TRANSCRIPT: SOUNDS OF THE MOUNTAINS RADIO INTERVIEW, 12 August 2020
E&OE
Subjects: Coronavirus, Domestic Freight Movement;
DAVID EISENHAUER
Michael, thank you very much for your time today.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
It’s a pleasure, David.
DAVID EISENHAUER
A very, very nice day around the region for the South-West and Riverina. We’ve got some rain forecast, which is good news, but it’s a fair way from where you are this morning.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Yes, indeed, I’m about 4,000-kilometres away actually, David. I’m in Darwin and I just did Sunrise and the Today Show from Darwin this morning. It was dark when we did the first one. But I’m up here to support Lia Finocchiaro and the Country Liberal Party team. That’s the one aligned with the National Party up here and she’s an energizer bunny and she’s starting from a long way back. We’ve only got two seats in a 25-seat Parliament and of course, Labor’s been in for a little while and you know, the situation up here, they are a long way from the COVID situation in Victoria and things aren’t too bad, although the economy has been badly affected. They’ve got a lot of debt in the Territory and of course, COVID hasn’t certainly helped that situation. Their Chief Minister this morning came out and said that the borders may well be shut well after Christmas and advised everybody not to travel anywhere other than in the Northern Territory until next year. So, you know, that’s put a bit of a dampener on things up here.
DAVID EISENHAUER
It’s similar – we’re looking at the situation in all the States across the country, none more so, Michael, than Victoria. In recent times – I know that Dean keeps us up to date, doing a great job from your office – more support for businesses and workers in regional Victoria was a press release we got there a few days ago and the Government is certainly on the side of trying to keep things as smooth as possible.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, we’ve put on the table, so far, $314 billion of assistance and I did say this morning that States are going to have to play their part a little bit harder, too. I think the combined total of all the six States and the couple of Territories we have is about $42 billion. So, there’s going to be the requirement for them to stump up as well. And I appreciate as well, we’ve got drought payments going out the door and of course, the bushfire relief and recovery efforts continue. I know it sounds glib and trite, but we are all in this together and we do need to – as a nation – continue to do the right thing, not just for ourselves or our own families, but for others as well. So, I say to people again if they haven’t downloaded the COVIDSafe app it’s necessary that they do so because it does track, it does trace people if people, have been in contact with somebody who then comes down with COVID. And if they’ve been in contact with them for more than 15 minutes an alert will be sent to the Health Department, of course. And then the person can be notified. It’s so easy to do and it’s so necessary.
DAVID EISENHAUER
There was an interesting discussion on The Drum last night on ABC. Actually, it was a really long discussion that one, they had quite a few guests there. On the app, I mean, at the end of the day, it’s been out there for a good couple of months and not everyone has downloaded it yet. And the more people that do download it, the better off we will be. I mean, New South Wales are not out of the woods. We broadcast into Victoria as well and I know the Great Upper Murray people have all got the COVIDSafe app on their phones. It’s very important.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, it is and I appreciate there’s always going to be narks. I appreciate there’s always going to be people who think this is big brother, this is government trying to intrude in our lives. No, it’s actually health advice trying to protect and save people’s lives and therefore, their livelihoods. That’s what it’s about. It’s not that difficult. And honestly, the supermarket chains, if people have got a loyalty card, there’d be more information on the loyalty card than there probably would be on any one of these sorts of apps. So, the big supermarket chains would know more about your shopping and buying habits than indeed, the COVIDSafe app would know about anything that people think that there might be being downloaded and government knowing where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing and what you’re seeing. No, it’s a health app. It’s been advised by the Chief Medical Officer and other experts in that field to make sure that they protect people’s lives. That’s what it’s about.
DAVID EISENHAUER
Now talking about that, we talk about supermarkets, as the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, the National Cabinet just recently have made initiatives to keep the transport moving. This has been one of the big concerns, Michael of the whole area, are these issues of freight across borders and so forth, but the Freight Movement Code recently being cemented into place.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Yes, I’m glad that the National Cabinet endorsed that work that I’ve been doing, along with my State Infrastructure and Transport Ministers from around the country for many months past. Yes, truck drivers need to be able to transport goods, health equipment, whatever they do, they keep the country moving. And whatever they move needs to get where it needs to go. And this is a situation where we worked long into the night, most nights, to get the protocol and codify everything that should be nationally consistent. So that if a truck driver needs to go from New South Wales to Queensland they should have the same conditions in place if they are going from Western Australia to South Australia. It just makes simple sense. I’ve been trying ever since I’ve been the Minister for Transport to have consistency across so many ways and means of transport, not just since coronavirus but indeed in life, in all those state regulations that are sometimes different from one state to the next. It makes good sense, we are one country and we should have more nationally consistent laws in that regard.
DAVID EISENHAUER
And of course, there’s information on your website, which is infrastructure.gov.au for people particularly in our region that are part of that transport industry. They head to “Vehicles” and to “Vehicle regulations” and then of course, they can just google that as well, Michael and have a look at that.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Absolutely or they can contact my office – 6921 4600 – and ask my staff who will readily help them. I’ve been in constant contact with people like Ron Finemore and Geoff Crouch. Geoff has just recently stood down as the Australian Trucking Association chairman. I mean, these people know what needs to be done. I’ve been in close liaison with them to make sure that we had local input into these sorts of things and we’re getting there.
DAVID EISENHAUER
Absolutely. As the Deputy PM, we’ve got to 8.30, you’ve got other appointments from now. But thank you very much for joining us just for a quick update live from the Northern Territory today, Michael. Appreciate your time.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Talk to you very soon. Thanks, David.
DAVID EISENHAUER
That is the Honourable Michael McCormack, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development and of course, the Leader of The Nationals, the Federal Member for Riverina, joining us from Darwin this morning and a very busy media schedule. As you heard, he was on Sunrise, he was on the Today Show. We appreciate the time Michael puts in each time, whether he’s in Wagga, whether he’s in Canberra or Northern Territory. Each fortnight, just an update, just a little bit of a look at what’s been making news from his office, the chats that we have, which is really good and occasionally we catch up with the Prime Minister Scott Morrison and get a bit of an overall update from National Cabinet.