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Interview with Paul Barclay from ABC RN Drive with an update on COVID-19

Read the transcript of Minister Gillespie's interview with Paul Barclay from ABC RN Drive with an update on COVID-19.

The Hon Dr David Gillespie MP
Former Minister for Regional Health

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PAUL BARCLAY:

As New South Wales records its deadliest day of the pandemic, Victoria has had 950 new cases, the highest number recorded in that state in a single day. David Gillespie is the Regional Health Minister he joins me now. Welcome to RN Drive.

MINISTER GILLESPIE:

Great to be with you Paul.                 

PAUL BARCLAY:

Yeah, look two records set in the country’s most populated states today and not the type of records we want to see.

Are you comfortable with the shift towards reopening when we are still seeing hundreds of cases a day and deaths in the double figures?

MINISTER GILLESPIE:

Well I am because it’s part of a structured plan to do it in a reasonably safe manner. It’s based and predicated on widespread vaccination of the majority of the population.

Those 70 and 80 per cent targets are well known and New South Wales is at the front of a very important race to get there. And I think people have to realise we can’t stay locked up without normal economic activity happening forever. There has to be a time when we get back to normal and live with it. And those announcements have been out, on the radar of everyone for months now and I think it is sad when people succumb to an infectious disease having been reasonably healthy before it. Not everyone who gets effected by COVID has underlying illnesses.

 So that’s the take home message. The most important message from this whole interview is if you haven’t been vaccinated yet, please organise to get vaccinated because it’ll reduce the chances of you getting really sick of ending up in hospital or in ICU, or even dying.

PAUL BARCLAY:

Well speaking of that, new regional areas in both Victoria and New South Wales are again returning to lockdown. It raises the question, have the regions been left behind in the vaccination rollout?

MINISTER GILLESPIE:

No. There are pockets around the country where vaccination rates aren’t as high as they could be. My areas got locked down at short notice yesterday, yet we have 87.4 per cent first dose rates and are ahead of the pack on the north coast. But it is part of a plan. It was what New South Wales announced they would do and New South Wales is following their plan. And it is really frustrating for businesses though when they get these shutdowns at short notice. But when we get to the stage of the plan where we can safely open up and regional travel happens, tourism businesses will be relieved, lots of businesses will be relieved, hospitality. All those things that have been cloistered and running on empty or running in negative territory will be able to get themselves going. But people must prepare that there will still be some minor restrictions. But the most important thing is that double dose of vaccination and the best vaccine to have is the one that you've got hold of and had. They all work well.

PAUL BARCLAY:

How concerned are you about the capacity of regional health services to cope with the inevitable increase in case numbers that will occur as we shift toward living with the virus?

MINISTER GILLESPIE:

I think some of the smaller areas, if they had an outbreak, they would have to obviously call for help or send people out of the area. But I don't think that'll happen if we meet those targets of 80 per cent. Because we know from what's happened overseas, whilst there are cases, there are not the fatality rate. In the first wave, the fatality rate was about 3.5 per cent. With this second wave, because of the high vaccination rates, the fatality rate is down to about 0.4 five per cent, which is about what a severe flu season is.

It's just demonstrating in Australia live during this pandemic, how vaccination can reduce a really serious illness that absolutely everyone can get, to a less serious illness, which hopefully a lot of people will avoid getting. But if they do, it's a much milder illness.

PAUL BARCLAY:

So the Federal Government's COVID support will end two weeks after a state or territory reaches that 80 per cent double dose target. Now, there have been numerous people who've been criticising that as premature. Why is that the right time when many industries, including in the regions, won't be able to return to trading as usual?

MINISTER GILLESPIE:

I think everyone had to know that the economic support comes at a huge cost to the economy, to taxpayers who will have to at some stage pay back all the debt that we've. Immolated. So as Josh Frydenberg said, we have to realise that we can't stay in this situation forever, we need to get our normal economy happening again. It will happen in a staged manner and a very safe manner compared to how it's played out overseas. Because where you saw big outbreaks overseas when they lifted restrictions, it was just willy-nilly lifted with hardly anywhere near the vaccination rate that we've got here in Australia so far. And there are some other areas - I admit everyone’s seen the figures - there are some areas that really need to get their skates on. We have an acceleration plan for those remote indigenous areas to get the rates up to the rest of the general community. Some states are better than others. But we've got a full plan at the Commonwealth level through 3600 pharmacies with Moderna and AstraZeneca, over 5000 general practises. We've still got the respiratory clinics, which are now called Commonwealth Vaccination Clinics, and we've got our contractors doing things.

The aged care conundrum is being sorted pretty well, way above community rates. The disability system is getting the same process applied to them so that they get their rates up so. Australia has done remarkably well. When you look at the efficacy of our rollout in the big picture, we were starved of vaccines for a while but now that we've got plenty of vaccines, it's really ramping up and I-

PAUL BARCLAY:

[Interrupts] Yes, it is still, though, a difficult balancing act, a difficult tension to navigate. Opening up, people want to open up, businesses want to get back to what they do. But you know, we're basing this on a model and there's a fair bit of leeway within that model and it's only a model. And you know, we are looking at still large numbers. The modelling might not be entirely accurate. There might, you know, there may still be the need for further and quite extensive lockdowns.

MINISTER GILLESPIE:

Well, I hope not. I hope not. The lockdown decisions are the state governments preserve, but it is a sensible plan. It is not 100 per cent no COVID situation when we lift. Obviously, so there’s hard-core of anti-vaxxers, two or three per cent, who will never have a vaccine. The vaccination program won’t stop at 80 per cent. I think you will find- like in my area, we have at this stage, in my own local government area, 87.4 per cent. So that’s a very short period between getting to 90 per cent. And there are plenty of other regional areas that likewise have embraced vaccination. People are moving forward. My children in the City of Sydney, they went ahead and got their vaccination pretty early.

They went for AstraZeneca, because they saw a lot of young people getting sick. And it is a good vaccine. Every vaccine that we have approved in Australia have been proven to be quite efficacious. But there is a certain leakiness to them all. That’s why you will still see a few cases. But it’s a much moderated illness. And we’ve also got plans for booster doses. We have 258 million doses on order. So the place will be swimming in vaccines. And we’ve used our good vaccine capability to help our Pacific neighbours as well, like Indonesia.

PAUL BARCLAY:

Just on a couple of other questions. So the New South Wales State Government today announced it’s committed to halving emissions by the end of the decade. That decision was supported by the National Party members in that state. And as we know, New South Wales the biggest economy in the country. Why has the federal party been unable to reach a similar view?

MINISTER GILLESPIE:

We are committed to our current plan of 28 per cent by 2030. That's a real plan. The concept- we have a few concerns that are well documented in the press. We want to see the details. I think New South Wales, as my leader, Barnaby, said, we don't tell them what to do and they don't tell us what to do. But I'm sure John Barilaro has got a plan in mind and he will look after regional industries. He knows that the city of Sydney and Newcastle, Wollongong, the whole state is energy dense. You know, we need to have 24-7 energy. And whilst they've got ambitious plans for renewable energy. He's also- he's on the record as being very, very pro-nuclear. He ran a campaign on it. I'm not sure how they're going to replace the retiring coal fired power stations. We can't just do it all on intermittent sources of energy. So that's why we have some reservations at the federal level. We want to see the detail of. We will keep our modern industrial economy, which has, to a degree, already de-industrialised because of our lack of cheap, affordable energy.

PAUL BARCLAY:

[Interrupts] You will come under increasing pressure, globally, on this, including with our European trading partners. Your colleague, you know, Darren Chester has taken a break from the party room, citing frustration with the party's leadership. He's not the only one to urge the party to commit to net zero by 2050. What? What needs to happen to secure the support for this?

MINISTER GILLESPIE:

We are all committed to doing good things for the environment. Every one of the Nationals members. We have lots of technology at our hands, both in agriculture, in bovine production, with methane, bio digesters, using carbon sequestration in pastures and crops, as well as increasing sequestration in active forest management. We can use all sorts of technology, but we need to see the details of everything before we blithely just sign up to a target, which is, you know, almost 30 years away. I mean, we have trouble in this country predicting what's happening in a three-year election cycle. Technology is what is required to make us more efficient. There are established technologies to give us energy that is a lot cleaner. A lot of our coal fleet, if it was running on modern power stations, because most of ours have been built in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and there's a couple in the post-2000, but we have very old-fashioned coal fired power stations. If you built a high energy, low emission one, you would get a 43 per cent reduction over the top. So look, that's where you can use technology. As you know, I'm a big advocate for nuclear. That's even a lower CO2 footprint than solar. But it is available around the clock. But at the moment, it's not possible in this country.

PAUL BARCLAY:

[Interrupts] And it would take a considerable amount of time to plan design, build a nuclear power plant and then bring that power online, probably not in time, actually to deal with the immediate crisis of climate change. But look, I will set that one aside. The discussion about nuclear power plants is probably for another moment. Can I can I just talk, though, about your former prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who today says the Coalition's betrayal of France will dog us for years, and that the Prime Minister, quote, deliberately set out to deceive the French. He's also apparently been able to make contact with the French President, yet the Prime Minister has not. Should this deal have been handled with greater diplomatic aplomb and greater consultation?

MINISTER GILLESPIE:

I think it's a bit rich to be going that far. Look, it was a totally different paradigm in the geopolitical sense back in 2015 and ‘16, when the former prime minister negotiated to make diesel electric submarines and retrofit a good nuclear submarine. But that's history now. The Prime Minister and the whole National Security Cabinet would have been derelict in their duties if they didn't, when they were offered, superior technology to reflect the growing concern about the status of the world in the Asia-Pacific. I think- I acknowledge France would be bitterly upset. They had a big series of rolling contracts to make significant build here in Australia. But when the situation changes, we have to make decisions that is best for Australia. France makes decisions which is best for France. They’re a good citizen in the Pacific. We love them being here. But when the requirements for what we need in our defence situation change, well, that is paramount. And the AUKUS deal is also giving us access to an awful lot of missile, advanced missile technology. So it is a really good defence initiative. And we will have increased capacity as a result of it.

PAUL BARCLAY:

Minister, we thank you very much for your time.

MINISTER GILLESPIE:

Okay, thank you.

PAUL BARCLAY:

David Gillespie is the Regional Health Minister.

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