E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
JONES:
Prime Minister, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Alan.
JONES:
You were in Glenorie yesterday. Just tell us your impressions of all of this.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well as always you are overwhelmed with admiration for the work the firefighters have done. There is a lot of tremendous community spirit. I was with the Fire Commissioner Mr Koperberg. He described the intensity of the fires that went through there as something that his men and women hadn’t experienced before. The problem Alan apparently is that everything is so damn dry as a result of this incredibly serious drought that we’ve had for so long, that he was saying that even front lawns which had been browned by the sun and the lack of water, when ignited were producing flames of 8, 9, 10 and 11 feet. Now that’s extraordinary when you think of what that means for just a humble front lawn.
JONES:
And it’s only the beginning of summer.
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s the problem. It’s now only the 9th of December and the great worry everybody has - he has, I have, the New South Wales Government has, and the people - the 50 odd people, families have lost their homes already and others who are worried they might be in the same situation - is that we have still have a long, hot summer in front of us. Now the great abiding comfort is that we have this magnificent force of volunteers and we do have a great community spirit. I mean you can’t beat communities for the way they all come together, and there were the CWA feeding everybody, there were the police, the emergency services, the full-time firemen, the rural fire service - they were all just working together and all pitching in to help.
JONES:
Do we need the Army to pitch in?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well at the moment no, because their skills are not in the area but they are there if they can provide additional assistance and of course they provide a lot of communications and other assistance in relation to the aircraft that are used to water bomb the fires and they are providing some feeding facilities in relation to the interstate firefighters. But if there is a supplementary role that they can play which they have the skills for, of course. But I’ve spoken on a regular basis to the New South Wales Premier and at present they’re not seeking any further assistance. If there were some further assistance that could appropriately be given, well it will.
JONES:
PM, 50 homes lost and of course every one of those represents a tragedy to the families, but you spoke to a woman yesterday, whom I hope we can say without really diminishing the tragedy faced by others, Mrs Lithgow lost her home and she was talking to you and weeping with you, when her own husband - a volunteer firefighter…
PRIME MINISTER:
He was fighting somewhere else.
JONES:
Quite.
PRIME MINISTER:
To help to save somebody else’s…
JONES:
Somebody’s else’s property. What can we do as a community for people like that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you can give them the sort of support she was getting from her own community yesterday. That’s the most important thing. Yesterday she was surrounded by friends, she was surrounded by people and she was most particularly comforted by her husband who was still in his firefighting gear, out there still ready to fight fires. Now they were still in the early stages of responding to such a loss but I understand they’re covered by insurance and there are also arrangements which we jointly have with the New South Wales Government to provide people with some other emergency assistance. There is an appeal which the New South Wales Government has opened and each of the Governments - New South Wales and the Commonwealth - have kicked that off with $1 million. The donations are tax deductible. So there are a lot of things people can do and what I always find in these situations Alan is that the public does rally very diligently. We are a very generous people…
JONES:
My word we are.
PRIME MINISTER:
… to our fellow Australians who need help and that is one of our admirable traits.
JONES:
Well we had a function on Saturday night for 1,800 people Prime Minister at the Entertainment Centre for the Bali victims - the [inaudible] Bali victims where your praises were being sung. They appreciated what you did by going over there. But I mean the amount of money we raised - I think in the vicinity of 300 or 400 thousand dollars.
PRIME MINISTER:
Incredible.
JONES:
Yes it is incredible, and wherever people see the need is legitimate, they keep on giving. Just one thing on this - last December, the cost to the State Government, the biggest cost to the State Government of the bushfires was $32 million spent on hiring 65 private helicopters, and then of course you’ve got these Erickson air crane helicopters and so on - should we have a standing army of two or three of these owned by the nation so that they can be called on whenever they are needed?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’m not an expert on that but I’ll have a stab at answering that question because we looked at the idea of buying some of the Elvises after the fires earlier this year, and the sums that were done indicated that it made more sense to lease them during the height of the fire season and that’s what we’ve done with the three helitankers - the three Elvises - and that it works out a more economical proposition. And in the case of those three helitankers, the Federal Government has paid half the leasing costs and we paid half the transportation costs, and the other half is being paid by the State Governments and also the operating costs.
JONES:
So the flip side of course of all of this is the drought. Is there something you can tell us about that?
PRIME MINISTER:
The drought is as severe as we have had in 100 years and I will later this morning with the Deputy Prime Minister announce a number of additional measures and major further areas of support. The first of those relates to a very significant simplification of the emergency circumstances procedures involving, because of the particular severity and extent of the drought, a different and more liberal measure in relation to rainfall. And this will mean that people will get interim assistance, which is the income support assistance, more readily and in a greater number of areas. We’re also going to…
JONES:
Just on that - on those Exceptional Circumstances - the last time we spoke, I indicated to you there were 10 applications either submitted or in process but only two had been fully approved. Have you been able to do anything to sort of quicken up…?
PRIME MINISTER:
My understanding is that most of the others have been at least a process through what is called the interim stage, or the prima facie stage, which means that those people would now be receiving income support or be entitled to income support. Now in addition to that we’re going to introduce some interest rate subsidies and additional loans of up to $100,000 available for two years to allow farmers to recover from the drought and also to buy fodder and other things for stock support. One of the problems that you have with a drought is keeping your stock alive. The other problem is being given some help to replant and otherwise recover when the drought ultimately breaks.
JONES:
And this is up to $100,000.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes. And new interest rate subsidies on new….if you’ve got an existing loan or a new loan up to a total loan amount of $100,000 and that subsidy will be available for two years. And then we’re also very importantly going to for the first time give the business support or interest rate subsidies now available to farmers in the EC areas, we’re going to give that to small businesses in those affected areas because I found when I went around different areas a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been getting this from John and from Warren Truss, that as well as the farmers there is also a very severe loss for small businesses and this will provide subject to criteria a level of dependence on farm acquisition and so forth, but it will provide a much needed assistance by way of interest rate subsidies over a period of two years for small businesses. On top of that we’re going to introduce a number of measures to help job seekers in drought affected areas and these will include establishing a farm course, that’s a work for the dole type program in drought affected areas to develop and carry out activities and have a skill retention. And drought litigation aspects, we’re going to allow job seekers in drought affected areas to access job seeker training as soon as they become unemployed, and we’re going to allow employees in drought affected areas facing imminent retrenchment, access to job matching services. Now the purpose of all of this is during the inevitable economic downturn caused by the drought, the purpose of this is to help hold the workforce made redundant by the drought because the farmers can’t afford to employ them to hold them in the relevant areas so that when things do come back there are workers available to be employed in the more economically sustainable times.
JONES:
If I could just ask you a question on that, as you know, and we all know, the drought didn’t happen yesterday so many of these people have been really on the bare, the backside for some time. When we talk subsidies it does require a paying component by the particularly applicant. Many of these people now are facing no income stream whatever so a subsidy is most probably something they can’t take advantage of. They’re cash strapped and can’t pay their own component and that’s why I was just wondering if you have given consideration to the kind of things you do with university students where you do say to them well go and get educated now and we will pay the bill but somewhere down the track when your income stream allows it you will pay the money back, so that the farmer does actually have access to cash. Many of these proposals are subsidies for transport, for stock and so on and they can’t take advantage of the subsidy because they can’t meet their own component.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they can still get the subsidy, I mean you’re still having entitlements. We did look at different ways and we took advice from different farm groups. There’s always a range of views and we felt on the basis of that advice that this was the most effective way of providing assistance.
JONES:
Okay. Can I just leave that there for one minute. I just wanted to canvass this one thing with you if I could Prime Minister, back to the bushfires. The electorate next to yours is Bradfield and I’m sorry this does sound confusing and it’s a question without notice. But you would be aware that there are awful problems up north Turramurra way about developers sticking in high rise high density buildings namely for elderly people from which in a bushfire there is no escape and in particular Bobbin Head Road which from one end of it just is all bush and at the other end the Pacific Highway but in a bushfire crisis you’d have to get all these people through and all the experts say that wouldn’t be possible. So it’s a potential fire trap. Now you gave or the Commonwealth gave in 1997 a lump of land there to the RAAF Veterans’ Association but it’s right in the middle of a bushfire-prone spot on the northwestern tip of this peninsular and the locals refer to this area as the barbecue or the crematorium and yet there’s to be a four-story building built there within 50 metres of the national park. So I’m wondering whether you could give consideration of taking back the land now that we now this is a fire hazard, perhaps compensating the contracted developer for his land clearing service expenses, and then find a new block of land for the veterans’ housing elsewhere? I mean would you take it on notice? This is a fire trap and we’re building in a firetrap for veterans.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I will take it on notice.
JONES:
Brendan Nelson I’m sure is aware of it. But this has become now a major issue in the area because there is argument that suggests that because old people and elderly people and sick people, nursing homes and all those sorts of outfits have been put there, and in tight spot, the like of which we’ve experienced in the last month, you know, it’ll be a wholesale catastrophe and yet here we are continuing to build in the area.
PRIME MINISTER:
Alan I shall investigate it. I don’t have the answer.
JONES:
No I know you don’t.
PRIME MINISTER:
And I will find it out and let you and others know.
JONES:
Thanks, appreciate that PM. Anything else in relation to the drought situation we should know?
PRIME MINISTER:
There are a few more details to it but there being settled at the moment and we will be making an announcement probably around about eleven o’clock this morning.
JONES:
Okay. Thanks PM.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[Ends]