TRANSCRIPT: WIN NEWS ACT WITH GEORGIE BURGESS, 21 March 2025
TRANSCRIPT: WIN NEWS ACT WITH GEORGIE BURGESS, 21 March 2025
E&OE
STARTS: 10:55am
GEORGIE BURGESS
Michael obviously (inaudible) in your neck of the woods, how are you feel about the change of boundaries?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Oh, really welcome Yass Valley, Snowy Valleys and Upper Lachlan and the eastern end of Hilltops Council into the electorate. They like the rest of the Riverina, the old boundaries and certainly parts which I have retained, they have the same needs, wants, expectations and demands. Cost of living is a huge, huge issue. You talk to anybody, they'll tell you that cost of living is the biggest issue facing Australians. Regional Australians in particular. It's no different at Yass, it's no different. All the new parts of the electorate, they want relief. They want relief when they pay their energy bills. They want relief when they go to the supermarket. They're sick and tired of paying high prices at the petrol bowser they really under strain and pressure at the moment and I get that anybody doing a family budget, it's tough.
GEORGIE BURGESS
Obviously it's a lot of ground to cover. How do you go on with sort of getting out there and meeting the people.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Coffee helps, coffee and certainly just, I've got a hard work ethic and, I've, I mean, even today I'm going up to Batlow and then right across to Cowra. Tomorrow it's Temora and Ganmain. Every day I'm traveling hundreds upon hundreds of kilometres but not forgetting, of course that Wagga Wagga is a big area and certainly making sure that I get around my own home city, but, certainly I've been into Yass, I've been to Murrumbateman, several times. I've been to a meeting, in Yass, where they were talking about a solar factory, right on the outskirts of town. This is going to have an even bigger footprint than the Yass town itself and I certainly let the company know that this wasn't acceptable. I certainly let the company know that this could potentially be a fire hazard, and I'll continue to work with the opponents of that particular solar factory as well as the proponents, to bring about a reasonable outcome. It's simply not good enough to take up arable farmland with these solar factories, which are bobbing up everywhere. I had a meeting last night in town, about one at Maxwell, and more than 100 people came out to voice their objections and these solar factories are being put there, by generally overseas companies, overseas companies who have a new, community relations liaison person every time they turn up, and they’re just going to take away arable farmland, farmland that’s been used for generations, through many, many families, to grow food and fibre for this nation and for what benefit? Yes, it'll feed into the grid but at the expense of many people's visual amenity, many people's lifestyle and, I mean, look at the housing prices and the farm prices that are surrounding these potential projects, well they’re diminishing, they're going down. One farmer told me last night about a particular project that his farm had already devalued 40 per cent, and that would be no different at Yass. It would be no different with the project being proposed right on the outskirts of that community.
GEORGIE BURGESS
I know in Yass … struggle being had is a lack of clean drinking water. Have you been briefed at all on that matter and where are you putting the …
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Yes, I spoke about it with Wendy Tuckerman, the State Member for Goulburn, the other day and she has State Government responsibility for Yass. But spoken with Jasmin Jones on many occasions about this. I’m pleased that the State and Federal Governments came to the party late last year and put on the table a proposal to improve the water quality and I welcome that.
GEORGIE BURGESS
And at a time when local councils are really doing it hard, how much pressure are you feeling in your position, to sort of help get them the best deal they can out of the Federal Government?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, when I was the Deputy Prime Minister, that's not that long ago, I put in place the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Fund and you only have to look at the funding that went to local councils and gave them the autonomy to decide what projects they were going to fund themselves, not have some Canberra bureaucrat tell them what they were going to do and how they were going to do it, and when they are going to do it, but they had the local decision-making themselves to be able to fund a roundabout or a memorial hall or, upgrade a pool, give a lick of paint to a building, a public infrastructure building that required it – this was a really good program. I was absolutely gutted when Labor stripped it away. Regional councils and regional communities will always do better under a Coalition Government because we understand we live here, we're part of the community. We will fight for the community and I've always done that, right throughout my 14 years as a Member of Parliament, I have fought for communities, I've delivered for communities and I'll continue to do that for Yass if I have the great privilege of being elected again, the Member for Riverina when the election is and who knows when that might be, but it will have to be May now. It's going to be May. We'll have a Budget next week. It'll be a deficit Budget I’d imagine with Labor recklessly spending money. I mean, you only have to look at the $450 million that they spent, on an unnecessary and divisive referendum and that's all they spoke about for the first 18 months they were in, and then all of a sudden realised there was a cost-of-living crisis.
We've had, a number of interest rates rises that have really hurt mortgage holders. The economy is lagging and suffering under Labor. We need a change. The Nationals have a plan to get Australia back on track, and that's what we'll do.
GEORGIE BURGESS
We've heard from the Treasurer Jim Chalmers has said it’s going to be a battle of the “burbs”. Is that a discredit to regional Australians?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Oh Jim Chalmers wouldn't know where regional Australia was. I mean he might own a pair of RMs but that'd be brand new, trust me. We've got a Treasurer who does not understand that food and fibre comes from the regions, does not understand that the mining wealth of this nation, has been so successful with, which has funded a lot of state schools, a lot of state hospitals. Doesn't you know, he just doesn't understand that it comes from the regions. The regions carried the economy and carried the nation through Covid, when all the city types were pulling their doonas up over their heads and pretending as though, it would go away, the regional people went out, worked hard, roll their sleeves up and did the job and that's what regional people do and regional people deserve more respect than what they've been shown by the Albanese Chalmers Labor Government, after the past three years, and rest assured if we get an Albanese-Chalmers-Bandt-teals Government well we're in a whole world of trouble and certainly the regions are in a whole world of trouble.
The Nationals will always look after regional Australia. We've been doing it for 100 years. We've been turning up, we've been listening, we've been acting on those concerns, and we've been delivering, delivering in spades. I was proud of the fact that councils had more money than they’d ever had before, when I was the Deputy Prime Minister, to put sealing on roads that had never been sealed, to bitumen those roads to make sure that we had money for saleyards, to make sure that we had money for all sorts of projects. We did that, when I was the Deputy Prime Minister, we will continue that in government if we are so lucky, to be able to be re-elected, as the government. You know, we had, we had a good period there between 2013 and 2022 where Australia went ahead, where people felt safe. We feel less safe now and far more poorer than we have ever done before. And this is because of the Albanese Government. The Nationals in government we will make sure that people do feel more safe and secure and have more money in their pocket to be able to spend on the things that they want to spend it on, not necessarily on what Albanese or Jim Chalmers want to spend it on.
GEORGIE BURGESS
Is there anything else you would like to touch on that I haven’t?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Oh yeah. Look, I'd really like to mention the Marchmont Reserve. I've spoken to Ben Maguire, and his hardworking committee on many occasions about what we can do, for that particular reserve which has got camp drafts, which has got, particularly the Yass Picnics, the Yass Picnics which has been around for a century. We want to make sure that that particular reserve is fit for purpose, fit for modern, sporting and recreational facilities. We want to make sure that the Yass pool gets the funding that it needs. We want to make sure that we've got good water quality. We want to make sure that the duplication of the Murrumbateman highway, which started under me, I gave $100 million. That's what all Labor’s done is spend $100 million that the Coalition Government put in place. I haven't seen too much or any work apart from that, the duplication of the Barton Highway needs to happen and, certainly I'll be pushing for that to happen under a Coalition Government.
GEORGIE BURGESS
Amazing thank you.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Thank you. All the very best.
ENDS: 11:04