WARWICK LONG, HOST: On the line now is Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese, who will be touring flood-affected areas today. Prime Minister, welcome to the program.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning Warwick and a big, heartfelt shout-out to those people who are really doing it tough today, many people are having to evacuate their home. I do encourage people to follow the advice of the authorities. If asked to leave, please do so and stay safe. The emergency services personnel certainly just have one consideration, which is people's safety.
LONG: And you'll be touring flood affected areas today?
PRIME MINISTER: I will. I'm flying into Bendigo this morning, I'll be meeting up with the Premier, Daniel Andrews, and we'll be going to the Emergency Centre their headquarters at Epsom then I'll be also going to Melbourne later on. We've made whatever assistance has been requested available, there are now 60 Australian Defence Force personnel on the ground, assisting with evacuations, assisting with sandbagging, doing their bit as our Defence Forces always do. We've also made available the Commonwealth facilities at Mickleham to create a Centre for National Resilience, which will ensure that 250 beds are available for those people who've had to, unfortunately, evacuate their homes.
LONG: And it's going to be a long clean-up, isn't it? There's a lot of talk in Victoria about the effects even on infrastructure like roads and the risks of some dams and so forth over the week. So there's going to be a lot of calls for government assistance on the clean-up here. Are you ready for that?
PRIME MINISTER: We certainly are. And we'll be working with the Andrews government to make sure that people get the support that they need at this difficult time. Bill Shorten, I've discussed with as well, he's responsible for Services Australia and of course, his electorate very much has been affected, the breaching of the Maribyrnong River has had a real impact in urban communities. So this is a very severe weather event that's having an impact in urban communities but also in regional communities right throughout Victoria, but particularly there in the North and the North-West. And we know that many homes are without power as well. Lake Eildon has seen the first spilling since 1996. This is a severe event.
LONG: Prime Minister, thank you for your time. We've got to go to the news, but we'll hear more from your journey today. Thank you
Radio Interview - ABC Local Radio Victoria - Prime Minister of Australia
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