THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
4CA CAIRNS WITH MURRAY JONES
FRIDAY, 14 MARCH 2025
SUBJECTS: WOMEN’S HEALTH FUNDING; CAIRNS WATER SECURITY PROJECT; GREAT BARRIER REEF; DUTTON’S RISKY, EXPENSIVE NUCLEAR PLAN; INFLUENCER WOMBAT INCIDENT.
MURRAY JONES: Good morning, it’s 21 minutes to eight. It’s 846 4CA. Welcome on to the Breakfast Show with Murray. My special guest in Cairns – wonderful to see you – the Federal Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek. Always wonderful to see you in Cairns, good morning.
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: It’s always such a pleasure to be here.
JONES: Look, I’m keen to find out about some of the things that came up for you yesterday, but let’s just quickly talk about the YouGov poll that was covered in our news this morning. It seems like the Federal Government and the PM got their mojo back – 49-51 to Labor on two-party preferred basis. So, a bit of a turn in the polls, which I’m sure you’re very happy about this morning.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, we’re very focused on making sure we deliver for – on what people need. And we know that cost of living is a big issue for Australians. That’s why we’ve given every Australian a tax cut. That’s why we support higher wages. It’s why we’re doing cheaper medicines, more bulk-billed GP visits, fee-free TAFE, university debt relief, cheaper childcare. We’re really focused on those cost of living issues, and I hope as the election nears people will see that and they’ll see that Peter Dutton doesn’t have a plan to help them with cost of living.
JONES: And it seems as we’re starting to flesh out some of the things that really matter, that seems to be the case – that people are questioning and starting to look at the realities, particularly in such a changing world that we’re dealing with. We’ll talk about that more fairly shortly. But when it comes to women’s health – and, you know, I’ve actually known a few young women in recent times with endometriosis, such a debilitating and cruel, cruel condition – but a bit of an opening of a centre I believe just yesterday, one of the reasons why you’ve been here.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I was visiting a local endometriosis and pelvic pain clinic. It was funded a little while ago but talking to the staff there about the women that they’re seeing. We know that around one in nine Australian women experience endometriosis, and quite often it takes a long time for that to be diagnosed. The average wait for a proper diagnosis is about seven years. A lot of women suffer in silence or get ignored when they go to the doctor and just told it’s normal what they’re experiencing.
JONES: Yeah.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: So, these experts in endometriosis and pelvic pain will be a great help to local women here in Cairns, but they’re also seeing people, you know, right across the north of Queensland with their outreach service and with telehealth. And the clinic will also now be supporting women going through perimenopause and menopause. Just recently a few weeks ago we announced women’s health funding that was well over half a billion dollars. We’ve put the first new contraceptive pills on the list of subsidised medicines in 30 years. So Yaz and Yasmin, very popular pills with women, contraceptive pills.
JONES: Okay.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: They weren’t subsidised before. They weren’t on the list, the pharmaceutical benefits list, of subsidised medicines. They’re going to be on there. IUD’s and Implanon, so long-acting removable contraceptives, we’re better subsidising them. And new medicines and hormones for women experiencing menopause. It’s been 20 years since any of these new treatments were subsidised. So, with the pelvic pain and endometriosis clinics and this investment in women’s health, we really are making a big difference.
JONES: Okay. And it’s great to see that focus, particularly for a lot of women, as you said, that suffer in silence in relation to this. One of the other things you managed to do yesterday was get down to the Mulgrave River and, of course, the Cairns Water Security Project. Obviously, things are really starting to move there. With respect to the funding moving forward though, are there any concerns? Because, you know, we’re up way over $200 million there – $195 million I should say from the Federal Government. What about some of the other funding, especially with a change of government here in Queensland recently?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, well, we haven’t got confirmation that the federal LNP will support this project. I mean, we’re absolutely 100 per cent in - $195 million. We increased the Commonwealth contribution because the Cairns Council told us that the price had increased. Our candidate for Leichhardt Matt Smith has been out there advocating for this extra funding. Local Senator Nita Green has been out there advocating for this funding, and so I was very pleased to be able to increase the Commonwealth contribution to $195 million. But we need to know – does Warren Entsch or his successor support this funding, and can they deliver it? Is it all talk or is there actually money on the table from Peter Dutton?
JONES: And we’re unsure about the commitment from the State LNP Government in relation to this issue too I understand?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I’m very hopeful that the state money is there. There has been a change in government and I’m very hopeful that the state money is there because it’s a very important project for Cairns. This is what will allow Cairns to grow. We know that if this money is not on the table the local council would have to increase rates by about $400 a year for the next 15 years to pay for it. So, when you think about the difference that that makes for families – thousands of dollars of extra rates – that would obviously be a terrible outcome for Cairns.
JONES: Let’s turn to the Great Barrier Reef. And Peter Dutton has come out strongly and said our path to net zero here in this country is through nuclear. What is Labor’s position, you know, particularly with the money that’s been spent in recent years on the reef, when it comes to nuclear and the possible impacts there on the Great Barrier Reef?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, nuclear is a disaster for the reef. And it’s a disaster for a few reasons. The first is hot water. If you use water to cool a reactor, that water has to go somewhere, and releasing hot water on to the reef, if you’re talking about putting a nuclear reactor somewhere like Gladstone and releasing that hot water on to the reef, what we see in nuclear reactors around the world is hot water is released into the environment and you see huge impacts, dead zones where that hot water has been released. We don’t want to see that on the reef.
And we also know, of course, that we’re talking about delays of years . We’re talking about a very expensive new form of energy pushing up household power bills by about $1200 per household. But these would take years to build, and in the meanwhile, that means extending coal. We’re talking about two billion extra tonnes of coal-fired power generation between now and when the nuclear reactors could begin to be delivering energy. Climate change is a real problem for the reef, we know that. And putting two billion extra tonnes of carbon dioxide pollution into the atmosphere means Australia’s not doing its share to reduce carbon pollution.
JONES: Sadly, I am still hearing from some quarters that the reef is in perfectly fine condition, and even the money that we’re spending – you know, that is being spent on the reef not being spent on the Daintree Rainforest. What’s your response to also protecting, you know, these two World Heritage areas that we’ve got right beside each other in this part of the world – the reef and the rainforest.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, the first thing to say is the Reef is beautiful. And it’s always worth visiting, and people should come here from around the world. And we send that message very strongly. Please come and visit this natural wonder, of course. But the truth is we know that warm waters causing coral bleaching and crown of thorns starfish will be an issue in some parts of the reef. And of course, we’re going to fund things like crown of thorns starfish control. We absolutely have to do that. We have to fund the science that helps the reef adapt to warmer waters. And we’ve seen some amazing breakthroughs that we’re sharing with the world. But a lot of the funding that we spend, Murray, is actually on land because one of the biggest issues for the reef is the –
JONES: The runoff.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Stormwater runoff.
JONES: Sure.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: And we see with these, you know, Tropical Cyclone Alfred could have made landfall a lot differently to what it did. It could have been another major flooding event for the Reef. What we’ve seen with flooding in the past is sediment washing on to the reef. It covers the seagrass, it affects the animals like the turtles and dugongs that feed on that seagrass, and it coats the coral and prevents the coral from growing properly. So, we’ve been investing in gully and riverbank restoration. We do a lot of weed and feral management. We’ve got programs shooting feral pigs, for example. People say how does shooting feral pigs help the coral reef? Well, of course it does because those pigs are destroying those riverbanks and gully banks and allowing erosion that washes straight on to the reef. If we control the feral pigs we actually help the reef.
And today I’m actually announcing a $50 million Reefwise Wetlands program. This is a great opportunity to restore these wetlands. If you’re replanting wetlands or protecting wetlands that are the barrier between that stormwater runoff and the reef itself, the wetlands are picking up the sediment, they’re slowing down the water, they’re purifying the water before it hits the reef, that’s action on land that benefits the reef.
JONES: Benefits the reef. So, I guess, there’s maybe a misunderstanding about where that funding is going. We’ve got to wrap up. And just a couple of quick things before I let you go. Certainly locally TTNQ, our tourism group here, speaking of the reef, the long-term recovery, because of, you know, some negative publicity about the reef, I believe they’ve made a request through Nita Green, the Special Envoy for the Great Barrier Reef, I think it’s down to about – well, it’s 15 million over three years now, a commitment from the Federal Government moving forward to ensure that we can continue to market the reef and have ambassadors that come and see the amazing reef and go back and tell their families about it.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, both Nita Green as the Special Envoy for the Great Barrier Reef and our candidate for Leichhardt Matt Smith have been huge advocates for tourism on the reef. They know that this is about 64,000 Queensland jobs, $6.4 billion worth of income for our economy. And I know the program that Nita and Matt have been huge advocates for has been really successful. Some of the best ambassadors for the reef are visitors that come from overseas.
JONES: Yeah, sure.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We want them going back telling everybody, you know, “It’s beautiful, go. It’s wonderful.” And we know some of the best observers of the reef are those diving guides that are in the water with tourists all the time keeping an eye on the condition of the reef. They are telling us all the time about where we need to look out for crown of thorns starfish work, where we see coral regrowth, where there’s been storm damage, do we need to get out there with a bit of coral seeding. And so those tourism operators are a real vital part of properly caring for our reef and telling the world what a beautiful place it is to visit.
JONES: The eyes and maybe the tropical ears on our reef. As we wrap up, what about this American influencer – well, not really on a lighter note.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, no.
JONES: And, of course, you know, playing with Australian animals just purely for that entertainment value and more likes on social media.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, it’s disgusting. And as soon as I saw that footage I asked the Department of the Environment to see if we can prosecute. And if we can prosecute her, we will prosecute her. It’s a disgraceful way of treating our Australian wildlife, and particularly from a visitor. Taking a baby from its mother like that, absolutely disgraceful. And we’ll prosecute if we can. But it is also a reminder, like, honestly, some of the stuff people do for entertainment on social media –
JONES: Blows the mind.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It just blows your mind, doesn’t it.
JONES: Yeah, incredible. It really is. A bit of a reflection of the world we’re living in. Great to talk to you. It’s been a long chat this morning. Tanya Plibersek, she’s the Federal Minister for the Environment and Water. Enjoy your day in Cairns and thank you very much for your time this morning. Cheers.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Great to talk to you Murray. Bye.
END
