JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
TODAY SHOW
TUESDAY, 10 AUGUST 2021
SUBJECTS: Morrison Government’s Vaccine Failures; Moderna Vaccine Approved; NSW Government Lockdown Accountability; Testing Centre Frustrations; Taylor Walker Apology.
ALLISON LANGDON, HOST: Thanks for joining us this morning. New South Wales is on a collision course with the rest of the country as premier Gladys Berejiklian prioritises freedoms for vaccinated residents over the elimination of COVID. It's a plan which could see residents stopped from travelling interstate. For more, we're joined by Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers in Canberra, and in Victoria 3AW's Dee Dee Dunleavy. Nice to talk to both of you this morning. Jim, let's talk about Gladys. Freedoms come before zero case. Is she right?
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: I think we've got to get the cases down obviously, it's been devastating for the whole country to watch these New South Wales cases in their hundreds. I think this is a reminder that the sorts of things that Premier Berejiklian is contemplating, this is a reminder that decisions taken in any part of Australia have consequences for other parts of Australia. But it all comes back, in one way or another, to getting the vaccine rollout right and building that purpose-built quarantine. Until or unless we can do that, and those are federal government responsibilities, then we'll continue to have this kind of patchwork quilt of different arrangements in different parts of Australia, and all the damage that that does to the national economy.
LANGDON: Dee Dee, every other State is focused on eliminating COVID. If New South Wales goes this alone you've got Premiers, including yours Dan Andrews, I mean he's not going to think twice about shutting the border will he and for who knows for how long?
DEE DEE DUNLEAVY, 3AW: I don't think we're ever going to get rid of COVID, I mean look at Victoria last week. On Wednesday everyone was celebrating donut day, zero cases, and then Thursday night we're back in lockdown again. And I think this is going to keep happening. So I think zero cases is not achievable. What we can do is get the vaccination rates up and then deal with any outbreaks as they come up like spot fires I think.
LANGDON: But at what point do you think that Dan Andrews is going to open the border to New South Wales, if New South Wales doesn't get down to zero cases of community infections?
DUNLEAVY: I don't know, we're a little bit gun-shy. I mean we had the case of the removalists who came down from New South Wales and sparked an outbreak before this most recent one. Victorians have worked very hard to get ourselves to the point where we're able to have a donut day, a zero day, last Wednesday. I think there's going to be a lot of reluctance from Victorians, I think they're going to back the border closure until New South Wales has got itself under control.
LANGDON: And Jim, it really jams the Prime Minister too doesn't it. I mean he set this target for what vaccination rates need to be to open up the whole country but you have a lot of State Premiers who aren't on board with that?
CHALMERS: I think most people are working this Prime Minister out. When he talks about vaccine targets and all the rest of it, they know it's the same fella who said that this wasn't a race. And if anything, there hasn't been anything said in this whole COVID experience that's been less true than that. This is a race. Nobody in New South Wales in intensive care has had two jabs and that really brings it home I think to Australians how important vaccinations are and how costly the Prime Minister's bungling of that vaccine rollout is – causing these lockdowns, all of this economic carnage, all of this social dislocation. So I think all roads lead to the Prime Minister's failures in this regard, whether it's vaccines or purpose-built quarantine, inability to get on top of some of these sorts of issues means that we will have these lockdowns for longer and I think people are realising that.
LANGDON: It is a race and good news yesterday seeing the Moderna has been approved. So it feels, Jim, like we're getting the vaccination program back on track.
CHALMERS: Well, let's talk about Moderna. I mean, most countries had Moderna if not last year then certainly the early months of this year. These Moderna vaccines for Australia were announced in May, we're now approaching the middle of August. I think the Prime Minister sees this as a political race rather than a public health race. That's why we see all this kind of faux urgency now from the Prime Minister. The rest of us have known for a long time now that this all hinges on vaccine rollout. He was slow off the mark, said it wasn't a race, made all kinds of excuses, but Australians are paying the price for those failures now. We're seeing that in New South Wales, we've seen it in other parts of the country at different times. Until we get on top of that, until the Prime Minister fixes the mess that he's made with this vaccine rollout, then more people will suffer for longer.
LANGDON: But let's just look at New South Wales. It's facing its biggest challenge of this pandemic right. And at a time like this we'd expect our state's Chief Health Officer and the Health Minister to be flat out dealing with the crisis. Today though, these two key people are going to giving evidence to a State parliamentary inquiry into whether the lockdown was called too late. Now I get these questions have to be asked, but Dee Dee, I mean seriously right now? I don't know about you but I would much rather they focused on the job ahead of us rather than what they did or didn't get wrong. Is this the politics of blame taking over once again?
DUNLEAVY: Ally I agree with you to a certain extent, it does seem like a distraction for them to face a parliamentary inquiry today, while they're dealing with the outbreak that they are. But I think the questions have to be asked. And what I hear from people on my radio show each day is it's the lack of information, it's the confusion, why are we in lockdown, it's the lack of explanation as to why decisions are being made. And those are the questions that will be put to those two people today at the inquiry.
LANGDON: I have no issue with those questions being asked Dee Dee, but when you look at the numbers and how high they are in New South Wales, don't you want those two critical people looking ahead rather than behind? Right now?
DUNLEAVY: I think this is part of it. I think this is part of dealing with the numbers and the reasons that those decisions are being made, that perhaps they can improve the decisions that they're making and get the outbreak under control, perhaps quicker than they have done.
LANGDON: All right Jim, your thoughts on that one?
CHALMERS: I think everybody needs to be accountable for the decisions that they've made. That's possible without getting in the way of managing the lockdowns and the pandemic itself. And I agree with Dee Dee's point, if we don't learn from the mistakes that have been made to date then we don't give ourselves the opportunity to get it right into the future.
LANGDON: Alright, I stand corrected then!
(LAUGHTER)
LANGDON: No, I'm standing by it! I think how many days has the Chief Health Officer now taken out to prepare herself to front this inquiry that could have been spent dealing on the outbreak right now is the point that I make.
KARL STEFANOVIC, HOST: You're wrong!
LANGDON: But Karl also agrees with you too, so there you go, that means I am right.
(LAUGHTER)
LANGDON: Now. If you needed evidence on how COVID is making tempers run high, I just want you to take a look at this. So this is Cairns. This is a bloke who's not happy that another car has jumped the queue.
STEFANOVIC: Stressed out, isn't he?
LANGDON: There's a bit going on, isn't there? Jim, I mean it's a sign of the times isn't it? People are frustrated. People are angry.
CHALMERS: I think people are frustrated. As Karl will tell you, us Queenslanders don't like people pushing in.
(LAUGHTER)
CHALMERS: But there's no excuse for that kind of behaviour. We need to calm the farm. Everybody needs to look out for each other and look after each other. It's a frustrating time for everyone. Let's try and make sure that we can be patient, do the right thing by each other. We don't like to see those kind of scenes.
LANGDON Calm the farm! Maybe meditation's the answer here Dee Dee. We all need it.
DUNLEAVY: Well, I just think with the testing, there is a point to be made there in that people have been reluctant to come forward and get testing because we've had situations here in Victoria where people have waited five, six hours in queues. I don't know how you do that without taking a toilet break or whatever you need to do while you're waiting in that queue. And that's made people reluctant to come forward and get tested. And that's got to have contributed to the number of cases that we've had in the community, people who just haven't had that amount of time to take off work to go and sit in the queue. So we need to do the testing better.
LANGDON: Just something else I want to finish on today because I thought this was a really gut-wrenching moment. You had Adelaide Crows star Taylor Walker apologising face-to-face to North Adelaide's Robbie Young over using a racial slur. Just take a look.
“Rob expressed his feelings to me, to sit next to me today. I'm so thankful that you're here mate, sitting next to me.”
LANGDON: I mean, how big of Robbie there to say I'll come and sit beside you as you make this apology. Jim, I thought this was an extraordinary, powerful moment. What did you make of it?
CHALMERS: Yeah, I thought the same, Ally. Robbie Young, the extraordinary generosity and courage to sit next to Taylor Walker as he made that apology. I thought that was incredibly powerful, incredibly moving, that kind of generosity that Robbie Young showed. And what Taylor Walker talked about, about the work that he has to do, I think that reflects the work that we need to do as a country, together. Footballers have been putting up with this rubbish for too long, First Nations footballers. But more broadly, we've all got work to do. And the fact that Robbie Young was prepared to sit with Taylor Walker as he made that video, I think speaks volumes not just about Robbie Young but about the commitment that we need to show each other as we take this journey together.
LANGDON: And it's nice to see the AFL taking this seriously. He's copped a six match ban and a $20,000 fine. Dee Dee, what did you make of it?
DUNLEAVY: I also want to give credit to Taylor Walker, who's made a terrible mistake, but his apology is so sincere. And heartfelt. And is a good example to anyone who makes one of those apologies, where they say 'if I've offended someone', he obviously genuinely got what he had done. It was so sincere, as you said it was heartbreaking. And he's going to live with this for the rest of his life, so we've got to remember that as well. At some point we need to forgive him for his mistake as well.
LANGDON: Yeah and I think he'll be a better person for all of this. Jim and Dee Dee good to talk to you both this morning. Have a good week.
CHALMERS: Have a great day, Ally.
ENDS
