TRANSCRIPT: ABC NATIONAL NETWORK INTERVIEW, 23 March 2020
E&OE
Subjects: Coronavirus;
SALLY BRYANT:
All non-essential services will go into lockdown for at least six months. The Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced pubs, clubs, cinemas, casinos, gyms, most places of worship will close their doors with restaurants and cafes only open for takeaways or delivery. At this stage schools remain open but parents will be able to choose whether they bring their children to stay at home. Victoria is bringing their last day of term forward so schools will shut there from tomorrow and in New South Wales the Premier Gladys Berejiklian is expected to make a statement shortly. Michael McCormack is the Deputy Prime Minister and joining me this morning. Good morning, Mr McCormack.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Good morning, Sally.
SALLY BRYANT:
This lockdown is going to have a huge impact on local businesses. The Federal Government has announced not-for-profits and small businesses will receive a tax-free payment of up to $100,000 to help retain staff and keep operating. Do you think that these measures are going to go far enough to allow businesses to get through a tough time, particularly bearing in mind that we've just gone through a drought, many of these communities are really drastically fire-affected already?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Yes. We've had a terrible summer. And, as you mentioned, the drought in many areas continues. One shower doesn't end the drought. The bushfire relief and recovery efforts will continue for months, if not years ahead and now we've got coronavirus 2019. Small and medium-sized businesses, they are getting $100,000 cash payments to continue to pay wages and as best they can keep the doors open. But with these non-essential versus essential services, there is a list of which businesses will be required to close from midday today. And I heard at the top of the program you talk about a couple of things such as agriculture producers and such as hardware shops. Well, at the moment, they're still allowed to operate. They're still allowed to stay open.
What we were seeing yesterday prior to the National Cabinet was, well, considerations that many, many businesses would be forced to shut their doors. Now, the Prime Minister has walked Premiers back from that. That is good. What we are now going to see from noon today is pubs, registered and licensed clubs excluding the bottle shops attached to those venues, hotels, excluding the accommodation areas of those places, gyms, indoor sporting venues, cinemas, entertainment venues, casinos – not that there's too many casinos in Wagga Wagga and the Riverina – nightclubs, restaurants and cafes will be restricted to take away and home delivery. So all those other venues, they are closed excluding those particular areas of that business but such things as hardware shops and ag producer shops etcetera, they're still open for business
Now, of course, this is a sort of rolling situation. The situation changes if not daily, then sometimes even hourly. So I would advise people to continue to monitor the messages coming out from the Federal Government, the messages coming out from the Chief Medical Officer, Dr Brendan Murphy, and follow those. State Governments, of course, will make decisions. You just said that the Premier Gladys Berejiklian will make an announcement in the next few hours potentially about schools, etcetera. Listen to those messages. They're the correct ones. Now, I know a lot of people are putting things up on social media and sharing it. It's important that they talk with one another in times where many people are staying home but if you need to get the accurate information, the Federal and State Governments and Chief Medical Officer are the ones to get the information from.
SALLY BRYANT:
Do you think it's a problem when the Federal and State Governments are seen to be at odds over issues? Say, for example, like this issue of closing schools?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well, that decision was reached by the National Cabinet last night. So the National Cabinet is the Prime Minister, the Premiers and the Chief Ministers.
SALLY BRYANT:
But the Premier of Victoria has closed Victorian schools early and they will close tomorrow. The Premier of New South Wales is to make an announcement today. But, as I understand it, the Prime Minister has said he believes schools should remain open.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well, I believe schools should stay open too and many parents believe schools should stay open as well and what we don't want to see is every school kid not being at school, obviously if school should be in session, and down in the shopping malls and circulating around the community or indeed, being looked after by their grandparents who, you know, who are amongst the most vulnerable in society at the moment. You know, many kids these days – in fact, I would almost argue most kids have parents who are working parents and both parents who are working parents and indeed, they need to be looked after. They can't be just left to run amok or indeed, if they are going to be home, they need to stay at home. But the trouble is they're not. So at the end of the day schools are a matter for State Governments and Daniel Andrews is quite entitled to make that decision and reach that of his own. Now, businesses are another matter altogether and that's why the Premiers went to that National Cabinet meeting last night and via telepresence and that decision was reached.
SALLY BRYANT:
Now, you mentioned telepresence. However, I gather that politicians will be returning to Canberra this week? That seems like an odd decision?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Not every politician will be returning. There's many, many pairs that are going to get through Parliament with a minimal number and people would expect that politicians will be working as best they can, as per normal. People want to see that their politicians are making the decisions for and on their behalf, that's why we're elected. That's why I'm in Canberra at the moment. We're doing our Prime Minister's meeting this morning via telepresence but once when the Parliament begins at 10 o'clock, the minimum number, just enough for a quorum will be in the House of Representatives chamber. We’ll be, I'm sure, maintaining those social distances from one-another two arms lengths and then we'll make sure that the stimulus packages, $17.6 billion the previous week and of course, $60 billion yesterday will be passed through the Parliament. We had a very good meeting yesterday, both the Coalition and the Opposition to talk about how we would run things through the Parliament. We'll get things done. People need to know that the function of government will continue as normal.
SALLY BRYANT:
Now, non-essential services going into lockdown and members of the community are being urged not to congregate. How are we going to police these measures? What's government going to do to ensure that people are doing the right thing?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well, people for a start need to do the right thing and like we saw at the beaches at Bondi and elsewhere on the weekend where people were congregated en masse cannot continue to happen. Of course, the AFL has made the decision to postpone its season until May 31. I know that local competition and local sporting competitions have already made that decision some time ago to not begin their seasons until around June. We need people to be their best self. This is a crisis that this generation of Australians – indeed, a crisis that we haven't faced since World War II and indeed no one probably living has probably seen one of these crises or can remember one of these crises. Of course, there was the Spanish Flu in 1919, 100 years ago. There would be a few Centenarians around who would perhaps have been told about what happened there. But 12,000 Australians died during that crisis 100 years ago.
We don't want to see that anywhere, anywhere near that number. We've already lost seven. We don't want to lose any more. So isolation, containment, making sure that we get the curve as flattened as best we can so that we keep people away from one another as best we can and people need to follow the rules, make sure that we don't put our vulnerable at risk and our vulnerable are those people who are the older members of our society. That's why there have been new rules placed around visitation numbers for aged care centres and the like. We just need to make sure that we get through this very, very difficult period which could last up to six months, could be longer, we don't know. There's a lot of great unknowns that we're entering into at the moment. This is a whole new situation and we need to be our best selves as Australians to get through it.
SALLY BRYANT:
Mr McCormack, how do you manage, how do you tread that fine line, do you believe, between people taking it all a bit too lightly? We're hearing messages, I'm hearing messages from friends in Italy saying do not take this for granted, do not take this lightly. How do you tread that fine balance between that and panicking people?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Well, we need to heed those messages because you're right, there is a bit of complacency there at the moment. It's like a flood that you look out your window, there's nothing happening in your neighbourhood so you think everything's all right but you're seeing images on television, you're hearing from your ABC that there's a flood upstream that is damaging and devastating communities and you're thinking, "Should I sandbag? Look, everything looks okay at the moment, I'll be right. We'll be right, it will pass, it will subside." No, it won't. Take every precaution. Make sure you heed the messages coming from the Chief Medical Officer. Practice good hygiene, wash your hands. Practice social distancing, follow the rules. You follow the rules, you'll be okay but so will others as well.
We really need to think of other people at the moment. Like never before, we need to think of what is going to be best for Australia to get through this and it starts with the individual. It starts with each and every one of us. We need to be our best selves. We will get through this, we're Australians, we always do. But let's not have a situation similar to Italy and other European countries and indeed China and elsewhere where they've lost many, many thousands of people. We don't want that situation in Australia. We need to make sure, particularly at this critical juncture, that if we have to self-isolate, we do it. If we really are looking like we've got those symptoms, make sure we do the right thing in that regard and we will get through this.
SALLY BRYANT:
The difficulty is, of course, though, there are people who are shedding the disease who have no symptoms. There are people who have been exposed to the disease who are actually – you know, they have COVID-19 and they're still going about their business as normal. What would you say to criticism that the Federal Government has been just behind all the time on this and has come to the party too late on each of the measures that you've announced? There have been people saying that the sorts of things that were announced yesterday should have been announced a lot earlier?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
There's always going to be critics. In fact, I would almost argue that some of our most strident critics, particularly leading up to the election and just after in the media, have actually praised us for the way that we've actually …
SALLY BRYANT:
I'm not talking about the people who are praising you. I'm talking about the people who say we should have been – as a country, we should have been, you know, closing our borders or limiting access earlier than we did.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
We closed our borders even before America closed its borders to China. We were very much in front of the curve as far as making sure we closed our borders to Italy, to Iran, to other countries where the symptoms and in fact the infection was running rampant. We were closing our borders. And you only have to ask people from say the cruise ship industry and …
SALLY BRYANT:
The cruise ship industry has a bit of muck on its face at the moment. I mean, what about the story that we've got three cruise ships that have come into Sydney where no checks were done on those people before they disembarked and now we're finding out that they did have that disease.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
That's unfortunate and that's why people, that's why companies, that's why all Australians need to be their best selves and if people are showing symptoms, then they need to do what's right. Because, as you say, people may well have been in contact with somebody who has this. They need to ensure that they follow the Chief Medical Officer's advice. We've done that right the way through. We've followed the Chief Medical Officer's advice as far as shutting borders, as far as isolating people, as far as doing what we need to do in relation to business. We've done that all the way through. We've been very responsive to making sure that, as you've mentioned yourself, even as this hasn't really taken hold in the community as far as infection rates, we've put in place measures which are going to protect business, put in place measures that are going to protect jobs. We have been very much forward leaning on the front foot, making sure that we've done the right things before things get really bad, before things go from worse to indeed potentially worse and we're making sure as a Government we've been very responsible in that regard.
SALLY BRYANT:
Are you aware of the small community in Italy where they took the measure of testing every single member of the community and discovered that there were people in that community who had never gone anywhere, who had not been overseas and had no symptoms but were still showing traces of the virus?
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
I've got to say Sally, I've read a lot over the past few months and that's not something I've read.
SALLY BRYANT:
I'm sure you have. Yes.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
And would’ve been in lockdown, obviously. That's very interesting, though.
SALLY BRYANT:
Because it is underlying what people are saying and that is it's something that needs to be done sooner rather than later. But, Mr McCormack, you've already given me a lot of your time, I really appreciate that.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Anytime at all, Sally.
SALLY BRYANT:
Stay well in Canberra.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
You too.
SALLY BRYANT:
Away from all those tricksy politicians and we will speak to you again soon. But thanks so much for your time this morning.
MICHAEL MCCORMACK:
Thank so much. All the best.