TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR EDUCATION
SHADOW MINISTER FOR WOMEN
MEMBER FOR SYDNEY
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2GB WITH CLINTON MAYNARD
TUESDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 2021
SUBJECTS: NSW lockdown; increasing vaccination rates; economic recovery after lockdown; Fowler; Chris Hayes; Joel Fitzgibbon.
CLINTON MAYNARD, HOST: The Member for Sydney and senior ALP frontbencher, Tanya Plibersek joins us on the program as she does with Jim regularly. Tanya, thank you for your time.
TANYA PLIBERSEK, SHADOW MINISTER FOR EDUCATION, SHADOW MINISTER FOR WOMEN: Oh, it's a pleasure to be with you Clinton.
MAYNARD: This is a really polarising issue I've got a say, and you represent an area of inner Sydney that's not part of these stricter lockdowns. Do you think there needs to be a review? And this of course, comes from the New South Wales state government, but does there need to be review of which areas of Sydney are included and which aren't?
PLIBERSEK: Look, I think we'd all like to be out of lockdown as quickly as possible, whether that's all of our suburbs, or at least the areas where we're not seeing as much COVID in the community. And the best way to get out of lockdown as quickly as possible is to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as we can. Like, you say my electorate is not one of the areas of concern but I can tell you, my electorate has been very hard hit by this. We've got the CBD in my electorate, I've got so many people who are worried that the business that they've been running for 10 or 20 or 30 years is just not going to make it through the lockdown. I've got individuals who are desperate to see family Interstate, they've got kids that they're separated from or parents, or people that they want to be looking after that they can't get to see interstate. So I get it. People are really over the lockdown and I don't want to sound like a broken record, I say this every week, but the fastest way through is to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible.
MAYNARD: Now, on that point Tanya, your area actually has some of the lower vaccination rates, say compared to some of those hotspots of the west and the south west, Why do you think that's the case?
PLIBERSEK: Look, I think a lot of people have found it really hard to get an appointment to get vaccinated. And we've seen more vaccine flowing at the moment, but those first few weeks and months, it was super hard to get an appointment, particularly for Pfizer and I had a lot of people contacting me really distressed. They wanted to get vaccinated that they found it hard to get an appointment. They wanted to do the right thing and they couldn't. So I think the message to those people is try again now, I mean, there's more vaccine coming in. We've done some deals with Poland and Singapore and goodness knows who else to get the extra Pfizer, and we'll have Moderna too soon I hope, but you know, keep trying I guess is the message there. And the Health people have been doing a good job in setting up pop up clinics here and there, it's good. If you can, search around to see if there's a pop-up clinic near you, make the most of that and help your friends that aren't so great on the internet. I mean, this is one of the things that we take for granted, right? If you're used to using your iPhone and checking out where all this stuff is happening, you might have sort yourself out. But maybe ask your elderly neighbours, or the people in your life who aren't quite as good at searching up where to get their jab.
MAYNARD: Just in regards to the inner city in the CBD in particular, we did seem to bounce back economically from the first wave of COVID in Sydney reasonably well, but people didn't return to the CBD because of the changing nature of working. And I think, and I work in the CBD usually, I think we're going to see an even deeper problem second time round. How do you think business in the CBD, they might just be shopkeepers who have a shop in the QVB for instance, how are they going to bounce back?
PLIBERSEK: Well, I think it's going to be really hard. I think a lot of the working from home change, even when we open up again and the restrictions are over, there will be a lot of people who think, ‘well actually, I'm set up here at home now, I've got the IT working’. So people who can work from home, I think a lot of them will. Maybe they won't work from home five days a week, but they might work from home a couple of days a week and that really puts a dent in the profit of that little hole in the wall coffee shop that you walk past on your way to work in the morning and grab yourself a cappuccino. or the sandwich place, or the IGA that you do your shopping at on the way home from the railway station in the evening. All of those businesses are going to suffer for a while. So it's really important that local councils and the state government and the federal government work together to make sure that they're able to do business as easily as possible and to change what they're offering as a business as easily as possible. So, you know, the pub that never used to have seating out on the footpath - for goodness sake, let's just let them get the seating out on the footpaths, right?
MAYNARD: Well, I know Dominic Perrottet and Stuart Ayres at a state level tried to do that after the last time and they're going to have to go even further next time. Just onto some other issues, Tanya, and the major political issue I think of the last couple of days has concerned I guess internal party politics within your party. The decision to parachute Kristina Keneally, the former New South Wales Premier, the Senator into the seat of Fowler. I've got to tell you, Tanya, I think it's really wrong. And I don't think it's wrong from the diversity point of view, I think it's wrong from the fact that I believe the way politics should work is locals should be representing their local electorate. How does Labor defend putting Kristina, as much merit as she has, into a seat that's a long way from where she lives?
PLIBERSEK: Well, obviously she will move to the seat if she's preselected as a Labor candidate. She's made that very clear. But I'm a glass-half-full kind of a person, I think it's fantastic that we've got Kristina Keneally, Deb O'Neill, Tu Le - three fantastic women who are all prepared to put their hand up for the Labor Party and fight hard to represent Labor in the in the Senate or the House of Reps. I think it's terrific, and all three of them are real talents.
MAYNARD: But in terms of representing, based on what our political system is meant to be, is it not meant to be you're meant to elect one of your locals to represent you in the parliament, whatever side of politics you're on?
PLIBERSEK: Yeah. I think it's really important to live your electorate.
MAYNARD: Even before that point, Tanya?
PLIBERSEK: Yeah, look, Kristina said that she's going to move into the electorate and I think if she is successful, I think that's really important because you do need to be able to speak up for the day-to-day lives of the people that you represent. And you can't know that by visiting occasionally.
MAYNARD: More broadly though, why does this happen in politics? Now, as you're probably not aware, we actually went to almost the same school, I'm a Jannali Boys High School boy.
PLIBERSEK: Fantastic.
MAYNARD: Well, I was Jannali Boys High School before we merged. And so I'm from the Shire, I've lived in the Shire my whole life and a lot of people don't realise this, but Scott Morrison himself was parachuted into the Shire. It happens on all sides of politics. Why does it happen?
PLIBERSEK: And you know what, I often remark that you can tell that he's not from the Shire, but that's just me. Look people move, I mean I moved in to the city long before I was elected to the federal Parliament -
MAYNARD: That's the point. You did it before long before.
PLIBERSEK: Yeah -
MAYNARD: Hard to the defend, isn't it? It's hard to defend.
PLIBERSEK: All I can say is what my husband constantly says to me, 'you can take the girl out of the Shire but you can't take the Shire out of the girl'. I'm not sure what he means by that.
MAYNARD: I think you're going to suffer a significant loss on your side of politics when Joel Fitzgibbon decides, we he has decided, when he does leave. In terms of replacing Mr. Fitzgibbon, it looks like we've got several quality candidates on your side of politics as well, and they are locals I note.
PLIBERSEK: Yeah. Look, I think there's going to be a few people put their hand up for Joel's seat. I'm sure we'll get a great candidate. But just like with Chris Hayes who is the departing Member for the seat of Fowler, that we were talking about a minute ago, Chris Hayes, fantastic guy. He’s done so much great work in the parliament, particularly in fighting the death penalty, particularly on supporting Australians on death row overseas. He's an honourable, principled, decent man. And we've got Joel Fitzgibbon who made a terrific contribution over many years, particularly in the agriculture portfolio, really stood up for farmers and people who work in regional and rural communities. He will be missed. But you know, we're very lucky. We've got a lot of people competing to be Labor candidates and that's what democracy is all about.
MAYNARD: And will it be decision from Head Office or will it be preselectors locally on the ground able to elect their representative?
PLIBERSEK: Look, I don't know,I haven't heard. I just got the news of Joel's retirement, was it today I think. So I look forward to working with whoever is his successor. I'm sure we'll be able to find a great local candidates.
MAYNARD: I appreciate you playing it straight on those issues. Thank you Tanya.
PLIBERSEK: Lovely to talk to a former Jannali boy.
MAYNARD: Tanya Plibersek, who is the member for Sydney. Originally Tanya is from the Shire, but I'll point out as she rightly points out, she moved to the area that she represents long before she entered politics. And that's, I know I've been talking about this in the last day, but I just have a real problem when - it does not matter which side of politics we're talking about - when apparently high-profile candidates or those that have the support of Head Office are parachuted into different seats because I don't think it represents what local politics is meant to be about.
ENDS
