E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
TODAY
TUESDAY 12 MAY 2020

SUBJECTS: COVID-19 Economic recovery; Budget deficit, COVID-19 tracing app; Data privacy; Easing restrictions; Bill Shorten’s birthday.

ALLISON LANGDON, HOST: It’s great to have your company today, today was meant to be treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s big moment of triumph, delivering a stunning $5 billion budget surplus for the first time in more than a decade. But what a distant dream that now is, instead the Treasurer will warn Australia to brace for a two year coronavirus hangover and the biggest deficit in our nation’s history, to discuss I’m joined by the Shadow Minister for Government, Bill Shorten and Triple M’s Gus Worland, good morning gentlemen.

So, Bill the treasurer says there is no endless money tree, when would you cut off the tap?

BILL SHORTEN, MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG: He’s right about that, I think though what we’ve got to do is get everyone back to work, so the decisions I would make would be about helping business and people just have jobs, jobs, jobs. I don’t think you can just cut everything off on one day, but I do think that we’ve just got to get everyone back to work. You know, regional jobs, manufacturing jobs, Aussie jobs, it’s all about jobs now, that’s what I think it’s about.

LANGDON: But aren’t you one the same page there as the Coalition? That’s what they’re saying too.

SHORTEN: Sure, but one thing that we can’t do is simply pretend that everyone has a job tomorrow, so we’ve got to help business come out of it, small business needs some of that JobKeeper support, there will be people who do need the unemployment benefit because they’ve been thrown out of work through no fault of their own, so in chasing the jobs what you’ve got to try and do is not just pretend you can simply snap back as if we haven’t had a virus, it’s got to be working together, but it’s all about the jobs.

LANGDON: So you wouldn’t cut the money off come September?

SHORTEN: Well we’re not in September yet, we’ll wait and see what’s happening, but what I do think is we need to start building things again, we need to have big infrastructure, we need to start building things in the bush, and we need to make sure that we have a three word slogan‘Made in Australia’. The big thing I’ve learned out of this is we can’t rely on global supply chains to look after Australia, we’ve got good engineers and manufacturers here, if I was the government I’d be focusing on making jobs by making things here, rather than digging it up and shipping it off overseas and buying it back at highly inflated prices.

LANGDON: So Gus, when we start talking about our nation’s biggest deficit, I mean this is a debt we’re going to have to pay off for generations?

WORLAND, TRIPLE M: Yeah absolutely, and I spoke to my kids about that just last night, the fact is that we’ve never been here before, so we’re dealing with something we just sort of have to make it up as we go along to a certain degree, and there is going to be things happening in our lives that have never happened before, so they’re going to have to take the burden of that, but you have to, we’re Aussies, we have to deal with whatever is thrown at us. I love the fact that Bill hasn’t politicised any of this stuff over the last six or seven weeks, we’ve been talking on the Today show in the morning, it’s the fact that we’re Team Australia all in there together, we have to make sacrifices, I love the fact that we’re coming out of it, but it’s all about now just looking after ourselves and our country. But what I’m most concerned about Ali is mental health coming out of this, this was a massive issue before we even got into COVID, and it’s going to be a big issue moving forward as well as everything else.

LANGDON: Well said, I don’t know about you Gus but I feel the politics is starting to enter it again, would you agree Bill?

SHORTEN: Yeah a bit, but today for example the privacy restrictions on the new app are going to be debated in Parliament, I think the Labor negotiating team headed by Mark Dreyfus and Chris Bowen seem to have convinced the government to have some amendments, the government has been cooperative, so at least in that area, the data protection, there seems to be some improvement, I mean I’m still worried that the app doesn’t work, but at least your data will be private. There’s got to be some politics though, we want to make sure you know, not everyone gets left behind - so we will be keeping the government honest, I think that’s what people expect us to do.

LANGDON: These privacy concerns Gus, I mean we’re giving up our name and our age bracket with this COVIDSafe app, but Facebook and UberEats, they know more about us.

WORLAND: Yeah exactly right, I think in this day and age we sort of know that stuff is out here and if you’ve got nothing to hide, who really cares? I certainly don’t care, people can look into me as much as they like, like you say a mate of mine the other day, he drove past a dealership, he went in there, looked at a car, and for the next two or three hours he just got bombarded with by those types of cars again, so I, something is outthere anyway, so to me it doesn’t bother me at all. But Bill is right, the government has that sort of checks and balances.

LANGFORD: Well the things is too, we need this thing downloaded so we can ease restrictions, we don’t want to see another lockdown, we know that is going to cost us billions and billions of dollars a week, Bill, what are you most looking forward to doing when this lockdown is eased?

SHORTEN: Well I’m looking forward to taking my wife out for dinner, at the moment a date for us is to put the leads on our bulldogs and tracksuit up and go down to the dog park, well just, you know, cleaning up after your British bulldogs is, you know… in all seriousness I am looking forward to taking the kids to see their grandparents.

LANGDON: That is key, I think a lot of families are feeling that at the moment, I mean Gus has it made you revaluate what’s important in your life?

WORLAND: Oh look absolutely, we have this table at home, it’s called the dinner table, we haven’t actually seen it full for the last three or four years, because my son is at sport or my daughter is at sport or everyone is so busy, to sit and actually have a conversation without having something in your hand and just talk, and sometimes it’s not all fun and games, there’s arguments, there is all sort of stuff happening, but we’re all connecting together and I’ve also realised I hate puzzles, no puzzles for me, I think it’s been great, and I’m spending less on the credit card too, there has been some positives around something that has been a complete nightmare.

LANGDON: I know what you could use your credit card for, you could buy someone a birthday present, because whose special day is it?

WORLAND: It’s Bill’s birthday!

LANGDON & WORLAND: [Sing Happy Birthday together]

WORLAND: Well done brother!

LANGDON: Have an amazing birthday Bill, are we aloud to say your age?

SHORTEN: Yeah sure, fifty three.

LANGDON: Looking good, looking good!

SHORTEN: Well I’m in parliament with two hundred and twenty of my closest friends [all laugh].

LANGDON: Where else would you want to spend it, I say? Gentlemen have a great day, especially you Bill.

WORLAND: Good on you Bill! Have a great birthday.

SHORTEN: See you guys, have a lovely day too.