Interview with Sky News Australia

Subject: Queensland floods

The Hon Kevin Rudd MP, Foreign Minister and Federal Member for Griffith

Transcript, E&OE, proof only

19 January 2011

REPORTER: Good morning to you Mr Rudd. This morning you have already been out and about with the Foreign Secretary of the UK. This wasn't in his planning to come here to inspect the flood damage here in Brisbane. Was he shocked at all?

KEVIN RUDD: What was — I just spoke to William Hague just now after we'd spent some time down at West End here in my own constituency here in Brisbane.

William just said to me that what stunned him was the fact that the community had bounded… come together so well and got the clean up running so quickly. He was expecting to see in these suburbs continued muck and devastation.

And he was quite stunned by the extent and speed of the clean up. I told him further upriver things were much worse, and there's still a huge amount of work to be done.

But he was pretty impressed by community spirit.

REPORTER: I mean on the surface Brisbane is looking back to kind of normal. But there is still a lot of work to be done. Have you been pleased with the international response from the US and Indonesia and the like?

KEVIN RUDD: Oh, very much so. Our friends from around the world have expressed a whole lot of solidarity, sympathy, support, and various bits of assistance as well. The Brits for example have offered — and we've accepted their offer — to provide some assistance in the area of reviewing flood forecasting technologies for the future and systems, because they have their own weather challenges in the UK. They're not all applicable to this part of the world.

But when scientists get together they often, you know, perfect techniques even further. But also flood recovery techniques as well.

And so I was with Anna Bligh this morning, and she quite gratefully accepted those offers from the Brits. That's part of the reason why William Hague was here in Brisbane this morning.

REPORTER: What can they offer us that we don't already have in terms of technology, in terms of those plans in place. Is it just a different perspective?

KEVIN RUDD: Well it remains to be seen. I think the good thing about the meteorologists and the people who support that science is that when they get together and act on these sorts of problems then sometimes breakthroughs do occur.

So we welcome that level of technical expertise. These are very bright people, and … good to get a room full of them because then the sparks start flying in a creative way.

REPORTER: The judicial inquiry will begin quite soon, and in that judicial inquiry, the issue of flash flooding, and of course the warning systems in place for that area of Toowoomba will be closely looked at. This is a pretty important part of this judicial inquiry would you say?

KEVIN RUDD: Absolutely. I think the Premier's done the right thing, and having a no-holds barred inquiry, it's right. This has affected a stack of people. Quite a number of people have lost their lives.

Some people are still missing. And of course the devastation you've reported on comprehensively in recent days.

Therefore I think people will want to know the answers as to what happened — is there anything we could have done better. And so I think it's really important that this be done thoroughly, effectively, and leaving nothing swept under the carpet. And I think the [indistinct] from the Premier so far, the terms of reference that I've seen reflected — and the people appointed to it — it seems pretty good.

REPORTER: Local, state, federal governments, the Australian Defence Force have thrown everything at this crisis. But now we have corporate Australia on board with the Prime Minister yesterday announcing that task force. How important is it for corporate Australia to be on board here, especially for such a resources rich state?

KEVIN RUDD: It's pretty important. I mean I've got a lot of time for people like Lindsay Fox for example. Lindsay's a good bloke. But he's also a powerful wheel within business. If there's one bloke who can join the dots across the Australian business community it's Lindsay, in terms of bringing together the expertise and the brains and the wherewithal to fix local problems.

I've seen him do it before and I'm sure he'll help do it again. But let me just give you one example. I was talking to a lady. I think her name's Sharon who runs a neighbourhood store down here in West End in my electorate. Classic neighbourhood … The business is completely gutted. And she has a house adjoining the store. So she's going to be months out of operation. The roll-on effect, in terms of her supplies, and the rest, is big. So it's fixing up, you know, the businesses run by the Sharon's of suburban Brisbane, but right across regional Queensland which is going to be so important — because the roll-on implications for the real economy, for businesses and therefore for jobs and therefore for household income, is huge. So I'd really encourage corporate Australia to roll up those sleeves and get in there.

You know what's really good though, about this morning, just down here at West End, a little sign of recovery, is that a number of the ladies came up to me and said we've decided to glam up today. And I thought well I think I know what that means. They said, well, we've been buried in mud and God-knows else for a week. And they've decided to, you know, get back to normal.

So — and many of them said that to me spontaneously. Now, is that a sign that everything's back together again?

REPORTER: As a woman I would say, glamming up is a good sign that things are returning to normal.

KEVIN RUDD: But when I mentioned this to a number of women down there, younger and older women, they all nodded — understood exactly what it meant. So…

REPORTER: As am I, nodding right now.

With regards to the economy, this crisis will touch almost every Australian in some way with the flow-on effects for the economy, not just in Queensland but Australia wide. How long is it going to take for us to get back on track? And how damaging will this be?

KEVIN RUDD: I think — look, let's just call a spade a spade, this is a big impact on the state's economy, and therefore a significant impact on the national economy.

Just look at the metrics. Queensland is 20 per cent of Australia. We are 20 per cent of the nation's population, we are 20 per cent of the nation's gross domestic product, but we represent much more in terms of the nation's exports — something like a third or getting close to that. Therefore those numbers of themselves tell us something about the real impact for Australia as a nation. Over here in the Brisbane Central Business District you can't close down a capital city for a week and for it not to have an effect on gross state product, and gross domestic product.

Therefore we need to brace ourselves for those numbers when they are finally sifted and done.

But on the other part of your question, look, in Australia we've been through this sort of thing before. We'll come through this. There'll be some big bumps in the road as far as the economy is concerned. But everyone will roll up their sleeves — and we'll make it bigger and better than before. So I don't think we should start getting down on our cups on this sort of thing. I think we have it within ourselves and certainly in this state of Queensland to get it back to functioning order quick smart.

REPORTER: Something's got to give though, right? Is this maybe — can it affect the plans for the roll-out of the NBN, or possibly putting a price on carbon this year, or any of those projects that are at the forefront for the government this year.

KEVIN RUDD: Well the government's already articulated its policy priorities for the year, and the questions that you raise of course are of course appropriately addressed to both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.

I believe it's within our capacity as a nation to make sure this state gets back on its feet, and as the Prime Minister has said, and I've said many times myself as a Queenslander, there is a national responsibility to stand shoulder to shoulder with Queensland as it rebuilds.

Firstly, it's the right thing to do. Secondly it's in the nation's self-interest that we do it.

And therefore there will be some bumps in the road but we've got it within ourselves to come through this.

Remember we came through something big and ugly called the global financial crisis which we in Australia, yeah, outshone the rest of the world in what we did.

We can rise to this challenge as well.

And it's big. It's ugly. It's affecting tens of thousands of people in businesses across the state. It's really disrupting employment, I know that in my own area — but we'll come through it.

REPORTER: As a Queenslander, and a Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

And Leigh and Sharon, as we heard there from Kevin Rudd, it is going to take some time for Queensland to get back to normal, but we are well on our way be… to becoming that thriving city that Brisbane was just a week ago.

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