TRANSCRIPT: SOUNDS OF THE MOUNTAINS RADIO INTERVIEW, 10 July 2020

E&OE

Subjects: Eden-Monaro by-election, Bushfire Recovery, State Borders;

DAVID EISENHAUER

Michael McCormack, of course joins us regularly on the station. Mr McCormack, thank you very much for your time today.

MICHAEL McCORMACK

One of my favourite times of the week, David.

DAVID EISENHAUER

It's a nice day to be around the city of good sports. Do they still call Wagga Wagga the city of good sports?

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Now and again, it is the city of good sports but then again, we have a lot of towns with good sports too, Tumut being one of them. Of course, Tumbarumba has a proud sporting history. I can remember when they won the Clayton Cup in the Group 13 Rugby League and of course, those days were a long time ago. But look, every town in the Riverina has sporting history and heritage to it. We’re so lucky that we're blessed with good sporting grounds and reasonably good weather that we can play a lot of this sport and enjoy each other's company and make friends for life in a sport of course.

DAVID EISENHAUER

We’ve seen community sport return in New South Wales, obviously it's a bit different in Victoria. We're going to talk about that soon – 

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Saturday-week, I can’t wait. The boys are champing at the bit to play footy again.

DAVID EISENHAUER

It's a shorter season, we talked about that with Saturday Morning Sport with Pat Ferguson each and every Saturday but there's a good positive feeling there. Let's hope it stays. It's a confusing time but before we talk about that, as Deputy PM, we've got to talk about the by-election, it’s been run and won, last Saturday we were glued to the TV and of course Antony and his updates with his amazing computer system that he runs and his estimates and things. What an interesting 24 hours or so and in fact, leading up to.

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Yes, look congratulations to Kristy McBain, the former Bega Valley Mayor, she will now be sworn in next week. The result being confirmed, less than .5 of a per cent, the difference between the Coalition and the Labor Party in the end. But look, I stood at Tumut, Batlow, Adelong and Tumbarumba so I got out and about. People were pretty good. They either took everybody's how-to-vote card or none at all. And you know, it was one of those elections. It was always going to go down to the wire and it did and may Kristy serve the community well, good luck to her. I reached out to her on Monday and wished her well because I know there's a big job there to do of course and I look forward to working with her to make sure that we get that bushfire recovery. Of course, to make sure that the issues of drought and of course COVID-19 are addressed. I always reach out across the aisle to all the new members of the Opposition whenever Parliament resumes and I did the same to Kristy as you'd expect.

DAVID EISENHAUER

Well look, we've been through – since Christmas time – we have seen, if we can call it a coalition of all the parties working together with bushfire recovery and now with COVID-19 and that response needs to be a joint effort.

MICHAEL McCORMACK

It's got to be above politics. And I've always done that. Yes, if need be, maybe sometimes in the robustness of this debating chamber that is the House of Representatives you get a bit argy-bargy but people generally want to see when you're out in the community, they want to see you getting on and it was great to catch up with Kirsten Livermore the other day on the polling booth. The former Labor Member for Capricornia from Queensland, I haven't seen her for about 18 months. So I've always got a very well with Kirsten, I reached out to the Victoria Labor Transport Minister to see what we could do as far as the situation with the Melbourne lockdown and the Victorian border situation to get those trucks to get that farm equipment across the border. Of course, it’s a New South Wales issue as well and Paul Toole as the Minister, these are important issues above politics.

DAVID EISENHAUER

And Trevor Hicks, candidate for The Nationals, his assistance to the timber industry and particularly the dairy farmers and the apple growers and small businesses. We had a couple of chats with Trevor he was saying, look, if we had more time to travel around. It was an interesting time for a by-election with COVID-19, the restrictions. But one of his big pushes there was the support of the dairy industry and the timber industry, Michael and that was one of his key drivers, he was passionate about that.

MICHAEL McCORMACK

And of course we've made some good announcements as far as timber is concerned and of course even the efforts that we've gone to for the apple industry recently to make sure that through the relief and recovery efforts for the bushfires and we will continue to address that assistance needed for those farmers particularly in and around Batlow and for the timber industry right throughout the Snowy Valleys Council area and beyond. We’ve made that particular hub – one of a handful of so in Australia – it is going to provide all the assistance and funding and good things to come for many years because as we know, growing an apple orchard or growing a forest of trees to eventually harvest. It’s going to make many years and so these are not just things which are for the here and now. These are long term measures for an economic future for these areas, for your area and for our area because it's so important that we get these jobs back up and running.

DAVID EISENHAUER

And of course, only a couple of years to go and we've got the Federal Election underway. It’s going to be a busy couple of years coming up. There's a lot on.

MICHAEL McCORMACK

We're always in election-mode, we've addressed the health pandemic that is coronavirus. We've done that. Of course, this second wave is unfortunate. We will get through this because we're resilient, we're Australians. Yes, people are still hurting from the drought, we’ll get through these issues. And we'll do it, we'll get the economy back in shape. These are important issues and as you say, these are above politics.

DAVID EISENHAUER

I know we're almost up to the news, but regional travel, that's something that we've been talking a lot about with the border closures, Mr McCormack, what are we looking at with regional travel? We were talking about this a couple of weeks ago, about getting people to travel all over the district, support local businesses, that's been restricted now.

MICHAEL McCORMACK

It’s been restricted obviously, people from Victoria can’t now come to New South Wales but people in New South Wales can still come and enjoy the mountains, the beautiful Snowy Mountains. They can still jump in the car and drive up to Tumut, have a great cup of coffee and a look around and enjoy the splendour that is the foothills of the Snowy Mountains. People from Sydney should too be encouraged to you know, come and explore regional Australia. I know when it becomes warmer, people of course will look for a holiday destination. They're not going to be able to fly overseas, let's face it, the domestic travel option is the only way to go. And of course, there are many beautiful areas, splendid areas, in regional New South Wales, regional Australia, that they can come and visit and spend a bit of money.

DAVID EISENHAUER

Absolutely and then support these local businesses that are really trying to pick it back up again, it's certainly going to be a big journey. We've got a lot of work to do, of course, our border closures and our hats go off to those people that are staffing those closures too. We tend to forget about those emergency service workers, the army and the police that are out there doing their job –

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Just doing their job, great people just doing the job. So be patient, exercise patience if you have to travel anywhere near the border and we’ll all get through this.

DAVID EISENHAUER

Of course we will. Look it’s time for the news, thank you very much for joining us. As always, Michael McCormack, we appreciate your time, we know you have got a busy schedule ahead of you on this Friday as well. So we'll catch up with you in a couple of weeks.

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Thank you, all the best.

Shane Manning