Prime Minister
MARK DARIN: Scott Morrison, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER: G’day, how are you going?
DARIN: Really well, really well. I’ll just explain, my normal co-host isn’t here, Caroline, she’s away. But I’ve got Tara Pitt who is a Eumundi mum and a runner up from Survivor from last year. She’s filling in.
PRIME MINISTER: Oh wow.
DARIN: Yeah yeah, are you a fan of Survivor?
PRIME MINISTER: I have watched it occasionally, I can’t say I’ve watched it often.
DARIN: It’s a lot like politics, there’s a fair bit of false promises, backstabbing, you know.
[Laughter]
PRIME MINISTER: That’s a bit harsh.
DARIN: The difference is you rose right to the top, whereas Tara only got runner up, that’s the difference. But you’re in town now, are you in Wamuran right now Prime Minister, is that right?
PRIME MINISTER: We’re heading up at the moment, yeah.
DARIN: Ok good, so you’ve got some good news today for our strawberry farmers. I believe there is an announcement for $350,000?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah we’re putting $350,000 in to support the industry with a whole range of things like how to investigate alternative tamper-proof packaging options, how they can better train supporting staff to manage some of the issues here, there’s some communications funding to support them to give supply chain assurance. So just a lot of practical things that the industry has identified they need some support to do to deal with this current, this current situation. And we’re trying to right the ship as quickly as we can for them and we’re working closely with them to achieve that.
DARIN: Yeah look, I mean we’ve got the campaign at the moment with chop them up and eat ‘em kind of idea, and I’m also reading too, we’ve been doing our best, we’ve got a big campaign here on the Sunshine Coast trying to eat as many strawberries as we can. Is there anything else the consumer can do?
PRIME MINISTER: Well I think it’s exactly just that, because the way that the industry works is that if you can keep picking them, then you can keep them viable and when you pick you’ve got to be able to sell them. And it really was that crash in demand, very quickly, that had that very severe impact for those farmers. And so the quicker we can get back to business as usual, the quicker the farmers can get back to business as usual, and I think there’s been a great reaction. I mean, there were all sorts of strawberry festivals going on last weekend up in Queensland, particularly around the Sunshine Coast and other places and I thought that was tremendous. But the same thing was happening down here in Sydney and over in Perth and everywhere across Western Australia. So I thought, you know, it was a really good national response and we want to see that continue. Now obviously the Queensland Police and the other agencies and authorities are dealing with the serious component of which idiot was responsible for this and we’re giving them every support to track them down. But at the same time, all the rest of us, we cut them up not cut them out.
DARIN: Now Prime Minister, while I’ve got you there, there’s something else that I kind of have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about and that is the rail duplication between Beerburrum to Nambour. Now Malcolm Turnbull did promise an amount of funding which the State Government has got into a haggle with now. Can you say that funding is still on the table, can you confirm that?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah absolutely it is. We have committed all of those funds which is 50 per cent of that project. That’s $390 million for the Beerburrum to Nambour rail upgrade. We’d like the State to meet us halfway. Our money is on the table and we’ll get on with things to the extent that we can but to do the whole show, we basically just need the Queensland Government to do their bit.
DARIN: Ok, alright that’s good to hear I mean it’s a step in the right direction. Not much sort of moving just yet, no new trains just yet but it is good to hear that you guys are still backing that funding, that is great news.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah and Ted O’Brien and Andrew Wallace and all those guys have been great in getting behind that and so the commitment is 100 per cent.
DARIN: That is good news. Now the other thing too, I’ve got to ask you before you go, big weekend in footy grand finals. I know you’re not the biggest AFL fan but can you tip… I kind of have to go for Collingwood, I’ve got a mad Collingwood friend and if I don’t go for them he threatens me so I don’t think you have that problem. Can you give us a tip for either code?
PRIME MINISTER: Well look I don’t follow the AFL closely but I enjoy going to the games when I do. I’m a rugby league fan as people know but in the AFL I hope to see West Coast get up. I think you know they’ve had a great season and I think that’d be great for the West too. So good luck to them. And in the NRL, well my team is out, the Sharkies are out, but I’ll be backing the Roosters this weekend and I hope they do well. I saw Boyd Cordner last night at the Dally M’s and wished him all the best but saw some of the Storm players as well. You know, Sharks and Storm have always had a pretty fierce rivalry and the Storm are a great rugby league team. I mean they play a very punishing game and they’ve been a real powerhouse in the comp for a long time. And look, Billy Slater’s last game, I think that’s going to be pretty special and you know, it could be Cam’s last game as well, who knows.
DARIN: Well look Prime Minister it was great to talk to you, thank you so much for coming out and supporting our strawberry farmers and mate, very happy to see you in town. Thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks mate, good to see you. Cheers.