SUBJECT: Floods in Southeast Queensland and Northern New South Wales.
 
HOST: The mighty Brisbane River is menacing.
 
HOST: Everybody kept saying it's never going to happen again in 2011. But here we are.
 
HOST: And Anthony Albanese joins us this morning, Leader of the Opposition. Good morning.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning. Thanks for a bit of Eminem to brighten up my morning.
 
HOST: We always play the person's favourite song before we get them on. So, you're welcome.
 
ALBANESE: Very good. Thank you. Appreciate it. I hope you're staying safe there. It is a tough that you're going through in Southeast Queensland and Northern New South Wales as well, Ballina is just being evacuated as we speak.
 
HOST: You're flying up here today to help out? What's the itinerary for you today?
 
ALBANESE: Well, I'll be up there this afternoon, flying in, getting briefings. I have spoken with a range of my local members up there, people like Shayne Neumann in Ipswich. And Anika Wells has been out there providing support. All of our MPs, Murray Watt, our Shadow Minister, has been everywhere, I think. And I'll be coming up this afternoon. And I'm going to the emergency response centre tomorrow morning. It's appropriate that we ask the Federal Government to make sure that Services Australia people are on the ground providing support for people when they need it. We don't want bureaucracy getting in the way at the moment. People are having to apply online and they've got to have a MyGov account. It's quite complex. We need to give people that emergency support when they need it, which is right now.
 
HOST: I thought they're just doing GoFundMe pages. I was talking about Peter Dutton. He did post that up. And you know, his message was accurate, that there's so many people that need help, and he donated. But everyone was like, 'You're doing a GoFundMe page, where are our taxes going?'
 
ALBANESE: Well, the taxes have gone into the Emergency Response Fund that hasn't been spent. They set up a fund a few years ago, $4 billion. We supported that happening. They took money from infrastructure funds that have been established. It got $800 million of interest. It's now bigger than it was at the beginning. The whole idea was that you could set up a fund and draw down $200 million each year. That's what we will do with our Disaster Ready Fund. We need to make sure that we prepare for disasters in advance and spend the money that's been allocated. It's beyond my comprehension how it can just be sitting there and not being used.
 
HOST: How does it work with funding between the Federal and the state governments as well? How much can the state government actually provide to help out residents here in Queensland?
 
ALBANESE: Well, there's agreement now, legislated, so that automatically kicks in when an area is declared a disaster zone, of shared funding. And that's to stop that sort of argy-bargy that used to happen. That was something that occurred in the wake of the 2011 floods in Southeast Queensland that happened the last time there were very large floods of the size. And of course, that time you had bushfires as well. You had a range of the natural disasters. Queensland seems to cop it more than most. I was in the flood areas around Maryborough just in January. And there's a major alert for Maryborough today. It is one of the areas that really worried about. They're worried about there. And of course, the waters get to recede around the Brisbane River as well. So, just everyone, stay safe. Follow the advice of the experts. Just a big thank you to our emergency services and SES and all the other volunteers, people helping out. It's extraordinary that at the worst of times, we see the best of Australians. We are seeing it again at the moment.
 
HOST: And we've been talking about this the last couple of days. Even the communities throughout the suburbs where people have been flooded, the streets that are empty, there's people feeding neighbours, there's people that never met sleeping in spare bedrooms. For the worst of situations, it just brings out the best in people as well.
 
ALBANESE: It does. It's part of the Australian character. What we can be really proud of as a nation is that whether it's a natural disaster or an emergency or whether it was during the pandemic as well, people were making sacrifices to look after each other. And the sort of charity efforts and people risking their own safety in order to help others as well is just quite extraordinary. And it should inspire all of us, really.
But now we know we've had that character. We don't need it again for a while now.
We hope not. There's a pretty bad climate change report out today by the international panel as well predicting more extreme weather events. And it is just another reminder that we really need to do our bit there as well.
 
HOST: Anthony Albanese, we were speaking to ScoMo yesterday and we were talking about people's frustrations. Because yes, it is mother nature, we can't control that, although we probably should with global warming. But talking about the warning system that people got, they were saying they were so frustrated. And we were talking about the BOM yesterday and they were saying it kept changing information that they had gotten. ScoMo was saying that so much money had been poured into the BOM to try and keep it up to date. Do you think that needs to be looked into more and make sure that they do have all the technology they need and accurate reporting and also the warning systems?
 
ALBANESE: We need to give the Bureau whatever resources that it needs. Because it's short-sighted to cut back on these research facilities. We opposed the cuts when they came in for the CSIRO. It's really cutting off your nose despite your face, as my mum used to say. It really makes no sense. And the Bureau of Meteorology are talented people, they work hard. But they need more resources quite clearly.
 
HOST: I would be getting in touch with the Higgins Storm Chasers guys on Facebook. I know it sounds silly, Albo, but they were running Facebook lives throughout the last couple of days. And they were pretty spot on with all of their information.
 
ALBANESE: I didn't follow them, I've got to say. Well, that's an example of civil society taking action as well, letting people know what's going on. And the role of radio as well, people would be listening to get that immediate information out there in the local communities. It is really important.
 
HOST: Well, thank you for your time this morning, mate. We know you're on your way to Queensland. We look forward to seeing you in some gumboots
 
HOST: Don't bring those Country Road sneakers. You looked amazing in the photoshoot, Albanese. But don't bring those. They are way too white. Okay?
 
ALBANESE: Thank you. No. They might end up a bit muddy.
 
HOST: They were borrowed. You don't own them, do you?
 
ALBANESE: No, of course I do.
 
HOST: Good on you.
 
ENDS