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TOM CONNELL, HOST: The former Prime Minister Scott Morrison has detailed his struggles with depression and anxiety during his time as Prime Minister. Let’s discuss that and the big issues of the week. Joining me now, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman, and the former Liberal MP, Jason Falinski. Gentlemen, thanks both for your time, I guess to you, first of all, Jason, you had a bit to do with Scott Morrison. Do these revelations surprise you at all?

JASON FALINSKI, FORMER LIBERAL MEMBER FOR MACKELLAR: Tom, they don’t in a way. But I think it explains a lot of what occurred during that time. I think Australians have forgotten how intense that period was when we went into shutdown with COVID, particularly in 2020, when we really didn’t know what the death toll from that virus would be, and how many people would die. And Scott Morrison was the type of person who took all of that responsibility on his shoulders. And I think that it’s important that he’s opened up and talked about that, so that other people in our community in our society feel that they can do likewise and know that they’re not alone.

CONNELL: I guess the interesting thing is, well, Pat, I mean, Labor not exactly complimentary of Scott Morrison, you know, you don’t have to be its politics. It is the cut and thrust of it. But did it surprise you because he was called many things, you know, a bulldozer, people sort of thought, ‘oh, he doesn’t listen to anything, he doesn’t care about anything- he just goes through, and he’s got this sort of limitless confidence’ and behind the scenes seemingly not?

PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE: I will just actually join with Jason and say I think this was Scott Morrison modelling good leadership behaviour. In being open about the fact that when he was worried about how he was dealing with anxiety, from one of the most challenging jobs in the country at a very challenging time, that he sought help to ensure that he didn’t get into a worse state of mental health. I thank Scott Morrison for choosing to share this. I have pre-ordered his book because I think even when there are political divides, you can always learn from those who hold those senior roles, those positions of power in our democracy. I think we see more and more leaders being open about how they deal with the various challenges of those roles. Here in Western Australia, a number of years ago, we had Geoff Gallop resigned from the role as Premier, citing mental health challenges. That was a great leadership moment. I thank Scott Morrison for sharing his story. Hopefully inspiring anyone who might be facing mental health challenges to get the help they need so they can continue as again, that’s the other part of the story for Mr. Morrison, his he continued to do the job, because he got the support that he needed.

CONNELL: Yeah, and look, always criticism of Prime Ministers, but indefatigable in that role, it should be pointed out, right until the end and particularly through COVID would not have wanted his hours and job at that time, myself. The economy, Jason Falinski. This must be something. I don’t know if you’re secretly hoping it sort of tanks, or we get no rate cuts at all until the election and you can cruise back into the seat of Mackellar. Or do you have to pretend that you hope the Australian economy goes well, until then?

FALINSKI: I’m not pretending Tom, I hope the Australian economy does do well, because, you know, the fact of the matter is that a lot of Australians rely on our economy to do well. And Australia is a nation of aspiring individuals who strive, who work hard to get ahead both for themselves for their families and for their communities. So, when we see some of the figures that we’ve seen, out of the United States overnight but out of Australia more recently, it is a matter of great concern. And when we hear Jim Chalmers talking about increasing taxes, we’ve seen the OECD released overnight that Australians suffered the greatest increase in personal income tax increases of any nation of the OECD – by 7.6%. It was almost double the country that came in second. What we have here at the moment is lazy politics. No one wants to deal with the epidemic of spending, which is driving so much of our inflation rate. All we want to do is keep taxing aspiration. And if you keep doing that, there’ll be nothing left to tax.

CONNELL: So, the next budget, Patrick, we’ve got inflation running a whole percentage point above where it should be. It should be 2.5, it’s 3.6. The next budget just cannot, if it’s a responsible one, tip more money into the economy, can it?

GORMAN: What we have seen from the two budgets that we have delivered so far is that they have done that responsible restraint on spending. That’s the reason that we have delivered the first surplus in 15 years. We have sought to do the things that are in our control, where we do have deteriorating global economic outlook. To do things we can do in our control to both take pressure off inflation, at the same time finding smart ways to take pressure off household budgets. We have done that when it comes to investing in early childhood education. We have done that where we’ve invested in productivity measures such as Fee-Free TAFE. We also have looked for the smartest way to deal with the spend that was already in the budget. That is what we have done where we have changed tax cuts to make sure that there is –

CONNELL: There was this little hint from Jim Chalmers, ‘oh, we have got to worry about growth.’ That’s fine but inflation, it has not shifted to sort of dual issues has it? Inflation surely is still the main game, given the figure we had this week?

GORMAN: We recognise that a budget has to do a range of different jobs. We recognise that when it comes to inflation, it is running at about half of what it was when we came to office –

FALINSKI: That’s not true.

GORMAN: – Inflation is heading in the right direction, we will continue to make sure that where we can, we take pressure off inflation, while also taking our responsibility to deliver –

CONNELL: Jason, what is not true? What do you want to weigh-in on?

FALINSKI: Tom, it’s pretty simple. You know, we’ve known since the 1970s, that inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods. We have an epidemic of spending by the federal and state governments around this country. And this is only going to drive inflation up. Inflation is not heading in the right direction.

CONNELL: The Federal Coalition did not bring down the debt percentage of GDP. Its last budget. It still had it way above. Way above pre-COVID.

FALINSKI: Yes it did, absolutely. We were tailoring it.. Absolutely.

CONNELL: You had the chance to hand down a tough budget and you didn’t.

FALINSKI: Absolutely, Tom, we were tailoring off from the COVID expenditure that we had. We gifted this government two budget surpluses, as well as Chinese stimulus, has done that as well.

GORMAN: Oh come off it!

FALINSKI: And then on top of that, all that we’ve got, look, it’s a pretty simple question: at this budget, are we going to continue to tax aspiration? Or are we going to cut and stop NDIS paying sex workers? It’s a pretty simple question. These are the sorts of decisions, tough decisions that Jim Chalmers has to make if he actually wants to bring inflation down, drive up productivity, and improve the working lives of all Australians. It’s that simple, Tom.

CONNELL: It would be quite the campaign slogan that one you enunciated there, Jason. Patrick, just quickly on this, I’ve got one more topic, I’m not sure if I’ll get to it, see if they cut me off. What is your response, Patrick?

FALINSKI: Tom you should stand up for yourself –

GORMAN: Oh look, I think Jason is a better person than the pitch that he just gave us and I also think Jason is a better economist than the outline that he just gave us. What we know is that one of the biggest pressures on the budget is that trillion dollars of debt and the interest payments on it that was left behind by Jason and others. We have done a lot of work to tidy up the budget. Reign in the spending –

FALINSKI: Well Tom, it is not a trillion dollars.

GORMAN: – Targeted relief –

CONNELL: No, no, no, no. Stop there.

GORMAN: – Carefully targeted relief –

CONNELL: Here we go next topic. You told me to Jason.

GORMAN: Next topic!

CONNELL: I am the host listen to me. Housing, so apparently, it is not students, international students causing the rent crisis. It’s one person dwellings. One person living in a house and offices instead of bedrooms. Are you part of the problem Jason Falinski? Have you converted a bedroom into an office when you could be sheltering someone who can’t get a rental property out there?

FALINSKI: Jesus – no, Tom. I am not part of the problem. The problem is Clover Moore. If you want to pick one person because people like Clover Moore –

GORMAN: We went for about three months without a Clover Moore mention we are back!

FALINSKI: Indeed, I was challenged to do a Clover Moore mention. Tom, you know, there is actual econometric analysis of this. Showing that the zoning laws and regulations by councils drive up prices in Sydney by 68 per cent. And that goes on in all the other capital cities. You want to solve this problem? Build more housing. It’s pretty simple.

CONNELL: Patrick, have you got a home office. Are you part of the problem?

GORMAN: Well, I actually do agree with Jason, we need more housing. That is exactly what we have sought to do since we came to office with $25 billion of new investment in housing across Australia.

CONNELL: Sounds like you have both got a home office.

FALINSKI: Patrick. Patrick – Tom, do you have a home office?

CONNELL: No, absolutely not.

FALINSKI: Oh, no? Oh okay. That was not the answer I was expecting.

CONNELL: So you are not answering me. I think the viewers can make up their minds. Send us your best picture of your home office, Patrick and Jason. We will get to the vision up next week. If you still come on my program because sometimes, I am not very nice to you. Gentlemen. Thank you, talk next week.