Radio Interview – ABC Gippsland
MIM HOOK, HOST: Good morning, Anthony.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Mim. How are you?
HOOK: Good, thank you. Thank you for crossing into our Loch Sport broadcast this morning. We’re talking here because we’ve had emergency fires here and the town was cut off. What’s your Government going to do for towns like Loch Sport where fires happen, the town gets cut off? They’re definitely looking at needing more infrastructure, things like power underground. What are your actions?
PRIME MINISTER: I’m certainly very conscious of it. When the fires were happening in Loch Sport and then, of course, there were floods as well in the region, I was in contact with Darren Chester, who’s the local Federal Member to ask if there’s anything that the Federal Government could do. And we’ll continue to work with Darren and with the State Government as well in providing support. There’s always lessons to be learned after these natural disasters. I travelled firsthand down to Bega and Bermagui on the NSW South Coast. And while we were there, fortunately, rain came in, which made a difference to alleviate some of the pressures that were there. But having the opportunity to thank emergency service workers who were doing, once again, as we always see at the worst of times, we see the best of the Australian character. And we saw that in the Gippsland region and on the South Coast once again. It is scary that we are having fires in October.
HOOK: It is. And our official fire season wasn’t declared in this shire until a week after these fires happened. Can you promise some money for Loch Sport right now, Anthony Albanese?
PRIME MINISTER: My Government’s a Government that does proper funding.
HOOK: Come on, you can throw a bit over this way, I reckon, right now. We’ve heard today that it’s a town built on raffle tickets, and if it wasn’t for locals selling raffle tickets like Nolene Brown. Do it for Nolene.
PRIME MINISTER: What we will do is always provide whatever support through the processes that we can, working in partnership with state and local government and with local communities. I can say that no community will be left behind under a Government that I lead.
HOOK: Anthony Albanese, we’d love you to come down to Gippsland and visit us one day. We are an area of great change. We have fires, floods, also where a lot of industry is changing. We have the coal industry that is slowly being shut down and we’ve got the offshore wind. We’d love to invite you to come down and visit us. Do you think you’ll be able to make it to Gippsland?
PRIME MINISTER: Certainly, I will. In the last week, I’ve been to a number of regions. I was in Broken Hill, the first Prime Minister to visit for a very long time, and Port Lincoln in South Australia as well, as well as in Mutitjulu in the Northern Territory near Uluru. So, I am someone who is committed to getting out and about and representing all Australians. I visited a range of regions as well last Friday. Indeed, I was in Wangaratta and Shepparton in Victoria, and just a month ago I was in Horsham. So, I look forward to visiting Gippsland at some time in the future. I think it’s really important that you talk with people on the ground about issues that affect them.
HOOK: Well, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese here in Gippsland, I mentioned earlier, the offshore wind zone and we’re really transitioning to renewables and a lot of the industry for Victoria will be here in Gippsland. I know a lot of it’s state government and all sorts of different stakeholders, but do you think, when you look at the closing down of coal across Gippsland and Australia to renewables, have we got enough renewables coming in time for the coal industry to shut down and for that transition?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the transition is important. And the offshore wind industry will be critical for Gippsland. It will provide ongoing maintenance jobs as well as jobs in construction and it will be an employment boom for the region. But as well as that, we’ve got projects like Marinus Link that will see renewable energy transferred from Tasmania across the Bass Strait to Victoria. And I think that Australia has a really great future if we get it right in the coming years. We have to be optimistic and we have to seize those opportunities which are there. We know that the cheapest form of new energy is renewable and we know as well that the regions in particular will benefit. And I think Gippsland has a great future looking ahead. You have such amazing assets as well, such natural beauty. I have visited there in the past and it’s a wonderful part of Australia.
HOOK: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. We’re heading to the news soon. Thank you so much for speaking to ABC Gippsland this morning. Before we leave you, what is your message for Gippsland?
PRIME MINISTER: My message is that we stand with you at what has been a difficult time. I hope that people over the next, either today or tomorrow, cast their vote for a Yes vote in the referendum to recognise the first Australians in our nation’s founding documents and so that we can also listen to local communities, local Indigenous communities, about matters that affect them to feed up through the nation so that we can get better outcomes at a national level. We’ve been making decisions to or for Indigenous Australians with the best of intentions for a long period of time and it hasn’t worked. So, I do hope that Australians take the once in a generation opportunity to vote Yes