TOM CONNELL, HOST: Well, plenty of politicians are putting their feet up at this time of year. Not my next panel. A current - and I guess he's a former but he'll always be the Member for Mackellar, for some people, I suppose, - joining me, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman and former Liberal MP Jason Falinski. Gentlemen, thanks both for your time. I know Jason, you would have been watching the RBA very closely. You'll get your go at this, don't worry. But let's start with Pat - look, a lot of talk around the growth figure, it is anaemic in Australia, but it's not going to bring a rate cut forward any time soon, is it? There's no remit within the RBA to worry about the nation's growth. That's something Labor is supposed to be doing, and I guess failing at the moment.
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Well, I'm not sure exactly where the question in all of that is, Tom. It's not my job to speculate on interest rates. It's my job to make sure that we do what we think is right for the Australian economy, and I think we've been doing that, investing in making sure we support household budgets -
CONNELL: Well, here's the question - is the economy growing well?
GORMAN: It is very slow growth, and we've been really open about that. But what we also know is that if we had adopted some of the policy positions that were put forward by Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party, Australia would be in recession right now - that's a fact. You know, we'd had all the deep cuts to spending that they wanted. If we'd stopped all the indexation to the pension and to Jobseeker payments and all those things that they've been suggesting over time. If we took the axe to the public service with 36,000 job cuts, if we did all those things, Australia would be in recession. We know that we started the year with their plan to oppose our tax cuts for every taxpayer, we know that's doing a bit of work to help support households through these challenging times, and I don't want to pretend that it's anything other than challenging for Australian households. But what we are seeing is the impacts in the economy of both interest rates being where they are, inflation still, you know, higher than we would like, but coming down and coming down significantly than the more than 6% inflation we had when we inherited the economy from the Liberal Party, and we are obviously seeing the impacts of global instability -
CONNELL: Early clip from Pat Gorman, but thinking about it, I was a bit mealy-mouthed. I'll cop that one. We'll see if I'll cop the next one. There's no doubt, no doubt it is coming. Jason, you're free - you're not encumbered by this political stuff. Or, you know, looking after the Prime Minister like Pat is - the RBA? Should it act? Is it time to rev up the economy a bit?
JASON FALINSKI, FORMER LIBERAL MP FOR MACKELLAR: Well, Tom, the first thing that needs to be made very clear is that inflation is the one thing that can destroy your economy, and the 1970s is a clear example of where when inflation gets out of control, you don't just hurt people who are unemployed, you hurt everyone. So the RBA's first job should be to get inflation under control. But what we're observing at the moment is the cumulative impact of Jim Chalmers' policies, cheered on by the Greens and by the Teals and mate, the 1970s are calling, and they want their economic policies back because stagflation is just around the corner.
CONNELL: All right, so you're a firm on hold. You know the need for households saying, 'please help us out.' You've just got to focus so firmly on inflation, as the RBA, and not worry about those calls?
FALINSKI: The Government needs to do more to actually get out of the way, allow Australians to get on with the job that they're doing. I mean, Jim Chalmers comes out today after two and a half years and says, 'oh, the private sector needs to do some work' at the same time that the AWU is basically keeping goods off the shelves at Woolworths because they've decided that management at Woolworths shouldn't be allowed to manage their employees. So the people running this country, being the union movement, the class action lawyers and industry super funds are ensuring that they're doing well, while we have now had six trade deficits in Australia, we are on track for a current account deficit. These are all results of deliberative actions that this Government took to make Australians worse off.
CONNELL: Pat, might ask you about energy. We had a sort of bit of a near miss on the blackout front. Is this summer a big test? I mean, if we see semi regular or several blackouts in the system, does it show this transition to renewables isn't going that well?
GORMAN: What we know is that under the former Coalition government, we had, I think it was four gigawatts of energy leave the system. We need to get more energy into our grid. That's what our plan is all about. It's why we're supporting things like the big battery down in Collie. It's why we're supporting offshore wind. It's why we've sped up environmental approvals for renewable energy projects. This is a hot country and a country where we have huge demand for energy. Every summer we have our energy regulators - AEMO for those of you on the East Coast, Western Power and Horizon, for those of us over here in the West - doing what they do well, which is to look at what is the demand going to be. How do we best manage that demand and make sure that everyone can keep both, not just, the energy they need for their homes, but the energy we need for industry as well. And I think, actually, it's a much more mature discussion for you to talk -
CONNELL: Yeah, that's the thing, they can't be forced to load shed too much. So, what's, what's the test? What will, what will the thumbs up be from the energy market at the end of summer? And you've got to have some sort of test, don't you?
GORMAN: Oh, well, we'll just keep doing what we've been doing for the last two years, which is to look at ways to get the most affordable form of energy into the grid, which is renewable energy, get more of it into the grid, because we actually know that Australia's future is in having a huge surplus of energy that we can then use to attract new industries here. Supported by - with households -
CONNELL: - So you don't want to set up a test, because then you might fail it?
GORMAN: I think Tom, the reality is that you're trying to sort of say, for me here, to sort of presuppose where things will be at the end of summer, what we know is that every summer we have this challenge. It's the same challenge that we've had for decades and decades, which is that it's a hot country. It's a country where we've got some very energy intensive industries. I trust our regulators and our market operators to do their job well, which is to make sure that we've got the energy in the system we need, and we'll do our job as a government, which is to get more energy into the system by faster environmental approvals and approving more energy projects.
CONNELL: Well, on that yeah, on that front, we'll get to you on this, Jason, and we've got the nuclear policy from the Coalition, which is coming - the details of it. It's the 5th of December, but Ted O'Brien assured us it's out this year we'll be able to go through it. But what did you make of Peter Dutton? It's now two out of two of the wind projects the Coalition's assessed, if you like, rejecting two of them. How many more can he do? I mean, there's still going to be a need for more renewables in the system, isn't there?
GORMAN: Well, of course there is. And these are, these are job creating projects. What he's actually saying is no to foreign investment, no to Australian jobs. The one that he rejected today was expected to have about 3000 jobs in construction. Now, I would have thought that if people want to see good jobs in the construction industry, this is a great opportunity, 1500 jobs, in ongoing operation -
CONNELL: - Okay, nearly out of time, so I'm jumping in. Jason, what did you make of the move today?
FALINSKI: Well, Tom, let's just face facts. It never used to be this way. Australians used to have some of the cheapest and most reliable energy in the world, but this government gave in to all the Teal donors, like people like Mike Cannon-Brookes, people like Simon Simon Holmes à Court, whose failing renewable energy investments required top-ups from federal government subsidies, and what we've got is more expensive power, less reliable power. And Tom, cop this, emissions have gone up under this government. Emissions have gone up under the Teals. So the Teals are making Scott Morrison, Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan look good when it comes to environmental protection and getting to Net Zero, and I think that it's about time quite genuinely -
GORMAN: I don't think anyone can make them look good when it comes to environmental protection. Jason, I don't think anyone can do that.
FALINSKI: Can I tell you, Pat, can I tell you - ?
CONNELL: The wind farm question being rejected today, though, -
FALINSKI: - Barnaby Joyce -
CONNELL: - Jason, two out of two so far rejected. Do we need hear ones the Coalition will support?
FALINSKI: Tom, let's face facts. Let's face facts here, which is that nuclear power, at the moment, although there's a strong argument that as more and more reactors get built, the price will come down, is not a cheap form of electricity.
GORMAN: No, it is not.
FALINSKI: However, there is one point of electricity more expensive, and that is offshore wind. There is one form of electricity that is less reliable than virtually anything else, other than onshore wind, and that is offshore wind. And once again, where are the Teals? The Teals have supported this and but no one calls them to account. No one calls Allegra Spender to account to explain to us how she's going to make this work. No one calls Zoe Daniel to account and to make her explain how it is that this will reduce electricity prices and reduce the cost of electricity, when we know it's unreliable and we know it's more expensive than nuclear energy before the cost of nuclear energy comes down. So the real question, for, I think, everyone in this debate, is that we've got to actually put aside our partisanship and have a look at physics and basic mathematics and stop giving in to the donors to the Teal party.
CONNELL: Got to leave it there. You two wanted to talk Christmas today. We're not doing that. We're far too far away, and you're too committed. You're going to be here for the next two Mondays. The last Monday, we might even get a little bit of your highlights or lowlights in the year on mine as well. So it's coming, I promise. Jason, Patrick, thank you.