E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC CANBERRA LIVE WITH LEON DELANEY
TUESDAY, 14 JULY 2020

SUBJECTS: COVIDSafe app failures; community impact of COVID-19.

LEON DELANEY, HOST: The COVIDSafe app was introduced in order to help health authorities track the coronavirus, and track contacts of people who've tested positive. But in the wake of recent outbreaks, it has emerged that the app doesn't seem to be fulfilling its purpose. It appears the COVIDSafe app has not been used at all to find any additional cases of coronavirus in the ACT, New South Wales or Victoria. Well, this outcome has led the Shadow Minister for Government Services and for the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill Shorten, to say that it looks like an expensive dud. Another I.T. bungle. Bill Shorten joins me now, good afternoon.

BILL SHORTEN, MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG: Good morning, Leon - good afternoon.

DELANEY: It's been a long day, has it?

SHORTEN: Long day here, in lockdown country.

DELANEY: Why is the COVIDSafe app an expensive dud?

SHORTEN: It doesn't seem to be working. I mean, if the Government’s very happy with its progress, maybe they should explain to us how it is working. Millions of people have downloaded the app, I have as well. But it would appear that when it comes to tracing contact, pen and paper seems to be a more reliable tool than the app. Now, maybe there’s things we can't see, and if the Government would just be transparent, then maybe that's fine. But a lot of people have said that it seems ineffectual, that it’s a middle class app, that a lot of people who don't have the smart phones or older people, some of whom might be not so I.T familiar, or people from different language backgrounds don’t seem to be using it as much. I don't know, it’s just a big black hole, which the Government disappeared into on this question. Labor was prepared to give it in principle support, you know, it makes sense. But it just seems to have more questions than answers, doesn't it?

DELANEY: Well, I guess so. And there was all along, some criticism from a technology point of view, suggesting that it was not as effective on the Apple platform because certain features of the app had to be switched on manually, and various other shortcomings of the app. All of those things surely could be overcome, but couldn't they? Surely in principle it’s a sound idea?

SHORTEN: In principle it is, and I understand they kept doing upgrades and making improvements, but the proof is in the pudding, isn’t it? And it doesn't seem to have been the frontline weapon that we hoped it would be.

DELANEY: When you say it looks like an expensive dud, do we know how expensive? What's been spent on it?

SHORTEN: I don't know what the Government’s spent yet, but we will get to the bottom of that. But no, we don't know. I mean, this Government’s got a shocking track record with I.T, it just seems to be like the Bermuda Triangle of government inaccountability. I mean, remember the census? Each tax time it appears that the I.T systems crash. This app, I don’t know what use it is. Again, you’re hearing the voice of someone who wants to see it work. Here in Victoria, we've got the second spike emerging, it's all about tracing and tracking. And I just want it to work, frankly..

DELANEY: Yeah, I'm sure. You sound quite frustrated. You're at home, I take it, in Victoria. And so therefore subject to lockdowns?

SHORTEN: Yeah, we’re at Stage 3 lockdown, my suburb went in about two and half weeks ago, we’re on week three, practically. But we have people in the Flemington towers, the high rise, and they all got put down into Stage 4 conditions where they couldn’t leave their apartments. I've got a nursing home in the electorate where 13 residents and as many staff, have all tested positive. Now, these residents are aged, some of the residents in the facility generally have dementia and other conditions. I'm seeing it hit our community. Again, this is not the Liberal versus Labor. Take of that what you will, but we’re all in this together. I just wish the government would stop saying it’s got this ‘you beaut’ app. What good is it?

DELANEY: All right, let's have a look at this ‘it’s not Liberal versus Labor’ and so forth. Obviously, there has been a high degree of bipartisanship in fighting the COVID-19 virus. There's been the establishment of the National Cabinet. Do you see that bipartisanship holding up, or are you concerned that there have been criticisms of various State Premiers at various times? I know that Federal representatives have been reluctant to criticise Victorian Premier Dan Andrews. They were less reluctant to criticise Annastacia Palaszczuk in Queensland. But is that bipartisanship holding up, do you think?

SHORTEN: More so than less so. And I think that's a good thing. I mean, the virus doesn't know geographical borders. I mean, it's come from overseas, it’s an unprecedented time. My observations about the app are just one of functionality and utility. I just want things that work, things that help. No, I think bipartisanship is holding up more than its not. One thing I would like to see the Government do, the Federal Government that is, is come clean and be direct about what they're doing with JobKeeper. I'd like them to spell out what they're going to do for small business going forward. Some in the Government are simply sort of, snap back in September, and everything will go back to normal. Let me assure you, they’re not in Kansas and they’re not in Victoria and its not going to go back to normal in September. So I think the more that business and people have the ability to plan and know what the set of facts are that we're dealing with through government policy, that will assist or I think relieve some of the anxiety as we try and actually deal with the public health emergency.

DELANEY: Now, you mentioned JobKeeper. There's obviously a lot of concern about what's going to happen after September, when the JobKeeper programme comes to its scheduled conclusion. The Federal Government has indicated that there will be some form of support to replace that, but they have not come forward in any detail and don't intend to until later this month. But of course, there's a very real risk there of falling off a cliff, isn’t there?

SHORTEN: Government economic policy shouldn't be a game of hide and seek, where the government hides what they want to do and the people sort of seek it out. One thing which is clear from COVID-19 is that if you give people the facts, then they can make informed decisions. If you don't give people the facts, then it's a much more confusing, uncertain situation. So I think if the Government's made a decision to extend JobKeeper, then they should just tell us. Now, I'm out there on the frontline. I see small businesses. I see people who've lost their jobs. I see other shopkeepers deciding whether or not they keep their businesses open or shut. I mean, the people have been great. And levels of government have been good too, the Australian people will put up with a lot, they just don't like to have their chain jerked do they, they just want to know what's going on.

DELANEY: Now alongside the uncertainty about JobKeeper, of course, Anglicare put out their concerns today about what's going to happen when JobSeeker cuts out at that same time in September. And again, there's no clarity about what's going to happen there. The Federal Government has hinted that perhaps JobSeeker may not return to the previous low level of Newstart, but there's even less certainty about that than there is about JobKeeper, isn't there?

SHORTEN: Well, that's right. Again, economic policy shouldn't be hide and seek, where the government hide it and we seek it. What I fundamentally think, and perhaps through you can get listeners to think about the people who've lost their jobs or the small businesses who are getting government support or the people who are locked down at the moment is, this is not standard unemployment. This is a set of circumstances which really no one alive today has ever lived through before, and the people who've lost their jobs, the people who've got reduced hours, the businesses who are not trading the way they were, they've taken one for the national team. There's nothing that they've done wrong in any sense at all. It's just a pandemic from overseas, which is drastic and lethal and scary. So I think the way we view the people who are doing it toughest is that their sacrifices helped keep the rest of us safe. If they’re not going to work, if they're not trading, if they're all in the Stage 3 lockdowns and not able to enjoy the rights and benefits that Australians normally enjoy, that’s so that virus doesn't spread. I think that's the way I look at the residents in the public housing towers in Melbourne or that small business in hospitality or retail, or someone or reduced hours, or the carnival folk who do the rides for country shows, none of these people are working. I just think we’ve got to take a view about them and understand that their sacrifice, their loss is actually sacrifice, which helps keep the rest of us safe.

DELANEY: Casey Chambers from Anglicare expressed concern that should the JobSeeker payment simply go back to where Newstart was at the end of September, then one million children would be plunged back into poverty and people who are unemployed are then more likely to also become homeless. These are very big concerns.

SHORTEN: If I can speak straight, I mean, the amount was never big enough to begin with, before the pandemic, and if we'd been successful at the last election, we wanted to review the rate and see what it should be, which would be a bigger amount than it was. But now there's so many extra people relying on it, I think there’d be a riot if they just dropped it back to the old level, the place would go off its brain.

DELANEY: And certainly it wouldn't do the economy any favours either, would it? With so many people unable to spend, obviously economic activity would just grind even further to a halt.

SHORTEN: This is what's always been funny, when people bag those on welfare and people bag the poor, and say ‘oh well, you know they should just have a go’. Life’s not as simple as that. Everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but you've got to own a pair of boots to begin with. And let me tell you, from what I've seen, people living on 40 or 50 dollars a day, they're spending every cent. They're not investing it in investment properties, they're not backing the share market. It's stimulus. So when you look after - the safety net isn't an act of charity to people down on their luck, the safety net is what it implies, a net to stop all people from falling through. It wasn't great beforehand, and now the pandemic, I think, has highlighted that this notion that you can just go back to business as usual at a certain date, that's just delusionary thinking.

DELANEY: Yes, it's not realistic. Finally, you’re Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I would expect that the impact of COVID-19 has been particularly difficult for people with disabilities. Is that right?

SHORTEN: You know, the costs go up. And the challenge is, well there's a whole lot of challenges, but if you’re profoundly disabled a lot of day services have been cancelled, so you’re experiencing more isolation. If you’re on a disability and you are trying to get accommodation or employment, people with disabilities will be the people at the end of the queue. I mean, they're already at the end of the queue, but when the queue is longer, being at the end of the queue is an even worse place to be. And you’ve got the care workers, the professional support workers. They're not paid very much at all really, which isn't very good. Some of them, if they can't go to work, then you've got the people in need that miss out. The people who work with people with disabilities, I don't think have had the same access to PPE, protective equipment, that others have had. It just highlights that we ask a lot of people who work in our community services, and we don't give a lot back. And at a time like this, caring is actually a frontline calling. I mean, in a war it’s our soldiers, in a fire it’s our firefighters, but in a pandemic it’s our health workers, our support workers, our disability workers, who at the very front line. That’s the way we should value them. We have to value all of us in these times, whether it be the people aren’t working at the moment and the job queues are longer, the small businesses, the public housing tenants, the elderly, the people who care for them. For every piece of trouble that they put up with, it helps. You know, it's all about community safety.

DELANEY: Indeed it is. Thanks very much for your time today.

SHORTEN: Lovely to chat. Cheerio.