Interview with Paul Culliver, ABC Capricornia Breakfast

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC CAPRICORNIA BREAKFAST WITH PAUL CULLIVER
THURSDAY, 4 MAY 2023

SUBJECTS: Budget, Rockhampton Ring Road, road funding, cost of living, biosecurity, disaster communications

PAUL CULLIVER: Today is the official launch of Beef 2024. We are one year, and one year out from that, so it's a good reason for the Minister for Agriculture to drop by Rockhampton. Of course, Murray Watt, also Queensland Labor Senator. Good morning to you, Minister.

MURRAY WATT: G'day Paul, good to see you again.

PAUL CULLIVER: Now, we actually have lots of things to talk about, so if we can not talk about beef, because we're going to talk about that with the CEO tomorrow. First of all, we've got the news today, Deloitte Economics, Access Economics are looking at the commodity tax revenue that we're going to see. They're estimating that $83 billion in additional tax revenue over the next four years is going to come from high iron ore and gas prices; obviously not so much iron ore for us, but gas and certainly coal. Are we going to see our fair share in Central Queensland for the budget?

MURRAY WATT: Absolutely, Paul. I think even in the short time the Albanese Government's been in power, we've demonstrated a real commitment to centre Queensland. We've obviously provided significant funding to commence the Rocky Ring Road project, even though there was all that speculation last year, it's under way with the early works.

Recently we closed the EOIs for the new Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, which will be built in Rockhampton, to take pressure off local Emergency Departments.

Even just yesterday we announced $5 million in funding for local roads just across Central Queensland, so every Central Queensland council will benefit from that.

So I think in a range of ways we're demonstrating that we are delivering to Central Queensland, and that's, of course, apart from all of the cost‑of‑living relief that the Government's very focussed on delivering as well.

PAUL CULLIVER: So when it comes to the Rocky Ring Road, is all that money available now? In terms of the timeline that's been out, and I'm actually not even sure what that timeline is, how many years is that going to take, and is the money available from the Feds?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah. It's going to be a several‑year project. I mean we're talking about a massive infrastructure project that will be fantastic for the region as a whole, and you'll remember, as I say, there was speculation about that at the last budget, but I worked very hard with Mayor Tony Williams, and a range of local people to get that project over the line with the Federal Minister and the State Minister; we came to the party with the State Government, and that's now started with the early works.

Obviously I can't say too much about what's going to be in the budget next week, but people can be very confident that the money will be there for the Rockhampton Ring Road project, and because we want to see it go ahead.

There is still some work going on with the State Government about exactly what the scope of that project is, exactly what the cost of it will be, because part of the problem we had was that the project was so much over budget compared to what the former Government had made possible. So we've been working through that with the State Government, but people can be very confident the money will be in the budget for that probably. 

PAUL CULLIVER: Bridget McKenzie, Nationals Senator, was here a few weeks ago. She was saying that Labor has not yet ruled out a truckie tax in this budget. Is there going to be any kind of increase in excise in tax that is going to put an impost on our truckies? 

MURRAY WATT: Yeah. I mean I saw Bridget was up here, and you get used to the National Party representative blowing in and sort of telling all sorts of stories. But on that one, we are in discussion with the states, territories and the trucking industry about the amount that heavy vehicles pay for the use of our roads.

One of the major sources of revenue that Governments get to maintain our roads across the country is the user charges that are imposed on heavy vehicles, because let's face it, they're essential for getting livestock around, and all sorts of other freight, but they do create a bit of damage on the roads as well, having those B‑doubles run up and down the place.

So we are in consultation at the moment with states, territories and the industry about potential increases to those charges, because I think, we think it's only right and proper that those who use those roads and do create some of the cost of maintaining them contribute fairly to it.

The last Government wasn't prepared to pass on a lot of those increased costs of maintenance to the industry, and I think it's fair enough that people like you and me as taxpayers contribute to that, but so should the heavy vehicle industry as well.

PAUL CULLIVER: Isn't there a risk that will be inflationary, because, of course, we use our trucks to get goods around the country, that's an input cost to what we end up purchasing as consumers, therefore we're going to see a rise of costs for a whole lot of other things across the economy if you put more impost on our truckies?

MURRAY WATT: Well, I guess the question really is, can we afford not to maintain these roads? And certainly every time I'm in Central Queensland, one of the major issues that people raise with me is the condition of local roads, and some of the regional roads. So they've got to be paid for somehow. We can either pay for them by continuing to ask taxpayers to put in more and more and more to do that maintenance, or we can try to come up with a fair balance of the funding with industry as well, and I think that's what most of your listeners would support, is some contribution from taxpayers, but also some from the industry.

You know, whichever way you go, if you're going to be spending money on maintenance, that, of course, is going to put money into the economy, and that is going to have an inflationary effect, and we are doing everything we possibly can to rein in inflation. It does look like we've got past of the peak of that, which is good, and as I say, we intend to provide pretty substantial cost‑of‑living relief for people in this budget as well, to help them cope with the rising cost of groceries and all sorts of other things.

PAUL CULLIVER: Okay. What's that going to look like?

MURRAY WATT: Well, again, I can't give you too much detail. Nice try. But Tuesday I'll have all the details. But you can already see some of the things that our Government has been doing in this space. At the end of last year we actually recalled Federal Parliament to pass legislation to provide people with energy price relief. Unfortunately the LNP didn't support us with that, because they seem to say no to everything. But what that legislation did was cap coal and gas prices, which of course contribute to the cost of energy, and it also provided direct ‑ not subsidies ‑ but relief, payment relief to particularly low‑income earners. So that happened last year, 1 July, we brought down the cost of medicines down to a $30 payment from patients rather than the old 43, 45, that they used to have to pay, and you probably have seen we're having a bit of a blue with the Pharmacy Guild at the moment, because we are taking more steps to reduce medicine prices by allowing people to get some medications, 60 days' worth of medications rather than 30 days', which also saves people money.

So there's quite a number of things that we're already doing. Cheaper medicines: cheaper childcare comes in place on 1 July; trying to help with energy prices, and as I say, I think you can expect a fair bit more on Tuesday.

PAUL CULLIVER: Seven minutes to 8 o'clock here on ABC Capricornia, the Minister For Agriculture, Murray Watt, your guest this morning. Can I ask about funding biosecurity. Is the Labor Government going to introduce some sort of container levy scheme, and how will that work?

MURRAY WATT: Again, I can't go into precise details ahead of the budget, Paul, but we ‑ I've been talking a lot about this as the Agriculture Minister, about the growing threat that we face as a country from biosecurity risks. You will remember last year there was a massive scare around foot‑and‑mouth disease, when that got into Bali. Touch wood, we've been able to work with the industry to keep that out of the country, along with a range of other devastating diseases. But the risks from biosecurity continue to grow, and what that means is that the cost of protecting us from that risk goes up as well.

So we do have to look at how we pay for it. It's a bit like the conversation we were just having about road‑user charges. So I think it is fair for taxpayers to meet a substantial portion of the cost of increased biosecurity services, because we all benefit from that. But I think it's also fair to ask people who create the risk, like importers, like others who bring risk in, to maybe look at paying more as well, and I think we've also got to look at what the people who benefit from our biosecurity system pay too.

So that's a big piece of work that we've been undertaking over the last few months, and we'll have a bit more to say about that in the budget too.

PAUL CULLIVER: Just from an outside view, just the concept that if Australia is importing more, then biosecurity measures cost more, therefore, you should have some kind of mechanism that responds to that; is that the general idea around it?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, I mean, it is. And the other thing, I guess, what I've been pushing really hard for in the run‑up to this budget is to put in place what would be Australia's first ever sustainable biosecurity funding system. Unfortunately over the last 10 years under the former Government, the way they dealt with biosecurity was sort of temporary stop‑gap injections of money when things happened, rather than putting in place a secure, predictable amount of biosecurity funding year to year.

So I really want to try and get that over the line, but then as you say, there's the question about who pays, and I think it is fair to ask importers to pay more than what they are at the moment for those biosecurity services, because they do create risk.

Over the last couple of months, we've actually been having consultations with industry about increasing a range of charges, because again, like the road‑user charges, the last Government wasn't prepared to pass on those increased costs to industry.

There hasn't been a proper review of the fees and charges imposed on importers and others since about 2015, but it's not as if our costs haven't gone up since 2015.

So, yeah, I think the way I talk about it is that biosecurity is a shared responsibility, and so is funding it. So taxpayers have got a responsibility through the government, so do risk creators and so do people who benefit from the system.

PAUL CULLIVER: Touch wood, we haven't seen a major disaster in Central Queensland in the last three years that I've been here, which has been great, but we know it's a matter of time; whether it's flood, cyclone, bushfire. What are you doing to improve communication?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah. So that was a big announcement that we came out with this week, Paul, and you're right, I have literally stood over the other side of the road from the studio here looking at the Fitzroy River flooding, and it wasn't that long ago we saw bushfires throughout Central Queensland as well.

One of the main things that I've been told, wherever I've gone after disasters have hit, is that people don't get enough warning of the imminent threat that they face.

So what we announced this week is funding to put in place what will be called a national messaging service across the entire country that will allow Governments to get emergency warnings to people on their phones much quicker, much more clearly, and much more targeted than we've ever been able to do before.

The system we use at the moment is basically an SMS message goes out to people if there's a warning, but it doesn't take much for that system to get really overloaded, and therefore, real delays in getting that information out to people.

What we're looking at doing is introducing brand new technology, called Cell Broadcast technology, different to SMS, and what that does is it pretty much overrides your phone, even if you've got your notifications off, or it doesn't matter what phone carrier you're with, you would get a message that would pop up on your screen warning you that you need to get out, or whatever the warning might be.

So we think that that would literally save people's lives, if we can get that information to people quickly, because in a disaster every minute counts.

The other thing we announced in a similar space is something that will really help our first responders, and we're taking the next step towards putting in place what will be called a Public Safety Mobile Broadband System.

Again, the problem we have at the moment is that our first responders, as good a job as they do, they basically communicate using pretty outdated radio technology, and these days we can actually get access to satellite imagery, video of what's going on, and the quicker we can get that to first responders, the safer they'll be, and the safer Australians will be.

So some pretty big investments in better technology to make sure that Australians are kept safer and first responders as well.

PAUL CULLIVER: Just on that alert system, how quickly is that being rolled out?

MURRAY WATT: The messaging system?

PAUL CULLIVER: M'mm.

MURRAY WATT: We expect that to be operational by the end of next year. So there's still a bit of work to be done on that, and we've got to come to agreeance with the states and territories, all that kind of stuff. But the work is being done by speaking to some of the phone carriers.

I think that one thing that might be of interest to your listeners as well in Regional Queensland is that often, you know, depending on what is the service provider in a particular area, people may or may not have coverage. So if you had an Optus phone, for instance, and you're in a Telstra area, the current system doesn't allow a message to get to your Optus phone, because it can only get to a Telstra phone. This new system that we're moving to, it won't matter which carrier you're with, who has coverage in a particular area, you will get that message.

So I think it will be a really big benefit for Regional Queensland and Regional Australia in particular.

PAUL CULLIVER: All right, Minister, enjoy your time in Rockhampton. Thank you.

MURRAY WATT: Look forward to it, Paul.

PAUL CULLIVER: Minister For Agriculture, and of course Queensland Labor Senator Murray Watt here in Rockhampton.