E&OE….
Topics: Threatened Species Strategy, feral cat eradication, Tony Abbott, republic debate
TOM ELLIOTT:
Greg Hunt, the Federal Environment Minister joins us now. Mr Hunt, good afternoon.
GREG HUNT:
And good afternoon Tom.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Now I read a press release in your office a week ago where I think you were spending $130 million to kill feral cats.
Have you been out shooting feral cats?
GREG HUNT:
Well we actually have experts that are out laying bait, that are helping to get rid of them.
A single feral cat will in any one day kill potentially four or five native animals, and so over a year you're looking at an average of about 1400 native animals that are killed by a single feral cat, so…
TOM ELLIOTT:
And it was disturbing to note that while there are two or three million house cats in Australia, there's like eight million feral cats, aren't there?
GREG HUNT:
Well there are some estimates of that, and then other estimates that go up to 20 million, which is the…
TOM ELLIOTT:
Twenty million?
GREG HUNT:
…the figure that the Threatened Species Commissioner uses.
So this is actually on the advice that some of the hardest most fact-based scientists in the biological world – the biggest threat to Australia's mammals.
So we just have to deal with it, and we're really putting very serious resources into threatened species protection – that's both eradicating the feral cats and working on breeding programs for our birds, our quolls, other forms of mammals, so really trying to protect and then to regenerate population.
And I think if you consider environmental actions that'll have an impact in a hundred years' time, protecting those really iconic Australian species – quolls, bilbies, numbats – that would be right up at the top for me.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Sounds to me like we should be breeding feral cat sharpshooters, but anyway, now…
GREG HUNT:
Well they do use a variety of methods, all of them humane.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Of course.
GREG HUNT:
But there's no question as to what the end goal is.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Now what about Australia Day today, what have you been up to as a Federal MP?
GREG HUNT:
Yeah look I – for me I've been out and about at a whole series of community events.
The opening this morning of the Dromana Australia Day celebration where you had scouts, you had people from the surf club, you had people from University of the Third Age, all the different community groups – the Mount Martha Australia launch, where in particular you have the CFA and the surf life saving club there.
And then at the local surf club in Mount Martha, being in the water for the Australia Day swim, about 1.2 kilometres, so it's just a great event, and it's important I think to have somebody in the water that everybody else can pass, and that…
TOM ELLIOTT:
When you go to – tell me, when you go to citizenship ceremonies though, I mean are the people there very pleased at the idea of becoming Australians, or are they reading what's in The Age and just wondering what a terrible country this is?
GREG HUNT:
No, no, so this afternoon I've been at a 70th wedding anniversary with people who have lived on the Peninsula for four generations and love it, and then at the citizenship ceremony, and we had 70 people, 11 countries, and they were just thrilled to be becoming Australian citizens.
I'm not overstating it here, if anything I'm understating it.
There was just this sense of deep, profound joy that a huge part of their life is now opening out before them.
And I had people from India say to me, and people from the UK, and from Myanmar ‘look we're just delighted to be here.
One of them said ‘I don't think Australians realise that of all the countries in the world, there's none that is more blessed’. It really struck me.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Well I would agree. I would agree.
GREG HUNT:
It really struck me.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Now can I ask you a few other questions?
GREG HUNT:
Sure.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Are you personally a republican?
GREG HUNT:
Yes, yeah, look I've long been that way.
I'm different to Peter FitzSimons – I think that everybody is not just entitled to their views but should be encouraged to have them.
And perfectly rational people can come to completely different conclusions on this.
And I'm not theological, I just would prefer to have that arrangement.
And I've done my thinking as to how it could be structured, but the country will work under either model is the real point.
TOM ELLIOTT:
But well but do you have a – for example, he very much favours future politicians selecting the president. I happen to think that if a republic gets up it will be a direct election model.
Do you personally have a preference?
GREG HUNT:
Yeah there's something slightly different to both of those – what I call a dual key model, which is where you have the people nominate, but to avoid a really partisan choice, you then have a two-thirds majority of Parliament – but people's nominations.
And you could have a threshold of 1000 signatures or 5000 signatures, it doesn't really matter.
But the public puts forward their names, and then you get a parliamentary consensus. So people have to have a real stake in this. They've got to be the generators of it.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Did you think that maybe – do you think maybe that ex-politicians should be banned from running as president for a future republic?
GREG HUNT:
Oh, gosh. I guess if you get to the point where you're defining classes in and defining classes out, that's obviously a sign that the model isn't working.
I think it should be open to all Australians, so long as people are Australian citizens. That would be an opportunity for anybody to take it up.
But again, I'm very respectful of the different views, but that's been my view since I was a student. Although the model…
TOM ELLIOTT:
Just so we're clear, you don't think that I'm somehow mentally retarded or something because I happen to think that keeping the monarchy is a good idea?
GREG HUNT:
No I don't. You know, there are – it's an important cultural institution.
It's been a system which has given us a really stable democratic structure in Australia – couple of hiccups along the way, but I don't think that's a problem with the system – and of all of the countries in the world we're doing very well.
Now, do I think that the idea of an Australian head of state is something that for me, Greg Hunt, I support? Yes I do.
But does it bother me that Tom Elliott has a mildly different view? I couldn't be less troubled or less fussed.
That's the whole notion of the real Australia – is about democratic tolerance, not about system of government.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Oh that's good to hear. Now finally, the former Prime Minister, your colleague Tony Abbott, decided this week that he will recontest his seat of Warringah in Sydney and therefore stay in the Federal Parliament. Is that a good idea?
GREG HUNT:
Look I have always said that I would respect the judgement of Tony as to how he can best contribute.
I don't think we make use of our former prime ministers sufficiently well in Australia, I think the United States does it much better.
TOM ELLIOTT:
What do you think we should do with them? I mean, some people think they should be turned into fertiliser or something like that.
GREG HUNT:
Look, I think that we can probably make better use of them in helping to head philanthropic causes. Malcolm Fraser did his retirement I think extremely well…
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay but Tony's not retiring, that's the thing, he's sticking with it.
But won't that be a destabilising force, as was Kevin Rudd when he sat there behind Julia Gillard for those two or three years?
GREG HUNT:
No, look, Tony Abbott is not Kevin Rudd. He's anything but Kevin Rudd.
He's been a joiner, and you know on a day like today, the CFA, the surf life saving club, they've been parts of his life the whole way.
And he's not a wrecker. I know he's given it enormous thought, and I think he's just decided that at the end of the day, for the next part of his life, albeit in a completely different role, he would like to be an elder statesperson of the Parliament.
TOM ELLIOTT:
An elder statesman?
GREG HUNT:
And I think that he'll try to do that, and will do that in a genuinely constructive way.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Alright, I will look forward to seeing the results of that. We'll leave it there Greg Hunt, good as always to talk with you.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks a lot Tom, see you later.
(ENDS)