CONOR BYRNE, HOST: Your special guest this morning, spending his Christmas in the top end this year, your Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. Prime Minister, good morning.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. Wonderful to be here for what's a really important commemoration of 50 years since Cyclone Tracy devastated this great city.
BYRNE: By my calculations, you would have been 11 years old when Cyclone Tracy hit. You woke up on Christmas Day, you opened your presents, I hope. Can you remember when you first heard that Darwin had been destroyed?
PRIME MINISTER: I just remember as a little kid, it's one of my first memories is of that and my mum being devastated by it as well. It really cast a dark shadow over the whole country. And as we saw the devastation, it came out slowly, I remember it almost dripping out, the information, because people, I think, couldn't quite believe the extent of the devastation. We know now at least 66 lives lost, but those pictures of the whole city being effectively destroyed and flattened. And then the aftermath as well, of course, of giving support for survivors, getting food and water and essentials into Darwin, the evacuations that had to occur. And then over a period of time, the rebuilding of the city. It's a remarkable story of Australian resilience. And I've just been at the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery. It's a fantastic exhibition there. And it is once again a reminder that at the worst of times, we do see the best in the Australian character as well. And the way that Australians pitched in and helped and provided that support for their fellow Australians at what was an extraordinarily catastrophic event.
BYRNE: Fifty years later, you've chosen to spend Christmas Day here away from a lot of your loved ones, to spend Christmas Day with survivors. Why is it so important to you that you do that?
PRIME MINISTER: As Prime Minister, I want to represent the whole country. I've been to the Northern Territory as Prime Minister now on at least 11 occasions just in the last two and a half years. I've been not just to Darwin, but Katherine and Nhulunbuy and Alice Springs and Uluru right around this great Northern Territory. I think this is an important moment for Australia. It was a catastrophic event. And not just myself, but the Governor-General will be arriving today and indeed the Chief of the Defence Force, David Johnston, was a survivor of Darwin. It's a chance as well for us to remind people not just of the horror and the catastrophic consequences, including a loss of life. It will be difficult for many of the people who'll be at the Railway Club later today telling stories and then tomorrow at the commemoration. It will be difficult because people here lost loved ones and were impacted directly. But it is a chance as well for us to remember how extraordinary the assistance was that was given and to remind ourselves that in this country, you know, we have natural disasters. Fortunately, not ones like this one so often, thank goodness. Darwin was, of course, impacted severely in 1937 and then at the end of the 19th century as well. So, it was built back in a more resilient way. And it's just a really important moment, I think. And it's appropriate that as Prime Minister, I be here.
BYRNE: We do know that cyclones are getting more intense and more frequent though. And the cost of dealing with natural disasters is predicted to be nearly $40 billion by 2050. How is the Government going to pay for that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the one thing that we have to do as well is to take climate change seriously, which is what my Government is doing. We turned around a decade of inaction and denial and now we're opposed to this nuclear fantasy of doing nothing until sometime in the 2040s. I'm not quite sure exactly how that makes any sense. It doesn't. We need to act now. And the way that we act now is by building renewables with firming capacity of storage and gas. And that's what my Government's doing in that, to deal with the longer term challenge of climate change being a part of global action as well. But as well, we've set up NEMA, the National Emergency Management Agency. We, as we speak, my Emergency Services Minister, Senator Jenny McAllister, is in Victoria meeting with authorities there about bushfires. Last year around this time, I was in North Queensland dealing with the floods that occurred there. We do have natural disasters in this country, tragically far too many. And they are becoming more intense and and more frequent. So, we need to prepare for that, but we need as well to do what we can to mitigate.
BYRNE: I'll get to your message to Cyclone Tracy survivors in just a moment. But whilst I've got you here, it would be remiss of me not to ask you about some of the issues facing the Territory. As recently as yesterday, a woman's been seriously injured in a DV attack in the Northern Territory and eight women have been killed since July. When are you going to end your funding stoush with the NT Government and address the domestic violence crisis?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we've provided funding here in the Territory. Some $240 million has been provided. Indeed, in some areas the funding's been provided, but the workers not employed. That's a responsibility of the Northern Territory Government. That represents more than 15 per cent of the national share is being funded here in the Northern Territory. And that shows our commitment. We have a $250 million Central Australia package. A lot of that is about support for organisations. We certainly, when I came to government, funding was due to run out for community services organisations in June of last year. We have ensured that funding was provided. And we're providing record levels. In addition to that, there's the work that we're doing in education with the largest ever increase for education here in the Northern Territory with the schools agreement we had. And my Health Minister just in the last week has been in Alice dealing with issues as well, meeting with organisations providing what support we can as the Commonwealth Government. The NT Government has to deliver services on the ground either directly or through non-government organisations. But we work cooperatively. I want to see good outcomes. And I'm sure that the Northern Territory Government do as well. I'll be meeting with the Chief Minister in a short while here this morning.
BYRNE: Respectfully, Prime Minister, that $240 million is only going to keep the doors open. When you go around the Territory and you talk to domestic violence shelters, they all say the same thing. They're turning women away every night because they don't have room or funding. The domestic homicide violence rate is seven times the national rate here in the Territory. Aboriginal women are 40 times more likely to be hospitalised for domestic violence. An equal share of the Federal pie doesn't address this.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, they're not getting an equal share. When you look, for example, Aboriginal community controlled organisations in the NT receive 27 per cent of the total funding. 27 per cent. That's a larger allocation than the two most populous states that exist. They're getting far more than their share. They're getting funding on the ground, not just for support for community workers. There's far more funding than has been spent when it comes to community workers. You know, we can't deal with that issue from Canberra. That has to be dealt with on the ground. And when it comes to housing, we had the Coalition and the Greens Party, for that matter, hold up our funding for the Housing Australia Future Fund that provides funding for 4,000 additional units or dwellings for women and children escaping domestic violence. We couldn't get it through the Senate. Now that we finally have, after that delay, that funding is available and those rounds are occurring. And in addition to that, of course we had the largest ever housing package for the Northern Territory to address overcrowding as well, which is one of the reasons why you have so many social issues arising from overcrowding.
BYRNE: It's seven minutes to 11 here this Tuesday morning. You're listening to ABC Radio Darwin and the Northern Territory. Your guest this morning, the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. It's Christmas time. Prime Minister, do you have any presents for the Territory?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, today's about commemoration. But we have had record education funding, record health funding, record funding for things such as dialysis, record community services funding, record infrastructure funding that we've all provided for the Northern Territory. We want to make sure that they're rolled out. In addition to that, we have the remote jobs program that's so important, turning what essentially is a sort of make work program that didn't deliver skills and real jobs on real wages. That's an important initiative. I spoke at the Garma Festival this year about the importance of economic empowerment for Indigenous people in order to close the gap. And we're very much working on that, with those rounds being open at the moment.
BYRNE: Let's go back to the commemoration tomorrow. There are a lot of people coming back to Darwin for the anniversary, some of them for the very first time since they were evacuated. I understand from listening to survivors over the last few months that this was a time when Australia really came together. What's your message to the Cyclone Tracy survivors and Australia as a whole this Christmas, 50 years on?
PRIME MINISTER: That Darwin not only survived as a city, it was rebuilt. And it shows the resilience of the Australian people. And that at the worst of times, we show the best of the Australian character. And the best of that character is the way that we help each other. That we move beyond just being individuals and that we help people who we don't know and we'll never meet. And that happens at Christmas time and it happens when Australians are in need. And it's that sense of looking after each other that I think is Australia's greatest strength.
BYRNE: I really appreciate you coming on this morning. I know it's a busy time. I've got a Christmas present for you. Prime Minister, I know you were a DJ back in the day, so I'll let you pick the next song. What would you like for your exit music this morning?
PRIME MINISTER: You can't get past, at this time of the year, Paul Kelly ‘How To Make Gravy’.
BYRNE: This is 'How To Make Gravy' by Paul Kelly. Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, thank you very much. I'll speak to you soon.
PRIME MINISTER: Merry Christmas to all of your listeners.