E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
TODAY SHOW
TUESDAY, 5 JANUARY 2021
 
SUBJECTS: COVID-19 vaccine delays; NSW/VIC border confusion; International travel in 2021; Stranded Aussies.
 
SYLVIA JEFFRIES, HOST: Welcome back. Plans to roll out a coronavirus vaccine in Australia by March have been put at risk over AstraZeneca’s delay in delivering data to the Therapeutic Goods Administration. For more on this, we're joined by Shadow Minister for Government Services Bill Shorten and Triple M's Gus Worland, good morning to you both. Bill, to you first. Can we afford to let a paperwork delay hold up our rollout plan? 
 
BILL SHORTEN, MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG: Listen, on one hand, we've got to make sure it's safe and all of that. So that's fair enough. But on the other hand, countries like Israel have already vaccinated 12 and a half percent of their population. So, you know, as one unkind person said to me overnight, it seems to me that the Government announces a lot of this stuff, but it's all gab, no jab. I just want to get on with it.
 
JEFFRIES: Is it not worth waiting though, until the TGA has received all the relevant data and can approve things itself, to assure confidence in the jab, Bill? 
 
SHORTEN: Well, we've got our processes and I don't think anyone should shortcut processes and we've got to make sure it's safe. That's true. But I can't help but wonder, when I was thinking about this debate, how come some countries seem to be able to get the processes done more quickly? Are we saying they're not safe in other countries?
 
JEFFRIES: Well, I guess that's the question, isn't it? Is the UK fast tracking this to an extent where it's putting people at risk? And that's what it would suggest, isn't it? Gus, what do you think? Should we be considering an emergency rollout, an emergency approval?
 
GUS WORLAND, TRIPLE M: Yeah, I think so. I think it's so important now that other countries, like Bill said, have already got it going. Let's approve it and get it done. We're all in absolute crisis here. We want to get this done. I understand we don't want to do it so quickly it's putting people at risk, but other countries are already doing it, it’s just a little bit of paperwork. Let's work 24/7 and let's get through it. This country is in dire need to get ourselves kickstarted again. We need for our own mental fitness, our own selves, our own hope and belief, just to get back up and running again. So, don't let paperwork stop that. We know that the vaccine is up and ready to go. Let's do it. 
 
JEFFRIES: Let's move on to something very much closer at home right now. Thousands of Victorians stranded in New South Wales after missing the border cut off are now pleading to be allowed home. So, two thousand three hundred people have applied for exemptions since state lines shut on Friday. Only one hundred and seventy five applications have been assessed so far. Bill, is that good enough? What's the hold up? 
 
SHORTEN: Well, it doesn't seem to be working the way it should. I mean, I was in Melbourne last Friday, and all of a sudden on Thursday, the borders just shut. I've been dealing with a constituent of mine. She's a lovely lady, her and her husband, they've got a disabled child and they have another child with special needs. Far better to have this child, 11 year old, looked after at home rather than being stuck in the south coast of New South Wales. So, I'm certainly going to be hitting the phones this morning to make sure that her exemption is sorted out. I would just like the department, just, let's just get it done quickly. A whole lot of Victorians on holiday caught off guard. No chance to sort this out. We need now the administrative follow up to help make sure that people are not stranded in some really tough circumstances like the lady I'm talking about.
 
JEFFRIES: And I'm sure she's not alone. And we're talking case numbers in the single digits here, Gus. Is there any reason for the border to be closed, especially to the whole of New South Wales?
 
WORLAND: No, absolutely, that's the main problem here, is why shut it in the first place, and now that we've had a couple of really good days, why wouldn’t you open it up again and let these people go home? I mean, I think it's just been way too much of that over the last couple of weeks in particular, of just sort of snapped closes and so forth. I mean, have you seen the numbers everywhere else in the world? I mean, my wife’s English, over fifty thousand people, I think five days in a row every single day for the last five days. We're talking single digit sort of numbers. Let's get real here and understand that this country has to start kick starting again. We've done a brilliant job. We've been patient. We've done everything we possibly can. Let's really work out what's really important here now, that that person that Bill's talking about, they have to be at home, open up the border so they can go home, please. 
 
JEFFRIES: And as Bill pointed out, the advice changed so quickly. These people haven't done anything wrong. They just couldn't get there in time. Some people were waiting to cross the border and just couldn't get across by the deadline. So, it's a real bungle and it's left a lot of people in some very tricky situations. People coming home from overseas though Bill, is still an issue. The Prime Minister's comments of bringing them back before Christmas has – well, it's come and gone that deadline, hasn't it?
 
SHORTEN: Yeah. One of the big - I've been reading the emails I get over Christmas because my staff are having a proper holiday, and the single biggest issue I got was from Australians who are still trapped overseas. Now, what they're complaining about and it's heartbreaking, there’s families with little kids, people need to get back to jobs in 2021, is not that they won't pay their airfares. They will. But these people were told, no please don't rush home back in March, but now they can't get home. So, there's countries all over the world. You've got Australians who want to come home. The airlines are not properly looking after them. Sometimes they're registering on the Department of Foreign Affairs portal, but they never hear very much once they register. And it's causing a lot of mental health and a lot of financial distress now. So, I'd like to get these people home. More effort please, Mr Morrison, on this one.
 
JEFFRIES: Well meantime, overseas travel could be back on the cards a little sooner than we probably thought. Qantas appears to think so anyway. The Aussie airline hinting at a return to international holidays this morning, selling seats on flights to the UK and the US from July this year. Bill, does Qantas know something we don’t?
 
SHORTEN: I don't know, listen, Alan Joyce is one of Australia's great marketers and I love Qantas. But at this stage, in light of all the emails I'm getting from trapped Aussies, it seems to me the only strategy this country has for our trapped Aussies overseas is to send them some friends who can be trapped with them. In all seriousness, you know, good on Qantas giving a bit of hope. But I do think that we need to make sure it's safe to fly. And can we just get some of those Australian’s home? I mean, I'm more worried about the people who want to come home than the ones who want to go and have a holiday in Vegas.
 
JEFFRIES: Gus, would you be going to book a flight to the US or the UK right now with fifty thousand cases a day? 
 
WORLAND: Yeah, that's the trick, isn't it? But like Bill said, it's hope. You know, it's giving us hope is something to look forward to, you know, every year going away on a certain holiday or just going to a certain place. My daughter, meant to be on a gap year, every day she goes down. I should be in Prague today. I should have been in Paris last week. I know those situations are quite silly when you think of the worldwide drama we’re in, but no, I love the fact that Qantas are being bullish about it. I'm meant to be going to Kokoda at the end of July on Qantas to do the Kokoda, which is a lifelong dream. So yeah, that's given us hope to think that we might actually do it, whereas yesterday we're probably thinking it was all over Red Rover. So, yeah, I mean, whether it’s pie in the sky. You just need that hope.
 
JEFFRIES: It's nice, it’s a little silver lining perhaps. Hopeful thing to look forward to. Before I let you go, I just want to get your feelings on this clip because it's eliciting some fairly strong emotions in our studio this morning, Bill.
 
VIDEO PACKAGE OF SNAKE ON SIDE OF CAR
 
SHORTEN: That is horrific. I wouldn't die of the snake bite, I’d die of the heart attack as I crashed my car. Where’s the volume on that? Just the f bomb, that is just a nightmare, I need to un-see that for the rest of the day now.
 
JEFFRIES: Now, come on, Bill. Here you operate in Canberra. You would be used to snakes tapping at your door, wouldn’t you?
 
SHORTEN: That’s true, but you normally don't see them.
JEFFRIES: They come from behind. 
 
SHORTEN: The first you know there’s a snake is the bite.
 
JEFFRIES: Very good. Alright Gus and Bill, thank you very much. Happy New Year to you both, stay well.
 
SHORTEN: Happy New Year.
 
WORLAND: You too, bye guys