TRANSCRIPT – MEDIA CONFERENCE Eagle Australasia, Coffs Harbour, April 8, 2019
E&OE
Subjects: Federal Budget delivering for regional Australia; Federal Election; proper environmental protections; animal rights activists attacking farmers.
PAT CONAGHAN – Cowper candidate for The Nationals:
Well I would like to welcome everybody here today to Eagle Industries with the Managing Director Grant Boyter and also Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack and Luke Hartsuyker the Member for Cowper. Well, this is a classic example of how industry can thrive in regional Australia. We have decentralisation from the Gold Coast in 2014 and what you have here is a local business, employing local people, with some 20 people employed and the dollar value is doubled back into the community. So, a classic example of the support that is provided by the Coalition to such businesses.
The instant asset write- off going from $20,000 to $30,000 is a classic example of how that assists businesses such as this. So, it’s a wonderful industry in Coffs Harbour and I would like to thank Grant for having us today and I’ll just pass off to Mr McCormack.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well thanks Pat and great to be here with Luke Hartsuyker as well as Grant Boyter. Well, he is the poster boy for our budget last week and certainly the budget talked about the instant asset write-off as Pat Conaghan has just mentioned. The instant asset write-off was eligible for businesses with up to a $10 million turn over, but we have extended that to $50 million dollars. And, of course, as Pat has just mentioned, we have made the instant asset write-off from $10,000, to $20,000 to $30,000 so we have had an increment change in January. We have had it up to $25,000 now It’s up to $30,000, so that will make this business, Eagle Australasia, eligible for that because they had a turnover of more than $10 million, but not a turnover of more than $50 million. So, they’ll now be eligible for the instant asset write-off. So, anything that they buy, to help them overhaul a helicopter, anything they buy to help them paint a helicopter, anything they buy as far as capital expenditure is concerned for their business they will be able to write it off instantly and they‘ll be able to do that and then they don’t have to go through that long accountancy drama of depreciating it over several months or over several years. They’ll be able to write it off instantly
So, Grant Boyter in that regard, as a poster boy for that particular measure. But more than that, in the budget we had 80,000 apprentices which we are going to help, to invest in the economy. Plenty of apprentices can work at this particular Eagle Australasia and I know they already have plenty on the books, but they want to expand and they want to make sure that their employees – their total number of people – goes from 25 to 45 and that’s going to involve many more apprentices so they can also take advantage of that apprenticeship surge that we have invested in, in the budget where we are going to invest in 80,000 more apprentices across the nation. And as you have heard Pat Conaghan say, they are a business that has decentralised. They moved out of the Brisbane in October 2014. They moved to Coffs Harbour. They moved here for several reasons. A, because the local council was extending its airport park, its airport precinct. There’s also room here, there’s power here, there’s everything they need here, there’s no restrictions. Well there are restrictions of course, but there’s less restriction here than there would be in a capital city and that’s why we are encouraging, as Nationals in Government, more decentralisation. Not just of Government Departments but of businesses like Eagle Australasia, of businesses that want to hire in its most important capital situation and that is people. We want to make sure these businesses have the confidence to expand. That’s why we are extending the instant asset write-off; that’s why they’ve got the lowest tax rate they’ve had since 1940; that’s why we are investing in women aviation and there are plenty of women engineers who could potentially work right here in this wonderful business. It is a good business. I know I have been here before with Luke Hartsuyker, he’s told me just how important this business is to the local economy. And more than that they’re investing in Coffs Harbour; they’re investing in people; they’re investing in their future and companies that invest in their future that back themselves that want to have a go, well we want to give them a go and that’s why in the budget last week there was so many measures for small businesses, for people who want to hire people, for people who want to put on that apprentice for their first job. Indeed, put on somebody for a career change and that’s what we want to do and that’s what we have done in the budget. It was budget for infrastructure, a budget for regional Australia and certainly a budget for small businesses. In that regard, Eagle Australasia ticks absolutely every box.
JOURNALIST:
If I can ask you about high profile Independent candidate Rob Oakeshott, how do you think your candidate will stack up against him?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Look, Pat Conaghan is a man of the people. Pat Conaghan is a man who wants to get behind small business. That’s why he’s brought me here today, he has brought me here so I can talk to Grant and hear about their expansion plans. I am not worried about other candidates. I’m just worried about the fact we want to get behind small business and that’s what we did in last week’s budget .We made sure it was a budget for small business. We made sure it was a budget for apprentices, for young people wanting to get their first job. A budget for small business to increase their ability to expand their operations. That’s what Eagle Australasia is doing. Pat Conaghan is right behind them and, as somebody who is obviously trying to follow on from Luke Hartsuyker, a champion of small business, a champion of Cowper for 17 years, Pat Conaghan wants to continue the delivery that the Nationals in Government always do and we’re right behind small business. Luke Hartsuyker was for 17 years and I know Pat Conaghan is going to be a champion for small business as well.
JOURNALIST:
Just onto some national issues. What did the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia say about the Adani grant water plan?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well, that’s on the Environment Minister’s table. She’s considering that now as per normal we go through the normal processes of Government and that’s what’s going to happen with Melissa Price and that particular application.
JOURNALIST:
How long does the Minister need to make this decision?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well she needs to make the right decision and sometimes decisions of this nature take a long time. Sometimes they can do them as a matter of course. But the fact, is she is doing her right job and her proper, thorough transparent process as a good Environment Minister would. As any Minister would.
JOURNALIST:
So why might it be sensible to speed up this decision given the pending election?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well, there’s nothing to do with speeding up it a matter of going through the normal Government processes and that’s what Melissa Price is doing.
JOURNALIST:
What do you think about James McGrath’s threat to call for Melissa Price’s resignation?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well it was simply that. I have only read what I read on the front page of the Courier Mail. It was just a threat. But the fact is Melissa Price needs the right time, the right amount of time to be able to properly scrutinise and consider an application that has been made about a water management plan for a particular project. Now I know that Adani has jumped through a number of environmental hoops and done all the right things, as they need to do. Any project, whether it’s a mining project, whether it’s an agriculture project, whether in fact it is an infrastructure development they need to be able to tick off on the right proposals, as far as the environment is concerned. That’s what they’re doing. She’s got all the information on her desk now and she will make the decision, the right decision, in the normal course of events.
JOURNALIST:
Have you failed to convince your Coalition partners about how important the Adani project is for the Queensland Nationals?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
I haven’t failed to do anything. The fact is Scott Morrison knows how important this is. The fact is our Central Queensland colleagues have obviously been lobbying for a number of years. I mean this going to create more than a thousand jobs and there were 14,000 job applications for this particular project, so there is a fair bit of enthusiasm across Central Queensland for this particular project and I understand that. We want to make sure that there’s every prospect that if someone wants to work there is a job to go there for them and that’s what the budget did last week. We want to make sure that people have jobs in Central Queensland or anywhere else in Australia and that’s what the budget enabled to do. Bill Shorten, he’ll say one thing when he’s in campaigning mode in Central Queensland and he’ll say a completely different thing in Maribyrnong. That’s Bill Shorten’s form.
JOURNALIST:
Are LNP seats being sacrificed for Josh Frydenberg?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
No. Why would they be? I mean it’s going through the normal process of events. Josh Frydenberg has done an outstanding job as Treasurer. I read only this morning the fact that his budget was the best that’s been received for 10 years as far as ability to deliver what’s on the table and that was helped by three very good budgets proceeding it from Scott Morrison. The fact is we’ve got on with the job - we’re paying back Labour’s debt. We’ve put a budget on the table which is in surplus. Labour could never even hope to be able to do that. They don’t know the definition of the word surplus is. We do. We’ve worked hard to get the budget back in surplus and so therefore we can support businesses such as Eagle Australasia. We can support jobs in Cowper, in Coffs Harbour, in Port Macquarie and everywhere else. That’s what our whole being in Parliament is all about. We get in there; we support small business; we support jobs. Bill Shorten and Labor, well they support the unions, they support Green preferences in city seats and they jack up taxes to be able to afford to be able to do what they always do.
JOURNALIST:
You have spent a bit of time this afternoon talking to the heads of Eagle Australasia what is their feedback to the budget for small/medium size businesses?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well Grant was delighted and delighted by the fact he can now, with his business, be able to take advantage of the instant asset write-off. He’s got a turnover in his company, and I’m not giving away trade secrets here, of more than $10million but less than $50million. Previously his company wasn’t eligible for the instant asset write-off but they are now, so every bit of capital equipment that they buy they can write-off instantly. Whether that’s something to paint a helicopter, overhaul a helicopter, no matter it is they are able to write that off and so long as they have cash flow, and that’s the case with any business, they are able write that particular capital equipment off and that’s a big advantage and a big savings for them, because it means more money in their pockets. And when they’ve got more money in their pockets, like most other small businesses in Australia, they reinvest in the most important thing of all and that’s their people.
I’d like to make some comments too about the dreadful situation in the Darling Downs where we saw animal activists raid a farm this morning, quite illegally. These people are quite beyond what I think people would expect to be fair and reasonable. These people are totally un-Australian. These people who do these sorts of things, and whether it’s in the Darling downs or whether it’s somewhere else in Australia, they should be locked up. The State Governments – there’s a call upon them now – to make sure that they put in place the right laws to be able to lock these people up. And I know we’re doing everything at a Commonwealth level to make sure that the Aussie Farms website doesn’t invade peoples’ privacy. I mean these people are going in on peoples’ farms, peoples’ livelihoods and trying to destroy them. Can you imagine the outcry if a farmer decided to do a break and enter on one of these peoples’ private dwellings? Can you imagine the outcry? You can imagine the lefty chattering class getting on social media and going nuts. Well the fact is, these people are breaking the law. The fact is, our farmers are…the pride and joy of our nation. We need them three times a day, every day, breakfast, lunch and dinner and more people should understand that and more people should get behind the farmers and really help them, in this campaign, to make sure these people, who do this sort of activism, are locked up and for a long time, to serve as a lesson to others, that this is not on and not Australian.