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Katie Woolf spoke with Former NT Chief Minister Shane Stone · 360 with Katie Woolf

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  Speaker 1: Joining me in the studio right now is Shane Stone,
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  Speaker 1: who will former Chief Minister of the Northern Territory but
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  Speaker 1: now the Coordinator General well of a new National Recovery
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  Speaker 1: and Resilience Agency. Good morning to you, Shane.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning Kadi, and it's great to be back home.
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  Speaker 1: It's great to have you in the studio. How about
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  Speaker 1: this weather? Firstly, isn't it glorious?
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  Speaker 2: Well, anything compared to Canberra is glorious.
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  Speaker 3: And I do have to spend a bit of time
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  Speaker 3: down there, as you would understand as an agency head
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  Speaker 3: within Prime Minister and Cabinet.
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  Speaker 2: But it's always great to come home.
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  Speaker 3: And we've still got our home here and I sit
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  Speaker 3: out on that balcony looking over Mendel Little Mindel.
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  Speaker 2: Just fabulous.
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  Speaker 1: It is such a beautiful place, the Northern Territory in Darwin, Shane.
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  Speaker 1: What are you here for in Darwin at the moment?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I came up to participate in the Food Futures
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  Speaker 3: Conference Mouthful, which is about the future ragid culture across
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  Speaker 3: the top. This time it's Darwin's turn to host it.
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  Speaker 2: It was canceled during the virus last year so didn't
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  Speaker 2: get a run.
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  Speaker 3: But there are literally hundreds of people from all around
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  Speaker 3: Australia come up to talk about everything from beef through
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  Speaker 3: to ramba, tens and anything else that comprises agriculture. Because
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  Speaker 3: at the end of the day, Australia has set itself
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  Speaker 3: a very ambitious goal of many billions of dollars of
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  Speaker 3: production over the time ahead, and this conference which we
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  Speaker 3: are part sponsoring, is very important and bringing all those
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  Speaker 3: Australians together here in Darwen.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we've heard quite a bit over recent months
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  Speaker 1: some of the difficulties that our farmers are having at
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  Speaker 1: the moment when it comes to workers not being able
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  Speaker 1: to bring pickers and packers and that type of thing
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  Speaker 1: across to the Northern Territory in particular to help with
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  Speaker 1: those crops. No doubt that's something that's being discussed as well.
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  Speaker 3: That is very much on the lips of many people
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  Speaker 3: who struggled to get necessary farm lay. But you know, Katie,
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  Speaker 3: you got to admire these people. Some of them been
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  Speaker 3: in drought and they got smashed in those North Queensland floods.
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  Speaker 3: They went back into drought and then the grasshoppers turned
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  Speaker 3: up and now we've got the mice, I mean, and
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  Speaker 3: we had cyclos in between. I mean, you have to
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  Speaker 3: admire people who generation to generation can take everything that's
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  Speaker 3: thrown at them and they don't put their hand out.
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  Speaker 3: They are very reluctant to accept any sort of financial
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  Speaker 3: support because they just take the view that's farming.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, but honestly they have the toughest job
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  Speaker 1: and they are such incredibly hard workers. You know. On
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  Speaker 1: that mice topic, and you know, we've got Peter that
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  Speaker 1: have come out today and said, you know that these
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  Speaker 1: mice need to be humanely trapped and taken away and
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  Speaker 1: set free. Just makes your question whether some people actually
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  Speaker 1: realize what it is like to be on a farnt well.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, the very same people also agitated for humane
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  Speaker 3: treatment of the cane toad and there's no end to them.
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  Speaker 3: But look, we live in a democracy. Everyone's in tight
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  Speaker 3: to I have a point of view, but what they're
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  Speaker 3: saying is just plain nuts. These there's destrawing whole crops
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  Speaker 3: and the livelihoods of people. As I said, that everything
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  Speaker 3: thrown at them, and now two billion, two billion mice.
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  Speaker 2: It's turn up. Yeah, what do you do?
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  Speaker 3: And you know it's not simple because people say one
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  Speaker 3: just poison them. Well, the problem is that that impacts
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  Speaker 3: upon the organic beef producers because they of course work
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  Speaker 3: in an entirely you know, free fertilizer, that's pure environment.
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  Speaker 3: And if you're putting out mouse traps and baits and
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  Speaker 3: introducing poisons into their immediate vicinity, it's a problem.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And again it just goes to show you the
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  Speaker 1: complexities that our farmers have got and that is why
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  Speaker 1: we have an event like the Food Future's Conference here
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  Speaker 1: talking about all of those complexities. And obviously the complexities
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  Speaker 1: in the Top End and Northern Australia are quite different,
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure to what we see in some of those
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  Speaker 1: other stuffes.
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  Speaker 2: That is true.
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  Speaker 3: NT Farmers are hosting this conference. They're doing a great job.
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  Speaker 3: The two main producer organizations of the territory of course,
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  Speaker 3: of the Northern Territory Cattleman's Association in Tea Farmers, so
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  Speaker 3: between them they make sure that the territory voice is
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  Speaker 3: heard and heard nationally.
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  Speaker 1: But now, Shanestone, twenty one years ago you were the
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  Speaker 1: Chief Minister of the Northern Territory. Many may have thought
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  Speaker 1: that you know that you might not be such a
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  Speaker 1: busy man twenty one years later, but you have been
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  Speaker 1: appointed it's the Coordinator General of the National Recovery and
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  Speaker 1: Resilience Agency. This is quite a phenomenal appointment, particularly when
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  Speaker 1: you talk about the territory and a territory and stepping
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  Speaker 1: into this role. Tell us a little bit more about it.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I effectively had retired and I was enjoying a
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  Speaker 3: nice life.
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  Speaker 2: I had me place at Channel.
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  Speaker 3: Point and I'm McKean fisherman and CRABA and all the rest.
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  Speaker 3: But Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who had a long association
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  Speaker 3: with asked me to step in and look after the
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  Speaker 3: flood monsoon, a disaster in North Queensland. And people remember
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  Speaker 3: five hundred thousand cattle dyed and crane, grain crops were
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  Speaker 3: flattened and sugar cane, I mean it was They estimated
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  Speaker 3: there was a seven billion dollar damage. And so I
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  Speaker 3: did that for twelve months and then he turned to
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  Speaker 3: me and said, well, now we want you to take
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  Speaker 3: on drought nationally. So I became North Queensland Flood National
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  Speaker 3: Drought and more recently I've taken on this new role.
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  Speaker 2: Now this is historic.
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  Speaker 3: It's historic because it's the first time that the federal
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  Speaker 3: government has pulled together all the threads of everything that
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  Speaker 3: can go wrong in the past, they set up for
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  Speaker 3: single purpose agencies, fix that and then they wind it
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  Speaker 3: up and until the next one comes. This is about
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  Speaker 3: long term planning. I've got an incredibly big budget, but
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  Speaker 3: you got to bear in mind that when it comes
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  Speaker 3: to disasters. In Australia Insurance Council tell us we spend
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  Speaker 3: ninety seven percent on cleaning up, so we're very good
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  Speaker 3: cleaner uppers and mopper uppers, and three percent on getting ready.
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  Speaker 2: We've got to reverse that.
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  Speaker 3: We've got to make sure that, you know, people are
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  Speaker 3: properly prepared for what's coming down the tube. And I
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  Speaker 3: mean I experienced it with Catherine floods in ninety eight.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, the whole town went under it and it
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  Speaker 3: was just devastating and there's things that could have been done.
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  Speaker 3: But it requires investment in infrastructure and betterment.
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  Speaker 2: You'll hear that word betterment.
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  Speaker 3: It's about if you're going to deal with public infrastructure
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  Speaker 3: and it gets washed away or burnt or whatever, when
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  Speaker 3: you put it back, put it back better and that
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  Speaker 3: way you've got to hope.
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  Speaker 1: So Shane, for the Northern Territory in particular, how do
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  Speaker 1: you think that this agency is You know, how will
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  Speaker 1: it sort of work in the territory to try and
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  Speaker 1: help us territories because we know that we're subjected, as
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  Speaker 1: you said then to floods but also to cyclones. We
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  Speaker 1: certainly copped it over the years.
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  Speaker 2: Well we have.
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  Speaker 3: We're not quite as precarious as Queensland. We we call
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  Speaker 3: Queensland Disaster Central because they get everything. The charity is
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  Speaker 3: certainly it gets at cyclones, we get our floods, we
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  Speaker 3: get occasional scrub fires and all the rest. But the
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  Speaker 3: fact is now this national agency, because it has a
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  Speaker 3: national reach, then it will be there for the territory
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  Speaker 3: as well as it will be for Wa, Tasmania, the
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  Speaker 3: whole of Australias.
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  Speaker 2: I said, this is very historic.
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  Speaker 3: It shows great vision by Prime Minister Scott Morrison to
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  Speaker 3: actually have gone down this path and decided to establish
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  Speaker 3: this single purpose agency.
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  Speaker 1: And is there I mean, I'm assuming that as we
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  Speaker 1: live through a disaster, no matter where we are in Australia,
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  Speaker 1: you guys will step in and help out when required.
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  Speaker 1: But is there somewhere where people can go to get
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  Speaker 1: a bit more information or to find out a little
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  Speaker 1: bit more about the work that is being done.
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  Speaker 3: Well, if they go on our old website, which was
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  Speaker 3: a drought and flood Yep, there's a direction.
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  Speaker 2: But we're now recovery.
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  Speaker 3: So if you go on the website for recovery, we've
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  Speaker 3: done all the comms, everything's crossed over. We've got to
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  Speaker 3: our Facebook pages up and running and we're now a
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  Speaker 3: sizeable organization compared to what we were before. Now we're decentralizing.
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  Speaker 3: It's not just about a Canbra centric operation. Morrison said
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  Speaker 3: to me, make sure that you get out in the
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  Speaker 3: regions and establish, you know, in other places. So we've
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  Speaker 3: got an office set up in Brisbane as we also
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  Speaker 3: will have hubs and one of those hubs will be
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  Speaker 3: coming here to Darwin. There'd be another one in cans
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  Speaker 3: and another one in Aubury and this is all consistent
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  Speaker 3: with the Morrison government's decentralization programs.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I tell you what, when you talk about having
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  Speaker 1: a resilience agency, I'm not surprised we've got a territory
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  Speaker 1: in heading it up because we're a pretty resilient bunch,
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  Speaker 1: aren't we.
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  Speaker 2: Well we are and we've had everything thrown at us.
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  Speaker 3: But look, in the past government wasn't really there to
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  Speaker 3: hand out grants and loans and.
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  Speaker 2: Like so that has evolved.
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  Speaker 3: But I'm always amazed at the number of people who say, mate,
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  Speaker 3: I'm okay, go and see the next fellow. They just
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  Speaker 3: won't accept it, but I make the point it's a
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  Speaker 3: hand up, it's not a handout.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 3: Aren't so many of them still say Nope, this is
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  Speaker 3: what I chose to do in life, and I'll take
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  Speaker 3: the good times with the bad times.
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  Speaker 1: True Australians, they are our Soulsis are a phenomenal bunch.
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  Speaker 1: And I tell you what, doesn't get much tougher than
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  Speaker 1: those working in the farming industry and some of some
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  Speaker 1: of those Australians that are hard hit. You know, very
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  Speaker 1: often it is in regional parts of Australia. I know
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  Speaker 1: that's a bit of a generalization, but I just reckon,
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  Speaker 1: there's something different about regional Australians. They're a tough bunch. Well.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, we take so many things for granted. Our
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  Speaker 3: city dwellers and I include people live in dah and
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  Speaker 3: you're an urbanite, but don't assume that just outside that
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  Speaker 3: they can get mobile phone coverage or internet. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: we assume so much when we live in a city
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  Speaker 3: or a big town that a lot of these folk
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  Speaker 3: just don't get. That's why we have schools of the air,
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  Speaker 3: that's why we have all these other means of supporting
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  Speaker 3: people who live in this vast continent come not country,
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  Speaker 3: continent called Australia.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I tell you what, Shane Stone, twenty one years
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  Speaker 1: after being the Chief Minister planning on retiring anytime.
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  Speaker 2: Wow. Well, I've got a bit of a theory.
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  Speaker 3: If you retire, you die, and I think that that's.
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  Speaker 2: That's not good. But I'll tell you the other thing.
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  Speaker 2: I came up here. Fortunately I was able to go
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  Speaker 2: to a wake for Kelly Howe. Yeah. That was on
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  Speaker 2: Monday night. She's a great lady.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Well I'm pleased that you were able to
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  Speaker 1: do that, and I know that a lot of territories
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  Speaker 1: were there at that wake and that it was an
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  Speaker 1: incredibly important thing for people to be able to attend.
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  Speaker 2: She will be missed.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Shane Stone, the Coordinator General of the National Recovery
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  Speaker 1: and Resilience Agency. We really appreciate you taking the time
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  Speaker 1: to come in and have a chat with us today.
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  Speaker 2: I'm always glad to talk to you. Patie.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks so much.