Prime Minister
CHRIS SMITH: Scott Morrison on the line right now. Good morning to you, PM. This is all surreal, isn't it? Two fabulous legends in just 24 hours.
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, it's just numb, Chris, I mean, I woke up to the news this morning like other Australians, just shocked and stunned at this terrible loss of Shane Warne. And, as you say, coming on the back of Rod Marsh, who was one of my childhood cricket heroes. And we spoke about him in Western Australia yesterday on local radio there. It is just that it is just absolutely numbing. And then you just saying there is, you know, how it was announced on a plane. It's a bit like that as people looked at their phones this morning and then saw the news. I can only think of these kids and the terrible shock they must be feeling at only 52. I only saw him a few months ago at the Sydney Test and we had a good chat and he was in great form. He looked great and he was in his usual cheeky self and best, which was fun. And you know, his commentary over the summer, which was a great summer of cricket, was just outstanding. And to think we just won't be seeing him is just quite hard to get your head around and thinking of the Test players over in Pakistan at the moment. I sent a message to Pat this morning just sending my best and only sent him one the day before about Rod. And of course, they've had that terrible blast over there in Pakistan, so they're all safe. But it's a terrible time.
SMITH: Yeah. They've got some distractions to cope with. The blast, the loss of Rod Marsh, who a lot of the players had a lot of time for and spent a lot of time with. And so the same applies to Shane Warne. So many distractions at a very difficult time for them. I don't know what he voted, but how many times and I don't know how many times you met him, but I imagine he was respectful. Excuse me, to the members of Parliament too.
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, he was. He was. He had his cheeky side, too, but it was always respectful. That's the thing about Shane and that when he heard I was in at the Test and I heard he was there, we arranged it to catch up and he just gave me some encouragement. It was a tough time over the summer and he just encouraged me to keep going. I appreciated that very much. I'm not talking in a political context. I'm talking about a lot of things the country were dealing with with COVID and and everything, and he just encouraged me to keep pushing ahead, and that was very kind of him doing that. He also gave me some tips on my bowling action, which he's done live on Fox a little while ago, we had a bit of a joke about that and he was actually pretty kind I gotta say on that front. But there was a lot more work to be done.
SMITH: And the great thing about Shane Warne, he developed a new crowd that followed the cricket like families and women and children came back to the cricket after fast bowling had dominated the game for so long with, you know, the West Indies, etc. But all of a sudden we were able to work out exactly what spin bowling was and could see it with the help of technology.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, that's true. But I mean, you hung on every ball, every ball. Anything could happen. As Mike Gatting found out back in 1993. I'll never forget seeing that ball up late that night watching and and he just had no idea what happened. And after that, I mean, he's first one in an Ashes test and you take him all the way through to his 700th wicket in 2006 on Boxing Day. Everything in between was just, you hung on everything that he was doing. But I mean, his Test record is outstanding, but he's on one day internationals. I mean, he only captained not that many, actually, but he won most of them, and he was a good tactician and great, you know, in directing the team. So he was not just a great bowler to have on your side, he was a great cricketer to have on your side, and he was so enthused about the game. I mean, that series that Fox ran, I thought, was really honest and showed how honest Shane was. He knew he wasn't perfect, but he carried, as I said in my statement today, he carried his regrets in his achievements with equal weight. You know, he wasn't full of himself in that sense. He just understood the success and failure were both imposters, as others have said. And I think that helped him sort of try and keep a good balance on it.
SMITH: Yeah and there was nothing nasty about what happened to him off the field, like he got carried away with his own self-importance, maybe through a short period of time, which he's admitted. And yet there was nothing nasty, didn't hurt people along the way, and he was very, very hurt by the loss of his marriage as we know.
PRIME MINISTER: Of course. He was very human. I mean Shane was very human, and he wore his humanity on his sleeve and and and I think that was what we loved about him, actually. I mean, that's he was so charismatic and you know, you'd seen with the kids and and how many how many kids have been inspired by Shane Warne? I mean, and how many are playing now, literally now inspired by Shane Warne and and will be in generations to come, and we're very careful about comparing people to Don Bradman in this country, and rightly so. But, you know, if you were going to make a comparison, that's where you'd start. I mean, he was listed by Wisden as alongside the names of Bradman, Hobbs, Sobers and Vivian Richards as the 20th century cricketers of the century. I mean, these are people who completely changed the game, and that's why I mean, we've offered as has the state government of Victoria, a state funeral for Shane and I've been in touch with Cricket Australia this morning and with Lachlan to discuss that and a few other issues, but we'll work something up together with the Victorian Government. But of course, we want to respect the wishes of the Warne family as well.
SMITH: So it could happen maybe at the MCG?
PRIME MINISTER: I'll let those sort that sort those arrangements out. I just wanted to be clear that, you know, Shane was a national figure. Not just Victorian. And Victorians should love and celebrate him great. Of course they should. But I think we want to do that as a nation as well. And so we'd look forward to playing our role there as part of that and I have been in touch with the Premier this morning to that end, and I'm sure that will all work through very well and the nation will have the opportunity to warmly remember him.
SMITH: Our thoughts and wishes to also for those people whose houses are basically under water in so many places and we've got some ominous weather forecast for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in Sydney. Maybe the worst has not passed us.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, no. And the recovery effort continues. I mean, we've already committed $1 billion in financial aid and support, and that's together with the state and territory state governments in Queensland and New South Wales (sic). Just this morning, we've just confirmed that $558.5 million will be jointly funded by ourselves and the Queensland Government, and I know you're broadcasting in the Queensland and that includes a primary producer grants of up to $75,000, $50,000 for affected small businesses and not for profit organisations. There's $20,000 for sporting and community clubs who have been hit hard, including those cricket clubs across south east Queensland. Now that is similar and there's a million dollars for each of the councils affected. We announced the same thing for New South Wales a few days earlier. I've been in pretty regular contact with Dom Perottet, who's up there in the northern rivers at the moment, and we've got 5,000 ADF pre-positioned and to be tasked by the state government agencies to recovery efforts and support. They've already been involved in any number of rescues and and moving heavy equipment and being on the ground. There's hundreds and hundreds, about 650, I think in total that have already been deployed. And I know that there are many other places like up in Evans Head and areas like that which are still waiting for that support. We're coming, we're coming. I've been speaking to the Premier about that and in the tasking of those Defence Force people who are there and ready, we've had them ready. And so we've got rid of all the barriers in between which those in the New South Wales agencies can just directly task those Defence Force assets and people and forces to go in and guide their efforts. But it will be done in a planned way, and that's what they're doing.
SMITH: And how are you coping with COVID?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh mate, I have turned the corner. It's compared to what everyone else is going through, but it's of no consequence. It's just frustrating to be not being able to be up there. I would have liked to have been up there with the Premier and Bridget McKenzie, my Minister, who's up there as well as at the moment and to ensure things are going as they need to. And so that's really the pain. It's just the frustration that I'm here. But at another level, it enables me to deal with a lot of the things going on centrally because we've also got the very significant issues with Ukraine. And I was on a lot of calls on that over, particularly the last few nights. We had an important meeting with the President of the United States and Prime Ministers of Japan and India the other night. That was about 1 to 2:30am our time and that was very much about focusing on, well, yes, we're all doing particularly Australia, getting that both lethal and humanitarian support to Ukraine. But there are serious implications for all of this in the Indo-Pacific in our own region, and we need to send a strong message to autocrats that authoritarian regimes, that that sort of stuff is just not on and there will be heavy prices paid for that type of behaviour.
SMITH: One final one. The fact that we know that Russian troops are using nuclear reactors to test target practise and now have commandeered them. Takes the threat to the next level, doesn't it?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it's very distressing. I mean, we know that Putin is a thug, and this adds a whole new level of recklessness. And but I've got to say, Australia has always been of the view that this is not someone who's persuaded, even by the threats and the sanctions that we've imposed, the reason we're doing this is not because I think it's going to change Putin's mind. But the reason we're doing this is that any, any nation that violates another nation like this in such an aggressive and unprovoked way needs to pay a heavy price and they need to pay it financially. They need to pay it politically and diplomatically. And that is occurring. I mean, the ruble has crashed. The interest rates have gone through the roof. They now can't raise sovereign debt because we shut off their central bank. We've kicked them out of the SWIFT system. And that was one of the things that Australia led the charge on, together with the United Kingdom convincing the United States and the Europeans to follow through. I spoke to the German Chancellor the other night and really thanked him for what he's done on Nordstream and they've, you know, massively ramped up their future commitments to defence spending. And that's important because the world needs to wake up to these thugs and authoritarian regimes. They don't play by the same rules as us, and we can't pretend that they will respond in the same way that like-minded countries would that have, you know, decent democracies and strong liberal values.
SMITH: All right, I'll let you I'll let you get back to juggling all of those balls. Thank you so much for your time.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah. Anyway, Rest In Peace, Shane Warne. We loved you and and we look forward to honouring you in the appropriate way.
SMITH: Well said, Thank you for your time. Alright, Prime Minister Scott Morrison.