TRANSCRIPT: Interview with Kath Sullivan, ABC Southern Queensland – Qld Country Hour, 3 April 2019

E&OE

Subjects: The Budget; drought relief; newly announced disaster relief fund.

KATH SULLIVAN:

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, how will you remember this Budget?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Back in black – surplus. Fantastic - first time for 12 years. Labor hasn’t produced a surplus for 30 years – 1989. But the fact is it’s also a Budget for regional Australia; it’s also an infrastructure Budget. So the $100 billion infrastructure figure is really significant.

KATH SULLIVAN:

Much has been said about the Nationals following the New South Wales election. There’s this theory that you’re on the nose. Do you think you’ve put enough money into regional Australia to convince Nationals voters to stick with you at the election?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

We were always going to put money into regional Australia. Regional Australia is hurting at the moment - there’s no question. The drought has really taken its toll on regional communities, particularly those in Central West and Riverina areas that I represent but indeed right throughout New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia. I was in Western Australia last week and they’re complaining too now that it’s dry there. We’ve had a couple of decent showers in Wagga Wagga over the last fortnight - 25 mils and then 28 mils following up - but a couple of showers aren’t going to change the drought. I really get perturbed when, not the ABC, but indeed you get some commercial channels, they’ll have a bit of a shower of rain up in the northern areas of New South Wales; they’ll get some Pitt Street farmer with his galoshes on and they’ll go out and they’ll do a report on the fact that: oh, the drought’s broken. No, the drought’s going to take many months, indeed years, to properly recover from.

KATH SULLIVAN:

There wasn’t actually that much new money for drought in last night’s Budget, though. You’d already announced the $5 billion Future Drought Fund. We’ve seen increases to the access to the Farm Household Allowance. Can farmers doing it tough expect any more support from this Government?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Concessional loans, yes, and we’ll continue to monitor the drought and we’ll continue to provide the tax relief. I think that farmers would look at the tax relief we’ve already provided – the concessional loans that were part of the package last night – and the Future Drought Fund, and say: yes, the Government responded very quickly when the onset of the drought really took its toll.

KATH SULLIVAN:

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced a new natural disaster response fund - $3.9 billion – that’s a lot of money. Is there any detail to go with that?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

When emergency disasters occur in the future, whether they’re flood, fire, whatever the case might be, there’s that fund for the Government to fall back on. The fact is, when you’re not in surplus and you have such incidents, the cyclone which ravaged that top end of Australia, killing half a million cattle and washing away fences and other infrastructure, it really takes a hit on the bottom-line. We got $39 million out the door in the first week, the assistance that we’ve provided – and it was an incredible response by the Prime Minister and Linda Reynolds, I have to say. They didn’t ask for dockets and receipts for farmers. They just said: look, if they need the assistance put $75,000 in their bank account. Help them recover as quickly as they can.

KATH SULLIVAN:

There appeared to be quite a few sweeteners or a lot of investment going toward Queensland. Can we expect you to be spending most of your time over this forthcoming election campaign in the Sunshine State?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Well, I’ll be spending quite a bit of time. In fact, I’m looking forward to going to Michelle Landry’s Capricornia electorate this Friday; looking forward to addressing the Queensland Press Club this Friday. I’ll be spending a bit of time in Queensland. We’ve got some outstanding Members up there. New South Wales, Western Australia, Victoria, Tasmania as well – it’s a new battlefront for the National Party – we’ve got some outstanding Members down there, candidates, I should say: One Senator and some outstanding candidates.

KATH SULLIVAN:

How do you walk both sides of the street when you’ve got, it appears, a different approach to policy coming from the Queensland Members of your Party compared to that from the South, and even from Western Australia? The state party there seems to be distancing itself from the Federal Party.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Well no, I wouldn’t say that anybody is distancing ourselves from the Federal Party. I mean, National Party people generally think alike on every issue, and if you ask me a question and you ask Matt Canavan a question or if you ask Darren Chester a question, generally, you’ll get the same answer. We think very alike. What we want is lower energy prices; what we want is people to pay less tax; what we want is better roads; what we want is drought assistance when and where required.

Shane Manning