Topics: Queensland border restrictions; anti-child sexual exploration campaign ‘trace an object’; new COVID-19 vaccine doses from Singapore; vaccine rollout; importance of the National Plan.
NEIL BREEN: Good morning to you, Minister.
KAREN ANDREWS: Good morning, Neil. How are you?
NEIL BREEN: I’m well, thanks. Now, you’ve been in Canberra – I just wanted to address this with you first up. We spoke with John-Paul Langbroek earlier this hour; he’s been in Victoria for his father’s funeral and he hasn’t been able to come home; his border pass got cancelled; he’s in a state of confusion. Milton Dick yesterday revealed on Scott Emerson’s show that he’s been given an exemption to come home from Canberra; into home quarantine. So that was the situation with the Federal Labor Member Milton Dick. What’s your situation?
KAREN ANDREWS: I now have an exemption to come home and go into home quarantine. My first application for an exemption was actually knocked back because I hadn’t provided sufficient information that I was a Federal MP. That was rejected.
NEIL BREEN: They hadn’t heard of Google, the Health Department?
KAREN ANDREWS: I had actually provided a government passport that says ‘the holder is the Minister for Home Affairs in the Australian Government’. But whoever was signing off on these exemptions wanted my Parliamentary pass, so once I provided my Parliamentary pass I received my exemption to come home.
NEIL BREEN: It’s bureaucracy; no wonder the average person just gets nowhere.
KAREN ANDREWS: I’ll be flying in to Queensland on Thursday night; that’s the plan. So I will be home. I’m now in my fifth week in Canberra and going to home quarantine – and it is quarantine, so I’ll have to stay there.
I think the Premier needs to start having a look at how to open things up, rather than how she can close things down. Take a good look at what’s happening in South Australia where they’re trialling home quarantine. In my case; I’m fully vaccinated; my family is fully vaccinated. It’s sensible I think – and a good way forward – for me to be able to quarantine at home, and for anyone else who is fully vaccinated and is going into a household where people are fully vaccinated. That seems sensible. What we’ve seen is the hypocrisy of the Queensland Premier, where she’s toing and froing on a whole range of things. On one side it’s that ‘hotel quarantine is not suitable’; then she allows the NRL players and their wives and families to quarantine in hotels. Now that’s wrong on two levels: it is actually just opening up more hotel quarantine that she says is not working, and it’s also so unfair and unreasonable to every Queenslander who has been locked out of their homes. The fact she allowed a planeload of players to come in from Sydney – which is the hottest of hotspots at the moment – is an absolute smack in the face to all of these people who can’t get home; who are locked out of their jobs on the border town of the Gold Coast and the Tweed Heads. It is shameful.
NEIL BREEN: She also brought in players on planes from Sydney and Melbourne, the female cricket players and a planeload of players from India. The Indian women’s cricket team are at the Mercure Hotel. It makes absolutely no sense that a week ago she says “we’re full, sorry, we can’t allow anyone home.” Karen Andrews, we are at a stage now in this country – you quite rightly said it – we are locking people out of their own home. This is Australia we’re talking about here.
KAREN ANDREWS: Yes – it’s just extraordinary. I think we need to be focusing on how we’re going to be opening up. If Premiers want to let people in, then it should be open to everyone to come in, not just who they decide is okay.
NEIL BREEN: Exactly right. You won’t be at Suncorp Stadium today, but you’re making an announcement of an initiative that’s going to be shown on the screens during the NRL finals to help stop child abuse. How does this work?
KAREN ANDREWS: This is actually a program between the Australian Federal Police, the NRL and Suncorp Stadium. What it’s designed to do, is help solve some of the cold cases in relation to child sexual exploitation. There are a lot of images on the internet – particularly on the Dark Web – often in those images, the background could be identified by others; it could be a pillow; it could be bedding; it could be a picture on the wall. What we hope out of this is that by showing these images – and they’re not graphic, they’re just objects in various locations – someone will go, “oh, I know that wallpaper. This is where it could be…” and they’ll provide some information to the police that’s going to help solve that case. Child sexual exploitation is just appalling, and I think it was only a day or so ago that the Commissioner of the AFP, Reece Kershaw, said that Australia is actually the third largest consumer of child exploitation material – that’s a prize we should not be winning.
NEIL BREEN: Shocking.
KAREN ANDREWS: It’s appalling – the third largest consumer of child sexual exploitation material. We need to be doing all we can to catch these people and to protect those poor children.
NEIL BREEN: Yeah, that’s dreadful, and you’re using a sporting stadium, that’s kind of innovative?
KAREN ANDREWS: Yeah, it is, and look I’d like to give a shout out to the NRL in this case, because they have really been supportive of a lot of the work we’re doing; this is a really great initiative, so I’m really pleased we’re partnering with them on it. People do pay attention to the NRL – to what NRL players are doing – so if the NRL is backing this, then hopefully it’s going to have an even greater take-up.
NEIL BREEN: On Pfizer; we did a deal with Singapore; we’re going to get 500,000 doses of Pfizer off them now. I think we’re going to pay them back later – it’s like a loan – but Poland’s done a deal with us. The US wouldn’t do a deal with us; the US situation, it seems strange to Australians at the moment.
KAREN ANDREWS: There’s a lot of things happening in the United States at the moment with COVID. They are fighting their own pretty significant battle with the Delta variant. They’re actually fighting – particularly in the southern states – a significant hesitancy in relation to vaccines; it’s not a good situation in the United States.
I’m very pleased we’ve been able to enter into those arrangements with Poland and now with Singapore, so we can get those shots into arms across Australia. Australians are doing well with the rollout; people are rolling up their sleeves. They’re doing all they can to protect themselves and their friends and their families, which is great. Queensland was slow to have it rolled out in the state, but that’s picking up and about 100,000 of the doses that are coming in from Singapore are coming into Queensland. There’s plenty of availability in Queensland and Queenslanders are doing the right thing – so let’s make it happen.
NEIL BREEN: Hey, this open letter in the newspapers today; the Business Council of Australia has published this letter – there’s like 80 big businesses in Australia employing a million people all up – saying basically “the time for shutting borders is over and we have to move on”. It’s getting a groundswell of support, because there’s big surveys in the papers today where the attitudes of Australians are, “Yep, let’s get vaccinated and let’s get moving.”
KAREN ANDREWS: Australians are absolutely on board with the rollout – we want our lives back. We actually want to be able to go about our work and live – and we need that sooner rather than later – so they’re doing their bit and they’re rolling their sleeves up. Now we just need State Premiers to get on board; focus on the National Plan; focus on the 70 to 80 per cent vaccination rate; and let’s open up; let’s all do the best for people in our state.
NEIL BREEN: We’re adults; we understand the risks of living on the planet. Which is why we’ve got vaccinated all our lives; we’ll take this one too and we’ll move on. Karen Andrews; we’ll welcome you back to Queensland. Enjoy the two weeks’ home quarantine. We’ll send you a little rescue pack or something.
KAREN ANDREWS: Fabulous. Thank you very much, Neil.