AM PATRICK GORMAN - TRANSCRIPT - NEWS24 - MONDAY, 31 AUGUST 2026
LAURA JAYES, HOST: Let's get some instant reaction now from Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman. Patrick, great to see you. Does she have a point?
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Senator Hanson's obviously - they're campaigning in a state election that's coming up in November. She had some interesting points to make, but the one that really stuck out for me was her suggestion that we should somehow rely on building new nuclear power plants to power AI data centres. Now, even if we are reheating the old Peter Dutton nuclear power plant plan, they take about a decade or more to build at a huge cost. And when it comes to the AI race, we don't have a decade to waste. I thought that was a really interesting, poorly thought through proposal from Senator Hanson. And just on the other points, obviously, Senator Hanson and One Nation will go to the politics of a whole range of issues. That doesn't surprise me. That is the contest we're in, and I'm up for it.
JAYES: It's interesting that you would just focus on the nuclear argument. I mean, what about her claims that the Prime Minister has incited violence by saying that she's dangerous? Does she have a point?
GORMAN: Look, Senator Hanson and anyone who saw the Prime Minister's remarks at the Queensland Labor Conference knows that we were talking about the ideas of One Nation - are dangerous. I agree with the Prime Minister on that. I think it would be very dangerous to take Medicare away from the Australian people -
JAYES: But he didn't say ideas, did he? He said, 'she' and 'One Nation' are dangerous and populous and dishonest.
GORMAN: Well, they are dangerous, populist and dishonest. And I can give you a whole range of examples of how I think their policies would be dangerous for the Australian people. We could take penalty rates for an example. If you take away penalty rates that Australians are paid when they work overtime, or work on a Sunday, that would destroy the budgets of so many Australians. It would be bad for our social cohesion if people feel like they're not getting a fair day's pay for the work that they put in. I'm happy to have that contest. But I'm also not going to take a lecture from the political party that, above all others, does stunt time and time again. I mean, it was just yesterday, I think, I saw on the news that Senator Hanson was nailing a nail in a coffin. I mean, a little bit of self reflection wouldn't hurt either.
JAYES: Hang on. But that was – it was labelled net zero. That wasn't to any one person. What are you saying there, that that's offensive?
GORMAN: I'm just noting that we are in a political contest here, sometimes I observe some odd double standards from One Nation. Pauline Hanson is the one who went out and recruited Barnaby Joyce. It wasn't that long ago we had Barnaby Joyce causing great controversy when he had said that we should 'use ballot papers like bullets'. Senator Hanson didn't come out and criticise Barnaby Joyce at the time.
JAYES: What's the double standard there, though? Isn't he saying that's, you know, isn't that the opposite of incitement to violence – that people should be using their democratic vote to make decisions?
GORMAN: When it came to the statements that Barnaby Joyce made, they were broadly criticised and even Barnaby Joyce apologised for them. And again, I'll go back – I agree, I think the proposals that One Nation put forward would be dangerous to the interests of working Australians.
JAYES: You say you're not going to be lectured to by One Nation, but haven't you just been lectured, or at least schooled by the people of Secret Harbour?
GORMAN: It was a pretty blunt result, and the people of Secret Harbour made up their minds. I respect the decision that the people of Secret Harbour made. It was a pretty brutal result and we've been – for my WA Labor colleagues – pretty upfront about that. I should say also, in the interest of doing politics well, and respectfully – congratulations to Luke Herdegen as the new Member for Secret Harbour. He won that one fair and square.
JAYES: What does it say to Labor? What's the message you take from it?
GORMAN: The message that myself and a range of colleagues have taken is that you always need to listen to people, need to respect when they make a decision. You need to recognise that obviously, when it came to - again, a state by-election in Secret Harbour, not a federal by-election, and definitely not a general election - but that people are doing it tough. They are feeling the pain of international conflict, as again we've seen on our televisions this morning, when it comes to the war that's going in Iran that is pushing up fuel prices, pushing up inflation. People are feeling that pain. And we recognise that that means that for myself and for everyone, we have to work hard to show that when it comes to the things that are within our powers, we're doing everything we can to support working people across Australia.
JAYES: But are you saying that you lost that by-election because of events, like the Iran war, that are outside of your control?
GORMAN: There will be a whole range of theories and commentary about why the votes fell the way that they did in Secret Harbour –
JAYES: But I'm asking you, I mean, you've been around – I remember when we were both on the road during Kevin Rudd's campaign. Patrick, you had a pretty tough job at the time. You know politics well. We've all seen a version of this movie before. You must have some idea as to why Labor saw a 20 per cent swing against it. And aren't you worried that this could play out in other seats right across the country?
GORMAN: Well, firstly, yes there was a significant change in the vote in Secret Harbour. I think when you've got a change that significant it would be wrong, within sort of 48 hours of that result, to say it was one specific item. You obviously have a campaign review that's been announced that will look at, for the WA Government and WA Labor, that will look at everything from policy, pre-selection, advertising. That is how a normal campaign review will work and that's what will happen. I think the mistake to make though would be, for myself as a federal Member of Parliament and for the Albanese Labor Government overall, the mistake would be to stop doing the job that we were elected to do. And that is a job of delivering for Australians. Governing in the national interest. And I've seen a lot of by-elections, as you rightly point out, Laura. I also remember the Darling Range By-election in Western Australia back in 2018. Labor did not win that by-election, and everyone was keen to sort of very quickly write off bits of the Labor machine in Western Australia. And then, as your viewers would well know, the results of the next state election for Mark McGowan in 2021 were phenomenal.
JAYES: Sure, but aren't voters telling Labor that you need to do a better job? I mean, are you prepared to say that Labor's migration settings, the kind of messiness of the last couple of weeks – isn't that all contributing?
GORMAN: Firstly, I'll note that actually the party that's had the biggest messiness when it comes to migration policy confusion is One Nation –
JAYES: We're closer to knowing what One Nation's policy is than Labor's.
GORMAN: Maybe you can have a panel with David Farley and Barnaby Joyce and they can actually explain how they are on the same page.
JAYES: Good idea.
GORMAN: I encourage they come onto your program, Laura.
JAYES: Okay. Alright. When are we going to get your policy?
GORMAN: We've said it will come out in the weeks ahead.
JAYES: Okay. Not months, weeks?
GORMAN: Again, I'll leave that to Minister Burke. We have been really open that we're working on a range of things to make sure we continue to have a migration policy that's in our national interest for the people that we serve, the Australian people.
JAYES: Let me finally ask you about Bathla. This is a major Sydney building company. It's not unrelated to the migration story. It has collapsed and it had some 14,000 homes it was building in the pipeline. What does that say to you about how difficult and expensive it is to build homes in this country and whether the crisis in the housing market can actually be solved?
GORMAN: Firstly, I'll say we have to solve the challenge of not enough Australians being able to buy their own home. That is something that our Government's been determined on for four years. And across five Budgets we've done more and more to make sure that we can get more Australians into their own homes. Including making difficult calls that not everyone has welcomed, but that we believe are in the national interest to make sure that first home buyers do have a shot. As for the collapse and administration of a privately held company, I'm reluctant to comment too much on exactly what is happening there. I recognise there are administrators in doing their job, but of course, when you look at our Government’s record, we'll do everything we can to make sure that we do get home completion numbers in this country up, because that's how we make sure that we deal with the supply side challenges that we've had in this country for too long.
JAYES: It's emblematic of the productivity problem, perhaps the cost of building a home far outstrips what they're worth. Is that a concern to you?
GORMAN: I don't want to get too far ahead of what all of the details are as to what has caused the collapse of this company. I think that would be inappropriate for me to do at this point in time. And I also recognise that it's probably not a constructive way to engage in the debate.
JAYES: Okay, Patrick, appreciate your time. See you soon.
GORMAN: Thank you, Laura.
ENDS