SUBJECTS: Floods on the East Coast; climate change; Federal election; Labor’s policy agenda.
 
MADONNA JARRETT, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR BRISBANE: Good morning everybody. I'm Madonna Jarrett, Labor's candidate for the upcoming Federal election. We all know this man, hopefully our future Prime Minister. It's been a really tough couple of weeks here in Brisbane. Floods, clean up, clean up and clean up. Families are still hurting, businesses are hurting. And it's really great to have Anthony Albanese with us. He's had a good look around and seen what's been happening on the ground. And Brisbane needs support. And we need it very quickly. With that I'll hand over to Anthony.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Well, thanks very much, Madonna. It's been terrific this morning here at the markets talking to Queenslanders about the issues that concern them. And of course, it's in the aftermath of the dreadful floods that have occurred here, as well as in the Northern Rivers region where I've been for the last two days, and, of course, in Sydney. And indeed, this has been a national crisis. And the Prime Minister belatedly came and declared that it was a national emergency on Thursday, and that Queensland would be included. That was a week later than the national emergency should have been declared. One day later, he said it now no longer was a national emergency. It's extraordinary that this Prime Minister once again was here for the photo-op and the headline, and then disappeared.
 
What we need is leadership on climate change in the immediate sense, but also longer term. In the immediate sense, we need to make sure that we have a Disaster Ready Fund. A $200 million fund that Labor's committed to in January that we would spend each and every year. The Government has an Emergency Response Fund of $4 billion established that has done nothing other than be a term deposit and received $800 million of interest. It is beyond belief that this Government have used that fund to just get increased revenue through interest, as if there's no need for expenditure or measures like mitigation, flood levees, bushfire preparedness, cyclone preparedness. And what we've seen here in recent times, and again in January, it's only in January as well, that places like Maryborough and Gympie were impacted by flood is a real impact on Queensland. And indeed, we continue to see more extreme, more intense natural disasters occurring. I visited Ballina, Murwillumbah and Lismore in the last couple of days. The idea that Lismore qualifies for additional assistance, but Murwillumbah, parts of Queensland, including here in Brisbane, and Byron Shire and Tweed Shire, don't qualify is just, quite frankly, absurd. I visited homes in Ballina that are now unliveable. Families who are having to stay with friends. I did the same in Murwillumbah yesterday. And the truth is that all of these communities have been impacted severely by these floods. And all of them are worthy of support. And yet the Prime Minister, having done a visit where he refused to meet people around Lismore and around the Northern Rivers, refused to hear their concerns, then came to Brisbane, got out a mop on an already cleaned floor, promised there would be a national emergency and then walked away from it just 24 hours later. This Prime Minister needs to actually lead rather than continue to always follow. But of course, he's incapable of leading because he leads a Government that has been sceptical about climate change from the very beginning, that has ridiculed action on climate change, whether it's the Prime Minister's own actions or whether it be calling electric vehicles  a move that would end the weekend, whether it be ridiculing action on climate change, including renewable energy, saying that it doesn't work if the sun doesn't shine, and ignoring the fact of battery storage and new technology. Ridiculing green hydrogen, saying that it was snake oil.

The truth is that we need a Government that will end the climate wars. And only a Labor Government will end the climate wars. Only a Labor Government will take that long-term action to be a part of the global effort to challenge climate change. Only a Labor Government will also be prepared to get in there, acknowledge the issues which are there, and provide support for people. Thanks very much.
 
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