Australian Prime Minister Doorstop Interview – Lismore
Thank you. I’d like to welcome our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, here to Lismore on a return visit. And I can say it’s really pleasing for me and the whole community to have the Prime Minister here, particularly given the things that we’ve gone through with this flood event. Also with the Prime Minister is the Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles. We also have Special Envoy, Tony Sheldon. We have the Minister for Emergency Management, Jenny McAllister. Also we have here two state Ministers, Minister Sharpe and Minister Jackson. We have Kevin Hogan, Federal MP for Page, Steve Krieg, the Mayor of Lismore. We have the Commissioner for NSW SES, Commissioner Wassing. And we also have the Recovery Coordinator, Superintendent Scott Tanner. So we’ve got a cast of thousands, but it’s wonderful. They’re all the people that we need to back us in to get us through this response and the recovery. And I’ll hand over to the PM.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, thanks very much Janelle and it’s good to be back here in Lismore, although the circumstances of course are less than desirable. But once again we are seeing at the worst of times the best of the Australian character. People have done extraordinary work to prepare for this event. They’re continuing to deal with the consequences of it and we will be with the community for as long as necessary in the recovery phase. I do want to pay tribute to everyone here, particularly the SES volunteers who have done extraordinary work. Just a bit before we were up at the Garrison thanking the members of the Australian Defence Force who have once again shown extraordinary work in looking after their fellow Australians at this difficult time. I want to thank the police and emergency services, all of the public servants and the community here for the work that has been done. I can say that from tomorrow, eligible workers and sole traders in South East Queensland and New South Wales who’ve lost income as a direct result of ex Tropical Cyclone Alfred will be able to access up to 13 weeks of income support. That will click in and be available for applications from two o’clock tomorrow. But people can check on their eligibility by logging in now to the MyGov website or the Services Australia website. The Disaster Recovery Allowance is a solely Commonwealth funded allowance. It provides up to 13 weeks of income support at the jobseeker level to individuals who work in the local government areas impacted. And of those across New South Wales and Queensland, there are 31 local government areas who’ve been impacted as a direct result of this disaster. Further today, along with the Queensland Premier, I will be making an announcement as well. Jointly funded Commonwealth State Support is kicking in. The Personal Hardship Assistance Scheme will be activated for impacted residents in the Logan, Gold Coast City and Redlands City Council areas. These are grants for eligible impacted residents. They cover emergency costs, replacement of damaged household goods and reconnections of services. There’s Emergency Hardship Assistance Grants, Essential Services Hardship Assistance, Essential Household Contents Grants and Structural Assistance Grants. Residents can check their eligibility and apply via www.qld.gov.au/disasterhelp – one word. Or by phoning the 24/7 Queensland Community Recovery Hotline on 1800 173 349. Before I hand to the Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles, and then we’ll hear from Commissioner Michael Wassing and then from Minister Penny Sharpe, I do want to reiterate that whilst we, this is the first time for days I’ve been in an area where it hasn’t been raining, often torrential rain. Whilst that is occurring this event is far from over, and if it’s flooded, forget it. We need to continue to not be complacent. We need to make sure that we give the respect that these fine volunteers deserve by making their life a bit easier as well. We want them to have less to do, not more to do. And what that requires is for people to continue to do what they have been doing overwhelmingly, which is to listen to the official advice. If someone from the SES or the police or emergency services or the Australian Defence Force come and make a request to you, please comply with that request. They are doing it in your interests and in the interests of the community and making sure that we stay safe. This has been a difficult period, but we are seeing it through and we are seeing it through together as a community, as Australians showing who we are. We’re a resilient bunch and we deal with hardship. And this community of Lismore have dealt with far more than its fair share. And the fact that the Mayor, when I spoke to him just a few days ago, he was in good spirits. He’s still in good spirits today. It says a lot about this community that they are so tough. But toughness also requires common sense and I’m sure that that will continue to occur. So, we’ll hear from the DPM, Commissioner, then Minister Sharpe, and then we’re happy to take some questions.
RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER AND MINISTER FOR DEFENCE: Well, thank you, Prime Minister. Thank you, Janelle. As the Prime Minister has just said, we were at the local Barracks meeting with the men and women of our defence forces who are here providing support to this community in this community’s moment of need. Most of those who we met were from 7 Brigade in Gallipoli Barracks in Brisbane. But they are part of a contingent of 700 personnel who are in Northern New South Wales right now, in addition to 500 personnel who are in South East Queensland. And together these personnel are engaging in supporting recovery centres, engaging in welfare checks, doing route clearances, knocking on doors and providing assistance. And we have other assets at hand in terms of high clearance vehicles, potentially airlift if that is needed in the coming days. Those men and women of our Defence Force are showing their exceptional skill and competence in the way in which they are engaging. But the very presence of our nation’s uniform I know is of such reassurance to this community. But whether that uniform is khaki or whether it’s blue or whether it’s orange, what’s become really clear is that the level of coordination amongst all of those who are providing assistance, along with thousands of volunteers across South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales is a demonstration of this community coming together in an amazing state of preparedness actually, in a way which is keeping this community safe. And we are very proud of them and very grateful to them. Commissioner Wassing.
MICHAEL WASSING, NEW SOUTH WALES STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE COMMISSIONER: Thank you. I would like to start by thanking the extraordinary efforts of all the local emergency services. It’s epitomised here by Cameron who is the local SES Unit Commander in Lismore. That has just, with the team, worked day in and night out and night in with the local community. But it is much bigger than that. What you’ve seen here from the Mid North Coast right through to the Northern Rivers, North Eastern New South Wales is people, volunteers, staff from all the emergency services, from all parts of the state and also support from the Commonwealth and we can’t do that without that sort of capability. It’s been extraordinary effort. We’re in a good place where we are currently. We’re starting to see a number of our evacuation orders and emergency warning orders being lifted here in Lismore. We’ve just removed the final evacuation order to the North Lismore area. So we’re working very closely with the local community to enable them to return to their properties and their homes safely. My key message for the local community is please be safe in your return to the community. Safety has been the paramount focus for all of our operations. It still is. We don’t want to trip at the last hurdle. The roads are still slippery. There’s still a lot of roads that do have access issues or water over them. There’s debris still around from the storm activities. And when you get home, it’s really important that when you do get home, you check your home for any damage. If you do need assistance, you can call 132 500. We’ll be able to support any people or any local community members where they need washouts or other support. We can do that through that 132 500 call out number. If you want to volunteer we’ve had extraordinary efforts from community helping community. If you’ve got spontaneous volunteers that are helping or other local community members, we ask that you work with the emergency services and again, jump on the website. We’ve got systems in place where you can actually help coordinate those activities because we want to be really focused in making sure that our communities get home safely. But we’re not out of the woods. It’s great to see here in Lismore we’ve got that approach and we’re able to do that. But we still have many isolated communities, many communities that are still at risk with heavy rainfall and it’s really important that again, for the Mid North Coast, right up to the North East, that people are watching the Hazards Near Me app, continue to work with the emergency services. We still have people unfortunately still walking into and driving into floodwaters. I understand the appetite to try and check on your home and get home, but in some cases that is not yet safe to do so and in other areas it is safe to do so. The key message is please keep in touch with us, work with us as you have done, and we’ll all get home safely, including our emergency services personnel. Thank you.
PENNY SHARPE, NEW SOUTH WALES MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE, ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT AND HERITAGE: Really I just want to say what Commissioner Wassing said. We need to just continue to follow the instructions of those that at are working 24/7 to keep us safe. New South Wales Government particularly thanks every single volunteer who’s gone above and beyond what is necessary to keep our communities safe. To the neighbours that are looking after each other, to the community organisations that are ready as we move from response to recovery. I’m very pleased that we’ve got Scott Tanner here who’s already in place and we’ve already been taking briefings and dealing with him. I want to thank the Prime Minister and the Federal Government for the support that they will be providing to communities as New South Wales finalises our grants work as well. You will be supported and we do understand how serious this has been – it’s very important. Finally, I just want to give a very brief update in relation to power outages in the local area. We have good news overnight which is that the essential energy workers, the weather has eased enough, they’ve been able to get in there and do their work. We are now, as of this morning, there are less than 10,000 houses that are without power. Now, 10,000 is still a lot. And for those that are impacted, we understand and we’re moving as quickly as possible. But that’s down from 43,000 in a very short period of time. For those communities and people that are very isolated, it will take longer but understand that Essential Energy is working day and night to put crews in place to get you up and running as soon as possible.
PRIME MINISTER: Happy to take a few questions if there are any.
JOURNALIST: The CSIRO report is due in June, and then they’re going to take a year to do some modelling, will the Government commit to the necessary funds for serious flood mitigation for the Northern Rivers?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we of course have already I think shown our bona fides through the commitments that we’ve made. $150 million through the Northern Rivers Recovery and Resilience Program to the New South Wales Government to deliver flood mitigation resilience projects. We have commissioned the CSIRO to do that work. $880 million with New South Wales for the Resilient Homes program to buy back homes and upgrade those which can be made safer. So we await the report. We’ll give it proper consideration when we receive it.
JOURNALIST: You said that insurance companies are ripping off Australian households, but insurance companies say increased flooding is making doing the cost of the business more expensive. What are you actually going to do to try and address this issue?
PRIME MINISTER: What I’ve said is that insurance companies need to do the right thing. They have a social licence and people expect them to make payments in a speedy and effective way when they are due. This is a time where insurance companies can restore some of their reputation with the public by acting speedily and we expect them to do so.
JOURNALIST: So, you’re hoping that your words are enough to make a difference?
PRIME MINISTER: We are hoping, of course, that they do the right thing. If not, we’ll give consideration to any measures that are required. But we want insurance companies to do the right thing. People take out insurance expecting that they’ll receive support when they need it.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, Peter Dutton says it reflects poorly on you and other Labor MPs to seek political advantage over his visit to Sydney for a fundraiser last week. Is he right that you’re playing politics?
PRIME MINISTER: Seriously? I think you can make your own judgement on that. I haven’t seen those comments from Mr Dutton. I haven’t seen any comments from Mr Dutton for a while. But we get on with, I’ve been getting on with doing this job, that’s what I’ve been doing. Giving support to people in a totally non-political way. And I think it’s disappointing if there’s any suggestion otherwise. I made sure before I came here that I rang Kevin Hogan, made sure he was aware, as the local Federal Member, the local State Member here, and we’ve acted across the board. I’ve said very clearly there are no politics involved here and there’s no border. I’ve worked seamlessly with Premier Crisafulli and Premier Minns. It’s up to Peter Dutton how he behaves and what discourse he involves himself with.
JOURNALIST: 55 per cent of Newspoll voters say that Peter Dutton is not ready to govern, what would you make of that?
PRIME MINISTER: I’m not going to comment on – Look, I’m focused not on votes, not on polls, I’m focused on Australians. That’s what I’m focused on. They’ll come and go. I’m not a commentator. I’ll leave it to others.
JOURNALIST: You’ve obviously announced some new assistance today, but obviously, if the situation is to get worse, is this the last of what we’ll see in terms of Federal Government assistance for this area?
PRIME MINISTER: We’ve got your back. That’s my message to communities here. That’s my message to communities every day. No one held back, no one left behind. They’re the two themes of my Government.
JOURNALIST: A lot of road networks are out of action today, mostly due to damage, will we see money committed towards those further than the money already committed?
PRIME MINISTER: I’ve already seen some funding has flowed, I signed off even before this event had begun. We signed off on support for local government, some upfront grants. But quite clearly this will require substantial support and we’ll deal with that as it occurs. I had a really good meeting with Steve as the local mayor here. This community is still recovering from 2022. They’re doing it tough. They’re resilient, they’re tough and they deserve support.
JOURNALIST: Will there be mental health support around following this, obviously that’s a big issue?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, there will, part of our response will be to provide additional mental health support. Can I say this, that NEMA and Brendan Moon is with us here today. NEMA didn’t exist at the beginning of 2022. To have a national agency that is engaged in preparedness is the sort of value that public servants bring. What we’ve had that we didn’t have before is stockpiles of generators. They didn’t exist before. We’ve had stockpiles of sandbags that have been delivered, hundreds of thousands of them, to Northern New South Wales and South East Queensland. We have had exercises in the national capital of every state and territory, the SES, emergency services, bringing people together so that we work through the exercises of what happens during an event to make sure that the response is seamless and the most effective it can be. And my experience here is that that is paying dividends. And the fact that Queensland, New South Wales and the Commonwealth, together with local government, are responding effectively, it’s not to say that it’s perfect, these things can’t be by definition, when mother nature throws these events at us. But we are saying that the preparedness, all of the feedback that I have had from across the spectrum, from across leaders of these communities is that the preparedness has been second to none for this event. And there is no question that that has had a positive impact in terms of human impact, but importantly as well on infrastructure impact and therefore economic impact as well.
JOURNALIST: Do we have any update on the two ADF personnel who were injured in that crash?
PRIME MINISTER: We do, they will be going to Brisbane. They’re awaiting transfer as we speak. But they are in a stable condition. Their injuries are non-life threatening.
JOURNALIST: One more, Prime Minister, you said obviously that you’re keen to offer relief to people in this region, that the crisis comes when they’ve already been doing it tough because of the cost of living crisis. You said now that there will be a Budget. Can people expect either another round of energy bill relief or other really concrete, tangible cost of living measures in that Budget?
PRIME MINISTER: People can expect a Budget on March 25, which is what we’ve been planning. And the Expenditure Review Committee concluded all of our portfolio budget submissions a couple of weeks ago now. And my Government has consistently provided cost of living support. We provided a tax cut for every single Australian taxpayer. We provided energy bill relief – two rounds, cheaper child care, Free TAFE, cheaper medicines. And in addition to that, in order to assist cost of living, of course, real wages have increased five quarters in a row, at the same time as inflation’s going down. And now when we were elected, interest rates had risen, started to rise, now they’ve started to fall. That’s a good thing. My Government will continue to work on a strong economy. Our Budget will represent the same responsible economic management that we’ve seen making a difference in getting that inflation down whilst providing support for people who really needed it during what are globally difficult economic times. Thanks very much. Thank you.
JOURNALIST: Just on tariffs, US advisers don’t think there’s going to be an exemption for Australia, what’s your take on that and what are you hearing?
PRIME MINISTER: We’ll continue to engage constructively and we’re continuing to work. It is in Australia’s interest, but it’s also in the economic interests of the United States for Australia to be exempted from tariffs that of course just increased prices for the purchaser of those goods. The United States enjoys a trade surplus with Australia and has done so since the Truman presidency. We are partners with the United States through our free trade agreement and will continue to advocate for Australia’s national interests. And I’m engaging as well with Australian companies or based companies such as Rio Tinto and BlueScope to seek a positive outcome. We’ll continue to engage constructively. Thanks very much.
https://www.pm.gov.au/media/doorstop-interview-lismore