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Speaker 1: Now, we still don't know exactly what date the federal

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Speaker 1: election is going to be happening, but the.

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Speaker 2: Idea is that it's May, sometime in May.

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Speaker 1: And joining us in the studio right now is Senator

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Speaker 1: Murray Watt, who is a Labor Senator and also the

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Speaker 1: opposition spokesperson for Northern Australia.

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Speaker 2: Good morning to you, Murray.

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Speaker 3: Good a Katie. Good to finally be with you in person.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, good to see you in the studio.

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Speaker 1: I understand actually that you are out in Maningrida, where

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Speaker 1: my mother lives, on the weekend making some announcements about

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Speaker 1: cyclone shelters.

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Speaker 3: I was.

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Speaker 4: I was able yesterday to join Marion scrim Draw, our

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Speaker 4: candidate for Lingiari, and Melanderie McCarthy, the local senator, out

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Speaker 4: in Manningrida yesterday and we had the good fortune to

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Speaker 4: start with Stumble Across, the woman who taught you everything

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Speaker 4: you know. So it was great to meet Leslie and

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Speaker 4: her team at the health center who are doing a

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Speaker 4: terrific job.

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Speaker 1: The woman who can speak more than me, which I

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Speaker 1: know a lot of people are listening will be wondering

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Speaker 1: if that's possible.

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Speaker 4: He's doing a terrific job out there and really important

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Speaker 4: health services.

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Speaker 1: Well, and she did actually point out and I know

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Speaker 1: that others in Man and Greta have also and in

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Speaker 1: millingimby the fact that they do need these cyclone shelters.

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Speaker 1: We know that they are areas locations that do certainly

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Speaker 1: have to deal with weather events, major weather events. So

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Speaker 1: tell me a little bit more about this announcement today.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I was really pleased to join Marion and

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Speaker 4: MALANDERI to make this announcement yesterday. You don't need me

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Speaker 4: to tell you that the Northern Territory is extremely cyclone prone,

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Speaker 4: and especially some of those coastal remote communities like Manangrita

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Speaker 4: and milling Gimby. It's not that long ago that we

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Speaker 4: saw Cyclone Lamb come through Milling Gimbi, and a bit

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Speaker 4: before that Cyclone Moniker which really wreaked tavoc in Man

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Speaker 4: and Grita as well. And what we all know from

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Speaker 4: the scientists is that we're going to be facing these

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Speaker 4: kind of intense weather events even more often in the future.

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Speaker 4: And unfortunately, these remote communities, even though some of them

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Speaker 4: have got several thousand people living there, don't really have

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Speaker 4: proper cyclone shelters to look after people and protect them

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Speaker 4: when these cyclones come through.

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Speaker 3: Both of those.

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Speaker 4: Communities have only very small cyclone shelters at the moment,

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Speaker 4: and having spent the time driving around me with people

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Speaker 4: in man and Greedy yesterday, a lot of the homes

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Speaker 4: there are not cyclone proof. The newer ones are, but

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Speaker 4: the older ones aren't, and that leaves people really vulnerable.

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Speaker 4: So what we've said is that if Albo and Labor

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Speaker 4: are elected in May, then we will basically chip in

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Speaker 4: fifty percent of the funding towards building cyclone shelters in

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Speaker 4: both of those communities, with the Northern Territory government picking

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Speaker 4: up the rest.

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Speaker 1: And we know that these are communities Mane and Greeda,

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Speaker 1: for example, it's got more than three thousand residents. We

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Speaker 1: know billion Gimbi's got fifteen hundred people who reside there.

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Speaker 1: So they are significant communities where they do need to

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Speaker 1: have cyclone shelters should there.

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Speaker 2: Be an extreme weather event.

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Speaker 1: But we also see at different times as well, with

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Speaker 1: some of those weather events, people then travel to the

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Speaker 1: likes of Darwin and they are here for quite some

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Speaker 1: time in some situations, and if there's not somewhere where

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Speaker 1: they can shelter safely throughout those weather events.

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Speaker 2: Well, you can understand why.

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Speaker 3: No, that's right.

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Speaker 4: It's one of the things I think that's a bit

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Speaker 4: unique about the Northern territory is that people in these

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Speaker 4: stressful sort of times do gravitate towards the big centers,

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Speaker 4: both here in Darwin and I've spent the last couple

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Speaker 4: of days in our springs before Man and Greta, and

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Speaker 4: there's similar issues there where people drift towards the big

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Speaker 4: urban centers when they're in times of trouble, and from

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Speaker 4: time to time that.

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Speaker 3: Can cause some social problems in the big centers.

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Speaker 4: So if we can actually provide the kind of facilities

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Speaker 4: that people need to have a decent standard of living

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Speaker 4: in some of those outlying communities, it obviously helps those communities,

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Speaker 4: but it also takes some of the pressure off our

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Speaker 4: bigger centers like Darwin Analys as well.

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Speaker 1: Now, I know, I think that an announcement like this

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Speaker 1: is a good one. I know that there has been

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Speaker 1: some discussion nationally at the moment that Labor is making

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Speaker 1: a lot of very localized promises in the lead up

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Speaker 1: to the federal election and the opposite well, the Liberal Party,

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Speaker 1: I should say then calling on labor to really to

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Speaker 1: outline how they're going to fund all of these smaller

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Speaker 1: promises that are being made locally.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. No, it's a good question, Katie.

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Speaker 4: And what we will be using to fund these cyclone

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Speaker 4: shelters is basically a completely fail fund that we've seen

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Speaker 4: from the Morrison government. I think you and I have

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Speaker 4: talked previously about the NAIFE, which is another big fund

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Speaker 4: that they've announced that hasn't really delivered much on the ground.

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Speaker 4: But the one we're talking about here is the Emergency

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Speaker 4: Response Fund that the Morrison government set.

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Speaker 3: Up about three years ago.

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Speaker 4: At the time, it had four billion dollars in it,

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Speaker 4: and it was set up to spend a couple of

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Speaker 4: hundred million dollars a year on disaster recovery and mitigation,

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Speaker 4: so things like cyclone shelters, flood levees, things like that.

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Speaker 3: But we're now here three years on.

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Speaker 4: It hasn't spent a scent on disaster recovery, hasn't even

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Speaker 4: started building a single disaster mitigation project, let alone completed one,

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Speaker 4: and all it has done is earn the government over

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Speaker 4: eight hundred million dollars in interest sitting there being invested.

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Speaker 4: So what we've said is that if we're elected, we'll

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Speaker 4: revamp that fund, put it to work to protect people

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Speaker 4: in the Northern Territory and elsewhere, and basically set up

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Speaker 4: a permanent, dedicated disaster ready fund which would spend up

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Speaker 4: to two hundred million a year just on disaster mitigation,

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Speaker 4: so to be available for cyclone shelters, flood levees, bushfirevac

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Speaker 4: uation centers, so that we can keep people safe and

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Speaker 4: keep their properties right.

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Speaker 1: So you would be looking at changing it so that

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Speaker 1: it is looking more so at that mitigation rather than

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Speaker 1: the response after whether events occurred.

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Speaker 4: Exactly when we made this announcement in January, we were

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Speaker 4: very clear that we would continue to fund disaster recovery,

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Speaker 4: so the sort of payments that people get in infrastructure repairs,

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Speaker 4: and we would do that off the general budget, which

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Speaker 4: is what the government do now anyway. But rather than

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Speaker 4: having this fund sitting there doing nothing but earning interest

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Speaker 4: for the government, let's use it to build some of

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Speaker 4: these things that can keep people safe in the future

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Speaker 4: and reduce the burden on taxpayers in terms of the repairs.

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Speaker 4: As a country, people have looked at this and we

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Speaker 4: spend ninety seven percent of all of our disaster management

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Speaker 4: funding after the fact repairing things, and only three percent

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Speaker 4: in investing upfront to try to protect people and reduce

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Speaker 4: the costs. So we think by having more of a

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Speaker 4: focus on disaster mitigation, that'll be good for people, but

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Speaker 4: it'll also be good for taxpayers.

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Speaker 2: Muri.

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Speaker 1: One of the other things I'm very keen to ask

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Speaker 1: you about this morning is the price of pick especially

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Speaker 1: as the Shadow Minister for Northern Australia, I think that

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Speaker 1: this is something that's hitting people that live in Northern

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Speaker 1: Australia are very hard. I know those petrol prices are

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Speaker 1: up right around the nation. Nobody's disputing that today in

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Speaker 1: the likes of Darwin, so in actual Darwin, not in

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Speaker 1: any of our remote areas.

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Speaker 2: You know, the cheapest that.

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Speaker 1: You're going to find your diesel today is at two

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Speaker 1: dollars eighteen. The most you're going to find it is

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Speaker 1: two dollars twenty nine. You go out more regional and

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Speaker 1: more remote and those prices only go up. We were

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Speaker 1: talking to business owners a little bit earlier this morning

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Speaker 1: who were talking about the impact that those freight costs

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Speaker 1: are having. Right now, this discussion about the fuel excise

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Speaker 1: band cut, it's happening right around the nation. Would Labor

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Speaker 1: support that fuel excise band cut.

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Speaker 4: What we've said is that we're waiting to see what

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Speaker 4: the government puts forward in its budget this year. We

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Speaker 4: absolutely recognize the pain that this is causing people and

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Speaker 4: their family budgets, and I think you're right. When you

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Speaker 4: get into regional areas and remote areas like here in

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Speaker 4: the Northern Territory, there's an even greater burden on people's

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Speaker 4: because fa start as the prices are higher, and also

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Speaker 4: people tend to drive longer distances, so they consume more

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Speaker 4: petrol and diesel, so there's definitely having an impact. We

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Speaker 4: have not yet made that commitment ourselves, but we're going

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Speaker 4: to wait and see what comes in the budget. But

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Speaker 4: what we have done already is make some commitments about

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Speaker 4: cost of living in general. So for instance, we've got

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Speaker 4: a plan out there about reducing the cost of childcare,

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Speaker 4: which is again a really big impact on people's family budgets.

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Speaker 4: By our Powering Australia plan is about reducing the cost

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Speaker 4: of electricity bills, again a major cost on family budgets,

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Speaker 4: and the work that we had done around that says

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Speaker 4: that with investment from government in renewaballs, we think that

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Speaker 4: we can save on average a household about two hundred

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Speaker 4: and seventy five dollars a year on their electricity budgets.

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Speaker 4: And then the other part of the equation, of course,

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Speaker 4: is what people are getting paid. You know, I think

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Speaker 4: that's the fundamental problem I have people have at the moment,

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Speaker 4: is that their wages aren't going up, but everything else is.

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Speaker 4: Everything else is going up apart from their wages. And

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Speaker 4: what we've said is that if we can be making

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Speaker 4: people's work more secure, the more confidence about hanging onto

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Speaker 4: their job, that will have an effect on people's wages.

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Speaker 4: Trying to crack down on some of the roughts around

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Speaker 4: casualization where people are actually permanent workers but are deemed

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Speaker 4: to be casuals. So if we can actually get people's

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Speaker 4: wages up, that allows them to cope with some of

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Speaker 4: these increased costs as well as reducing costs in childcare,

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Speaker 4: energy and other things.

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Speaker 2: And look, something like that.

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Speaker 1: Is obviously going to be a good thing for those workers.

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Speaker 1: But what about some of these businesses as well, who

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Speaker 1: are struggling to operate right now with these freight costs?

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Speaker 1: Is it could we have a situation here where we

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Speaker 1: even look at doing something a little bit different for

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Speaker 1: regional Australia.

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Speaker 4: I think we definitely do need to have special programs

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Speaker 4: and assistance in place for regional Australia because the costs

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Speaker 4: that people do facing daily life do tend to be

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Speaker 4: higher in regional Australia, whether it be your groceries because

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Speaker 4: you are paying increased freight charges as well as your

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Speaker 4: petrol just to get around town or go camping on

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Speaker 4: the weekend.

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Speaker 3: So, as I say, we want.

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Speaker 4: To make sure that the heading into this election that

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Speaker 4: we are being responsible with the budget. We I had

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Speaker 4: a lot of criticism last time for spending too much

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Speaker 4: and putting up lots of taxes and things like that,

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Speaker 4: and we're deliberately this time being responsible with the budget.

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Speaker 4: So we're going to have a good look at what

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Speaker 4: the government put forward. But I can assure people we

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Speaker 4: do really feel the pain at the moment.

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Speaker 1: Well Murray what, Senator Murray what? Also of course the

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Speaker 1: Shadow Minister for Northern Australia. We really appreciate your time

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Speaker 1: this morning and no doubt we'll talk to you again

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Speaker 1: very soon.

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Speaker 3: Look forward to a caddie.

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Speaker 2: Thank you