As Tropical Cyclone Alfred approaches the Queensland coast, $15 million in emergency assistance has been made available to South East councils in the impact zone.
KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: Welcome to Newsday. We start today with the latest on the crisis around Cyclone Alfred and the concerns in South East Queensland and northern New South Wales. Joining me to discuss is the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who's live in the studio. Prime Minister, thanks for your time.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Kieran.
JOE BUFFONE, NATIONAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY DEPUTY COORDINATOR-GENERAL: Welcome everyone to the National Situation Room. My name’s Joe Buffone. I'm one of the Deputy Coordinator-Generals here at the National Emergency Management Agency. We've just briefed the Prime Minister on the current situation and you'll hear a little bit about that. In particular the fact that it has slowed down at the moment. There's a couple of key things around that. One is that it gives more time for preparedness, but obviously it is a very, very dynamic situation.
DAVID CRISAFULLI, PREMIER OF QUEENSLAND: Good morning everybody. Overnight, models have confirmed that a cyclone will cross the South East coast of Queensland sometime in late Thursday afternoon to the early hours of Friday morning. We are facing the potential that a cyclone could, in fact, cross the coast on high tide in the middle of the night, and we're asking Queenslanders to prepare for that. We are here today to tell you that we are preparing for that right across all levels of government and agencies to support this state in a difficult period of time.
HOST: Prime Minister, good morning.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. Tough times here in Brisbane.
HOST: Yes, indeed. What can you tell us about the situation as it's currently developing?
CRAIG ZONCA, HOST: Few are flying into Brisbane right now, but one who happens to be has been the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.
LORETTA RYAN, HOST: Yes. Touching down in Brisbane last night. He'll meet with disaster coordinators this morning. Good morning, Prime Minister.
ASH AMBIHAIPAHAR, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR BARTON: Good morning everyone, my name is Ash Ambihaipahar. I am the Labor candidate for the seat of Barton for the upcoming federal election. I just want to welcome everyone here today. In particular, we have some amazing people here at Carlton South Primary School for a wonderful announcement. We have the Prime Minister and we've got the Premier, we've got a couple of ministers as well here, and also we've got the candidate for Banks, Zhi Soon. So, I want to welcome everyone here today. Thank you.
The Albanese and Minns Labor Governments have reached an Agreement to fully and fairly fund New South Wales public schools.
As part of the Heads of Agreements signed today, the Commonwealth will provide an additional 5 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) to New South Wales.
This will lift the Commonwealth contribution from 20 per cent to 25 per cent of the SRS by 2034 and follows New South Wales delivering its election commitment to reach 75 per cent of the SRS in 2025, two years ahead of the former Liberal National Government.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Welcome everyone. Another busy day today, as we've said, in the work that you have before us, and the work of government continues each and every day, and I want to thank everyone for the efforts that everyone is making. In the last couple of weeks, we've had big announcements on Medicare, three big ones.
A re-elected Albanese Labor Government will build on its historic investment in Medicare to expand the availability of free, urgent care, with a $644 million commitment to open another 50 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, with more clinics in every state and territory.