SUBJECTS: AUSTRALIA-CHINA RELATIONS; CYBER SECURITY TASKFORCE; RECYCLING SOFT PLASTICS
NATALIE BARR, HOST: Thanks Kochie. Well, there are promising signs Australia's relationship with China is on the mend after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was spotted talking with the Chinese Premier.
The PM is calling the discussion short but very positive. Mr Albanese is now focused on securing a meeting with the Chinese President Xi in what would mark Australia's first bilateral meeting since 2016.
Let's bring in Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce in a rainy Danglemah.
Tanya let's start with you. This would be a very important meeting for the PM, do you think he's going to secure it?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Well it would be a good thing for Australia to be continuing to meet with China at the highest levels. The initial meeting with Premier Li Keqiang is a good step forward. It would be wonderful to meet with President Xi to talk about some of the issues we have between our countries, including the continued trade embargoes that really have hit our farmers quite hard.
BARR: Barnaby, China obviously our largest trading partner, it's facing economic difficulties due to all the strict COVID rules that have been enforced there for way longer than a lot of other countries. This would present an opportunity for Australia. Do you think this is going to happen
BARNABY JOYCE: Well, I hope so and I'm at one with Tanya on this one. I think meeting with Premier Li Keqiang is a good step and meeting with President Xi, if that happens, is a great step.
I know the wine exporters I was talking to merely last week from Mildura certainly want to see something happen with the unnecessary embargoes that we have on our products. But the reality of it all is of course that we will maintain our sovereignty. I'm sure the Labor Party's exactly the same. We'll maintain our strength and we want a liberal based world order.
I think the world is now sort of having more of a sobering view with what's happening with Russia and the Ukraine just to see how chaotic and unreliable and dangerous it is on all fronts, including humanitarian of course but also in economics for this to be disturbed by wars and conflict. So, we will pray for peace, and I hope that's what they aim for.
BARR: Yes, it's baby steps in diplomacy, isn't it. Now, the Federal Government has launched a new joint task force to hack the hackers and disrupt cyber attacks before they actually happen. Tanya, exactly what does this mean?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, it means not waiting for the criminals to infiltrate or steal Australian data. It means actually using our best and brightest, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Australian Federal Police working together to get in and disrupt those criminal networks, hit them where it hurts.
We know that cyber crime has expanded massively in recent years, and of course it's very important for the companies and governments that hold on to our data to protect it, but also now an opportunity for us to go and hit some of these criminal networks, hit them where it hurts and disrupt their operations before they come and attack Australian companies.
BARR: So, Tanya, does this mean it's something like we understand the undercover police do to seek out paedophile rings, they go and infiltrate their systems?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I'm not going to talk about operational issues, but we've got some of our best and brightest, our toughest people working to make sure that we're disrupting these criminal networks and hurting them before they can hurt Australians.
BARR: Well, it sounds like a good idea because we're really at the forefront of this at the moment, aren't we? We're on the other end of it.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Absolutely.
BARR: Australia's Home Affairs Minister, Barnaby, has admitted we won't be able to gaol these cyber criminals but can actually punish them in other ways like what Tanya's talking about. Do you agree with this approach?
JOYCE: Well, the Coalition put $10 billion towards cyber security and people were probably wondering why such a large amount and now you're starting see why.
I think also in reading in reports this morning Prime Minister Albanese is also having discussions with the Russians about basically putting some onus back on them to say, "Well this is happening from your domain, you have a responsibility to do something about it". It is a form of quid pro quo. If you can't do something about it then Australia must defend itself, whether it's on sea, on water or on the internet.
It's so dangerous what they can actually do. Just think about it. This is not suggesting it's going to happen but your wealth, watching this is determined by a number in the bank, isn't it? What happens if that number just disappeared?
BARR: Yeah, I think we're all hugely worried after the Optus and Medibank hacks. Just before we go on to the next topic, Barnaby, do you want to give us a weather report in Danglemah right now? It's looking pretty grim.
JOYCE: Well, I'm hardly Nostradamus here but my prediction today is rain, lots of it. And ducks, great weather for ducks, trout, worms, and I'm going to get the hell out of here as soon as you're finished.
BARR: Well, let's talk about recycling. This is an interesting one, it impacts a lot of people. Last week it was revealed Australia's largest soft plastic recycling scheme had collapsed. Tanya, you're the Environment Minister, what are you going to do about this? Because a lot of people, like Kochie's wife, have plastic bags in their boot on the way to Woollies and Coles because they thought they were going to be recycled.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, I think it's really disappointing for Australians who just want to do the right thing. They want to recycle; they've been taking their soft plastics back to the supermarket. We've got to work with the big supermarket chains. They're producing a lot of this plastic.
We've already set aside a million dollars to work with the Australian Food and Grocery Council to help reduce plastics in supermarkets. But the other thing we're doing is investing about a quarter of a billion dollars in upgrading Australian recycling infrastructure, that's with states and territories and with the private sector.
It's crazy, isn't it, that one recycling facility burns down and so our whole soft plastics system is thrown out of whack. We've got to rebuild and build new recycling facilities. I was out at a mattress recycling place just last week. We've got to make sure we've got the factories there that can take these products and remanufacture them, recycling them, remanufacture them. These are actually valuable commodities.
The plastic that you get from recycling can be made into new stuff, to park benches, to footpaths, to supermarket trolleys. We've got to make sure we've got the recycling facilities that allow that to happen.
BARR: Exactly. Barnaby, is it true that we've been stuck at only recycling 16 per cent of plastics in this country for the last four years?
JOYCE: Well one of the things about it of course is it costs money to recycle, like all manufacturing. Making your shopping trollies and all the things Tanya mentioned requires energy, requires power. And if we keep de voiding our nation of the capacity to produce base load power, shutting down coal fire power stations, not wanting to talk about nuclear, thinking that you're going to run on intermittent power with wind towers around the hills here, and I mean all-round the hills here, that's where they're going, then you're not going to have manufacturing and it means you're not going to have recycling. You've just got to be a realist. You've got to get cheaper energy.
BARR: Yep, well, look, that's a topic for another week because we've run out of time, but each week we're talking about power and, you know, we'll talk again next week. But we've got to go. We'll let you get out of the rain in Danglemah.
JOYCE: We've solved global warming; we've solved the drought. We've obviously fixed that problem so let's go on to the next one.
BARR: Well, we haven't because global warming actually creates rain as well, but we'll talk about that again. Thank you very much.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Good point, Nat.
BARR: Talk next week
