TRANSCRIPT Doorstop, Cooinda Court Aged Care Facility, Junee NSW 17 January 2019

With:

Cr Matthew Austin, Deputy Mayor, Junee Shire Council

Mrs Patricia Butler, Committee Chairman, Cooinda Court Aged Care Facility

Subjects: Community grants; Murray Darling Basin Plan; live exports

E&OE

PATRICIA BUTLER:

We’re very excited to receive this refurbishment grant and our residents are excited as well. It’s going to enable us to improve the environment for our current residents and even our future residents. What’s going to actually happen is this will be used to refurbish the bathrooms, floor coverings, internal painting and also place efficient lighting internally and externally. It’s exciting and we can’t wait for it to start. We’re really grateful. Thank you very much for helping us and giving us this grant; it really means a lot to us.

QUESTION:

Are the upgrades a long time coming?

PATRICIA BUTLER:

They are. This facility was opened in 1991 so it’s really time for these refurbishments to be done now. It’s just starting to show its age. As I said it will improve the environment, the safety aspect as well, for our residents.

QUESTION:

Can you tell me about this facility and how important it is to the Junee community?

PATRICIA BUTLER:

It’s very important. Most of our residents here are local residents who live in Junee. For them to be able to come in to this facility and to be treated as their home, they then get to see a lot of family. They’re not having to be moved to another facility from out of town which makes a difference. The Junee community is very passionate about this facility.

QUESTION:

How many residents do you have here?

PATRICIA BUTLER:

We have 22 residents. Thank you

QUESTION:

Can you tell me how helpful these funds are?

MATTHEW AUSTIN:

Very very helpful. The facility plays a very important part in the life of Junee and district. It offers support and care to people from here and from other places, and as has been said it gives people the opportunity to receive care in the area where they’ve grown up and where they’ve lived for a long time. This funding is very much welcomed and really appreciated.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Michael McCormack, Acting Prime Minister. These facilities are going to be upgraded thanks to a $300,000 grant from the Federal Government. This is part of $900,000 funding to Temora, to Coolamon and to Junee. Cooinda has 22 residents. Junee’s community is very passionate about its aged care facility. Junee’s community wants this facility to be the very best, and of course we all want it to be the very best because we want these residents – who’ve contributed so much to the local community – to be spending their lives in the very best of amenities, the very best of facilities. They can do that with this upgrade. They need to have good bathrooms. They need to have good lighting. They need to have the very best facilities. They’ve got tremendous staff here at Cooinda. They love and care and respect the residents here and they want it to have the best facilities. This $300,000 grant will go to doing just that.

QUESTION:

There’s going to have to be a lot more investment in aged care facilities given the fact that they will (inaudible)

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Indeed, and if we all live long enough we’re going to end up in one of these facilities; people shouldn’t complain about getting old because some don’t get the opportunity. Those who do want the best of care. They want the best of facilities. As you say we have an ageing nation, we have got an ageing population and we need to provide these sorts of facilities particularly in rural and regional Australia. That’s why I was delighted that Ken Wyatt, the Aged Care Minister, came to Wagga Wagga late last year to announce a national incentive program for 13,500 additional aged care places, primarily for rural and regional areas, so that people in rural and regional areas who need to go into care, who need a facility to live in can do it nearby or indeed in their own home towns. We don’t want our rural and regional people who have grown up, lived all their lives in a particularly community - whether it’s Junee or Coolamon or Temora – then having to travel to live hundreds of kilometres away from family and friends, hundreds of kilometres away from where they love, where they’ve become used to the community there. We want them to live in their own home towns, in the very best of facilities. That’s why this funding announcement today, $900,000 for Cooinda at Junee, for the Allawah Lodge at Coolamon and for Whiddon at Temora – three care centres which do such a fabulous job for our aged: they’re going to benefit from it and certainly their residents are too.

QUESTION:

You will be heading to Coolamon this afternoon to make a number of community grant announcements; can you take us through those?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

There’s money for local sporting champions who need travelling money to go to national championships. This morning I gave some money to Thomas Sase, a wonderful footballer from Ganmain. Thomas is hoping to play first grade for Ganmain Grong Grong Matong this season and I know Christin Macri, the coach there, is developing him to the very best of his abilities. He’s just gone to the national championships in Adelaide as part of the NSW team. This funding is part of, right across the region, kids getting money to help them with their travel to national championships. More than that, the Stronger Communities Program provides funding for such things as the Marrar Community Hall, for basketball and skateboard facilities at Marrar and Coolamon, the tennis club at Coolamon – they’re only little grants but they make a world of difference to these communities and to these organisations which do such a power of good, particularly for young people. We want young people to be involved in sport because we know when young people are involved in sport they give of their best selves. They reach their potential. They can contribute so much more to their communities.

Of course we’ve got so many wonderful sporting clubs right around the Riverina. It’s good to be able to give some money to not only the sports organisations themselves, the great sporting volunteering clubs, but also to the individuals – particularly the young ones who are going to national events. It does cost a lot of money when you are from a region, particularly from a remote region, and you want to attend one of these national championships, to potentially make a national team.

Our country kids, they have to be (inaudible) to make an Australian team because they’ve got it so much more difficult than their city cousins, but we produce the best sporting talent here in the Riverina, make no mistake. It is the nursery for sporting champions for the Australian nation.

QUESTION:

Onto the Murray Darling Basin Plan – is the Basin Plan broken?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

No. The Murray Darling Basin Plan isn’t broken. It is a bipartisan plan. It was, it is and it will continue to be hopefully a bipartisan plan. It was put in place to get the very best outcomes for the Murray Darling Basin but it was – let’s face it, let’s underline it – it was an environmental document. Originally it was an ecological document. It still is. Yes, it has knobs and dials so that if they get tweaked to fit the seasons, they get tweaked when we’ve got too much water when it’s flooding rains. They also get tweaked when we’re in drought and we are in drought at the moment. But the Government can’t make it rain. It has been dry in some of those catchment areas in Queensland, in other areas, for more than seven years. So when you don’t have any water coming into the catchment it’s pretty hard to get water flowing through the Murray Darling.

But the fact is we are looking at it. We’ve had an expert panel on a teleconference on Tuesday. They’re coming together later in the month in a face-to-face meeting to see what they can do. They will produce some recommendations for Government. The Federal Government has put $5 million on the table for a national fish management strategy. We’re working with the NSW Government as well; they’re putting money on the table; they’re putting in resources; they’re doing what they can to work us through this situation. No-one wants to see fish die the way they have been, but this is a rare event in as much as so many fish dying, but there have been a number of these fish events in past decades. So it’s nothing new, but the scale has been a little unprecedented.

QUESTION:

You talk about waiting for rain but what policy measures can the Government take now to restore the health of the river?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

We’ll take on board the experts’ view when they come together in a face-to-face meeting later this month. We will take on board their recommendations. The fact is the Murray Darling Basin Plan is a plan which can be tweaked such that we can look at ways and means, at flows, at environmental outcomes that are fit for the particular season that we are enduring. But the fact is it hasn’t rained in some parts for seven years; it’s very dry; so for those reasons you are going to get events such as this.

I get sick and tired of farmers copping the blame, of the blame being sheeted home to farmers who do an outstanding job. They are, make no mistake, the very best environmentalists. Our Australian farmers make sure that every drop of water is accounted for, make sure that they get maximum value out of every drop of water. You get people in Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane sitting at home on their computers, writing social media memes and saying some of the sorts of things on Twitter that they would never say face-to-face to a farmer, I can tell you. They’d never face a farmer and say some of the disgraceful things that they are saying against our farmers who do the very best job. Our farmers do it very tough during these dry times. They do it toughest of all. Small businesses in those river communities are also hurting. So what I’d say to those people in city areas is: Lay off. Lay off our farmers. Lay off our small businesspeople who are doing it tough. Do something positive for a change and talk up our farmers; talk up our best environmentalists because that’s what they are.

QUESTION:

Why not hold a royal commission and allow these issues to be fully investigated?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

I know The Greens are out calling for royal commissions. You can have royal commissions into everything, quite frankly. The Greens are always asking for this and asking for that, but when it comes to the Cabinet table we’re the ones making the decisions. They can shout from the rooftops. They can get rocks and throw them but we’re the ones making the decisions. We’ll make the best decisions for the best possible outcomes for the nation. We’re not just political opportunists and media opportunists doing stunts all the time like The Greens do over the Murray Darling, over Australia Day. I mean, they’re not in there making decisions and if they were then God help Australia.

QUESTION:

On live exports, have you been made aware of the alleged payments to ship workers for footage of animals suffering on board and that type of thing?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

I know what I’ve read and I know what I’ve seen. Some of these people would quite frankly do anything to stop live exports. I know again that our farmers are dong the very best that they can. I know the measures that are put in place and have been put in place by the Liberals and Nationals make sure that animal welfare is front and centre of everything that we do as far as live animal exports is concerned.

There are some nefarious characters who would quite frankly stop at nothing to shut the live animal trade down. They don’t care if other nations would then fill the void – and for them, those other nations, live animal welfare is not front and centre of their export opportunities. So for these people, again, they are political opportunists. I say to them, be careful what you say and what you do and what you pay because quite frankly our farmers need live animal exports. Our farmers need them, particularly in Western Australia, and the Australian Government is very mindful of having a good animal welfare strategy in place. We have had that. It is working. Yes, there are some exporters who have done the wrong thing and they have been punished accordingly for it, but the fact is we need that trade, our farmers need that trade and they’re doing a mighty job for our nation. I back them all the way.

QUESTION:

Have you got any evidence that the footage was paid for?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

No I don’t. It’s a newspaper story and yes if it’s true then it’s terrible. Like I say, I’ve seen examples before and I’ve heard things before that these activists would do anything at all possible. They break into chicken farms, they break into piggeries, so I wouldn’t be surprised at whatever they would do to get their point across, but they and The Greens – they just want to tear down the nation. We’re a Government which tries to build things up, just like we’re investing in aged care facilities, in stronger communities for rural and regional Australia. These people – they don’t care about rural and regional Australia. They do not know or understand what goes on beyond the Great Dividing Range. Well I do. I care. The Government does. Scott Morrison does. We’re doing our very best to build a better future. That’s what I’m concentrating on every single day.

I’m sick of these people who try to tear down everything. I’m sick of these people who tell our farmers they’re doing the wrong thing. I’m sick of these people who are trying to stop live exports. I mean, get behind your nation; get behind the people who are actually trying to grow food and fibre and feed and clothe our Australian people and others besides, instead of always trying to get on your computers late at night writing ridiculous social media memes and the like. It’s un-Australian and I call on those people to just think about what you’re doing to the future of rural and regional Australia and think twice before you go in and type those ridiculous comments.

QUESTION:

You say you’re sick of it. Will the Government be investigating whether (inaudible) paid for footage?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Our Government will be looking into it, of course, but what we want to do is to get on and continue to make sure that live animal export has a future. What we want to make sure we do is make sure that our farmers have a future. That’s why we’ve put $3.9 billion on the table for a future drought fund, building up to $5 billion; that’s why we’ve got a Murray Darling Basin Plan that has bipartisan support; and that’s why the additional water for the Murray Darling Basin, the additional 450 gigalitres, has a triple bottom line approach: social, economic and environmental outcomes. We’re getting on with building a better rural and regional Australia and that’s my focus.

QUESTION:

Is it possible the (inaudible) that form this report came from the (inaudible).

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

We’ll look into it. The proper people will do it. The Agriculture Minister is away at the moment but I’m sure he will be having more to say when he returns.

QUESTION:

(Inaudible)

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

As I say, I’ve read what I’ve read; you’ve read what you’ve read. We’ll see what comes of it. But what we want to make sure is that anybody who is criticising or trying to tear down live animal exports, if they’ve got evidence well bring it forward. If they’re just making things up or paying people to do things they shouldn’t, well we’ll find out about it and they will be punished accordingly as they should.

Shane Manning