TRANSCRIPT: Interview on ABC South East - Mornings, 11 October 2018
E&OE
Subjects: Road Safety Week; Eden Monaro; Women in the Nationals; religious freedom
CLAIRE WHEATON:
So you’ve been busy launching Road Safety Week. Tell me a little bit about it.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well look Road Safety Week is really important. It’s a new initiative. It's the inaugural Rural Road Safety Week started by a fellow I know very, very well, Russell White. He's the CEO and founder of an organisation called Australian Road Safety Foundation. He's urging Australians, both country and city based, to think when they're driving on country roads a little bit extra, a little bit more carefully because the statistics show quite alarmingly that you’re four times more likely to die on a regional road than you are on an urban road. That is a frightening statistic. Of course there are all sorts of factors that come into play there. The fact is you've got a higher speed limit; you can go up to 110 kilometres per hour in the regions on the freeways. Of course, urban roads are usually limited to 60 kilometres an hour, and in most cases 50 these days. But also there's wildlife, there’s fatigue factors that set in. There's people driving long, long distances and quite often the case too is that many city people come out onto country roads and aren’t quite used to long drives and driving to those speed limits. So that's a factor too.
But what we want to do is just make sure that people exercise caution, make sure that they obey the road rules and most of all get home safely, and get home in one piece. The fact is last year there were 1225 deaths on our roads nationally. We of course want to reduce that at every possible turn we take. We want to make sure that that road toll is zero and it shouldn't be called a road toll, it should be called lives lost because at the end of the day that's what it is. The fact is there's not only 1225 deaths recorded last year, there were also more than 35,000 injuries and that is an horrendous toll on families and communities right across our nation.
CLAIRE WHEATON:
Now that statistic for regional areas is frightening, and it’s quite staggering. What is the Federal Government doing to reduce the road toll for regional areas?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
We're playing our part by investing $75 billion in a 10 year infrastructure pipeline. Now we're funding many thousands of upgrades to deliver safer roads through measures such as installing additional overtaking lanes; duplicating key transport routes; having more truck rest stops; upgrading intersections; fixing traffic hotspots, black spots under that Black Spot Program. But of course we can only do so much. The Police can only do so much. Local Government and State Government, they can only do so much. It also comes down to driver behaviour.
It also comes down to, you know and there’s a very, very good ad campaign on YouTube at the moment called Yeah, Nah. So if you go to YouTube and look that up and you know the fellow there says will I push on through the night? Yeah, Nah. And he says will I drive a little bit over the limit just because I'm running a little bit late? Yeah, Nah. It’s a really powerful message and I think it will attract a lot of interest. Hopefully it will go viral but it will also make a few people understand that those little one percenters that we do when we drive: Will I look at my mobile phone? Will I just get slightly distracted and turn my head away from the bitumen in front of me for just a few seconds? It’s only a few seconds? Yeah, Nah.
Every second counts when you're on the road and fatalities and crashes can happen so, so quickly. So that's the message for today, the start of a Rural Road Safety Week. It's a good message. It’s a message that I hope a lot of people, in fact all people who use our regional roads heed.
CLAIRE WHEATON:
Now, if I can talk about an issue that affects road users in the South East, the Princes Highway. In this year’s budget, $132 million was announced for the highway duplication between Traralgon and Sale but what is the Government doing about the highway on the Far South Coast?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
The Princes Highway as you’ve identified is a significant major roadway for rural towns throughout New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. It’s a key tourist route. We want people to get home sooner and safer, we want them to get up to their holiday destinations sooner and safer. The Federal Government's developing a Princes Highway corridor strategy to inform future investment along the corridor, along the route. We've already committed a total of more than $970 million to projects on the highway across the three States. We'll add more information about how people can get involved in the consultation process that we're going to undertake. But of course yes, there are many parts along that section, many along the highway, many sections of that very important piece of road that do need addressing and we'll be certainly doing that in the future.
CLAIRE WHEATON:
Well we’ll be waiting. Hopefully we’ll see something on that soon and get details about the consultation, that would be great.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well the strategy is an important step in making sure that we get our investment priorities over the next decade right. I know the New South Wales Government too is also spending $87 billion over the next four years. It goes to show what a Government can do when it’s in surplus. Of course they're investing as well with us on the New South Wales sections of the highway. That's an important step and I'd urge and encourage the Victorian and South Australian Governments to equally look at what they can do as well in conjunction with the Commonwealth.
CLAIRE WHEATON:
Can I ask you about local politics? The National Party has announced it’s going to run a candidate for Eden Monaro which is the first time that it will do so in decades. Do you think the party has a chance?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Absolutely and we'll be looking at finalising our preselection timetable for Eden Monaro in the next week. We've got some potential candidates who've already been sounded out, people such as myself, head office and others, as to what their prospects might be and the likelihood of what will happen. We believe that a three cornered contest is the best way the Coalition can win the seat back. I appreciate that Mike Kelly has been returned there for a couple of years, for one term, and was in there before that, but we believe that the Nationals are the party for Regional Australia. We've got a proven track record for delivering for Regional Australians. That's our whole and sole focus: is on bettering regional communities. That’s why we’re here serving those people in regional communities, in the national interest…not just the Nationals’ interest but in the national interest.
So that's indeed why we turn up to work every day. I've got a very, very dedicated team of MPs and Senators who strive hard to better lives whether it's infrastructure, whether it's rural health, education, telecommunications all those things. And we hold some really important portfolios in the National Party and we'd like to extend that support obviously to the Eden Monaro and we'll be certainly putting our hands up and putting our best candidate forward.
CLAIRE WHEATON:
How has that move been received by the Liberal Party?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
It's not a seat that the Coalition holds at the moment. So if we can, if by running a candidate we could help a Coalition member win that seat back, then that's got to be seen as a good thing.
CLAIRE WHEATON:
And one candidate, or nominee, a woman from Yass, Sophie Wade, how would you like to see her become the first female Member for Eden Monaro?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well look, it’s up to the grassroots Members of the National Party to determine who is going to be their representative. So I don't want to go and endorse one potential candidate over another. We'll see who puts their hand up for preselection. I know when I first ran for Parliament in 2010 I was up against four other very, very good candidates, lucky enough to win the preselection, lucky enough to then win at the general election and that's how it works.
We don't parachute candidates in. Certainly I wouldn't want to be seen to be endorsing one member over another but look, there's always a good field of candidates. I’m delighted at the recent Cootamundra by-election. I appreciate it’s a little while ago now but we had five females who put their hand up. There weren't any blokes in the running and I think that's the first time that's happened for the Nats. But there's a lot of good female candidates. We've got a strong female representation throughout our grassroots party and that's the way it should be.
CLAIRE WHEATON:
It’s got to be a good thing to see more females in Parliament.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Absolutely. And the two females in the National Party are both Ministers, and Bridget McKenzie, my deputy and Michelle Landry are both doing outstanding jobs.
CLAIRE WHEATON:
Bridget and I actually went to school together.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well you could tell me some tales. No, look, she's fantastic. Bridget- and of course she's got a big portfolio too: regional services taking in education and health. She's got decentralisation. She's got Local Government. She's a very, very busy lady and she's doing an outstanding job. Regional Communications is such a huge portfolio area and she's getting out and about and I'm very much looking forward to going to Western Australia this weekend where the 600th mobile phone tower is being launched, been turned on. That's part of 867 black spots that we have funded across this nation. How good is that? And of course we're connecting people like never before, so that’s really important.
CLAIRE WHEATON:
And lastly, if I could ask you about today’s news item: Philip Ruddock’s religious freedom review. Do you think religious schools should be guaranteed the right to turn away gay teachers?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well that's existing law at the moment, but this is a report to Government, not necessarily by Government. What’s happening now has been in place for some time and religious schools have always had that opportunity to determine employment based on those things which have come out in some newspaper reports.
But look, at the end of the day, the sorts of things that people are raising with me, and I appreciate that this is important, but most people are talking about the sorts of things which are affecting them on a day to day basis: the costs of living; making sure that petrol prices are where they should be, and I've got to say in regional areas at the moment, they’re about 12 cents cheaper than those in city areas…making sure that they have a job; making sure that when they turn the power on, the power in fact does come on and it’s at the cheapest possible rate. So I appreciate that there's a lot of interest in religious freedoms and discrimination but at the moment the existing laws are there, they're serving us well. I appreciate this report has come out and made certain recommendations but it is, at the end of the day, a report to Government not by Government.