PM: I'm here with Minister Anthony Albanese and we're at Marrickville West Public School. We've had a great morning talking to many of the students, but also talking to many of the parents as well about the Schoolkids Bonus. And from Wednesday next week people will see the Schoolkids Bonus into their bank accounts.
It's a bit of money to help with the costs of getting the kids to school. We know families have to pay for school uniforms, the books, the computers, the excursions, all of the costs of getting the kids to school and it can really press on family budgets.
That's why from Wednesday next week people will see some help in the form of $410 for each primary school student and $820 for each secondary school student.
And this bonus will be ongoing. People will see help come every January and every July because we know that each and every years parents face the bills for getting the kids all they need for schooling.
Right around the country, many people are feeling cost of living pressures. They know that our economy is strong, that it is the envy of the world, that there's nowhere else you'd rather be given the strength of our economy.
But people can still feel cost of living pressures, and we want to work to support families and to share all of the opportunities of our economic strength and the current resources boom.
So, it's a great pleasure to be here this morning. Right around the country Labor members are doing exactly what Minister Albanese and I are doing this morning.
They're standing at school gates, talking to parents about the Schoolkids Bonus, and reminding them that they'll see some help from Wednesday next week.
So I'm very happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, Tony Abbott said this morning that there would be no dirty files and there is no dirty files on the Coalition side of politics, that it's only something on the ALP side of politics. What's your reaction to that?
PM: Oh look, I'll leave all of that as a matter for Mr Abbott.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what's your reaction to some of the detail in the DLA Piper report into alleged abuse in the Defence Force?
PM: There are some deeply distressing matters dealt with by that report, individual claims of mistreatment and abuse that make for deeply disturbing reading.
We are working through the best way of responding to that report, and the response needs to be a two levels. There are some system-wide issues to think about, and then there's how to deal with the individual claims that have been made.
Minister Smith, the Defence Minister, is working on the best way of the Government responding to these issues. There are a number of options on the table about how we could best respond.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, (inaudible) Royal Commission?
PM: A Royal Commission for this matter, or at least for some of the serious allegations, is one option; it's one amongst a range of options that Government will consider and work through.
JOURNALIST: Are you concerned that there could be still serving members that are implicated in this? What's the Government going to do to find out who they are if they are still serving in Defence?
PM: I think it's appropriate to view this report in its context. As a Government we've been prepared to look at these issues that have been of concern for many years.
Much of the material in this report goes back a long number of years, but we as a Government have been prepared to look at it even though these problems have been of long standing.
So we now have to work out what's the best way of dealing with all this, given how far back in time many of these claims go. But it is concerning, it is disturbing, I certainly feel that and I know others looking at this report will feel the same.
JOURNALIST: Why did it take a freedom of information request to get this detail out? Why didn't the Government just release it? Do you think that leads to a perception the Government's trying to cover up these sorts of claims?
PM: Well we're only in this position because of the actions of this Government, because we've been prepared to look at these questions even though they have been emerging over a long number of years, well before this Government was in office.
Some material was released by the Minister for Defence in April, and of course when we received the freedom of information request we responded to it.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, governments of both political persuasions have tried to tackle systemic issues within the Defence Force. Is it ever going to change?
PM: Well I think we've got to take this a step at a time. Minister Smith ordered this report. Now we have the report we need to find the best way to respond to it. That's clearly complicated given that it raises issues at a series of levels.
It does require us to think about some system-wide issues in Defence, but we're also talking about, you know, individual claims which are disturbing, but many of them go back a long period of time. They are from, you know, a large number of years ago. And so how best to handle that does require serious consideration.
JOURNALIST: Are there any thoughts on compensation?
PM: Look, we're going to canvass our way through a full range of options and when we're in a position to give a considered response we will.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, Tony Windsor doesn't look like he'll hold onto his seat in next year's election. There are suggestions it is because he backed your Government. What do you say to that?
PM: I think we'll have an election in the second half of 2013 and the Australian people will get to express their view at that time.
My view about the 2013 election, and I've certainly said it before, is it will be fought on who is best to keep the economy strong, share the benefits of the boom, and assist families with their cost of living pressures, and who's best to shape our nation's future to face up to the big challenges.
JOURNALIST: The Nationals say that Tony Windsor is just an echo of yourself. Do you think that's a fair assessment?
PM: I'm not surprised to hear negative comments from the Opposition.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, it's Bob Brown's last day in school today. What's your report card on the ALP's relationship with the Greens under Christine Milne so far?
PM: Look, any comments Senator Brown wants to make I'll leave to him. We, both Minister Albanese and I, and the Government generally, seek to work broadly across the Parliament to deliver a Labor agenda.
JOURNALIST: Do you feel it's continued in that same vein, that there's been no change between the two parties?
PM: As I just said, we work broadly across the Parliament to deliver a Labor agenda.
JOURNALIST: Just on Bob Brown very briefly, this morning on radio he said that you just don't get gay marriage.
PM: Look, I've dealt with this publicly on many occasions as recently as Monday night on Q&A, so I'll let those comments speak for themselves.
JOURNALIST: What assistance is being offered to the family of the young girl that's been assaulted in Bali?
PM: For any instances overseas of that kind of nature we provide full consular support through the Department of Foreign Affairs.
JOURNALIST: Do you know how they're going?
PM: Look, I'm not in a position to give you details with these questions about sensitive matters about individuals, but our Department of Foreign Affairs assists Australians overseas.
JOURNALIST: The Opposition Leader has labelled a literacy policy which you introduced yourself as a failure, that the latest figures show there hasn't been a substantial lift in literacy rates. What do you think about that statement?
PM: I'm glad you asked that question because I do want to talk about how the Literacy and Numeracy National Partnership works.
The benchmark we set ourselves for success in that program was lifting up the kids who were struggling the most. So we know from national testing that too many children don't reach the minimum standard, so year 3 reading or year 5 numeracy, they're not at the minimum standard for the nation.
So this National Partnership was targeted at those kids who were struggling. And when you actually look at the results for those kids, I mean in schools that have participated in this National Partnership, you know, year 3 reading we've seen changes in 70 per cent of schools, improvements in 70 per cent of schools for those struggling kids.
Year 5 numeracy we've seen improvements in 80 per cent of schools for struggling kids. Now that was always the aim of this program, the help those kids who were falling behind their peers, falling behind the national standards, to get a lift up so that they were doing better.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the NSW Government has announced it's putting up the cost of rent for public housing, and it's blaming the carbon tax. Is that something you anticipated, and is it fair?
PM: Well this is a decision by Premier O'Farrell and Premier O'Farrell has decided that he wants to reach into the pockets of pensioners and grab some money for himself.
There is no excuse for this conduct by Premier O'Farrell, and any attempt to blame it on Federal Government policies is just a con.
Barry O'Farrell has decided to line his own pockets at the expense of people in public housing in this state, some of the poorest in our community, and I think that is disgraceful conduct.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what's your message to people in NSW who are going to be facing an 18 per cent increase in their electricity bills from 1 July?
PM: I understand that here in NSW and indeed in many other parts of the nation people have really felt the pressure from rapidly rising electricity bills.
We've seen considerable rises over the last few years, largely because of under-investment in the capital stock - in the poles and the wires - by state governments, and then that investment having to be made quickly, and flowing power prices and bills to put a lot of pressure on families.
And so, state governments need to be explaining to the people in their state what the state government is doing about those rapidly escalating costs. We've always been pretty upfront with people that carbon pricing would make a difference to electricity prices of around about 10 per cent.
Now the jury's in on what carbon pricing is going to do to electricity prices in NSW, and it's actually less than we predicted, less than we thought. And we will be providing families with assistance because of that impact.
That impact on average in NSW will be just over $3 and we are providing around $10 of assistance on average.
So people will see tax cuts from 1 July, they've seen lump sum increases to their family payments, and they will continue to see increases in family payments.
Pensioners have seen more money and will see continued increases in their pension to help them.
But the big mass of the costs coming out of the new investment in poles and wires, something done by state governments, doesn't come with real assistance for families and that's a matter for state governments to address.
Thank you.