E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
TODAY SHOW
TUESDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 2021

SUBJECTS: Inquest underway into St Basil’s Aged Care tragedy; election campaigning kicks off as Morrison blames Labor for everything; Mark McGowan on Greg Hunt

KARL STEFANOVIC, HOST: Welcome back to the show, shocking scenes of death and horror, the elderly held prisoner cut off from their loved ones, the deceased being wheeled out in full view of other residents. It's utterly horrific. This was day one into the inquest into the deaths of 50 residents at St Basil's Aged Care Home in Melbourne, the country's deadliest COVID outbreak. Let's discuss with Shadow Minister for Government Services Bill Shorten, who's in Melbourne and in Brisbane 4BC’s Scott Emerson. Bill, to you, first of all, hard to know where to start with this. So many critical errors. Mistakes which cost lives and caused untold suffering, right?

BILL SHORTEN, MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG: It's a terrible story. As you may recall, Karl, a lovely gentleman neighbour of mine who lived two doors up from our family, was admitted to St Basil's just before this disaster happened. He passed away in there. I just feel for the families. The families want the truth. They never want this to happen again. Yeah, I think it's traumatic actually, and my heart breaks for the families who went through all of this.

STEFANOVIC: I agree with you. Who should be held accountable then do you think, I know this is underway? But is it senior managers, the Health Department, the Premier? Where does the buck stop? Will anyone actually take responsibility?

SHORTEN: I genuinely don't know. But someone needs to be held responsible. Whether or not it's the management of the facility, whether or not it was what happened when the feds came in. I genuinely don't know. But I'll tell you what. There's got to be a situation where someone is responsible. This wasn't, in my opinion, unavoidable. But we've got to get to the bottom of it. But I tell you what, for all of those families, and they're the ones I'm thinking most of this morning, we can't stop until we work out why this happened. And you know, my gut tells me the scale of this shouldn't have happened.

STEFANOVIC: We've had that many inquests into this sector, haven't we? Scott, a terrible reminder of our most vulnerable and their families. And you'd want to say, after all these inquests that we've had, this is not happening out there. But how would how would you possibly be categoric in certain?

SCOTT EMERSON, 4BC: Well, that is the concern, because look, like a lot of us, myself, I've got a parent in a nursing home, and this is the kind of thing that worries you the most, that we have these inquests, as you say, Karl, that they have inquiries. They get to the bottom of it, apparently. But then we see another tragedy, another bungle that costs lives. And you think yourself, why can't we get this right eventually? In terms of this one, look, clearly mistakes have been made. We'll find out where the blame lies eventually, but clearly errors have been made in this. And this is just - as Bill Shorten just said, this is just horrific and reading the details, and it's just started, but just reading the details again just makes your heart break for those families involved in this.

STEFANOVIC: And I just lament - I mean, there has to be other places around Australia right now where it's still happening. That's the biggest worry for me. Now let's move on the unofficial election campaign. Well, it is official, kind of unofficially, has stepped up - the PM warning a Labor government would hit people in the hip pocket with higher interest rates and increased petrol prices, plus power bills. Bill, a new poll has seen the PM losing ground to Anthony Albanese over likability and trust and he's now calling himself the underdog. Is it Albo’s to lose now?

SHORTEN: It's still got a long way to go, but can we just speak straight this morning? We've got a Prime Minister who thinks he's the ringmaster, but he's just a clown. The fact of the matter is he's now blaming Labor for everything. But the thing is we're not the Government. Let's just stop and think about what he's saying, he's saying, oh, the sky will fall in, prices will go up. He knows, just as when stop we think about it, most of us know, that because of COVID-19, we've seen disruptions to the global supply chain. This has meant that there's a shortage of things from our oil through to a whole lot of manufactured products. Because there's a shortage, demand is going up. Prices are going up. I mean, this bloke is blaming Labor for the effects of what COVID have done on the economy. And we're not even the Government. I just have never seen a Prime Minister who was so quick to evade responsibility. I get that at the last election, he'd only been in for a few months and people gave him the benefit of the doubt. But this guy is running out of room. He's like the coyote in that old cartoon. You know, Roadrunner. And Morrison's just run out of Cliff and his feet are going so fast they're a blur. But the reality is, there's nothing supporting him.

STEFANOVIC: Ok, I'm surprised Albo is not further ahead then.

SHORTEN: It's hard when you're the opposition, you know, when you're the opposition, the only airplay you get is when you're bagging the Government, because if you praise the Government, no one runs you. And when you bag the Government, everyone says you're negative. So, it's a very fine line, and I think Labor's doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances.

STEFANOVIC: Scott, trust is a big issue here for the election, has the PM got a problem there? Ally put it to him the other day and he said no.

EMERSON: Obviously, according to this new Newspoll, Karl, he does have a problem. He is trailing Albo now. The contrast is remarkable from where they were, well, three years ago, when he was running against Bill Shorten. On all those criteria, most of those criteria ScoMo was well ahead of Bill Shorten in terms of issues of trust in such things. But this latest Newspoll showed that he slipped behind. Now, both of them are actually falling a bit. But he's fallen more than Albo, and that is going to be a real concern to the Coalition. They’re behind a Newspoll 53/47. And on that leadership issue, those key issues of leadership and trust, he starts to fall behind that's a real worry for the Coalition heading into the election. You know, it's probably going to be held in less than six months from now.

STEFANOVIC: It's not that big a deal, is it, Scott? Don't you just change leaders?

EMERSON: Well, I'm sure there's a few out there. I think Peter Dutton will be very keen still. He's probably ready to have another go if he wanted to. You asked Malcolm Turnbull, he'd probably even come back I’m sure, but that is the problem there is that look, they you know, they've put a lot, invested a lot, in ScoMo, but clearly some of the decisions that he's been making, he's carrying a little bit of baggage now over the last three years. 

STEFANOVIC: Bill?

SHORTEN: Well, the fact of the matter is that three years ago, Scott Morrison was relatively unknown, but now we've had three years of lived experience. You know, many of us might have bought a motorcar or a product, you know, on the shelf and said, oh, well, you know, that's new and shiny. But three years on, it hasn't worked. I mean, the bloke said he didn't hold a hose during the bushfires. We did have the slow vaccine rollout. We've got there now, but that's largely due to the Aussie people. And now he's running around blaming everyone on climate change. He's fed a diet to people saying, you don't have to change, you don't have to change. Now, all of a sudden, the rest of the world is changing. And because we've got the sort of slowest person in the room, all of a sudden, you know, we're up the creek without the proverbial paddle because this guy has been telling us one thing.

STEFANOVIC: It could be worse, Bill. It could be worse. Think about it from this perspective. WA Premier Mark McGowan giving us a real insight into his very close and warm working relationship with the federal Health Minister Greg Hunt. Here he was, explaining it yesterday.

MARK MCGOWAN (VIDEO PACKAGE): I've never met Greg Hunt. I've never spoken to Greg Hunt. I wouldn't know him if I met him.

SHORTEN: Yeah. Goodness me. The high-profile Greg Hunt… [all laugh] 

STEFANOVIC: Scott?

EMERSON: Well, Mark McGowan, you know, look, this is all come back from this claim from Greg Hunt that he might vary the rules to let the poms in for the Ashes. Obviously, he's arked up about that. But oh, look, sometimes I think that it's a toss-up between Annastacia Palaszczuk and Mark McGowan in terms of closing our borders, but you know, we're opening up. Mark McGowan is shutting it down and he looks - look, he looks foolish with those kind of comments like that from yesterday.

STEFANOVIC: I reckon he's a legend. Mark McGowan. I like the way he's running things over in the West, and I would also like to visit the West eventually.

EMERSON: Yeah. Next decade.

STEFANOVIC: Beautiful place. All right, thanks, guys.

ENDS