2CC Breakfast with Mark Parton

Subjects: South-east Queensland floods.

Transcript, E&OE

19 January 2011

PARTON: Look, we've got Dr Craig Emerson on the line, who is of course the Federal Trade Minister. He's a Queenslander, and good morning Craig.

EMERSON: Good morning Parto.

PARTON: You've got some stories to share with us from the devastation in Brisbane. It just must be a surreal place to be at the moment.

EMERSON: Yes, but I wouldn't omit Ipswich and obviously the places where those terrible floodwaters rushed through and took so many lives. But we've spent our time in Ipswich, Parto, and the first couple of days were spent delivering mattresses to people who had been displaced out of aged care facilities.

And they had at that point been sleeping on little camping mattresses, pretty hard, you know, so we were delivering hospital-grade mattresses to them.

And then subsequently we went to a place called Moores Pocket Road, and this is a long stretch of houses where the backyards give onto one of the creeks or rivers and they've been completely inundated. It was just tragic to see all of their personal possessions outside, destroyed, on the nature strips.

It was our job, with others - including people in the Army - to gather all that up, the broken window frames and smashed washing machines and fridges, and load the lot onto skips and trucks to be taken away to the tip. So, I really felt so sorry for those people who, in many senses, just had their life's possessions sitting out there destroyed on the nature strip.

People call it a war zone, but it struck me as having a similar effect as a hurricane going through a place. Not only were their personal effects damaged by the water, but they were smashed in many cases.

PARTON: It's a long, arduous road - that road to recovery – toward getting things back to close to the way that they were. And, you know, there's a lot of hard work. It needs a lot of money. Where's all that money going to come from?

I mean obviously, everyone's talking this morning about Tony Abbott's call yesterday that, you know, maybe we should just rethink that NBN. I'm sure that you'll disagree with him.

EMERSON: I will, and Tony Abbott has set for some time himself and Malcolm Turnbull the mission of demolishing the NBN. This is way before any floods occurred.

So, Tony Abbott has this great desire to demolish the NBN. He's now using the floods as just the latest excuse for demolishing the NBN. We will build the National Broadband Network because it is a strong investment in Australia's future.

And I heard you talking about games before I came on air, but remember that this NBN will be very good for small businesses. It will be very good for assisting in medical care, so it has some incredibly serious and valuable uses, whether they be economic, health, or social, and we'll proceed with it.

PARTON: Craig, I understand your commitment to it, but my fear is that it's blind commitment; that, okay, if the disaster had been of greater magnitude there has to be a point at which you would say, let's say, if recovery was going to cost us, I don't know, $60 billion, there'd have to be a point there that we would have to re-examine. Where is that point?

EMERSON: Well, obviously, budgets are about choices, and I'd point out that this money doesn't come directly as an addition to the budget bottom line. But budgets are about choices and we will need to make some choices, to pick up your point. But the National Broadband Network is a long-term investment.

I think it's at least eight years in the rolling out. We will have the necessary investments in place to ensure the roads and the other parts of infrastructure are repaired in Queensland and in other parts of Australia.

But it's, therefore, not a choice between the National Broadband Network and recovery. There will be recovery. There will be a National Broadband Network. And I simply make the point again that, you know, next week Tony Abbott will have some other reason for the National Broadband Network not going ahead.

PARTON: It still looks like it's pretty...

EMERSON: There's at least been something consistent. He has consistently opposed the National Broadband Network.

PARTON: He just - what did he say yesterday? The one thing you can't do is redo your bathroom when your roof's just been blown off. You know, is this a luxury that we just can't really afford?

EMERSON: Well, it's not a luxury and this is, I think, one of the fundamental points. Tony Abbott would have us effectively in the Stone Age instead of the 21st century in respect of the superhighway which is called broadband.

Other countries compete with us, Parto, and they compete with us hard on international markets for goods and services. If we are not competitive in producing exports, in competing against imports, that itself will have a severe economic impact in the future.

Tony Abbott doesn't care about that. He actually cares about a political win in seeking to demolish the National Broadband Network. This is politically motivated.

PARTON: Okay.

EMERSON: I understand, Parto, that you have a view, and I respect the view. I disagree with it but at least your view is one that you feel personally. Now, in relation to Tony Abbott, he simply wants to have a political win to destroy the National Broadband Network. His stated goal is to demolish the National Broadband Network.

PARTON: Okay, the other thing that he suggested yesterday was that perhaps unspent funds under the Government stimulus package, and money devoted to initiatives such as the Cash for Clunkers election promise should be diverted to the flood recovery. Now is this just wonderful practicality or is it mindless simplistic populism?

EMERSON: Well, as I've indicated to you, budgets are about choices, and we are returning the budget to surplus. Therefore choices will be made.

PARTON: Well, I don't know after the events of the last week and a half.

EMERSON: We'll need to be...

PARTON: It's going to be hard.

EMERSON: We'll have a conversation when the budget is in surplus and then you'll say, 'well Emmo, I've got to give it to you, you said it was going to go back to surplus and it is'.

But it's not the time now for us, that is the Government, to be speculating or speaking about what may or may not happen. Choices will be made in this budget, the next budget and the one after that.

We are committed to the ongoing responsible economic management of a country whose economic growth has remained recession free for 20 years. And we will be the first major advanced country back into surplus of all of those countries.

We are the only major advanced country to avoid recession and we have the lowest net debt of all major advanced countries. That's responsible economic management.

PARTON: Thanks for your time again this morning and thanks for joining us regularly on this programme. I really appreciate it.

EMERSON: You're welcome, and it's a pleasure, Parto. Thanks mate.

PARTON: Federal Trade Minister Dr Craig Emerson.

END

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