ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュのThe Hon Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia, Address to the National Press Club

PRIME MINISTER: Thank you very much. It’s great to be back here at the National Press Club at the start of another year.

Let me begin by acknowledging the Ngunnawal people, their elders past, present and emerging.

I also recognise any veterans who are with us today, as well as any serving men and women of our Australian Defence Forces and thank you all for your great service to our country.

I particularly acknowledge and have many colleagues here today, so I'm not going to call the roll, but the Deputy Prime Minister - Barnaby, it's great to have you here with me.

Also, I acknowledge my dear friend Marise Payne for one particular reason - in just a few weeks' time, Marise will become the longest-serving female senator in Australia's history. And the longest continuous-serving parliamentarian as a female. And so, congratulations to you, Marise. You're a great colleague and you've served our country incredibly well. As a Liberal, I'm very proud of you. And as a mate too.

The past three years have been some of the most extraordinary that our nation has ever experienced.

Younger generations have never known anything like it.

The succession of natural disasters from drought to flood, fires, pestilence, a once in a century global pandemic, the recession it caused, has pushed our country to the very limits.

It has been tough raising your family, keeping your job, doing your job - especially for those health and aged care workers, who we thank for their tremendous service.

It’s been tough keeping your small business or your farm going.

It's been tough keeping your children’s education up, caring for elderly relatives, those with a disability, and it’s been very tough on them too.

Family plans have been disrupted. And worst of all it’s been heartbreaking to lose so many loved ones, especially in recent weeks, and on many occasions we have been unable to come together to farewell them.

Our way of life has been completely turned upside down.

For so many Australians it has been exhausting - financially, physically, emotionally.

And when we thought we were just breaking free - the rains have come down, the cyclone has hit or a new and completely different strain of the virus, like Omicron, has come and changed all the rules.

And I don’t doubt many have stayed awake at night after telling their kids or those they care for, or those they employ that it’s all going to be OK, but wondering to themselves, in the quiet of that night, whether it really will be.

And as Prime Minister I can assure you I have asked those same questions and lived with the same doubts.

It has been crushing to visit towns and homes, often with Jen, devastated by storms, ravaged by flood or fires, to walk across barren pastures, to see the queues outside Centrelink or testing centers, to see the empty shops and restaurants, as I saw in Cairns just over the weekend.

To see the lives and livelihoods of Australians disrupted through no fault of their own and through circumstances well beyond theirs, and our, control.

So I understand and acknowledge your frustration, especially with how the global pandemic has played out over this past very difficult summer. And I want to thank Australians. You’ve had to put up with a lot.

The fact that far worse outcomes have been experienced overseas, which we know, well that gives some important perspective, but it doesn’t soften the blow.

And it’s fair enough that this disappointment leads you to ask, couldn’t you have done more, couldn’t this have been avoided, after all, aren’t you responsible?

I get that. For me, as Prime Minister, accepting this responsibility means asking yourself and challenging yourself every single day with these same very questions every single day. And I can assure you I do.

I haven’t got everything right.

And I’ll take my fair share of the criticism and the blame. It goes with the job.

But so does getting up each day, dealing with the challenges, staying positive, and believing in the strength and good nature and resilience of the Australian people and, above all, never giving up.

In these times we have experienced, there has been no guidebook and you have to make decisions in real time.

But with hindsight the view does change and lessons are learned.

Lessons that will continue to be invaluable to me and my team, so many of whom are with me today, and those out there with their communities, to deal with challenges and uncertainties that are still ahead.

And I’d like to share a few of them with you.

Firstly, you’ve always got to focus on getting the balance right.

From the outset of the pandemic, I have said our twin goals have been to save lives and save livelihoods. This is how we protect our Australian way of life. And I have always sought to balance our health objectives with our broader societal and economic well-being.

We must respect the virus but we must not live in fear of it. You must be prepared to listen to that advice, but also to take the decisions that strike the right balance. Because it is we who have been trusted with those decisions.

Secondly, you must be very practical. The virus does not care what your political views are. It writes the rules about how it behaves and we must then write our rules about how we respond. And these rules must be flexible - they will change. There is no set and forget in a pandemic like this. There are times when you have to pull back and there are times you have to push forward. And what may have been the right response at one point in time during the pandemic may flip on you and it may not be the right response in a later phase of the pandemic.

Thirdly, you must accept that you may lose a few battles along the way.

And when these setbacks occur you must keep moving forward. You can’t dwell on the things that haven’t play out as you may have expected or liked. When this occurs, the job is to get across the problem and make the changes needed as soon as possible. And get on with it.

This is what we did with the vaccine rollout when our contracted supplies were blocked and the advisory bodies had limited our use of the AstraZeneca vaccine. These were big challenges. But we turned it around.

It is what we are doing right now to overcome the supply chain shortages created by the onset of the Omicron variant. It’s only been with us two months. And this included the supply of Rapid Antigen Tests.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, COVID-19 tests have always been free at official testing clinics. Never changed.

These tests have been sourced and provided by the state and territory governments. The Commonwealth picks up 50% of the bill - just like those going out to schools right now.

The unprecedented surge in cases caused by Omicron changed everything. It was like dealing with a completely new virus. The medical advice to Government on the use of Rapid Antigen Tests changed and so did our response.

And so since then, the Government contracted 78 million Rapid Antigen Tests to help meet significant new demands in the states and the territories and the private sector.

Over 652,000 concession card holders have already accessed over 2.7 million free Rapid Antigen Tests through the community pharmacy concession card holder program which commenced just over a week ago.

The Government is also delivering 10 million Rapid Antigen Tests to support state and territories clinics.

And in our own area of responsibility, around 8 million tests have already been provided to aged care facilities with the purchasing of those tests beginning back in August last year.

Now fourthly, you must work together and learn from each other, but understand that everywhere is not the same. We have constantly engaged with experts and Governments around the world to share experience, data and information. And they’ve learnt from us, I can tell you. But that doesn’t mean that what is done elsewhere is the right solution for our conditions or circumstances here in Australia.

Australia has many differences with the rest of the world. Our regulatory authorities, our seasons, our health and social security systems, our federation. Unique. Cut and paste doesn't cut it in a pandemic. And that is why we designed JobKeeper, rather than go down the UK path for wage subsidies, which others recommended, that would have provided greater income support to those on higher wages than those on lower wages and could not have been easily delivered, or promptly delivered, through our tax system or payments system.

So we said no, that wasn't a good idea. We won't do that. We'll design a different system. And we did. And it saved lives and livelihoods all across this country.

Fifthly, you must have clearly defined principles, grounded in your values, to guide your decisions and you must stick to them.

Now, I outlined these at the AFR Summit back at the start of the pandemic.

And those have included ensuring that initiatives and programmes are targeted, time limited, use existing delivery mechanisms, that they are proportionate, are fiscally responsible, locally relevant and scalable.

You must also focus on what you can control and what you are responsible for.

A good example is respecting the constitutional responsibilities of the states and the Commonwealth under our federation. The pandemic did not suspend the constitution or the federation. It did not change the rules about what the states and the commonwealth have always been responsible for. They didn’t get any more powers, they didn’t get any less. And I have always sought to put the national interest first by seeking to work together with the Premiers and Chief Ministers through the National Cabinet and not engage in petty fights. That wouldn’t have helped anyone. My job was to get everyone in the room together. I have sought to work together to make it work.

And finally, never forget that there is more to deal with than COVID.

During this pandemic, as just one example, we have simultaneously been dealing with one of the most significant shifts in global and regional security we have seen since before the Second World War.

Changes that present a direct threat to Australia’s economic and security interests. So while we have been battling the pandemic, we have concluded the historic, significant AUKUS agreement, powered up the Quad, concluded a landmark defence agreement with Japan, supported our Pacific family, and concluded comprehensive strategic partnership agreements with some of our most important partners: India, the first country to have one with ASEAN and the south-east nations there, South Korea, Malaysia and our brothers and sisters in Papua New Guinea.

So here we are. Not perfect, but still standing strong, enduring and looking positively to the future, as earlier generations did when they faced their time of great generational trial and challenge.