TRANSCRIPT: MONEY TALKS WITH ROSS GREENWOOD, 11 November 2019

E&OE 

Subjects: Cowal Gold Mine, Regional Jobs, Bushfires;

ROSS GREENWOOD

… Coming to you tonight from regional New South Wales, we’re not too far away from West Wyalong at the Cowal Gold Mine which is owned and operated by Evolution Mining now we’ll tell you a little bit about the operations here later on the program we’ll speak with actually a very interesting truck driver, who just a few years ago was operating a one hour photo processing service. We’ll also talk to the boss of the gold mine here and just explain what they’ve discovered is a massive open cut mine right here right now but they’ve got underground operations where they been able to extend the life maybe by as much as 20 years it’s interesting to see how they go with that.

But in the meantime the Member for this region around this area, the Member for the Riverina is the Deputy Prime Minister, the leader of The Nationals, Michael McCormack, who is also the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Australia now the important part about this of course with these fires going he’s been embroiled in a war of words to be fair to say where he said it’s disgraceful, disgusting behaviour of raving inner city lunatics for linking climate change to the ferocious bushfires across Queensland and New South Wales in response Adam Bandt has basically come out and said - and called Mr McCormack a dangerous fool putting lives at risk through inaction on climate change and also the Greens leader Richard Di Natale affectively also said that this is inappropriate behaviour. However, on the other side of it I do note Gladys Berejiklian while declaring a state of emergency said there is no doubt the drought has contributed to the current conditions Michael McCormack joins me now

Deputy Prime Minister thanks for your time…

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

It’s a pleasure Ross.

ROSS GREENWOOD

Right, so raving inner city lunatics or is it drought that is causing these bushfires?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

Well Adam Bandt and Richard Di Natale are raving inner city lunatics they started by actually accusing the Prime Minister and the government indeed being somewhat responsible for the bushfires and costing lives and this is provocative language that needed to be called out and I did call it out and whilst I sit in there any city apartments making these sorts of accusations - totally unfounded accusations - people out there putting their lives on the line and saving property and indeed protecting lives and livelihoods hours upon hours - they don’t need to hear the greens trying to make a political point score and also they don’t need some people feigning indignation about climate change when there are fire storms which a lot of people are trying to put out. We are doing our very, very best to bring this under control that’s why I made those comments that I standby those comments, now Adam Bandt can call me a dangerous fool and I know who the dangerous fool is and it’s not me.

ROSS GREENWOOD

Alright, now you go to this region itself now this region prosperous farming country, sheep, there is cotton in different areas but right now there’s a shortage of water, there’s no doubt about that drought clearly creates dry conditions right around the coast of Australia and Queensland as well and of course when you have such conditions and when you have extreme weather as we forecast to have over the next few days the conditions are prone to really catastrophic bushfires so somehow climate and drought is linked to the prevalence of bushfires.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

Indeed, now there’s no question that three years ago we were virtually underwater not far from here Lake Cowal was absolutely awash with a flood Lachlan River that’s why we are extending the dam wall of at Wyangala Dam by 10 metres to 95 metres to make sure that we can add an additional 650 gigalitres of water for consumptive use, for agriculture and also for flood mitigation so where doing our part so I don’t know what Adam Bandt wants? Does he want the entire coal mining industry shutdown? Yes he does, so he wants those 54,000 workers, many of whom wear those orange high viz vests that you’ve got on and I might say you look very splendid in, the mining shirt. He wants those people to be out of a job now there’s not many jobs eco-tourism that are going to fill 54,000 jobs but how are we going to replace the $62 billion of coal exports? How are we going to replace the 60% of electricity needs that coal morning provides? That coal resources enable? I mean this is nuts, yes we are moving towards more renewables and that’s a great thing. Australia has take-up rates of renewables that are higher than any other compatible country in the world, so that’s fantastic. Fact is, we are doing so much work to ensure that we are meeting out in the international obligations as far as the Paris Accord et cetera and we are doing that and the other fact is we went to May 18 with our climate policies very much public front and centre of what we were doing what we were talking about policies that meshed our April 2 budget and, you know what? The Australian public endorsed us as the government so we continue to do it in a practical measure considered sense making sure that we have that we meet at international obligations making sure that we act on climate but right at the moment we are going to be putting out these fires as a nation.

ROSS GREENWOOD

All right, ok, we’ve got to put out the fires clearly. You sit there and look at the emissions from these fires astonishing to have these bush fires where mitigation earlier I could’ve made done some good and as you know, in some areas, they have point-blank refused to allow the burning off of…

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

And the lack of hazard reduction and the lack of back burning and the lack of firebreaks is Greens policy it’s so much paperwork and the Greens put out so much overlay. They want our state forests and our national parks locked up, they want them locked up so that pests and vermin can run wild. They want people to stay out of there they want the fire trails closed they are not the leaders in putting in more dams to ensure…

ROSS GREENWOOD

[Interrupts] So you’re saying that as a result of green policies that have come into state politics in particular and some local councils. You’re saying that, this contributes to the bushfires, to the severity of bushfires?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

No question. No question whatsoever. Fact is some of our firefighters who yesterday had been on the job for eighteen hours were totally exhausted when I spoke to them on the Sunshine Coast and the situation was nowhere near as bad there as it was obviously, in and around Kempsey and Port Macquarie in New South Wales. They said to me that they couldn’t get in and do the necessary burn off‘s and back-burning and hazard reduction and firebreaks was directly as a result of the policies that have been put forward by the Greens and the environmentalist which is really causing a paperwork backlog and really causing a problems for our firefighters who want to at both a full-time and volunteer level do the best they can to avoid these unnecessary bushfires. Now fires have been going on in Australia for since time began and we know that and there’s fires and there’s floods and there is droughts. This is a natural part of the weather patterns of this country and I just think that’s a bit beyond the pale that Adam Bandt just seizes upon this, jumps on that bandwagon to then condemn the mining and resources sector and we’re sitting here in West Wyalong making sure that where a company, Evolution Mining, is making sure that locals are employed does Adam want all those people out of a job? Yes he does.

ROSS GREENWOOD

I’m going to ask you this question one of the issues I wonder is as the Minister for Regional Development of Australia is there a divide between our cities and the bush right now is there a lack of understanding in the cities right now about what takes place in the bush? And yes, people wring their hands when there’s drought images on the television fires and so forth but is there a genuine lack of understanding in the cities, maybe some of those in the inner city, about what genuinely does take place? I mean we saw demonstrations of the International Mining Conference last week by people who want to close down the mining industry.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

Look, I think there is a divide between what the Greens and the environmentalists who is so filthy on the result of the May 18 election they cannot get over it. They’re going through various stages of grief at the moment they can’t except that they didn’t get the balance of power. That their representatives didn’t get elected. You know, there’s only one out of 151 in the House of Representatives and he’s not a very good representative and that is Adam Bandt, I think the city people by in large have been very, very good in understanding the drought conditions and I think I’ve been very generous to a fault in making sure that money et cetera and support and care and concern has been afforded to those country people who are doing it very tough at the moment.

ROSS GREENWOOD

And say for example this place, at the moment the Cowal mine, big gold mine, 500 people full-time workers here 150 contractors full time…

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

[Talks over]  $30 million into the economy with wages procured…

ROSS GREENWOOD

So given the fact that the place is in drought at the moment and is pretty tough out here in regional New South Wales we know that. This area in particular this immediate area that spills out the consequences of what it would be like if it did not have a big operation such as this, would be almost unthinkable and similar to other areas which are clearly going through horrendous…

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

We very much need this big unemployment agency because the queues would be very, very long and that’s the world the Adam Bandt wants to live in are you want to sort of stop mining, vitually stop agriculture. That’s the world in which he envisages for Australia for the future. I don’t, I can see that even in spite of the drought there’s a big, big future in agriculture I can also say that those bright prospects for mining and I will push those people who are going to be employed in those occupations to the nth degree. I will always support them. I will support them as people who want to grow food and fibre. Our farmers are the best environmentalists in Australia, make no mistake about It, Adam Bandt can go and he can call me a dangerous fool, well he’s a dangerous tool. Now, you know, I will support these people to the nth degree and he can say whatever he likes from his high-rise in Melbourne. He ought to get on the back of a firetruck and actually help put a few fires out, that’s what he’d be far better off doing but he’d probably be no good at that either.

ROSS GREENWOOD

Michael McCormack, he’s our Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Transport, Regional Australia and Infrastructure as well and I appreciate your time here at the Cowal Gold Mine just outside West Wyalong this evening.

Thanks for your time.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK

Any time Ross.

Shane Manning