Interview with Neil Breen, Radio 4BC, Brisbane

NEIL BREEN:

There’s incredible news around today, it’s on page one of The Australian; the unknown sailor whose identity has remained a mystery for 80 years has been identified. Thomas Welsby Clark, he was a 21 year old accountant, turned sailor from Brisbane. He died when the pride of the Navy, the HMAS Sydney, was ambushed and sunk by a German raider exactly 80 years ago today. All 645 people on board the HMAS Sydney died that day. Only found one body – it washed up on a canvas raft at Christmas Island months later. The Defence Minister Peter Dutton joins me on the line. Good morning Minister.

PETER DUTTON:

Good morning Breenie.

NEIL BREEN:

So DNA and all of these modern developments allowed us years later to come up with the name Thomas Welsby Clark from Brisbane.

PETER DUTTON:

It is just incredible mate and it’s a great credit to everybody who’s been involved over a very long period of time. The Australian Defence Force has a whole unit dedicated to trying to repatriate the remains of unknown soldiers and sailors and airmen, and it’s a really great story and provides a focus again on the sacrifice that the Australian Defence Force men and women make. And 645, as you say, lost their lives and that just gives us a reminder of what over a long period of time they’ve done for our country. A really good outcome here.

NEIL BREEN:

Amazing story, Thomas Welsby Clark. His father, or his grandfather, very, very wealthy. He could have sort of sailed through the war as an officer or been a bit of an elite, but no, he went into the Militia and then he went into the Navy and he just wanted to be rank and file and in the end it cost him his life.

PETER DUTTON:

You’re right, and I hope every Australian…you know, you see lots of visits from schools down to Canberra that, you know, everybody should go to the War Memorial in Canberra and hear some of these individual stories. It’s a good reminder of how we’ve got to be the luckiest country in the world and it’s not just because of our geography or our climate; it’s because of the sacrifice and the heartache of some families who have lost multiple children in different conflicts and their families have been destroyed or [inaudible] changed, or in some cases people have come back and, you know, they bear those scars even today. Modern conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan and Iraq and fighting in our country’s name for what we believe in and we should honour them. We should do it every day because we’re very fortunate compared to many other countries around the world.

NEIL BREEN:

We certainly are, and thanks to Thomas Welsby Clark and all of them. Absolutely every one of them. Peter Dutton you’ve spoken about this issue last week; the Prime Minister’s talked about it’s time to give people their lives back. This stance of the Federal Government that’s against the State Governments – it’s not just Queensland, it’s Victoria as well which has the new rules last night, New South Wales has them until December 15 – about vaccinated people getting rights that unvaccinated don’t. Why is the Federal Government opposed to this?

PETER DUTTON:

Well Breenie we’ve been very supportive, I mean incredibly strongly supportive – the Prime Minister’s led this – for people to get vaccinated. We want that to be the case – as many as possible – but at the time of the agreement that the Premiers entered into, the National Plan, they decided that they weren’t going to mandate vaccinations. So they weren’t going to hold people down and get to 100 per cent. You wanted to encourage people through a voluntary program to achieve as close to 100 per cent as possible, and the Prime Minister and the Premier, you know to their mutual credit, they’ve all, right around the country, really pushed that message hard and in the end though, by definition, if you go for a voluntary program you are going to have a small number of people who remain unvaccinated.

Now, I don’t agree with the decision that they’ve made, but that’s their decision and the Plan was that once we got to 80 per cent we would have to live with Covid and we cannot lock ourselves down forever. The mental health issues that arise, the domestic violence, the missed opportunities of not being able to see grandkids born, can’t go to a funeral, can’t be repatriated with a loved one, we can’t live like that forever.

And so the agreement that Premier Palaszczuk signed up to was that at 80 per cent we would have to move into a new phase to live with it – and that’s what’s happened in New South Wales and Victoria – where we’ve got a Labor Premier, but in Queensland the rollout of the vaccination was undermined by the Premier’s own comments around AstraZeneca when other Premiers, including Labor Premiers, weren’t doing that. So we’re a bit behind, but we’re going to hit 80 per cent and we’re going to do it within only a few weeks.

NEIL BREEN:

But shouldn’t it be an incentive though? You know, like, the people who’ve done the heavy lifting, why should others be able to freeload on those who’ve done the heavy lifting and gone and got vaccinated and been proactive? You know the Labor Party in Victoria is doing the same thing, isn’t it? This isn’t just the Federal Government versus the State Government of Queensland. We’re not the only ones here. Western Australia is the same as well.

PETER DUTTON:

Absolutely. I mean we’re all Australians and the Premiers have signed up to this agreement. They’ve formed a pact with the Australian public and they’ve agreed to that.

NEIL BREEN:

But why is the agreement right? Why is the agreement…I don’t understand why the Federal Government isn’t saying, say 90 per cent. Say at 90 per cent we’ve got more herd immunity than we do at 80.

PETER DUTTON:

Because Neil the medical advice that we’ve relied on – the Doherty Institute – the modelling that’s been done indicates that 80 per cent, you know, 70 per cent and then 80 per cent is the trigger point. If it was going to be 90 or 100 per cent, then they would have provided that advice. That’s not the advice. And I’ve just come back from meetings in the United States and Indonesia and elsewhere – a few weeks ago now – but they are living with it and they’re living with the reality of Covid.

I think the Prime Minister’s point is dead right; and that is if you’ve got even a small percentage, once you get past the 80 per cent mark, that small percentage of people that don’t want to be vaccinated…I mean we can’t ostracise those people forever. We can’t segregate them and we’re going to have to live with that reality – unless you want to mandate the vaccination, which is not what the Premiers wanted; rightly – and that was the decision that was made. And as I say, by definition you end up with a small portion of people and I just don’t think you can say to those people, even if you vehemently disagree with them over their decision not to be vaccinated, that they can’t ever go to a Coles or they can’t go to a restaurant or they can’t go to a wedding or a funeral or, you know, whatever else it might be that they’re going to do in their lives.

There are many other parts of society that we wouldn’t agree with their decision or their investment that they’ve made or their medical decision that they’ve made in their own lives, but we don’t ostracise them and I think that’s the point the Prime Minister’s making. We need to live in a humane society, respect people’s rights and once you get past the 80 per cent – it’s a very different argument if we’re at 60 or 50 per cent – but once you get past 80 per cent, which Queensland will do in a couple of weeks, I just don’t think you can have the inconsistency that the Premier’s presided over. I mean we’ve still got people – Queenslanders – who are being forced to live out of their cars south of the border at the same time that we’ve had football players coming in with their wives staying at resorts.

NEIL BREEN:

I know. I know.

PETER DUTTON:

And I think the inconsistency is what really, you know, annoys a lot of Queenslanders as well.

NEIL BREEN:

Yeah, alright and I know. The Roar, the football team, the soccer team today is flying to Melbourne and back. It’s unbelievable. Peter Dutton, Defence Minister, thanks for your time.

PETER DUTTON:

Thanks Breenie. See you soon.

[ends]