JAYNE AZZOPARDI, HOST: Joining us to discuss today's headlines is Minister for Aged Care, Sam Rae, and Nationals’ Senator Bridget McKenzie. Good morning to you both and welcome. Sam, has this national address backfired on your Government?
SAM RAE, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND SENIORS: Australians want to see a sensible Government doing sensible things, Jayne, and that's exactly what the Prime Minister was doing last night. They don't want to see politics and drama at every turn. The Prime Minister went on national television last night, he addressed Australians directly.
HOST: But by making it a National address he really did amp up the drama. He could have just held a press conference like he has done plenty of other times this week.
RAE: Well, it's got to be one way or the other, Jayne. He wanted to address Australians directly. We've been clear. The world is facing the biggest fuel price shock in history and we needed to be clear with Australians that we have a plan in place. We're working between the Federal Government and the state governments of various political persuasions to make sure that Australia is as best protected from those international pressures as is possible.
HOST: OK, Bridget, look, I think there was real anxiety yesterday. I know I had friends texting me. People were genuinely worried about what might come out of this address. People were saying the petrol stations were super full at 3pm on a Wednesday afternoon. With that kind of build-up, what should the PM have said?
BRIDGET MCKENZIE, NATIONALS SENATOR: Yeah, Jayne, I think you've absolutely nailed it. And, you know, my fellow Victorians who actually suffered through the longest lockdown in the world, there was a great sense of anxiety, particularly in Victorians about what was going to come out of the Prime Minister's address last night. And there's no further reassurance. I think Australia stopped and they tuned in to the Prime Minister. Instead of getting a sense of a plan, they got a lot of platitudes, a lot of cliches. And I think it was very foolish advice of the Prime Minister to say keep calm and carry on in the face of the grave situation our nation is actually facing.
HOST: We also seem to have a bit of a, I don't know, two things at play here, Bridget. The Prime Minister calling for calm, meanwhile WA has declared a state of emergency. Who do we believe?
MCKENZIE: WA. So, this is an emergency. We are heading into the sixth week of a fuel crisis. We are at the end of a global supply chain and we are going to be heading into some serious waters in coming days and weeks ahead. And the Prime Minister and his minister, Chris Bowen, can't tell us where the fuel is or how they're getting it to the gaps in in the supply chain. We've been calling for this. The whole community has. What WA has done by calling a state of emergency is given the Premier their powers to compel oil companies to take the fuel to where it's needed, to be very upfront and transparent about the gaps in the supply chain.
The Prime Minister and Chris Bowen also have that power available to them and they are refusing to use it. And I think for the sake of the anxiety, not just with families, but across business and supply chains, they need to exercise the powers available to them and give us confidence that if there's enough fuel onshore, that it's actually getting to where it's needed.
HOST: Sam, why hasn't that been done yet? We do keep hearing that, you know, we have enough fuel, but at the same time, people aren’t silly. They can see that their local servo has run out at times. Why is that still happening?
RAE: Jayne, with the greatest of respect to Bridget, I thoroughly disagree with her. We've released 20 per cent of the national fuel stocks and those are being shipped to the parts of the country where we're seeing those demand spikes. The demand spikes are what are causing the shortages. We've got the same amount of fuel up to this point still arriving on Australian shores and foreseeably that will continue. However, we have been clear there is an international pressure on the fuel price and we're seeing the price go up very rapidly. And Australia unfortunately is not immune from the war in the Middle East and the impact that has on fuel supply chains internationally. So there are concrete actions being taken.
In terms of a state of emergency, I'm a little confused with Bridget's position on this, Angus Taylor has been pretty clear that he doesn’t- sorry, Bridget, if I could just finish there. Angus Taylor's been pretty clear that he doesn't believe that there should be a state of emergency. That's Bridget's leader. It would be good to get some clarity from the Coalition about what their position is on this issue.
HOST: I think the problem, Sam, is that people have been hearing the same thing from the Government for two weeks and they are still seeing that, you know, they're driving past service stations that still don't have different types of fuel. I mean, how hard is it? If the fuel's there, why are there servos without fuel?
RAE: Well, the majority of Australians, Jayne, are doing the right thing. They're acting responsibly, they're acting sensibly, and they're acting respectfully to their neighbours and friends. However, unfortunately, you need only go on social media to see that there are a small number of people who aren't doing the right thing, who aren't acting with consideration for the people around them. We're seeing, utes full of jerry cans being driven away from petrol stations. I mean, diesel only keeps for six months anyway. These are really silly actions. But some of this political rhetoric that we've seen coming out of Angus Taylor is driving the anxiety here and causing people to act in this irresponsible way.
MCKENZIE: We have a trucking industry that's been screaming out for support. We have a trucking industry that's been screaming out for support, that's wanted relief from their loan repayments, like was given to them during COVID, because they have a cash flow problem. They can't actually afford to fill up their trucks. We have farmers not putting seed in the ground this week for harvest because they can't afford it. So, I hear the Government's platitudes. What Australians want in the middle of a crisis is the confidence that you have a plan to get us through.
What the Prime Minister didn't do last night was acknowledge or respond to the fact that we have an abundant source of oil and gas here. How do we get that out? We've got state Governments prepared to step up to the plate on that. What is he going to do about the fundamental structural issues in our economy that see us weaker? Trillion-dollar debt, you know, the fact that Government spending is the highest proportion of our budget, leading to inflation, and that real wages have gone backwards. They're the things that set us up for success in a crisis, not to mention our woeful defence capacity. So I hear you, I see you, Sam. You're doing a brave thing on behalf of your Government, but Australians are not buying it.
HOST: Look, we have to interrupt there. We have to come to an end there. Thank you both for your time this morning, Sam Rae and Bridget McKenzie.