GARETH PARKER: Who I’m pleased to say we’ve been able to make this work with, obviously some pretty busy scheduling issues, but he is the Prime Minister of Australia. Scott Morrison, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Gareth and caught Marsh, bowled Lillee. That’s, I gotta say one of the most enduring memories of Australian cricket. It’s a sad day. He was a childhood hero of mine that led me to actually try and be a wicketkeeper in primary school. Wasn’t very good at it, but everyone wanted to be Rod Marsh. Everyone, you know, you put on the fake mo, all that sort of thing. He was part of the one of the most exciting periods in Australian cricket, world cricket, and he was at the centre of it. He was, he was just larger than life, and he committed his life to the whole game after that, you know, raising up great West Australian greats like Justin Langer, you know, and you know, how good a job has Justin Langer done for Australian cricket? Yeah, it’s sad. It’s really sad.
PARKER: And everyone’s thoughts this morning with Ros and his three boys as well. Just, you know, a really sad day. And we feared the worst after that heart attack in Queensland last week. And now here we are. But there will be
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah and sorry to bang on about it, but I’m sure, I mean, I think one of the most enduring memories most Australians would have apart from all of those amazing catches and his, you know, his antics and his charisma and his great cricket was 1981 and where he stood up when it came to the, one of the most infamous incidents in Australian cricket. You know, he said, don’t do it, mate. Don’t do it, mate. Of course, I’m talking about the underarm. And you know, that said a lot about him as a sportsman and what cricket was about and without going into the ins and outs of all of that, because plenty of people have done that. But you know, he’s a guy who always stood up for what he believed in and about the game. And I hope we’ve got so many more like him. I reckon we do.
PARKER: I think you’re absolutely right about that. Prime Minister, an important call last night, which we’ll come to in a moment.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah.
PARKER: But, how are you feeling? We can hear that your voice is not it’s normal, well, it’s not the normal Scott Morrison voice we used to hear, you do sound a little bit under the weather.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, a bit, but certainly better than the last couple of days. So, so I appreciate all the very kind wishes I’ve had from everybody from right across the country, including from Mark McGowan. It was really nice to get a lovely message from Mark and about the family, so I appreciate that. But we are. We’re getting through it. There’s, there’s so much on obviously the situation in Ukraine, but over here on the east coast, I heard the weather report just when I was waiting to come on, very different weather reports we’re getting over here on this side and it’s been a very, very dangerous and distressing situation here. I appreciate all the kind messages we’ve had from the West about what’s happening over here. Of course, Western Australia is no stranger to natural disasters. In April last year, I was up there in Kalbarri when Seroja went through and you know, Australians had such a hard time with these disasters over recent years. And then of course, there’s the pandemic.
PARKER: Just on the natural disasters story. Are you agreeing with the IPCC report that says that we should come to expect more of these because of climate change?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, this is what the Bureau of Meteorology is telling us. This is what all of these things tell us. And so, you know, there’s obviously a lot of change that’s occurring, and that’s why we’ve got the policies that we have. But we’ve also got to deal with the practical issues of the here and now, and these impacts will continue. And so the resilience that we need to build up right across the country and that’s why we established the National Recovery and Resilience Agency, which we set up. It was built on what we did with the North Queensland flood response. You might remember that back in 2018, wiped out about half of the cattle herd up there. And so we built up a lot of experience now in how we can better prepare for these events. I mean, Kalbarri was interesting because it was devastating to the community, but it was a place where cyclones normally didn’t go that far south and hit. And as a result, the place was not built to withstand a cyclone of that force. So, you know, these are the lessons that we have to adapt to and climate resilience is, is, you know, something that has to become part of our everyday planning and preparations and certainly is from the federal government’s point of view.
PARKER: We’re seven days of fighting into this outrageous Russian invasion into Ukraine. Last night, you held a conversation with the leaders of Japan, India and the United States. What did you tell them?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what I said was obviously we’re outraged by what’s occurred in Ukraine and the invasion of Ukraine and outlined the clear steps that Australia had taken because Russia must pay a heavy and lasting price for what it’s doing, now, I’m not one of those who thinks that President Putin is one who is dissuaded from his murderous acts here. He will continue to press and do what he’s going to do, but that should not stop the rest of the world from further pressing in and tightening the vise, that’s incredibly important because Russia has, through President Putin has self-nominated as a pariah state. You know, we can line them up with, with North Korea and others. And they should be treated accordingly. And they are they are being they are paying a high price. I mean, their ruble has fallen, their interest rates have risen. Their central bank has been cut off. They’ve been, their institutions taken off the SWIFT payment system. This is having a very damaging impact on their economy and I think the targeted sanctions against individuals which ourselves, the United States, United Kingdom, so many others have been doing is having an impact on the oligarchs and the whole support system to President Putin. Now this all sends a very clear message to anyone else, any other autocratic regime, and we know about a few of those in our own region. And it should be a clear message to not take the wrong lesson out of this. If you seek to violate the international order, rules based order and the principles that underpin it, there will be a heavy transactional cost in reputation and in economic terms and and potentially even militarily, as you know, the world has also been providing support to Ukraine, including Australia, in providing missiles and other lethal support for Ukraine’s defensive efforts.
PARKER: So are you talking about, Prime Minister, China and Taiwan there? Are you warning China that they should just hit pause if they’ve got any plans at all to do anything territorial about Taiwan?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I wouldn’t conflate the issues of Taiwan and Ukraine. I think they’re very different issues. I mean, Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and there’s a clear red line when it comes to if Russia was to cross over into a NATO country, I think they’d know exactly what happens. So I wouldn’t equate Ukraine with Taiwan. There’s also, I think, a very clear understanding of what the implications would be if China were to seek to realise its ambitions for Taiwan. But it’s important for us to understand that autocratic regimes don’t play by the same rules as liberal democracies and those who support an international order based on the rule of law. And I think there should be a lesson out of this, but I wasn’t one of those who thought President Putin was, was just playing for time or seeking to gain some leverage. He’d been planning this for a long time. It’s been revealed that he discussed that with President Xi, and that is of deep concern when you get an alignment, an instinctive alignment between countries like that. And as I said, we’ve got to call that out and I have called it out. I mean, China has eased trade restrictions on Russia for wheat. So has Pakistan, by the way, so at a time when they’re invading another country, China has, has sought to ease trade restrictions and fire them an economic lifeline. And this is a key point I was making last night. I mean, the Quad is about the Indo-Pacific. It’s not about Europe, and we’re very focused on regional security, economic development, humanitarian support, COVID, et cetera, in our region. But we need to take the right lessons out of what is occurring Ukraine. And one is that autocrats will pursue their agendas and won’t always play by the same rules as the rest of us, and we need to be prepared.
PARKER: So just on that and you know, Peter Dutton was right about this earlier in the week when he said that President Xi seems to be one of the only people Vladimir Putin listens to. Did you tell the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that you’d like to see more from him because India have been almost sitting on the sidelines of this, they’ve abstained from key votes at the UN security Council or at the UN.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I certainly wouldn’t put them in the same category as China, not not even remotely. I mean, India has been in direct armed conflict with China.
PARKER: Of course, but just in terms of their reluctance to condemn Vladimir Putin.
PRIME MINISTER: And look and look, I think we’ve got to work patiently with our, with our partners who work for the same objectives as we do in the Indo-Pacific, and that’s what we’ll do. So I don’t draw an equivalence between India and China whatsoever. And I do know from the discussions that we had last night that India is seeking to ensure that this violence ends. They have, they have some very real concerns right now. And some of the listeners who may, you know, family back in India will know that there’s quite a, I think, 16,000 Indian students that are in the Ukraine who we’re trying to get out of there and get to safety. So they have a lot of issues that they’re managing, so we’ll work closely with them. But of course, we want to see the world not throw Russia a lifeline, and India certainly are not doing that. I mean, they’re not easing their trade restrictions on, on Russia, but China is. And you know, I’m not saying that to be provocative or anything like that. I just think we have to call these things out. I’ve got, I’ve got form on doing that. I’ve been criticised for doing it before. I did it on COVID. I’ve done it on a range of issues and you know, we can’t pretend that these things aren’t going on, and Australia has a very clear, clear eyed view about what’s going on in our region. And I think what’s happened in Ukraine, hopefully will lead to a greater realisation about what autocrats are capable of.
PARKER: Just very quickly, Prime Minister, are you happy to see Australia one again with the WA border coming down?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, I’m thrilled. I’m absolutely thrilled. And the moving scenes of families reunited and people reunited over such a long way. My first response is to say thank you, Western Australia for your patience, your endurance. You had a very different experience of COVID to the rest of the country and you’ve had a great deal of success. You know, we’ve been pleased as a federal government to be there to support you. $14 billion in direct economic support, to JobKeeper cash flow boost payments, veterans care and other income support and $455 million directly to support WA’s health response. And we still will continue to provide 50 per cent of the COVID health response. And that includes everything from testing centres, obviously paying for all the vaccines. But even the administration of the vaccines, there’s mental health support, so that’s all continuing. Western Australia has been, you know, has been very much foremost in our mind along with all the other rest of the country. So thanks for pushing through. Looking forward to the hospital system holding up in Western Australia, there’s been plenty of time to make sure that’s the case. Plenty of resource to support it and supporting Premier McGowan as he manages and gets that balance right. But also, I know he’ll be taking the lessons from the east coast, which he had a, you know, a courtside seat for to see what was occurring there. Omicron is different to Delta and so the, this, what you use to manage Omicron is very different. I can say that from personal experience having now having Omicron and so managing that is, I think is getting the balance right is, is the key and he’s best placed to make that judgement.
PARKER: Prime Minister, get well soon, and I’m sure we’ll see you here in the West very soon.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I look forward to that. And and again, our sincere condolences to all of Rod Marsh’s family and to all Western Australians, he was a great Western Australian, he was a great Aussie. Thank you very much.
PARKER: Good on you, PM. Prime Minister Scott Morrison on 6PR Breakfast.
