TRANSCRIPT: TV INTERVIEW - SKY NEWS - 6 MAY, 2021

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS
THURSDAY, 6 MAY 2021

SUBJECTS: Sydney COVID case; quarantine; vaccine rollout; JobKeeper.

LAURA JAYES, HOST: Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke joins us live now. Tony Burke, thanks so much for your time. You're a Sydneysider. Have you looked at these exposure sites? Have you been to any of them?

TONY BURKE, SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: No, I checked them straight away. But it's a few years since I last bought a barbecue. A lot of the sites are Barbecues Galore. But no I haven't been to any of those sites. But I expect that list will grow. Given that there are so many exposure sites, it's hard to believe that we won't find other cases over the next few days. So the need to continue to be cautious is really important.

JAYES: How worried are you about a greater cluster in New South Wales?

BURKE: I think we have to be constantly concerned. And the thing is, you can't just now wait for when the sites come out and think, oh, does that mean I need to be careful? We need to continue to follow the health advice and to be careful. Hand hygiene, social distancing. There's a reason why when you get on a plane - and I got on a plane to come to Darwin, obviously - that everybody masks up. There's a whole lot of precautions we need to continue to take because what that means is when there is an outbreak, and from time to time there will be, it won't go as far if we've been careful and we've kept to the rules.

JAYES: You are in Darwin and so let me ask you about Howard Springs. The government seems to be eyeing this off as a facility in order to get Australians home from India. But there are workforce issues and capacity issues there. What is the solution?

BURKE: Well, the solution, unfortunately, was for the government to act right back when the expansion in the use of Howard Springs was first recommended. Quarantine has been a Commonwealth responsibility for more than 100 years. When the pandemic broke out you had the report that was given to them that made clear Howard Springs was one of the key sites –

JAYES: I’m going to pull you up on that because that's selective. I mean, Jane Halton has always supported a mix of state-run and facilities like Howard Springs. The hotel quarantine system has been 99.9% effective. So do you support this mix as put by Jane Halton?

BURKE: We've supported the recommendations that were made there and have been urging the government to act on them. But you know in terms of the mix, you can't talk about the mix without focusing very heavily on the part of it that the federal government didn't act on. Now, it's true, the states have come in and filled a whole lot of gaps on what for 100 years has been a Commonwealth responsibility. And that's been important. But as we get the new variants, as we see how this virus is mutating, it's becoming more important than ever to have facilities like Howard Springs expanding. Now the government has been really slow to act on this. We would be in a fundamentally different position right now, in terms of people returning from India, if these facilities had been expanded, and if the government hadn't wanted to just leave it to the states the way they did for so long. And let's not mix words. Part of the reason why Mr Morrison was quite happy for the states to take the federal responsibility was if anything went wrong, he could blame them. Well, we need a different approach. We need an approach of taking on responsibility. And to the specifics of your question, there is no doubt we are in a much weaker position as a nation right now because the government didn't make decisions on the expansion of purpose-built facilities months and months ago, when Jane Halton made the recommendations.

JAYES: But we’re also in this situation where Mark McGowan got a report back in February about what needed to change in his own hotel quarantine system because there was an outbreak then. Then two weeks ago there's another outbreak because he didn't act on the recommendations to change. So don't the premiers still need to take some responsibility of their own?

BURKE: The premiers of both sides of politics need to be constantly upgrading and looking at the recommendations that come back. I'm not arguing against that at all. But as you'd expect, I'm also a federal Member of Parliament and my job is to make sure that the federal government is held to account. And for something that is constitutionally a Commonwealth responsibility. I know the government keeps wanting to say it's a shared responsibility. It's in the same section of the Constitution as foreign affairs. Like that’s where this is. This is something that is clearly put in the hands of the Commonwealth. They've asked the states for help, the states have been helping. Yes, the states need to keep upgrading, there's no doubt about that. But Mr Morrison has completely dropped the ball on his part of the responsibility of this.

JAYES: Well, yeah, look the experts do say it's a shared responsibility. But let's move on because Dr Anthony Fauci –

BURKE: Well, no, no, no, but sorry. But Laura, that is a big point. It's only shared to the extent that foreign affairs is shared.

JAYES: No, because I mean, in the end states deliver service delivery, and it all comes down to pressure on the public health systems. So it needs to be shared responsibility. The federal government does not run the hospitals. There's a problem there if they took over completely.

BURKE: No, no, but they do run quarantine, they do run quarantine. It's a federal responsibility, quarantine. Certainly, if there's breaches of quarantine, all the outcomes, and all the problems fall squarely on the states. They're aware of that. And that's part of the reason why they've been so willing to come in and try to try to help with the load when the Commonwealth hasn't been doing it’s share.

JAYES: Okay. Let's look at Dr Anthony Fauci. The US is approaching herd immunity by the end of the year, which is extraordinary. We're talking about 150 million vaccine doses that have been administered in that country. The government here is saying probably no international travel for Australians for at least another year. Would you like to see some kind of firm timeline?

BURKE: I think everything has to be based on the health advice. And previously, when you've put questions to me on this program I’ve always held that line. And so I'm not going to attack the government on whether or not they should provide a firm commitment, if the reality is the health advice might change. So I get that. But there is no doubt the health advice will be informed by the pace of the vaccination rollout. Now, the vaccination rollout, we were told we were going to be in the order of 4 million by the end of March. We got to the end of March, we got to the end of April, we're now well into May. And I think the figure that you quoted just at the top of the interview, was something like 2.2 million. We are way behind on the vaccination rollout. And that will make a difference to the capacity for us to move around Australia, not only the capacity for us to be able to move overseas. So if the health advice turns out that by being vaccinated it does improve your mobility, and I suspect logically you'd have to think that that will be one of the outcomes, that'll be a great outcome. I'll welcome that. But the job to be done to help facilitate that is the vaccination rollout. And you just shake your head. Like remember, at the end of last year, we were all looking at the United States and thinking, you know, how could a country have fallen that far behind? Now in terms of vaccination they're just so far in front of us it's not funny.

JAYES: Yep, absolutely. Let me ask you one final question about the economy ahead of the budget. There’s been a rapid rebound in the jobs market. It was right to end JobKeeper when it was scheduled to wasn't it, last month? Do you concede that?

BURKE: No. The purpose of JobKeeper was to make sure that people kept a relationship with their employer if the only reason the business had taken a hit was because of government orders and government public health restrictions. Now, for many sections in the economy that no longer applies, I get that. But if you're in the tourist industry, or if for example, you're in something like the arts and entertainment industry, you have businesses that will end up being completely commercial again. And the only reason they are not commercially viable right now is because of government health orders. We want those businesses to be able to keep a relationship with their employers. And all the arguments that were there for a wage subsidy for those industries 12 months ago, are identical now.

JAYES: Okay, Tony Burke, we’ll speak to you after the budget next week. Thanks so much.

ENDS