Interview with Katie Woolf, MIX 104.9 Darwin

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
MIX 104.9 DARWIN WITH KATIE WOOLF
FRIDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2022

SUBJECTS: $4M Northern Australia Coordination Network; National Lumpy Skin Action Plan; foot and mouth disease; biosecurity; update on floods; cyclone risks for Darwin; National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre

KATIE WOOLF, HOST: Now a new Northern Australian Coordination Network is going to be established by the Federal Government to help manage the threat of lumpy skin disease and foot and mouth disease. Now the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry and Emergency Management Murray Watt, he’s going to be announcing this $4.3 million network and joins me in the studio right now. Good morning to you.

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY: G’day Katie, Good to be back with you in the studio.

KATIE WOOLF: Yeah, good to see you. Now Minister, what exactly is this network?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, well, this is a really important step we’re taking in partnership with both the state and territory governments and also industry to really strengthen our lines of defence against those diseases – lumpy skin and foot and mouth disease. There’s obviously been a lot of attention on foot and mouth disease, but there’s actually a bigger risk of a different disease known as lumpy skin disease getting into our country, especially in the north. That’s a very dangerous disease for cattle. It doesn’t affect all livestock in the way foot and mouth disease does, but if lumpy skin disease got in here, it literally is what it sounds like – you know, cattle develop lumps on their skin, and it affects milk production. It would very much affect our ability to export beef and cattle overseas. So that’s why we’re working so hard with industry.

And the other sort of, I suppose, quirky thing about this disease is that can be brought - blown in literally by mosquitoes from other countries that have it. So, foot and mouth disease would normally be spread by bringing in infected meat products or someone might have it on their clothing. And you can do a few things to try and control that, and we are. But there’s a little bit less you can do about making sure mosquitoes don’t blow in a cyclone. So that’s why we’re taking this so seriously too.

KATIE WOOLF: Yeah, so how exactly do we mitigate so that we – you know, we can try our best to make sure that we don’t end up with this here in the Northern Territory?

MURRAY WATT: Well, the best thing we can do is to help Indonesia get their outbreak under control. And so far, Australia has provided over 400,000 vaccines to Indonesia for lumpy skin disease and around a million vaccines for foot and mouth disease as well. And we’ve committed to provide more.

The other thing we need to keep in mind is that it’s not just about Indonesia - if these diseases got into Timor Leste or Papua New Guinea that would obviously be an extra threat because they’re even closer still to much of the country.

And that’s why, you know, this coordination network we’re talking about is really important for northern Australia, because we get that, you know, even though the Government might be in Canberra, it’s northern Australia who are on the frontline with these diseases. And we need to strengthen our lines of defence in the north. And it’s really fabulous that we’ve been able to work so closely with the Northern Territory government along with the Cattlemen’s Association and a bunch of other industry groups to put this plan together.

KATIE WOOLF: Now, tell me, with foot and mouth disease - is that threat minimising to some degree, or have the different, you know, procedures and protocols that have been put in place at the airport and various other locations, are they working at this point?

MURRAY WATT: Well, I would say they are working because Australia does remain free of either foot and mouth disease or lumpy skin disease. So, I guess that’s the best test of how the defences are working. But we’ve always acknowledged that we can keep adding to things. And a couple of weeks ago we added a new measure, which was to ban people from bringing in any meat products for personal consumption from any country around the world that has foot and mouth disease.

But in terms of what’s happening in Indonesia, we’re keeping a very close eye on that. And I guess I’d say that things have plateaued there.

It’s certainly not eradicated and won’t be for some time to come. But currently the figures that we have are that they’ve vaccinated close to 4 million livestock whereas they say they’ve got about 500,000 infected animals. So, I guess that’s a pretty good proportion. But we’ve got to keep taking this seriously, and that’s why we’re keeping on working up new plans with industry as well.

KATIE WOOLF: Yeah now, Murray, you are also the Minister for Emergency Management. We know that the threat of cyclones is always quite the concern for us here in the Northern Territory. I understand that you are going to be out visiting some of those disaster management centres ahead of cyclone season today?

MURRAY WATT: That’s right, Katie. I’m going to be joined by some of the ministers in the Northern Territory Government along with our local representatives Luke Gosling and Marion Scrymgour for some of the emergency management measures that we’re taking. The latest information the Bureau of Meteorology came out with last week said that across October to April this year we’ve got about a 70 per cent chance as a country of having at least 11 cyclones. And, of course, many of them would potentially come in through the north here.

So over the last couple of months, we’ve had federal emergency management personnel out working with the states and territories to ensure that everyone’s fully prepared. But I think it’s important as the Minister that I also come out here and see it for myself.

So, all the information I’m getting is that people are very well prepared here in the Northern Territory Government. They’ve obviously got a lot of experience dealing with these things. But if there’s anything that we can be doing at a federal level to help we’re obviously happy to do that.

KATIE WOOLF: And have they sort of asked for anything yet at that federal level? Is there any assistance that they need or any announcements we can expect today?

MURRAY WATT: Not at this point. It’s really – today is mainly about just keeping it on the radar for people literally that we could be facing a pretty intense cyclone season. And, of course there’s parts of the Northern Territory a bit further south that are still at risk of bushfires as well. So, you know, we’ve obviously got those big heavy aircraft available to help with water bombing and things like that. But probably, to be honest, you know, where we’re getting most requests for support at the moment are from the southern states which are having those floods. But even these visits with Luke and Marion and people like that demonstrate that we’re ready to help if needed.

KATIE WOOLF: Yeah, there is a lot happening at the moment in those southern states when it comes to flooding. How are things going from your perspective obviously as the Minister for Emergency Management?

MURRAY WATT: It’s pretty serious down there. And New South Wales in particular has just had so much rain over the last 12 months or so. Even since we were elected in May we had big floods in much of New South Wales in July. I was in Dubbo and Gunnedah in western New South Wales before I came up here, and some of those communities have been having floods for two or more months. And, you know, it sort of rains really heavily and it goes away. It comes back a couple of weeks later. You’ve got communities in western New South Wales that have been isolated for up to eight weeks. So, it’s really taking its toll on people.

And, of course, we’ve now seen in the last couple of days that weather is going further south into Victoria and Tasmania as well. So, you know, all the predictions are with this third La Niña that we are facing really heavy rainfall and cyclonic conditions this year, and all we can do is ask people to be as prepared as possible.

KATIE WOOLF: Yeah, absolutely. Now, I do want to ask, I understand that you are potentially heading out to the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre today. We’d caught up with a couple of people from the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre earlier in the week, particularly Professor Len Notaras. They had, well, all of the staff at Royal Darwin Hospital had a huge part to play in the response to the Bali bombings 20 years ago. But really, that centre was born out of that response. It’s pretty unbelievable to see what they can do, isn’t it?

MURRAY WATT: It’s fantastic. And I think a lot of the time people down south don’t appreciate the really special things that we’ve got in northern Australia. And, as you know, as a Queenslander I was up here pretty regularly before the election in the northern Australia role, and I’ve always seen that part of my job, along with the local representatives here, is to really tell the story of the Northern Territory and the fantastic things that are happening.

That centre that Len and his team are running is not just a national leader; it’s an international leader right here in Darwin. And, as you say, it was born out of the Bali bombings. You’d be aware Luke Gosling was in Bali this week for the memorial service, which was really important I know to a lot of people in the Territory. But, yeah, they’ve got some incredible capability that’s really provide great support overseas when they face disasters as well. And that’s really good for our international image as well. So, I’m really excited to be heading out there today.

KATIE WOOLF: Well, Murray Watt, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry and Emergency Management, we appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.

MURRAY WATT: My pleasure, Katie. Good to see you.

KATIE WOOLF: Thank you. You too.