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TOM CONNELL, HOST: Joining me now for more on this. Our regular panel, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman, and former Liberal MP and New South Wales party president, former there as well, Jason Falinski. Gentlemen, thanks both for your time. Pat, I won’t ask you to comment on polls. I get you’ve got the lines ready there. So, I’m going to put it this way. We know Labor is struggling. Let me ask you this: are you confident Labor will win the next election?

PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Tom, I’m confident that what we will put forward to the Australian people is the best plan for Australia’s future. That is a plan where we make sure that we have jobs for the future, where we can show that we have acted responsibly on both budget management and cost of living. And what I just heard then, and what I’ve been seeing from the Liberal Party in recent days, is they seem to want to run around doing a victory lap already. Now, this is a party that, just a few weeks ago, couldn’t even get their nominations in for a local council election. I don’t think they’re ready to be in charge of running the nation’s finances again. What I’ll continue to do, though, because I am respectful of the Australian people, and I recognise it is their decision who they put in Parliament and who forms that government. So what I will continue to do, and all my colleagues will continue to do, is to do the job that we have got today while planning for Australia’s economic future for tomorrow.

CONNELL: Alright, I didn’t get past the talking points. I’m going to think of another way to ask that; give me a couple of weeks. Jason, you don’t have to worry about being the Prime Minister’s 2IC, like Pat kind of, sort of is, what’s your take? Who’s going to win?

JASON FALINSKI, FORMER LIBERAL MP AND PRESIDENT OF THE NSW LIBERAL PARTY: Look, I don’t know who’s going to win, Tom, and you know, nor do you, nor do any of us. But you would have to say that Peter Dutton now needs to be taken very seriously and that the Canberra press gallery has to get used to the idea that there’s a better than 50% chance that he will be the next Prime Minister after May next year. And I think that changes the way that they have been reporting federal politics for quite some time. I guess my other reflection would be, which is, you know, it’s been less than 12 months since –

CONNELL: What are we doing wrong, Jason?

FALINSKI: Well, Tom, it’s your job to tell me what I’m doing wrong, not the other way around. But I genuinely think there has been an assumption –

CONNELL: Well, I’m part of this Press Gallery.

FALINSKI: This is true; you are, in fact, you’re the treasurer of it, aren’t you, Tom?

CONNELL: I don’t usually tell people that. It’s not as important as you know, running the New South Wales Liberal Party.

FALINSKI: Indeed.

CONNELL: I’ve never missed, sort of; we don’t really have nominations to put in. So, I haven’t had issues there. You haven’t. If the viewers were wondering, alright, I keep interrupting, but just give us ten more seconds on what we do wrong, and then I’ll move on.

FALINSKI: Look, it wasn’t my purpose to tell you what you’re doing wrong, but I do think that there needs to be a mental shift in the Canberra Press Gallery about this contest and the fact that Peter Dutton, at the moment, is sitting very much likely he will be the next Prime Minister of the country, and that’s what the polling is showing.

CONNELL: I’ve seen a few articles saying that; funnily enough, maybe it means more scrutiny; we’ll see. Pat, so housing is a big issue. It’s in the Senate this week. The main thing that Labor has done so far in housing is around social and affordable housing. So you could go to the election with nothing really passed to actually increase the supply for the average buyer out there?

GORMAN: Well, Tom, actually, what we announced today was that some 13,700 additional homes are going to be built or made available for social and affordable housing because of action that our government has taken. That’s more homes in this single round than the entire nine years of the Coalition government. That’s huge. It includes 1200 homes for women and children escaping family violence. So that’s big. But we’re not stopping there. What’s in the Senate this week, and it’s been debated right now – well, I think they’re in Question Time, but it’s been debated today in the Senate – is what we call Help to Buy. Now, for your viewers who haven’t heard about that, this is about basically the government assisting people through shared equity in buying their first home. Now, for me, here in Western Australia –

CONNELL: It’s demand-driven, though, and it’s not going to pass, is it? You’re not going to get it done?

GORMAN: Well, if I had my way, Tom, we would get it passed, and we would get it implemented. Indeed, we know that this will make a real difference. I want your viewers to know a similar scheme runs here in Western Australia. It’s helped 120,000 Western Australians into their own homes. If it’s good enough for Western Australia, if it was good enough for the Greens political party to put it in their own election platform in 2022, then it’s good enough for the Greens party to vote for it today in the Senate.

CONNELL: So, Jason, the Coalition policies we’ve seen so far, all I see is on the demand side. I know you’re an economist, or you delve into these things. I can’t remember your official qualifications. Where’s the supply side on the Coalition?

FALINSKI: Now, we have to be qualified to come onto this panel? I didn’t know about that.

GORMAN: Professor Falinski has a nice ring to it.

FALINSKI: It does, doesn’t it? Look, the fact of the matter is that, yeah, there needs to be a lot more work done on the supply side. And, you know, I don’t think the government, at the moment, has done enough on that. We saw over the weekend that Clover Moore got re-elected. That’s incredibly disappointing. She’s the one person who has done more to harm the prospect of young Australians being able to own their own home than any other single person in Australia. And look, if I were Anthony Albanese, I’d be criticising Chris Minns for his reversal of that modest reform around land tax and stamp duty that the previous state Liberal government brought in. God knows, Chris Minns doesn’t mind criticising the Federal Government. All these things matter, and until we get supply moving in the right direction, we’re not going to actually see proper and long-lasting changes to affordability in housing. I am sick to death, Tom, and I know that Pat is as well; I am sick to death of all these people who stand up and say the same bromide things, the same slogans like, ‘Oh, it took us decades to get here. It’s not going to be fixed overnight.’ Well, let me tell you that until we start doing something about this, it isn’t going to get fixed. So stop with the excuses Jaqui Lambie, Max Chandler-Mather, David Pocock, and all the rest of you sitting on the crossbench and actually start to do something about it. Until you do and stop pointing fingers at other people, this isn’t going to get better, and another generation of Australians will be locked out of housing.

CONNELL: Fired up, Jason Falinski. When you have a couple of weeks off, I can tell Jason you get off the long run up, and we enjoy it. Let me ask you, finally about this story today, the ABC allegations of faked audio to do with the Afghanistan war files story. Is an independent investigation needed here Pat? They are saying they’re looking into it. They’ve taken the audio out of the story, but is it good enough just for the ABC to look into it themselves?

GORMAN: Well, that’s the process they’re going through at the moment, and I’ll let them get to their own conclusions. I’ll note that the ABC has editorial independence, and on this, they’ve admitted they got something wrong, and it was a big mistake. And I welcome the fact that when they get it wrong, they are upfront and admit that. Whether there needs to be further inquiries within the ABC’s processes, I mean, I’ll leave that to them. They do have editorial independence, but I’m pleased that this is now resolved.

CONNELL: Jason?

FALINSKI: Look, I think Pat’s being very generous there. They didn’t admit that they got it wrong. Channel Seven had to expose them. They are given billions of dollars by the taxpayers to be better than this. I think that we have seen enough internal ABC inquiries. This needs to be taken off their hands. And I think Australians are crying out for real reform at the ABC, rather than another whitewash and paper over the cracks that’s clearly becoming more and more evident at the ABC every day.

CONNELL: Patrick and Jason, I always appreciate your time. Thank you.

GORMAN: Thanks Tom.

FALINSKI: Thanks Tom.