31 March 2009
DAFF09/105T
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Tony Burke
Breakfast with Steve ‘Pricey’ Price, 4TO 102.3 FM, Townsville
(E&OE)
SUBJECTS: Prawn stocks; Filipino banana imports; loss of agricultural land to forestry
PRICEY: Tony Burke’s popped in. How are you, Burkie?
TONY BURKE: I’m doing well, thank you.
PRICEY: Now you’re the Minister for dirt, drips and sticks.
TONY BURKE: Don’t forget fishing. I want my fishing.
PRICEY: That’s the drips.
TONY BURKE: Ah, fishing, come on.
PRICEY: Ok, have you ever caught a barra?
TONY BURKE: Actually, no, not barra.
PRICEY: Well in that case your ministry for fishing has just been made void. How can you come to North Queensland being Minister for Fisheries and never have caught a barra, the greatest fighting fish in the world?
TONY BURKE: Yeah I know. I know. Fish a lot, but …
PRICEY: But can we fix that? You do fish a lot?
TONY BURKE: Oh, yeah. But the barra doesn’t come. I reckon it looks, says, “Minister’s hook, not going there.”
PRICEY: Fair enough. How do you cook a mud crab then?
TONY BURKE: Mud crabs? Whack them in the freezer for an hour. Then get out the really big knife. Bash them into about seven or eight pieces. And then in the wok for about …
PRICEY: In the wok. So you’ve already dragged the meat out of the mud crab?
TONY BURKE: No, I leave the meat in. I just pull the guts out. But leave the meat in. Do it quickly in the wok. And then chuck together a sauce with …
PRICEY: Chuck together? That’s ministerial talk?
TONY BURKE: Yeah, formal term. A mixture of sweet chilli sauce, stock, fish sauce, hoisin sauce - mix it all through - a heap of chilli, ginger, garlic. It works. I love my mud grab.
PRICEY: There you go. You’ve just heard from our Minister for Fisheries. Ok, now you’ve got thirty seconds to tell me something serious about fishing. What’s happening with the prawn industry, say? Or the coral trout that’s in the news at the moment?
TONY BURKE: Well, stocks for prawns are actually likely to be pretty good after the floods. One of the good things that comes out of what has been pretty tough - particularly for the beef industry - is your nutrients up in the north in the water will be feeding prawns galore. So while on the other side of the country, out west, the lobsters are having an absolutely shocking time, the prawns are looking very good.
PRICEY: Keeping up-to-date with all that right across the country is a big job. You know there’s no doubt about it, you’ve sat here and you’ve been answering little emails on your little blackberry. Do you guys get any time alone to go fishing?
TONY BURKE: Oh, you get a bit. You’ve just got to make it happen. You’ve got to make it happen. And if you wait for …
PRICEY: Does the big boy have the whips - oh, he’s never here anyway.
TONY BURKE: If you say, “I’ll go fishing when I get a free moment,” then it will never happen. You’ve just got to lock in the time and do it.
PRICEY: Ok, Minister for Agriculture, have you ever cut cane?
TONY BURKE: No. I haven’t cut cane.
PRICEY: Oh, you’re hopeless! You’re going to be on the outer mate.
TONY BURKE: Oh, this is bad. This interview, it started with so much promise.
PRICEY: It did indeed. But tell us about the ‘nanies’. We love our bananas in North Queensland and there’s been a lot of word about the Filipino imports. What’s the story?
TONY BURKE: Biosecurity Australia said, “If you want to import Filipino bananas, there’s about ten or twelve things you’ve got to do.” The Filipino growers looked at those and have said, “Well, if that’s what we’ve got to do, we won’t be able to send bananas to Australia.” And my job is to make sure that all those rules are kept in place. And to say, “Well, if that means you won’t be able to get bananas to Australia, that’s your problem.”
PRICEY: Well why did we offer it in the first place?
TONY BURKE: The thing was started about eight years ago. It was given to an independent authority to come up with the rules. By the time I got there, the ministerial intervention time was over. And so my role is to make sure that for every one of the rules that’s put in place, we don’t soften on them, and we keep them. And if that means that Filipino bananas can’t get here, well, that’s just how it is.
PRICEY: Alright. So we’re not getting bananas from Russia?
TONY BURKE: No.
PRICEY: Or bananas from England?
TONY BURKE: No.
PRICEY: Excellent. Ok, so Aussie bananas?
TONY BURKE: You go to the shops, it’s Australian bananas. And I think it’s going to remain that way.
Look, the Filipino growers have gone nuts about the decision. They’re really angry about it. But it’s not our job to take chances with biosecurity.
PRICEY: Fair enough. Now with forestry. Have you ever fallen out of a mango tree?
TONY BURKE: I reckon that would be one of the only trees I didn’t fall out of as a kid.
PRICEY: Did you climb trees as a kid?
TONY BURKE: Yeah.
PRICEY: Excellent. And you have fallen out of them? That’s what you want a Minister for Forestry to do.
TONY BURKE: You take a few branches with you half the time.
PRICEY: Ok, what’s happening with our forests? Tell me about mahogany growing. Tell me about what’s happening in your department of forestry.
TONY BURKE: Ok, two things. One, we’re still getting a sense after the bushfires of how much stock we’ve lost down south.
The other thing that remains a problem, that I’ve got to say we haven’t worked out a way through it yet, is the loss of agricultural land to forestry and trying to get that balance right. There’s a few sugar mills up and down the coast that are getting worried about how much cane land is switching over. And that’s a balance where, I’ve got to say, no government of either side over the last few years has probably found a way through that. We’re looking at that.
PRICEY: There’s no rules as such?
TONY BURKE: No, but at the moment there’s some tax incentives that encourage you to go into forestry instead. And some of that’s only just been formalised through the courts. So it’s something that’s front-of-mind. But I’m not going to pretend I’ve got a magic solution to give you as an exclusive this morning. Sorry.
PRICEY: To Kill a Mockingbird.
TONY BURKE: Yes.
PRICEY: That wonderful line from Atticus. What did it mean to you?
TONY BURKE: Well, to get into someone’s shoes and to walk around in them, means that you’re there, and having to understand other people.
PRICEY: As a politician can you do that?
TONY BURKE: Well, first thing, I’ll never know more about someone else’s job than they know. If I walk on to a farm and pretend that I’m the expert, not them, they’ve got every right to be kicking me off the property within seconds. And I think you always start from the premise that the person you’re talking to knows more about their job than you know. But the more you listen to them, the more you learn.
PRICEY: Minister for dirt, drips and sticks, thanks for popping in mate. And great to meet you.
TONY BURKE: Great to meet you Pricey.
ENDS