Doorstop - Sunshine Coast, QLD
27 September 2018
MEMBER FOR FISHER, ANDREW WALLACE MP: PM, I’d like to welcome you to the glorious Glass Mountains on the Sunshine Coast. It’s fantastic to have you here. This is a demonstration of just how seriously you’re taking the strawberry issues, the strawberry growers issue that we had where some idiots have taken it upon themselves to contaminate and sabotage our food. I want the strawberry growers around the Sunshine Coast and all of Australia to know their Federal Government stands with them. PM, it’s great to have you here on the Coast. We’ve spoken this morning about reiterating your commitment to the Government’s promises to the Bruce Highway, funding of $3.13 billion, unprecedented sums of money for the Bruce Highway. $390 million for the duplication of the rail. The Sunshine Coast is on the map from an infrastructure perspective and we are so very, very excited to have you here. Would you like to say a few words?
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much Andrew, it’s great to be here and to John and to Brendon, thanks very much for having us at Ashbern Strawberries, which I understand is named after both of your better halves. That’s fantastic. Look it’s great to be here and there’s a good positive message here. On the way here I stopped by the roadside and I actually bought a punnet of Ashbern strawberries, the larger one too by the way, three bucks. That’s a good price and we’re looking for better prices.
But the good news I found out was is normally that would do about 20 trays. Last weekend, they did over 90 trays of strawberries. Now, that shows you what’s happening in Australia. Australians coming together and responding to a call to say, “Let’s get behind our strawberry farmers.” Whoever the idiot was who started this, his idiocy has been completely, I think, and totally overwhelmed by the good nature of the Australian people who have stood with our strawberry farmers. Whether it is Brendon and John here, or Gavin not far from here, or others all around the country. There is around I think 160 strawberry farmers here. But they’re down in the Yarra Valley, they’re over in Western Australia. And Australians I think have bounced back and this industry has some unique perishable elements to it. It has to be in perpetual motion to keep it going and the best thing that can happen is Australians keep buying strawberries. So the demand is there, which means the fruit can be picked and the fruit can be packed and the fruit can be shipped out. To whether it’s the local roadside or down to Sydney into supermarkets or other places, to keep the industry turning again.
Last week, I announced there would be $1 million going in to the industry to support and range of initiatives. $350,000 of that I announced today is going to some very specific industry-based measures, and that’s everything with support for how they do tampering-proof packaging, how they’re doing that. It’s also supporting their communications through the supply chain to give the assurance. You just saw inside what the metal detector machine which they’re using here and the assurance that can be provided about the products that are coming out of the farms and out of the packing sheds. There’s work also being done to support communications up through the supply chain into our international markets. The balance of the other funds, most of that that’s going into the food standards authority to ensure that they’ve got the resources and the support they need to deal with this.
Another thing which I think is going to be important once the dust settles in this sector is to take a bit of a look over the last few weeks and learn some of the lessons about how, you know, there are other sectors out there where there may be weather-type incidents that produce this sort of result or other types of incidents and how we can ensure that our response is as quick as it needs to be. I mean, this came fast. It was a real flash and it hit the farmers very hard and very early. But I am so proud of the Australian people that they responded in the way they did. I don’t think there has been as many pavs cooked in Australia last weekend in a very long time. It would be Australia Day weekend I think where you would have seen as many pavs cooked as that.
But it wasn’t just that. It was the fruit slurpees down at Ekka and things like this where Australians just, they just showed up. And I think that was both a shot in the arm to our strawberry farmers, but it also has had a very important commercial element to it as the industry quickly moves to restore itself to the good, strong local employing industry that it is.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, there has been a huge amount of focus on what’s going on the farms, but there’s no proof at this stage that the farms are where this food tampering has occurred. We don’t know where it’s happened in the supply chain.
PRIME MINISTER: Well I think what you’ve just seen is that the industry taking the steps that it needs to and I mean, a lot of Australians ate strawberries on the weekend. And what we are seeing is those incidents which had been reported tapering off. I think the strong action we took as a Government to make it pretty clear that any idiot who wanted to go and put something on Facebook or a hoax or something like that, not doing that. Those incidents are falling away and it means that the industry is starting to right itself. So no I don’t agree with your assessment which says that I think Australians are now concerned about this like the way they may have been before. I think there has been good information that’s got out there, I think everybody has worked together to get that message out and I would encourage the media to continue to support getting that message out to all Australians and for the sake of those strawberry farmers.
JOURNALIST: Is 350 grand enough? If every farmer has to put in a $13,000 metal detector, is that actually going to…?
PRIME MINISTER: Well it’s not for metal detectors. Those investments have been made by the farmers themselves as they have here, and that’s a good investment for the business. They’ll make those investments. I mean, these farmers aren’t asking for charity, they’re not asking for subsidies, they’re not asking… they know what their business is, they know how to make their business successful. What they’re looking for is the support to get these messages through the supply chain, to assist even when it’s around training of staff. A lot of the staff who come here are itinerant workers and some support to ensure they have a good understanding of what the standards are. Because these farmers want to maintain their standards, they do maintain their standards. The package we have developed, we’ve developed with the industry. You know, they don’t want to see taxpayer’s money spent more than it has to be. They treat taxpayers money the same way they treat their own investments and I want to thank them for the way they’ve engaged with the Government on that.
JOURNALIST: What exactly will the money go to if it’s not for the…
PRIME MINISTER: Well I just mentioned it. It’s for the supply chain communication, it’s for support for the industry where we are working on tamper-proof packaging, it’s communication up through the international supply chain, and fourthly it’s particularly focusing on training and other standards support for industry programs which ensures that, you know, those who are packing and those who are working in the sector are aware of the standards and they can maintain them.
JOURNALIST: Have you considered compensation for growers in some form or some sort of financial hardship?
PRIME MINISTER: Well for those farmers who are affected, in particular with their own incomes, they have access to the Farm Household Assistance like any farmers would be in this type of situation. That assistance is available right now.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, would you hope for a different response from the supermarkets were this to occur again, given that Coles and Aldi pulled strawberries off the shelves and therefore there was no market for these people to sell to?
PRIME MINISTER: I think they’re the good lessons we need to learn from this. That’s why I just said, I think it’ll be important once the dust settles here to look back on those sorts of decisions and how they’re made and the information. But I mean the thing about strawberries is, as John was explaining to me, I mean the perishability here means your response time is pretty limited. If this happened in a different type of sector where they have more cold storage and they could pause for a while. Well the strawberry industry doesn’t work like that. So there are I think some very specific things here which are quite germane to this sector. And so I think it is worthwhile to go and look at those lessons, and both for the big supermarket chains and how they handle their issues but more broadly, there’s nothing wrong with that. Australians are good at that, you look at how it played out, you learned the lessons, you improve your systems and you move on. I don’t think we have to go through some sort of blame cycle here, I think you just have to ensure we learn from it and get it right and hopefully we won’t see something like this happen for these reasons again. And anyone who does it, it’s fifteen years in jail and if you carry on like an idiot and post something on YouTube because you think it’s a lark, ten years in jail. That’s passed, the Governor General signed it.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, your first visit the Sunshine Coast as Prime Minister. What else do you hope to see while you’re here?
PRIME MINISTER: It’s quite a fleeting visit today. We’re up here particularly because I wanted to see, after what we did last week, what the impact had been for local farmers and to get firsthand a good look at what I was being briefed on last week. You know, my first time in a strawberry field too. But I received a lot of information last week and I just… look, I’m a bit like this. I’ve got to touch it, I’ve got to feel it, I’ve got to see it. And I was pleased to get the briefings from John and Brendon today just to understand how the sector worked. The encouraging thing is that it is as I thought it was working and the briefings I was receiving both from the industry and others proved to be very accurate and it means that the responses that we took last week I think have been very important. But the ultimate response continues to lie in the hands of Australians. And that means cut them up, don't cut them out and keep buying.
JOURNALIST: Do you have any plans to talk to local Government? The Sunshine Coast Mayor on Morton Bay…
PRIME MINISTER: Not today but there'll be opportunities for that. But I am pleased to reconfirm the significant support for the Beerburrum rail line and the Bruce Highway funding. None of that has changed, we're committed 100 per cent to those projects. They're very important for the Sunshine Coast and I know Andrew and Ted have been great champions of those programs and they'll keep rolling out.
JOURNALIST: Does the ABC chairman Justin Milne have your confidence?
PRIME MINISTER: Now that I think we’ve probably covered off strawberries… one on strawberries?
JOURNALIST: How is the hunt for the original saboteur going?
PRIME MINISTER: I'll leave that to Queensland Police particularly to brief you on. I've kept in touch with the AFP but Queensland Police are the lead investigators on that and they're the right people to ask about that, not me as Prime Minister. Obviously they keep me up to date but I think the way you should brief on police operations is by those in the police services. I think that's how it's known here in Queensland.
JOURNALIST: Do you think the Queensland Government handled it correctly with our Chief Health Officer Jeanette Young coming out and telling people to throw away their strawberries?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, I'm not going to get into ex-post-facto blame game stories around this sort of thing. All that matters is governments work together to try and fix things when they go wrong. That's what matters. I don't think these guys could care less one way or the other what I say about the Queensland Government or the Queensland Government says about me. We've got a problem and we've just got to muck in fix it and that’s what we’ve been doing. I spoke to Annastacia Palaszczuk about this early last week and she told me about the million dollars she was putting into the marketing fund. I commended her for that. That meant she’s doing that we could do the million dollars on the sorts of things we've been talking about here and the most important thing we could really do is getting that clear message about the penalties and ramping those up very quickly. I mean people you know rightly get a bit frustrated with the national Parliament every now and then but frankly, last week, it all got done in about 36 hours. Everyone came together and that's an important message. At the end of the day, we're there to fix things.
JOURNALIST: On other topics...
PRIME MINISTER: I'm going to let John and Brendan go while we talk about politics. They've got a lot of work to do...
JOURNALIST: Can we ask John and Brendan?
PRIME MINISTER: You might do that separate.
JOURNALIST: So is Justin Milne's position now untenable?
PRIME MINISTER: As you know, last night, yesterday afternoon, the Communications Minister and I spoke and he has initiated through his Department an inquiry into this. I'm not talking about something with 50 officers running around the buildings of the ABC. There are just some simple facts here that have to be established. And I think before anybody races off on anything here, I think those facts need to be determined and I'm in the process of getting those facts. But once those facts are known, then I think, you know, there'll be judgements for people to make, including the Chairman.
JOURNALIST: Were you aware that Malcolm Turnbull harboured hatred for any ABC reporter?
PRIME MINISTER: No, I wasn't. And he didn't. I mean, he didn't. I actually spoke to Malcolm today. I speak to Malcolm pretty frequently. No, what the former Prime Minister did, just like I have as a Minister, and I'm sure others... you know, the ABC isn’t perfect. You know, they make mistakes and it's alright for people to call them out on that and raise those issues with the ABC. We've all done that before. Members of the public do that. Members of Parliament do that. Prime Ministers do it. Ministers do it. But it's not our job to tell the ABC how to run itself and how to then, you know, deal with any complaints. They're responsible for how they do that. The ABC board is responsible for the reputation of the ABC and its independence and we support them in being independent and I want to ensure that, as we deal with this issue, that the independence of the ABC is not in question. But equally, they've got to get it right too. So, you know, they've also got to handle those issues but that's not what the current discussion is about. It's about the independence, which, you know, has the full support of our government and always has.
JOURNALIST: Have you ever contacted the ABC about its coverage?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah I have because they've got it wrong on plenty of occasions and they've apologised to me for getting it wrong on a number of occasions as well. That's probably the more shocking thing… surprising I should say. But that's my point. There are processes. We use them. And responses are provided and that's how it should work. But the idea that the Government has somehow got some list and is telling the ABC who should work there and who shouldn't - that's just complete rubbish. They've got an independent board. They've made decisions about their Managing Director. They made those decisions.
JOURNALIST: Is it concerning, though, that the Chairman appears to have intervened in a staffing matter?
PRIME MINISTER: That's why I'm seeking to establish the facts around that. I know there are a lot of reports about that, but I'll make my decisions and any further comments I make about the conduct of the Chairman in relation to the actual evidence and I'm waiting to see that and I've got a process in place to gather that. You've got to be fair. I mean, people have made allegations. They're pretty serious allegations, I've got to say. And on the face of it that's very concerning, very concerning. But I'm not going to prejudge it based on some newspaper or internet or, you know, television reports. I'm going to base that on the clear advice and evidence presented by the department.
JOURNALIST: Have you spoken to the Chairman in the last 24 hours?
PRIME MINISTER: No, I haven't. The Minister has, that is his job.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what happened in Australia on January 26, 1788?
PRIME MINISTER: A flag was raised in Farm Cove. That is what happened.
JOURNALIST: I just have a question for the far north, if you’ve got time. There have been new calls from businesses to do more on climate change for the Reef. What is the Coalition actually doing?
PRIME MINISTER: We are investing half a billion dollars in support for reef research and science, and that is the biggest investment in reef research and science that any government has made for a very, very long time. We support a healthy Reef, we support a Reef which is supporting the livelihoods of north Queenslanders which it has, you know, for hundreds of years, and for the Indigenous population for tens of thousands of years. And we are very, very committed to the health of the Reef. We will make those investments as we have and get those projects done which support the Reef and we will continue to do that. The Government's other climate policies are well-known and we are getting on with them.
JOURNALIST: Have you ever raised any concerns about journalistic standards at the ABC?
PRIME MINISTER: They’re on record, you just have to look up the record. On a number of occasions I have and I don't apologise for it. We stand in front of the media every day and you can ask all the questions, as you should and you can, but if you get it wrong we are also allowed to point that out.
JOURNALIST: And I guess Mr Turnbull has complained about the journalistic standards at the ABC, what do you think?
PRIME MINISTER: Well what the former Prime Minister was saying is that on a quite number of occasions they were just getting facts wrong, and he was pointing that out and he was expecting better. I expect all journalists to check their facts. It doesn't matter whether you work for the ABC or anyone else. I mean the Australian public relies on journalists to check their facts and to report the news, not just give opinions. There are lots of opinions out there, but you know it is the facts is people want to make decisions on and I want to make decisions based on the facts. And that is why I am ensuring that I get the facts about this matter before I make any further comment on the conduct of any of the people alleged to have taken place and where we go from here. But this is the key thing - the independence of the ABC means a lot to our Government. And it should mean a lot to every government. We will be taking decisions in this area to ensure that independence is protected and preserved. But even more importantly today, Andrew, it is it is great to see Australians are buying strawberries, and we want you to keep buying strawberries. You are playing, Australians, a very important part of our response to what has happened here, and I know Australian strawberries farmers, and those who work in the industry, really appreciate what you are doing, so keep the pavs coming. Cheers.
MEMBER FOR FISHER, ANDREW WALLACE MP: Cut them up, don't cut them out!
