TRANSCRIPT - ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING - MONDAY, 9 NOVEMBER 2026

PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: I want to bring in my political panel first up today. Patrick Gorman is the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister and for Employment. Garth Hamilton is the Shadow Assistant Minister for Energy Security. Welcome to both of you.

PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Thank you.

GARTH HAMILTON MP, LIBERAL MEMBER FOR GROOM: Thank you.

KARVELAS: There’s been a lot of reporting about disagreements inside the Government, starting with you, if we can, Patrick. Today, Cabinet Minister Murray Watt has called on colleagues to stop undermining the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers. Pat, are you aware of who's behind the undermining and leaks?

GORMAN: What I actually see from our team, in the engagements that I have with my colleagues, is that we do work very well together. There is a lot of good mutual support across different portfolios. That is what I expect, that is what I seek to promote in the work that I do. So, that is how I see it. And I do also know that generally your viewers and others normally prefer it when we are talking about them and their aspirations, rather than talking about ourselves.

KARVELAS: Okay, but a Cabinet Minister has confirmed there is leaking and undermining of the Treasurer. So, that means that it's going on, right?

GORMAN: Well, you see some of the reports, sometimes they don't always come from other parliamentary colleagues, sometimes it can come from other places. But what I will do is try and make sure that we have a government where everyone respects one another, where we lift each other up and in doing so, lift up the Australian people. Because I think ultimately, I am sure Minister Watt didn't want to be answering those questions today, but what I know is that people just don't like it when we're spending too much time talking about ourselves.

KARVELAS: Okay, but if for this even to be on the table, clearly it's going on - like we can't pretend it's not. So, if there's this kind of disunity, do you accept that it's a problem for the government?

GORMAN: I would not accept the word disunity. That is not what I would say - 

KARVELAS: People are leaking against the Treasurer. That's disunity.

GORMAN: - But I don't think it is ever good when people are giving character assessments of one another in the same team. I think we have got an excellent team and I back them all.

KARVELAS: Okay, Garth Hamilton, you've seen some talking about people on your side of politics in the past as well. Obviously this is ultimately a conversation about where to take the economy. Your side today says that you’ll slash red tape by 25 per cent. But that's just an ambit claim, isn't it? I mean you can say come up with a figure, but actually doing it and it being meaningful, that's different, isn't it?

HAMILTON: Well, I think it's what people want from us and we have put out plans for example, slashing the Construction Code from 2,000 pages to 200. That's a tangible, solid thing that we're putting on the table. But we're very unified in that approach across the party. We all agree that government spending is too high, highest in forty years. We all know that's where we need to go. I have seen a little bit of disunity in the past. I know what it looks like. This is disunity. I appreciate Pat doesn't want it to be that way. But there's a reason Murray Watt’s come out. He's been Mr Albanese's chief attack dog. I don't think it's an accident. I think he's probably setting the scene for Jim to, I don't know, trot off into the distance at some point and take the blame for the economy.

KARVELAS: Okay, Pat, I've got to put that to you. Is that what this is? Lining up Jim Chalmers to take all of the responsibility?

GORMAN: I appreciate the efforts of Garth to take us away from the question around whether there is actually enough detail about Angus Taylor's plan, and try and turn that into something that is definitely not happening within the Government.

But I do think it's a legitimate question about this sort of 25 per cent reduction in so called ‘tape’ that Angus Taylor has put out there. I mean some of the things he's talking about are the sort of initiatives that we have introduced where we have had additional regulation in things like keeping children safe in childcare settings, additional regulation to make sure that we have a stronger aged care system.

So, when Angus Taylor talks about cutting red tape, he's actually talking about some of the things that strengthen the services Australians rely upon.

KARVELAS: Okay. Is that what you're talking about, Garth? It would be cuts to things like child care regulation, things that are there to actually make systems work better and be more accountable?

HAMILTON: I'm hearing the ghosts of ‘Medi-scare’ past, PK. This is what Labor say every time we try to bring in good economic management. The highest spending government outside the pandemic in forty years, fifth rate rise in a row, 17th under Mr Albanese. Talking about commitments. We're trying to reduce regulation. This is the government who promised a $275 reduction in your energy bills. We want to talk about facts and what's on the table. I encourage everybody to go out and see how much your energy bills have increased. They haven't decreased by $375. Unfortunately now for Labor, there is a record that they have to stand up to. And clearly a lot of Labor backbenchers don't want to be ‘once-ers’. And they're getting very, very nervous about what they're hearing when they go out door knocking from people who are telling them that the cost of living is getting worse and worse. And that's why we're seeing the leaking, because there is massive disunity within the Labor Party right now.

KARVELAS: Patrick Gorman, we've had the Government hold these ERC meetings - that acronym means not much to my viewers, so I'll tell them what they are. They're special budget meetings of the Cabinet. Are difficult decisions imminent?

GORMAN: Well, just to explain for your viewers, the Expenditure Review Committee meets throughout the year. Because it's responsible for making the big economic calls that then go through the Cabinet and then become decisions that we sometimes implement in Parliament or through decisions of Ministers. That is how it works.

When it comes to the meetings that are happening right now, of course, we are responding to the economy as it is. In particular the pressures that are coming on the Australian economy from abroad.

You know, when we put our budget together in May, of course we hoped that the conflict in Iran would be short lived. Sadly, that is not the case. And that is causing huge pressure across not just the Australian economy, but the global economy. So, we have to respond to those pressures. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer have both outlined that's exactly what we're doing. And we will continue to do that work in the weeks ahead.

KARVELAS: I want to change the topic to some comments that were made by the Reserve Bank Chief Economist, Sarah Hunter. She's warned that the global AI investment boom will likely keep both inflation and interest rates high in the near term. Put this to you, Garth, because you've been outspoken about, for instance, data centres and your questions about those. Do you worry about that the pressure being placed on inflation and therefore interest rates for ordinary people as a result of perhaps an over capitalisation in AI?

HAMILTON: Absolutely and one of the examples that we have on the table is what's happened in Ireland where data centre usage is now 22 per cent of power consumption in Ireland, and that has driven up power bills. And of course, once you start to make power bills more expensive, you drive up the cost of everything from groceries to anything you buy at a supermarket. So, we see these pressures come along and in a place like Queensland, right now we've got all this work going on for the Olympics, building a hospital in Toowoomba here, and now we're going to build a data centre. So, of course there's pressures that this puts onto the economy and at a global level. I'm concerned, as a lot of people are, that there is a bubble going on right now and there's been a mad rush on AI without answering the genuine community concerns about what impact this has not just on local jobs but on local economies. And I think if we rush into this, there is a way that we get the worst possible result.

KARVELAS: That's really interesting. I want to put that to you, Patrick. Are you worried that there's a bubble? There's been a mad rush, as has been described by Garth?

GORMAN: That is one concern. There are a range of concerns when it comes to what we are seeing with AI data centres. Making sure the planning is right, making sure that they bring more energy and more water into the communities in which they are going to operate.

I think about this a bit; there are risks when you have large scale infrastructure investment. I think about some of the experiences we have had on my side of the country in Western Australia, where you have had mining booms that have resulted in significant pressures in the local economy because of significant infrastructure investment to build big job creating projects.

It does come with pressures, but we have to manage those pressures. We cannot ignore the fact that the world is changing. We have got this incredible addition of computing power which can help us us solve some of humanity's biggest challenges. But we need to make sure that we do it in a way that it doesn't create more problems than it solves.

KARVELAS: Yeah, and I've got to ask you about that because you're the Assistant Employment Minister. If you look at recent job loss announcements from a range of companies, AI is one of the most commonly-cited reasons for restructures and job losses. We in fact, just talked about one last week, I believe. 

GORMAN: Yes, we did.

KARVELAS: Are you - let's zoom out here, because every day an Australian is losing their job on the back of AI disruption and it's happening quietly across our economy. Shouldn't we be alarmed about this?

GORMAN: The other bit that I would add to that story is that over the course of the time that we have been in government, we have added some one million, three hundred thousand additional jobs to the Australian economy. We have seen significant job growth in Australia. So, we come at this next challenge from a position of relative strength. 

But I would also point out to your viewers, we have had some of the team at Jobs and Skills Australia, one of the things that we set up when we came to office. They have done a big report into what is happening in the jobs and labour market. To look at; is AI over the long term, out to 2050, is it going to create more or fewer jobs? And the assessment is that we will still see job growth in Australia.

Of course, as has always happened, as you have new technologies roll out, you will see changes in what those jobs look like. But I found that report from Jobs and Skills Australia very encouraging.

KARVELAS: Just finally, Garth, it's something that you've been talking about. Now. There's a story about a former senior One Nation staffer claiming he was unlawfully sacked for raising concerns about the party's ongoing ties to an ex-senior staff member with a rape conviction, Sean Black is who I'm referring to. You've previously talked about Sean Black, but now a whistleblower has spoken. What do you make of the new development?

HAMILTON: I think it shows Australia what they need to know about this party. I think there's been a great opening. So, everyone can see inside One Nation now. This is exactly the sort of chaos that we were told they put behind them. And in fact, it's the same old One Nation Party we've always seen. Full of scandal, full of candidates who've not been vetted correctly. Even the guy who's supposed to be doing the vetting in that report over the weekend, the allegation is that he's not been truthful in summing up his Army experience. You know, I don't know a worse portrayal of the Australian people you can do. And I don't think many One Nation voters are too keen on someone misrepresenting their Army representation. I think that's a gross misstep by this party, who thought they could do anything. They thought they could say and do anything. They're being found out. I think it's a good thing because this sort of politics, I don't think it has any place in Australia. Not taking credit for what responsible government does and not caring for our institutions, not seeking consensus. I think by abandoning all these things, One Nation is walking away from what Australians really want.

KARVELAS: We're out of time. Thanks to both of you.

GORMAN: Thank you.


ENDS