SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE, HOST: For their take, we are joined by Labor MP, Joel Fitzgibbon, and National Party MP, Barnaby Joyce – morning to you gents. Barnaby, let’s start with you, you’re in government, we shouldn’t be surprised there is a poll in the middle of a bushfire crisis I suppose, what do you think, firstly, of a poll being run right now and, secondly, of Scomo slipping there?
BARNABY JOYCE, MEMBER FOR NEW ENGLAND: Well, I think there is part of taking your medicine. We understand clearly, the Prime Minister said himself, there’s parts he could of done better, and that’s it. If you don’t acknowledge your fault, you are making a mockery of the people who have concerns. We’ve got a Royal Commission, or it looks like we are going to have a Royal Commission, I hope that deals with anyway that we could have saved one of those 28 people who died, or the 2000 homes that have been lost, or basically the thousands and thousands of stock that we now have to destroy, and obviously 4.2 million square kilometres of a country that’s burnt out. That’s what we should be concentrating on. The poll is unsurprising but it will move on.
DAVID KOCH, HOST: Joel, is Anthony Albanese finally cutting through with voters or has Scott Morrison just tripped up?
JOEL FITZGIBBON, MEMBER FOR HUNTER: Well obviously, Kochie, it is a bit of both. The poll reflects the anger permeating right through our communities. The Prime Minister was dismissive of the early warnings, he was slow to act. Of course, he took that trip to Hawaii, his responses have been lacklustre and inadequate. But I think even worse, he’s been prone to blaming others and dismissing the concerns raised with him. He’s got to start taking responsibility, I mean people have lost their lives, families have lost loved ones, their houses, their property, people are losing their incomes, and we have a Prime Minister who arrogantly smirks and remains dismissive of many of these problems. Now, of course, he is playing catch-up with some of these announcements. For many people, it’s too little too late.
ARMYTAGE: Barnaby – well, hang on, yeah, respond to that first.
JOYCE: Well, look he didn’t arrogantly smirk. I know what Joel’s doing, but if you think you are going to ride this pony to the election, you’re going to be bitterly disappointed. We acknowledged there are issues we could have done better, and that’s the first thing we say to the Australian people and we will make sure that we endeavour to do that. And we will do the inquiries and spend the money as best we can to assist to those – I’ve seen them in my own areas, Torrington and Weetalabah – we’ve got to do the very best we can to assist these people. But, if we just turn this into a political fight and say yippee the Labor Party says we’ve got better polls for once in our lives and that’s their best outcome from the bushfires then that’s a very sad state of affairs.
ARMYTAGE: Barnaby, I thought it was really interesting the Prime Minister yesterday mentioned quite a lot the gap between the state and the feds on in handling a crisis like this. You know, when the Prime Minister eventually used his override powers to override the states to try to get things sorted, calling in the Defence Force, for example. Are going to see more of this? Is there a problem between state and federal governments in this country that the states don’t really know how to manage a crisis?
JOYCE: Well, Sam, what we are really trying to do is not state versus federal. It’s trying to make sure we are saving peoples’ lives, and then save their property, and after that save stock and after that just protect the environment. We’ve got to make sure whatever is required to do the job better, that we learn from this experience and we also on the back of previous experiences and say ok, how could we have saved that person’s life? What could we have done better to have saved that person’s life? What could we have done better to save that person’s house? What could we have done better to make sure that stock didn’t perish in the fire? Those are the sort of questions we need to ask first and if it requires a better coordination between the state and federal government, then that’s quite an obvious response. But I don’t think it’s we are going to be a bigger person on the fire ground than you, I think it’s a case of better coordination.
KOCH: And Joel, hopefully this Royal Commission is used as a catalyst for us to bring a bit of vision not only on climate change, national parks management, but also water management in this country, hopefully some good comes out of this Royal Commission following such a tragedy.
FITZGIBBON: Of course, we all hope so, Kochie, but what we need before then because a Royal Commission, as you know, could take up to two years, we need a national plan both for drought and bushfires and for a changing climate – a comprehensive strategic plan for the country. The Prime Minister talks about a recovery plan as if the situation we were in in rural Australia was just dandy before the bushfires. No, we were and still are in the midst of the worst drought in our history. We don’t just need a recovery plan; we need a rural reconstruction plan. Our industries are under threat in regional Australia. We’ve been hit with drought and bushfires; we have farmers still being taken off Farm Household Allowance in the middle of a drought and in the middle of this bushfire season. We need a strategic plan to anticipate what’s going to happen in the future and how we are going to respond to it comprehensively in the future. We don’t want next time the Prime Minister taking weeks to react and then reacting inadequately…
ARMYTAGE: Who’s being taken off drought assistance?
FITZGIBBON: … and we’ve got to build that resilience and adaptation, we’ve got to accommodate the changes happening in our community. Sorry Sam?
JOYCE: This is crazy, I mean we’ve been working with the drought – I’ve personally have. I’m down in Sydney today and that’s about the first time apart from one night at the Ocean View Hotel at Urunga that I’ve actually spent away from the farm. I’ve been feeding the stock, I understand the drought mate because I live with it every day. And to say that this is just a recent scenario, we’ve been working the drought policy, we are building the dams. I will have a huge input into what I believe needs to happen: more watering points, greater access, change in vegetation management laws so you can get access, these things that have been mentioned by the Prime Minister as recently as today. We have been working with the drought spending billions on the drought all the way through, and you talk about a plan. Hey mate, what’s your one?
FITZGIBBON: Barnaby, you’ve had plenty of opportunity as Deputy Prime Minister…
JOYCE: What is your one?
FITZGIBBON: …and Drought Envoy and of course didn’t even deliver a report. And the problems we are dealing with now are very much a result of your inaction of six years in Government.
KOCH: Hang on, Joel. Barnaby is quite right. Barnaby is quite right – what’s your plan?
FITZGIBBON: My plan, Kochie, as a member of the Opposition is to hold the Government to account…
JOYCE: Oh my Godfather. We will take that to the fire…
FITZGIBBON: … it’s in its third term. Yeah, a comprehensive droughts plan Kochie. I’ve spoken ad nauseam about what I believe this Government needs to do…
JOYCE: You’re incredible. I’m going to go out to the fire, talk to the blokes fighting and say their plan is they haven’t got a plan; their plan is they are going to keep us to account. That’s how they are going to put the fires out, how do you feel about that fellas?
FITZGIBBON: Barnaby, the Australia people are angry at you and your Government because you have failed to act over six years now and you’re wondering why you are being smashed in the polls.
JOYCE: Why don’t we get any person up, we can get any [inaudible] because you’ve got no plan.
ARMYTAGE: Can I make a suggestion that we take land management issues out of the hands of politicians because they are all just fighting with each other and nobody is willing to move. It’s silly, like these hazard reduction burns are set up fail, like the winds got to blowing from this direction on this day and the temperatures got to be this and if it’s not that then you can’t do it.
JOYCE: I agree with that Sam. We get confounded we can’t put in dams where we need to put in dams because of fishing regulations. We can’t knock over trees to get a fire break because of vegetation management regulations…[inaudible]
FITZGIBBON: Barnaby, you’re the government. You’ve been the government for almost seven years.
KOCH: Hang on, this is a classic example of maybe talking a [inaudible] out of the hands of politicians, you’re quite right. Alright gentlemen, thank you for that, have a good week.