TRANSCRIPT - TELEVISION INTERVIEW - SKY NEWS AFTERNOON AGENDA - MONDAY, 27 APRIL 2026

TOM CONNELL, HOST: Patrick Gorman, Jason Falinski, thanks both for your time. One Nation preferences, Jason, we've seen it in South Australia. We're going to see it in Farrer. Reports are it'll happen in Victoria. So is this your Party saying they'd rather have One Nation in the lower house than other parties, including Labor?

JASON FALINSKI, FORMER LIBERAL MP: No, I don't think that's the case, Tom. I think what this is, is my Party basically saying that it would rather see us in parliament than any other party. But we are sick and tired of being the only party that plays by the rules. The Labor Party preferences the Greens. And by the way, your choice in tie colour has not gone unnoticed by either Patrick or I today, but the fact remains that the Labor Party has preferenced the Greens over the Liberal Party for many, many years, and it is getting incredibly difficult to discern the difference between the behaviour of the Greens and the behaviour of One Nation.
 
CONNELL: So it's quid pro quo? You're essentially saying this helps Labor ultimately, it gets some Greens in parliament, but more Labor. It's just time for you to do the same quid pro quo with One Nation, and you should do that at a federal level at the next election too?

FALINSKI: Look, I think so. I think we should do whatever it takes to maximise the number of people that we can get elected to the lower and upper house. The Labor Party is not running in Farrer, but if they were we all know that they would be preferencing the Teal candidate, Michelle Milthorpe, and frankly, Tom, I would have thought that the media, particularly in Canberra, who spend so much time complaining about how Australian politics has been polluted by money, would be slightly more interested in the amount of money the Climate 200 and the Teals are throwing at Farrer, than they are in preference deals between the Liberal Party and One Nation. I mean, this is a group that is spending 15 times, 15 times Tom, what every other party combined is spending while complaining about Gina Rinehart, who, as I understand, is yet to donate any money to this campaign. So, I mean, I think it's time--

CONNELL: What’s the confirmed donation? Well, here we go. You've got the opportunity now. What's the confirmed donation Climate 200 is spending on this by-election?

FALINSKI: What we can tell from the transparency logs, both on Google and Meta, is that the Climate 200 candidate, the Teal candidate, Michelle Milthorpe, has spent 15 times of all the other candidates combined, and that's not including the Climate 200 money.

CONNELL: But is that Climate 200 money?

FALINSKI: Well, no, because she hasn't declared where she's getting her money. She's not telling us where she's getting her money for her campaign. So she preaches transparency.

CONNELL: So it is supposition?

FALINSKI: It's not supposition to say Tom that she's spending 15 times as much money as all the other candidates.
 
CONNELL: Yes but you said Climate 200.

FALINSKI: She is the candidate backed by Climate 200. Why are you being such a pedant on this issue? The important point here--

CONNELL: It matters what you say. You can't say it's Climate 200 money without knowing it is-- [INTERRUPTION]
--there is a difference, Jason, between how much the overall candidate spends and if you say it's Climate 200 money, and how much is actually Climate 200 dollars. There is a difference between the two. You can't just say that candidate has spent X number of dollars, therefore that's Climate 200 dollars.
 
FALINSKI: Let me be very clear. A) that’s not what I said. B) She is the candidate backed by Climate 200. C) on social media, according to Meta and Google transparency portals, she has spent 15 times what all the other campaigns combined have spent. D) we have heard for a very long time, Tom, out of the Canberra press gallery, that Australian politics is being polluted by money. Here we have an example of one candidate spending 15 times what all the other campaigns combined are spending on social media. On top of that, it doesn’t include all the other outside groups.
 
CONNELL: Alright, I'm going to let Pat have a go. Let me ask you this, Patrick, for many years, for many years—
 
FALINSKI: Nice tie Tom, nice tie.
 
CONNELL: Well, you know, ties don't always have to mean political allegiance. I've got all sorts. I've got all the rainbow in my top drawer. Anytime someone's swinging by, they often borrow them. Gee, I'm getting sidetracked today, but Pat, for many years you've said, ‘oh, well, the Liberal Party can't swap preferences with One Nation, because that means they're endorsing them.' Does that mean that Labor endorses the Greens? Because you've been swapping preferences with them for many years.

PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Oh, well, look, the question for the Liberal Party is, do they want to be a populist party, or do they want to be a practical party? And what we're seeing from the Liberal Party time and time again is they're running to populist ideas rather than being a practical party of the centre. Now that's a choice they can make, and that's up to them, but Labor will always be a practical party. Now we've had a long standing position, which your viewers will be aware of, that for some 28 years, we've put One Nation at the bottom. Now for about a decade, the Liberal Party have been choosing to do these preference deals with One Nation. It hasn't always worked out that well for them, and I just point out that as a simple fact, I remember one of the pioneering preference deals the Liberal Party did with One Nation was here in Western Australia, back in 2017 and the Liberal Party got absolutely thumped at that election. So it doesn't always work out well for the Liberal Party, but there's one thing where I think there does need to be a bit more scrutiny applied. I think it's right the position that Labor takes around putting One Nation last. But when it comes to these Climate 200 backed Teal candidates, we often see that they do what we call an ‘open ticket.’ That is, they don't allocate their preferences at all. I actually think it's probably time that those Teal independents start putting One Nation last. And if they're not going to do that, they need to explain why.

CONNELL: All right, but you do preference swap with the Greens so you find them at a relative sense an acceptable party, is that fair?

GORMAN: Tom, if you look at my record, I am in a fight where I've gone out and argued against people voting for the Greens Party. I think the Greens--
 
CONNELL: Labor swaps preference deals with the Greens, and they both benefit. That's true or false? Is that true or false?

GORMAN: What's true is that the Greens tried to knock me off at the last election. I fought back, and I made sure that we had fewer Greens in the parliament, both here in the West, and of course, I was out there campaigning with my good friends, Renee Coffey and Madonna Jarrett and others, to make sure that we had fewer Greens in the parliament. That's what I want, because I've seen the Greens hold up too much, and I don't think that they've got the solutions that Australians want, nor do they have the practical ideas that make a real difference. So I would say to all of your viewers, if you want a practical party, it's starting to look like the only choice left is Labor, because the Liberals are running out to be one of those populist parties that don't really care whether their ideas work. They just want to be on the populist fringe, and the Greens are a populist party too. I'm happy to come on every day--

CONNELL: But you don't mind because you did preference deals with them? They're more acceptable?

GORMAN: Look my criticisms of the Greens are very broad. When you think about housing, I don't know why you would vote for a Greens politician, when you know that they're the ones who sat in the Senate last term and blocked practical housing measures. I think the reality is, I think Australia's been well served by majority governments, and the problem is Tom, the only party left that can offer a majority government is Labor, because now we've got the Liberal-National-One Nation-Party Coalition—

FALINSKI: Tom do I get a go too or is this the Tom and Pat show?

CONNELL: You had a fair crack I thought. Alright I want to ask you this Jason, the Coalition’s time in office, with all this talk of tax reform at the moment, did you ever push for indexation of income tax to actually just lock in tax cuts permanently? Was that something you wanted the Coalition to do? Given we look at the landscape now and it's still this sort of piecemeal income tax cut approach?
 
FALINSKI: Sorry, are you asking me personally or the Liberal Party?

CONNELL: Yeah, you.
 
FALINSKI: So, me personally. No, I don't agree with indexation of marginal thresholds. I think that the problem is always, look, economic theory has been very clear on this for a very long time. Decisions get made at the margins. So there's no point doing what the Howard Government did, which was cutting income taxes downscale, but leaving the top marginal tax rate, at what is effectively Tom very close to 60 cents in the dollar. And because of that, you get people at the higher end of the income scale making decisions about whether they want to work more or spend more time on leisure. All the work done by Sir James Mirrlees back in the 70s and early 80s are indicative that the fairest type of income tax system is a flat tax of about 20% and if you want to run welfare programs, it's best not to do that through tax rates, but through direct government programs and grants.
 
CONNELL: All right, kind of out of time now, Pat, very quickly, we're going to see all this extra tax clearly raising, and you can just wink to confirm that. Are you going to put it out in income tax cuts or just prop up all the spending?
 
GORMAN: Tom in 15 sleeps there'll be a budget. It'll have measures in it, and our focus is always on supporting the Australian people. That's been our focus for the last four years. We'll continue with that, but let me just knock on the head Jason's idea of a flat income tax rate, it is a terrible idea. Australia has benefited from progressive taxation, lower taxes on those who are earning less, and higher taxes on those who can afford to pay a bit more. I don't agree with the flat tax proposal, and I'd also note that at no time since the founding of the Liberal Party have they actually implemented a flat tax policy, because it's bad policy.
 
FALINSKI: It's not bad policy, it's not bad policy. It's absolutely not bad policy.
 
GORMAN: If it’s such a great idea why isn’t Angus Taylor doing it?
 
CONNELL: I regret not jumping in. We are out of time. Jason, Patrick, we'll talk again next week. I think I need to get control of my topics, more, it all sort of ran off the road there, but anyway, we'll try again next week.