Wynyard, Tasmania
E & O E - PROOF ONLY
PM: We're here together in Wynyard and we are specifically at Fonterra and I thank the Managing Director for joining us for what is an important announcement for the people who work here and for the people in this community.
Thank you very much to everyone at Fonterra for making us so welcome today.
I'm here to announce that we will make a grant of $659,100 here to Fonterra to partner with a $6 million investment they are making in ensuring that the production processes here are cleaner and greener.
What that means is that they will reduce their electricity use, particularly the way in which the cheese vats work and how they're heated.
That is of ongoing benefit to this business because it reduces their power costs.
It's also of ongoing benefit to our environment because it means that less energy is used, less carbon pollution is generated in making all of the products that come out of Fonterra, particularly all of the cheeses that people know so well from this business.
So this is great news for the people who work here; around 70 people work directly in this business, around 30 are engaged as truck drivers working with the business.
We're very pleased to be able to make this grant and we know that it will help create cleaner and greener production processes.
This is part of what we're able to do around the country through our clean technology fund, one of the things that we ensured from putting a price on carbon went to,
As we moved towards an era of less carbon pollution, our contribution to tackling climate change, we want to ensure that businesses are able to adapt and this clean technology grant assists with that.
Carbon pricing does the heavy lifting, it sends the right signals to businesses to cuts their carbon pollution and we work with them too through programs like this one. So thank you very much.
I'm also here with Sid Sidebottom to announce that we'll be bringing a jobs expo back to his electorate.
We have had job expos here before in the federal electorate of Braddon and we will be having another one shortly in Devonport and it's actually not the first time we've had a jobs expo there.
This is part of what we do around the country; we've had more than 70 jobs expos around the country.
They are a fantastic occasion where employers, with jobs that they want workers for come together with working people who need jobs all in the one place at the one time putting people together into that all important job opportunity.
And across Tasmania, having run these jobs expos we've seen 1,000 people get successfully into work, job opportunities picked up at a jobs expo.
So that next jobs expo will be on 21 June, conducted at the East Devonport Recreation Centre; can I say to everyone get ready, I know that they've been well supported by the community in the past.
And I know that Sid and his team will be working with employers, training organisations and the local community to make that a great success.
Putting together these two announcements, what is it all about for Tasmania, it's all about jobs and growth.
It's about making sure we've got the best of employment opportunities here in Tasmania.
I travel here very frequently and every time I come, people talk with a real sense of pride about where they live, they love living here, they love showing it off to visitors from the mainland and from right around the world.
But they're also conscious that their economy, the economy of Tasmania has been under pressure as a result of the high Australian dollar and other changes in the Tasmanian economy, which is why it's the right time to keep focussing here on creating new jobs.
I'm glad we were able to support this business today and I look forward to the jobs expo to put more people into work. I'll turn now to Sid for some comments.
SID SIDEBOTTOM: Thank you very much Prime Minister and thank you very much to Fonterra for hosting us.
The dairy industry, as part of my portfolio has well, has a fantastic opportunity in Tasmania and it's wonderful that companies like Fonterra and others are consolidating their works and processing here in Tasmania and most especially on the north-west coast.
We've got opportunities, we've also got challenges, Prime Minister, and I do thank you for your support through a number of our programs.
We've also got a program filling the factories and we're very keen to be able to support that and work with the state government and Dairy Tasmania in particular.
To Fonterra, thank you for what you're doing here; your consolidation here and at Spreyton who are also very successful in getting multi-thousands of dollars in terms of running out further extension programs and a very important employer to Tasmania as well and to the north-west coast.
Prime Minister, you know that we've got challenges, we've also got wonderful opportunities, and decisions have been made most recently in the Tasmanian parliament in relation to forestry and we are looking forward to working with the state government and all those stakeholders to make our industry grow again as it can.
And we ask people on the fringes of that debate to give this a chance.
Prime Minister, I know you support that and those funds that will flow into Tasmania and industries that will employ people particularly those that have been affected by the downturn in the forestry industry.
So thank you very much for coming. There's more to see and more people to meet on your travels here, we do thank you for coming and you're always very, very welcome on the north-west of Tassie.
And thank you to Fonterra.
PM: Thank you. We're happy to take any questions.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
SID SIDEBOTTOM: We will look to and are looking to helping to fill the factories and there's more than one way to milk a cow as we've said before and we're working very closely and I'm also talking with the Prime Minister and others to make sure we get that funding - I dropped that in Prime Minister - but we're well aware of that and we're working very much to fulfil that.
That's a great opportunity for Tassie and filling the factories can get underway right now anyway, so that's terrific.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
SID SIDEBOTTOM: They're asking for $400,000 as they have from others as well, both in kind and in cash and we're working with them, we have through former ministers and the current minister now, so we're looking forward to it.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PM: I have caught up with those comments even as I've travelled here in Tasmania and in relation to those comments, let me just say this.
When I announced this morning with my colleagues the Deputy Prime Minister and Jenny Macklin, the Minister for Disability Reform that we would choose to put a 0.5 per cent Medicare levy increase on to fund DisabilityCare, I assumed from what was in today's newspapers and the comments of the Shadow Treasurer on radio this morning that the Opposition was very likely to oppose this Medicare levy increase.
From what has happened during the hours since, the Leader of the Opposition has called on me to bring the legislation forward but has been unable or unwilling to say whether or not he would support a half a per cent increase in the Medicare levy to fund DisabilityCare.
So let me say this very clearly to the Leader of the Opposition and to the people of Australia.
If the Leader of the Opposition is prepared to support this half a per cent increase in the Medicare levy to fund DisabilityCare, then I will bring the legislation into the Parliament immediately.
If the Leader of the Opposition is unable to answer the question, what he believes in about this matter, or wants to oppose this increase to the Medicare levy, then I will take it to the Australian people in September.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PM: We have to get the support in Parliament to get legislation through. That's why it matters.
And it also matters, I think, to the people of Australia to know what it is that the Leader of the Opposition stands for on this matter.
The Leader of the Opposition has said consistently that he supports the national disability insurance scheme, DisabilityCare.
Well you can't support something and then not fund it.
If the Leader of the Opposition is saying it's not the right way forward to increase the Medicare levy by half a per cent, then the obligation is on him to show every dollar and every cent of how he would fund it.
I said this morning when I announced this Medicare levy that I am incredibly conscious on this matter that 410,000 Australians with disabilities and their carers and their families hang off every word because they've waited so long for change.
You owe it to them and you owe it to the people of Australia to be clear about your intentions.
This is not an area for platitudes, it's not an area for fudge; it's an area for facts and precision.
I and my colleagues this morning have clearly outlined how we will proceed with DisabilityCare, how we are determined to increase the Medicare levy by half a per cent to assist with the funding of DisabilityCare.
I'd ask the other side of the politics to be equally as clear. They owe Australians with disabilities that much.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PM: Well that was a different set of circumstances, very different from the circumstances that confront us now.
I'm dealing with the circumstances that confront us now and dealing with those circumstances, as I said this morning, I have changed my mind and there have been three factors that have caused me to rethink on this matter.
First, the Government is getting less tax money than it had expected and I made clear on Monday just how severe that reduction in tax money received by the Government is.
Number two, I've had plenty of discussions now with states and territories working with their actual figures, their real budgets, and I understand how big a commitment it is for states and territories to not only get up to the benchmark, which we are requiring them to do, but to keep funding growth in the system.
And number three, I've heard really clearly too from those who have advocated for change for so long that they want the peace of mind that comes with knowing there is an ongoing source of revenue to support DisabilityCare, so I'm responding to that.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PM: I think on this that it's just like Medicare and we've got a fairly young audience here and that's good, but I'm old enough to remember the struggles around [inaudible] successive Labor Governments, for and opposed, abolished and then brought back.
This was the story of Medicare, Labor fighting for it every step of the way.
And Labor said to the Australian community then, if you want Medicare then there will have to be a levy to pay for it.
Now all these years later, of course actual expenditure on hospitals and Medicare is more than the Medicare levy raises but all these years later I've never met an Australian who would say that they would prefer to be without Medicare.
I've never met one; not in all my years going through communities has anyone ever said to me let's get rid of Medicare.
And overwhelmingly Australians say they accept that they've got to pay a levy to have a system as good as Medicare.
We're asking Australians to show exactly that same spirit to create the next big institution of fairness in our society, DisabilityCare.
We all put in, we all get the benefit of knowing if we ever ended up with a disability, or someone in our family did or one of our friends did, that there would be appropriate care for them.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PM: Well the rest of the money to fund the scheme will come from responsible savings that the Government makes.
We've already shown a preparedness to do that, to do things like make changes to the private health insurance rebate. That wasn't easy.
It was pretty controversial at the time, a lot of false claims made about it but we said that's a fast-growing area of expenditure and it's responsible to make a saving there.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PM: We initiated a review quite a while back, John Brumby and others working through matters associated with the GST, many of them are very technical matters about the way the GST works.
But beyond that review there are some very fundamental values matters for Australians when it comes to GST distribution.
And the question of values is do you believe that wherever people live in our great country that they are entitled to the same standard of health and education services as their other citizens? Do we believe that or don't we?
Well I do. And if you do believe that then that means that you don't want to see Tasmania be ripped off when it comes to GST.
Now, this is a big issue because the Leader of the Opposition has said he supports a per capita distribution of the GST. He certainly said that in Western Australia.
If you say it in Western Australia those words come back to haunt you in Tasmania because a per capita distribution would mean ripping $600 million out of the GST here in Tassie.
That's thousands of nurses gone, hundreds of doctors gone, hundreds of teachers gone, hundreds of child care protection workers gone.
Tassie couldn't afford that and that will be a big issue come voting day.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PM: Let's remember if you look back over the last 50 years, I'm doing a bit of history for the group today, but if you go back over the last 50 years, for more than 30 of them WA was a net taker of GST revenue from other states.
We didn't always have GST across that period but a net taker of government support from other states.
And why was that? Well, huge land mass, sparsely populated; obviously people who live there couldn't afford to put in enough tax revenue to have all the services that people need.
So they relied on other states to help them step up, get the services that they needed.
They've gone on to develop the state of Western Australia into the economic powerhouse that it is today.
But there are always swings and roundabouts and whilst it is the economic powerhouse that it is today, then there are obligations towards states like Tasmania to assist with GST.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PM: Well, this has been a long time in the making and a lot of work done here in Tasmania by people like Sid and by a range of our local members.
What I believe is this gives us a new start here in Tasmania and that the obligation is now on everyone to seize the prospect that this peace gives us, to get on with creating jobs in Tasmania as well as securing the conservation outcomes that come out of this agreement.
This all started, not because we took a view, it all started because formerly warring parties; conservationists and foresters had decided it was time to sit around a table and see if they could chart a better way forward.
It's a tribute to them that they found that better way forward.
Now the fringes of this debate need to fall away and together those concerned and about conservation and those focused on jobs and forestry need to work to realise all of this agreement.
We will play our part with almost $300 million of investments into jobs and growth in Tasmania.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PM: Certainly I want to see that.
I think that there are always some irresponsible fringe elements that want to disturb what the vast majority of people have agreed and my message to them would be the same as Sid's message to them.
It is time for those fringe elements to fall away and to let the mainstream that has come together get on with the job for Tasmania.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PM: I can't give you what the Opposition's plans or cutbacks for Tasmania would be.
What I know on the public record already is there's $600 million of GST at risk.
The NBN, which is coming to Tasmania first, would be replaced by something that cost households $5000 to get connected and even then it wouldn't work right; that people who rely on the School Kids Bonus wouldn't get that anymore, that people who have got a tax cut through the changes in the tax-free threshold would pay more tax, and that the increases we've put through to the pension would also be taken away.
That is all crystal clear. What else would be ripped out of Tasmania, you'd need to direct to the Leader of the Opposition
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PM: Well, I think the obligation here is on the signatories who first came together, the parties who started this process, to do everything they can to use their abilities to silence those who haven't gone with the mainstream consensus.
I do think this is a new day, it's a new opportunity and it should be seized. We certainly indeed to play our part creating jobs and improving economic growth here in Tasmania.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PM: We're now beyond that. What we said was that the agreement would need to be the subject of legislation.
The legislation has been done so we will play our part as we've always promised to do.
Thank you very much.