TRANSCRIPT: INTERVIEW ON THE MORNING SHOW, CHANNEL 7, 30 SEPTEMBER 2020
9:32AM
E&OE
Subjects: Regional Recovery Partnerships, Regional Connectivity Program, Resilient Regional Leaders initiative, Border Closures;
LARRY EMDUR
Well today regional Australia will be given a further $135 million funding injection, supporting the pandemic and bushfire recovery as well as boosting connectivity in regional and remote parts of the country.
KYLIE GILLIES
This comes on top of a $250 million boost to regional areas that was announced on Sunday. For more we welcome to the show Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack. Good to see you.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Thank you, Kylie, thank you, Larry.
KYLIE GILLIES
The Federal budget deficit tipped to hit $200 billion, the Government shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars propping up jobs and the economy, the regional support package, a total of $385 million. Can we afford this?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Every cent well invested, every cent well worth spending. This is going to ensure that our regional communities can be their best selves. And certainly I've got every confidence in regional Australia. It has led the fight through COVID-19, through resources, through agriculture, through our resourcefulness and our ability to innovate, to adapt. The $100 million that I've announced today for recovery economic partnerships are going to help certainly those regions that have been identified that have been hardest hit and certainly the $30 million that we're announcing for connectivity measures are going to help those outside the NBN footprint, because if you're on a tractor and you need to get that spot price for your grain or your stock at its peak, you need to be able to get connectivity.
Certainly, Kylie, as you would well know coming from Tamworth, coming from the regions, we've got regional leaders who also need help to have that voice and we're spending $5 million to get some resilient leaders up and be able to give them that voice so that they can speak loudly and proudly about our regions.
I love the regions. You came to the break with "tell me more, tell me more" out of Grease. Well I can always tell you more about the regions and it was certainly for those people who go to the regions, it is love at first sight.
LARRY EMDUR
We were watching as that music played out to the break and we couldn't believe that you were singing and dancing there in our Canberra studio.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Who doesn't love Grease? And who doesn't love the regions? The regions need every bit of help at the moment and I'm in there, we're in there giving it to them. The Government has every faith in regional Australia. Today is a vote of confidence again in regional Australia and certainly the budget next week is also going to help and support those regional economies. They've been hard hit but they're great people out there as you would well know, Larry.
LARRY EMDUR
Absolutely. Now, Minister, you sit on the Cabinet's Expenditure Review Committee and your colleagues have said that you don't tax your way out of a recession. Will you guarantee that then, no tax increase in Tuesday's budget?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
We are investing in our regions. We are investing in our economy. We don't want to tax people any more than they are already paying. The actual tax rate for small business is the lowest it's been since 1940. When I was the Small Business Minister, I made sure that happened. I know that you can't make businesses be their best selves and employ more people if you're slugging them with increased taxes. That's the Labor way. That's what they want to do when they want to shut down all our –
LARRY EMDUR
Sorry to interrupt, so that's a guarantee?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, we don't want to increase taxes. We don't want to burden small business and people with any more than they've already got. We want people to be their best selves. I'm not pre-empting anything that may or may not be in the budget. That's Josh Frydenberg's opportunity and obligation to do next Tuesday and I know he's been working very hard night and day to make sure the budget is what it needs to be.
KYLIE GILLIES
A lot of regional areas are hurting, bushfires and now the pandemic. Lots of communities are putting their hands up. How do you distribute it evenly?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
We've made sure that we took a matrix of data that was made available from those regional leaders, from those councils, from those communities and we did it through the Department so it's at arm's length of Government. Yes, there have been 10 areas identified. Yes, they have been hard hit. But for all of Australia, it doesn't even just matter those 10 areas, all of Australia, we've made sure that through the Regional Aviation Network Support that we've got planes flying into them. We've made sure that the announcement on Sunday with the $200 million additional money for the Building Better Regions Fund, that will be distributed right across regional areas in Australia. And the $50 million that the Trade and Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham announced. That's a good initiative too.
LARRY EMDUR
Michael, you're a bloke from the country and you and Kylie could swap tractor stories all day long, but we know how important tourism dollars are to regional areas, it is time we dropped the domestic border restrictions, right?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Absolutely. No question there. Australia wasn't made to have internal borders, lines on a map stopping one Australian from going to another part in Australia. We need to make sure that those border restrictions are eased and soon. I'm glad that there is some easement of these curfews, et cetera. I know my daughter Georgina down in Melbourne, she's going to be actually able to be face to face with students again as a schoolteacher and that's important. And I know how important it is for those people in Northern New South Wales, thankfully they'll be able to get over the Queensland border to do all the health and business things that they normally and usually do. These border restrictions have been hurting business, have been hurting Australians by and large and it's time they were eased off.
KYLIE GILLIES
You can keep saying it, but some aren't listening, putting Victoria to one side of course, you can say it but they're not listening necessarily.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, we'll keep saying it and as the numbers and the case rates go down, as they should, as the mortality rates go down, as it will and as we work towards a vaccine, which will happen and it will be made freely available to Australians and the Pacific Islands, we'll get through this. We'll get through this because Australians have been their best selves by and large. Australians have exercised isolation and social distancing. By and large Australians have been very, very good and we thank them for it and that's why we've got case rates and mortality rates which are the envy of the world, Kylie.
LARRY EMDUR
Deputy Prime Minister, we do appreciate your time this morning and from all of our viewers thank you very much for singing "tell me more, tell me more", we do appreciate that.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Absolutely, any time at all.
KYLIE GILLIES
Michael McCormack hopelessly devoted to the bush.
ENDS 9:39AM