Australia's Prime Minister is reassuring locals bracing for Cyclone Alfred that the Government has their back.
The category two storm is expected to hit tomorrow between the Sunshine Coast and northern New South Wales.
More than 200 NSW schools are closed, the Defence Force is activated - and Qantas and Virgin are suspending Brisbane flights.
Australian correspondent Murray Olds says over 20,000 homes will also need to be evacuated before the cyclone touches down.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
International correspondence with ends and eye insurance, Peace of mind
for New Zealand business. Murray Olds is our Australia correspondent. Murray,
good afternoon. Good to have you on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Thanks Ryan here, good afternoon.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
So we better start the cyclone. What is the latest here?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Well, yeah, I heard you say there Friday night, Saturday morning.
They are now saying Saturday morning. Much more likely. Alfred
of course turned west, heading now towards the Queensland coast.
Expected to hit between Noosa, which is way up north
of Brisbane and cool and Gata, which is on the
New South Wales border. That will be the zone where
it's going to hit. That's a very big zone and
that's nearly three hundred k's. Supermarkets are closing from this afternoon.
(00:40):
Petrol stations are still serving petrol and diesel, but not
sure for how long. Hundreds of schools have closed. The
Australian Defense Force has been mobilizer sending a few dozen
soldiers up north. Are prepositioning some sort of areal assets
as well. You've got federal cash ready to go for
more than two days. Local government areas that are going
(01:02):
to need some help. Maybe twenty thousand homes have to
be evacuated from northern New South Wales because there's plenty
of bad weather already. There's heavy rain, strong winds and
very very big seas. You're talking waves off the coast
of southeast Queensland twelve meters, so the seas are pounding in.
Airline schedules of course disrupted as well. And this is
(01:24):
just the start. Next forty eight hours seventy two hours
are going to be very very difficult.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
The defense spending issue.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
I saw the story yesterday, I thought, well, that's a
heck of a lot of money. In fact, I went
and looked it up in dollar terms, what the Americans
apparently are wanting you guys to spend on defense is
more than what the Brits are going to increase their
spending by.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, we're coming up a lower based out figure, although
Australia is still spending and I like to sit down
and I read this too. I was looking up a
similar like. I was doing a bit of research as well,
knowing you wanted to talk about this. Australia currently are
spending more than one billion dollars a week in events. Okay,
it's now under alban Easy labor has boosted the defense
(02:05):
spend to two percent of GDP over here, but Washington
is saying, you want to get to three percent or
you know, all bets are off. That's a huge increase.
That's an increase of what is that fifty percent? So
I'm not sure what the timeline is. We're already in
the whole of nearly four hundred billion dollars for these
Americans are nuclear powered submarines that may never be delivered.
(02:29):
And plus has got to be a big worry about
Donald Trump, who didn't know what Aucust was. You know,
it's the agreement between Australia and the United Kingdom and
the United States August Donald Focus, Mate Concentrate. He didn't
know where the hell it was. So he's also applying,
apparently going to apply tariffs to Australian aluminium, even though
he just handed over a check for hundreds of millions
(02:50):
of dollars as a down payment for these wretched submarines
that apparently will be out of date before they arrive anyway.
So it's it's just it's an absolute bloody mess. Yes,
and knows like headless chucks are here, really and truly
they're not sure what's.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Going on, Yeah, well we feel a very similar way
over here. Just we're not spending a billion dollars a week.
At least it's a lot less than that. I think
it's fine billion a year. So country Road, this is
the boss of Country Road in Australia. They reckon, we're
in a retail you're in a retail recession there, yes.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Not according to broader figures. I mean country Road. You know,
it's expensive tat for yuppies is the way it's been
described here. You know, pairachinos, if you want to spend
one hundred and fifty two hundred bucks, that's fine, go
and do that. Most people would prefer to spend sixty
or seventy bucks for pirachinos. Don't look any different. So
(03:43):
you know, country Road may be feeling good, pinch, but
other retail. The retail figures for January came in this
week and they weren't too bad. I just forget the
exact figure. But look, there's been some economic news this week.
The National accounts figures were about where labor expected. So
labor's heading into an election. It could be called this
(04:04):
weekend as well. Anthony Albanezi, you know, he says, I'm
not talking about election speculation. I'm spending next the next
few days working out of the National Situation Room as
we monitor the cyclone. I mean, it looks good for
the cameras, but it wouldn't surprise me to see him
go to the Governor General on Sunday at Gordon an election.
(04:24):
There's lots of point to this, and then you know
the polls out that flash for Labor, but it's only
fifty one to forty nine two party preferred. Peter Dutton
remains deeply unpopular. Labor can port to an interest rate
cut and say well, there's more on the way, even
though they have no idea there's more on the way.
There's a bunch of different things. Both sides have pledged
(04:47):
billions of dollars in spending. Not sure where the cash
is coming from, but certainly labor's on the ball with childcare,
with pay rises for the lowest paid. These are the
people working in aged care. For God's sake, they take
over forty bucks an hour, some of them much less
than that, and that's just not a good thing for
the economy when so many people are getting older. I'm
(05:08):
going to need someone looking up to me.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Oh, come over, Murray.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Hey, you're a good man.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Just quickly if the storm is really bad, he can't
call on Sunday, Kenny, I mean that will be well surely.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Well, you know we're still like April twelve, we're still
over a month away. It's going to be hard to
campaign obviously, but it's a big country. You might have
to miss out and see South East Queensland for a bit.
But there's plenty of Victorian seats they need to prop up,
plenty of new South Wales in Sydney's West as well.
Perth remains very very much live, but all the intelligence
(05:42):
is pointing to a very strong performance from the Teals
over here the Independents who say they're not aligned, but
bore they are and it could very much be a
minority government. Not sure which side's going to have the
biggest handericarts.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Murray Old's are Australia correspond
Speaker 3 (05:58):
For more from Hither Dupless Alan Drive, listen live to
News Talks a B from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
International correspondence with ends and eye insurance, Peace of mind
for New Zealand business. Murray Olds is our Australia correspondent. Murray,
good afternoon. Good to have you on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Thanks Ryan here, good afternoon.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
So we better start the cyclone. What is the latest here?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Well, yeah, I heard you say there Friday night, Saturday morning.
They are now saying Saturday morning. Much more likely. Alfred
of course turned west, heading now towards the Queensland coast.
Expected to hit between Noosa, which is way up north
of Brisbane and cool and Gata, which is on the
New South Wales border. That will be the zone where
it's going to hit. That's a very big zone and
that's nearly three hundred k's. Supermarkets are closing from this afternoon.
(00:40):
Petrol stations are still serving petrol and diesel, but not
sure for how long. Hundreds of schools have closed. The
Australian Defense Force has been mobilizer sending a few dozen
soldiers up north. Are prepositioning some sort of areal assets
as well. You've got federal cash ready to go for
more than two days. Local government areas that are going
(01:02):
to need some help. Maybe twenty thousand homes have to
be evacuated from northern New South Wales because there's plenty
of bad weather already. There's heavy rain, strong winds and
very very big seas. You're talking waves off the coast
of southeast Queensland twelve meters, so the seas are pounding in.
Airline schedules of course disrupted as well. And this is
(01:24):
just the start. Next forty eight hours seventy two hours
are going to be very very difficult.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
The defense spending issue.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
I saw the story yesterday, I thought, well, that's a
heck of a lot of money. In fact, I went
and looked it up in dollar terms, what the Americans
apparently are wanting you guys to spend on defense is
more than what the Brits are going to increase their
spending by.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, we're coming up a lower based out figure, although
Australia is still spending and I like to sit down
and I read this too. I was looking up a
similar like. I was doing a bit of research as well,
knowing you wanted to talk about this. Australia currently are
spending more than one billion dollars a week in events. Okay,
it's now under alban Easy labor has boosted the defense
(02:05):
spend to two percent of GDP over here, but Washington
is saying, you want to get to three percent or
you know, all bets are off. That's a huge increase.
That's an increase of what is that fifty percent? So
I'm not sure what the timeline is. We're already in
the whole of nearly four hundred billion dollars for these
Americans are nuclear powered submarines that may never be delivered.
(02:29):
And plus has got to be a big worry about
Donald Trump, who didn't know what Aucust was. You know,
it's the agreement between Australia and the United Kingdom and
the United States August Donald Focus, Mate Concentrate. He didn't
know where the hell it was. So he's also applying,
apparently going to apply tariffs to Australian aluminium, even though
he just handed over a check for hundreds of millions
(02:50):
of dollars as a down payment for these wretched submarines
that apparently will be out of date before they arrive anyway.
So it's it's just it's an absolute bloody mess. Yes,
and knows like headless chucks are here, really and truly
they're not sure what's.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Going on, Yeah, well we feel a very similar way
over here. Just we're not spending a billion dollars a week.
At least it's a lot less than that. I think
it's fine billion a year. So country Road, this is
the boss of Country Road in Australia. They reckon, we're
in a retail you're in a retail recession there, yes.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Not according to broader figures. I mean country Road. You know,
it's expensive tat for yuppies is the way it's been
described here. You know, pairachinos, if you want to spend
one hundred and fifty two hundred bucks, that's fine, go
and do that. Most people would prefer to spend sixty
or seventy bucks for pirachinos. Don't look any different. So
(03:43):
you know, country Road may be feeling good, pinch, but
other retail. The retail figures for January came in this
week and they weren't too bad. I just forget the
exact figure. But look, there's been some economic news this week.
The National accounts figures were about where labor expected. So
labor's heading into an election. It could be called this
(04:04):
weekend as well. Anthony Albanezi, you know, he says, I'm
not talking about election speculation. I'm spending next the next
few days working out of the National Situation Room as
we monitor the cyclone. I mean, it looks good for
the cameras, but it wouldn't surprise me to see him
go to the Governor General on Sunday at Gordon an election.
(04:24):
There's lots of point to this, and then you know
the polls out that flash for Labor, but it's only
fifty one to forty nine two party preferred. Peter Dutton
remains deeply unpopular. Labor can port to an interest rate
cut and say well, there's more on the way, even
though they have no idea there's more on the way.
There's a bunch of different things. Both sides have pledged
(04:47):
billions of dollars in spending. Not sure where the cash
is coming from, but certainly labor's on the ball with childcare,
with pay rises for the lowest paid. These are the
people working in aged care. For God's sake, they take
over forty bucks an hour, some of them much less
than that, and that's just not a good thing for
the economy when so many people are getting older. I'm
(05:08):
going to need someone looking up to me.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Oh, come over, Murray.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Hey, you're a good man.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Just quickly if the storm is really bad, he can't
call on Sunday, Kenny, I mean that will be well surely.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Well, you know we're still like April twelve, we're still
over a month away. It's going to be hard to
campaign obviously, but it's a big country. You might have
to miss out and see South East Queensland for a bit.
But there's plenty of Victorian seats they need to prop up,
plenty of new South Wales in Sydney's West as well.
Perth remains very very much live, but all the intelligence
(05:42):
is pointing to a very strong performance from the Teals
over here the Independents who say they're not aligned, but
bore they are and it could very much be a
minority government. Not sure which side's going to have the
biggest handericarts.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Murray Old's are Australia correspond
Speaker 3 (05:58):
For more from Hither Dupless Alan Drive, listen live to
News Talks a B from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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