HOST: Prime Minister, welcome.
PM: Hello.
HOST: What have you seen today?
PM: I've been out there talking to people in Coonabarabran and having a look around at the fire damage. I saw some incredible sights, is the best summary, Richard. I saw earth looking like it was moonscape. I saw the people at the observatory; some very brave people who looked after the observatory, made it out themselves but some of them have lost their homes. I had the opportunity to talk to people who are just digesting the shock of losing their homes.
But I also saw incredible community spirit, and that's what always blows you away in these circumstances. Including some young kids that I'd met when their school had brought to Canberra who are now taking a turn packing sandwiches and getting food ready for people who are fighting the fires.
HOST: Well of course it's not over yet is it? Still a bad day tomorrow - total fire ban around the state and the blaze is still going there.
PM: Absolutely, I addressed a community meeting. They're having community meetings in the middle of each day to give people the latest updates. And I said to them, look I wish I could just talk about all of this in the past tense. I really wish I could talk about the fire that was but the truth is there is still fire there and crews are working very, very hard to get a containment line around it, a hard line, to use their terminology, because they are expecting adverse weather conditions tomorrow. So that bad combination of hot so, wind up and very low humidity.
HOST: It's amazing no one's been killed, really.
PM: Look, it is miraculous and a tribute to the professionalism and dedication of everyone - the people who work in paid capacity and the many, many, many thousands of volunteers.
A fire that ferocious, and you can see all around you the signs of how ferocious a fire it was, not taking any life is an incredible result and even as we count the losses in terms of lost home and property and stock, we've got to remind ourselves it is fantastic we're able to say to each other no one lost their lives.
HOST: The animal situation is, I remember going down to cover the terrible fires in Victoria and when you look at the koalas where the paws had been singed so badly from the trees burn while they were on them, you sort of imagine the amount of wildlife, apart from the amount of livestock, that have been through just this terrible experience.
PM: Absolutely and for people who have seen so much damage to their properties to then to have to turn around and the first big task is to put down a lot of their animals, heartbreaking stuff, truly heartbreaking. And talking to the people who got through, just after the fire had been through, they talk about the kangaroos at the side of the road that weren't impaled on fences or anything; they were free to move but even going as fast as they could they couldn't out run it.
HOST: Which shows you the speed and intensity of this fire. You were able to announce some emergency measure today.
PM: Yes, I was. We had already put in place cooperative arrangements we have in place with the New South Wales state government under our natural disaster relief arrangements. So there was already in place some support through personal hardship money and support through concessional loans to primary producers and small businesses. But we have activated a Federal Government payment that's called the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Repayment, so it's $1000 for adults, $400 for kids, it's just upfront first instance money for people who have lost their homes, been evacuated, may not have too much left with them, may not be able to go and deal with banking and all the rest because they've lost all their personal papers.
So for the people who are actually in the fire area in recovery centres like the one at the bowling club I went to today, we've got our Centrelink staff in place. For everybody else and for anybody listening to you who thinks they may be eligible or want to check it out, they can ring 180 22 66 or get on the Human Services website or the Disaster Assist website.
HOST: So 180 22 66 is it?
PM: Yeah believe it or not, it is.
HOST: Yeah okay, slightly odd number.
PM: It is and every time I saw it I do the mental check, have I got that right. But it is surprisingly 180.
HOST: Okay for you a massive hooray for you, I'm sure from everybody for that assistance.
A more muted I suppose to your comments yesterday. You talked about cyber bullying on one side but then talked about Sydney violence and whether the Federal Government could do more to help that. That was described by some as a political stunt yesterday. Were you playing politics with what for Sydneysiders is really a terrible situation?
PM: I'm very serious about this and I think your words are right, it is a terrible situation. And terrible for people to feel that, there they are in their own homes getting about their business, going to work, looking after the kids this time of year with a view to getting them back to school as soon as school starts, and you don't feel safe in your community. I do, as Prime Minister, take that very seriously.
Now, I'm not in the business of the Federal Government trying to jump in the shoes of what state governments do, and as I said yesterday, I'm not going to get into argy-bargy with a state government for no apparent reason. I'm not here to run commentary on Premier O'Farrell and the policing approach that they take here in New South Wales or the work of very dedicated police officers. But I do want to see what there is that we may be able to do that can better assist.
HOST: The response by some here is if you want to help just stop all the guns coming in. It's the main thing the Federal sphere is in charge of is customs and that's been failing.
PM: We've more than doubled the number of illegal packages that are being seized at our borders so we're doing better than we have in the past in actually grabbing hold of packages that shouldn't get through. Whether they have got drugs in them or guns in them or gun components in them. So through an intelligence-led policing model we're actually doing a lot better at that but I want to see what else there is we can do.
HOST: Let me just as you quickly about the unemployment rate, 5.4 per cent today, figures out. Not good are they?
PM: Overall the performance of our economy continues to be a good one. If we look around the rest of the world, unlike the rest of the world, we've got relatively low unemployment. Of course, I'd always want to see unemployment going down and more jobs being created.
We did create jobs across last year and got around 140,000 more people into work. But there are pressures in our economy, as well as real strengths, the high Aussie dollar is putting a lot of pressure some businesses.
HOST: Some of your frontbenchers have put the blame on the Queensland Premier for dismissing civil servants.
PM: There's no doubt there have been big job cutbacks in Queensland and that does feed into the figures, as does other things in our economy. High Aussie dollar is as a result of the resources boom going well and the resources boom is a great thing. It's also a result of us increasingly being viewed as having a safe haven currency status.
HOST: The real problem is neither Queensland; well the currency is the real problem-
PM: You cannot dismiss that.
HOST: No, you cannot dismiss that, of course. But a lot of the problem seems to be this lack of confidence. That's got to be something the Government's got to take some responsibility for. Consumers don't want to spend and businesses don't want to employ, because they're scared about the future, uncertain about the future.
PM: I just think we've got to analyse why people are feeling uncertain and of course, we've got to play our role as the Government. Being out there explaining to people what's going on in the economy and I don't think people want to be talked down to about it. I think they want to understand it in all of its complexity.
The reality is, we've lived through the biggest economic shock you and I will ever see in our lifetimes. You're not old enough to remember the great depression and neither am I. But the biggest economic shock we'll see in our lifetimes that did cause uncertainty around the world. It's not surprising that it psychologically impacted on people here.
People are wondering what's going to happen next. There's this big contagion around the world. Whenever they go to check their superannuation accounts they've plummeted down. Then they start worrying what's my house worth. All of those things have been pressing on people even though in our real economy we have continued to create jobs and we've got an economy that's more than 10 per cent bigger than when the Government came to office and has continued to grow since the Global Financial Crisis.
Now we've got this differential picture because, you know, high Aussie dollar, it's got some upsides to it, a high Australian dollar, but it's got some big downsides too if you're working in a sector like manufacturing or tourism.
HOST: And it could all be worse because we could be living in Coonabarabran and going through what our friends there are going through. Prime Minister, thank you very much for your time.
PM: Thanks Richard.