CARLY:
Joining us right now on the show, it is the Prime Minister himself – Mal – as I like to call him – or Malcolm Turnbull. Good morning Mal.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Carly, great to be with you. Good morning Shad.
SHAD:
Yeah good morning. I’ve got to say, you haven’t been on the show before.
[Laughter]
PRIME MINISTER:
Really? What a dreadful omission, we’ll have to make it a regular appearance.
SHAD:
You’ve got to add us to the list you know.
CARLY:
Oh, I would love it!
SHAD:
You come to town, we didn’t get invited to the pub you know.
[Laughter]
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look we had a really good event last night with Warren Entsch. What an outstanding federal member he’s been; a great, passionate advocate for Cairns, for Far North Queensland, he deserves the strong support he has.
SHAD:
And he’s extremely tall!
PRIME MINISTER:
He is, that’s right so don’t argue with him.
SHAD:
Extremely tall man.
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s right, well his arm, he’d be even better at selfies than me with that arm.
[Laughter]
But you know, the big story today is the Reef.
CARLY:
Yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
And the $60 million we’re putting into reef research, into reef protection. We’re making that announcement later today in Cairns, with the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the CSIRO and the Chief Scientist. It’s a very big deal.
This is going to involve an additional $10.4 million for an all-out assault on the Crown of Thorns Starfish and it’s going to allow GBRMPA to increase the number of vessels targeting the starfish from three to eight. We’re putting a lot of money into research to look at how we can best make the Reef more resilient in the face of warming waters.
CARLY:
Can I just say Malcolm, good on you. Because last night I was watching David Attenborough’s beautiful series on the Great Barrier Reef and he does this amazing piece to camera at the end of it. He talks about how the Reef really is suffering at the moment and he basically puts it to us and says: “What is this generation going to do for the Reef?”
You’ve really stepped up here and it’s just absolutely amazing what you’ve done.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well thank you very much. It is –
SHAD:
Geez, sucking up to the Prime Minister.
[Laughter]
CARLY:
No, but it is! No, but good on you Malcolm, because you know after watching this series and seeing what is happening with the Reef and living on the Reef’s doorstep and you mentioned just there how important it is to people. It’s people’s livelihood and you know we don’t want to see that go.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well correct and that’s absolutely right Carly.
The other thing that’s important too is to emphasise that the Reef is alive, it’s resilient, there’s a lot of negativity out there which is bad at two levels. One, it undermines the whole confidence in supporting and helping the Reef and two, of course it doesn’t help those 64,000 jobs, many of which or most of which are in tourism and related industries.
So you know, we have in the Great Barrier Reef the best managed coral reef in the world. But it is under a lot of stress and we’re putting the best scientists and a lot of money behind our efforts to restore its health and keep it healthy.
CARLY:
Yeah, well at least we’re taking steps in the right direction which is a start and it’s a positive start. Thank you so much for joining us.
PRIME MINISTER:
Great to be with you.
CARLY:
Mal, can I can you Mal?
PRIME MINISTER:
You can call me whatever you like, Malcom, Mal, PM, Malcolm, anything you like.
CARLY:
[Laughter]
Thanks Malcolm.
PRIME MINISTER:
Okay thanks a lot, see you.
[ENDS]