TRANSCRIPT: INTERVIEW WITH DEE DEE DUNLEAVY– 3AW, 15 JANUARY 2021
E&OE
Subjects: COVID-19 border restrictions; unemployment; international workers; the Australian Open; Joe the Pigeon.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
It has certainly been a colourful week for Michael McCormack who has had the big job of being Acting Prime Minister while Scott Morrison takes a break. Mr McCormack’s been travelling out and about right around different parts of the country where he’s been able to, and it seems controversy has followed him pretty much wherever he’s travelled, pretty much whenever he has opened his mouth. I was able to get just a few minutes of his time in between some of his events today. He was off a plane and on to something else when we were able to grab a few minutes. So we recorded this before we went to air this afternoon and I did start by asking the Acting Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, just where he is speaking to us from.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Launceston, and it is absolutely raining cats and dogs here on the Batman Highway. We’re going to announce with the Member for Bass, Bridget Archer, some road upgrades. And the rain is coming down very heavily, which is very much a different from yesterday when I was in Tennant Creek when it was had 41 degrees in the shade.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
You’ve moved around a fair bit. You haven’t run across any border issues as you’ve gone around? No areas you’ve needed special permits?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, I’m only going to places where I’m allowed to go. So obviously that prevented me from going to Greater Sydney or, indeed, Western Australia or some other parts of the country that at the moment the border issues are sort of very much, of course, the remit of Premiers, but I know what they think is necessary to keep public health outcomes, what they need to be as we struggle and battle and cope with COVID-19. It’s a global pandemic that’s caused such a lot of heartache around the world, but Australia’s done magnificently and, of course, next month the vaccine starts to get rolled out.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
Now you have caused controversy, some controversy, in your week filling in as Prime Minister of this country. One I wanted to focus on was your comments around the unemployed needing to turn Netflix off and get into country areas and find jobs. Do you still stand by that? Is that the issue? That the unemployed are lazy?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, it wasn’t a generalisation; it was a comment aimed at those people who, indeed, are, in fact, refusing to go back to work or disinclined to take up the jobs on offer because they might have got into the groove of settling in nicely on their lounge and watching movies. There are jobs in regional Australia and, indeed, right throughout the country that shamefully and unfortunately are going begging at the moment because there aren’t enough people to take them up. And I’ve been to many regional cities in recent months where there’s a lot of signs in windows, you know, “Jobs within. Please apply.” And that goes for hospitality, it goes for agriculture, resources, accountancy practices, you name it. There are jobs out there in regional Australia. The Regional Australia Institute has identified 50,000-plus jobs in country areas. And they’re nice areas, they’re beautiful areas. They’re large enough in which to get a good cup of coffee, small enough to care. But they’ve got jobs and they need people to take them up.
Now obviously I understand that there are people who for one reason or another can’t get there and are unable to take up those job offers and have also found themselves through no fault of their own unemployed perhaps for the first time in their working lives. And that is unfortunate. Now I understand that. But there are others who, quite frankly, are milking the system and refusing to take those jobs that are on offer.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
How many of those jobs would normally have been filled by international workers coming across from New Zealand, say, from the Pacific Island. I know I’ve spoken with shearers this week and I’ve spoken to farmers who haven’t been able to get people in to help harvest their fruit, their vegetables in different parts of Victoria, different parts of the country. How many of those jobs would normally be filled by those international workers and is anything being done to speed that up?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Yeah, well, just for backpackers alone, I mean we probably have 90,000 people who are not in the country now who otherwise would be. And many of those, of course, are, as you indicate, picking stone fruit and doing all those sorts of jobs in agriculture endeavours that, you know, we need and want and, you know, really benefit from. Because, you know, those orchards in the Sunraysia and the Riverina and elsewhere they need those backpackers. Unfortunately because of international travel restrictions they haven’t come and the jobs can’t or won’t be done by Australians. So that is very unfortunate.
But, of course, we’ve got measures in place. We have had as a Federal Government, Aspen have been quite prepared to even do a very regimented quarantining system in Victoria, as has been taking place in Queensland. I visited a mango property yesterday where they’re quite prepared to do the quarantining with independent security and guards, of course, overlooking it and health professionals all making sure that everything is at what it needs to be in the Northern Territory. But, again, you know, this comes down to the States. It comes down to the Territories. It is their jurisdictional responsibility. I understand if they do get a little bit nervous about they don’t want another outbreak, but what a crying shame it is in Australia that we’ve got fruit on orchards and in farms that is actually going to waste and we can’t get the workers there and yet we’ve got tennis players coming in with COVID-19, and that is so unfortunate.
And, you know, if you’re a stone fruit farmer in Mildura and you look at what’s happening in your state and think, “Why is that tennis player allowed to come in and then got COVID and yet I can’t get a worker because my government, my state government, won’t allow on-farm quarantining,” even given the fact that we’ve had proposals in place for many, many months and it won’t be taken up, it isn’t being done. You know, they are left scratching their heads.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
I’ll come back to the Australian Open in a moment. But is part of the issue with international travellers, though – international workers coming here that there is still the cap on returning travellers, and that’s a Federal Government thing.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, of course it is an issue. Well, yes and no, it is worked through the National Cabinet and we have halved the caps because of that virulent UK strain of COVID. But, again, Queensland is doing on-farm quarantining. Again, there has been proposals put forward by Aspen to, you know, oversee on-farm quarantining and yet, unfortunately, those provisions and those opportunities have not been taken up.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
So it is States and Territories putting up barriers, you’re saying? It’s not a Federal Government issue?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
We’ll work with States and Territories to get the best outcomes. We don’t want to see the stone fruit crops rotting on trees or, indeed, falling on the ground and having to be ground into the dirt. That is unAustralian. It really is. And we will work with states and territories. We’ll work through the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee. We’ll work through the National Cabinet process. It has worked well, but there is more that we can and should and must do.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
And you mentioned the Australian Open and how a farmer with those crops waiting to be picked would be frustrated to learn that 1,240 tennis players, officials are flying in, one of them has tested positive to COVID. It’s a shedding of the virus, so not infectious they tell us, but, still, there would be that frustration, and there certainly has been amongst our callers for the better part of this week.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
I’ve spoken directly to some of those farmers, and they are left wondering. And, look, I understand that the Australian Open tennis is a huge event. I’ve been to it. It is a great event for Victoria and for our nation. And I understand it brings in many tourism dollars and is one of those great sporting spectacles in the sporting capital of the world – and that is Melbourne. But, you know, like I say, again, you know, when we’ve already seen $38 million of crop go to waste and potentially many more on the vines and on the trees going to also be absolutely wasted then, you know, that is just – well, it’s such a shame.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
I wanted to mention to you, Qantas has put out a statement, Alan Joyce has put out a statement this afternoon saying Victoria’s approach to Sydney seems to be out of proportion with the actual risk now and it makes hard to reconcile the decision to allow over a thousand people in from overseas for the Australian Open from countries where the virus is raging. Is Victoria’s approach too hard line in your view?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, look, again I’ll say that Daniel Andrews has jurisdictional responsibility for the public health outcomes of Victoria. And I know they’re very, very nervous having lost more than 800 people in that outbreak last year, and that was very, very sad. And if you take those 800 lives lost out of the total national toll from COVID-19, then we would be doing remarkably well. I mean, 909 lives have been lost, and for those families, it is very sad and we obviously mourn for those lives lost and for their families who, you know, would have had very, very sad Christmases with that empty chair around the table. But I understand that this is Dan Andrews’ jurisdictional responsibility. I’m not going to criticise state Premiers, I haven’t. And, you know, we’ll continue to work with them. We’ll continue to provide the Australian Defence Force personnel assistance that we have. I was in Hobart this morning and I saw the khaki uniforms out the front of quarantine hotels there and, you know, we’ve played our part and we’ll continue to do so.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
There does seem to be a difference of opinion at the Victorian level on the ADF’s willingness to help or not. But we won’t get into that now; I appreciate you are time limited. Just very quickly, should the Australian Open be going ahead in your view?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, that’s a matter entirely for the Victorian Government and for Tennis Australia. I suppose one COVID case from one player doesn’t mean that the whole event should be called off, and I know they’ll put every stringent and strict measure in place to ensure that it is a success. Again, we’ll provide assistance as the Commonwealth if needed and where needed and whenever needed.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
And my final question to you has to be around Joe the Pigeon.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Joe the Pigeon.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
There is a State Member of Parliament who has a petition out begging for a pardon. It’s had more than 800 signatures the time I looked.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Yeah, there’s quite a few in a flap about this.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
The US Racing Pigeon Union has –
MICHAEL McCORMACK
I’m sure that State MP will get the possible the beak, you know, if Joe the Pigeon ends up in court.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
The Racing Pigeon Union in the US has said, “No, it’s a fake. The band on the pigeon that has been found in Australia is not American; it’s counterfeit.” Does that change the biosecurity hazard potentially posed by this pigeon?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well it potentially would. Let’s hope Joe the Pigeon has dual citizenship, because if Joe the Pigeon does not then Joe the Pigeon’s future may well be very much in doubt. But, you know, if Joe the Pigeon has joint citizenship, then perhaps he can be left to fly home or fly to wherever he may have come from.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
But he might just be one of ours. He might just be ours.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
He could well be one of ours, and if he’s one of ours, well, let him fly the coop. Let him go back to where he is obviously doing some good things for racing pigeon enthusiasts right around our nation.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
All right. I’ll let you go. Thank you for your time.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
But if he is a biosecurity risk, then poor old Joe has to go.
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY
All right. Thank you very much, Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack.