SENATOR JENNY McALLISTER
MINISTER FOR EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
MINISTER FOR CITIES

MATT SMITH
LABOR CANDIATE FOR LEICHHARDT

MATT SMITH, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR LEICHHARDT: Hi, I’m Matt Smith the ALP candidate for the federal seat of Leichhardt. We're here this morning at Holloway's Beach, which I guess was one of the more publicised areas that were hit by this Cyclone Jasper flooding, along with Kanimbla, Caravonica, of course Wujal Wujal. When the Anthony Albanese Labor government came to power, we understood that the disaster response of “I don't hold a hose mate”, was not going to cut it for Australians. Australians deserve to know and understand that when things go wrong with natural disasters, that their government stands ready and waiting to help. With the increasing climate change, fierce weather events has made Australia more hostile to live in. NEMA has been a response to that. We understand that when things go wrong, you need a quick and coordinated response, and NEMA is the federal government's response to that. Just this week, it has been said by the LNP that they cannot guarantee ongoing funding for NEMA. We have seen here firsthand, we’re witnessing it now, the benefits of having a coordinated federal government response to natural disasters, and to take that away from the people of Australia will leave us all worse off. Visiting today we have Minister Jenny McAllister, this is her third time to this site since being Minister, and has been visiting disaster sites right across Australia. She's going to take us through now the importance of NEMA and what it means to our country going forwards.
 
MINISTER FOR EMEGENCY MANAGEMENT, SENATOR JENNY McALLISTER: So, we're here on the Northern Beaches of Cairns, and I'm very grateful to Matt Smith for bringing me back to this important site, because we know that the communities here experienced some of the most extreme impacts during Cyclone Jasper. And it's been a priority for me to understand those impacts and to understand how these communities are going as they recover from that event.
 
Australians know that when disaster strikes, their government will be there for them. That wasn't always the case- under the previous government Australians were let down. The Albanese Government came to office knowing that we would need to invest more to make sure we had the resources and the personnel to support people when the very worst day of their lives came around. In recent days, I have been concerned to know that the local candidate here, Mr Jeremy Neal, believes that the ABC should be completely defunded. The ABC provides critical information to communities during an emergency. They produce it on television broadcast, on digital, and on radio broadcast. And on that third point, this is often a crucial source of information when energy systems go down and people become reliant on battery powered radios for critical information. Locals here know this.
 
Of course, Mr Neal’s views mirror those of Mr. Dutton. Mr. Dutton has made it clear that he wishes to get rid of 41,000 public servants. That he sees the expenditure, the necessary investments that our government has made as wasteful. I want to talk a little bit about what 40,000 cuts to public services might mean. In NEMA that would mean at least 25% of their personnel gone. Those are the people who arranged for helicopter assets to be pre deployed here for Jasper. Those are the people who arranged for food supplies to be brought into Cairns when the Bruce Highway was cut during the recent monsoonal trough. Those are the people who manage the recovery payments that are so critical for communities and infrastructure in this area. Mr. Dutton won't rule out cuts to these personnel indeed, during Tropical Cyclone Alfred when the Shadow Minister Senator Davey was asked about this, she couldn't rule out cuts. Senator Nampijinpa Price has been clear that they'll keep the targeted agencies and departments that they seek to cut a secret until after the election. So what I say to Mr. Dutton, and what I say to the local candidate here is that they should rule out cuts to the National Emergency Management Agency. They should rule out the cuts to the services and personnel that are so important for people in disaster affected regions. We have seen what it looks like when an Australian Government chooses to leave all of this to states, to wash their hands of emergency management. It's not the Australian Government's approach, and I am calling on Mr. Dutton to rule out cuts to the National Emergency Management Agency today.
 
JOURNALIST: Well, if the government wants to - if the Liberal government wants to fund new projects, something's got to give. And if they want to achieve their ends, as each government does, they're going to find savings somewhere, and maybe it's in loaded public services?
 
McALLISTER: Well, Mr. Dutton has a plan to invest $600 billion in nuclear energy.Nuclear power plants that will not come for at least a decade by their own reckoning. It's up to him to explain why that should be a priority when it is the most expensive form of energy available to Australians. It's up to him to explain why he would prefer to cut the personnel and the services at the National Emergency Management Agency so as to fund this risky investment that he has not properly explained to the Australian people.
 
JOURNALIST: We're three weeks out now from the election. We haven't seen Dutton at all, why do you think he hasn’t been up here?
 
McALLISTER: It’s up to Mr. Dutton to explain his travel plans and his program. But I can tell you the approach that I take. I know that disaster affected communities need to see their leaders. It is a really traumatic time when a disaster comes through, but the recovery can take a very long time, and it is very important that Australian leaders, from the Prime Minister down, visit places just like here in Cairns. I've made it my priority to spend a lot of time in Queensland. It's been particularly important over this summer, when Queenslanders have experienced a range of emergencies. I want Queenslanders to know that when disaster strikes, our government will be there by their side during the emergency itself, but also well into the recovery.
 
JOURNALIST: People in this neck of the woods still don't trust the Australian warning system several months- more than a year after Cyclone Jasper, and they have said things like they will look to other sources for their messaging when it comes to emergencies, and the risk there is that they go elsewhere, which may not be as trustworthy. How can you get these people back on board for the Australian warning system? Because it was acknowledged that it was- there was a huge gap during Cyclone Jasper?
 
McALLISTER:  Good information is critical in an emergency, and we want Australians to trust and have access to very good information during the course of an event like Jasper. After Jasper, we did undertake a review, and we have undertaken very significant work to make sure that councils in this area are well equipped to use the information that comes to them through the emergency warning systems. We're also making investments in communications. We know that we cannot guarantee all platforms at all times during an event. We do ask communities to avail themselves of different sources of information- online, through broadcast, and of course, in the very last resort, we often have emergency services personnel themselves door knocking areas to make sure that the households and families have the information that they need. We continue to work with the states and with local governments to make sure that we are giving people the information they need during an emergency, and that that information is accurate and clear.
 
JOURNALIST: Part of emergency management is resilience. Communities up in Cape were cut off for a long time, and they are cut off because of the peninsular development road going underwater during wet season. Are there any plans to commit funding to that road?
 
McALLISTER: We're making a series of investments in resilience in the north, part of that comes through the way that we reconstruct, and you'll see that in many of the projects that we agree with the Queensland Government, road projects, they are to build roads back to a better standard. We are also making investments in other forms of resilience. So for example, in the recent round of the Disaster Ready Fund, we committed substantial funds to the community of Wujal Wujal to establish a micro grid there so that power supply is available in that area. Should it be cut off for other reasons during an emergency.
 
JOURNALIST: Has there been talks about giving funding to that particular road to make that community more disaster resilient?
 
McALLISTER: We'll work with the Queensland Government on their priorities, whether it's on roads or whether it's on reconstruction. Queensland leads on reconstruction, but we want to be good partners to them, and so the way that it works is that they come to us, they bring proposals, and we work through their priorities.
 
JOURNALIST: Just to borrow a phrase from the premier, building back better. How is this road being built back better, it’s literally the exact same road, the exact same place?
 
McALLISTER: It was really important to move quickly to reestablish road access for the communities here, and again, we work with the Queensland Government on their priorities. But locals here understood that the circumstances which saw that river break its banks and forge a new path to the sea, required a swift response, and I've been really pleased to see the progress here made so quickly, and to talk with locals about the significance of that for their comfort and their confidence during this rebuilding.
 
JOURNALIST: This morning, on the radio, I heard somebody from Port Douglas complaining about the length of time it's taken to rebuild the Captain Cook highway. And it's the same for if you drive up to Kuranda today, you're going to be stopped at lights. Cyclone Jasper was December 2023 and we're still being stopped at lights for repairs?
 
McALLISTER: We always work as quickly as we can on repairs, and we try to make the funds flow quickly so that councils and state governments have the confidence that they need to connect these rebuilding processes. Sometimes it's challenging to get materials and labor in place, and I know that here in the north building during the wet season presents additional challenges. But we work closely with the Queensland Government. We work closely with local government. We try and support them as best we can, providing them with the financial resources that they need to support their communities.
 
ENDS