Transcript - Radio interview -1206 2CC, Canberra with Stephen Cenatiempo

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: It's time for our federal political panel. Joining us on the line is the Nationals leader and Member for Maranoa, David Littleproud. David, good morning.

DAVID LITTLEPROUD: Good morning, mate.

CENATIEMPO: And Kristy McBain is the Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories, and Member for Eden-Monaro. Kristy, good morning.

KRISTY MCBAIN: Good morning.

CENATIEMPO: Kristy, I just want to touch on something that's not on our list of things to talk about. The brumbies in the Kosciusko National Park. This seems to be a really contentious issue and it's not divided along political lines. It seems to be divided along all sorts of different lines. What are your thoughts on this? Because this is taking place in your electorate?

MCBAIN: You're right on that one. There are a range of people who have different views on how many brumbies are in the mountains, the methodology of how they do the count, the way in which those brumbies are controlled, and it doesn't go along party lines. People have a range of very mixed views. The announcement yesterday that consultation will take place in regard to whether they proceed with aerial shooting of brumbies is going to create a bunch of issues right across the electorate, but it's important that people engage in that.

CENATIEMPO: I mean, my concern here is that the Minister, Penny Sharpe, who we're going to speak to later on this morning, suggests that the problem is that these brumbies are causing damage to the environment and particularly the water system. If we start shooting a bunch of brumbies and leave them to rot in the national park, that's not going to do the water system any good.

MCBAIN: We know that there are a range of feral animals across the national park, all of which can do damage to the ecosystem of the national park, which is really important to all of the country. There are a range of issues and I'm sure that they're going to continue to come up during this consultation process.

CENATIEMPO: David, these WA cultural heritage laws have been incredibly controversial. You're calling on the Prime Minister to rule out some sort of national version of these things. Is there any scope for the Federal Government to actually be involved here?

LITTLEPROUD: Yes, there is. They're the Government, they can force laws. And this is what worries us. The Western Australian Government, hopefully today, will announce they’re scrapping laws that would mean you had to get a cultural heritage survey, $120 to $160 an hour. $1,200 a day to dig a hole deeper than 50 centimetres, or even desilted down and lifting more than 20 kilograms of dirt. That's not even a scratch of a backhoe bucket. So, this just goes to the very heart of overreach of Government.

Now, the Government has an options paper. We looked at all this even when we were in Government, but we did nothing about it because we could see there was an overreach. Now, we've asked Tanya Plibersek on five occasions to rule out that farmers, not miners, and the laws in Western Australia went to freehold land of 1,100 square metres and above - that's a quarter acre. But just over a quarter acre block. That's a residential block. So, this wasn't about miners, this was a catch all for farmers and residential homes in Western Australia. And what we want and what we need, particularly for the agricultural sector, is certainty. Because what Tanya Plibersek and Anthony Albanese need to understand is that to produce your food and fibre, our farmers have to disturb the soil. They have to go underneath the surface to make sure, whether they're putting up fences or planning, they sometimes need to go fairly deep to do some of the practices that they're looking at. And this is where we're just saying that Government doesn't need overreach here.

Indigenous Australians, and particularly pastoralists, have walked and worked hand in hand for generations in protecting sacred sites that they found on their properties. And in many cases, they even fenced them off so that their livestock doesn't disturb them. So, we've had overreaction from the Juukan Gorge. That was an abhorrence by Rio Tinto, no one denies that, but this was an overreach. And when you've got an options paper that says they are going to create another Indigenous body, another one that will be given the power to prevent a development or have it redesigned, that is a stark overreach for farmers in their daily ability to be able to produce your food and fibre. And we're just saying, if it's not going to happen, just say they're ruling it out. But Plibersek’s been asked four times in question time and won't rule it out.

CENATIEMPO: Kristy, that's a fair request, isn't it? I mean, as the Minister for Regional Development, you've got to be concerned about laws like this and the impact that have on a lot of your constituents?

MCBAIN: I absolutely understand what David's saying, but it's part of this greater narrative that he tries to sew – that everything that they did was great and everything the Labor Party does is terrible. The fact of the matter is that the inquiry started under Sussan Ley when she was the Environment Minister. This is an options paper that was presented to Government that hasn't been finalised. It's still work that sits there. We are not in the business of taking over state laws. We won't be adopting or duplicating any state or territory regimes, but we do have to make sure that we see this process through to the end. If there are any laws, they'll be out for public comment - part of the standard parliamentary inquiry process where everyone gets their say. Our aim is to make sure that First Nations heritage doesn't get destroyed, like what we saw in Juukan Gorge. That is a bipartisan approach we share. I will be making sure that any proposed laws will have the interests of regional Australia at its heart.

CENATIEMPO: Kristy, I want to talk about pharmacies. There's been a lot of talk around about the impact that the two months of prescriptions is going to have on pharmacies. Look, I don't got to say I don't understand their criticism of the law. I think it's a good move. Talk us through your support for regional and rural pharmacies.

MCBAIN: I worked in pharmacies growing up in my hometown, and they really hold a special place right across regional Australia. We are trying to do two things, and that is making sure we are supporting patients on a range of medicines - by allowing them a 60-day supply. We know that there are a number of people who are on consistent medication that sees them either at the doctor or in the pharmacy every month. It's about making medicines cheaper for them, and pharmacists share that aim with us. We also want to make sure that we support our regional, rural and remote pharmacies. We know that they play a big role across our communities in the primary health network and we want that to continue.

We have obviously made some changes which will impact their business, but in that manner, we've also increased the Regional Pharmacy Transition Allowance. We have doubled the Regional Pharmacy Maintenance Allowance. There's been a 7 per cent increase to Government payments to every single pharmacy for the work that they do. We're working with them on the other things that we know that they do across our regions, which they don't get paid for currently. Whilst there is some contention, we are working with them, especially in regional Australia, to make sure that they continue to play that big contribution in our health system.

CENATIEMPO: David, what's your view? I mean, even on your side of politics, there seems to be this view that the Pharmacy Guild have got far too much power and far too much influence over policy. It just makes sense to allow people to be able to buy two months’ worth of prescriptions at a time, doesn't it?

LITTLEPROUD: Well, we all want cheaper medicines, just who pays for it? And these are community pharmacies, these are mum and dad small businesses. We all want cheaper childcare, but we didn't ask the childcare centres to pay for it. Government made sure that they supported them in being able to do that. These are small businesses. And the challenge we've got is that you're going to see many, particularly young pharmacists who've just started out, who have businesses they're going to lose, in each pharmacy, around $160,000 worth of income.

And Kristy is talking about all the big support the Government's replacing, it's worth about $5,000. So, that is a big hole that they're having to find. And when she talks about “we're working with them.” The Health Minister, Mark Butler is refusing to sit down with them. We have the Pharmacy Guild saying there are ways through this, that we can sit down and negotiate, but they're failing to get any traction or any meeting with the Minister to be able to explain to them that this is going to tear things up. And, in fact the modelling that's being done independently says over 600 pharmacies will close. 420 pharmacies are in rural and remote communities, where they are the last line of primary care. That is frightening. And there is potentially 20,000 job losses in a feminised industry.

When you have a Government that said that we tried to look after women, they're about to take away the livelihoods of 20,000 women across the country who work in pharmacies because they are unviable. These aren't big cash cows and particularly in small rural and remote towns, they are running off the smell of an oily rag. And so, Kristy is right, they're going to have to look for other income streams to be able to make up for this. And they've had to go to things that they were doing for nothing, as Kristy just clearly articulated. And one of those is these things called Webster Packs. And Webster Packs are them packing the medication and putting them in the packs, not just for our aged care facilities, but also Indigenous Australians.

See, they put all this together free of charge and put them into the days that they're meant to take the medicine and the number of medicines they're having. They haven't been charging for that. And so, they will have to make up the shortfall from the $160,000 they're losing - only $5,000 the Albanese Government is giving them back in return. They're a business. They have to make money to survive and to pay the bills and employ the 20,000 people - potentially going to lose their job.

CENATIEMPO: I don't think anybody disputes that, David, but I know…

LITTLEPROUD: You're missing a number here, mate. You're missing a very big number. That's going to mean that an age pensioner sitting in an aged care facility, now with one of those Webster Packs will actually pay $800 plus extra a year because of this policy. Without sitting down and talking to these pharmacists and the Pharmacy Guild, we are going to get perverse policy outcomes, and particularly the elderly and Indigenous Australians will be the ones that will pay the biggest price on.

CENATIEMPO: I know that's the narrative the Pharmacy Guild are pushing, but nobody can actually explain how it's going to cost them $160,000 a year.

LITTLEPROUD: Because you've got to double the amount of supply that you've got, straight up. So, there's your first cost.

CENATIEMPO: But you're not selling it for any less.

LITTLEPROUD: You've got to be able to double, and then you're selling half what you're selling. So you got to double your stock and then you're not turning your stock over. It's called stock turnover. And so this is independent modelling that shows there's $160,000 worth of revenue that's been taking out of their businesses every year from this policy change.

CENATIEMPO: All right, I've got regular medication that I buy every month. It cost me at the moment, $13 every time I go and buy it, every fortnight. It's still going to cost me $13. It's just going to cost me twice, $13 once a month.

LITTLEPROUD: But they're not getting the stock turnover. This is the thing. It's about the business stock turnover of supply through their business that they're not getting anymore. And that's the challenge that you see.

CENATIEMPO: People aren't going to take any less medication, David.

LITTLEPROUD: No, it's the stock turnover. So, it takes away the revenue stream that they're getting out of those prescriptions. That's the challenge that's coming out of their income every year. $160,000 will come out of their income every year as a result of this change. Now, there is ways around it and they're even looking and I got to say, Mark Butler has actually looked at things like Scope of Practice, and that's something we support and think is something that could actually fill some of the void. And that's what the Pharmacy Guild is saying, just sit down with them and work through it.

But Mark Butler shut the door on them and said, “you know we're not interested.” There are actually Pharmacists that have had calls from their banks saying that, unfortunately, what's going to happen is we're going to put you on watch because you're high up on your debt, your business is now going to be devalued. And so we're actually concerned about your viability. And this is the stark reality of the business reality of what these Pharmacists are facing. They're saying they just want to survive, and particularly in rural and remote areas. If we lost 420 Pharmacies in those communities that don't have any primary care, we've got nothing.

CENATIEMPO: Well, David I'm not convinced that's going to happen, but I'm going to move on. I want to talk about this. You're calling it Labor's fresh food tax or the biosecurity level levy? Now look, I do have a problem with this. It's the equivalent of 10 per cent on the 2021 industry-led levies. Kristy, I'll start with you. This is just another hit on farmers when they don't need it.

MCBAIN: We know that biosecurity needs to be funded and that's exactly what we're doing. We have got a 6 per cent levy on farmers. The now opposition had nine years to implement long-term biosecurity funding and what they did under their last budget was cut biosecurity funding by 20 per cent. This is something that we are doing and we've got the support of the Cattle Council of Australia, the National Farmers Federation, the Australian Food and Grocery Council - all of whom say that biosecurity is a shared responsibility.

CENATIEMPO: But hang on, Kristy. The issue is here is not that biosecurity is not an important issue, but what we're talking about here is making the farmers pay for it.

MCBAIN: There is widespread support for everyone to be involved in this biosecurity system. That is what we are doing.

CENATIEMPO: No, hang on. You're not answering the question here. I took David to task on the pharmacy thing. I'm going to do the same with you here. This is about making the farmers pay for biosecurity.

MCBAIN: That's right.

CENATIEMPO: It's not about making everybody pay. It's about hitting the farmers.

MCBAIN: There is a system in place where 44 per cent of our biosecurity system is paid by taxpayers. 48 per cent roughly comes from importers across the world and farmers pay about 6 per cent. This is on everyone. Everyone is part of the biosecurity system. Not only do we have to stop pests and disease that might come in through our importers, we also have to make sure we're stopping that at our ports and our airport. This is a responsibility across the board that all Australians share, because we all know how important it is to make sure that we've got a secure biosecurity system going forward. We do not want pests and disease coming in from overseas that would have a devastating impact on our communities, on our economy, and especially on our farmers.

LITTLEPROUD: Let me help her out here, Steve. It's a 10 per cent tax. It's a 10 per cent tax on their levies. And let me tell you, farmers already pay a biosecurity levy on every item they send and export. There is a cost recovery model for exports, so exporters pay that. So, every time a farmer sends a product out on a boat or a plane, they actually have to pay for the cost recovery of the biosecurity to be checked. What this Government is saying is that Australian farmers will also pay for the biosecurity risk that their foreign competitors will pose to them and their product, and compete against our farmers on our shelves, in our supermarkets. They will pay for their biosecurity costs as well. In what parallel universe does any Government charge its own farmers for the biosecurity risk that foreign countries would bring to this country? That is insane. And in fact, we did move towards this. And the reason we had to halt it was this little thing called COVID. We were going to bring in what we call a container levy.

CENATIEMPO: I've got to stop you there. I've given you guys more time than I normally give here every week, and we've run out of time again. Kristy McBain. David Littleproud. We'll catch up again in a fortnight.