PM: Good morning, everyone. I'm joined by Minister Peter Garrett and we're here at the opening of the Commonwealth Youth Forum.
I want to say a few words about CHOGM and then I want to make an announcement about mental health services in Australia for young people.
Firstly, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. I arrived in Perth yesterday and I will, for this week, be governing Australia from WA.
The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting is a huge event, for Perth, for Western Australia and for Australia. It will bring to Perth around 3,000 delegates from around the world. Those delegates will attend forums, including this Youth Forum, the Business Forum and Civil Society forums.
The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting comes with outreach events to the community of Western Australia, including arts events, sports events and cultural events.
Having walked around the city last night, there is a buzz of anticipation in the air. Later this week, the leaders will meet at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to focus on the future of the Commonwealth. It has stood for a long period of time for the Commonwealth values, for democracy, for the rule of law, for human rights.
But this meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government will strive to ensure that the Commonwealth (inaudible) remains relevant for the future and that we find new ways of pursuing those values of the Commonwealth into the future.
This is a great opportunity not only to speak about renewal of the Commonwealth, but a great opportunity to showcase Western Australia. In particular, with the Business Forum we will be able to bring together business leaders from around Australia, and particularly Western Australian business leaders, with business leaders from around the world. It is anticipated around 1400 business leaders will come together.
It is very appropriate that as we look to a rise of development in Africa, particularly focused on mining, that there is collaboration between business leaders of this great mining state with business leaders from Africa.
I do want to say a few things about the Youth Forum that the Minister and I have just had the opportunity to go to and to participate in the opening ceremony.
This is a very special part of the Commonwealth's agenda. Right across Commonwealth countries, around half of the people who live in Commonwealth nations are under 25 in vibrant growing societies. So the outlook of youth will be the shaper and driver of change in those nations for the future. That's why we thought it was so important to start the week with this Youth Forum, to bring Commonwealth young people together to discuss issues of concern to them and to enable me to present that feedback directly to Commonwealth leaders when they meet later this week.
One of the issues I anticipate will be discussed by the young leaders from across the Commonwealth are questions of mental health. We know that mental health issues blight the lives of too many young people here in our own country and around the world. The research tells us that for those who will develop a profound mental illness, it is most likely to have its onset between the ages of 12 and 25.
In Australia, we have responded to this by embracing the work of Professor Pat McGorry, a former Australian of the Year, who's been an Australian leader and a world leader in the creation of mental health services for young people. And I think it's important to note that it's not just Australia that has adopted Professor McGorry's models of care. They have been adopted in other countries overseas because of their impact on mental health issues for young people.
In the budget in May, the Government announced that it would devote $2.2 billion to a mental health package. A big part of that was a focus on mental health for young Australians and, in particular, the creation to bring to a total of 90 the numbers of headspace services that there are for young Australians.
These are primary care mental health facilities where young Australians experiencing difficulties can come and can interact with health professionals and get the support that they need. They are an outreach model particularly focused on the needs of young Australians.
Already we have announced where 40 of those services will go. Today, as a government, we announced the next 15 locations, the next 15 communities around the country that will see aheadspace service developed in their community.
Here in Western Australia, that will mean two headspace services, one in the City of Swan in Perth's northeast and one in Bunbury and the locations of the services around the nation are available today.
In addition, I am able to announce today that eheadspace, a service that brings a telephone helpline and a website to bring information to young people in need, will commence operation later today. The telephone service is particularly dedicated to helping people during the hours of the night when people may be feeling the most distressed.
So the telephone service will start at 10:00pm tonight eastern states time and the telephone service will be in operation from then on to help young Australians and the website will be there as a continuing presence to help people access reliable trusted information and get advice about where the services they need can be accessed.
I'm very pleased today to be joined by Liz who is the acting CEO of headspace. I thank her for being here with us.
I also particularly thank Caitlyn and Helen, two young women from Western Australia who have personally used headspace services, who have had the need to rely on the work and support of others as they confront mental health issues in their own lives and who can speak powerfully about what it's like as a young person to feel that need, but also what it's like as a young person to find the support that makes a difference.
So I do very much thank them for having the bravery to come along today and to say hello to our friends from the media. I know that's not a - it's a normal experience for us, but it's not a normal experience for others, so I do thank you very much for that.
So with those words, I'm very happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just on a CHOGM issue-
PM: Yes.
JOURNALIST: And also partly CHOGM and partly you mentioned, mining, Mike Rann said last week that he's thinking about selling uranium to India and I'm wondering whether the Government's position on that has changed and whether you or your officers are likely to talk about that to the Indians in the next week.
PM: The Government's position was outlined as recently as last week by the relevant minister, Minister Ferguson, that is that we do not have a policy that is particular about India, but we do have a policy about the nuclear proliferation treaty and that continues to be the view of the Government.
In bilateral dialogues that I've had in the past with representatives of the Indian Government, the issue has tended to be raised and it may be raised with me this week. But, of course, a breadth of issues are raised as well including circumstances relating to Indian students studying in our nation which was the subject of a great deal of public attention here and in India, as well as the important strategic ties between our two countries, both politically, economically and, increasingly, cooperation between our defence forces.
JOURNALIST: So is there no way around the non proliferation treaty? Unless they sign it, it's not on?
PM: Look, the position of the Government remains as I've just outlined it and it was outlined by Martin Ferguson.
JOURNALISTS: (Inaudible)
PM: I'll go to Andrew.
JOURNALIST: On Manmohan Singh I've got another question as well. On Manmohan Singh, do you have a reason from him, an official reason as to why he can't come and has it got to do with the education problems that we had with some of the (inaudible).
PM: No, certainly no. It was simply a scheduling issue for him. He will of course be at the G20, which follows time-wise quite hard on the heels of CHOGM. So absolutely no is the answer to your question. It was simply a logistics issue for him.
JOURNALIST: And secondly, David Cameron is going to be using this occasion, we think, to raise that issue of male primogeniture I think it's called whereby males can jump the queue when it comes to the monarchy. What is the perspective that you will bring to this debate? Because I think that he needs the agreement of 16 countries to agree to change this.
PM: Well you would expect me, as the first female Prime Minister of our nation, to say I believe women are equal to men in all regards and, consequently, to say that I do support a change to the act of succession which would enable the person who succeeds to the throne to be the oldest child, irrespective of gender.
In Australia, that requires me as Prime Minister to consult with premiers because, of course the Queen, the Monarch is also the head for our states as well as for the Commonwealth, so their views are important and I have already written to them canvassing their views.
Michelle.
JOURNALIST: Do you expect to have talks with the Malaysian Prime Minister about the Malaysian solution and the future, your future course in trying to revive that? And do you think that this is going to be a major election issue, the whole boat people issue, and how would you proceed, what would you be arguing at the election?
PM: I have kept Prime Minister Najib informed of circumstances in the Australian Parliament so he is aware of the circumstances we're confronted as a Government. I will have the opportunity to speak to him as he attends the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
For our policy now and into the future, our policy is that we believe we should be able to implement the arrangement with Malaysia. It is the most effective deterrent available to this country, and that's important because we don't want to see people risking their lives on leaky boats with all of the potentials for disaster that that entails.
So that is the policy of the Government now, it will be the policy of the Government in the future.
In the meantime, because of the very destructive conduct of the Leader of the Opposition and because he has destroyed the ability of this country now to process asylum seekers offshore, we will get on with the job of making sure that we have appropriate border protection and mandatory detention and associated management.
JOURNALIST: But you would be seeking a mandate for that policy?
PM: It is the policy of the Government, it will be the policy of the Government.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just very quickly, firstly, how important is security going to be at CHOGM this year and, also, are you concerned about the drop in support for the Independents, especially Rob Oakeshott?
PM: Well there are, you know, a number of very important themes in this meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government; first and foremost, renewal of the Commonwealth itself, second, of development. This is a body that brings together developing and developed nations. It brings together nations from other smaller places like Tuvalu right through to giants like India with more than a billion people. So development will be a very big part of the agenda and within development food security will be a big element of the discussions. You would expect after the events the world has lived through and continues to live through, that food security will be an important part of these talks.
Then, this meeting of CHOGM is at a very important time, enabling leaders to come together and project a Commonwealth voice into the forthcoming G20 meeting, to have some discussions of climate change as the world prepares for the next meeting in Durbin and also to have some discussions as the world prepares for the Rio+20 meeting next year.
The theme of the Commonwealth is about building resilience and, of course, building resilience does come within each of these agendas, but particularly the development agenda. And a special theme of this CHOGM, too, is empowering women as agents of change and we will see some very special events that bring women, particularly, together to talk about women's leadership and women's rights.
JOURNALISTS: (Inaudible)
JOURNALIST: And on the Independents?
PM: Look, I'm sure that there'll be a million words of commentary written about that and I don't intend to add to them.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, would you be hoping for the Commonwealth (inaudible) on the issue of (inaudible).
PM: We might just, for fairness sake, go to you and make that the last question.
JOURNALIST: On the earthquakes, (inaudible) Australian offered assistance and are there any Australians involved in that?
PM: We are still working through with our officials who are obviously working as hard and as fast as they can to ascertain whether or not any Australians are involved in this dreadful earthquake. To the best of my advice currently, we have not been notified of any Australian involvement, but our officials will continue to work very hard to get all of the information we need. As part of that, we will assess what we can do to assist.
This is a very big earthquake with a lot of damage associated with it and so we're very focused on getting all of the best possible advice about the circumstances of Australians and what we can do to best assist in the days to come.
JOURNALISTS: (Inaudible)
PM: Alright, one for WA. You don't count, Mr Probyn?
JOURNALIST: Of course I do. Are you confident that European leaders can sort out their financial difficulties? Because in The Australian newspaper this morning you didn't seem to hold that confidence.
PM: Look, my message is that European leaders need to get this fixed. We have seen discussions on the weekend that have led to a commitment to a resumption of discussions in a few day's time.
What all of this adds up to is there is no more time left for muddling through; European leaders need to get this fixed in the interests of their own economies and their own prosperity and in the interests of the global economy.
So the days of just, you know, hoping and muddling through are gone. Decisive action needs to be taken by European leaders.
JOURNALIST: What are the consequences for-
PM: Thanks very much.