TRANSCRIPT: PRESS CONFERENCE MILDURA, VIC, 7 June 2019

With:

Dr Anne Webster, Nationals candidate for Mallee

E&OE

Subjects: Federal Election; Water Infrastructure; Drought; Election Promises; Chinese Navy Vessels; AFP.

ANNE WEBSTER:

Well I’m very excited to have the Acting Prime Minister of Australia, Michael McCormack here today in this wonderful city of Mildura. We’re in a position today of saying thank you to all of our volunteers and to all of those who’ve supported this campaign. I’m very excited that they could all come and meet with Michael today.

I've also had the opportunity to talk with Michael about the election promises that were made throughout the campaign, and to remind him of those promises, and to go through them, and to ensure that those processes will now be in place, and what my role will be going forward. So I've also had the opportunity to talk about some new possibilities of projects.

So it's been an exciting morning so far and I welcome the Acting Prime Minister.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Thank you so much Anne and it's fantastic to be here, fantastic to actually thank those people who stood there on the cold hard cement at pre-poll for three weeks - those people for the National Party who always believed, who never stopped believing, who handed out during Election Day, that this is significant, this is important. They have helped contribute right across the nation, not just here in Mallee, not just here in regional Victoria, but indeed right across the nation, to ensure that the Coalition remained in Government.

And whilst the AEC continues to count the votes and the preferences of course here in Mallee, we remain quietly confident that Anne will indeed take her seat in Parliament and she is going to make such a great contribution. We've already had a National Party meeting and Anne has already significantly put her voice forward and I know that she's not going to be a shrinking violet when she gets to Canberra. She's going to fiercely represent the interests that her people have, the people of Mallee – not just those who necessarily voted for the Coalition mind you, but all people who live in Mallee - because that's what National Party people do: They get in, they fight hard for more infrastructure, they fight for better services and they fight for better outcomes for their electorates.

Right across the nation I've been getting out this week thanking people - thanking the volunteers, those people who never ever stop believing – the quiet Australians as Prime Minister Scott Morrison said. It's important that we do that. It's important also that we show up and we continue to show up. It’s not just campaign time - some people might cynically say well you only ever see politicians during a campaign period – but, no. The National Party: We turn up all the time. We listen to people, hear their infrastructure needs and wants and expectations and demands and then, if it stacks up, we do business cases, we meet their expectations and we deliver.

That's what Anne Webster is going to do. She is going to deliver for the people of Mallee and I wish her every success.

JOURNALIST:

Anne, we saw a 27 per cent swing away from Nats. Why did we see that?

ANNE WEBSTER:

I think we've got to acknowledge that every time we have a three cornered contest we split the votes between Liberal and National. So that's one of the reasons. The other reason of course is that we had a very wide field. We had 13 candidates and so the votes have gone everywhere. I think that pretty well explains it.

JOURNALIST:

You don't think there are any issues surrounding water, Andrew Broad, anything like that that came into play?

ANNE WEBSTER:

Well even if they did the lean is still towards Nats at this point in time which is I think a very positive story. And should this election continue the way it looks like it's going and I become the elected Member, then I'll be fighting very hard for the interests of Mallee.

JOURNALIST:

What do you think are some of the most pressing issues facing the region at the moment?

ANNE WEBSTER:

Water clearly is an issue and as the drought continues to take a stand over the next period of time it's going to continue to be a very serious issue for us. I'm really thrilled that the National Party takes that seriously, that the Coalition takes that seriously. The Drought Future Fund is $100 million every year in perpetuity. We also have a large fund for water infrastructure, which is national infrastructure. I'm very keen to continue those conversations with Michael because obviously it's of great importance to us in the Murray-Darling.

JOURNALIST:

Do you feel like you do need to rebuild any trust with the electorate given that there has been a significant swing against the Coalition [inaudible]…?

ANNE WEBSTER:

I believe that trust is something that you earn. It’s never a given. So, because I would be a new Member – clearly – then that is my role, is to earn trust, and that means doing what I say I’m going to do, listening and following through. There are a whole bunch of premises to that trust being built, and that would be my focus.

JOURNALIST:

Anne, I imagine you’re very pleased that the Coalition has returned to Government. It paves the way a little more easily for you I think.

ANNE WEBSTER:

I think that there was a collective sigh across Australia, frankly, and I heard it. I heard it from people in our electorate - they were relieved: those who were worried about their retirement savings; those who were worried about being able to buy a home; those who are concerned about aged care and their older family relatives moving into aged care. There are just a whole bunch of reasons – small business, big business, trade – where having the Coalition back in means that we can move on and continue to build business in Australia.

JOURNALIST:

And Michael, for you, obviously Water and Agriculture are two fairly important portfolios, splitting those with David and Bridget: For our electorate, what do you think those two can bring for us, and how can they help us?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Well, I think the appointment of David Littleproud to a Drought portfolio, which is now in Cabinet, shows the significance that the Coalition – the Liberals and Nationals – have placed on drought and its importance, and its ongoing effect for regional Australia: not just for regional Australia, but indeed for the nation as a whole.

We need to make sure that we’ve continued to place a focus on the assistance that we need to provide for drought affected communities to help such things as our exports, our Balance of Payments; to help still provide the food and fibre that Australians need but also the world needs because Australia grows the best food and fibre, much of which has grown right around here - right in the Mallee, right around Mildura, right in the Sunraysia area. And to elevate that position to Cabinet is an important step forward.

I know that Senator Bridget McKenzie from Victoria will do a great job as Agriculture Minister. I know that in my portfolio role of Infrastructure, Transport and perhaps even most importantly Regional Development, having that National Water Grid is going to make such an important difference to get water infrastructure built, to take the petty politics, the argy-bargy out of building water storage infrastructure - whether it's weirs, whether it's pipelines, indeed whether it's dams. We need to be able to build more dams, more water storage infrastructure to harvest and harness that water when it does fall - and it will fall again - and use it during dry times. Certainly in the National Party we have those important portfolios: Agriculture, Drought and Regional Development,  Infrastructure. That’s going to be so important going forward.

JOURNALIST:

And some of those promises for Mallee during the campaign, where are they at…

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

They’ll all be met. They’ll all be met. And now we go through the processes, as Anne just said. They’re on the table, they’re in the Infrastructure Department. We will roll those infrastructure promises out. We will meet our commitments that we made during the election, and we'll meet them because Anne Webster is going to be a fantastic Member for this area. We're going to meet them because we said we would. We keep our promises.

JOURNALIST:

And what are some of the new projects that Anne’s brought up?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Oh, well, Anne’s given me quite an extensive list of road projects and water initiatives that she'd like me to address. We'll just keep those between Anne and I at the moment, but they are important projects for job creation, for building opportunity and hope in this area, and for making sure that we enable community capacity to grow - because that's what Anne wants. That's what she wants for regional Victoria. That's what she what she wants for her specific electorate of Mallee. She’s in there. She's a fighter as I’ve said. We've already held a National Party meeting and she wasn't quiet in coming forward. She knows what she wants and she's going to fiercely represent the people as they would expect her to do.

JOURNALIST:

And the same question for you about the swing in this seat: Is that a concern for the Party at all?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

I’ve run a three cornered contest before, and as Anne quite correctly pointed out you do split the Coalition vote. But I know Anne was the best Coalition candidate. I know Anne was the absolute best candidate, of that almost Melbourne Cup field, which is sometimes what happens when you have a sitting Member who leaves the Parliament. It opens the way, and it’s called democracy. It’s called giving people options and choice. But the people of Mallee, at this stage, look as though they’ve selected the best candidate. They’ve put the number one beside Anne’s name more often than they put beside the other 12 candidates, and I know that Anne won't let them down.

JOURNALIST:

Minister, just outside of this [indistinct], we’ve got Al Gore as we speak up in Brisbane talking about climate change and says the Adani mine [indistinct]…

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

…And we've got the Queensland Labor Government spending $320,000 to bring Al Gore here. Al would be better off staying in America and worrying about his own patch than coming here and talking Adani: things that he knows absolutely diddly squat about. What an inconvenient truth that is for Al. And it’s interesting that Bill Shorten was going to sit beside him at some sort of function - what a pair of people together. Seriously. Anyway…

JOURNALIST:

And just on one other issue that was getting the attention of the nation: The surprise arrival of the Chinese naval vessels coinciding with the Tiananmen Square issue, massacre.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

I think that was just a coincidence. The fact is we've got very strong relations with China. We’ve got a Free Trade Agreement with China that actually benefits…and we're here in Mildura; there would be many people in Mildura who benefit from the trade arrangements - the free trade arrangements - we have with China. And we need to obviously foster and encourage that relationship and we do. As a Federal Government we do - because we know that whether it's wine or whether it's beef or whatever the case that we're selling into China, it's a good arrangement and it's helping to make our farmers more prosperous.

JOURNALIST:

Ita Buttrose came out today with regards to the AFP raids, saying that they were designed to intimidate. What do you think?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Well she also made other comments too and I know that certainly that was something that the AFP have done, very much at arm's length of Government, as you would expect. The fact is, you know, not everything that is always written by journalists - and this is coming from a former journalist myself - is necessarily in the public interest. There is a national security test which can be placed over some things that people in the national media write and report. And we need to have a very clear delineation between what is in the national interest and what is in the public interest and sometimes they don't always meet up.

JOURNALIST:

You don’t think allegedly chopping the hands of unarmed civilians is in the public interest?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Well the fact is there's probably a lot of things that have been said and written that I'm sure that if the AFP are doing their investigations, that they'll look into in the proper process and protocol that they've placed over it. The fact is the Government didn't arrange or organise these visits by the AFP to journalists’ homes and workplaces. That was done by the AFP at arm's length from Government.

JOURNALIST:

Do you think there was any timing involved, that it came after the election and not prior?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

The AFP have done that according to their own timelines. Again, I say the Government had nothing to do with it.

JOURNALIST:

Scott Morrison said no-one's above the law when it comes this, but don’t journalists have the right to uncover the truth without the fear of (indistinct) ransacking their offices?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Well it depends on what they are actually uncovering and what they are reporting. If it is going to breach national security, then that breaches the law, the Act that came into effect in 1914. The fact is we need to make sure that the first order of Government business is to protect Australia, to have national security first and foremost. That's why when we got back into Government we stopped the boats. That's why we place national security above all other provisions. The fact is, the AFP have done this on their own accord. They have made these visits to journalists’ workplaces and homes according to their own processes - nothing to do with the Government telling them to do it and nothing to do with the Government demanding them to do it.  And if people have breached national security and they’re deemed to have broken the law, then they will face the consequences of that.

JOURNALIST:

And what about if they haven’t?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Well again, well they won't have anything to answer for and if the AFP, again, I stress they did this on their own accord. And the fact is it was done at arm's length of Government and that is the right and proper way to do it.

Thank you very much.

Shane Manning