The Hon Kristy McBain MP
Transcript - Radio Interview - 2CC Canberra with Stephen Cenatiempo
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: I guess probably not the best segue into my next segment talking about sheep, but we have our federal political panel this morning. Kristy McBain is the Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories and the Member for Eden‑Monaro. Morning Kristy.
KRISTY MCBAIN: Good morning.
CENATIEMPO: And welcome back, David Littleproud. Nationals leader and Member for Maranoa. G'day David.
DAVID LITTLEPROUD: G'day mate.
CENATIEMPO: Now, I know sheep are often a focus for National Party MPs but not in that context of course.
LITTLEPROUD: Well, they're a focus at the moment because this government's going to shut down the live sheep export industry in Western Australia. Three thousand livelihoods will be lost, but more importantly you're going to export animal welfare standards to countries that don't have ours. This is a sad indictment. Animals Australia want to go and show some photos of what it looks like to put sheep on a Sudanese boat or an Ethiopian boat and compare it to Australian sheep. This market's going to continue, it's not diminishing, and in fact, these countries have said, if you don't take our live sheep we won't ‑ if you don't send our live sheep, we won't take your box sheep. The government's taking all of Qatar Airlines. Where you need ‑ if they're going to process it, how are you going to get the product over there when you won't give them any more Qatari flights?
CENATIEMPO: Kristy, these are valid concerns. I mean the calls to shut down live animal exports are largely knee‑jerk based on very little information quite often.
MCBAIN: We want to make sure we do as much production onshore as possible, and that means making sure we can process those sheep onshore as well, and there are obviously going to be some negotiations that take place with other countries about this, but we want to keep as much of that added value onshore as possible.
CENATIEMPO: Yeah, that's great, but how do we actually do that. If our customers don't want to buy our processed meats well then what are we processing them for?
MCBAIN: Well, go and speak to people in the industry. They're keen to see what other things we can do onshore, including processing them onshore. They believe that there are further markets out there for us to send our A-grade meat to. It's important that we're taking into consideration their wishes as well.
LITTLEPROUD: Well, it might be good, Kristy, if you did go and listen to the producers, because there were 600 of them turned up to Katanning in Western Australia and the Prime Minister and the Agriculture Minister didn't bother to turn up to explain to them the science. The science that we reformed to being an animal welfare standard rather than the mortality methodology of how you measure ships. And if we go, let me tell you, how they slaughter them will be different to what they do now. They won't have Australian standards, so I think you do need to go and listen to Australian producers, because they do want this market and our international partners actually want this. It's cultural. You've got to understand, you can't arrogantly tell the rest of the world how you're going to take and eat their food. This is a cultural aspect, particularly for those in the Middle East, and for those that take our live cattle, it's actually about food security as well from another perspective, because they don't have refrigeration. So, you know, this sanctimonious self‑righteous ‑‑
MCBAIN: But we're not talking about live cattle.
LITTLEPROUD: We're talking about both. Yes, you are, because this is how we need to understand ‑‑
MCBAIN: No, we're not.
LITTLEPROUD: Well, Kristy, this is where you've got to understand, live cattle also go on those boats out of Western Australia. So, this is why you guys need to get out of Canberra and go and sit there and go to Western Australia. Have the courage of your conviction, and look those people in the eye and ‑‑
MCBAIN: Oh, David, honestly.
LITTLEPROUD: ‑‑ tell them why they're taking away ‑ taking away their livelihoods, and you're going to take away the cattle industry in Western Australia because the boats have both sheep and cattle on them. You might want to know that before you start making public comments.
CENATIEMPO: David, having said that though, I mean surely we do need to try and expand our markets for processed meat, if we can process more meat and find markets for it, that can't be a bad thing?
LITTLEPROUD: Yeah, and we can do that, but unfortunately at the moment we don't have even the slightest, nearest, closest capacity to be able to do that. We're working at about 60 per cent capacity because they took away the ag visa, and the Pacific scheme's been capped out at about 42 thousand and now the Pacific nations are turning their noses up at this. But this is about understanding global markets. Yes, we want to process as much as we can here, but unfortunately we will shut down other markets if we don't take it up, because they are saying to us ‑ and I actually had the courage to go over and tell them when there was a hit that we'll keep it going, and said to them that we'll keep it going, but they said, we'll only take your processed sheep if you send us the live sheep, because it's a cultural thing. And this is where you've got to understand, we're a part of the world. But these standards, I can tell you, there was a 7.30 Report expose on Oman the other day where there was a leakage out of one of our approved facilities. We have no influence to stop that if we're not there. That will become the norm where abhorrent animal welfare standards take place. So I just say to everybody, just understand that if we're not there then the standards drop, and I don't think Australians cut and run. I think Australians stay and get the job done, and that's what we've said, and that's what we'll do if we're re‑elected. This ban will go, and we'll basically get on with the job of exporting live sheep as well as processing them here in Australia.
CENATIEMPO: Kristy, early polling or early voting for the Voice Referendum has now opened, well, at nine o'clock this morning will have opened everywhere right across the country. Look, important for everybody to get out and vote, but equally as important, it means we're closer to the great distraction being over.
MCBAIN: I'm not sure that for First Nations people it is a great distraction. It's a couple of hundred years of asking for recognition as the First Australians so that's wrong.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: But we're not talking about recognition here though, we're not talking about recognition.
MCBAIN: No, it is. That's the question in front of you, it's recognising ‑‑
CENATIEMPO: Well, it's not.
KRISTY MCBAIN: ‑‑ the First Nations people in the Constitution ‑‑
CENATIEMPO: It's about creating a voice.
MCBAIN: ‑‑ through a Voice to Parliament.
CENATIEMPO: They're two different things.
MCBAIN: Those two things are linked. That is the question in front of Australians which they'll be voting on, and pre‑poll does open in the rest of the country today. Right across Eden‑Monaro people will be able to go and pre‑poll today. It's important that everyone does vote in this referendum, that they're getting information from credible sources, that they're sifting through some of the misinformation and fear campaign and understand what this will mean for some of our First Nations people. I've done a lot of travel in my ministerial role and also in my role as a local Member, and it's really important that we are giving information to people that is credible and is based in fact and not in fear.
CENATIEMPO: David, your electorate is fairly big, and I imagine there'd be some remote Indigenous communities within your electorate. I don't know it back to front like you should.
Now if successive governments aren't listening to you as a local Member who comes back and says, "These are what the preferences in my electorate are", what makes them listen to this new voice?
LITTLEPROUD: Well, and this is the challenge, this is just another layer of bureaucracy. This isn't a new concept, and particularly for my part of the world, remote Queensland, we've experienced this before, it was called ATSIC, and we lived with the consequences of that, and we don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past. What we need is a 2023 intervention. That intervention needs to happen at a bureaucratic level in Canberra. We need to get the bureaucrats out and create local solutions with local elders in local communities. I've seen that where it has worked in my electorate, and where we have closed the gap. And I've got to say to every Australian don't think that it's all doom and gloom out there. We have done a lot of good stuff, and in fact we now know to the postcode and to the area of neglect that we need to fix, and this is what we're saying, we need practical solutions. And conflating a Voice with constitutional recognition is why the Nationals couldn't support this. If this was about constitutional recognition, then we'd be more than happy to go down that pathway with a proper constitutional convention and making sure that we did it properly, where all Australians could have a say on the design and the question, not just one cohort of the population. And that's what we're saying, if this was ‑‑
MCBAIN: But that's wrong, David.
LITTLEPROUD: ‑‑ if this was about ‑‑
MCBAIN: You rejected ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: No, it's not ‑‑
MCBAIN: You rejected the question before you even knew what it was. So ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: No, we didn't.
KRISTY MCBAIN: ‑‑ you can't say that you ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: The Calma Langton report, you might want to read the Calma Langton report on page 16 to 18 ‑‑
MCBAIN: ‑‑ rejected it once you ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: ‑‑ it clearly identifies ‑‑
KRISTY MCBAIN: ‑‑ you rejected it before you even knew what the question was.
CENATIEMPO: But Kristy, are you suggesting ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: Well, again, Kristy, you might want to ‑‑
CENATIEMPO: ‑‑ are you suggesting the question might have been different?
LITTLEPROUD: Kristy, you might want to read ‑ no, this is nonsense. You want to read the Calma Langton report, exactly what the Prime Minister said that he was going to design the Voice on. Page 16 to 18 clearly says that it will be another representative body somewhere between 24 and 27 representatives from around the country, two from each state, one from a region, and unfortunately we've had that before, Kristy. And in fact, even in my advice from Meagan Davies is that the regions would be based predominantly off what the ATSIC model regions were. So with all due respect the Nationals did go through a proper process. We understood that this was another representative body, it is repeating a mistake in the past. If it was about constitutional recognition, then we would be in.
MCBAIN: Again, a representative body, not another layer of bureaucracy. So that contradiction just in that last couple of minutes ‑‑
CENATIEMPO: But that is bureaucracy.
MCBAIN: ‑‑ is exactly what the problem is.
LITTLEPROUD: That is bureaucracy.
CENATIEMPO: That's what bureaucracy means.
MCBAIN: It's not. Bureaucracy is paid public servants ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: These people won't be paid ‑‑
MCBAIN: Honestly, come on guys.
LITTLEPROUD: ‑‑ I'm sorry, they're going to be paid, and they are going to come to Canberra and the bureaucrats will generalise ‑‑
MCBAIN: That is a big problem when you're conflating the issue. It's not bureaucracy, it's an advisory body representative of the people ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: We've got 300 of them already.
MCBAIN: ‑‑ exactly like we do. But we're not there just to represent Indigenous people. This is the difference here. You cannot conflate the two issues; you cannot continue to say it's bureaucracy. It is not.
CENATIEMPO: Well, Kristy ‑‑
MCBAIN: It is direct advocacy to Parliament ‑‑
CENATIEMPO: That aside ‑‑
MCBAIN: ‑‑ and to Government.
CENATIEMPO: Kristy, that aside though, let me ask you this question: so we're going to create this Voice. Now all of the ads out there say it's about listening. Why aren't you listening now?
MCBAIN: It's about making sure that people are heard in the process too.
CENATIEMPO: Yeah, but why aren't you hearing them now? Why do you need an extra body to hear them?
MCBAIN: Because what we're doing now is not working. The previous Government had nine years and weren't able to ‑‑
CENATIEMPO: Oh, so it's only nine ‑ so it's only the last nine years, right.
MCBAIN: No, it's not.
LITTLEPROUD: This is only new.
MCBAIN: What I'm saying is you can't continue to do the same thing and expect a different result.
CENATIEMPO: But Kristy, that suggests ‑‑
MCBAIN: You have to try ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: Well doing the same thing we did before won't work either.
CENATIEMPO: That suggests ‑‑
MCBAIN: This is something that has come to us from First Nations people. This is about making sure we're listening in the process, and for all those people that say, oh, look, give us the legislation, that's just another construct of an elected parliament without the consultation with First Nations people. This is about making sure that we consult, that we listen, that there is direct advocacy to government, like there is for a myriad of other lobby groups, business groups, industry groups.
CENATIEMPO: Not in the mind of the indigenous people.
MCBAIN: With the view that they can get straight to Government.
LITTLEPROUD: But Kristy, you had an opportunity. We've proudly elected 11 Indigenous Australians to our Parliament, not to represent Indigenous Australians.
MCBAIN: Okay, and ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: ‑‑ but to represent all of them, but only in the last Parliament.
MCBAIN: And what happens in 2025 if that representative number changes?
LITTLEPROUD: Only in the last sitting of Parliament, Kristy, sadly, sadly, Jacinta Price ‑‑
MCBAIN: What happened?
LITTLEPROUD: And Kerrynne Liddle brought forward a motion to actually do an audit on the spending of Indigenous money to make sure that it goes to Closing the Gap. Labor voted against it, they tore it down and wouldn't do it. So, there are Indigenous voices in our Parliament already, and yet you're saying they need to be heard. Well someone needs to listen. And you guys didn't listen. Here's the lived experience of ‑‑
MCBAIN: In 2025 ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: Of Kerrynne Liddle and of Jacinta Price being able to say here's the opportunities ‑‑
MCBAIN: ‑‑ our parliament.
LITTLEPROUD: ‑‑ that we need to seek somewhere. They haven't been able to make a decision ‑‑
MCBAIN: We may not have 11 Indigenous voices in Parliament again, and they're not here to ‑ they're not in Parliament to represent ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: But we're all equal, Kristy.
DAVID LITTLEPROUD: They're not there to represent indigenous Australians, they're there to represent all of us.
MCBAIN: Well, why do you think --
LITTLEPROUD: That's what our great nation's built on.
MCBAIN: That's a conflation.
LITTLEPROUD: That's what our great nation is built on.
CENATIEMPO: Kristy ‑‑
MCBAIN: It's all misinformation.
CENATIEMPO: Well, it's not misinformation. That's the trick. Kristy, let me ask you this, and I want to specifically ask about your electorate. Do you have indigenous organisations and indigenous people living in your electorate?
MCBAIN: Yes.
CENATIEMPO: Do you talk to them?
MCBAIN: Absolutely.
CENATIEMPO: Do you come back to Parliament with the problems that they tell you they've got?
MCBAIN: Yes.
CENATIEMPO: Then why isn't that working?
MCBAIN: We're all there to represent an area and then a political party, and then we've got a whole range of our own processes that we have to go through as well. It's the same for David, it would be the same for ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: It is, and it's worked for us.
MCBAIN: ‑‑ any Indigenous Member of Parliament. What I'm saying is that system clearly does not yield the results we need. We look at the Closing the Gap target ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: It does.
MCBAIN: ‑‑ and it is not, David.
LITTLEPROUD: Let me tell you what happened in Cunnamulla and Charleville.
MCBAIN: You can't bury your head in the sand ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: Let me tell you ‑‑
MCBAIN: Yes, we're ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: No, no, no.
MCBAIN: Yes, David, we have good examples here and there ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: Exactly.
MCBAIN: ‑‑ but not on the problems ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: No, no, not here or there.
MCBAIN: That's the problem.
LITTLEPROUD: No, no, no, don't generalise, Kristy. There has been significant change ‑‑
MCBAIN: That's exactly what you've been doing, David.
LITTLEPROUD: No, no, exactly. And you know what, in communities where there is challenges and in Cunnamulla and in Charleville where we sat down with all tiers of Government and worked with Indigenous elders about making sure that we didn't have challenges with birth weights of babies born in Cunnamulla. They created their own program, not one that was some representative went to Canberra and said, oh, this would be a good idea, and then it's generalised and nationalised in the program. It was designed and run in the local community by buy‑in by the local community. And we Closed the Gap in that area because we let the elders, with all tiers of Government, work together. I did my job. I sat around the table and got them some money for building. The state guys sat around and made sure they had the people on the ground, the local government made sure it was there to administer, and the elders were the ones that made sure that there was buy‑in by the community. We have done that in so many places around the country, and that we now know to the post code where that hasn't been done, and that's where we simply need to make sure the bureaucracy doesn't get this same opportunity to have someone come to Canberra and generalise and then nationalise programs. You need bespoke local programs designed by local elders, and that's what we've said, that's the model for it. You don't need to put it in the Constitution. That's common sense.
CENATIEMPO: I've got one question for both of you. Once this is over, on 15 October, can we start talking about the cost-of-living and things that matter to all Australians?
LITTLEPROUD: Yes, exactly.
MCBAIN: We've already been doing that, and there's been a range of cost-of-living measures legislated in the Parliament. We can walk and chew gum.
CENATIEMPO: They haven't hit the sides yet.
LITTLEPROUD: Yeah, yeah. Look, the reality is this Government's been focused on the Voice and forgotten about cost-of-living.
MCBAIN: That's not the reality.
LITTLEPROUD: If you look at inflation ‑‑
MCBAIN: No, David, you voted against electricity rebates ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: If you look at where inflation is the drivers of,
DAVID LITTLEPROUD: No, no, no, Kristy, no, we didn't. Don't be tricky on that.
KRISTY MCBAIN: Yes, you did.
LITTLEPROUD: You put it in an entirety of a Bill.
MCBAIN: That's exactly what you voted against.
LITTLEPROUD: That element we supported, but the other elements around reducing ‑‑
MCBAIN: You voted against it, David.
LITTLEPROUD: ‑‑ supply has driven up everyone's electricity prices.
MCBAIN: But we've been focused on the cost-of-living whilst those opposite haven't been. We've been focused on cheaper medicines ‑‑
LITTLEPROUD: Well, ask Australians how they're feeling at the moment, Kristy.
MCBAIN: ‑‑ cheaper childcare.
LITTLEPROUD: They're feeling pretty ‑‑
MCBAIN: ‑‑ electricity rebates.
LITTLEPROUD: They're feeling pretty neglected by a Government ‑‑
MCBAIN: We've been focused on all of those things.
LITTLEPROUD: ‑‑ that's just focused on the Voice.
CENATIEMPO: I have to step in. I do give you guys longer than I used to, and we've still run out of time. Kristy McBain, David Littleproud, thanks for your time this morning.
LITTLEPROUD: Thanks for having us.
MCBAIN: Lovely to be with you.
CENATIEMPO: All the best.