Interview with Matt Cunningham, Sky News

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS
FRIDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2022

SUBJECTS: Update on floods; biosecurity; $4M Northern Australia Coordination Network; National Lumpy Skin Action Plan; methane pledge; foot and mouth disease

MATT CUNNINGHAM, HOST: Well, Australia is set to sign up to a pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30 per cent over the next 10 years. That’s sparked fears we could be facing higher prices for red meat. I spoke earlier today with Agriculture and Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt about this and the ongoing flood situation.

Minister, thanks so much for your time today. We’re seeing thousands of people under evacuation orders now in New South Wales, Victoria and Northern Tasmania. What is the Federal Government doing to help with this response?

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT & MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY: Yeah, this is becoming a really widespread flood, Matt. It’s obviously now gone well beyond New South Wales into other states as well. I’ve been on the phone this morning to the Emergency Management Ministers from those states, you know, many of the Federal Members – no matter what their politics – just to get the lay of the land locally.

At this point in time the support the Federal Government is providing relatively early, low-level stuff. We’ve got Defence Force personnel out helping sandbag in a number of communities in Victoria. We’re also in discussions with the Victorian Government about whether we make Commonwealth‑owned facilities available potentially for evacuation centres.

So, people are keeping a bit of an eye on this at the moment, but it does look like it’s going to escalate. I spoke to Sam Birrell, the new Member for Nicholls in northern Victoria this morning, and he was saying even in communities like Rochester which are facing flooding, the water is still rising. So, it could be very serious, and, again, we can only just keep asking people to do the right thing and stay out of flood waters.

MATT CUNNINGHAM: So that Mickleham Quarantine Facility, is that one of the facilities you’re looking at?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, there’s a number of quarantine facilities that are potentially available for use. So at this point in time, we haven’t sort of specified any particular locations because we, of course, don’t want people showing up to empty centres. But there are a number of quarantine stations that we own that could be converted quite rapidly into evacuation centres. And we’ll obviously rely on the advice of the Victorian Government about what they need.

MATT CUNNINGHAM: I was just listening to the Mayor of Forbes speak this morning, and she was saying this situation is particularly difficult for people outside of town, for farmers on the land who’ve been doing it really tough for a long time. What is the Federal Government doing to support them, not just as far as financial support goes but also as far as infrastructure goes? Because one of the things she was talking about was the state of the roads after such an extended period of wet weather.

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, and look, I actually saw that for myself this week, I was in Dubbo and Gunnedah in Western New South Wales to see it firsthand. And, clearly, the weeks and even months of flooding that some of these communities have had are taking a real toll on people – their mental health – and, as you say, the infrastructure.

What we’ve done so far jointly with the New South Wales Government is declare disaster areas which trigger the first round of support that’s available for people. So, it’s small grants for people in hardship. It’s low-interest loans for farmers and small businesses. And generally, what happens is that the state government then takes a little bit of time to work out exactly what the damage has been.

Obviously in some of these communities the flood waters haven’t yet receded so you can’t necessarily see what damage there has been. But our track record shows that we’re very happy to work with those state governments to support in terms of infrastructure repairs. I did see in places like Dubbo there’s a lot of potholes there already let alone in other parts of western New South Wales. So, there’s no doubt there’s going to be an expensive repair bill here.

MATT CUNNINGHAM: You’ve only been the Minister for five months, but already we’ve seen several natural disasters and we're looking like we’re going to have a pretty wet few months ahead with another La Ninà. Do we need to be doing more as far as mitigation goes? And when I talk about that, do we need to be building more dams or improving our dam infrastructure?

MURRAY WATT: I think there’s no doubt that as a country we need to be investing more in disaster mitigation. And you’ll remember that we made quite an issue of this in the lead-up to the federal election. And what we’ve said is - you might remember that Emergency Response Fund that the former Government had that basically just grew in interest and didn’t actually do anything to help the community - what we said going into the election was that we were going to convert that into a permanent dedicated mitigation fund.

We’ve now introduced legislation into Parliament to make the changes needed. And what that means is that we’ll be able to invest up to $200 million a year, every year in disaster mitigation. And look, you know, there’s a wide range of things that could be used for. It’s going to depend on particular communities. In some areas it might be dams. In some areas it might be flood levies or drainage improvements. And, of course, let’s not forget there’s still areas in the country facing bushfires as well. So, bushfire evacuation centres and other things too.

MATT CUNNINGHAM: Would you consider raising the level of the wall at the Warragamba Dam?

MURRAY WATT: Well really, we’re still waiting for the New South Wales Government to actually work out what they want to do. I mean, I know there have been a lot of press statements, but they’re still – we’re still waiting for sort of the documentation that would normally be required if a government wants to receive federal funding or to work through environmental approvals. So, there’s obviously a range of views about that dam, and I’ve spent a lot of time in the Hawkesbury myself and I’ve met people who support raising the wall, I’ve met people who oppose it and want to see the dam levels dropped. But really, I suppose we can’t do anything on this until the New South Wales Government tell us what they really want to do.

MATT CUNNINGHAM: I think they’re saying that they’re waiting for you to commit to funding 50 per cent of that project.

MURRAY WATT: Well, I don’t think anyone would expect any responsible federal government to just tick off on some massive funding program until they’ve seen what a state government wants to do. So, if they want to bring something to us, we’d of course consider it.

MATT CUNNINGHAM: Now, can we talk about your trip here to the Northern Territory, your announcement yesterday in regards to biosecurity and foot and mouth and lumpy skin disease. There was a lot of publicity about foot and mouth disease a couple of months ago. The fact that that publicity has sort of dropped away, has the threat subsided?

MURRAY WATT: Look, I think the threat is still there. And, you know, the last time Indonesia had a foot and mouth disease outbreak it took them a considerable period of time to eradicate it. So, we’re certainly not taking the foot off the accelerator in terms of preparation for this. And that’s why yesterday we, as you know, announced the Lumpy Skin Disease Action Plan, which in fact is a bigger threat to our cattle industry than foot and mouth disease.

So, I think the risk levels are still, you know, pretty high and high enough to be taking action. And that’s why we’re obviously still rolling out vaccines in Indonesia, we’re putting on more biosecurity officers at airports and we’re working really closely with states, territories and industries to keep doing more.

MATT CUNNINGHAM: The Indonesians are saying that there’s no foot and mouth in Bali at the moment. Are you comfortable with what they’re telling you? Are you confident that that is the case?

MURRAY WATT: Well, we can only rely on the information that we’re getting from the Indonesian government about this, and it does seem that they are making good progress with vaccinations. The latest information I’ve had is that they’ve vaccinated nearly 4 million livestock now whereas I they’ve only got about 500,000 infected animals, so that’s a pretty good ratio. And, again, I can only rely on the information that we’re given. But what I do know having spent time in Indonesia is that Bali is a particular priority for the Indonesian government. They recognise that with the amount of international trade and travel through Bali it’s in their national interest as well as every other country to get it under control in Bali. So, I do know they’re putting a particular effort in there.

MATT CUNNINGHAM: And we know thousands of Australians travel there every year. Will the measures that you have in place at airports at the moment, will they remain in place for the foreseeable future?

MURRAY WATT: I think they will. We certainly have no plans to wheel any of them back. The risk level remains high enough for us to retain a lot of those measures, whether they be the foot mats that we installed in international airports, the extra biosecurity officers. As you probably heard me say before, though, I understand why there’s a lot of attention on travellers coming back from Bali, but the biggest risk that we face in terms of foot and mouth disease is someone either mailing back or bringing back some kind of meat product that contained –

MATT CUNNINGHAM: The hamburger from McDonald’s.

MURRAY WATT: Exactly. Exactly. I’m hoping to meet the detector dog, actually, in Darwin Airport that discovered that so I can give her a bit of a pat on the back – literally. But yeah, I mean those measures are going to be required, but we’re now inspecting every single mail package that comes into Australia from Indonesia. We’ve obviously now banned any importation or bringing in of meat products from any country in the world that has foot and mouth disease if they’re being brought in for personal consumption. And I reckon we’re going to need to keep those measures in place for a while yet.

MATT CUNNINGHAM: A lot of discussion in the past couple of days about Australia supporting Joe Biden on this Methane reduction scheme. Is the barbecue safe in this country?

MURRAY WATT: Absolutely. And I’m very confident I can have you over for a barbecue at my place this year, next year and in 10 years. So, there’s an invitation for you. I mean, this is just more rubbish from people who’ve been telling us for years that the sky is going to fall in. You know, we were going to be paying a hundred bucks for lamb roasts, we were going to – the electric vehicles were going to end the weekend, and now they’ve got new threats out there. You know, they’re pretty good at shock tactics, but they’re pretty bad at running a government or doing anything on climate action.

And you saw yourself, Matt, at the press conference we did in Darwin yesterday with all those cattle groups, they just want to work with government and get things done. I think one of the comments was that they were sick of being passengers in the climate wars. These people have been used for a long time by the National Party, and the National Party just haven’t learned the lesson that that’s not the way to go.

MATT CUNNINGHAM: I’m sure they’d also be pretty alarmed about any prospect of a burp tax, like we’re seeing introduced in New Zealand. Can you categorically rule out we will not see that happen here?

MURRAY WATT: Absolutely. We have no plans whatsoever to introduce –

MATT CUNNINGHAM: No plans?

MURRAY WATT: No, we are not bringing in a methane tax, and I’ve had discussions with that with a number of my cabinet colleagues. As I think I explained yesterday, New Zealand is in a different situation because over there, agriculture forms about 50 per cent of their emissions. And they need to look at more drastic measures than what we do here where agriculture contributes to emissions but is much lower.

But, you know, I think one of the other points here is that the agriculture industry and livestock in particular has made incredible headway in recent years to bringing down their emissions generally and methane emissions in particular. So, we’re kind of already on this path and that’s why I don’t understand, really, this alarmist talk from the National Party other than just trying to make political points.

MATT CUNNINGHAM: Murray Watt, thanks for your time.

MURRAY WATT: Good on you, Matt.