Interview with Patricia Karvelas, Afternoon Briefing

Topics: Gambling Reform, Migration Cuts.

E&OE…

PATRICIA KARVELAS

I want to bring in my political panel for today. Jerome Laxale is the Labor MP for Bennelong. Angie Bell is the Shadow Minister for the Arts. Welcome to both of you.

ANGIE BELL

Great to be with you, PK.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Now, Communications Minister Annika Wells has played down this speculation the government could ditch its gambling reforms instead of collaborating on changes, Jerome first to you. That wouldn’t be a very good outcome, would it? Would Labor really rather sink the whole thing rather than negotiate?

JEROME LAXALE

No, look, I don’t think so, PK. Just as I think the Liberals and the Greens wouldn’t come through with their threat to vote down this bill. I mean, at the end of the day, this is still reform and the strongest reform that has been brought to Parliament. I would welcome it being strengthened in the Senate, as I’ve told you before, and as I tell my constituents here in Bennelong. But what I’m seeing here is like a replay of what happened with the environmental law negotiation. You’ve got the Nationals saying, you know, it’s gone too far. You’ve got the Liberals ad-libbing, some of the backbench ad-libbing, and the Shadow Communications Minister doing it. Can the Liberals just come up with one coherent position so that the Government can work with them to pass this reform? And the same goes to the crossbench. You know, to say that any reform is worse than the status quo is absurd. My community and I want to see legislation passed. Let’s get it done.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Angie Bell, it seems like the government’s prepared maybe to negotiate more than we realise. But obviously, something substantial has to be put forward by your side of politics.

ANGIE BELL

Well, I think firstly I should have a right of reply of what Jerome just said on the environmental sham negotiations from last year because really PK, that was a complete and utter sham. Labor was always going to do a deal with the Greens on the EPBC Act reforms, and Jerome was just trying to have a dig there. Well done, it didn’t work. But look, on these gambling ads, it comes down to harm. This is the human cost to Australians, and we know PK that 600,000 young Australians under 18 currently gamble across our country. Labor has had three years to do something about this, and now it seems to be watering down its laws. It was the Coalition who first brought in a ban during live sport back in 2018, and the Prime Minister is now hanging his hat on that, which is another untruth from a lying Prime Minister. This was something that the Coalition fought very hard on and changed in 2018. Labor’s not doing enough. They need to do more, and our Shadow Communications Minister Sarah Henderson, of course, will have more to say on this next week when we return to the Parliament. But certainly, they haven’t done enough. They need to do more. They need to protect particularly young Australians, and a lot of young Australians watch sport with mum and dad.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Jerome the lack of action has been criticism, not just from the Coalition, but it has taken some time to get to this point. There has been a sort of lack of interest from Labor about trying to move on some of these issues, particularly inducements. I just want to get your personal view. You are a backbencher. Do you think inducements should be dealt with more heavily by the law?

JEROME LAXALE

Well, the entire Labor Party at a national conference only a number of weeks ago voted unanimously to ensure that we’ll strengthen measures to prevent harm through inducements. So, you know, I say to the Liberals, stop ad-libbing. Come together with a coherent position and a negotiation with Minister Wells to get a proposal through. You know what I don’t want to see is for gambling reform to be used as a political football once again. We saw what happened in the last term and I think everyone in that Parliament wants to see reform, let’s just get it done. It’s the time for games to be over. You know, there’s enough in this legislation. Plus, there’s wiggle room, as the Minister has said today. You know, the crossbench and the Liberals have our national platform that they can look at, which has inducements in there, and that was unanimously supported by the party, so okay.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Now it has to make it into the law, though.

JEROME LAXALE

Yeah, let’s well go for it. Let’s do it.

ANGIE BELL

You’re in government, Jerome. It’s up to your government to do more on inducements, and we’ve heard how that has harmed Australians with inducements to keep them gambling. Even we’ve seen in the Australian reported in the last few days a young man who was induced with drugs to keep gambling. I mean, your Government has to stop this and it has to do something to particularly protect young Australians. As the Shadow Minister for Youth, I’m very passionate about that.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

All right, I want to change the topic if we can. One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, said she doesn’t care if skilled migration caps affect Businesses, I’ll give you the floor on this, Jerome Laxale. There was going to be immigration cuts announced today. Then that was put off by your government. Do you think immigration should be cut? And how about the impact on business?

JEROME LAXALE

Well, our permanent migration program is pretty transparent and clear, Patricia. We set the number at 185,000 at the last budget, which is exactly the same as the year before, down 45% from the COVID. You look at our approach, which is an orderly approach to migration, which prioritised skilled workers, recognised families, compare that to the race to the bottom by One Nation who don’t care about the impacts of their language, and then of course the Liberals trying to chase them, targeting permanent residents as well. You know we need to have our targets met at 185,000. If that requires tweaks to policy to do so, we just have to do that to reach our targets.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

Angie, if I can give you a right of reply on that, but also if you could address this issue of you know not caring about the impact on businesses, as Pauline Hanson framed it.

ANGIE BELL

Yeah, sure. Look, in terms of migration, the Labor Party has clearly lost control of its migration policies and the program. We’ve had 1.5 more million more people come to this country since Labor has come to power in four years. Now they’ve lost control. If you think about the population of Canberra, so almost 400,000. That’s the gap between how many houses we have and what we have in this country when it comes to migration. And so, what we need to do is tie migration numbers to housing. That is common sense. It’s the sensible center. It makes sense to Australians to tie those numbers until such a point where we have caught up. Now, the way we’re going to do that is to make sure that we have a well-managed migration program, and under this government, it is completely and utterly out of control. Now, when it comes to industry and business, of course, we need to review the skilled migration list and the program, and Angus Taylor has repeatedly said that over the last few weeks since we announced what we would do, and the approach that the coalition will take. I’ll leave Pauline Hanson’s comments to Pauline Hanson.

PATRICIA KARVELAS

All right, we’re out of time. Thank you to both of you.

JEROME LAXALE

Thank you.

ANGIE BELL

Thanks so much, PK.