PM: Thank you very much. The Council of Australian Governments meeting has just concluded.
I know in the run up to this meeting there was a fair degree of scepticism about whether or not COAG could still get things done. Well I think we've proved today that we can still get things done and I want to thank my colleagues, the Premiers and Chief Ministers, for the cooperative spirit that they brought to the COAG table today.
Today you will witness us sign a new National Agreement for reform of skills. Now this mightn't have been the subject of much squabbling in the media, but the lack of squabbling shouldn't disguise from people the true significance of this reform to our nation's future.
If we want a strong economy in the future then we have to have a higher skilled workforce. If individuals want the best out of life, the best salaries, the best job security, then they will need higher and higher levels of skill in today's economy, and certainly in tomorrow's economy.
The agreement we are signing will reform our skills system, so that over the next five years we will see 375,000 additional training places, we will move to a system based on entitlement, so that an adult Australian who lacks a Certificate III qualification can get a training place to get one and that is the first qualification that makes a real difference to people's employability and their earnings.
This new system will deliver too the benefit of income contingent loans for upper level VET qualifications. That means that people who are getting higher level vocational skills will get the same deal that university students do. Instead of having to pay upfront, at a time when they mightn't be earning much, they will be able to pay later, when they are earning more as a result of their qualification.
So I am very pleased that we are able to say today that this agreement is being signed by all States, all Territories and the Federal Government. It's a major reform.
I'd also like to thank the Premiers and Chief Ministers for working together with the Commonwealth and with business leaders on strengthening our economy though lessening red tape.
As a nation we need to focus on productivity, on getting more productive and consequently becoming wealthier in the future. Red tape can strangle that productivity.
We listened to business leaders yesterday and today we have responded with decisions to take forward the key priorities of business leaders.
I'd particularly like to thank Premiers and Chief Ministers for working with me to ensure that we can get to a new system, which will still give us the best possible environmental protection, but cut out the double handling and time delays that can prevent important projects getting off the ground.
Today too we've talked about the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We've had a good discussion about the next steps in what is a truly nation changing reform. We've all acknowledged our commitment to it, we've also acknowledged that this is a big reform and a big change and we need to work on it together.
We will be working on it together in coming months, including addressing things that could deliver real benefits even as the National Disability Insurance Scheme is built.
I'd also like to draw people's attention to the fact that today we have signed an agreement on mental health, which will support Australians with mental illnesses and make available to them new packages of care.
This flows from decisions taken by the Federal Government during the budget last year and I think captures the spirit across all States and Territories that we are seeking to do better for Australians who battle with mental illness.
I'll hand over now to Premier Weatherill, in his capacity as the head of CAF, leading the States and Territories. We'll then execute the Agreement and then we'll be happy to take questions.
PREMIER WEATHERILL: Thank you Prime Minister and if I could begin by thanking the Prime Minister and my Territory and State colleagues for the constructive way in which they've dealt with the Council of Australian Governments agenda.
I want to just mention two of the initiatives that we've dealt with today, the first skills and the second, the decisions that flowed from the Business Advisory Forum.
In relation to the skills agenda, we know that we have an economy in transition in this country. We know that for many Australians participating in the benefits of this economy is a challenge and this is an important issue for the strength of our economy, but it's also an important issue to ensure that we share the benefits of the prosperity that many parts of our country enjoy.
So linking up people with the jobs that exist is a real challenge. Of course we have courses, we've had courses in the past that have these training exercises, but what we are now doing is providing the means to connect those people with the skills that are necessary, making it easier for them to get into these courses, by expanding the number of courses that are available, making it easier for them to get in by getting rid of upfront fees, making it easier for them to stay in the courses when they might have difficulty in actually being successful in those courses.
So it's about ensuring that many more Australians get to share in the prosperity that we know exists in our country. This is very important for South Australia, we are on the verge of a mining boom, it's already begun, and there are anxieties that some of our citizens won't get to share in the mining boom.
This is the means by which more South Australians get to share in the benefits of the mining boom.
The second set of initiatives really goes to our response to the Business Advisory Forum and I want to just select one of those for discussion, and that's the decisions that we made about getting rid of the double handling and the duplication in relation to environmental assessments.
Both tiers of government, State Governments, Territory Governments, Commonwealth Governments, have environmental assessments, but for some of our projects both of those assessments take place and they take place one after the other, adding to a lot of time and cost and complexity, which is the enemy of investment.
From South Australia's perspective, just to give you two examples of what this means, on the Sturt Highway duplication, an important project for South Australia, because we had to have sequential State and then Commonwealth assessments, it added nine months to the project and many millions of dollars of expense to the project.
Now that's something that was unnecessary, because approvals were actually gained in both systems, there's absolutely no reason why those assessments couldn't be carried out by the State Government on referral from the Commonwealth. We're going to explore ways in which we can do that.
Another example was when we were attempting to take measures to protect our lower lakes in the most recent drought. We had this awful spectre of acidification of our lower lakes, which meant that we had to take urgent works.
We went through all of the State assessments and then we found we had to go through Commonwealth assessments and yet we were very urgently needing to take those works and it was a real race against time.
It was completely unnecessary for there to be two separate systems of assessment. This isn't about watering down the quality or the rigour of these environmental assessments, in both of those cases both State and Commonwealth environmental approvals were given, it's just they could have been done as part of the one process.
We're now going to explore the way in which we can achieve that and we're very confident we will get that result and there are timelines set down in the Agreement.
I think they're two very substantial achievements that without diminishing all the other work that's gone on in the COAG process.