Interview with Georgie Gardner, Today Show
26 October 2018
GEORGIE GARDNER: Prime Minister, good morning to you.
PRIME MINISTER: G’day Georgie, nice to be here.
GEORGIE GARDNER: This is a huge commitment from the Government, the first of its kind. Just explain how it will work.
PRIME MINISTER: This is a Future Fund, so what we do is have $3.9 billion going into this account and it will earn interest and other earnings into the future, so we build it up, up to $5 billion over the years ahead. But each year, we can draw down around $100 million a year from what is earned on the fund and that will go into drought resilience projects and drought support projects, water projects, things like that that means we better future proof against drought over the next ten years and beyond. So it is a long-term plan, but it also means that we will be able to invest and drought-proof for Australia as soon as we are able to put the fund in place, which would be as soon as the legislation passes. Because we are doing a lot to back the farmers in the rural communities. Focusing on relief, but also on recovery, but resilience into the future. That is also what we need to do to ensure that we support our farmers in our regional and rural communities.
GEORGIE GARDNER: Yeah future proofing makes a whole lot of sense. As you say though, those payments don't start until the 1st of July 2020. There are farmers, of course, struggling, still desperate right now. How will this help them?
PRIME MINISTER: Well that is about the longer-term, the medium-term future. What we are doing right now is put more money into mental health support, more money in the payments for farmhouse hold assistance. There is already $1.8 billion worth of support that's going in and I will be making further announcements today about how we are supporting more of the charitable sector and to better target their effort to support our farming and rural communities. We will be expanding the Drought Communities Program today. That is the program where we are putting $1 million into individual shires and councils to keep the towns humming and buzzing, so the money is going through the towns. More support for things like voucher systems in the towns, so the money is spent in the towns. So it is all about keeping those rural and regional communities going along while they’re going through a tough drought time, and there will be more support for farmers with on water... sorry, on-farm water management projects. We’ve got farmers who want to be out there drought-proofing their own properties at the moment with smaller scale grant programs and so there is support now for relief and there is support long-term for resilience through the future drought fund.
GEORGIE GARDNER: Alright. You have announced your plan for lower power prices. Now, if prices don't fall by the start of next year, will you have failed Australian families?
PRIME MINISTER: We will be putting maximum pressure on the big energy companies with what I call the big stick legislation. And we are expecting the big energy companies to bring those prices down. We are expecting them through whether it is our price safety net which removes what is effectively a loyalty tax or putting in the measures which go from everything from enforceable undertakings through the courts to strong divestment powers. What that is doing is saying to big energy companies you can't take your customers for a ride. I am disappointed the Labor Party doesn't want to support us on putting a big stick on the energy companies, but want to take a big stick to the value of your home by abolishing negative gearing as we know it and upping Capital Gains Tax which will hit the housing market.
GEORGIE GARDNER: Prime Minister, from when should we start to see lower power bills?
PRIME MINISTER: Well we are expecting to see the energy companies respond in January, and we’ve already seen in July those prices peak and top out and start to fall in some of the states and territories, but not by enough. We know that. That is why we have to put more pressure on the big energy companies so they are doing the right thing by their customers and we are going to back that up with the laws which will give effect to that. As I said, we will take the big stick to the energy companies. We won't be taking a big stick to the value of people's homes by abolishing negative gearing as we know it because that is the worst time for that to happen in the housing market at the moment. The housing market has gone soft. The Labor Party wants to abolish negative gearing as we know it. That will only make the value of people's homes under more threat.
GEORGIE GARDNER: Is this a substitute for the National Energy Guarantee?
PRIME MINISTER: We already have the National Reliability Guarantee and that is what we will be talking about today with COAG with Energy Ministers. What is about is making sure the big energy companies and all the energy wholesalers and retailers are buying more reliable power, fair dinkum power, things that work when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn’t blow. Renewables are great, they’re fine, they’re fantastic, but you need the stuff that is always going to work and the reliability guarantee, which we have continued with, that is going to make sure more of that energy is contracted in the market which means the lights stay on and we get prices down.
GEORGIE GARDNER: Prime Minister, I want to talk to you about Nauru. Yesterday we heard on the program from a leading paediatrician who said a child is going to die on Nauru if the Government doesn't intervene. Now, last night your own Liberal MP Julia Banks was very strong in question time. She slammed the Government for playing political games and refusing to take up New Zealand's offer to take these people. Why won't you get these sick children off Nauru?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we are. We are. We have got over 200 children off Nauru.
GEORGIE GARDNER: There are 52 still there.
PRIME MINISTER: We have had more come off. I know, that figure is already starting to fall. We are getting children off Nauru. We have been doing it for a long time with our agreement with the United States. But I do know this Georgie, and we will continue to do that because we are determined to achieve that. We are the Government that actually stopped the boats coming, stopped putting children on to Nauru. I mean, you don't get children off Nauru by putting more on. If you get one boat turn up with children, it is both Labor Party and Government policy that those children would go to Nauru. So you don't do things that compromise what is working, you just get the children off which is what we have been doing now successively and particularly over the last eight weeks, but before that as well, we have been steadily working that problem and getting children off Nauru. We actually have more medical staff on Nauru than we have children and we will continue to provide that care and we will always act on the issues of medical need.
GEORGIE GARDNER: There are 52 children still on Nauru, they have been there for five years. Give us a timeframe. How quickly can you get them here for treatment? Because they are languishing, they are suffering and if someone dies, how will you feel if it is under your watch?
PRIME MINISTER: Well Georgie, I have been stopping children from dying on boats now for the last five years. That is what I did as a Minister and of this Government that put an end to the death and carnage of children floating face down in the water and I'm not going to see that happen again as well. We are getting the children off Nauru.
GEORGIE GARDNER: So give us a timeframe. How quickly can we get them back here? Because it is a matter of urgency. They need to be back here for very specialised medical treatment.
PRIME MINISTER: I understand that, Georgie. And every child who requires that specialised medical treatment is getting it and has been transferred and more will be transferred. I will continue to give updates on how we are progressing, as the Minister has done. Seventeen were removed just recently over the last couple of weeks and so we will keep working that. What I am not going to do is get involved in a sort of a public slanging match over it. I will just keep getting the job done, Georgie, because that is what I have been doing, that is what my Ministers have been doing. We have been addressing the issue. The population of children on Nauru has been coming down. They are not in detention centres in Nauru, they are living in the community like Nauruan children do, like the population of Nauru do. That is where they are and they are getting that medical support and they will continue to and we will continue to get the number of children down who are on Nauru.
GEORGIE GARDNER: Can you give us a date as to when the last of those 52 children will be here getting the necessary medical treatment?
PRIME MINISTER: I will continue to give the updates as I said, seventeen or nineteen just came off.
GEORGIE GARDNER: Are we talking a month? Like give us an idea, what sort of a timeframe?
PRIME MINISTER: I am not about to do that because we are working through that issue right now with our allies particularly in the United States and we are making an enormous amount of progress and what I do know, Georgie, is if you continue to do this methodically and quietly, then you are able to achieve the objective. I just want to get them off, but I want to get them off in a way which does not put more children on Nauru. Because if one boat turns up or one child is floating face down in the water, how would Australia feel then?
GEORGIE GARDNER: Well, I don’t believe they should be punished to deter others, but we are out of time. We have to leave it there for now. We will be watching with great interest because you can solve this problem. Prime Minister, thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER: And we are, Georgie, and I will continue to do that.
GEORGIE GARDNER: Thank you.
