E&OE..................
QUESTION:
Mr Prime Minister, Pat Daley from the Salvation Army. We heard Dr Morgan suggest that we should have embraced the GST back in 1985, the Option C, we fully agree with that, I';m sure many of us do. A national ID card, an Australia car, surely that must be well and truly on the agenda, we should have embraced that years ago, your comments on that as well.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well literally it';s not on the agenda of the Government at the present time. Pat, I always listen carefully to any suggestions you make, I';ll think about. My initial reaction is hmmm, I';m not too keen on it. I think there';s a fair amount of checking, what was that thing that we bought in with the GST? The Australian Business Number, that seems to have flushed out a few of the things that an ID card flushed out without some of the privacy drawbacks of an ID card. I';ll think about it but I don';t want that to be interpreted by any of the fourth estate as suggesting that I';m going to introduce it. But I have to say you';re the first person who';s raised it at me at a meeting in the time I';ve been Prime Minister.
QUESTION:
Gerard Henderson, the Sydney Institute. Just wanted to follow up some of your important comments about terrorism, as I understand it you';re visiting the Philippines next year which I think is your first one to one visit to the Philippines since you';ve been Prime Minister apart from the Subic Bay APEC meeting. And I';m just wondering what kind of discussions you might be having with the Philippines President in view of the significant problem of Islamic terrorism in the south of the Philippines, it seems that the US is apparently withdrawing from its support that it';s given and it';s possible that it might be an area where Australia with its low key approach to these areas might be able to make an important contribution to a country where we';ve been traditionally quite strong allies.
PRIME MINISTER:
I think that';s a fair assessment Gerard. We have already had some discussions, that';s the President and myself on the terrorism issue in ways in which our two countries can co-operate more closely, that was one of the things that we talked about when we had a bilateral meeting at Los Cabos at the last APEC meeting. I think in this whole area you get more by low ley bilateral exchanges perhaps than grand summits. It';s worth making the point that for all the high profile static that occurred a week or 10 days ago in the wake of the ASIO raids on people in Australia the co-operation between the Indonesian and Australian police in investigating the Bali atrocity continued completely unhindered and the framework of that co-operation was put in place two days after the 12th of October when Alexander Downer and Chris Ellison went to Jakarta along with the Federal Police Commissioner and the head of ASIO and I have to say that the Indonesian have, at the relevant operative level have remained strong and consistent and the evidence so-far, and I don';t wish to comment, on operational things, but the evidence so far is that the investigation is proceeding very effectively.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, Lorraine Berends, chair of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia. You mentioned at the outset that to incorpotate between inportant areas of long term planning and (inaudible) third to that which is superannuation and that has been recognised in the intergeneratonal report. However if you work in the superannuation industry an aboslute barbeque stopper, particularly if it';s a barbeque for the baby boomers, is superannuation and the topic tends to be how complicated it is and particularly in relation to the taxation on superannuation. So maybe if I can have your views on whether in the long term you do see superannuation as a method of collecting tax or ultimately whether there';s a plan to simplify the taxation and to truly make it a long term savings vehcile.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the proposition inherent in the last part of your question is that superannuation is not a long term savings vehicle. I don';t quite agree with that proposition. I know that there is a view that the current taxation arrangements of superannuation are complicated, and you';re right, they are complicated. Most things associated with the Tax Act are complicated. In fact everything just about, it seems to be a given. Look, people argue that the current superannuation arrangements are in need of radical overhaul and reform, I have to be honest and say I don';t see them being radically overhauled, I think there is a capacity for incremental improvement and change. I think it is a very important element of policy making when you';re looking at the impact of an ageing population. I think we do have a number of features of our present system including the targeted age pension which have meant that we don';t have quite the same public sector challenge that many European countries have. I know you have to look at the Australian system in isolation but if you look at the retirement income arrangements in this country and compare them across the board to the entire income arrangements in Europe and then you look at the size of the public sector and therefore the size of the tax take in most of the European countries, you start to be reminded that maybe our system is not quite as bad as many of the critics suggest. I would indicate that I don';t think we';re going to turn the superannuation system on its head, I think there are some improvements, some changes, that can incrementally be made. I think the argument is conditioned a bit by how you look at it. Taxation of course is not irrelevant to it, it';s fundamental, there are big changes made in the 80s when you had that big revenue pull forward which altered very much in the way in which tax is collected and self-evidentially you can';t alter that in the short term without a significant revenue impact. So the best answer I can give you is that it';s certainly not off the agenda, certainly not in the too hard basket but I don';t think it';s something that we';re going to turn on its head but I do think there are some valuable incremental changes that can be made which will make it, I hope, more attractive. But I would have to, to go back to the beginning of my answer, I';d have to contest the proposition that the present arrangements aren';t an adequate savings, aren';t a useful savings, they may not be adequate for everybody but I think for many it';s a very useful savings vehicle, I think we have a better superannuation set up now than we had 20 years ago, even though many will argue it';s more complicated, I think it is more equitable and there is greater access over time for people of the lower income range, and I think that';s very important.
QUESTION:
(inaudible) chief executive of Environment Business Australia. Prime Minister you mentioned that it does not currently appear to be in Australia';s interests to ratify the Kyoto protocol. But I would ask you has the government looked into the insidious attack on health, environment and economy from global warning? In fact 19 of our trading partners and competitors in that part of the international Kyoto (inaudible) that we cannot participate in. And also the lost opportunity, not only to the environment and the sustainability industry which is now cited as the second fastest growing industry sector after IT in the world. But also the other sectors of mainstream industry that really need to be on the front foot to be able to compete in tomorrow';s world where we';re already seeing differentiation in favour of sustainable production and consumption and global warming and addressing global warming being at the very forefront of that. Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I did quite deliberately say it';s not currently our policy to ratify the Kyoto protocol, that';s an accurate description. I';m not saying that there mightn';t be circumstances in the future where that could occur. But I';ve got to say after looking at this very carefully I';m not convinced that it';s in Australia';s national interest to do for the reasons I outlined in my speech. Can I stress again that we are on track to meet the emission target set by Kyoto for Australia. I';m sure you with your evident knowledge of this area would realise that a country like Australia was from the beginning not put in a very good position. By our nature we are a developed country which is a net exporter of energy. I think the only other country that is quite in our position is Norway, Norway has the advantage of being part of the European bubble which allows some countries to have 127 per cent over the 1990 base line because countries like the United Kingdom which fortuitously closed a lot of coal mines in the 1980';s can claim the credits from that and many of the countries of Eastern Europe because of deindustrialisation after the collapse of Communism can also accumulate enormous credits. And that enables them to move the credits around within the aggregate, and that allows a country like Norway, and I';m not sort of picking on Norway, I';m just sort of citing it as an example of how in many respects the modalities for Kyoto were designed by countries having very different economies, very different interests and very different structures from Australia. The key thing is that we are working to meet that target but I don';t for the reasons outlined in the speech, I don';t want to see this country sign up to something which immediately puts it at a competitive disadvantage with other countries in the energy area whose environmental records are infinitely worse than what Australia';s are. And that would be on the present settings the consequence of Australia signing because it should be remembered and in at least some of the coverage that came out of the Johannesburg summit it seemed to be completely ignored, and that is that countries that can loosely be called developing countries, even if they ratify the protocol do not have binding targets during the first stage of the arrangements and it';s self-evident if you realise that that can put a country like Australia at a stark disadvantage with those countries, particularly in areas such as energy.
QUESTION:
My name';s Peter (inaudible) Treasurer of the Association of Relatives and Friends of the Mentally Ill…
PRIME MINISTER:
From where?
QUESTION:
The Association of Relatives and Friends of the Mentally Ill New South Wales. And I';ll put to you Mr Prime Minister that it';s often said that if you want to get a job done go to the busiest person and certainly I would think that you qualify for that. What I would wish to bring to the attention of this gathering is the fact that Australia severely underfunds its resources with respect to mental health and this has been statistically demonstrated and even more severely in New South Wales. And what I would really like to consider is that in a gathering of this for example there would probably be five families who have a very severe impact from mental illness, even within a gathering such as this.
PRIME MINISTER:
I';m sorry, I have a bit of a hearing problem…
QUESTION:
Right, anyone who';s experienced the impact of mental illness in the family know the extremely deleterious effects that it has in terms of that capacity, that families capacity to be able to operate within this community. So what I would really ask of a very busy person is there anything that';s forthcoming in the Government';s objectives to highlight the need for greater resources being delivered to the mental health sector and also the other thing is to act on it positively because new medications and what have you are actually creating enormous opportunities for very sustainable recovery for people with mental illness which wasn';t available before. So really it is actually an entrepreneurial and also a scientific threshold that we could possibly take much more considerable advantage of. So I would just leave it with you, is there any possibility that the resources or attention to funding could be given to the mental health sector? Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Sir I agree with you, I think we all agree that the presence in a family of somebody with a marked mental illness does impair the capacity of that family to function within the community. You asked me about funding, as in so many of these areas there are mixed federal and state responsibilities. You talk about the availability of modern drugs, I';m conscious of the availability of many of those, not only in this area but elsewhere. Can I use that reference to put in a commercial plea again to the Senate to pass our very modest increases in the co-contribution for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme because one of the ways in which you will sustain the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and therefore make it possible every time a new drug is discovered and comes on the market is of course to keep its financial stability. The, can I say that you know through all of the fog and understandable concern about things such as mental health and so forth is there are a couple of bright things on the horizon. We have a lot of talk about the incidents of depression and I know there';s a debate about degrees and so forth which I don';t intend to get into. But I saw the other day some very pleasing statistics which indicated that the suicide rate amongst young Australian males has began for the first time to decline. And that';s been the result of some very effective collaborative programmes between the Commonwealth and the States. Some of those programmes of course have been supported by additional resources, including but not only from the Commonwealth. We are going to negotiate a new health care agreement between the Commonwealth and the States and I would expect Senator Patterson to make certain that mental health gets a proper priority in that negotiation.
QUESTION:
Bob Cooper, Tobari Management. Mr Howard, this is a very impressive presentation to us of national coherent policy and we haven';t really had something of this breadth and deepth before. There are a dozen questions I would like to ask you but I was hoping that this document that you have, or this presentation, could be put forward in a document that we at CEDA can have distributed widely and it could well be the source of further debates on specific issues on substance that could contribute to advancing your ideas?
PRIME MINISTER:
Consider that done.
QUESTION:
Thank you.
[ends]