TRANSCRIPT: SOUNDS OF THE MOUNTAINS RADIO INTERVIEW, 23 April 2020

E&OE

Subjects: Victorian Police, Coronavirus, Virgin Australia, ANZAC Day;

DAVID EISENHAUER:

Of course, Michael McCormack on the line, live and local this morning. Mr McCormack, thank you very much for your time on the local station once again.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

It’s a pleasure David. How are you today?

DAVID EISENHAUER:

Yes, very well. A bit saddened though Michael with the news we're seeing from the Victorian Police, VicPol and the tragic loss of life there with officers just going about their duties this past evening.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Yes, pulling up a motorist who was allegedly going too fast and whilst they were doing the booking a truck has apparently, just ploughed into the actual scene. It's just an awful situation and four young officers killed. You just cannot believe how tragic that is. It’s the greatest loss of life since Ned Kelly killed three at Stringybark Creek back in the late 1870’s and to have four young officers killed in the prime of their life on duty is just such a tragedy for not only their families, of course, but for the entire force. It's a close knit force the Victoria Police, as is every Police Force. They’re like family and they will be very much mourning and feeling that loss today.

DAVID EISENHAUER:

Won’t they and I know it’s covering the news, watching the ABC News this morning and Prime Minister Scott Morrison sending his condolences along with many others from the Parliament. It's been a tough year, this year Michael, 2020 hasn't really let up.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

It's got to get better. It just has to get better. But, we're strong people, we're a resilient nation and I keep saying we get through these things because we do band together and you only need to look at the fact that only seven cases in the past 24 hours of coronavirus right across the nation. That's remarkable when you see tent cities being set up in Central Park in New York and 18,100 dead in the UK. The UK has only got a population two and a bit times Australia and of course we've had 74. That’s 74 families who, of course, are still grieving. What we've been able to achieve here in Australia and what New Zealand has been able to achieve as well, it says something, I think, about what we are like as a people and the fact that we do comply, we do obey the rules when officials such as Professor Brendan Murphy ask us to social distance, self-isolate, stay at home and we've done that. By and large, we've done that. As a nation, we can be proud of our efforts to date but of course, complacency is literally a killer in this situation and back 100 years ago, it was the second wave that killed the majority of the 12,000 Australians who lost their life in the Spanish Flu situation back in 1919-1920 and so we don't want a repeat of that.

DAVID EISENHAUER:

No, but we have to say that it has been so well managed and a success for the Australian Government and the restrictions have been very hard to implement, no doubt. Minister from where you sit with the National Cabinet. They've made some pretty tough decisions but it has worked and it is working and we can't relax just yet. We still have to – as community members of these regional towns that may be well into the clear, at any moment that could change. We still aren't out of the woods yet.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Look, it could change very quickly and you're right. You mentioned regional towns and Tumut is not isolated from this either. And so we ask people, you know, up in the hills and up in the upper Murray, we ask people to continue to do what they've been asked to do. Because it only takes one person. One person, as Professor Murphy has said repeatedly, can transmit the virus to 400 others potentially and it only takes one person to break the rules. One person to go to an area where they're not supposed to be and you can get an outbreak and you can imagine an outbreak in somewhere like Corryong, Walwa, Tumut or Tumbarumba and you know, we don't have the ICU beds. We've got magnificent health facilities and moreover, magnificent people on the front line; health professionals, doctors, nurses and the like, but we can't sustain an outbreaks like they had in Burnie in Tasmania the other day. That would be disastrous.

DAVID EISENHAUER:

You mentioned the wonderful work been done by the medical teams, allied health as well. Working away in the background. It's been a mighty effort by each and every one and particularly in our local region, Murrumbidgee Local Health District. We’re comparing it a lot to the bushfire information that we were being provided with during the fires. They've been doing a terrific job, Minister.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

They have and Jill Ludford has been leading by example and Superintendent Bob Noble from the Wagga Wagga Police and others too. And I know that your Tumut Police have done a good job and everybody has banded together to make sure that we protect lives and save livelihoods.

DAVID EISENHAUER:

Exactly and we look forward to a return of some normality. The tracking app has been making a lot of news. We've talked about that on the air a few times, it's a little bit quieter at the moment. The last couple of days there hasn't been as much information about that. What's coming out of National Cabinet for the tracing app Minister?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Well, that will be coming from the Federal Government. It's finalising the development of that app to help save lives and protect the community. It will map the spread of the coronavirus. The new app will be voluntary. I need to stress that. The Prime Minister has doubled down on emphasising that it is optional. It will digitise the current contact connectivity process which already occurs when an individual tests positive to coronavirus. So, it'll only capture the information currently being gathered by public health officials when they manually identify those who may have been in close contact with an infected person for a period of 15 minutes or more. It's really easy to do, everyone who has a mobile phone and knows how to download an app knows how easy it is to do, David. I tell you what, if downloading an app that is going to allow a health official to contact you or somebody else who you've been in contact with if you or somebody else has the virus and it saves your life. I think it's a pretty simple thing to do. The information will not and cannot be used by the Government or anybody other than the public health officials. If it saves a life, if it saves somebody from even spreading it to someone else, then I think it’s well worth it. The information will be used only for COVID-19 health responses. And I can just remember last year David, a little side story. My two sons play for Mangoplah Football Club and somebody had meningococcal and the health authorities came in, they swabbed everybody in the entire team. Every netballer, everybody who'd been in close contact with anybody and were able to really, really eradicate it. By giving them the vaccine, it was able to actually stop it before it actually got out of hand and this is the same sort of help and assistance that we're asking and imploring people to follow on this occasion – download the app it might save your life.

DAVID EISENHAUER:

Absolutely. Those key words there: saving a life. One thing that people that don't necessarily agree with the way it’s being run, the fine system has certainly been increased for those people that might think, oh, it doesn't apply to me, Minister that's for sure.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Well, you go deliberately coughing on somebody, anybody, it's a $5,000 fine and I think that's a good move by the New South Wales Government. And certainly our frontline officials, whether they're police, ambulance officials, doctors, health officials, you know, right the way through to people serving on checkouts, you know, people who are just there doing a job, not being paid a whole lot and just asking people to only take one roll of toilet paper. Now we've seen instances, sadly and thankfully, not too many, but people are having meltdowns in supermarkets over the purchase of such things as toilet paper. Goodness gracious, let's get a grip. Make sure that you do the right thing and look 99.9% of Australians have. That's why we've only had 74 deaths and that’s why we've only had, you know, a handful of cases overnight.

DAVID EISENHAUER:

We compare it on a world stage, you and I talked a number of times during the fires on a local level, it felt very national at the time because it was. We're in the bushfire recovery process, into this one with a worldwide focus in Australia realistically, is looking at some very, very successful results here. It has been a terrific journey. But there's a long road ahead, Minister, that's for sure.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Look there is. And I want to assure your listeners that we haven't forgotten the bushfire response and I have certainly been talking to Mayor James Hayes but also Andrew Colvin who heads up the National Bushfire Recovery Agency. I know it wasn't that long ago he was back in Batlow and Tumbarumba. I want to assure your listeners that when the Parliament resumes which it possibly will, on May 12, that's the plan, that there'll be a statement made about what we're doing in regards to the bushfires and how we're going to rebuild, reconstruct and get those communities back on their feet because there's still many people who are still reeling from the effects of the bush fires. And you know, it's it seems like a long, long time ago, but it's only a couple of months really, when you think about it, there's just so much, as you said, has gone on in these past couple of months and not forgetting we've also been in drought. So, the communities have been hit hard not just in and around our area, David, but right throughout the country, but we will rebuild because we're Aussies. We've got that Aussie sense of mateship and I just want to assure your listeners that the Parliament certainly hasn't forgot those victims of the bushfires. And we will certainly be making a statement when Parliament resumes, albeit in a rather constricted way on May 12. I know David Littleproud has – I spoke to him yesterday about that very thing, about the emergency efforts we went to and the recovery efforts that are going to help those bushfire victims.

DAVID EISENHAUER:

And of course with the company Laing O’Rourke, who are in the process, they're working around the Batlow district at the moment for our Victorian listeners, Grocon, they’re the contractors that are working there and they're making their way through and I think we catch up each week and do an update with a Bushfire Recovery Coordinator, Andrew Rae from Snowy Valleys.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

They're good people.

DAVID EISENHAUER:

They're doing a wonderful job. Some more good people in their community Minister, are our RSL sub-branches and they have really, really put their thinking caps on this year to bring us a very, very special ANZAC Day.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Well, it's going to be unique and people are being encouraged to get up pre-dawn and go out to the end of their driveways and put out a torch and stand there and observe a minute's silence and if they don't manage to do that, do a minute’s silence at some stage throughout the day because it is our most important day. I know the ABC is going to broadcast the service from the Australian War Memorial in Canberra around the nation. That will be a very unique service with really only the World War Memorial officials, Prime Minister and the Governor-General and that will be about it. It's going to be a rather sombre ANZAC Day but one that will still be special because we know that it was the efforts of our fallen and all of those who served, who gave us what we enjoy today and that is the peace and relative freedoms that we do have and really, what we've done so far with the coronavirus, really in Australia and New Zealand, embodies the ANZAC spirit. It really does.

DAVID EISENHAUER:

And from a local level, the RSL sub-branches of Tumut and Gundagai have worked – we've got three audio files with about 60 separate tracks in them, we're putting together at the moment and we'll be broadcasting live the dawn service from the Tumut RSL sub-branch at 10:30am. Again, for the main service and then at 11am we'll be crossing live to the Gundagai service. All assembled using the social-isolation, it’s been on telephones. Our guest speaker joined us from Sydney on the phone and we've got three half hour pieces here on the station.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

That's just fantastic. And I know I did a piece for the Jugiong people the other day and you know, communities are banding together like never before to find innovative ways to commemorate this most important and solemn occasion.

DAVID EISENHAUER:

And perfect weather too, for 6:00am in the morning to get out there on the driveways and that silence, it's lovely. I’ve heard the services, having been the producer of them and they really are a moving service and beautiful.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

I am sure they are exceptional if you have had something to do with them, David.

DAVID EISENHAUER:

Well, there's a bit of rough edging on them but we’ll smooth that out between now and Saturday. Minister, before we go, Virgin Airlines making news, a lot of people sort of talking from a local level. You've been involved in this as of course.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Virgin, by taking that decision to go into voluntary administration, have given themselves the best way forward. And I know a lot of private investors looking to potentially take the company over and buy Virgin. Recapitalising and restructuring their business they can come out the other side and continue to be Australia's second commercial airline, a viable airline and that's what we want, especially for the 10,000 workers and the 6,000 suppliers who ply their trade with that wonderful airline and it is a good airline and I've of course, been in constant contact with Virgin and people right throughout the entire aviation sector. People in regional Australia know how important it is to have a viable aviation sector and it has been hit hard by the coronavirus.

Just before we do go, your Tumut footballers would have been potentially pleased to know that there's now a July 18 potential start date for the Group 9 Rugby League season to resume and I know that is yet to be set in stone David, but given the fact that Tumut town, the mighty Blues, are reigning premiers, they'll be keen to get back on the training track as soon as possible. When these social isolation measures are eased, you know, they had a pretty good win last year against Southcity and you know, I think getting community football back on the paddock is something that's also going to help our regional economies and our regional psychology because there’s nothing better than going to watch a game of footy on the weekend.

DAVID EISENHAUER:

And of course, May 28, a big date for the NRL with the NRL returning as well. So there'll be a lot of very happy people.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Go the Eels.

DAVID EISENHAUER:

Well, that’s your view Minister.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

You’ve just lost half your audience. [Laughter]

DAVID EISENHAUER:

Minister, thank you very much for joining us for an update today. Obviously, we started our chat with our thoughts going out to the Victorian Police Force this morning and I really appreciate your time joining us.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Indeed, it’s very sad. Anytime at all. I look forward to chatting soon. Thanks David.

Shane Manning