PM: This morning at 12:30 am Australian Eastern time there was an attack in the Serena Hotel in Kabul. The Serena Hotel is the location of the Australian embassy. It is also the place where our Australians (inaudible) stay.
I've just spoken, about half an hour ago to the acting Australian Ambassador Angela Tierney and she confirmed the position of Australian embassy staff and personnel.
I have been advised by the acting ambassador that all staff are uninjured and that at present the embassy is also finally confirming, the whereabouts of other Australians citizens registered (inaudible) in Kabul.
The Australian Government condemns this attack on the Serena Hotel, which we are advised has resulted in the loss of life. I have instructed the Department of Foreign Affairs immediately to conduct an assessment of the continuing security needs of our mission in Kabul and any adjustment which is necessary to underpin their security will be made immediately.
I have commended the Australian Embassy staff on their courage and professionalism and the way in which they have conducted themselves (inaudible) the last several hours and we will maintain direct contact with them.
I have also spoken about these matters about a quarter of an hour ago with the Foreign Minister Stephen Smith who will be in continuing contact with the embassy in Kabul during the course of the day.
This is a sober reminder of the difficult, dangerous operating environment in Afghanistan. Faced not just by our troops in the field who I had the privilege of visiting just before Christmas, but also by our diplomatic and other staff located in Kabul itself. We should always (inaudible) keep them in mind and have their security needs at the forefront of our attention.
Today here at RPA, I am pleased to be with Nicola Roxon and Reba Meagher, the Federal and State Health Ministers. We are committed to doing everything practical and positive to make health services better for working families across Australia.
We spoke a lot about that last year. We've got an opportunity now as the Government of Australia to put practical steps in place. That process began yesterday in Brisbane when Nicola chaired a meeting of the State Health Ministers and Wayne Swan did the same with the State and Territory Treasurers on an allocation of $150 million dollars to deal with the immediate challenge of elective surgery waiting lists. That commitment, which is to provide funding for the provision of an additional 25 000 elective surgery procedures of the calendar year 2008, is a step in the right direction.
Another step in the right direction is how do we deal with the current government challenges faced right across Australia in dealing with the undersupply of nurses into the hospital system.
In 2004 the previous government was presented with a (inaudible) planning document that said that Australia was on course to have an undersupply of nurses in the system by 19, 000 by the year 2010. That is a 19, 000 nurse undersupply, or shortfall by 2010 of registered nurses and enrolled nurses.
We need to do something about that rather than just sit back and wait for the problem to unfold. The plan we have put forward is to deal with this challenge at two levels. First, to increase the number of federally funded nurse education places at Australian universities and that will commence this year, with an addition 500 places and next year that will be increased to 1000 places.
Secondly - on the second stream of attack - is how do we deal with providing the incentives necessary to bring existing qualified nurses back into the nursing workforce. Right now, I am advised that there are some 25, 000 to 30, 000 qualified nurses out there, who are currently not working as nurses. So what do we do, in practical terms, to make it possible to bring them back into the workforce, or as many of those as possible.
What we are providing today - the Government today is writing to State and Territory governments, making available a funding supply of $87 million to provide financial incentives to get qualified nurses back into the system.
That will take the form of $6000 cash incentives for nurses who are qualified, who are currently not in the workforce, and who have been out of the nursing workforce a period of 12 months.
As incentives will be delivered in two (inaudible). Firstly, a three thousand dollar payment at the six month point, followed by a further three thousand dollars payment at the 18 month point, after the nurses re-enter the workforce.
If you put these two measures together, that is for the increased number of university places for nurses and the cash payment system which we are proposing for qualified nurses outside the system, we believe that we can add an addition 9, 250 nurses by 2010.
That gets us half way towards dealing with the projected shortfall in nurse supply. This will not be the end of our announcements on this matter. Though it is a solid start in dealing what is an impending shortfall in the overall supply of nurses.
I conclude by saying this: working families across Australia deserve the best from all their governments. The National Government and State and Territory Governments in producing a high quality and accessible health care system. Part of that means dealing with the elective surgery waiting list challenge nation wide. Part of that lies with making sure there are enough nurses in the system. In the last two days, we have announced practical measurers, aimed at addressing these challenges.
This will take a while to deal with effectively and comprehensively nation wide, but these are two positive steps in the right direction, but I commend my federal colleague Nicola Roxon and State colleagues including Reba, for the work which has been done cooperatively so far on these two challenges.
We'll just take questions on the matters I have raised and any other matters that you'd wish to raise.
JOURNALIST: PM on the Kabul attack, will there be an increase of the Australian troop deployment to Afghanistan by the end of this year?
PM: In my discussions with President Hamid Karzai and with the Australian and American force commanders in Kabul just before Christmas, I indicated that we are satisfied with our current levels of troop deployment. We will maintain a continuing dialogue with our partners both in NATO and elsewhere on what is required on the ground.
We have nothing (inaudible) which will cause us to conclude that we need to increase our current troop deployment to that country. We need to be concerned and vigilant about the security challenges faced by all Australian personnel, diplomatic and military in Afghanistan. This is a very difficult operating environment. It is dangerous. I have met many of these good folk personally in my recent travel to Kabul and to the south of (inaudible) and we should always be bearing their security needs foremost in mind.
JOURNALIST: Is there anywhere more secure for our embassy staff to be based?
PM: Well I have directed, as a matter of urgency, an immediate assessment of their security needs. Any further security needs which need to be met, any further security assistance which is necessary to underpin their security in Kabul will be met by the Government.
JOURNALIST: Mr Rudd you have announced a cut to DFAT funding and some diplomats will come back to Australia. Wouldn't that affect Australia's ability to have influence overseas?
PM: We have a challenge when it comes to dealing with the inflation problem left to us by the previous Australian Government. That means, having a very tight, conservative fiscal policy to take pressure of public spending - as well as dealing with some of the supply side constraints in the Australian economy. The skills shortage - and we were talking about that today when it comes to nurses - but also infrastructure bottlenecks as well.
Part of producing a conservative, focussed, fiscal strategy for the year ahead means that the whole of the national Government is to tighten its fiscal belt. That means the Department of Foreign Affairs as well. In terms of the specifics, this will mean a trimming in the level of representation of a number of our missions abroad. None of those missions will be closed. But we believe we can do better and continue to discharge our international obligations simply by pulling the belt a bit tighter. Stephen Smith, the Foreign Minister, will elaborate on this further today (inaudible).
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)
PM: Well, on the - I'll turn to Nicola for the detailed answer to that - but, as I said at the conclusion of my remarks just before, there is no magic solution here. But let me tell you, you can either just pretend that the problem doesn't exist, or do something about it. We've decided to do something about it, with the elective surgery waiting list at the front, hence the good discussions we've had with the State and Territory colleagues yesterday, and on the overall supply of nurses front. Providing cash incentives will help, we believe, to get qualified nurses back into the system. It's not going to deliver a perfect 100 percent outcome, but you know something, it's a hell of a lot better than sitting on your hands and whistling dixie and hoping that it all fixes itself up in the morning. Over to you, Nicola.
MINISTER ROXON: Thank you. Well we certainly consulted with a number of nursing organisations and had a good look at the sorts of programs (inaudible) in different states. What we saw was necessary was that we needed to add cash incentives to some of the training programs that many States and Territories have provided. This is $6,000 for nurses who are trained and have been out of the workforce for more than a year. Plus there will also be a $1,000 payment to the hospitals who will be recruiting these nurses to help cover some of the training costs that they will incur to provide that refresher work for the nurses. We are very confident that this will have an impact.
We are very confident that a number of those 25,000 - 30,000 trained nurses who are not working in nursing for a range of reasons will be attracted to come back to our hospitals when there are so many things happening in our hospitals and when there is such an opportunity for change in this good new cooperative arrangement between the Commonwealth and the States.
This is just part of that whole package and we are very confident that it will be a good thing, to get those qualified nurses - who often love nursing and have left for reasons other than just financial - be attracted back (inaudible) when people are making decisions about the years to come, that many will think again about coming back to hospitals to provide vital services that working families need.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible) those that were announced during the campaign?
MINISTER ROXON: This is the implementation of our campaign commitment. We announced during the campaign that we would provide these incentives. We want to work with the States and Territories and with private health providers to ensure that we have a mechanism which means so they can recruit nursing staff to their hospitals and we can make those incentives available.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)?
MINISTER ROXON: Look, I don't think that's likely to happen. The many thousands of nurses that already work in our system are very proud of what they do. We are pleased that they do the work that they do. But there are many thousand who have taken different jobs choices. Maybe have left to have a child and haven't come back, have found the job stressful and wanted a break.
This is an opportunity for those skilled nurses to come back into the system and we are calling on all of them to consider in their plans for the year to come whether they would like to be part of a new injection of nurses into our hospitals, with a cash incentive for them to do so.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)
MINISTER ROXON: Well look, I mean obviously that is an issue. If Reba wanted to she might make a comment. I think this is a complex problem. A lot of skilled nurses are paid very well. I'm sure there are arguments from many people that they would like to have that many paid more. But we do have a good attractive system for nurses. What we want to do is make sure that their working conditions - including having enough other colleagues on board in hospital wards with them - will be assisted by this incentive.
We, of course, are about to go into negotiations over the healthcare agreement where will be dealing with funding that's provided that fund all those sorts of issues. And no doubt those matters will be dealt with during those negotiations. But this is about attracting trained nurses back into our hospitals where they are desperately needed and we hope that this incentive will provide an opportunity for them to re-think about their career in the coming year.
PM: Back to Nicola's point just then. Today what we are announcing is the Federal Government corresponding with the State and Territory Governments to make sure that this $87 million is made available from the end of this month. We want the money to start flowing now.
As Nicola said, quite rightly and quite correctly, this is a time of year where many people are making their year's choices and decisions about where they want to work.
To make sure that this funding is available, so that it can be accessed by State and Territory health systems quick smart, that's why we're announcing today the correspondence will be proceeding from Nicola to the State and Territory Governments along those lines.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)
PM: Well, as I said in my remarks before, we understand how big the challenge is here. Remember in times past what we had was the pointless blame game between Canberra and the States. Working families are sick and tired of that. They want actually a cooperative start, a new start to this. I said there is no silver bullet, no magic pudding here. We believe we can do much better than we have done in the past.
Here are two very practical steps announced effectively within the first month or so of this Government's existence. There'll be much more to be announced in due course. Nicola has already made reference to the upcoming negotiations on the Australian Healthcare Agreement. That is a very sizeable agreement. And we are confident that in partnership with the States and Territories we'll get the balance right there in both terms of the quantum of funding and also the direction of funding long term as well.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible) would you be happy for Therese to go onto a hospital waiting list (Inaudible)
PM: Well, I've always made no bones about the fact that we're privately insured - always have been ever since we were married 26 years ago. And, as I said in the statement yesterday, when Therese experienced her difficulties on Sunday, we sent her to the Mater Private Emergency Department in Brisbane. And, that's where she will be having her procedure later in the week.
What we're concerned about is to make sure that right across the health system, that every Australian - whether they've got private health insurance or not - has access to a first class health system. What we've inherited nationwide is a system which has currently waiting lists for elective surgery at somewhere between 25,000 and somewhat more than that nationwide.
What we're doing is saying ‘how can we reduce this and do it effectively for all families?'. Not just those, like myself, who are in the fortunate position to have private insurance.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)
PM: Well, Nicola has already referred to the fact that we have an upcoming healthcare agreement negotiation with the states. The scope of that has not been settled between Commonwealth and State Governments. And I'm sure we're going to have many more things to say about the totality of the healthcare system - including the role of Ministers currently within that system - as the year progresses. But, I've said that we need to get cracking on this practical set of measures very early in the Government's term.
These are two practical measures which need to be got going. Both on the elective surgery front and on the supply of nurses front. I believe it is a good start, but there is still a lot of work to do. Thank you very much. I'll take one more, then that's it.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible) also your thoughts on the big major banks increasing their interest rates (inaudible)?
PM: Well, I think that working families would be looking very carefully at the decisions taken by the commercial banks on these most recent set of rises. I endorse the remarks made recently by the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, on this and I think that people will be looking very carefully indeed at the decisions made by the commercial banks outside the framework of the official interest rates structure laid down by the Reserve Bank. That's the first point.
Secondly, if you ask why I'm going off to the Reserve Bank, I'll be meeting late today with senior representatives of the Bank to discuss the inflation challenge. On the economic policy front, front and centre this year is Australia dealing effectively with the national inflation problem that we have been left by the Howard/Costello Government. It's real, it exists, and you've seen the consequences of that already in terms of adjustments of official interest rates in recent times.
In answer to an earlier question on fiscal policy, I said this is front and centre of the challenge that we face on the economic policy front this year. So the purpose of my meeting today with Reserve Bank officials is to discuss that inflation challenge. Those discussions will shape my own thinking, together with the Treasurer and the Finance Minister's thinking, on how we shape this year's fiscal strategy and I've got to go. Thank you very much.
ends