Transcript - Press Conference - Patrick Gorman and Josh Wilson at Clean Up Australia Day

Speaking with Shadow Assistant Minister for the Environment Josh Wilson and State Member for Maylands Lisa Baker MLA.

DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
PERTH
SUNDAY, 1 MARCH 2020

SUBJECTS: Waste crisis; Coronavirus; road rorts. 

PATRICK GORMAN: I'm Patrick Gorman, the Federal Labor Member for Perth. We are here at Bardon Park in the heart of the Perth electorate with Lisa Baker, Member for Maylands, and Josh Wilson, Labor member for Fremantle and Shadow Assistant Minister for the Environment. Us and about 20 volunteers have been cleaning up this park this morning for the 30th Clean Up Australia. It's a great practical thing that volunteers can do to contribute to their community and also to preserve these beautiful areas that we all love so much.It is volunteers, but it’s volunteers who are giving up their time and given it's the day that we celebrate the wonderful band AC/DC, I should say it’s dirty deeds done dirt cheap.

It’s been good fun to be here today. I want to say thank you to all the volunteers across Western Australia who have been participating in Clean Up Australia Day and I’ll pass over to Josh Wilson to say a little bit more about Labor's position in terms of making sure we have a proper recycling industry here in Australia.

JOSH WILSON: Thanks Patrick. It's great to be here at Bardon Park with two really active local members in Patrick Gorman and Lisa Baker. We've been joined by more than a dozen volunteers getting active in cleaning up this environment which is obviously right on the Swan foreshore. It's the 30th anniversary of Clean Up Australia Day, a great initiative for getting local people active in looking after their environment and raising awareness about waste more broadly. It comes at a time when Australia faces a waste crisis and there are two aspects of that. Globally we know that more and more plastic is going into the marine environment, eight million tonnes a year, and that is set to increase. Estimates suggest that by 2050 there could be as much plastic by weight in the ocean as there is fish.

We need to address that, it is causing harm to the marine environment and ultimately it will cause harm to us. Here in Australia the waste crisis is being generated by the fact that other countries are no longer prepared to take Australia's recyclables. We only recycle about 10 per cent of plastic and the majority of that has gone overseas. That will no longer be the case. So there’s a big challenge for us to step up to address the poverty of recycling infrastructure in this country. 

And that's a challenge for the government. They have talked big game about the waste crisis. The Prime Minister’s been on the world stage saying that marine plastic is a more pressing issue than climate change and Australia will be a world leader. We haven't got much to show for that so far.  It’s the state's that are stepping up and the vacuum is at that national level.

We’ve seen no commitment in terms of Commonwealth procurement, the Product Stewardship Review is 18 months late, and there's no direct funding. The Recycling Investment Fund that the government did announce, $100 million turns out to really just to be repackaged existing funds.

This week's national Plastics Summit in Canberra is an opportunity for people to come together and talk about waste, which is not a bad thing. But we need more than talk.  We can't just talk rubbish, we need to make change. And if the government doesn't get its skates on, we going to see more stockpiling of plastic, which of course is a fire risk, we're going to see more plastic going into landfill, and potentially into our oceans.

JOURNALIST: How concerning is it that we've seen another case of what appears to be pork-barrelling in the Liberal Party, this time with the roads?

JOSH WILSON: Well it just goes to the whole act of this government, they’re fakers and excuse-makers all the way. It's clear now in relation to multiple different programs they have used taxpayers’ money to feather their own nests, taxpayers money to try to cling on power and then, having done that, they won't take responsibility for what was clearly rorting on a nuclear scale. The Prime Minister is taking Australians for idiots, he’s essentially treating people like fools when he stands up and says all of these projects were eligible, when he stands up and says there was nothing wrong with these projects. There clearly was and nobody is buying that kind of fakery from the Prime Minister.

JOURNALIST: Does the government have a long way to go to earn back trust after a lack of transparency [inaudible] sports rorts?

JOSH WILSON: Well, clearly. We know that there there's not a lot of faith in politics at the moment and that’s made worse when you've got a government that is essentially using taxpayers’ money as their own private brown paper bag of political influence. That's essentially what we’re seeing: corrupted process after corrupted process and [inaudible] I mean a week doesn’t pass [inaudible] This program has essentially allowed the government to suit itself, to suit its own political interests using taxpayers’ money.

JOURNALIST: On Coronavirus, we’ve been hearing reports of the first death in WA, that of a 78 year old man this morning. Is it out of control? What’s your reaction to this news?

JOSH WILSON: Well it's a tragedy. Of course all of us would think about the person involved and their family. I don't think it's the kind of circumstance which should lead to panic or extraordinary alarm. We know that Coronavirus can lead to death and it has, particularly with people who have pre-existing conditions or who are elderly, but it just shows how serious this is and how we need to keep being very watchful and making sure that the proper public health preparations are in place.

JOURNALIST: Are you confident in the Health Minister and the Chief Health Officer’s advice and the steps the government is taking to protect Australians from the possible spread of Corona virus?

JOSH WILSON: Labor will continue to take a constructive approach.  We’ll support the government in taking the measures that they're putting in place on the basis of expert health advice. I think that’s the responsible thing to do.

JOURNALIST: Patrick, do you have any comments on what we’re hearing this morning [inaudible] from Sir Charles Gairdner?

PATRICK GORMAN: Sir Charles Gairdner is obviously a hospital that servicesmany of people the Perth electorate, my grandmother worked there for many years. It's a great hospital and I'm sure the medical staff have done everything they can. One of the things it's important that we see with the ongoing spread of the coronavirus is to recognise that we have a fabulous set of health professionals, from orderlies, from nurses to doctors and other medical professionals who are working their guts out to keep Australian’s safe. I’d firstly say thank you to all of them for all the work they're doing. When it comes to how we respond to this news, firstly of course condolences to the family. It is a horrible way for someone’s life to end when they were supposed to be going on a trip of a life time, seeing the world, but the best advice is the advice we do get from the health professionals, the chief medical officer and I think Chris Bowen, Labor have said very clearly we will do whatever is necessary to work with the government to make sure we have a full and coordinated approach. This is a changing situation, we can’t assume that the information we had on Thursday is still the advice when we’re here on Sunday. We need constant, ongoing updates, transparency with the Australian people and I think everyone should listen very carefully to the advice they get.

JOURNALIST: I’ve personally seen some empty shelves sold out of hand wash and antiseptic wipes. What would your message be to [inaudible] is it time to panic buy?

PATRICK GORMAN: All the professionals are saying don’t panic buy, that is definitely not the way we will [inaudible] as a community get through this. Of course we need to make sure the supplies are there for those who need them most, supplies are there for medical professionals, supplies are there for places where hand sanitizer and things are used on a regular basis. When I go to my son’s day-care, I have to sanitize my hands. If panic buying starts to take those things away from the places that need them most that’s when we’re going to make things worse. So there is no interest in panic buying but I encourage everyone, don’t go out panic buying today get down to the Highway to Hell instead, have a good time. All the advice is you can still go to the football, have a good time, go see a band, or if you like go see 20 of them rolling down Canning Highway all the way to Josh’s electorate.

I might just say while we’re talking about roads, obviously what we’ve heard today and over the last few days about yet another rort, now we’ve got road rorts, we’ve got sports rorts. This is really starting to tick the Australian people off.

They expect that politicians make decisions in the national interest and when they're making them purely in their own political interest then it means that the places that need car parks aren’t getting them. I know in my electorate we have the Perth to Midland line – no car parks on that in my electorate. It’s really disappointing that we could get another colour-coded program designed to in the Liberal Party’s political interests rather than the interests of the Australian people. It's got to stop.

ENDS