Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister
TOM CONNELL, HOST: There’s a growing call to at least reconsider phase three of the income tax cut plan that was initially passed by the Coalition and eventually supported by Labor. Joining me live is Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman, for more on this, thanks for your time. We’ve got, in particular Senate and House crossbench Senators, crossbenchers I should say, saying, look at this, be willing to talk about the timing or even it going ahead altogether. Are you open for a discussion?
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Well, I know some of the new Members of the Parliament are asking for it to reconsider this. I was in the Parliament when we legislated these tax cuts. As well known, Labor voted for these tax cuts. We don’t see that this is a conversation that is really worth having. The decision has been made, it’s been taken to the election. Indeed, these tax cuts have been to two elections. This basically has been legislated. I understand why some of the independents might want to get a bit of attention and media, but no, we support the stage three tax cuts. This decision has been made. There are other areas that we can work on to try and get more revenue into the Commonwealth Budget, such as the work we’re doing on multinational tax avoidance.
CONNELL: Nothing would touch the side, though, compared to this when you’re talking about, what, $200 billion plus? This was passed in 2019, it would come into effect in 2024. So you’re talking five years in which that time there’s been a serious bushfire disaster, floods, and not to mention basically a doubling of our forecast debt because of COVID. Don’t you have a new conversation when the facts around a matter change?
GORMAN: Obviously, a conversation was had just 100 days ago at the election, where the Labor Party went to the election saying that we would leave these in the Budget, indeed the forward estimates and our costings were based on these tax cuts remaining. We see there’s opportunity when it comes to multinational tax avoidance and indeed in sort of tidying up some of the rorts and wastes that the previous government did kind of make as a sort of habit in their government processes. So we see other areas where we can find revenue while maintaining faith with the Australian people that what they are told at an election is what happens afterwards and on these big questions like tax cuts, we support stage three tax cuts and they will remain in the Government’s Budget.
CONNELL: All right, is that sort of come hell or high water? I mean, we might even be facing a recession next year and there’ll be all sorts of calls on instant spending to get the economy going. At that point, again, you’ve got one huge untapped reserve of spending. Would it ever be considered?
GORMAN: They’ve been legislated for a number of years. They’re in the forward estimates. We support the tax cuts. We went to the election three months ago saying that we’d support tax cuts. This conversation has been had so if others in the Parliament want to suggest areas for revenue or reducing waste or reducing rorts, we’re really open to that conversation. But I think that’s where the energy needs to be right now.
CONNELL: All right, you’ve been emphatic on that. Five days isolation time is the push for Australia to join the rest of the world from seven. This would alleviate a lot of pressure, even just in the healthcare area, because people actually be able to go back to work as long as they’re not sick, they can still stay at home obviously if they’re sick from COVID. Where do you sit on this?
GORMAN: I’ve been very consistent on your programme, Tom. I always want to see the health advice first. So I understand there might be some more health advice coming forward in the next few days. I’m not entirely sure whether it’s on the National Cabinet agenda for Wednesday or not, but I’m sure if there is a coordinated move where the states and the territories and the Commonwealth can get together and look at these things, that’s where you’d have that discussion. But I don’t really have much else to add.
CONNELL: Should we all get the health advice, to have that publicly released so we can all have a view on it then, and have a public discussion about it?
GORMAN: We’re having a public discussion now. The health advice is put out in different forms. Obviously, we’re at a different stage of the pandemic. The New South Wales Premier, I understand, has a very strong view on this. I understand why he has that strong view. But as to how you sort of reduce these things and change them over time, I don’t want to get ahead of the leaders, the elected leaders of the states, the territories, indeed, the Prime Minister. These conversations will happen over the coming weeks. It was put forward a few weeks ago and people felt that it wasn’t the right thing to do at that point in time. That may change at some point in the future, but I don’t have much else to add.
CONNELL: All right, well, I guess you said there are all sorts of pieces of health advice out there and that kind of makes the point that there’s not one view in medicine when it comes to these sorts of things. Just finally, Jobs and Skills Summit, it’s been compared to the 2020 Summit that, of course, was hosted by Kevin Rudd. What were the big positives, the lasting positives that came out of that summit?
GORMAN: One of the ones for me that came out of the summit was ABC Kids, ABC Three, which I watched with my children every day. That was an idea that was put forward out of the summit, and that’s something that impacts my life every day in terms of something that impacts the lives of hundreds of thousands of Australians every day and has dramatically improved the quality of life for Australians, the 2020 Summit really started the work on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. That has changed people’s lives.
CONNELL: That was an idea before.
GORMAN: Yeah, but different things. These events are never the start and they’re never the end of a conversation. It’s always about building momentum, getting things going. And I think if you look at some of those pieces that came out of that 2020 Summit, the other piece is about democratic participation. And it’s important that people do get to have a say and engage with their governments over time, whether that be through engaging in reviews, whether that be through attending the local Skills and Jobs Summits that Labor MPs have held across Australia to get input for the Summit that’s happening in Canberra on Thursday and Friday. All of this does make a difference because the policy conversation, the policy development process, it never starts and it never ends. It’s always ongoing. And I think you see that in terms of some of the conversations that are happening now between a range of employers around the skills and migration mix that we need. But yeah, I’d say ABC Three, ABC Kids and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, two big achievements of the 2020 Summit.
CONNELL: There you go maybe we would not have Bluey without it. Thank you Patrick Gorman, we’ll talk in a couple of weeks’ time when this has all happened and see what this summit has produced.
