Aussie PM Talks on 1029 Hot Tomato Gold Coast
It is an absolute pleasure to be joined by the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, good afternoon, Sir, Your Majesty, whatever we’re supposed to call you.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Albo will do.
MAJOR: Albo is fine? Okay.
TREVOR BUTLER, HOST: G’day. How are you?
PRIME MINISTER: I’m good. I am though nervous as Australia’s PM about what is happening with this Tropical Cyclone Alfred. And I know that it’s a nervous time for people there on the on the coast. And between now and the middle of tomorrow, now it looks like when it crosses the coast. I know that people are doing their best to prepare and to look after each other, and that, once again, we’re seeing, at the worst of the times, the best of the Australian character. We are seeing people look after each other, and that’s fantastic.
MAJOR: I’ve actually had a message from a friend of mine who lives in Parkwood, and he’s actually had a neighbour who’s got three strong boys, and he’s walking around with a piece of paper with his mobile number on it, passing it out to all of the neighbours to say, if you guys need help, here’s my number. Make sure that you’ve got it and call us if you need help. Nothing more Australian than that, is it?
PRIME MINISTER: How good is that?
MAJOR: Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: That is the sort of story that will be played out in all the suburbs there, in South East Queensland and in Northern New South Wales. It’s neighbours helping neighbours, friends helping friends, family helping family. But importantly as well, something that really does lift your heart is people helping strangers that they don’t know. Just randomly saying, “I’ve got three young boys that are strong. They’ll help you out, they’ll come and lift stuff.” Because one of the things that we’ve got Australian Defence Force personnel on the ground doing is providing help for people who need it. There’s many vulnerable people, of course, who won’t be able to lift things up to higher ground or won’t be able to maybe protect their homes with a bit of work that’s needed around. They’re helping with sandbagging, helping with really practical measures, as well as knocking on doors and getting that information out for people who have to evacuate. But we are seeing as well, fortunately right across the board, people are responding positively to the messages. The level of preparedness is there. It is a nervous time. I heard you speaking about explaining to kids. That can be difficult. And one of the things we’ll have to do after all this is over of course, is to as part of reconstruction, deal with mental health issues and all of that as well.
BUTLER: Because it’s very important.
MAJOR: Yeah, definitely.
PRIME MINISTER: Absolutely, it can be really triggering, too, for people who’ve been through this before, of course. You know, I feel sorry for people in Lismore. Just like, as soon as they stand up, they get knocked down again. Then they stand up again. Australians really are resilient, but this is a testing time.
MAJOR: It is. And a couple of Christmases ago, of course, we had the tornado here on the Gold Coast which just ripped through. And I know I was speaking to someone the other day. Surprisingly, it was at BWS. But she actually said to me, “I’ve only just rebuilt my house. It’s only just been rebuilt, and now here we are again, we’re bunkering down”. And you could see there is that tension. And like you said, it’s that triggering moment of what next?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah well, I came to the emergency centre there on the coast during that time, as well as up in, it was sort of strange, because you had the Gold Coast and you also had Far North Queensland all impacted around about the same time. At the moment, we’ve got bush fires in South Western Australia in that corner as well. It’s a difficult continent that we live in. We love it, but it is, it can provide a real test from time to time, and one of those is happening right now.
BUTLER: Yeah. What sort of, is it too early to tell, what sort of resources will be available to people after the cyclone has made landfall and moved through?
PRIME MINISTER: We’ve already provided a funding guarantee for local government. That was approved, I signed off on that yesterday. There’ll be personal hardship payments will be made available as well. And the major infrastructure that’s damaged, that support will kick in between the Commonwealth and state governments. We are seeing support coming in in preparing for the rebuild and reconstruction that no doubt there is going to be some damage caused. And today I was really lifted up this afternoon, the Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, of New Zealand is providing 66 disaster response personnel from across the ditch – will be heading west to our great continent to provide that assistance. And that is just a great example as well. We often say that Australia and New Zealand are family, well this is what families do. They look after each other when times are tough.
MAJOR: A lot of New Zealanders do live in, we actually call it upper Auckland, Upper Coomera most of the time, because a lot of –
PRIME MINISTER: I’ve actually noticed this, and we’ve made provisions so that they can become Australian citizens as well. And so a lot of them are taking that up in recent times.
BUTLER: Well done, Albo.
MAJOR: Look, we just want to say thank you so much. This wasn’t us chasing you this afternoon, you have actively called through to us to have a chat. We were very nervous. We’re very excited. Trevor, I think he’s still sweating, but that’s okay. Albo, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for being with us through this journey.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah. Thanks very much. And just stay safe everyone and keep looking after each other.
https://www.pm.gov.au/media/radio-interview-1029-hot-tomato-gold-coast