SENATOR PENNY WONG
LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY IN THE SENATE
SHADOW MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS
LABOR SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA

NITA GREEN
LABOR SENATOR FOR QUEENSLAND

SUBJECTS: Cairns manufacturing jobs; Labor’s Buy Australian Plan; vaccination rollout; AstraZeneca production in Australia; vaccine misinformation.

ELIDA FAITH, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR LEICHHARDT: Good morning everyone. I'm Elida Faith, the Labor candidate for Leichhardt. I'm here and joined today by Senator Penny Wong, and also obviously our Cairns-based, Queensland Senator Nita Green. We know that COVID has been pretty tough on Far North Queenslanders and it's been tough on Far North Queensland families. And what we want to see in this region is more job opportunities. And I think COVID has shown us that we need to start thinking outside of the box, and today we're here at Austal. Cairns has three local shipyards, right here in Far North Queensland, that provide countless opportunities. They provide local jobs, and they have put Cairns on the map for their marine capability. And today we've been talking with the Austal workers here, talking a little bit about what they do, and what the shipyard in Cairns do and how important they are. Now, I grew up in Papua New Guinea, and so I know that PNG is just three kilometres from my electorate. And what we want to see are more opportunities and a government that's going to support local businesses, including our marine industry in those opportunities to trade with our Pacific neighbours. And I'm going to hand over to Penny now. Thank you.

SENATOR PENNY WONG, SHADOW MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Thanks very much Elida. It's great to be here in Cairns. It's great to be here with you - such a great candidate for the seat - and also my friend and colleague from the Senate, Nita Green. I love coming up here. It's a wonderful place. I've brought my family here a few times. They're not here with me this time. The kids said they wanted to go to Muddy’s but I said, well, you know, I'm sorry I'm working. Thank you to Austal for hosting us and showing us your wonderful yard and this amazing mobile hoist, which is almost the biggest in the world - I think second biggest in the world. And thank you to all the workers too. We had an opportunity to chat with a few apprentices, as well as those who are running the yard. Elida is right, the community's been through a tough time with COVID. The economy is going through a tough time with COVID. The global economy is going through a tough time in COVID. So, we really have to think about, what is it we can do as a community, what is it the government could do to ensure there are local jobs, local jobs here in Cairns and local jobs around Australia. Something Anthony Albanese and Labor are absolutely committed to, in government, is making sure we use government procurement, across the board, and in defence to leverage more local jobs. You see amazing capabilities behind me, amazing capabilities in your local workforce and we've got to keep building on that. Am I'm really grateful to Elida for asking me to come here to make sure I get a firsthand chance to look at the sorts of skills and capabilities you have here.

I just also want to say something else; I had the opportunity this morning, not only to do a couple of radio interviews, but to go to Centacare and talk with people there who were getting vaccinated, getting their second shots, people from migrant communities, as well as a lot of the community workers and frontline workers who are delivering those vaccines. We all want to make sure we can open up, but we want to make sure we can open up safely. And the key to that is vaccines and I want to say, I encourage anybody who hasn't, make sure you go out, get the vaccination, keep yourself safe, keep your family safe. Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: Senator, can you tell us these new jobs that we need here at these shipyards, how will they affect our relationship with the Pacific? I know a lot of these ships go up there and play a really important role.

WONG: It's fantastic. We were just talking about the you know the Guardian-class patrol vessels which Australia provides to Pacific Island nations. I think there's 20 odd which are going to be produced. And we're already having the first class being sustained. That is a great, it's a great industry for Australia, but it's also a fantastic diplomatic initiative. And I can say as someone who's had the opportunity - before COVID - to travel in the region, people really appreciate it. It's a really good investment in our region. We've got to keep doing that. People in Cairns understand that. You're very close, as Elida said, to PNG. You're in the region, and you understand that we get security by making sure the region is secure and we get prosperity by ensuring the region is prosperous.

JOURNALIST: Just before we move on to other matters, do you think a Labor Government would support Cairns becoming a manufacturing hub - we're kind of halfway there.

WONG: We are committed to a future made in Australia, and over the weekend Anthony Albanese announced our Australian jobs plan. And what that's about is recognising we spend about $190 billion dollars over the last three years on government procurement. We can do a lot better, we can do a lot better at leveraging that investment in local companies. That's what we want to do because we are committed to that. We haven't seen that under the Morrison Government. If there is an Anthony Albanese-led Labor Government, that's what you will see. A commitment to use government procurement across the board, and defence procurement, to leverage jobs in local industries, and in regions such as Cairns.

JOURNALIST: Just on some of the other issues today, the Government's signalled that it's unlikely to extend its CSL contracts beyond the 50 million doses that it's already purchased., meaning that production will wind up the first half of next year. Given the enormous demand for vaccines globally, should they be looking at extending that?

WONG: Yes, I find this a bewildering position. None of us are safe, until the world is safe. We have to beat COVID, not just at home, but across the world. That's how we ensure we're safe. And rolling out vaccines across the world is something we should be part of. And this is particularly important for Indonesia. We know what's happening in Indonesia. We know the severity of the Delta outbreak in Indonesia. We know that Indonesia needs more vaccines. Why we wouldn't keep producing these and making sure that our region is safer and more secure, I mean that's just short-sighted again by the Morrison Government.

JOURNALIST: Does that tie in with the vulnerabilities and the issues that we've been having up here in Far North Queensland of trying to get our vaccines out but still hitting well below benchmarks, but obviously being close to a lot of those regions in the Pacific that have a lot of COVID cases still.

WONG: We don't beat COVID unless we beat it everywhere. Humanity has got to beat this virus everywhere. That's how we ensure we're all safe. So, get yourself vaccinated, if you haven't been, here. And what I want the Government to be doing is working with the region to make sure we get as many people in our region vaccinated, because it keeps them safe but it also keeps Australia safe.

JOURNALIST: I've just got a quick question for Nita, if that's okay. Nita, a three-day door knocking initiative just wrapped up in Yarrabah. We won't see those figures for a little bit, later on, but I guess, you know, they've gone to these lengths to try and get the community vaccinated, what's next to try and raise those numbers there?

NITA GREEN, LABOR SENATOR FOR QUEENSLAND: Can I firstly say congratulations to the community of Yarrabah, for understanding that this is something that they need to step up and to get done, to make sure that as many people are vaccinated as possible. As we know, the community of Yarrabah is just like every other Indigenous community across Queensland, and across the country. We've got overcrowding and housing, poor health outcomes. And we know if there's a case of COVID in an Indigenous community, that we will see a very bad outcome for those communities so we want to see as many people vaccinated as possible. What's next for the community of Yarrabah, and for our Indigenous communities all over the country, is to get the support and the resources that they need to be able to deliver vaccinations, to be able to overcome misinformation. We know that this misinformation that's spreading around the internet is damaging our vaccine rollout, but we also know that this isn't a surprise. The Morrison Government knew, and has known for a very long time, that this is something that they needed to overcome. We have been asking and committee members have been asking our communication strategy to deal with this misinformation. So, what's next is the government has to step up when it comes to misinformation. They also need the resources when it comes to community outreach. We've had a three-day door knock. Will that get everyone vaccinated in Yarrabah? Will that get everyone vaccinated in other Indigenous communities? No, it will not. We need to go back time and time again and give the resources to these communities who want to get vaccinated but need more help to do so. We can't leave these communities behind. And that's the big concern when it comes to the Morrison vaccine rollout; that it was late to start with, that we should all be vaccinated right now, but that in wiping their hands of the responsibility of the vaccine rollout now, they are leaving communities behind. We know that not enough Indigenous people in Cairns are vaccinated. We know not enough Indigenous people in Yarrabah, or in the rest of our communities, are vaccinate. There are communities in the Cape that we will have to go back to, time and time again, to make sure that everyone is vaccinated. There are disability communities who are not vaccinated. And we know that these communities are the ones at risk, if COVID is to come to Cairns and come to the rest of our regional Queensland areas. So, the Government can't just say that this isn't their responsibility anymore. They have a role to make sure that everyone is vaccinated, particularly our vulnerable communities, instead of going out there pushing their politics, playing politics with this issue, trying to put pressure on the state government to open up the borders, before actually doing the hard work of vaccinating people in Yarrabah. I want to again say thank you and congratulations to all of the people in Yarrabah who got vaccinated. The job isn't done. So, if you can, go and get that vaccination. If you've got any concerns, don't go to the internet. Go to a doctor. Go to the Community Health Centre and they will explain to you how important this is.

JOURNALIST: I might just get Senator Wong, just on that last bit, because there seems to be, especially in the Cape, there's been a lot of misinformation, as an issue in Indigenous communities. Is there any investigation going to happen into how this information is, is coming out, the way it seems to be targeted to a lot of these vulnerable communities?

WONG: It is deeply concerning and one of the reasons we were very clear in calling on the Morrison Government, not only to get vaccines last year, but to make sure they rolled out a proper information campaign was that we were concerned about what we would see on social media…

[Aircraft noise]

One of the reasons we called for the Government to make sure they got to good information campaign out early was because we were concerned about the disinformation that was being spread. They didn't do that. We have seen as too much disinformation out there. It is really also concerning the way in which some politicians have chosen to jump aboard this, you've got a few of those in the LNP in Queensland. It's not responsible. We need to make sure all our communities are protected. First Nations communities, linguistically diverse communities, the whole Australian community needs to be protected.

Authorised by Paul Erickson, ALP, Canberra.