Patrick Gorman MP on News24's Afternoon Agenda

TOM CONNELL, HOST: Welcome back. Time for our panel: Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman and former Liberal MP Jason Falinski. Thanks, as ever, for joining me. Let's begin with gambling, Pat Gorman. It seems like Labor's almost the least inclined to act on this in the Parliament. Does it make you sort of wonder why that's the case, especially around advertising? Advertising to children is one thing that some of the crossbenchers have been talking about.

PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Tom, from where I sit, I don't know how you could possibly make that argument. If you looked in the first term, our government made some of the biggest changes we've seen in terms of helping those with gambling addictions to overcome those addictions and get the support that they need through BetStop, which has now helped 65,000 of our fellow Australians get the help and support they need. You look in this term of Parliament. We've introduced measures that will take gambling advertising off the radio when you're dropping the kids off from school or picking them up. Mean that when kids go and buy a jersey of their favourite team, it doesn't have a gambling company on it. And we've also come to Parliament this week to negotiate in good faith because we want to get this done, and we want to see a package that comes into place on the 1st of January next year. Those conversations are happening in this building, and we've been really open about it.

CONNELL: Those conversations-Greens, the Coalition, many of the crossbenchers-they all think you should go further. That's the basis of my question. That's whether it's right or not; that's true, isn't it?

GORMAN: Again, firstly, we have done so much in our first term. We've put a significant package on the table, but we'll continue to hear those views. I mean, this has been something that the Parliament's been talking about for many, many years. What I'm hopeful is that this week we can show the Australian people that we are going to get something done and make real changes that come into place on 1 January next year.

CONNELL: Jason, you're very pro-choice in a broad sense. Where do you sit on this?

JASON FALINKSI, FORMER LIBERAL MP: Well, Tom, I think that this policy should be driven by rationality and competence. And what we've seen with tobacco is that when the ideologues get-get their hands on it, we actually just create a black market that is now funding large parts of the criminal activity in Australia. And I think that when you look at the statistics around gambling, you find that about 40%, 45% of Australians do bet; they do gamble. Only about one in seven Australians do it regularly, and that we would be better. We would be better placed focusing our time and our resources on those people that have a problem. To date, I think that a blanket ban is not necessarily-

CONNELL: But with tobacco, no one is going to make it more expensive to bet, are they? No one's changing the product apart from inducements, I guess.

FALINSKI: you might be completely right about that. I'm not sure what you mean by inducements, though, there.

CONNELL: Well, the only thing that would make it theoretically more expensive to gamble was not being able to, you know, blanket offer out someone who's just lost money that day. You know, here's a free $50 bonus bet. Theoretically, I guess that is making gambling more expensive. People might argue that that just leads to more losses.

FALINSKI: Oh, you could put a heavier tax on it if you wanted to. Look, I'm I'm not entirely sure that any of that has really worked. So I'm interested to hear what some of the solutions might be. But when those when solutions that are driven from the same sort of ideological position that have driven solutions around tobacco, they've resulted in more people actually smoking more nicotine and us getting less tax revenue for it.

CONNELL: Let's go from the smoking policy, which has unintended consequences, to another one: the GST distribution. So, the Productivity Commission is looking into this. Pat, are you going to, as a government-the broad you, not you individually-read the report, see the merits of it, or will the PM just head to Perth and sign on his wrist, "Never ever on the GST," and continue that hard-driven policy debate?

GORMAN: Well, let's put a few facts on the table as we have this debate across the course of this week, with the shadowed release of the Productivity Commission's report. The thing that's worth remembering is that, back in-

CONNELL: Shadow release? You're not happy with the PC.

GORMAN: The foreshadowed. 2018, the Productivity Commission looked at the GST, and as a result of the Productivity Commission looking at the GST and the Parliament considering that report, we ended up with the arrangement that we have now, which is ensuring that every state and territory gets a fair share, including Western Australia, where it really wasn't working-

CONNELL: But hang on, you have not enacted what-the Parliament did not enact-what it was told to last time.

GORMAN: The Productivity Commission gives advice to government, and it-

CONNELL: But you made it sound like here's a report, and the Parliament did it. That's not what happened. It's not what we ended up.

GORMAN: No, I sequentially took it through, and we ended up with a good, fair deal for all states, including my home state of Western Australia. Now, what we've said really clearly is that the WA GST deal is rock solid. That deal makes sure that schools can be built in my electorate. It's funding the East Perth Primary School in my electorate right now, and I will stand up for that, as I have every day that I've been.

CONNELL: But hang on, the WA budget is in the best-and debt and deficit and everything is in the best state in the entire country. You can't say because of the GST deal a school gets built. That's like saying without it a school wouldn't get built.

GORMAN: That's what the GST has always been there to fund for all of the states and territories, Tom, which is to fund schools, hospitals-

CONNELL: But if the normal horizontal fiscal equalisation was happening, there would still be schools built in WA, wouldn't there?

GORMAN: It's important that every state who contributes to the GST pool gets a fair share of that GST pool. And look at Western Australia. We would have had foreshadowing of the West Australian public only getting some, you know, 31 cents, then down to 18 cents in the dollar. That would have been unacceptable. And I don't think Jason or anyone could have said that that was a fair and equitable tax system. So, having the floor-

CONNELL: But are you going to act like it's fair that it happens to end up with a whole heap of iron ore in the electorate and Tassie doesn't? That is the whole point of the GST.

GORMAN: And that's why, for every dollar of GST Western Australia contributes, some 25 cents of that dollar goes into the pool for other states.

CONNELL: Jason, I haven't forgotten about you. Maybe I was saying what you'd say anyway, although you usually pick me up on something I've missed-said. So, I'm sure you'll do that. Do you think your colleagues are going to join you in your strident opposition to this, or are they just too concerned about WA seats and trying to actually-well, not so much hold on to them, but win some back?

FALINKSI: Well, I hope my former colleagues do the right thing, which is to review this deal that was bad when we implemented it and has only got worse as it's been implemented. This was a Matthias Cormann special. It was a bad idea at the time, and it's only got worse. And what Patrick's not saying is that, yes, he's getting a public school funded in his electorate, but there are lots of electorates on the east coast that aren't. But, in truth, the-the problem that Patrick is talking about, and is right to talk about, is that Western Australia has been reasonably well governed by both sides of Parliament for a very long time. The current arrangements that we have when it comes to federal-state tax arrangements reward state governments that do not do the right thing and are mending it, and punish those that do the right thing. And for a long time, that was Western Australia. Now, unless-we need comprehensive tax overhaul-but this deal was a bad deal to begin with. Hurts people on the east coast, rewards people on the west coast who don't need the money because of where they sit and all those sorts of things that you-

CONNELL: Look forward to the report. All right, sounds like I didn't do too bad a job according to Jason, which is, you know, my usual KPI when I wake up in the morning. Jason, I'll stick with you. The Prime Minister, on this podcast-I can't remember her name. She's sort of a mocked-up character, I suppose you say. He had some interesting comments around the Japanese Prime Minister's quirky gift, I think he called it, and alluded to a couple of melons that she brought over. They are literally melons. Angus Taylor says this is serious. There needs to be an apology. What do you think, Jason? Is this a beat-up? Are we all getting in a bit of a tease, or was this a serious misstep?

FALINKSI: Well, you know, I really give myself into-I really give into this-but I really want to apply the standard of the left to itself on this one. You know, the standard you walk past is the standard you accept. Can you imagine if Tony Abbott had said this? Can you imagine if Scott Morrison had said this? The outrage that would have occurred. I mean, the fact that nothing has been said by the commentators that hold themselves out in Australian society as the purveyors of all that is right and just is just pathetic. And I think I will not long forget the hypocrisy of this. No, he shouldn't have said it. All of us have said things that we shouldn't have said, but the fact that there has been just studied silence from so many people who have so often criticised so many others is really the scandal of this.

CONNELL: That point from Jason, Patrick: if Tony Abbott or Scott Morrison had said this, there would be strong criticism from Labor, wouldn't there?

GORMAN: Oh, look, I don't think so, because this was a podcast. This was a light-hearted podcast that was more than a month old. I think it-

CONNELL: Well, it wasn't a month old when it happened.

GORMAN: Well, I don't know why we're still talking about it, Tom. I don't.

CONNELL: So, as long as it's a month ago, it's all fine?

GORMAN: No, what I'm saying is-is that I don't think there's anything to see here when it comes to a light-hearted podcast talking about a gift. I don't think-I think there's some, not-not those speaking on behalf of the relevant government, but others who've got views. That's fine. We're a democracy; people can express their views. But the reality is-

CONNELL: Did you chuckle along, as you-light-hearted? Did you chuckle along while you were watching?

GORMAN: Oh, look, I don't really go for the light-hearted podcasts, Tom, so I-

CONNELL: It's amazing how often politicians don't watch the-these big stories, these things that come along, isn't it?

GORMAN: News 24, 24 hours a day. What else do you need?

CONNELL: He's always got to pivot. All right, I'm going to end it there. I think I've been a bit unfair on Jason. Maybe I was unfair on Pat today. You can judge. Let me know. Patrick, Jason, talk again soon.

GORMAN: Thank you.

FALINSKI: Thank you.