TRANSCRIPT: WAGGA WAGGA PRESS CONFERENCE, 28 SEPTEMBER 2020
11:28AM
E&OE
Subjects: Regional Tourism Recovery Package, Budget Support for Aviation, Queensland Election;
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Yesterday, the Federal Liberal Nationals Government announced $250 million as part of the Budget to boost regional tourism, to boost our regional areas, $200 million of which is the Building Better Regions Fund, another round. Another round in which vital local infrastructure will be built right across this nation. I’m in the Riverina and Central West here at Wagga Wagga and this city knows full well just how important that BBRF program is, as do all of the councils in regional areas. There’s going to be money set aside as part of a special tourism boost for those areas hard hit by bushfires, hard hit by COVID-19. And what we want to see is people, Australians, visiting these regional areas, visiting our tourist destinations, visiting our tourist icons. We’ve got many of them across Australia. All too often young people, they pack their goods and chattels and they move overseas or they head overseas and they spend their dollars overseas. Well, they can’t do that at the moment, and they want to get around and see all the big things in Australia. They want to see all those wonderful, wonderful places for which many young Australians don’t go until they’ve got grey hair like me. And so we want them also to be able to do that and we want them to be able to fly there. We want them to be able to fly interstate.
Very difficult at the moment to be able to do just that with the border closures that we have. But as part of getting Australians around the nation to visit those regional areas, to visit those tourist destinations, we’re announcing today an extension to the Domestic Aviation Network Support, as well as of course, the regional side of that. So we’re making sure that people can get to where they need to be. The domestic service will be extended until January 31. The regional services will extended, the subsidies for them will be extended, until March 28. We’re supporting aviation. We’re making sure that as part of the $1.31 billion that we’ve already put on the table to support aviation that we get more of those jobs happening sooner, more of those planes in the air. Because planes in the air, as I’ve said many, many times, means jobs on the ground. And too many people have lost their jobs in the aviation sector and that is very, very hard. Aviation was hit first and hit hardest when COVID-19 came to Australia. This has been a global pandemic and we have addressed the health and economic outcomes all the way through. And this is the continuing support that the Federal Government is providing our aviation sector. But not just airlines – it’s those regional communities, but for the DANS and RANS programs would not have received the aeroplanes, the flights, the route configurations that we’ve put into place. And for those communities, many of them very remote, they wouldn’t have seen the frontline medical personnel flown into their areas. They wouldn’t have seen the personal protection equipment – face masks, respiratory devices – and so that’s why it is so important. Supporting 14 airlines, supporting the 50 busiest pre-COVID routes and supporting more than 110 of those regional, rural and remote locations with air services.
So that’s on top of yesterday’s announcement of a quarter of a billion dollars for regional and tourism programs. This today – of course, a demand-driven program – is going to be so vital to get our planes continuing to be in the air and making sure that we get even more jobs on the ground.
JOURNALIST
So, Michael, are the Government – will you be subsidising the airlines or will you be subsidising flights to help people –
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, we’re subsidising both. We’re subsidising those flights to be able to reach those communities. We’ve done it for many months now. And many months ago I announced at Wagga Wagga Airport the start of this important program to ensure that we did get the continuation of flights, so that we could get those rural and remote communities which would not have been serviced by flights to ensure that they did get the vital medical supplies, the personnel that they so desperately need.
JOURNALIST
So will consumers see cheaper flights possibly coming to regional areas of Australia?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, that will be a matter for the airlines but of course, with the subsidies we do expect as a government that airlines will do the right thing – and they have by and large done the right thing by our regional communities. But these are to make sure that some of those unviable routes – because very few people are travelling – become viable. These are to make sure that we still get those planes in the air at a time when many State Premiers are still having border closures. And I urge and encourage, even implore, those Premiers to revisit their closures of their borders, because by closing their borders it’s been that interstate travel can’t happen as it should be, as it needs to be. We need people to get back to work, and that’s why everything we’ve done as a government is aimed at making sure that, yes, we get the health outcomes right and we’ve done that, we’ve done that very well compared to any other nation in the world. But we need to get the economy ticking along again. And the only way to do that is to ease those border closures and to make sure that we get planes back in the air. You’re looking at some of those regional icons up in Cairns and the top end of Australia, they haven’t had a coronavirus case for many months in fact, some of those communities haven’t had a coronavirus case at all. And yet they’re being hard hit by the border closures in capital cities along, long way off and it’s not good enough.
JOURNALIST
On that, Tasmania wants to participate in a travel bubble with New Zealand, but they don’t have, you know, the customs, immigration et cetera at Hobart Airport. When will the Government’s commitment to put all that in place actually happen?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, I look forward to Peter Gutwein doing just that. But it would be a little bit strange if Tasmania welcomed New Zealanders when they haven’t actually got really the provisions in place to welcome people from interstate. So we need to make sure that we get the right provisions. We need to make sure that we get planes back into Hobart, back into Launceston on a case-by-case basis obviously. But we need to make sure that we get those planes back in the air. Of course, it’s not going to be pre-COVID flying any time soon for Tasmania. I appreciate that. But we need to get as many in the air as we can so that they can get into Tasmania and enjoy the great tourist places of the apple isle. It’s a fantastic place to visit and we need Australians, mainland Australians, to be able to have that opportunity to do so.
JOURNALIST
Your government has already committed to putting that infrastructure in place as part of the Hobart City Deal though?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Indeed and we’re having those discussions. I know I talk to Michael Ferguson, who looks after the infrastructure portfolio on an almost daily basis Michael and I converse. So, you know, we’ll have those discussions. Of course, we need to have those discussions with the Home Affairs Department, too. We need to make sure that the right provisions are in place. I know the Hobart Airport is a great gateway not just to Tasmania but for Tasmanians to the rest of the world. So we need to get the right infrastructure in place there so that we have a two-way system there.
JOURNALIST
I know you’ve had some concerns about the industrial dispute at Port Botany. The operator has written to the Fair Work Commission and they’ve also asked your government to intervene – Christian Porter. Will you be stepping in?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Let’s see where this goes. Let’s see where the discussions that are taking place between the MUA and stevedore companies go. What we want to see is those ships which have vital medical supplies I’m told that are offshore that can’t actually get into port and indeed, those farmers’ produce, the best food and fibre in all of the world, to be able to get out of the port and get to the markets that it needs to get to. So this is an unnecessary hold up on our farmers whoever worked bloody hard I have to say to finally get some money in their pockets and at the 11th hour they’ve been thwarted by a dispute on the wharf. It’s just not good enough. And we want those farmers indeed, an operator like Roger Fletcher, whose abattoir at Dubbo, processes seven and a half thousand lambs and sheep a day, we want him to be able to make sure that he gets his sheep meat for export out of the waterfront, off the waterfront, on to the ships and to those markets overseas. It’s not good enough that he’s got 100 twenty-foot containers that he’s trying to chill and trying to cool and trying to make sure that he does everything at his processing plant at Dubbo. We need them on the waves and over the ocean and to the markets where people need to be able to taste and sample Australia’s finest wares.
JOURNALIST
So how long would your Government allow for the dispute to go on –
MICHAEL McCORMACK
We’re having those discussions as we speak.
JOURNALIST
What would an intervention look like if it was to occur?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, we’re going to have those discussions as we speak. I appreciate the MUA are getting up and speaking at a press conference soon. You know the Patricks company is as well. Look, these discussions need to take place in a fair and amicable manner. We need to get our produce out of that port and we need to get it happening very soon, if not this afternoon would be a good thing.
JOURNALIST
Can the Government force the hand of either Patricks or the union?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Let’s see those discussions, how they go, and the Government will do what the Government needs to do to ensure that those discussions reach a resolution and let’s hope that the company and the unions can reach an agreement without the Government having to step in.
JOURNALIST
How does your Government plan on supporting industry and advance manufacturing as we start to emerge from COVID-19?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Next Tuesday the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, is going to stand at the dispatch box and unveil a very different type of budget. It’s an October budget. Normally it’s held in May. It’s going to be a jobs and infrastructure and manufacturing budget. It’s going to be a budget which is going to highlight the value of regional Australia.
Regional Australia has led the way through COVID-19 not just because we haven’t had too many cases, not because – even despite the fact that we’ve been unfairly impinged upon by Melbourne and Brisbane and other capital city bureaucracies and decisions made for and on behalf of their states I appreciate, but very much restricting what we do out here in regional Australia and that is grow the world’s best food and fibre, make sure that the resources industry operates as smoothly as it can. And agriculture and mining has certainly continued unabated despite everything that’s been thrown against it. And that’s going to be our recovery through COVID-19 with manufacturing.
I know the Industry Minister, Karen Andrews, has a blueprint for the future. She’s worked very hard with her Liberal and Nationals colleagues to make sure that we have a manufacturing-led recovery right alongside agriculture and resources.
So we’ll get through COVID-19. We need to make more stuff here in Australia. We’ll do just that. We’ve already put on the table through the Small Business Minister, Michaelia Cash, a very good package to upskill particularly young people and indeed, even older people who are looking to transition into a new form of work. We want to make sure that if we can make it here and make it in good time and it’s going to be demanded not only domestically but internationally, then we should be able to do just that. And that’s why we’ve got a manufacturing plan which is going to be very, very good and I know Karen Andrews has been working very hard at it.
JOURNALIST
So the Government will be spending in the Budget to try and entice, I guess, manufacturing, particularly in the regions here? Is that something you’d like to see?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
I’ll leave Josh Frydenberg to make his budget announcements on Tuesday. I know it’s going to be a budget very much with a jobs focus, very much with an infrastructure focus. They’re going to be two areas of endeavour – agriculture and resources – that are going to help us through COVID. They already have. It’s going to be certainly a budget, as I say, unusual in the fact that it’s being held in October. But we’ve got our eye very much on an economic recovery. We’ve spent $314 billion. We’ve invested that in the economy to help cushion the effects of COVID-19, to get the necessary health outcomes. We’ve done very well thus far. Josh Frydenberg will be having a lot more to say on budget night and I look forward to that.
JOURNALIST
Is this something we need to move away from, being just a sort of quarry and farm? Do we need to start manufacturing things like pharmaceuticals here, advanced technologies here? Is that something you’d like to see?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
We do already, and it’s amazing what we do do. I mean, I know I’m here in Wagga Wagga and a lot of people are probably unaware, Wagga Waggarites who are unaware of what goes on at Bomen. We’re even improving and enhancing that with the Riverina Intermodal Freight and Logistics Hub, with Inland Rail. That allows all sorts of opportunities for manufacturing, for processing, for value-adding for regional areas before it even gets to port. And that’s very exciting, with the Bushmaster in Bendigo, and we’ve invented and we’ve made and we manufacture some of the best armoured personnel carriers in all of the world. A lot of our defence industry spend – billions and billions of dollars in defence industry spend – is reliant on Australian know-how, on Australian ingenuity and that’s going on right across the country.
Yes, we do need to improve manufacturing, no question. No risk about it. If COVID’s taught us one thing, it’s the fact that we do need to be a little bit more self-sufficient in the manufacturing regard. But we already do a lot. We just need to enhance on that and make sure we develop the skills that we have in Australia and through Karen Andrews and Michaelia Cash and their Liberal and Nationals colleagues, we’re doing just that.
JOURNALIST
Just specifically, sorry, just on that, medical equipment and pharmaceuticals, you mentioned we don’t want to be so reliant on overseas imports, you know, is that a real focus for you guys, you know, in this upcoming budget?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Yes, it is. And I know Greg Hunt is determined to make sure that that happens. The regional Minister for Health, Mark Coulton, has also been having I know discussions with a number of companies and a number of people who want to see more pharmaceuticals developed here in Australia and taken to manufacture. We’ve got many of the products that currently we export. Well, let’s see what we can do as far as making sure that we can value-add to them and manufacture them right here in Australia. And you know a lot of companies are keen to do that. I know a lot of universities, including regional universities, including Charles Sturt here at Wagga, are keen to explore avenues to be able to tap into that market for pharmaceuticals and to make sure that we get the best medicine supplies made right here in Australia, right here in regional Australia.
JOURNALIST
There’s speculation in the Courier Mail today that some Federal Nationals are trying to pull strings as part of the preselection process in Queensland in the lead-up to the election and its causing a bit of unrest up there. Are you concerned about any internal turmoil in the lead-up to the election for LNP?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
What I did notice with that article was that faceless – I use that in inverted commas – Nationals were being called out by anonymous colleagues. I just wish people would put their name to anything that they actually tell journalists. I always do, always have done, always will do. If you’re going to say something put your name to it. That’s, I think, first order of business for any MP. Don’t go behind people’s backs and do all that sort of thing, just come out, say it, put your name to it, be brave enough to do that.
At the end of the day, the decision on where the preselected Groom candidate sits will be with, as it should be, the Groom preselectors, the branches. I’ve always said that branches will make those sorts of decisions for and on their own behalf, not being told by, as you say or as the Courier Mail might suggest, faceless people, not by being called out by anonymous colleagues. Let the Groom members make that decision in the sensible and practical and pragmatic way that I’m sure they will. They don’t need telling by anybody outside what they should or shouldn’t do. John McVeigh has been an outstanding Member for Groom. He’s one of my true and nearest best mates in politics. He’s always been a fighter for Groom. We need somebody preselected who’s going to continue that fine tradition that he and his father, Tom, have done for that electorate. I might add that his father, Tom, was a Country Party member.
You know, the LNP has been emergent. It has worked well for many, many years in Queensland and certainly I know that on the 31st of October Deb Frecklington and her LNP are going to the state election. And if there’s one thing Queenslanders can do when they do have a vote, that is, make try to sure they vote for Deb Frecklington and the LNP team wherever they are, whether they’re in the Darling Downs, which Groom is in, or whether they’re in the top end of Queensland. Vote for Deb Frecklington and you’ll get somebody with a vision for water infrastructure, a vision for the Bruce Highway and a vision for a better Queensland.
JOURNALIST
Have you been invited to go up there as part of the campaigning or are trying to stay out of it?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
No, I don’t want to stay out of it. I mean, the whole idea is to make sure that we push the values and the vision and the blueprint that the LNP has. So I look forward to going up to Queensland in a fortnight and campaigning alongside Deb Frecklington and all her other outstanding LNP candidates and making sure that Queenslanders know just how much federal infrastructure is being spent in the Sunshine State. I just wish that the border restrictions that Annastacia Palaszczuk and her Brisbane-based Government put in place were lifted because people want to get up to Queensland. I mean, it was pretty chilly in Wagga Wagga when I did my first national media interview at about six o’clock this morning. And let me tell you, there’s a lot of Wagga Wagga people, a lot of people from southern Australia, who want to do what they normally do and that’s go to Queensland and have a holiday. They want to go and visit loved ones in Queensland. Well, unfortunately they can’t at the moment unless they isolate for a fortnight. They should be able to do that. And if Queensland wants those tourism dollars, and particularly in a place like Cairns which, you know, the coronavirus cases haven’t been there at all, or in some communities cases haven’t been for many, many months, they want those tourists to visit. Though want those tourists to go into their wonderful bars and pools and everything else that they have to offer and spend money. But they can’t at the moment. It’s very difficult. So I say to Annastacia Palaszczuk – lift your border restrictions. It’s so important to get that Queensland economy the way it should be. You need to do that.
JOURNALIST
Are you saying the border restrictions are more political than health-based at the moment?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
That would be right. I think they have been all along. I mean, we’ve taken the best advice from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee – the AHPPC – and Professors Brendan Murphy and Paul Kelly. They’ve given us that advice that for border restrictions it doesn’t follow the necessary health provisions.
I appreciate that in Melbourne those issues with the quarantine breaches were very, very difficult. What a shame they didn’t put a ring of steel around Melbourne at the time and just restrict it to Melbourne. But it’s all easy to be brilliant in hindsight. It’s all easy to have 20-20 vision in hindsight. But what we need now is those borders to be eased. About five cases in Victoria overnight, none in Queensland, none in New South Wales. Yes, sadly, there have been two more deaths in Victoria but by and large, they’re getting on top of it, as they should be. And I appreciate that some of the curfews are coming off today. I appreciate that little by little the restrictions are easing, but they need to be lifted sooner. So long as they’ve got the tracking and tracing and New South Wales has in recent months been the gold standard as far as that’s concerned, so long as people download the COVIDSafe app and there is that tracking and tracing provisions put in place, then there’s no reason why we should continue to have those border restrictions.
JOURNALIST
Just one more question, sorry, you’re about to meet with the North Wagga Residents Association to talk about the levee. They are pushing ahead with their plans to fund their own design for the levee upgrade. They believe it should be at a one-in-100 level. Do you support that process, and will you be encouraging them to continue with that?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, I’ll be having a discussion with their representative. Fiona Ziff in a moment. I appreciate that even the position of North Wagga residents has changed over time. I appreciate they too, like everybody else, doesn’t want to see when the Murrumbidgee River rises, they don’t want to see their homes flooded. Sad fact of reality is that whenever the Murrumbidgee has got to the heights where there is a major flood that North Wagga residents are impacted. That’s just the way it is unfortunately. And we’ve certainly done everything as a city to be able to minimise that impact upon as many residents as possible.
The Federal Government was asked for $10 million to support the $23 million that has been put towards the levee bank, and we’ve done that. We’ve done what we’ve been asked to as a Federal Government. And I know the Wagga Wagga City Council and the State Government will be having continued talks with residents as to where the next stage of the levee bank upgrade is concerned.
Thank you very much.
ENDS 11:49AM