E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2SM JOHN LAWS MORNING SHOW
THURSDAY 10 FEBRUARY 2022
SUBJECTS: Eden-Monaro; Black Summer Bushfires; Federal Election.
JOHN LAWS, HOST: Well, we're just a few months out from the next federal election and our politicians have hit the ground running. We hear from front benches, Ministers nonstop. But I'd like to do something a little different. I want to know what the lesson known people who are sitting up there on the back bench, they receive hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. But the question being asked and not unreasonably is what are they doing today? I've got the Member for Eden-Monaro. A very, very interesting seat that one. It was a bellwether seat for more than four decades, until Malcolm Turnbull won in 2016. It's currently held by Labor by a very small margin. Now, Kristy McBain is on the line. And she represents that area and I'm happy to have her here. Are you there Kristy?
KRISTY MCBAIN, MEMBER FOR EDEN-MONARO: I sure am. Good morning, John.
LAWS: Good morning. I've heard a lot about you. I mean, you won the by-election in 2020 by a margin of 0.8 per cent. But what have you done for your electorate since then?
MCBAIN: A wins a win as they say, John. Look, my electorate has been hit pretty tragically by a series of natural disasters. We've gone through significant drought followed by the Black Summer Bushfires and now COVID. More than a million hectares in my electorate were burnt. We lost over 1000 homes. More than 2000 sheds and outbuildings and hundreds of thousands of kilometres of fence line.
LAWS: Okay, but just for the people who aren't aware, just give me the outline of your area. What are the towns or cities that you encompass there?
MCBAIN: I go from the Victorian border up along the coast through Eden, Merimbula, Bermagui, Narooma, Cobargo around Bungendore, Braidwood, Queanbeyan and then down to Tumut, Tumbarumba, Jindabyne and Cooma. And basically, we donut Canberra, we surround Canberra and we border Victoria.
LAWS: Well, you you've got a lot on your plate there.
MCBAIN: The electorate is the 15th largest in the country. It's 42,000 square kilometres, and there’s 365 different towns and villages across the electorate. It's a very diverse electorate, as you said, it's been a bellwether seat for a number of years. It's literally a microcosm of Australia. We've got obviously, a more sort of Metropolitan built- up area around the Queanbeyan region. We've got the coast, the Snowy Mountains, we've got agricultural plains, and any type of agriculture you can think of happens, either on land or in the water in Eden-Monaro. It's quite a diverse electorate.
LAWS: I note you've been critical support provided by the government after the Black Summer Bushfires. How do the locals feel about that recovery? And how do they feel about the government?
MCBAIN: Look, there are a number of people that we have still living in non-permanent accommodation in caravans. These are caravans that leak. We’ve dealt with eight or nine separate flooding events across the bushfire burn scar. So it's been a very difficult recovery. A good recovery requires people to come together and what we've seen with COVID is those people being forced apart. And being told that they'll receive assistance via telephone or internet catch ups. For most people, telecommunications and internet connectivity across a lot of these places is difficult. We don't have great connectivity. There are a lot of people who stunned that, whilst two years has passed, a lot of people still haven't been able to get back to life as they knew it.
LAWS: It's pretty close, I mean, if there's a swig of less than 1%, you'll lose the seat.
MCBAIN: I don't think that will happen John. I'm a glass half full person. And when I go around talking to my constituents, and I've done around 80,000 kilometres in the 18 months since I've been elected. There are a number of people who are really frustrated about the lack of assistance, the lack of care that's been provided to people across this community. I've been highlighting those issues in Parliament each and every time we're here. I've been writing to Ministers, meeting with Ministers, talking to Shadow Ministers about what should be done to better help people. Bushfire recovery should be well above politics.
LAWS: Yes, well above.
MCBAIN: At the moment, we've had an announcement of a $280 million grant round, which was announced in April last year. It was meant to be finalised and community groups be told whether the applications were successful or not in November or December last year. We're now in February, and we have community groups that still don't know whether they'll be able to continue to provide support to people that need it the most, because no announcement has been made.
LAWS: That is very unfortunate to say the least. Eden-Monaro is one of many seats in New South Wales that doesn't yet have a liberal candidate. Have you got any idea who the Liberals are going to run against you?
MCBAIN: I have no idea, John. Like you. I'm a little bit astounded that pre-selection hasn't taken place. And I think it again shows a real lack of regard for people who are doing it really tough, who want to know that people are interested in fighting for them. At the moment it looks like the New South Wales Liberals are fighting amongst themselves.
LAWS: Well it does, you’re right. Eden-Monaro was, up until what 2016 one of Australia's most well-known bellwether seats having been won by the party that won the election since 1972. What do you think changed when the second Turnbull ministry was elected?
MCBAIN: I think, right across this electorate, there are people that will always vote on party lines, regardless of who the candidates are. But I think now there is a lot more nuance in how people vote. When I'm talking to people, some of the biggest concerns they have a wanting to know that their local member understands the issues. That they know their local member and that they feel comfortable having a chat to their local member. And that's why I've made myself so available to the electorate because as I said, it's been a pretty tough couple of years for a lot of people right across this electorate, and they need to know that people understand their issues. And first and foremost, they should be focusing on the needs of people in the electorate.
LAWS: What's your background? Were you from a farm or are you from city or what's your background?
MCBAIN: I was a Latrobe Valley girl born in Victoria. My dad was a plumber and gas fitter by trade and worked at the Loy Yang power station until he was made redundant. My mum has been a retail worker all her life. Neither of my parents finished high school. They moved to Merimbula, which is on the south coast just before I started high school and ran a small business. I’m the first in my family to go to university. I've worked as a lawyer in Canberra and down on the coast and was mayor of the Bega Valley Shire during nine declared natural disasters over nearly a four-year period. So disaster management and disaster recovery, are obviously a huge interest of mine. Making sure that people are looked after and heard following what's a pretty traumatic time for a lot of people is key. And the reason that I'm here today.
LAWS: Kristy it's been nice talking to you and I wish you well in what you do. Whatever you do, I hope it's for the betterment of the country. And I bet you think exactly the same way.
MCBAIN: That's the only reason you get involved in politics in my view, is to make sure that the people you represent end up with a better life. So thank you very much, John.
LAWS: That's a pleasure. Kristy, thank you for the time.
ENDS
