: I’m joined by the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. Hello.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: G’day. Good to be with you. And it is indeed an absolutely stunning day here in Rocky.
STEVENS: It’s like this all the time in CQ. We get some pretty good weather here.
PRIME MINISTER: I’ve got to say, I’ve only had it rain once here on my many dozens of visits to the region. It’s usually just stunning. The river just looked magnificent this morning, I’ve got to say.
STEVENS: Absolutely. Well, you’re here for Beef. This is the biggest beef industry event in the southern hemisphere. And what an event it is.
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, it’s huge. And I was at the dinner last night, the awards. That was terrific. One of the things that I took away from that was the optimism that’s here for the industry, expecting to be something like $12 billion of exports in the next financial year. There’s been good prices got. The status is fantastic. For the first time since 2018, there are international visitors here. I met, last night, along with producers and farmers, I met one of the gentlemen here from Indonesia, who is one of the importers of live cattle. Had a great chat with him. He was very relieved and praiseworthy of the way that we handled the issue a year ago, you might recall, with Foot and Mouth Disease. There was concern and indeed some people calling for the trade to be stopped or paused. We didn’t do that. We worked it through. I spoke with President Widodo, we engaged constructively, we put in place some pretty simple measures too, things that aren’t onerous for people to wipe their feet on a mat as they come through from Bali. And the industry’s thriving. We’re looking at exports of live cattle to Malaysia as well. We’re looking at a huge increase there’s been in exports of packed beef to the UK as a result of the Free Trade Agreement. That said, it’s just going gangbusters. So, is lamb, so is our wine. It’s the best product in the world. Why wouldn’t you want to have it?
STEVENS: Live exports isn’t always smooth sailing, though, as we’ve seen in the last year.
PRIME MINISTER: Sure, but we’ll work with industry to achieve positive outcomes. It’s an important one for Australia and we think that the agricultural sector, today, we have an important announcement. Almost $520 million for drought resilience, basically from the Future Drought Fund, which in the past has been used to look at the impact after droughts occur. What we’re going to be doing is to be using that fund as well to build resilience to get ahead of events, which, of course, by spending a dollar today, you might save three, four or five dollars down the track by making sure that we work with farmers. We had a big National Drought Summit last year that was really successful. And Murray Watt’s doing a great job as Agriculture Minister, listening and then acting. And that’s what this money that’ll be included in next Tuesday’s Budget will do.
STEVENS: I think that’s a great idea. I mean, the fact is, as you said, it costs more, response costs more than preparation. And if we can start talking about, we know we’re going to suffer droughts, you know it’s going to happen. And we talk about that as we’ve got a year that we’ve seen a pretty good wet season in Central Queensland, but we need to prepare.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that’s right. One of the things that the science told us about climate change is that we’ve always had droughts, we’ve had floods, we’ve had cyclones here in Queensland more than most, it’s got to be said. But we know that they’re more frequent and they’re more intense. So, how do we prepare for that? So, we need to act on climate change, but we also need to mitigate risk. And whether it’s drought or floods, it’s the same principle, really. How do you get ahead of the events and what that will do is to lower the cost of responding to them and lower the impact as well. Droughts can have an absolutely devastating impact. And one of the things that I think people in the cities understand in Australia is that without our farmers, without our regions, the country wouldn’t function.
STEVENS: Absolutely. It’s good we’re getting that message out.
PRIME MINISTER: And it’s so important. And that’s part of the reason why I was absolutely determined to make sure that I was here this week, why I attended the awards. There’s AACo, who’s got an event at lunchtime today celebrating 200 years. That is an extraordinary. That’s generations of achievement. But the sense of pride, talking with the farmers last night, the sense of pride in what they do is just terrific to hear and I pay tribute to them. It’s a tough industry. People risk their own money and they put their blood and sweat into producing an outcome not just for themselves but for the nation.
STEVENS: I’m sure amongst that pride, though, they raised issues with you. They raised their concerns. Of course the Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, was here at Beef yesterday. As far as he’s concerned, one of the greatest things facing farmers is things like wind farms. How do you respond to that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, Peter Dutton’s got a complaint for everything and a solution for nothing. Farmers know that climate change is having an impact here in this country. I don’t see stalls here at Beef Week saying, demanding, a nuclear reactor. And under Peter Dutton’s plan, there has to be one or two or more here in Central Queensland. Where are they going to be? Who’s going to pay for them? He’s got to actually come up with a policy at some stage. He said months ago that that detail would be out in weeks. And he’s actually got to come up with an answer to these things, not just complaints and scare campaigns.
STEVENS: Can’t those nuclear power stations go on the grounds of current power stations? We’re not taking up any extra, extra room.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, who’s going to pay for them? Where are they going to be? He’s had different answers. He spoke about modular reactors that don’t exist anywhere in the Western World. There’s no one putting their hand up and saying they would finance these reactors. There’s no state or territory, government or leader. His own party all over the shop on this, the LNP here in Queensland, David Crisafulli is saying it’s not part of his plans. It’s certainly not part of Steven Miles’ plans. So, this is just more of what we had for a decade, which is coming up with complaints and arguments, not coming up with any solutions and investment. You’d recall when they were in government talking about the Collinsville new coal fired power plant that was going to happen. It didn’t happen. They spent millions of dollars giving it to the proponents and nothing happened. Not a single new coal fire power plant was built on their watch. And, you know, you can’t continue to just talk about things while the coal fired power plants we know are reaching the end of their life. So, you’ve got to talk about the transition and what replaces them, and you’ve got to get real about it.
STEVENS: But, Prime Minister, obviously it is a concern for farmers. They’re seeing some of the land around them taken up by the wind farms and solar farms. How do you ease their concerns?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, there needs to be proper community consultation for all of these measures.
STEVENS: What about when there isn’t? We hear about situations where there is a problem.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, there needs to be. That’s the point. And I’ve spoken with farmers who are concerned about it. I’ve also spoken to farmers who are saying, “you ripper, I’m getting a whole lot of income.” So, I’ve spoken to both. We need to make sure that we get it right and that’s important for the proponents as well. Those social licences are absolutely critical. But, you know, when you look at programs that I’ve looked at here in Queensland, I mean, Bob Katter’s no great Greenie, but I’ve been with Bob Katter looking at Kidston and what’s happening there with hydro and then battery storage, the Big Kennedy and Little Kennedy wind farms. He’s got plans for Hughenden and for that part of the world. We’ve got CopperString, in order to connect that renewable energy to the grid going ahead. You know, we need to have a practical, real solution to this and Peter Dutton doesn’t have one.
STEVENS: Prime Minister, will you do me a favour while you’re in Rocky, will you go for a drive down the Bruce Highway for me?
PRIME MINISTER: Mate, I’m not allowed to drive these days.
STEVENS: I’m sure one of your staff will take you.
PRIME MINISTER: I have drivers and I, of course, as you know, mate, I, including during the pandemic, I drove when I was allowed to drive from Barcaldine right through Emerald here to Rocky down the coast. I drove from Cairns to Brisbane. I drove another time from Townsville all the way to Brisbane as well.
STEVENS: I can tell you the roads are worse now than they’ve ever been.
PRIME MINISTER: I’ve been on every inch of the Bruce Highway and I know, when I was the Minister, here in Rocky, we did Yeppen Floodplain. That made an enormous difference.
STEVENS: It’s made a huge difference.
PRIME MINISTER: I did the study on Rocky Ring Road. Bugger all happened, is a technical term I think, for the time that they were in government. It’s now under construction, fully funded. Wasn’t funded by the former Government, put in bits of funding. You can’t build a road on a media release. What you need to do is build it with real money, with real jobs, training, real Australians, giving them the skills. I’ve been on site there with the Premier, Steven Miles, and it is underway and I’m fully aware of the Bruce. The Howard Government spent $1.3 billion in twelve years. When I was the Minister, we put in $7.6 billion over half that time with projects including the Yeppen Floodplain. But right up and down. Mackay Ring Road was started. Townsville Ring Road. The approaches to Cairns, the Calliope Crossroads south of here, that was a real bottleneck and a danger spot. All of that work undertaken. And then there was a bit of a hit pause button during the LNP Government years, including on Rocky Ring Road. So, I’m actually, I’m passionate about infrastructure.
STEVENS: Well, it is road safety week and, you know, we’re talking about these people who have come to Beef, have travelled here from all over Central Queensland and from beyond, but they’ve driven on these roads and they’ve seen these roads. They’re dangerous. Prime Minister, people are dying.
PRIME MINISTER: And we’re putting in additional money. You’ll see an increase in the Budget that we’ve done already in announcements. That’s why we got on with, I mean, Rocky Ring Road is a great example of something that, you know, wasn’t properly funded. And you can’t actually issue a contract, you know, if I come here for one of these stalls that are around Beef Week and I want to buy a new hat that costs $200, I can’t say to them, “oh, here’s $40, see you later.” It doesn’t happen. I don’t get the hat and you don’t get the road unless you got the money fully allocated. And that’s what we’ve done.
STEVENS: If you do get the time and I hope one of your staff are able to just drive, you only need to go about 20 minutes south of Rocky and you realise just how bad it is.
PRIME MINISTER: I’ve been down there. Indeed, when we announced the funding, the $6 million for Beef Week, we did it down there just a couple of years ago. So, you know, I’m aware of the pressures that are on. We’re doing what we can. We’re working with the Queensland Government, but I know there’s always more that you can do and I completely accept that. Road safety is absolutely critical and there’s no more important road here in Queensland, of course, than the Bruce Highway. But I’ve travelled each and every bit of it. There’s a pub south of here, Bororen Hotel, I reckon I’ve been to it more than anyone from the southern states in history. It’s a great place, serves a great steak as well.
STEVENS: G’day to Macca. Prime Minister, what else would you like to achieve at this time at Beef?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, we made the drought announcement. It’s an opportunity to just really engage with the industry, to show our support. One of the things that’s important as well is to project out to the rest of Australia how important this industry is and to get that recognition so that people, whether they’re sitting in a place in Marrickville or in the suburbs of Melbourne, or our capital cities or for that matter, sitting there in West End in Brisbane, that they know how important this industry is and they know that it’s a product of hard work.
STEVENS: Welcome to the Beef Capital.
PRIME MINISTER: Fantastic to be here, mate.
