to say it’s okay not to respond to that email or that text message if it’s the twelfth or thirtieth hour-
CLENNELL: But the Greens say the deal is done. They say this is already worked out, is that not the case?
GORMAN: I’m not going to preempt the Minister for Employment Relations in terms of his announcements and the final package that is still being worked through. That’s the fact of the matter.
ASHLEIGH GILLON, CO-HOST: Patrick, I wanted to ask. You’ve had a front row seat to broken political promises over the last couple of decades. You famously worked for Kevin Rudd. We all remember when the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was shelved. Is that a bit of an eye roll there, working for Kevin Rudd, or a sigh?
GORMAN: There was a deep breath, but, I think we’ve just moved on from talking about the Greens political party-
GILLON: Okay, okay, maybe we will leave it at a that-
GORMAN: When I talk about the carbon pollution reduction –
GILLON: I just wanted to ask-
GORMAN: My memory of that time is where the Greens actually stopped good environmental policy.
GILLON: Okay, well lets not go back over that part of the history.
GORMAN: But it’s a fact that should be-
GILLON: I want to ask you, though, if a policy backflip is popular, as we’re being led to believe so far in terms of the Newspoll on this tax backflip, does that protect a leader? Do you think of losing the trust of voters, or can something that is popular still be a trust breaker when it comes to the polls?
GORMAN: Well, I think if you ask the question about leadership, leadership and being a leader is about doing the right thing by the people that you lead. In terms of the job of a Prime Minister, in terms of leading the Australian people, it’s about when you see the people in your country having huge cost of living pressures. Of course, it is on you to take the advice that you receive to do everything you can to alleviate those pressures while not adding to them. That’s indeed what we saw in Question Time today was the Prime Minister very clearly outlining that we’re seeking to reduce cost of living pressures on people who are earning wages in this country while not adding to inflation. We’ve managed to find the best way through, having taken the advice from Treasury and elsewhere.
KIERAN GILBERT, CO-HOST: Is it more tricky in WA with the FIFO workers? FIFO workers earn a bit more, but they make sacrifices in order to do that and don’t have sort of the same longevity as other careers might have.
GORMAN: I got thousands of fly and fly out workers in my electorate, but 80% of people in my electorate will be better off under these changes. We had Minister Madeleine King answering in Question Time, pointing out that actually the average wage in the mining industry is about $145,000, so people still get a sizeable tax cut. She pointed out that if you work, a lot of the work that’s done is not actually driving the trucks or running the mine sites. It’s all of those ancillary services from cleaning, chefs, all of those other supports. They will get bigger tax cuts.
GILBERT: Has it got you back in the game, do you think? There was a sense the Prime Minister was a bit punch drunk at the end of last year off of the back of the Voice. Is this something that gets you back in the game? As Ash was alluding to.
GORMAN: I’m on a panel with four commentators. I won’t become a fifth commentator.
GILBERT: Do it. Come on.
GORMAN: It’s very kind of you. It does feel a little bit like an election night thing, but I’m not going to be lulled into that at all. What I’ll just say is we thought this was the right thing to do by the Australian people. We’ve been really upfront explaining it. We’ve been out there explaining it now for two weeks. The feedback I’ve received is that people understand why we’ve made this change. You saw the Prime Minister in Question Time today, kind of reading some of the feedback that he’s received from people who’ve written to him. We’re being upfront, and when you do the right thing, I think people understand. Even where it is a change in position. Again, we’ve been upfront about that. People understand why you’re doing it now.
CLENNELL: Mr. Gorman, we know because the Prime Minister keeps telling us this has nothing to do with Dunkley, this tax cuts policy. We know that right? But I just wonder, do you think you’re going to win Dunkley now that by-election?
GORMAN: I haven’t had the pleasure of being in Dunkley to meet Jodie Belyea, our candidate. Everything I’ve read is very impressive. It is a decision for the people of Dunkley, but we’ve put forward a very strong candidate. It’s still, I think, just over or just under a month away, it’s a decision for the people of Dunkley to make, obviously, in quite tragic circumstances. But I don’t want to preempt their decision. But I think we’ll give it the absolute best and it’s ultimately up to the people to decide. And you’ll have a panel that feels a little bit like this in just a few weeks time.
CONNELL: You’re pretty close to the PM with your role as well Assistant to the Prime Minister. Did he just sort of ask you before doing this, making a big call here? Is it worth a broken promise? Do you think it’ll be worth it in the long run?
GORMAN: I love that you’ve invited me on to disclose private conversations. That’s not something that I do. We had a Prime Minister who used to do that a bit-
CONNELL: We said he consults-
GORMAN: I saw him on that other network earlier this week, but I won’t mention the program or the network. Like most responsible adults, I keep private conversations private.
CLENNELL: Now they tell me Kevin Rudd, in Washington, is duchessing Congressman like he used to duchess Caucus members for a vote for the leadership. He’s becoming quite effective at that. Have you heard any mail about your old boss in terms of how he’s carrying out that job?
GORMAN: For some of those who’s had low expectations of Kevin, I’d say that it’s always a mistake to underestimate Kevin Rudd. I think he’s done a fantastic job as our ambassador. We saw some footage of him at the ‘G’day Australia’ event earlier this week with some well known Australian celebrities. I did joke to one of my friends as to whether I’m not sure if Kevin knew all of the celebrities and pop stars, that he was hanging out with, but he seems to be having a very good time. It’s the job of all of our ambassadors and high commissioners to build relationships across the political spectrum in the countries that they operate, to further Australia’s interests. Kevin’s doing that. We welcome it and we saw that with the state visit at the end of last.
CONNELL: We’re going to end it there. Patrick, you can be our diplomat to tell the rest of your colleagues that it’s very friendly here to come on the program.
GORMAN: I’ll give it a five star review on Google Tom.
CONNELL: Very good. Patrick Gorman. Thank you, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister.
GILBERT: Thanks Pat.
