Anthony Albanese is in town for the Herald Sun Bush Summit. And at the Bush Summit he's going to make the official announcement of some further drought relief for farmers worth about a billion dollars. It's low interest loans. And I have just been speaking with the Prime Minister while AM was on this morning and asked him about that announcement and some other bits and pieces. So, that's going to be one of the big announcements that comes out of the Prime Minister's talk at the Bush Summit a little bit later on this morning. When I spoke to the Prime Minister between 8am and 8:30am, I did begin by asking him about his thoughts with the ongoing search for the gunman in northeast of Victoria. And this is what the Prime Minister had to say.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, the AFP Special Unit is joining this search today. We have offered whatever support to the Victorian Government, and through the Australian Federal Police to Victoria Police that is required. We need to find this criminal who is responsible for this tragedy. And my heart goes out to the family and friends of Detective Thompson and Senior Constable De Waart, but also to the police family in general. They'll all be feeling it today and this week and for some time. This is a horrific incident. Tragically, it is so reminiscent of the loss of life we saw in Queensland just a couple of years ago. And I attended the funeral of those police officers, and it was devastating. So, we need to find this perpetrator so that people can be reassured that he is not going to cause any more damage.
MARTIN: Prime Minister, you are speaking at the Herald Sun Bush Summit later this morning and you are going to announce some relief for farmers. It's already on the front page of the Herald Sun today. A billion dollars. Just explain what's in this package, if you would.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, this is an extension of our Regional Investment Corporation, not just in time but in amount of dollars that are available as well, because what it can be used for is concessional loans to help farmers stay profitable, so that they can build resilience and prepare for what is a difficult future in terms of the impact of changes in the climate that we are seeing. We're also broadening the scope to include assistance for things like boosting sector productivity and those issues as well, supporting agriculture to be part of dealing with the transition that is occurring. This builds on the support that we've provided already. We have 850 households here in Victoria, or a few more than that now, who are on Farm Household Allowance. That's a bit like JobKeeper, the way that that works to provide income when there's not money coming in. And $350 million has already been distributed here in Victoria in the form of loans. And all of that comes on top of - there's a billion dollars in drought support that's been provided since my Government came to office just three years ago. It's an indication of the extent to which we're seeing these events, particularly in Victoria and South Australia.
MARTIN: I was talking to some of my colleagues in our rural department and they were saying a lot of farmers have been looking for no interest loans rather than low interest loans. Why stick with low interest rather than go to a no interest circumstances farmers are calling for?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that's a recommendation. People will always, of course, ask for more. If you had a choice at any time between low or no, then it's not surprising that that would be put forward. But there are reasons for the integrity of the system that you build in some small amount of interest, and that is what this does.
MARTIN: What else are you going to focus on in your speech to the Bush Summit?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we'll be focusing on the full range of support for regional communities. Regional communication is obviously very important. We have satellite support going up to improve access to The National Broadband Network. That's a deal that's been done between the Australian Government and international providers as well. We'll be talking as well about jobs in the region, about the investment that we are making. We'll be talking about the impact of the First Home Buyers Scheme that we've brought forward now to the 1st of October to try to encourage people to get into home ownership. We'll be talking about the investment in infrastructure, including the $1.1 billion we're upgrading the Western Freeway. That brings our investment in the Western Freeway to $2.1 billion. And so we'll be talking about all of the full range of programs which are there and including that is education. One of the big things that we've done is Regional University Hubs that are making a big difference as we go forward.
MARTIN: Anthony Albanese, tariffs is a big issue in regional Australia at the moment and I'm just wondering about that 10 per cent baseline, whether it's going to hold. Of course, in the south west of Victoria we have Portland Aluminium as well. It faces a 25 per cent tariff. Are you confident that Australia can hold at those levels of tariff, or perhaps even improve and go back to a zero-tariff regime?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I want us to do even better. I met with Jason Smith who is the Chair of the Ways and Means Committee of the US Congress this week. He was in Canberra and I had a long meeting with him. I advocated Australia's case. We have zero tariffs for US goods coming into Australia on the basis of our Free Trade Agreement. So, a reciprocal tariff as the US President has said, would be zero. But it is true that we have as low a tariff rate as any country in the world has received in the United States at just 10 per cent. It's clearly a part of the policy of the Trump Administration. I think that's an act of economic self-harm. Tariffs hurt the country that's imposing it because it increases costs.
MARTIN: It also hurts us somewhat too, does it not?
PRIME MINISTER: It does. But one of the things that it hasn't done is hurt our comparative advantage with other countries because it's been across the board and other countries have indeed been hit with higher tariffs. So, when it comes to aluminium, for example, our main competitors are Canada, some of the countries in South America, Brazil, and they have higher tariffs than have been imposed than Australia. So, it is a distortion of the market. For a long while the world has been heading towards freer trade and fairer trade. This is a disruption that is occurring and we're working very hard to deal with that. At the same time, of course, we've repaired the trading relationship with China our major trading partner and some $19.5 billion dollars additional trade exports went to China last year in areas that were the subject of the impediment. So, everything from barley to wine and other agricultural products have benefited from that.
MARTIN: Prime Minister, let me just ask you finally, it's in relation to some of the protests you're likely to see as you attend the Herald Sun Bush Summit. Renewable energy has become a hot topic in Western Victoria once again. It was some years ago and it's ramping up again with the transmission line projects and new renewable energy infrastructure. We're being asked as a nation to change the way we produce and consume energy. And that is the way we produce energy is falling mostly on regional areas of Australia. The incentives that come with that either go to the landholder or to some community benefit, but that's often things like sports rooms or the like. There's no generational investment coming from this change that country people are bearing the brunt of. I just wonder if governments are aware of the pain that's being caused, if governments, both state and federal, have perhaps dropped the ball a bit on this in being able to get with this change to our energy infrastructure, generational change for country Australia, on things like the power supply that we have here already.
PRIME MINISTER: Governments certainly need to do better when it comes to community consultation and engagement. There's no question about that. The feelings that people have about these issues need to be taken into account and people need to be listened to and responded to. Over brekkie here this morning I've been speaking with some farmers about the concerns that they have. We know that the truth is that no new coal fired power stations were started, not just under our Government, under the former government, under the government before that as well. And so for decades. And so our coal fired power stations are reaching or have reached, some 18 of them announced their closure under the former government, a vast majority of them. So, we need to have energy. The cheapest form of new energy is renewables. How that process happens though, is important as well. And we need better engagement, there's no question about that.
MARTIN: Prime Minister, thanks for your time this morning.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much.
