Queensland tour; Australian music; Batting for Change
Prime Minister
RYAN FITZGERALD: Prime Minister Scott Morrison, welcome to the show.
MICHEAL WIPFLI: Welcome Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER: Hey guys, how you doing?
WIPPA: We’re very well mate.
PRIME MINISTER: We’re up here in Brisbane today.
FITZY: Oh, what are you doing up there, Scott?
PRIME MINISTER: We’re doing a big listening and doing tour up here in Queensland and eventually we’ll get up to Townsville. But Brisbane today, we’ll be on the Sunshine Coast for the Cup.
WIPPA: Was it Mick Fanning’s mum that gave you a hat, did I see that online?
PRIME MINISTER: It was, it was. Mick Fanning’s mum sent me a hat, a Ripcurl hat because she wanted me to be seen in an Australian surfwear hat and I went fair enough. Absolutely.
[Laughter]
WIPPA: I love that.
FITZY: You’ve got your own bus as well, Mr Morrison, which I see as well. Everyone is talking, do you sign your name as ScoMo, Scott?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah look, it’s not my official signature but I’ve been signing that way for some years now when people ask me to sign things. That’s what I do, but if you know I’m applying for a bank loan or something like that then I don’t do it.
[Laughter]
WIPPA: Have you always… I mean, people think that I got the name Wippa because I had to have a wacky radio name. But I’ve been called Wippa since grade two. When you were at school were you a ScoMo?
PRIME MINISTER: I was ScottyMo back then.
WIPPA: ScottyMo? The evolution.
[Laughter]
PRIME MINISTER: One of my best mates was a guy called Scotty Merriman and we were known as ScottyMe and Scotty Mo. But it was a journalist in Canberra many years ago who gave me that name and it sort of just stuck. You know, that’s how these things happen.
WIPPA: ScottyMe and Scotty Mo.
PRIME MINISTER: But we’ll take the bus up to Rockhampton and that’s as far as the bus will be going, because of time and all the rest of it. We want to get up to Townsville as well so that’s the quickest way, is to hop on the plane up to Townsville. So that’s what we’ve planned, it’s been good to be meeting people up here. It’s been a good week.
FITZY: Great, have you got your Spotify playlist on the bus while you have been travelling? We saw that the other day.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah no, I’ve got a whole heap of Spotify playlists. I’ve got that one which is all those old 80’s tunes from overseas but I’ve also got a very good Australian playlist and I’ve got a very special Tina Arena playlist.
WIPPA: Oh you would too, Tina’s classics.
PRIME MINISTER: I’ll share that with you.
FITZY: Have you met her yet, Scott?
PRIME MINISTER: I have, a few times now, yeah.
WIPPA: Oh yeah.
FITZY: Isn’t she amazing, Chains… what’s the show she’s doing at the moment?
SARAH MCGILVRAY: Oh Evita.
WIPPA: Oh, Don’t Cry for Me.
PRIME MINISTER: Jenny and I went and saw her at Evita and she was amazing. We saw her afterwards and she’s a superstar.
WIPPA: Yeah that’s great.
PRIME MINISTER: I’m like a gangly, you know, sixteen year old when I meet Tina.
FITZY: Yeah that’s right. Now Mr Morrison, we need to talk to you. We need to get really serious here, because I know you’re trying to solve a lot of problems at the moment and Australia do have a lot of problems. But one that we need to focus on is our great game of cricket and we’re not going too well at the moment, Prime Minister, are we?
PRIME MINISTER: Well my PM’s XI beat South Africa the other day.
WIPPA: I saw.
PRIME MINISTER: I was pretty happy with that. Maybe I’ll get a call out from the selectors to select the next team, who knows.
[Laughter]
FITZY: I’ve always wondered…
PRIME MINISTER: Bring back George Bailey.
WIPPA: Ready to go.
FITZY: But I’ve always wondered, it’s your XI. It’s your Prime Minister’s XI, do you get to choose a player, do you get to choose at least one player to go into that side?
PRIME MINISTER: Well yeah they send you their suggestions and all the sort of thing and you make a few back and Ben Dwarshuis, he was a player from Sutherland that I was keen to see play in the team. And just like when I picked the PM’s XIII that went up to play the Kumuls in PNG, we had quite a number of Sharks players who made that team, surprisingly.
[Laughter]
WIPPA: I don’t know how that happened.
PRIME MINISTER: I don’t know, just you know…
FITZY: I think we need to unite our cricketers, I think we need to get them together. We need to sort this out because we’ve got a big summer of cricket coming up. We’ve been talking about this for ages, Prime Minister, and we think probably the most iconic view in Australia is from your house, Kirribilli House. And we think, obviously the grassed area that overlooks the magnificent Sydney right there is a perfect place to play some backyard cricket. Has it ever been done before?
PRIME MINISTER: On the first of January each year the Prime Minister will host the visiting team, and this year I’ll be doing that with India on the first of January.
WIPPA: Ok.
PRIME MINISTER: And that’s happened in the past, but you boys would like to come around and throw the arm over?
FITZY: Oh look, you know what, there’s a great charity, Prime Minister, it’s called Batting for Change. And it looks after, you know, kids overseas and education of disadvantaged women playing in cricket-playing nations. We’ve been on board with this for a while but we thought this would be a great opportunity if we get some great Aussie cricketers together, some celebrities together. Prime Minister, if you’ve got some time we’d love to come and throw the arm over and play some cricket in your house.
PRIME MINISTER: Well how does Friday 23 November sound to you guys?
FITZY: What is that again?
PRIME MINISTER: We spoke about it last time and we can do that on the Friday.
WIPPA: Oh I’m busy.
[Laughter]
PRIME MINISTER: I don’t think the girls will be back from the West Indies by then, they’ve got their World Cup going on at the moment. They may be, I think Meg and the girls, I’m not sure if they’ll be back by then. But it’d be great to have some of the girls playing, the guys and some of the older players.
WIPPA: Love it, I love it.
PRIME MINISTER: I think it’d be terrific. And you know, one hand off the rock is out and in the water, definitely.
FITZY: Ok yeah, you set the rules. That is great, and you know what this’ll be the first time there will be a camera on you bowling as well, Prime Minister, so you’ve got to make sure that you’re hitting the stumps.
[Laughter]
WIPPA: Keep the tradition mate. Friday the 23rd.
PRIME MINISTER: I’m going to sleep well that night.
WIPPA: BYO ScoMo, is that alright? Roll in with a couple of eskys?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah mate that’d be fantastic, that would be absolutely the way to do it.
WIPPA: Oh I love this.
PRIME MINISTER: And I’ve heard a bit about this charity too. We play cricket with countries all around the world and some of them clearly are not as fortunate as we are and sport is a great way for people to sort of get involved and sort of get out of their day-to-day and this charity I understand is helping women in Sri Lanka and things like that and I think that’s tremendous. So mate, it’ll be great to have you guys around.
WIPPA: Lock it in.
FITZY: Brilliant, thank you very much. We know how busy you are, thank you for coming on the show and we’ll see you on Friday the 23rd of November, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER: No worries, Buddy the dog will be looking forward to it. You’ve just got to be careful, if he takes the ball you may not get it back for at least a few minutes.
WIPPA: Well of course.
FITZY: Well dogs are fielders, if it hits the dog you’re out. That’s the thing, that’s always been the rule.
[Laughter]
PRIME MINISTER: He’ll be in the slips. Good on you guys.
WIPPA: Thanks Scott.