TRANSCRIPT: FIVE AA RADIO ADELAIDE INTERVIEW, 28 SEPTEMBER 2020
11:00AM
E&OE
Subjects: Budget Support for Aviation, Border Closures;
LEON BYNER
As you know, the aviation business has been absolutely routed during the COVID issue. But major domestic routes are going to be maintained and regional and remote communities will continue to receive essential air services. Let’s talk to the Deputy Prime Minister who has more on this.
Michael McCormack, thanks for joining us today. You’re putting in a lot more help for regional aviation, I notice that some of the routes include Adelaide-Cairns-Adelaide, Adelaide-Darwin-Adelaide and Adelaide-Hobart-Adelaide. One mightn’t have thought they were regional routes.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
They are part of the Regional Airline Network Support Program. They were and have been part of it, this aviation assistance all the way through. We know that if people live in those parts then they need, of course - whether it’s through the domestic support we’ve done or the regional aviation network support that we’ve done - it’s vital for them to get planes in for delivery of personal protective equipment or respiratory devices or face masks indeed, frontline medical personnel probably most importantly.
But, if you’re in Mount Gambier or Port Lincoln or Whyalla or Ceduna, they are also very important. Of course, what is really vital, Leon, is the fact that we get these border restrictions lifted. And no matter where it is, we need those borders to be opened up because people want to start to travel interstate. People love to travel in Australia and it’s going to open up tourism opportunities. It’s going to reunite people with their loved ones as we head towards Christmas.
LEON BYNER
Well, South Australia’s borders have become much more free –
MICHAEL McCORMACK
They have. Steve Marshall’s a good man.
LEON BYNER
Yes, but I bet you’re a bit frustrated about some of the other states, though.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Look, we are and the medical experts tell us there’s no need for it. New South Wales didn’t even have a case yesterday and I know the Victorian numbers have been high. And tragically the mortality rate has been sadly very high. But they are coming down. The case rates are coming down. And so long as they’ve got the tracking and tracing and so long as they are vigilant, follow that and so long as the medical experts say it is fine to do so, then there are no reasons why the Premiers of those States can’t ease their border restrictions. There’s no reason in God’s green garden why people can’t start flying around Australia again.
And it’s going to be so vital with our tourism industries being smashed, absolutely smashed and you know, I was talking with some young people the other day who said they want to explore Australia. They can’t go to Europe, they can’t go to Bali, they can’t go to the normal places that young people have a wont to go to but they do want to see Australia and this is the opportunity to do so. But they’re not going to be able to if those border restrictions are like they are today.
LEON BYNER
Look, a lot of listeners want to know, can you get into Western Australia from South Australia or is WA blocked altogether?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, WA as far as I understand have a very tight border and that is difficult. You need to have an excuse to go there. I appreciate that Mark McGowan has done what he thinks is right for Western Australia. I do appreciate that. But, at the end of the day, when the experts are saying there’s no need for these tight border restrictions, no need for planes not to be flying here, there and everywhere, no need for these permit situations to be in place just for people to get across an imaginary line which was established back in 1901 or earlier, then it needs to be such that we’ve got to get people travelling again.
I mean, I appreciate that under the federated model under which we exist and have existed for 120 or so years, I get that state premiers want to have their states controlled and want to make sure that their quarantine is right and want to make sure that their case rates are low. I understand all that. But by the same token, we need to be able to travel interstate freely. We need to have that accessibility, availability that we’ve always had, and these lines on a map which were drawn back in the 1800s, they need to be lifted and they need to be lifted now.
LEON BYNER
All right. So as far as what you’ve announced today, intrastate in SA, you can continue to fly to Ceduna or Coober Pedy or indeed, some of those places wider afield – Mildura, Mount Gambier – they’re all cool?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, we’re subsidising those routes.
LEON BYNER
Yes.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
So they won’t be viable otherwise. And so we’re doing that and we’re also extending of course, the domestic runs because they’re important too. We need to make sure that people can travel to ensure that whether it’s Adelaide to Alice Springs or Adelaide to Canberra, wherever the case might be, we’re supporting those routes as well.
You know, aviation was hit first and hit hardest under COVID-19. Many, many people in the aviation sector have lost their jobs. Many of them are just hanging on by a mere thread and want to get back into work. And they go from everything to pilots to air crew to whatever the case might be across the aviation sector. Many, many thousands of people want to get back to work. We need to get planes back in the air. It’s not just for the aviation sector, it’s not just for the regional communities and other communities that they service, capital city routes et cetera; it’s also for those vital industries which rely on that travel for business, for holidays, for tourism, for whatever the case might be.
I mean, we’re missing opportunities. People want to get out and see Australia. They want to be reunited with their loved ones over Christmas, and that’s why we’re extending these air network services, and that’s why we need these borders to be lifted, these restrictions that have been put in place for far too long now.
LEON BYNER
Michael McCormack, thanks for joining us this morning.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Any time.
ENDS 11:07AM