TRANSCRIPT: DOORSTOP INTERVIEW At: Tourism and Transport Forum Leadership Summit, Sydney, 8 March 2019
E&OE:
Subjects: Infrastructure priorities; Leadership; NSW state election.
QUESTION:
The infrastructure priorities for the Sydney transport connectivity issues that we’ve been discussing ahead of the Budget in April – can you give a bit of a steer on that?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
I’m not going to give anybody a steer on the list but it’s business as usual with us. Of course we’re looking at pressing congestion issues. We are spending $75 billion over a 10 year period. Last year’s Budget had an additional $24.5 billion of new money. You only have to look around Sydney at the moment – the number of witches’ hats and indeed the number of cranes. It’s as many as there are in just about any American city – in fact probably more. That doesn’t come by chance or coincidence. It comes because you’ve got a Government which is running a strong economy and when you’re running a strong economy you can roll out more infrastructure. So yes, in conjunction with the NSW Berejiklian/Barilaro Government, we are investing in congestion-busting infrastructure for Sydney. But we’re also doing it right across the nation – for Melbourne, for Brisbane – and also making sure there’s better regional connectivity.
QUESTION:
Is that focused on roads?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
It’s focused on roads, but also we named the Western Sydney International Airport after Nancy-Bird Walton the other day – that’s significant too. We’re getting on with the job of $5.3 billion of funding for that transformational project. Sydney’s second airport – indeed, Western Sydney’s first airport – will be such a game-changer for Sydney, but particularly for that area. After five years in operation, that will mean 28,000 additional jobs for Penrith, for the Western Sydney area. I’ve been out there recently on a number of occasions but particularly with Marise Payne and Stuart Ayres, announcing a new convention centre for Penrith, for the rugby league club there. And with the Nancy-Bird Walton airport – it’s a go-ahead area. We want to make sure that people out there have jobs, good jobs, meaningful jobs, well-paid jobs and jobs where they don’t have to commute all the way into Sydney.
QUESTION:
What do you make of the suggestion that you personally don’t have the recognition among voters than perhaps an alternative leader like Barnaby Joyce?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
The fact is I’m the Leader of the National Party. I am the Leader and I have just been getting on with the job of making sure that things which need addressing are being addressed and that is infrastructure; that is regional funding programs; that’s been my focus. Look, just because I don’t go on television all the time. I certainly watch what I say. I’m very careful about what I say. It’s about making sure that people at home, people who are paying power bills, people who are worried about cost of living – they are the people I’m focused on – not bobbing up on a television station all the time. I think that’s important.
I’m just getting on with the job. That’s important. That’s what I’m doing. That’s my whole focus. I’m amazed at the number of people who do recognise me. Sure, one person in one paper can have her say and can say whatever she likes. That’s fine. I used to be a journalist once too and I know how the thing works. But don’t write unsubstantiated stuff. Write the facts and the facts are that I have been delivering. The facts are that I have been achieving for rural and regional Australia, who are doing it pretty tough at the moment with drought, with the flood situation in North Queensland and fires in Victoria and Tasmania. I’ve been there for them. I’ve visited those areas. I’ve been out to Menindee. I’ve been up to the Top End, to talk to stricken cattle farmers and I’ve been right throughout our dusty drought-stricken Central West of NSW, right throughout the area around Stanthorpe which is pretty dry. So that’s what those people want us as politicians to be focused on – not ourselves – and that’s what I have been doing. I’ve been focused on their issues, not internal issues.
QUESTION:
Just one more: The NSW Leader of the Nats came out and said that he wants to be Treasurer and that he would happily give himself the nickname the ‘Mr Pork Bari’ … I can’t remember…
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Pork Barilaro…
QUESTION:
That’s the one…
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
I don’t think he gave himself that….
QUESTION:
He said he would happily embrace it…
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
It’s a good tag.
QUESTION:
Do you think there is an issue when it comes around to election times that the regions are just treated as a place you can dump money and then walk away for three years?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
The Nationals have never, ever walked away from the regions. We never have. We don’t do it now, and we never will. John Barilaro wanting to be Treasurer, well that’s a matter for the NSW Government to decide. He’d make a good Treasurer. I’m sure Dom Perrottet would have something to say about that – he’s doing a pretty good job at the moment too. The NSW Liberals and Nationals’ Government has turned around a disastrous situation of debt and deficit that they inherited in 2011 after 16 disastrous years and four Labor Premiers. I look around my area, I look around regional NSW, I see 48 new hospitals and MPSs’, health services, that weren’t there under Labor. Labor didn’t care a jot about regional NSW.
I look at the fact that Snowy Hydro was sold by the NSW Government to the Federal Government. $4.2 billion which is quarantined for everywhere west of the Great Divide. That’s an incredible outcome for rural and regional people of NSW. John Barilaro has been a very good Leader of the National Party and he will continue to be.
I look around my area – Kate Hazelton, Stephanie Cooke and Mackenna Powell: three outstanding women. Mackenna and Kate who want to represent Wagga Wagga and Orange respectively and Steph Cooke is doing a mighty job as the Member for Cootamundra. I want to see those sorts of people driving change, driving renewed enthusiasm in NSW. It will only happen with The Nationals in Government. It won’t happen if Labor ever, or dare I say the Shooters, ever gets in. We stand for delivery. We stand for infrastructure. We stand for better outcomes for rural and regional NSW and Australia. That’s my focus, but certainly with the NSW election just two weeks away the people of NSW need to look around and remember that. I know people have short memories – but remember what it was like under those 16 dreadful desolate years under Labor and compare that to what they have since 2011 under the Liberal Nationals.