TRANSCRIPT- TELEVISION INTERVIEW - SKY NEWS AFTERNOON AGENDA

TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS AFTERNOON AGENDA
MONDAY, 5 MAY 2025

Subjects: A successful Labor campaign; The Liberal Party was making things up as they went; Results in WA; A Federal EPA. 

ASHLEIGH GILLON, HOST: Let's bring in now the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman. He joins me here in the Perth studio. Patrick, good to see you, thank you for your time and congratulations. You're one of these MPs who increased your vote in your seat of Perth, so well done on that. You're also a former state campaign director. You helped run the Bullwinkel campaign here in WA, so with your campaign hat on, tell us what was it that won it for you so convincingly?

PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Firstly, I'd say I'm really proud of the decision the Australian people chose to make on Saturday. I'm really proud of the campaign that the Australian Labor Party ran, both the work that the Prime Minister did, but also the team behind the scenes. So, I can give a big shout out to my friend Paul Erikson, the National Secretary, who has run a campaign that has made history in Australia's elections for the last 80 years. It's an incredible result. But what I think it was that really made the difference was that we treated the Australian people with respect. We did that here in Western Australia, we did it across the country. We were talking about the things that were their concerns. How do you get some practical help to get into your first home. How do you help people with those debts that they see, like their HECS debt. And how do you do what we've been doing throughout the term, which is smart ways to win the fight against inflation without making things worse. And we didn't make a bunch of promises that we saw from the Liberal Party, which people realised were either impractical -

GILLON: On that, what are the key moments or policies or decisions you saw during the campaign that you thought, okay, that's just made our job a whole lot easier.

GORMAN: I think the things that we've been seeing in parliament from Peter Dutton and a range of others, where they were talking very aggressively about cutting the public service. When they started to walk back things like their commitments around work from home, we started to realise that some of their gut instincts when it comes to politics weren't necessarily aligned with what the Australian people wanted to hear. And we went into this campaign with a plan. We kept just rolling out that plan, whereas it looked like the Liberal Party was making things up, and some of them have been saying this, some of your colleagues in the media over the last few days, it really did look like they were making things up as they go.

GILLON: This is obviously now what the Liberal Party needs to grapple with as they as they move forward. But looking at the results here in Western Australia, Labor picked up the seat of Moore, which was a pretty surprising result. Fremantle, though, the Labor Minister Josh Wilson, he's in a bit of trouble there. We heard earlier from the Independent Kate Hulett, she's warning Labor to watch out, that at next election there'll be more independents coming for Labor seats.

GORMAN: Firstly, to Tom French, where there was also a Climate 200 funded independent running. Firstly, Tom French in Moore, congratulations. He has run for Labor three times. He will now join us in the Labor Caucus room. He's both a sparky and a lawyer. He brings incredible skills up to the Caucus, he's a great mate of mine, and I look forward to welcoming him into the Caucus room in the days ahead. Now, when it comes to what we've seen in Fremantle, I do want to firstly point out that by a very large margin, Josh Wilson got the most votes of any candidate running in that seat. He has been an outstanding Member for Fremantle, and what I'm hearing from people who are there scrutineering this count, is that the flow of preferences to Josh are well and above what we would otherwise expect. Bearing in mind -

GILLON: So, you think he'll be fine in that seat?

GORMAN: It's going to be a long few days, but I expect that as we see those preferences, I think people in Fremantle will recognise that having Josh Wilson as their member is in their best interests, both on what is delivered, but also as a voice in the Albanese Labor Government. But what that means is that there are people who are rejecting the preferences that the Liberal Party encouraged, bearing in mind that the Liberal Party were directing their preferences to this independent, and also possibly not following the Greens how to vote either.

GILLON: Bullwinkel also too close to call, so we'll have to wait and watch on that one too. This morning, at the Prime Minister's first news conference, he was asked about a federal EPA. As a West Australian, very cognisant of the importance of the resources sector. Do you have any concerns that you'll be taking from a WA perspective for that? And will you be urging the Environment Minister, whether that's Tanya Plibersek, or someone else, to get on with the approval of the Northwest Shelf project?

GORMAN: The thing I'll be doing next, as I leave your studio, will be going down to the Bullwinkel count centre to go and scrutinise some votes, to make sure that everyone who wanted to vote Labor gets their voice heard, and that we have that robust democracy that we treasure so much. I'm still really hopeful that we can get Trish Cook over the line as the representative there. When it comes to a new federal EPA, we said that we'd consult. That's really important to me. That means extensive consultation across the board, with state governments, different jurisdictions, working with everyone who has an interest in making sure we've got environmental laws that are fit for the future. That includes consulting with the resources industry here in Western Australia and the resources industry elsewhere as well. Because what I know is that we can't keep using John Howard's environmental laws from last century. Too often I have people in my office, including a range of resources companies, complaining about how clunky those laws are. Equally, they're not giving us the environmental outcomes that we need either. So, I think we can do better, and I think that this is the right government to get that balance right, and to get it right for the future.

GILLON: Patrick Gorman, congratulations again on your campaign and really appreciate you joining us in the studio.

GORMAN: Thank you.