PM: First of all if I could thank the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory for hosting this COAG in Darwin. This is the eighth time that COAG has met since I have been Prime Minister and it is part of our effort to turn COAG into a genuine workhorse of the Federation.
And I believe if you look back on the sorts of achievements that have been delivered in the last 18 months or so, these have been of a significant order of magnitude. Whether it's the new Australian Health Care Agreement that we have signed, whether it's the national Education Agreement that we have signed, whether it is in the area of renewable energy or in the overall area of microeconomic reform, there have been significant achievements registered by this body. But we have still a lot more work to do for the nation through the Federation.
Today we have been at work on a range of challenges as well, covering of course critical areas such as the impact of the global recession on retrenched workers, also the implementation arrangements for the Nation Building for Recovery plan.
Secondly we've been focusing here in Darwin in particular on closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
And thirdly we've also been at work still in continuing agenda of microeconomic reform, also on energy efficiency and on other matters.
Let me just deal briefly with a number of those items. The rest of the agreements that we've reached will be detailed in the communiqué which will be circulated to you soon.
Firstly on the question of the agreement that we have reached on a Compact with Retrenched Workers. As you know, the global recession is having a significant impact on working Australians everywhere as it is around the world in the worst recession in three quarters of a century.
What we've agreed today is that retrenched workers aged over 25 years will be entitled to a training place for a Government-subsidised vocational education and training qualification. The Compact with Retrenched Workers complements the compact we already have with young Australians agreed at the COAG of the 30th of April, under which 20 year olds, under which those under 20 are guaranteed an education or training place and 20 to 24 year olds are guaranteed a place to up-skill their existing qualifications.
The Government anticipated that the Compact with Retrenched Workers will provide up to 124,000 people who have lost their jobs with the opportunity to gain access to training to obtain a higher qualification. Job Services Australia will be providing of course assistance to retrenched workers to identify skills and training needs and the states and territories have agreed to prioritise their training places to support this compact.
This is important. Workers who have been retrenched as a consequence of this global recession have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, they have lost as a consequence of global financial markets and the ensuing developments in the global economy. And acting to support them, acting to support young Australians who are finding it hard to enter the labour market, as well as acting to support local communities through our Compact with Local Communities represents an important intervention by governments to assist those who have been affected this way by the global recession.
Secondly, we in Darwin have focused particularly also on closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage. Today what the Council of Australian Governments has done is agree on moving towards a national licensing arrangement for all community food stores in Indigenous communities. We've also undertaken a number of other agreements between us which I'll go to in a minute.
On licensing community food stores, one of the important things that we discussed today was the impact of nutritional standards on maternal and child health. And we have looked carefully at some of the lessons learned from our friends in the Northern Territory on the licensing of food stores in Indigenous communities here in the Northern Territory, and the impact that has in turn had on nutritional standards that apply within those communities.
We are therefore looking more widely as to how this approach could be adopted elsewhere in Australia. Therefore we have agreed to move towards a system of national licensing for community food stores in order to ensure that we have food of the highest quality, food at a reasonable price available to Indigenous communities. This we think is one part of dealing with chronic health problems, and maternal and child health I've already referred to, but also in other categories of public health concern including diabetes and other chronic diseases.
More broadly, we the Commonwealth and the States have also agreed on strict reporting requirements and timelines in the measures that we've agreed between us on closing the gap.
A large number of intergovernmental agreements have been signed which go to our common national resolve to act to close the gap as it occurs in the critical areas of disadvantage for Indigenous Australians. Areas such as infant mortality to which I have just referred, educational attainment, health outcomes, as well as employment outcomes.
The national partnerships that we have signed and agreed with our colleagues in the states and territories today go to most of these areas but most critically we have agreed that in terms of reporting requirements and timetables for measuring how Indigenous disadvantage is being dealt with, we've agreed to keep this under continued examination by this body. In other words, reaching agreement is one thing, the implementation of these arrangements is another and having strict reporting requirements and data attached to the outcomes is equally important as well.
We also this morning had a good presentation from Gary Banks from the Productivity Commission on his most recent report on Indigenous disadvantage, which paints a very stark picture of the challenge which lies ahead for all of us in closing the gap. One of the problems which the Productivity Commission has encountered is in so many data areas there are real gaps in the data. That is, we're not collecting enough across the country.
If I can remember his presentation carefully, he said that in about 20 per cent of the indicators that he was looking at there had been some improvement, 20 per cent of the indicators he was looking at there had been a static performance, in 10 per cent of the areas that he looked at there had been declining performance and in 50 per cent of the indicators you're looking at, there is insufficient data to reach a conclusion.
Now I may have got the order of some of those numbers wrong so I stand to be corrected on some of them but I know the 50 per cent which he referred to in terms of the absence of effective data was an important part of his presentation.
Therefore if we're serious about closing the gap, we need the data, we need the information, we've got to measure what we do. There is a huge national effort underway here in terms of closing the gap. All these governments represented here at this table, both conservative and Labor, are united in their resolve to close the gap.
This is a good thing for the country to be doing and it should be an effort therefore which we inject every effort into properly measuring and monitoring for the future to make sure it is actually happening in communities in remote parts of Australia but also in regional and urban Australia as well. And to that end the Commonwealth and states have committed additional funds to provide better collection of data, to measure progress on the ground.
Thirdly, I would touch on the question of microeconomic reform. This causes most people in the fourth estate to visibly have their eyes glaze over when we speak of it in any depth and length. But can I say this is an important part of the Federation's continued reform program.
As we emerge through a period of global economic recovery, one of our big challenges will be to ensure that the productivity agenda for Australia is alive and well. Investing in skills, education skills and training on the one hand, investing in infrastructure on the other, but the third grade arm of productivity growth is to make sure we have the most efficient regulatory system possible in the national economy.
That's why coming out of the 2020 Summit last year we committed ourselves as an Australian Government to developing a seamless national economy. Easy to say, hard to do. So what we have commissioned since then is a large number of areas of common regulatory engagement between the Commonwealth and the State governments in order to produce a single regulatory environment in so many different areas.
Today what I'd like to report to you is in two specific areas we have made further progress.
Today COAG agreed to develop national performance measures for development assessments by the end of 2009. That will contain information on the number, type and length of assessments of DAs. The first national performance report will be publically released by June 2010 and cover the 2008-9 financial year.
COAG also agreed to work towards harmonising code based development assessment standards between jurisdictions, increasing the proportion of code-assessed DAs. Furthermore COAG also agreed that funding agreements between the Commonwealth and State government for major infrastructure projects will require an integrated assessment and approval process encompassing all statutory assessments and approvals by the three levels of government within targeted timeframes.
One of the constant refrains we have from the business community are the difficulties in the development, the development assessment process. What you see before you today in the COAG Communique are significant steps forward in reforming that and making it much more user friendly for those who propose developments to the various levels of government.
Secondly in the area of the regulatory system which affects the transport sector, what we agreed to today as governments is that the Australian Maritime Safety Authority will become the national safety regulator for all commercial shipping in Australian waters. Our officials will work out the detail of those arrangements for the period ahead.
Secondly, we've also agreed that there be a single national heavy vehicle regulator which will also be established to regulate all vehicles over 4.5 tonnes, ending the separate and at times conflicting regulatory imposts on the heavy vehicle industry in Australia.
These are two important steps forward in the commercial shipping sector and of course the long haul road transport sector as well. The rest of the regulatory reform agenda continues and we will continue to make steady progress on it.
Finally before turning to the Queensland Premier as Chairman of CAF to make her own remarks, can I also indicate the agreement we reached today on energy efficiency. The National Partnership Agreement on Energy Efficiency is designed to held Australian households and businesses cut their energy and fuel bills while reducing their carbon footprint.
The national energy and efficiency strategy that we've agreed to today in this new partnership has a number of elements to it including one, accelerating the phase of inefficient lighting starting with the ban on incandescent light bulbs from November 2010, expected to reduce emissions by around 800,000 tonnes per year. Two a concentrated national effort to phase out inefficient electric hot water systems from 2010, expected to reduce emissions by over 30 million tonnes in total between 2010 and 2020. Thirdly, national legislation for appliance energy ratings and labels and fourthly mandating all new homes achieve, mandating that all new homes achieve ambitious new energy rating standards from 2011 and commercial buildings from 2010 on. And again I would thank the States and Territories for their cooperation in these efforts.
So in these and in other areas we believe that we have achieved significant progress today. A Compact with Retrenched Workers, given the impact of the global economic recession; new agreements between the Commonwealth and the States on closing the gap in Indigenous disadvantage in Australia, including critically the licensing of community food stores. Thirdly further progress with the microeconomic reform agenda to boost long term economic efficiency, and in the energy efficiency space a new national partnership on energy efficiency which will act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the future. Premier.
BLIGH: Thank you Prime Minister. A major focus for the COAG in Darwin has been appropriately the challenge of improving the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.
State Premiers and First Ministers along with the Commonwealth understand that closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage require strong leadership and each of us has committed ourselves to making this a priority of our positions. Leadership of course requires practical, on-the-ground, hands-on ideas to tackle some of the oldest problems in new ways.
In addition to the formal agreements that we signed today as outlined by the Prime Minister we took some time in COAG to talk to each other about some of the practical ideas that are working in our jurisdictions. I believe out of that session this morning we will see some of those ideas spread further and with the leadership of First Ministers and Premiers, take hold where they're appropriate in some of those other states and territories.
By way of one example, Queensland has agreed this morning with the Northern Territory to cooperate across borders in a tele-health, e-health record initiative for people who are moving across borders in the Top End of both of our states. I believe that will be a very practical outcome of the COAG in Darwin for Queensland Indigenous people in those parts of our state.
The state and territories also welcome the partnership with the federal Government in tackling unemployment in some very tough economic times. The Compact with Retrenched Workers from the states and territories' perspective is an opportunity to not only help people through a period of unemployment but importantly to build skills for the recovery.
We know only too well how quickly this country can find itself in a situation of serious skill shortage and as we look forward with optimism to an economic recovery, we want to come out of this period with people with higher skills, not lower skills. The retrenched workers compact provides an opportunity for us through the state and federal funding places in our government-run institutions to improve the skills base of the respective states and territories and obviously the nation as a whole.
We also welcome the opportunity to sign I think it was a total of eight agreements today between the federal Government and the states and territories of Australia that went to a number of areas where we are harmonising the regulatory framework, thereby taking some of the burden off citizens and businesses who are working across borders in areas as diverse as consumer law, energy efficiency, national regulation of transport as well as some of the indigenous partnerships.
Today was a very productive meeting of COAG. I believe that the agreements we've made in relation to national data collection will go a long way to making it more transparent between states and territories - what's working, what's not and how we can do better to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.
PM: Before we take questions I might ask our host Paul Henderson the Chief Minister of the NT to add his remarks and then we'll open up to you guys.
HENDERSON: Thank you Prime Minister and I'd like to thank you and all first ministers for coming to Darwin for what I believe has been a very good COAG. COAG is all about tackling the tough issues and there's no tougher issue in public policy than closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage. It's something that we live in the Territory every day with, it's an issue that is front and centre in terms of delivering services, developing policy and working with Indigenous people to improve opportunities and outcomes for Indigenous people right across the Territory.
Thirty per cent of our population is Indigenous compared to other states, one maybe two per cent. 65,000 people, 35,000 of those Indigenous people live in very isolated and remote communities and today as the Chief Minister I am very proud to have signed a comprehensive and accountable national integrated strategy for closing the gap on indigenous disadvantage.
This is the first time in the history of the Commonwealth that the Northern Territory and the Commonwealth of Australia, all of the States have actually signed up to accountable targets to actually close that gap on Indigenous disadvantage and not only have the targets but actually have the strategy in place that we will put in place right across the Northern Territory to reach those targets over the timeframes. It's been a very important meeting.
Indigenous issues are tough. Decisions that need to be taken are tough and I think today we've really demonstrated and I really appreciate the commitment of the Prime Minister to work with me as Chief Minister and all of the Premiers to actually close that gap on Indigenous disadvantage and once again thanks to the PM and all the first premiers for coming to the Territory.
PM: And one final point is we also agreed as governments in an area which often doesn't receive a whole lot of national attention, which I referred to the other day in a press conference in Sydney, and that is dealing with the proper screening of newborn babies for hearing impediments.
Can I just thank the states and territories today for agreeing to ensure that by the end of 2010 every child born in Australia will have access to screening for congenital hearing impairments. And the reason for that is the earlier the diagnosis, the earlier the use of cochlear technologies, the earlier the implanting of them, the greater the trajectory for normal speech patterns and adjustment for future educational and life employment opportunities. So I thank the states and territories for that. Over to you folks.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, after delivering your landmark apology last year you said that you wanted to be a Prime Minister who would be judged on measurable improvements in indigenous living standards. Based on the report we've seen today and your decision today that reporting mechanisms don't demonstrate any change, is it the case that you can't at this stage - I know it's early - demonstrate any progress, if that is the case what is your feeling (inaudible)?
PM: Yeah, this is a really good question about measurement and you're right. The discussion I had around the table this morning with Indigenous leaders from the Northern Territory as well as with my colleagues here from the states and territories invariably came back to the question of how do we measure whether progress has been achieved.
When we through parliament apologised to the Stolen Generations I said the next step was closing the gap. I said we would be seeking to close the gap in six specific areas. I set six specific sets of targets. We as leaders don't back away from any of them. We intend to get on with this business.
One of the revealing things through the Productivity Commission report today is just how difficult this task is going to be, and secondly how flawed the data is in so many areas. That is, there's simply not enough statistical analysis to give us clear indications as to what's happening on the ground.
And you ask in terms of an overall impression as to how things are going. What I am really impressed about is the fact that these Premiers and Chief Ministers in the discussion we had which ran for more than two hours this morning among ourselves, each of us giving a presentation on programs which we believed across our jurisdictions were showing signs of success, is that there are clear indications, whether it's on the Cape, whether it's the actions taken by the West Australian Premier in the Kimberley, whether it's the action taken in urban centres like Sydney and Melbourne, whether it is some of the work which is done in the APY lands on health interventions for infant mortality, that there are some modest signs - modest signs - of improvement, quite apart from what is happening here in the Territory. And I pointed earlier to modest signs of improvement in terms of some of the nutritional outcomes now being better achieved through the proper licensing of stores.
But you know Andrew I regard this as barely half a step in what is going to be a long journey for us all.
But what is important is: one, the objectives are clear in terms of closing the gap; two, the timeframes in which we seek to do that are clearly articulated; and three, through these intergovernmental agreements we now have a coordinated national strategy between the Australian Government and the states and territories to move in that direction. And the final thing is measurement over time.
If you ask me, are we are better placed than we were 18 months ago to get to that point, I think we are. But you know something, we are barely half a step along the road and turning this ship of state around let me tell you has been difficult but the states and territories between them I've got to say have shown uniform political resolve, whatever their political affiliation, in getting this job done.
JOURNALIST: Is there an actual timeline set out or just an agreement to set up a timeline?
PM: No, no. When the closing the gap targets were set, timelines were established around all six of those and we're moving toward those. As I said at the time these will be phenomenally difficult to meet and when we fail in one or other of them by the specified timelines I am sure you'll whack us all around the head for not having got there. Well that's right.
But you know something? I know for a fact that unless governments set objectives and timeframes and have clearly agreed strategies to get there and measurement systems, you just go round in circles, nothing really happens, it's just a bunch of speeches and stuff.
JOURNALIST: Are you disheartened by the Productivity Commission report? It's (inaudible) stuff.
PM: It is, it is but you know the data goes back as you know some years. And there are some indications that in certain categories there has been an improvement but in others, and I look particularly at the data on literacy and numeracy, that is quite discouraging.
But that is why we have new agreements between us and the whole education area to do things differently because plainly so many things that we've been doing in the past haven't worked. You know what is good about this discussion is that no one is engaged in the blame game between states and territories in this debate about getting on with the business of making a difference.
If one thing has been achieved post-Apology I think it is this: it's a common recognition across us all that we've just got to get on with the business of turning this around and to be as focused about this as possible and that's why you have I think a high degree of unininity across the states in the agreements that we've signed here today.
REES: Can I just add to that, a NSW perspective. If the PM hadn't provided the national leadership to outline those target areas in closing the gap, we wouldn't have achieved what I believe are two fundamental and significant elements that were addressed today.
The first is we've got around a third of Australia's Indigenous population lives in NSW and 90 per cent of them are in an urban setting. So unlike other jurisdictions where much of the disadvantage is characterised by extraordinary isolation, in NSW and to a similar extent in Victoria, an entirely different set of service delivery challenges. That is now recognised and there are explicit strategies to deal with the urban service delivery challenges we face in closing the gap.
The second element is for the first time in my memory, today there was agreement - and Gary Banks' research has demonstrated this - that those programs that do work have four fundamental elements that are common to them. They have an engagement with the local community on the ground, they have a partnership approach which brings together local, state and federal and any other non-Government organisations, service deliverers, it brings them to the party, has explicit support from each of the jurisdictions and finally has an appropriate governance model. Now those four elements have been, all things being equal, common to every successful program and it's important that we identify that in dealing with ongoing measures to close the gap.
RANN: Can I just say something on in terms of South Australia's Aboriginal people but also just to underline the point the Prime Minister made. For generations there have been blame games between state and territories, we've seen that in recent years. There was not one single hint of that today and that is the difference and I have been going to COAG meetings for some years.
What we saw this morning was each of us highlight to each other things that work; things that work practically on the ground. And on each of those occasions where things did work, there was a specific engagement not only with local people but also a partnership between the federal Government and the states and territories and therein lies the big difference.
I mean on virtually every single social and economic indicator, the first Australians are still the last Australians, whether it is on educational outcomes or health outcomes. But what we saw this morning was practical examples of what does work. And we have already agreed that some of those things we're going to immediately adapt, work with, partner with across our boundaries because these problems are across borders.
So I think that this morning was a very important discussion because each of us made sure that the rest of us, I mean in my case we've got a, in terms of our own intervention in the APY lands, we've seen a huge drop in petrol sniffing, we've seen an idea borrowed from other jurisdictions about you know, “no score, no pour” produce enormously positive outcomes. But also we've got an Aboriginal sports academy that is channelling enthusiasm for sport to keep young people in education and training. By working together on what works, we will see better indicators in the future.
JOURNALIST: But Mr Rann, you've also got an increase as does NSW (inaudible) infant mortality (inaudible)?
RANN: Again we point out that no one, no one who has been around Aboriginal affairs believes that these are easy. We often see cases where you see two steps forward and one and three quarter steps back but we're still making progress if you have a commitment of a partnership to do so.
PM: I think also Matthew just to add to that in terms of, I'll come to your question now, not just on infant mortality but one of the things we discussed this morning with the Productivity Commissioner was this. As we all engage in this and try and collect better data and as through for example law enforcement efforts in various communities seek to extract you know better information about problems of violence and related crimes in particular Aboriginal communities, we're also likely to see a tip up in the data from that itself through greater reporting.
Now that doesn't excuse on any of our behalf overall outcomes but you know something? What we want to achieve through the data is as realistic a picture as possible as to what is actually our baseline across the ground there. This Productivity Commission report helps, there is more to be done.
And just one further footnote on what has been said about programs that work. There was a great presentation by Paul Henderson, the Chief Minister of the NT, on his e-health initiative across the Territory for Indigenous Australians. Because the Indigenous community here is mobile and moving from place to place over many times of the year, actually tracking the health records and data is very important.
And if you can link up effectively a person's record from one part of the Territory to another, if they are presenting in different hospitals with a particular complaint, it means that you can either deliver (a) more cost effective treatment because you don't have to re-test for everything and (b) often what is clinically urgent in terms of particular treatments which may be urgent now. And he gave us an example before I think of advanced diabetes - is that right? And the need for urgent eye surgery which was picked up immediately by a health worker who quickly traced electronically the data of this particular patient across the system and was able to reach a very quick conclusion as to what needed to be done.
And Premier Bligh has just mentioned that she intends to now cooperate with the NT on making that more possible across that slice of Northern Australia.
JOURNALIST: Doesn't the report from the Productivity Commission suggest that particularly the intervention approach and now your emergency response on tackling child abuse isn't working?
PM: No. I think we're committed to this because everything we've tried in the past hasn't work. Let's be very practical about it. We're on this bus because we think it is the right way to go. And there is always going to be a whole lot of argy bargy around the side of it, well that's life.
But I'm supporting the Chief Minister in his efforts and what Premier Bligh is doing in a different context in Cape York, what Premier Barnett is doing in the Kimberley, these are all different forms of intervention as to what has occurred in the past. Do you know why? Because the data we have been presented with in the past has been so, from the past, has been so bad. And what we see in early signs, very early signs in the Cape and in parts of the Territory, are some positive signals.
To go back to Matthew's point before, do we have comprehensive sets of data which say this is all some crashing success? No. Early intimations however are better than what was the case before.
JOURNALIST: Would you have expected even a small improvement (inaudible) intervention and emergency response measures to be reflected in that report?
PM: Well can I just say, these things take time and we're changing things around which have been around for a long, long time. You're right to ask this question about measurability, you're absolutely right and if we're not producing you know good data in years to come in terms of changes then obviously we're going to have to reappraise again.
But I think the collective resolve of the Premiers and Chief Ministers here is so much of what's been done in the past hasn't worked, a few things have, we're trying to learn from those but we're adopting a new approach.
BARNETT: Can I give one practical example? Just, I mean the data is obviously important but if I just give an example from the Kimberley region. Because of far more intensive policing and police working with child protection, the level of child abuse is probably greater than anyone anticipated - for example in two years over 500 charges being laid for sexual abuse of children.
One particular example, in one community, a 10-year-old girl came forward and told her story. That resulted in some 60 charges being laid against 14 men. So the data is going to show an upward swing in terms of sexual assaults and charges laid. Why? Because the policing now is actually showing the true extent of the problem. So what you're seeing at the moment is data at the very early stages of getting a real handle on what is actually happening in some of these communities.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) terrific that all you guys were talking (inaudible) but the real test will come when you actually talk to individual communities and there's a growing level of frustration amongst (inaudible) Social Justice Commissioner that there's no coordinated plans in many of these targets, there's not enough communication with indigenous communities. How do you respond to that?
PM: Well I'll ask Paul to add on this one but the number of times I've heard the general complaint of not enough consultation, cooperation and coordination as a general ,shall I say, precondition for inaction, we can consult ourselves till we're blue in the face but we actually need to get on and do things. And that's what these governments are doing.
Secondly, as a response directly to your question, I sat down for an hour and a half with Indigenous leaders from Darwin this morning myself, one by one going through what they thought was working and what they thought was not working. And I am sure my colleagues do this from time to time with Indigenous leaders in their various jurisdictions.
Furthermore when it comes to remote communities, the Commonwealth in terms of coordinating its efforts on the ground, as you probably know, has appointed a Coordinator General for the delivery of services to Indigenous Australians in remote communities. That's so that we at the Australian Government level make sure that all of the arms of federal Government, Commonwealth Government, Australian Government, are being properly integrated on a community by community basis. Why? So that we can obtain local community ownership of that which we are doing. Because it is only then that you actually achieve the longer term outcomes that you want.
JOURNALIST: Is it time to review the Gold Card scheme for retired MPs and maybe include another level of scrutiny?
PM: I think the accessibility to Gold Card - we can ask every Premier to respond to theirs - the eligibility of a Gold Card has I think long been determined by the Remuneration Tribunal, it's been around I think under successive governments.
JOURNALIST: I was just going to ask about the data. How exactly is this data going to improve? Is there going to be any more money thrown in to data collection?
PM: Let me give you a number. How much?
BLIGH: (Whispers)
PM: Thank you Anna. Anna was always the better swot than I was back in the Queensland government, she always knew the answers to these things. She says 46, I thought it was 43, but it's 40 something million.
BLIGH: Over four years.
PM: Over four years, and it's actually a sizeable investment because we are all collectively investing a lot in this area.
We as heads of our respective governments want to have confidence that the measures that we're embracing and the new directions that we've spoken of before are delivering results. And then some of the data we may get back will prove to be very uncomfortable.
And I say to you all in advance, by the way, to emphasise again what I said to Matthew Franklin before, that you're going to have also a tip up in various reporting because we'll now be reporting things which for the first time have been collected, all through greater interventions like the one Colin just referred to in the Kimberley, where you've got effective policing producing new data on the level of sexual assault in particular communities - that data's going to go up the more effective we get.
But I'd much rather have as a realistic set of measures as to what's happening out there so we can in turn measure where we go for the future.
This is a long term process but since the Apology I believe the mood of the nation is to point us in one direction which is closing the gap. And it's going to be hard, it's going to be rough, there'll be setbacks but our direction is clear.
JOURNALIST: How can the data be improved?
PM: How can it be improved? I wish I had the head of the Productivity Commission here to tell you precisely that but any good statistician will tell you - I'll come to you in a sec - can all be improved.
There are, as I'm advised, real problems in certain collections at the community level and remember our focus here, given we have such a large number of communities across the country and Colin, what was your number across West Australia?
BARNETT: 286 in Western Australia.
PM: 286 in WA. How many have you got mate?
HENDERSON: Oh, about 112 in the Northern Territory.
PM: Okay, and just, if you were trying to get specific data on what are often quite remote and isolated communities, often with populations as small as 50, you actually have to have a way of measuring whether the programs we're putting in place are working in a disparate set of communities across a region.
Now, how we do that in a practical sense, I'll leave that to the technicians, but I'm saying there is gaps in terms of measuring what we're doing. So it's that local level we've got particular gaps.
Also, as I'm advised we still have real challenges in terms of some of the health related areas getting all that properly measured as well. Question here.
JOURNALIST: The Indigenous Affairs Minister this morning talked about (inaudible) communities and trying to generate economic development to try and address some of these underlying issues. How much support will the Commonwealth provide to the Northern Territory Government negotiations (inaudible)?
PM: By the way, which 20 communities are we referring to here?
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: Alright. Okay. Look, I'll ask Paul to add to this but we had a good discussion this morning with some Aboriginal leaders about economic development, business development and the role of Indigenous enterprise and just getting all that right. And can I say from our perspective as an Australian government, we want to be full bottle in getting behind people on this. It's really important.
One of the suggestions this morning from the Aboriginal leaders concerned how to get business-related projects going. Obviously they've got to be subject to local development approval processes like anything else in any other jurisdiction of government, but the sooner communities are able to develop, have access to revenue streams which come from projects which they've got on the ground, I think the better.
The other great proposal which someone came up with this morning, Paul, was we need, up here, a properly operating Indigenous Chamber of Commerce, chambers of commerce. So what we'd like to do with the Aboriginal business leadership and I've dealt with Aboriginal business organisations elsewhere in Australia, is do everything we can to encourage Indigenous business leadership as well, because this is part and parcel of an overall strategy of long term reducing welfare dependency and long term increasing self-reliance.
JOURNALIST: I understand that the Gold Card system's been around for a while. How appropriate is it that former MPs are using it to go on holidays and what sort of message do you think that sends (inaudible)?
PM: Ahh, don't know the specific details you're referring to. It has been around for a long time, but can I say the eligibility for it has, so far as I'm aware, long been determined by the Remuneration Tribunal, independent Remuneration Tribunal.
JOURNALIST: Mr Rudd, just on another matter, if I may. The other day you did an interview in Brisbane where you were asked about the ute -
PM: Ahh, we're back on the ute.
JOURNALIST: And for some reason you didn't want to answer the simple question of why does a man like you need this ute -
PM: On the -
JOURNALIST: - and instead, you had criticisms of the media, which is fine. But may I ask you again, why does a man like you need a ute as a donation? Doesn't the system provide enough resources for politicians to do their jobs (inaudible) campaign?
PM: I think Matthew what the system provides is for something called a pecuniary interest register, which is when someone provides you with something like that that the requirement in our nation is for transparency and what -
JOURNALIST: That doesn't answer the question.
PM: I think it does, because it goes to whether you're transparent about any support that you've received, so on the pecuniary interest register at that time - two and a half years ago, you have this fully declared.
In terms of the utilisation to which it's put then I think you as a former resident of Brisbane would know full well, the utilisation to which it's put, which is my conduct of mobile offices in my own community.
But on the - by the way I've received an invitation to attend the Deniliquin Ute Muster, and so anyone who'd like to come along, Swanny and I are thinking of taking the drive down to Deni for the Ute Muster, come and join us.
You mentioned also the other parts of that as well, which is the question of media reporting. I think, what a number of people have said to me, Matthew, around the place is where have we kind of got to, when you have major papers like the Daily Telegraph, the Courier-Mail and the Adelaide Advertiser running on their front page that the Prime Minister of the country is corrupt, and then secondly the editors it seems not having sighted any original document in terms of this email, and thirdly, it turns out that that email is a forgery, I would have thought a few people would want to know how all that happened, what sort of journalistic checks were put in place for that to be the case, or is it simply being sort of airbrushed from history?
I think the other thing which sort of comes up is, I mean the usual accusations when political leaders respond to factually inaccurate reporting in the media, in this case in those papers that I referred to, is to accuse the political leaders in question of having some sort of glass jaw.
It may simply be that what people want is just some basic answers as to how that might have happened, that's a pretty basic thing.
The other thing I saw the Chief Executive of your own news organisation do yesterday was, in responding to this, indicate that somehow the Deputy Prime Minister was raising these matters because she'd felt set upon by your newspaper over the coverage of the Building the Education Revolution stuff. Well, all's fair in love and war, I mean, you guys will take whatever editorial position you want on the Building the Education Revolution and that's been the case.
I noticed when the Deputy Prime Minister in Parliament a week or so ago raised systematically questions of the accuracy of your newspaper's reporting on various of the case studies it sought to advance in the implementation of the school modernisation program on the ground and said that they were wrong, that the response from your branch of News Ltd was to the, shall I say, up the ante for several days following that and engage in what I can only describe as a good old exercise in journalistic retaliation.
So when I saw yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister's motives being brought into account on this and saying that she might be retaliating against News Ltd because of the coverage that week, it may simply be that her interest, like a whole bunch of people out in the public, would be, how is it that the Murdoch press got something so fundamentally wrong and what were the journalistic standards which applied? These are just basic questions which we - I haven't heard anything from the three editors in question, I haven't seen any statement from them, but I did see that the Chief Executive of News Ltd organisation said yesterday that it was all fine and dandy.
I think on these sort of things, and given your question is about transparency, I think it's good that we have a general discussion about these things. I think it's important because of the role of your particular newspapers in the overall fabric of the Australian democracy, and I'd hate to see a stage where we got to in national political life whereby we as political leaders couldn't say that X, Y and Z has been wrongly reported and ask why, and then for the standard response to be ‘you can't answer that because - you can't ask that question because you've got a glass jaw'.
Or on top of that, to fear that in asking that, you're going to invite retaliation from the newspapers in question. Now I don't think that'd be very healthy in anyone's democracy, least of all ours.
Thanks folks.
JOURNALIST: Can I ask the Chief Minister, can you just give us your response to this report? The facts are that the abuse figures have widened between Indigenous and non-Indigenous, particularly (inaudible)?
HENDERSON: Look Sarah, I haven't read the report, it was just released this morning and obviously we've been in meetings. But in terms of child abuse, as the Prime Minister and Premier Barnett are saying, if you put more police resources to uncovering a problem that has existed for many, many years in the Northern Territory, you are going to see an increasing number of cases.
Now we now have two child abuse taskforces - one in the top end, one in the centre, dedicated police resources, dedicated family and children's services workers who for the last 14 months have been specifically focussed on dealing with reports of child abuse, have been systemically investigating those in a combined way, with police and FACS workers and charges have been laid. So, as the Prime Minister has said, if you actually start reporting on issues systemically that have not been reported for many, many years in terms of undercounting, of course you're going to see a spike. But what we are doing now is focussing on the problem, dedicating those resources and saying it's unacceptable.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) says that in Budget estimates the Government actually admitted that resources for child protection haven't actually been increased?
HENDERSON: Oh look, can I say child protection resources have increased threefold in the last five years. There's been a significant expansion of child protection dollars into the system, the budget has expanded significantly - there is a challenge in recruiting people to those positions, a very big challenge.
People who work in those areas deal with trauma on a day to day basis, there's high burnout so it's not a lack of funding into this area, it's increased significantly, but there are challenges in terms of recruiting people to these positions.
PM: And, last question.
JOURNALIST: How concerned are all of you about the skyrocketing Indigenous imprisonment rate?
PM: You know, we had a discussion about that this morning as well in my own meeting with Aboriginal leaders here from the Northern Territory and the incarceration rates, you're right, are huge.
Part of the reason, and here I'm always reluctant to venture into areas in which I do not have direct expertise, but I would draw your attention in part to the example given before by the Premier of WA, which is if you have a more vigorous law enforcement effort, and particular categories in crime, then it follows that you're going to have also a number of additional people being incarcerated. That's at one end of the spectrum.
The other end of the spectrum, of course, is what we need to be doing with young Aboriginal men, in particular, though that's not the totality of the picture, but the dominant prison population from the Indigenous community are male, is to provide better opportunities in those critical years of 15 to 25 in terms of life opportunities, employment opportunities, training opportunities and education opportunities.
One of the things that I spoke about to the group this morning and with my colleagues just now, is the great example of the Clontarf Academy - they operate here in Darwin, they operate in WA and there are similar initiatives I understand from the Premier of South Australia in his state as well, and that is better linking, following sort of, training opportunities in AFL and football and sport with on the one hand mandatory school attendance. And it's been remarkably successful, I'm advised, in the 22 locations which the Clontarf Academy now operates across WA and the Territory. That's why we as an Australian government are also now increasing our funding.
So you ask this question ‘what can you do to bring down the incarceration rate?' One of the practical things we can do is to make sure generally through the education system but can I say specifically in terms of young Aboriginal men in this category to better target what we do as far as their training and employment opportunities go. This is a critical area of concern for all of us. Having said that -
JOURNALIST: Can I ask you -
PM: Not really, I think I'm about - okay.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) Premier Brumby, following (inaudible) Jim Stynes (inaudible)?
BRUMBY: I haven't seen all of the details of his statement as I was in the meeting all this morning, but as I said this morning, Jim Stynes is a favourite son of Melbourne, an adopted son in a sense, but a magnificent footballer, a magnificent leader, and as I said this morning, he's been I think an inspiration too, in the way in which he's focused on assisting disadvantaged youth, and youth at risk. So we wish him well, we wish him our full support as he works through this illness, but he is a person of immense discipline and focus and I think if anyone was to pull through this, he would.
PM: And to add to what the Premier has said, we've seen too many of our very fine Australians afflicted by terrible diseases in recent times. I recently attended the State Funeral of Chris O'Brien in Sydney.
When you've got great Australians like Jim Stynes, I think it's really important that a country gets behind them, provides them with very positive support and encouragement. Because these are people who've given back so much to the community, given back so much to the community, so I join the Premier in wishing him all the very best in what will be a tough fight ahead, but I think one which a person of his stamina and quality is uniquely qualified to engage in and to succeed in. Thank you very much.
The COAG Communique is available on the Council of Australian Governments website.