JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY FIRST EDITION
MONDAY, 28 FEBRUARY 2022
SUBJECTS: Queensland flood emergency; World must stand as one in supporting the Ukrainian people and tightening the screws on Putin and Russia.
PETER STEFANOVIC, HOST: Live to Brisbane now and the Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Jim, good to see you. Thanks for your time, as always, this morning. Just about these rising waters first of all, how concerned are you about them today?
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Good morning, Pete. Here in Brisbane City, I think people are bracing themselves for the high tide around somewhere between seven and eight o'clock local time. Down my way in Logan City, we've had an incredibly difficult night. The rainfall was just unrelenting and so we're expecting an incredibly difficult day down there today. Something that looks a bit like 2017 levels of flooding, which were devastating in that part of South East Queensland. The rain is moving to the south towards our friends in Northern New South Wales, but the water is still up and there's a big clean-up ahead.
STEFANOVIC: I was going to ask you about that. In the past Brisbane, Northern New South Wales, those areas have been here many times before over the past 10 years in particular. Given what you know, what sort of extra help is going to be needed.
CHALMERS: So 2011 here was the big one, 2017 in Logan. But as you rightly point out, these kinds of horrible weather events are becoming more regular. What we know is you can already access the disaster payments. If you have been heavily-affected by the flooding, you can access $1,000 an adult and $400 per eligible child. You should look at the Services Australia website to see if you're eligible and then apply via myGov. So there's that assistance.
But we know, typically, the other forms of assistance between state and federal government, around rebuilding the local infrastructure, that will kick in at some point as well. We want all levels of government working together. This is going to be a difficult clean-up and a difficult rebuild in South East Queensland, so we want to see everybody working together and making sure that that assistance flows.
STEFANOVIC: I mean these sorts of things take weeks, months, sometimes even years to get over, and this might well be something similar to that.
CHALMERS: I think that's right. Even the last couple of days the rain has just been so unrelenting and people are just incredibly down about it because they've been through a lot the last couple of years, the world is increasingly uncertain, and now they've got this to deal with. I think our message for everyone affected by these floods should be that you're not on your own.
Every single time we’ve been through something like this there has been a flood of generosity and a flood of kindness, people coming from everywhere to do what they can so nobody's on their own. It will be a difficult few weeks ahead but if we work together, we can clean-up, rebuild, like we have before.
STEFANOVIC: Just on those international events that you talked about there, Jim. Do you agree with Josh Frydenberg that Russia should be kicked out of international forums, and that includes the G20?
CHALMERS: Clearly, we should be reconsidering Russian involvement in all the multinational institutions. That's not something that Australia can do unilaterally, it's a discussion that we need to be having with our friends and partners in the G20. Clearly, those are the sorts of things that should be we should be looking at.
We need to be tightening the screws on Vladimir Putin and the Russian economy, there needs to be consequences for this vile and unprovoked act of aggression. We see overnight that they're talking about having talks, which we welcome of course, but you can understand the Ukrainian scepticism about that, given the quite diabolical behaviour of Vladimir Putin the last little while.
STEFANOVIC: Now we're talking about the potential for nuclear war as well, Jim. Whether that's just a threat to keep the West at bay we don't know, but we had that announcement yesterday, on the weekend, about us sending lethal weapons - or money to buy lethal weapons. We're a bit dark on the figure though. Have you got any idea on how much that spend should be?
CHALMERS: I think that Australians would agree that we need to do what's necessary to support the Ukrainian effort, financially and with weapons. The Prime Minister made some comments along those lines yesterday, I think there is broad support for that.
The Ukrainians have shown the most remarkable courage against the odds in standing up to this unprovoked act of aggression and I think the world should speak as one in supporting them, their courage, and their efforts - whether that is support with weapons, whether that is support on the cybersecurity front, whether it is tightening the screws on the Russian economy - all of these things should be stepped-up if they can.
STEFANOVIC: Jim Chalmers, the Shadow Treasurer, live from Brisbane. Thank you, Jim. We'll talk to you soon.
ENDS
