E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC STEPHEN CENATIEMPO BREAKFAST SHOW
TUESDAY, 16 MARCH 2021
SUBJECTS: Political panel with Zed Seselja; a new Canberra stadium; vaccine rollout; Canberra’s bad NBN.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO, HOST: It's time for our regular Tuesday political panel, joining us this morning, the Labor Member for Canberra, Alicia Payne. Good morning, Alicia.
ALICIA PAYNE, MEMBER FOR CANBERRA: Good morning, Stephen. Good morning, Zed.
CENATIEMPO: And from the other side, Zed Seselja the ACT Liberal Senator and Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Zed, good morning.
ZED SESELJA, SENATOR FOR THE ACT: Good morning, Stephen, morning, Alicia.
CENATIEMPO: Now, one thing I want to talk to both of you about and I'm in two minds about this. But there's a lot of talk around about a new CBD stadium for Canberra and whether the Federal Government should share the cost. Currently, the ACT leases GIO stadium from the Commonwealth but that arrangement won't last forever. And I think it's due to expire in 2024. Alicia, I'll start with you. This site of the Civic pool, my understanding is it's almost impossible to actually build a stadium properly there. I mean, are we looking at the wrong place?
PAYNE: It is complicated, Stephen, because it involves the Parkes Way being substantially changed, which has been part of a longer term plan for a while anyway, but it would be a very expensive project. I'd note that a new stadium is on the ACT Government's infrastructure plan. However, it's after, it's a lower priority than the Canberra Hospital Expansion, the Light Rail Stage Two and the Canberra Theatre Precinct which have been put as higher priorities. But I feel that if the Federal Government wanted to help out with this one, that would be great. They've helped out with $100 million towards the stadium in, the North Queensland Stadium in Townsville. And they also let Pauline Hanson announce $23 million for a stadium in Rockhampton, so maybe they'd like to let me announce the money for this one in my electorate?
CENATIEMPO: Zed, you'd probably want to announce it yourself. But, I mean half a billion dollars I'm led to believe this is going to cost. Is it a good expenditure of money?
SESELJA: Well, look, I'm certainly a big advocate of a stadium and I think it would need of course, to be driven by the ACT Government I'm always open to supporting valid infrastructure projects in Canberra, where we've announced investments of around $1.4 billion in Canberra just in the last two or so years. But when it comes to the stadium itself, I actually think it is worth pursuing. For a number of reasons, I mean, Canberra Stadium is going to reach the end of its useful life. I don't think it's ever been a great spot for a stadium and if you look at modern stadiums, the way that they can underpin the life of a city when they're in town. And you go and you see it in places like Melbourne, you see it overseas in many places, you see it in Brisbane, with Lane Park or Suncorp Stadium, so it is worth pursuing. I think it'd be a fantastic thing for Canberra. You know, in the end, if it's not going to be a high priority for the ACT Government, it will be much harder to deliver Commonwealth support, but I'm always pushing for Commonwealth investment in Canberra. We're doing a record amount now. And I'm a big fan of the stadium. So if there's serious proposals coming forward from the ACT Government, not the sort of comments we had from Andrew Barr a little while ago, which he knew we're just going to be poking the Commonwealth Government the eye. If it's genuine, then over over a period of time, then I think, you know, I'd love to see it delivered.
CENATIEMPO: Alicia, that's a fair comment from Zed. Because I mean, the proposal they're talking about, no extra parking and no real public transport access. It sort of defeats the purpose of moving it, doesn't it?
PAYNE: Well, I think that, as I say that area has a lot of, will need a lot of work, the levelling of Parkes Way to allow for those things, and it's certainly something that I think there probably needs to be some more community consultation about.
CENATIEMPO: Zed, the Commonwealth is ramping up its campaign against vaccine misinformation as the rollout enters its phase 1B,. We're also seeing dramas with European countries suspending the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine. With those kind of stories coming out of Europe, it's pretty hard to combat a lot of this misinformation around I would imagine.
SESELJA: Well, look, there's a couple of things. It is a very important campaign. And so it's on the Health website, health.gov.au/COVID-19vaccines. And it does answer a lot of these questions. And of course, there's been misinformation. And then there's also I guess, legitimate community concerns because that obviously, there's always questions that are going to be asked when there's a new vaccine. What I would say to people is to go and check it out, because you know, some of the misinformation is terrible. And it is absolutely wrong. But also, I think that what we can take a lot of confidence from is we went through, unlike many other countries in Australia, we went through all of the usual approval processes and the TGA is really the best in the world when it comes to examining new medicines. And so we didn't have any emergency approvals. We didn't cut any corners, all of the same approvals that are there for the vaccines that you give your kids, that we've all been giving our kids for a number of years, that I got when I was a kid, well, they're the same approval processes for the vaccine for COVID. So, people should take a lot of confidence from that. But I think it is worth, you know, if you're having a discussion with family or friends and they're raising some of these concerns about you know, things like does it cause infertility? Or, you know, is there a microchip, as sometimes gets put around the internet. I think it's worth having these facts out there and people should take a lot of confidence from our processes.
CENATIEMPO: Alicia, you are calling on the Government to fix Canberra's NBN. How do you go about fixing a camel, alright, what is it? A camel? What do they say about, a camel is a horse designed by committee or something like that? I think that's what the NBN.
PAYNE: Well, Labor's original plan under the previous Labor Government was the universal fibre to the premises, which is the top of the line infrastructure plan that would have, you know, delivered universal, really good internet to Australia and that the universality was a key point of it. So what we have under the Liberals, Tony Abbott's, one of his first priorities was to dismantle that plan. And unfortunately, Canberra has the worst internet of any capital city in Australia at the moment. Our Nation's Capital, 71% of Canberra households have fibre to the node, which is the worst of the options at the moment, and the Government have announced $3.5 billion to fix up areas with this, but not one Canberra suburb is on that list. And I think that's unacceptable.
CENATIEMPO: Zed, I was no fan of the Kevin Rudd on the back of a cigarette packet plan for the NBN. The Malcolm Turnbull plan wasn't any better. How do we fix this?
SESELJA: Well, look, I just say Alicia referred to Labor's plan, we'd still be waiting another, I dunno, five years under Labor's plan. I mean, literally, it wouldn't have been rolled out till 2026 2027. And that was on some of their best estimates. So what we've been able to deliver is much better broadband, much more quickly and what we're doing at the moment, in September of last year, NBN Co announced it would invest 700 million dollars to extend ultra fast connectivity to 90% of all Australian business locations at no upfront costs. And that's happening in Canberra, in business fibre zones, like in the CBD, in Deakin and Philip, in Belconnen and in Queanbeyan/Hume. So, we are delivering the Labor plan, literally, we would have been waiting another five years. So what we had to do was fix what was a absolute dog's breakfast and we are gradually, of course, not just not just rolling out their plan very, very quickly, but actually improving it over time. And that's what we're seeing with some of those business upgrades.
CENATIEMPO: Yeah, Zed, I think you turned a dog's breakfast into a cat's breakfast. Alicia and Zed, appreciate your time this morning. They'll be back with us next week. Alicia Payne and Zed Seselja.
ENDS
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