TRANSCRIPT: INTERVIEW ABC radio, Riverina, Simon Wallace, 26 March 2019
E&OE
Subjects: Mulwala to Yarrawonga transport links; State election; The Nationals delivering for the regions.
SIMON WALLACE:
Mulwala residents as we heard yesterday are being asked to vote on a grey or green route for the new bridge spanning Lake Mulwala to link Mulwala and Yarrawonga. As well there’s an adjacent rail bridge that will also need replacing by 2020. That’s causing concern with fears a vital piece of infrastructure couldn’t be replaced by that date. Federation Mayor Pat Bourke told us yesterday they will lobby the Deputy Prime Minister McCormack to delay the closure of that rail bridge. Michael McCormack is of course the Member for Riverina and the Deputy PM; he joins us now. Good morning Michael McCormack.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Good morning.
SIMON WALLACE:
Will you be able to do something to help them with that bridge crossing the Murray River?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
I’m always happy to talk to local Mayors and talk to locals about their infrastructure needs in their electorate. Of course we have tens of thousands of infrastructure road projects, bridge projects, rail happening right across the nation. So I’m more than happy to listen to their concerns and if they put a good case forward certainly act on them.
SIMON WALLACE:
With an election coming up it would seem to be a good place to start to talk to you about these sorts of things.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Indeed. Areas like that and areas right across the Riverina and Central West punch well above their weight when it comes to agricultural output; we want to make sure we enable product efficiency and supply chain gains. We want to make sure that we have the right infrastructure in place and eliminate those pinch points to enable our farm goods to get to port and obviously to get to markets quicker – and for people to get home sooner and safer. That’s what it’s all about.
SIMON WALLACE:
The federal election will be coming up in a few months’ time, and as we know we’ve just had a state election. Are there concerns that there were big swings away from the National Party at a state level in the seats of Barwon and Murray?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
The National Party is disappointed with the results in those two seats. When you look overall we had a lot of transitioning Members - we had a lot of Members retiring after holding seats such as Lismore, Coffs Harbour and elsewhere for any number of years, more than a quarter of a century. The coastal results are very good, very strong. People were talking particularly in the media of an unmitigated disaster looming, and yet to come away with as solid a showing as we did and to retain Government overall – you would have taken that three weeks ago. But the fact is it is disappointing to see the results in Murray and Barwon from our perspective.
The fact is also, it just hasn’t rained, and I know there are a lot of people who’ve demonstrated their democracy by voting for another candidate other than The Nationals. But we can’t make it rain. More’s the pity. The Menindee fish kill was dreadful, there’s no question, but there have been hundreds of fish kill incidents since 1980. The scale of this one, yes, it was very very high. It was also videoed and put up on social media; it went viral. Cotton farmers copped the blame – they haven’t had a water allocation for three years, nor have they grown any more than about 1% of the crop they normally grow in a good year. So they copped it, we copped it.
The fact is the Darling at Bourke has gone dry or stopped flowing 57 times over the past 57 years. So it’s not a river system that is constantly flowing and the fact is the Menindee Lakes – constructed, enhanced in the early 1960s – often go dry and end up as little patchy billabongs along the way.
But that said, we will take stock of the result. Obviously we need to get out and make sure that people know that we have delivered, that we have achieved. At a state level I look at the 48 hospitals and MPSs that have been constructed or refurbished across NSW. I look at the $4.2 billion of money from the sale of Snowy Hydro that the NSW Government, The Nationals in Government, are pouring into rural and regional, country and coastal areas: not Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong.
And I look at the sort of delivery that we’ve done as The Nationals in Federal Government. Rural and regional NSW, and particularly those areas that cover Barwon and Murray seats have certainly not missed out.
SIMON WALLACE:
You are probably aware: Niall Blair has said he will stand down and resign from the Water Ministry, and he says there’s a need to tweak the Plan because of the way it is working. Do you think something should happen to that?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Yes and people in the Riverina and your listeners would well know that I voted against the Murray Darling Basin Plan in 2012. There were only four others with me. Now I’m sure people’s memories aren’t that short; they’d know that I stood up against it then. The fact is, the Murray Darling Basin Plan despite a lot of what has been said and written throughout the election campaign that we’ve just had in NSW – by candidates and by media alike – it’s very much an environmental document but it’s also very much a bipartisan document signed by different jurisdictions, State, Territory and Federal Government, the Commonwealth.
By putting that back into the Federal Parliament and hoping for a better outcome, you might get someone like Adam Bandt who might seize the opportunity and make it such that South Australia gets even more water, the environment gets even more water, and more water flows out of the mouth of the Murray – that’s the danger. Sometimes with these things you have to be careful what you wish for. It will be interesting when the Shooters candidates who have been successful get in the same room. Are they all on the same page when it comes to the Murray Darling Basin Plan and what needs to be done? That remains to be seen.
We have worked within the confines of a Plan. Yes, the irrigators want more water; yes, the environment needs more water, there’s no question about that. But we can’t make it rain. What we can do, what we are doing is putting $500 million on the table from the Commonwealth thanks to the advocacy that I have managed to champion - $500 million on the table for more water infrastructure, and that is going to happen right around the nation but particularly I want to hear about projects in the Murray Darling Basin and work with willing State Governments to make that happen.
SIMON WALLACE:
Michael, we only have a couple of minutes before the 7.45am news; should NSW follow the Victorian model and separate the Agricultural and Water Ministers?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
That remains to be seen and that’s a decision entirely for State Governments. I’m sure that when the Premier sits down with John Barilaro in coming weeks they will probably discuss that amongst a whole host of other things. The fact is, water and agriculture are inextricably linked. I’d much sooner see Water in the same portfolio as the Agriculture Minister than I would with the Environment Minister, I have to say, because I know that Agriculture Ministers will always put our farmers – and they are first and foremost when it comes to our region – they will put them first.
SIMON WALLACE:
You have a national Cabinet meeting before the Federal Budget. Do you expect a spill? Will you still be the Deputy PM?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
That’s not going to happen at a Cabinet meeting; they happen at Nationals Party Room meetings, and no I’m not.
SIMON WALLACE:
OK. So you’re confident you will still be the Deputy PM.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Indeed I am.
SIMON WALLACE:
Michael, thanks for speaking with us this morning.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
All the best Simon. Any time at all
SIMON WALLACE:
That’s Michael McCormack, Member for Riverina and Deputy PM – of course we see him on television a lot but he is our local MP as well.