TRANSCRIPT: TV INTERVIEW - SKY NEWS - 30 JULY 2021

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS WITH LAURA JAYES
FRIDAY, 30 JULY 2021

SUBJECTS: COVID in Western Sydney; troops; Campsie clinic.

LAURA JAYES, HOST: Tony Burke joins us. He's the Member for Watson in Sydney. Thanks so much for your time. The army will be on the streets in your electorate over the weekend, will that help?

TONY BURKE, SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: If this is going to happen we'll do what we can to help make it work. But can I say the consultation on this has been hopeless. Absolutely hopeless. None of the federal Members of Parliament were told this was coming. None of the state members were told this was coming. I've spoken to the mayor, the mayor wasn't consulted that this was happening. I’ve rung local GPs and local community leaders - no one was told this was happening. Everybody was told what we were all told yesterday, which was the offer had been made and it was being rejected. Now, there are reasons why you would question how smart this might be. And obviously during a lockdown period, there's a lot of people going through a whole lot of anxiety. And some of those people have fled from countries where the military would knock on the door. Now, to get this to work, it will require a whole lot of work from community leaders to make sure that it is understood and taken in the right way. And I've got to say it is just hopeless, that the government decides to announce this via a media strategy rather than a community communications pathway. There is a lot of work to be done. The police have done fantastic work for more than 15 years embedding themselves and building trust within the community. It's fantastic work that the police have done. We're now starting without that same relationship -

JAYES: Tony Burke, we’ll come back to you it’s a really important issue, let’s just hear from Jess Fox – I think we all need it.

…

JAYES: Tony Burke is still with us. You just said some of these people in your electorate have fled countries where the military would knock on the door. So compliance has been an issue over the last five weeks. It's not so much the rules, it's the compliance with them. In your experience, in your opinion, how are you going to change that in Western Sydney?

BURKE: I've been calling for a long time for there to be a decent public education campaign for the communities in my part of Sydney. And Labor MPs have been calling for that across the whole of Southwest and Western Sydney. What's been happening is Members of Parliament, like I did a Zoom call last night with the Chinese community, the night before I did one with Arabic community, and trying to get information out because the government is not running these campaigns. People are law-abiding, people want to follow the rules, but when you’re getting question after question of people not clear on what the rules are. So yes, compliance issues matter. But you need to make sure that you are communicating what the rules are. For many, like 75 per cent of people in my part of Sydney speak a language other than English at home. A whole lot of those people, most of them, will have different levels of English that they're very comfortable with. But it means that the language that will provide the most precision is often not English. And the failure of the government to communicate this is hopeless. And what the community then sees, is, every weekend, we see images of Bondi, where the virus started, where people apparently as far as images are concerned seem to be doing whatever they want, and then our part of Sydney gets told we've got the troops coming in, but we didn't bother to pick up the phone to tell you that any of this was happening until we told the newspapers. It's hopeless.

JAYES: Yep look, and we've also got a responsibility not to create this community divide. Look, you point out the difference to Bondi and that's fair enough. But I feel like I need to point out that you're in Canberra as well. I don't wish this to be a cheap shot. But there's so many politicians from Sydney, who are representative of these Sydney electorates, and they’re not there. They’ve escaped lockdown. Isn’t that also sending a different message that if you’re part of a privileged few you don’t have to follow the rules?

BURKE: I'm here because my work’s here. And you know that. I’m the Manager of Opposition Business, I can't move motions or take points of order unless I’m physically here. It’s my job. And I can work harder and represent the community here. But what the community, what I've been doing is constantly engaging with a community that the government has been ignoring. And the government's decided they don't need to pick up the phone to community leaders, they've decided that they'll just rush these announcements out because they think they'll look good, without doing anything for the people who are doing the work on the ground. If this is going to happen, then we will do what we can to make it work. We don't want to build hostility there. We'll do what we can to make it work. But for heaven's sake, the government has to become less arrogant and actually bother to work with the community. We want people to be safe. We just had a story overnight of a young man with an intellectual disability who is now in ICU and non-responsive. We are very much aware of the risks that are happening. But the government needs to work with the communities, not simply treat us as something that you make announcements about.

JAYES: Doctors, we hear, are charging for vaccine consults, and this is happening in your electorate. We're six months into this vaccine rollout. And this is still happening. How?

BURKE: I was furious about this. When we say doctors, it's one surgery in Campsie that’s done this, claiming to get the vaccine you have to get the consultation, and the consultation costs you $250. It's appalling. It's unacceptable. The other GPs in the local area are doing the right thing. And the message needs to go out loud and clear. And I've been pushing it out through the community: the message needs to be loud and clear that the vaccine is not something that you are charged for. We want people to get vaccinated, we want people to be safe. And with the outbreak going, and I'm very worried about Campsie at the moment because Campsie Centre, the main shopping centre there, has been listed for 11 consecutive days as an exposure site. So we potentially have a very serious problem there. And people need to get vaccinated and no one should be seeking to profit from that.

JAYES: What is your responsibility? And doesn't the message need to be loud and clear when it comes to AstraZeneca as well? I note that you've just pre-selected a Labor candidate who’s spoken about AstraZeneca in a way that would create vaccine hesitancy. What do you say about that?

BURKE: Well, you've got you've got someone who's a medical professional, who's given a medical opinion. What I will say is that I've taken the AstraZeneca vaccine, I've had my first dose and I’ll be getting my second dose before long. My doctor, Jamal Rifi, who has been on Sky News before, he was eligible for Pfizer but himself took AstraZeneca to build community confidence in the vaccine.

JAYES: Yep, indeed, and we’ve all got a role to play in that, even if you’re an influencer on Instagram or not. Look, I asked you about your role in Canberra at the moment. That's fair enough. You're the Manager of Opposition Business. Anthony Albanese also represents a Sydney electorate. I don't think he's been in Sydney for five weeks. I mean, again, I don't want to make a cheap shot here. But for the rest of us, you have to stay here. At what stage are politicians going to feel what the rest of us are feeling in Sydney. Some people have lost their livelihoods. Politicians haven’t lost one dollar of wages, and some get to escape lockdown. What does that say?

BURKE: And when was the last time the Prime Minister was in Sutherland Shire? If we want to run the cheap shots we can run them back and forth. The point is we've got people doing their jobs. The Prime Minister has an important national role to play. I'm offering that as a response not to make a shot at the Prime Minister but to just say, I think the argument’s not one that's got any currency. Anthony Albanese is the Member for Grayndler, he's also Australia's leader for the Labor Party and the Leader of the Opposition. He's got a national role. The question I think it is valid to ask everybody is: are they doing their job? That's what matters. Are they doing their jobs? Because at the moment we need everybody to be doing their job. My frustration with the Prime Minister isn't where he's been. It's that he hasn't been doing his job. He hasn't delivered on quarantine. He hasn't delivered on vaccines. And today we get an announcement where there's been no consultation or work done with the local community, other than every day up until yesterday we were being told it wasn't happening. If it's going to happen we need to make it work. Work with the community. Don't just treat people this way.

JAYES: Fair enough. Everyone needs to do their job. Jess Fox did her job overnight. So everyone be like Jess Fox.

BURKE: That’s a good call.

ENDS