TRANSCRIPT: ABC RIVERINA RADIO INTERVIEW WITH SALLY BRYANT, 5 February 2020
E&EO
Subject: Leadership; bushfires; energy
SALLY BRYANT:
Congratulations on being returned yesterday. Was it a tight contest?
MICHAEL McCORMACK:
All the results of the National Party elections are never released or revealed. That's been the convention of the party, which is this year celebrating 100 years. And, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. The result is out there. I was re-affirmed as the National Party Leader – I am pleased about that. Always I have just been concentrating not on myself – I have just been out there making sure that I have been visiting fire fronts, continuing to address the drought. They are the things that people who send me to Canberra want me to be talking about, want me to be addressing, want me to be making sure that there is delivery around the cabinet table and that's always been my focus and will continue to be.
SALLY BRYANT:
You said yesterday that you didn't want to concentrate on negative things that you were concentrating on building …
MICHAEL McCORMACK:
I've always been a positive person …
SALLY BRYANT:
Is there going to be any change to your approach now that you have been returned as the Leader of The National Party?
MICHAEL McCORMACK:
Well, I am who I am and I have never tried to be Barnaby Joyce, I have never tried to be Warren Truss or Mark Vaile or Tim Fischer or John Anderson or any of the other leaders who have gone before me. I am who I am and I bring my own leadership style. Everybody is different. And I think we've got the way too many people in life who to try to copycat others. I'm not one of those people. I just like to be who I am. Of course, there are always learnings from these sorts of things. And I'll certainly make sure that visibility, perhaps, is a little more. But you know, when you do visit fire fronts – I didn't take a whole bank of television cameras with me, I didn’t even tell the media I was going. And when I visited people who had lost their homes, who needed a counsellor, who needed an electrical generator. They didn’t want to see cameras from television studios for far-off places shoved in the faces. They appreciated the fact that I went there, that I listened to them, and that I gave them what they needed. I was able to when I went to South Arm there the other day, call up the Minister for Health Greg Hunt and get a counsellor to them. Within days, I was able to get a generator at a couple of sites I visited because I happen to turn up – well at the wrong time, I suspect – and make sure that, I was able to do that and I think that's far more valuable than getting a one-line grab on the six o'clock news which, yeah sure, maybe everybody sees it, but at the end of the day, people of regional Australia know that I care. They know that I support them. That's why re-endorsed every one of the 16 National Party lower house, house of representatives, members at the last election last year.
SALLY BRYANT:
Mr McCormack, the comment has been made that watching Q and A on Monday night you could see the impact of the files on Andrew Constance and the comment has been made that it would be useful for many politicians to see and to have been through what he has seen over this Christmas.
MICHAEL McCORMACK:
I have spent a lot of time with Andrew and let me tell you, I was probably one of the first to reach out to Andrew to ring him to text him. I went up to Cobargo, I went with him. I went to Malua Bay, where a young fellow, Anthony Bellette, who is well known to Andrew, stood on a roof, bare-footed I think, and marshal people on to the beach area and save countless lives. I was there with Andrew every step – I saw his own house. Andrew and I have been mates for years and I rang Gladys Berejiklian, the Premier of New South Wales, and said to her Andrew’s hurting, he really is. He, like every other member of that South Coast community, they were really struggling and I made sure that the resources were put into place in those communities. And Andrew knows how much I value his friendship. He also knows how much I care and, you know, I am feeling for Andrew, also feeling for those people in and around his own neighbourhood who lost their house. He was he was luckier than most. His house was saved.
SALLY BRYANT:
Now, your situation as Leader of the National Party, has it been made more difficult by the fact that the Prime Minister has now come out and said that climate change is real and that there is a need to transition away from fossil fuels, to energy sources like gas and renewables? Where does that leave The Nationals?
MICHAEL McCORMACK:
Well I have always thought we should have more gas and you know, I am pleased. I think they …
SALLY BRYANT:
(Interrupts) I don't know that more gas is what people are suggesting. I think that it's a move towards renewables with …
MICHAEL McCORMACK:
Well, you drive around the Riverina and South West Slopes and Central West and you will see how many solar farms that the federal government has heavily subsidised and invested in and made sure that there was the right investment initiatives to be able to do just that. We have delivered big time in renewables and the take up of renewables in Australia is second to none. Let me tell you we are meeting and beating our Paris obligation, our key international commitments, we're making sure that those targets that were set, are being made, but what we are not going to do and – with questions with the carryover – I have to say that why shouldn’t we be rewarded for actually beating the targets we said we would and I have to say that we're not going to bring in climate policies that are going to cripple farms and industries and factories and send all that work offshore. I mean, if people who say yes, we should stop all fossil fuels because that's good for the world. Tell that to somebody who puts on a high-vis vest, goes to work in the resources sector in northern and central Queensland and elsewhere. They deserve their jobs too. They also provide two-thirds of our energy needs in the coal sector. They also provide $62 billion worth of exports. They also provide 55,000 employment opportunities directly, let alone the indirect jobs. I will always stick up for those regional Australians.
SALLY BRYANT:
All of that aside, we have had experts saying to us that we need to factor in climate change as it being a major contributor to the severity and ferocity …
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Indeed and I have said that, too, but there are a lot of factors for these bushfires – hazard reduction is going to be important, looking at fuel load, looking at, you know, I almost hate to bring it up but arsonists, more than 180 arrested and they are the ones they nabbed. All of these factors will be taken into account when the necessary reviews, Royal Commission …
SALLY BRYANT:
Michael McCormack, who I spoke to a short time ago from Canberra. ABC Riverina. Sally Bryant with you on a Riverina Wednesday breakfast morning. Interested to hear your thoughts on what Mr McCormack had to say there. Send me a text on 0467 922 684. Do you welcome the return of your local member to that top spot the Deputy Prime Ministership and the leadership of The Nationals? And, if anything, what would you like to see him change? You know, do you think he's doing a good job, leading The Nationals and also as the deputy leader of the country? Send me a text and let me know what you think. Some feedback to your local member.