Adelaide
PM: Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be here today.
Of course I'm joined by the Premier of South Australia, I'm joined by a number of my senate colleagues, Senator Anne McEwen, Senator Penny Wong and Senator Don Farrell.And I'm joined very significantly by the vice-chancellors that you see standing here, South Australia University and the University of Adelaide.
We have all come together for a very important announcement and I'm very pleased to be here today to make it.
South Australia prides itself on being a well-planned place, Adelaide is a beautifully planned city, I know that from growing up here and I do want to commend the Premier and the State Labor Government for their new vision for the city of Adelaide and the way in which the city moves, people move through it and the work that is done here.
I particularly want to commend the vision for having a health and medical research precinct, a place where you can see the hospital working - so people getting treatment, you can see the medical staff of tomorrow being trained and you can see the researchers who are providing cures for the future working alongside them.
So people can seamlessly move from treatment to training, to research and each can enrich the other.
It is a fantastic vision creating the biggest precinct of its type in the Southern Hemisphere, a great tribute to the Government of South Australia.
I am here today to say that the Federal Government is going to join in the realisation of this vision with an allocation of $100 million to make sure that as this vision takes shape we are playing our part.
Firstly, we will be contributing $60 million to the integrated clinical school being established by the University of Adelaide.
We are very pleased to provide this support.
The integrated clinical school will support teaching and research for 1550 students and support 230 staff across the medical and nursing faculties.
The fact that it is co-located will be of particular benefit and today I have had the opportunity to meet some students who are talking about how they are in training for so long because of the need to do many years of training that they will actually graduate from this new facility and they're speaking about that with a real sense of delight.
So I am very pleased that we could provide that benefit for the University of Adelaide.
Then secondly, we will provide $40 million for the University of South Australia's Centre for Cancer Biology.
We all know that cancer is the second leading cause of death in Australia.
It certainly accounts for a lot of expenditure as well as widespread heart ache and loss of life.
Nine billion dollars per annum of life of our country's direct health costs is spent in fighting cancer.
So anything we can do to provide the cures for tomorrow will make a huge difference not only in the lives of individuals but in the life of our nation.
Australians pride themselves on being world-class at medical research and we are.
We have been responsible for so many breakthroughs and I believe that this centre will be a home for many of the breakthroughs of the future.
It is going to be a world-class facility and space to house up to 250 of Australia's top researchers and what they are going to be doing is working towards a deeper understanding of blood cancers like leukaemia.
Such an important field for the future and I think if we went around the room everybody would be able to name someone they know who has had to battle that kind of cancer.
I know that being co-located too will be a great benefit for that facility.
So it is with a great sense of delight that I join with my colleagues in making the announcement today.
I do want to thank the Premier very much for his vision and leadership on this.
I want to thank one other person too who couldn't be here today, that is the local Member for Adelaide Kate Ellis, my federal parliamentary colleague.
She has been a strong, and let me assure you, very vocal advocate of Federal Government support.
She was very disappointed she couldn't be here today but I do want to pay a tribute to Kate Ellis's work in making possible the announcements.
I'll hand over to the Premier.
PREMIER WEATHERILL: Thank you Prime Minister and you are so welcome here, your senators, other representatives of your Government in making this wonderful announcement today.
I want to begin where you left off and that is to thank a number of people who have brought us to this day.
The vice-chancellors, of course, the vision of their particular institutions, to partner with the Commonwealth Government in this precinct and all of those people that have actually made the case.
There are competing demands on Federal Government resources and so putting together a cogent case is an incredibly important part of the process.
So people have actually explained how this fits in to the Commonwealth Government's vision for the health and wellbeing of the citizens of this country but also were able to persuade to the Commonwealth of the particular benefits for South Australia in this region.
It speaks very powerfully to a number of our ambitions in South Australia.
It speaks to our ambition to revitalise our city.
This whole river bank precinct is just an exciting part of South Australia now.
It is a vision that extends all the way from Bowden to Gilberton and this is just one precinct within this incredibly interesting and exciting part of South Australia.
It will have an identity, the riverbank park will have an identity and this discreet element of it, the bioscience precinct, will be an essential part of it.
You can't throw five or six thousand people into a part of the city without fundamentally changing its culture.
So this will spread its tentacles into the other parts of the city, the west end, extending further back down into the entertainment precinct in a way which will be incredibly exciting for our state.
The other thing that, of course, this particular investment does is build on extraordinary excellence that exists in our health and medical research capabilities here in South Australia.
We are already seeing the exciting SAHMRI building and researchers there are lining up to be part of this.
This is part of attracting the best and brightest to be part of the South Australian story and also retaining those young people that see an exciting job for themselves in the future and it is not unrelated to the quality of the medical services that we provide.
Many of our best clinicians will actually choose to work in the particular facility not just because of the salary they get or the work that they're able to do in the clinical setting but also the research opportunities that sit alongside it.
So that is something we can offer that no other place can offer now with this extraordinary bioscience precinct.
The other benefit of this particular area is that this is an industry in its own right.
For too long people have seen health as just a service that's provided to the community.
Of course it's that but it is also a thriving source of employment and also economic opportunities; we commercialise the opportunities that flow from this particular sector.
Then further it is an example of what happens with high quality public investments.
The South Australian government has invested $2.1 billion in the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.
It has also invested further funds to ensure that this precinct is been reorganised so that there's space for these buildings.
We'll be providing the land essentially to no cost to these institutions to allow them to build, to permit these investments to happen.
So public investments leverage other investments, the Commonwealth, these tertiary institutions, their investment and that's fantastic for South Australia at this point in its history.
Because as our public investments begin to taper off we want to encourage further investments by other sectors and we are beginning to see that now in this precinct.
This is leveraging extraordinary additional investments and I think this is just a wonderful example of the way in which public investment can then cause further investments in our economy.
So all in all it ticks so many boxes, we're just so thrilled the Commonwealth has made this investment.
It is just a wonderful thing for South Australia and of course these two wonderful institutions and it is my great pleasure now to invite the Vice-Chancellor of the University of South Australia to say a few words, Mr David Lloyd. Thank you.
VICE-CHANCELLOR LLOYD: Prime Minister, Premier, Senators, Ministers, Vice-Chancellor.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am David Lloyd, I am the Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of South Australia.
It is my great pleasure to welcome you all here today to the Hawke Building.
You will probably note from my accent that I am not from around these parts.
I moved to South Australia and to Adelaide with my family just after Christmas and I have only been here since the turn of the year.
Now in Ireland, Senator Farrell will probably know this one, we have a saying, there's a folk ballad which talks about The West's Awake. The West's Awake today in Adelaide, the city end, the west end is certainly awake.
In 1996 the University of South Australia was pretty much the only tenant of this part of the city.
We took an undeveloped part of Adelaide and we invested in an opportunity when we opened this campus.
It is home to more than 10,000 students and staff today.
The centre of gravity of the city is shifting westwards.
It is kind of fitting that the investment today has shifted the new Adelaide which is being laid down around us just yards from the first acre plots which were laid out in Colonel Light's survey of Adelaide when he arrived to settle the state.
So the new settlement of the state has been built on new industries.
It has been built on innovation and the connection of public health services with high technology, with professional training and with knowledge creation.
Today we are reminded of the economic power that can arise when governments, when education and when enterprise come together.
Today's announcement equips the University of South Australia and the state for the future.
It equips us for the education of modern professionals, for the conduct of leading edge biomedical research and it is coupled directly to patient benefit.
The creation of the University of South Australia's Centre for Cancer Biology in partnership with SA pathology and the CCB underpins the delivery of a major component of the university's footprint in the new South Australian health precinct.
The CCB is one of the top three cancer research facilities in the world.
It is here in Adelaide and we're very proud to be forging a new partnership in collaboration with them.
The Prime Minister touched on the economic cost and the human cost of cancer.
One in two Australian men and one in three Australian women will be diagnosed with cancer by the age of 85.
30 per cent of all deaths in Australia are due to cancer.
So research in this area and patient-focused research in this area is of critical need.
Our centre will spearhead the creation of innovative new therapies through patient-focussed, cancer research and it will have global visibility as a centre of excellence which actually has true relevance to everybody in this room.
The creation of SAHMRI which is due to be completed just across the road heralded a new beginning in cooperation between universities.
The University of South Australia, the University of Adelaide and the University of Flinders came together to deliver a world class clinical research facility linked directly to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.
The addition of our development and the University of Adelaide's medical and nursing education development will further this enhance the scale and scope of this precinct.
The Federal Government's investment coupled with the State Government's ongoing support will actually help us to realise our own ambition for the delivery of a $280 million facility across road on North Terrace by 2017.
Our commitment today is that we will leverage the Federal Government's funding to deliver not only a world class facility for cancer research but we are going to build on our position as the largest educator of modern professionals in the health space to deliver new infrastructure for allied health.
We're going to advance specialised clinics, a centre for healthcare innovation and a major science and technology outreach initiative to underpin the state's competitiveness across the [inaudible] horizon.
So on behalf of the University of South Australia I extend my sincere thanks to the Federal and to the State Government for this.
Their clear vote of confidence in us and their investments to secure the future prosperity of the state.
VICE-CHANCELLOR BEBBINGTON: Well now, unlike David, I've been here for 11 months.
So I'm a positive veteran, relatively.
The University of Adelaide's medical school and the Royal Adelaide Hospital have been together on Frome Road for over 130 years.
It has to be like that because any medical school and its teaching hospital move together in a partnership like a single organism.
There's 1500 clinicians working in that hospital who also have teaching appointments with the University.
What this announcement does today is it means that that partnership, that organism goes on and grows flourishes in the future.
The University of Adelaide will match with $60 million of its own funds the grant that's been made to us today.
That means construction will start early next year on our medical school.
It means that the medical school will open when the new Royal Adelaide Hospital opens in 2016 and so the partnership we've had, this historic and very necessary partnership will continue seamlessly and without interruption.
It also means that all those health students who started their courses with us this year will now finish with their clinical practice on this new precinct at the new Royal Adelaide in the new medical school.
The building next to SAHMRI is also important. I would guess that probably half of all the researchers who will be working in SAHMRI will be University of Adelaide staff.
That means that we can bring onto a single site not only our medical researchers but our medical teachers, our students and our patients.
It greatly magnifies our capacity to address the most urgent issues that face health in Australia - heart disease, diabetes, obesity, young babies, cancer, the problems of human nutrition and metabolism.
Our vision for this building also includes moving our dental school into it, a school which not only produces dentists for South Australia but also in the process provides more than two thirds of the all the free dental care into this state.
But adding our dental school into this blows the envelope out quite a bit possibly to $200 million and we will be working very hard in the coming weeks to see if we can fund the gap and include the dental school in this project making this a truly comprehensive health precinct.
Every South Australian has been cared for by a University of Adelaide doctor, dentist or nurse at some point in their life.
We are currently training as you have heard over 1500 these young people to join those professions and the great thing about this announcement is that in the future, these professionals will all be able train together in a new first integrated curriculum model.
A first for Australia and one which will produce a newly adaptable class of health care workers, a quality health care work force of the kind Australia needs.
It remains just for me, Prime Minister, on behalf of the University of Adelaide, to thank you profoundly for this magnificent gift of $60 million.
I can only imagine the financial pressures that you deal with every day, the challenges of the Federal Budget and in the midst of all that to somehow have found the capacity to make this grant to the University of Adelaide, which is the largest in our history, was a step of boldness, a step of great vision.
With the state's help in facilitating this site we will respond and you can rest assured that what you have done today will have a profound effect on the health, the healthcare and the healthcare workforce of South Australia. Thank you.
PM: Well we joked on the way in, I asked what the collective noun for vice-chancellors was and was told an argument, but we haven't had any arguments today.
We are happy to take questions if we could take questions first on today's announcement and when we have exhausted those questions then we'll move to other questions of the day.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, would you have expected that South Australian taxpayers or the government to chip in for this project as well?
PM: The Premier's outlined the vision here. What I am very pleased we were able to do is make a contribution.
I do thank you for the acknowledgment that it is not easy at the moment.
Of course, we are making sure that we are working so that the Budget comes back to surplus.
We have had a very big focus on jobs and growth, been very prudent about the Government's resources but these two projects are so compelling I am glad we were able to make a contribution.
JOURNALIST: So when would you like to start these projects and complete them by?
PM: I think the completion dates were given in the discussion.
So your project you are hoping 2016 and your project 2017 but with work starting next year.
JOURNALIST: How has the Federal Government found the money for the projects?
PM: Through the Budget process, this is provisioned in the Budget.
So through the process where we had to weigh responsible savings for important investments and as we did that what we prioritised at every point, and I'm very conscious that the Minister for Finance is here and she certainly knows how hard we worked on this.
But the approach of the Government has been to put a priority on the investments that we need for the future.
We have consciously put at the front of the queue things that will make us stronger and smarter and fairer for the future.
The school funding reforms are a big part of that.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme, DisabilityCare, is a big part of that.
But so are investments like these which will strengthen the capacities of South Australia in every way for the future.
Not just treating South Australians and getting them the benefit of up to the minute research, but as the Premier wisely observed this is an industry and so it does mean jobs and growth in South Australia.
JOURNALIST: So Prime Minister, was the pressure on you and Senator Wong because of the building project at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, something had to be done to the medical school that is at the other end of town and there has been controversy surrounding that? It really was a no brainer, it had to be done anyway.
PM: Look, the only thing that we weighed in all of this was the merit of the projects and the contribution that that they would make to the city of Adelaide and to the state of South Australia.
JOURNALIST: In terms of this project how will they all integrate, the SAHMRI, the Royal Adelaide and these two facilities. How do they integrate and work together?
PM: I think I should hand over to the experts for that.
VICE-CHANCELLOR BEBBINGTON: Well, I think I touched on this in my answer.
I mean in terms of clinical schools it's absolutely essential that the hospital and the clinical school be close together.
Physically we're going to be right next door so this means clinicians can move back and forth as they do at present at the other end of town.
JOURNALIST: Professor, would you see this as an added bonus that in trying to attract international students, which Adelaide actively is doing, that this is a much greater incentive than it would have been otherwise?
VICE-CHANCELLOR BEBBINGTON: Well this precinct is going to be considerably ahead of the Parkville precinct in Melbourne when it's finished.
So yes, it will be a significant attractor to international students, that's true.
JOURNALIST: So would you see that as the big growth area for the student population of Adelaide?
VICE-CHANCELLOR BEBBINGTON: Not necessarily. Just bear in mind that in the health area international students are restricted.
Numbers for international students are monitored unlike in other areas.
JOURNALIST: Even if they've got the money and they want to come?
VICE-CHANCELLOR BEBBINGTON: There's a control on health, on medical places. So it's not going to change the current relativities but we have a very strong international student presence and that will go on.
JOURNALIST: Can I just clarify, you've got $60 million through the Federal Government and you will match it with $60 million but your project is more like $200 million.
VICE-CHANCELLOR BEBBINGTON: If it's medicine and nursing it's $120 million. We would very much like to include the dental school in it which will take it closer to $200 million and we need now to work out how to close the gap.
JOURNALIST: Any thoughts on where that cash might come from?
VICE-CHANCELLOR BEBBINGTON: Not at this stage.
JOURNALIST: Premier, do you see that you've got out of this quite lightly?
PM: He's definitely on a theme. You've got to give a tick for the theme in the questions.
JOURNALIST: The Feds have done the hard work and the universities are doing the hard work and you get all the kudos.
PREMIER WEATHERILL: Some might describe $2.1 billion investment in the new hospital as a substantial investment and also the actual clearing of the rest of the site.
So there's been a range of works to ensure that there's no land use conflict between the operations of the railway system and the land.
So there's been quite a lot of work and investment that's been done.
We are not seeking to recover that.
We will be providing this land free of charge and there's the master planning process as well.
We have put over this precinct a sophisticated master planning process.
So all of these buildings work together and the public spaces between them work very effectively.
So of course we welcome this investment.
It is a tremendous benefit for South Australia but we think we've done our bit as well.
JOURNALIST: Is there an estimate of how many construction jobs in the two projects?
PREMIER WEATHERILL: I don't have that but I am happy to supply it to you.
JOURNALIST: It is perhaps a relatively minor point but what happens to the skate park?
PREMIER WEATHERILL: We've thought about that. It's not a minor point, it's a very important point and we've done a lot of thinking about that. There's lots of options we've given thought to.
We've been communicating with the council. There will be a replicated skate park because a lot of people rely upon it. It needs to be relatively close to public transport so that the young people that use it still have a place to go.
JOURNALIST: Still looking for a location?
PREMIER WEATHERILL: Absolutely.
JOURNALIST: How long have you been working on this, Premier, given the fact that we have this deadline looming, we had to have a new facility to train in?
PREMIER WEATHERILL: Well for as long as I can remember. We've had numerous conversations, the universities have been collaborating with us, our public servants have been meeting with federal public servants.
I think I have spoken to every federal minister, including the Prime Minister on numerous occasions and we are very pleased that we have come to a landing today.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, does it come as some concern that it would appear the AWU now is urging its supporters in caucus perhaps not to support you?
PM: Well I'd refer you to the words of the actual story. Lots of this is, headlines-wise, it is much more rumour on speculation.
JOURNALIST: Do you have the support of Paul Howes?
PM: You might want to pick up the newspaper and have a look.
JOURNALIST: John Murphy has spoken out though, what does that say about your leadership?
PM: All this week I have taken questions like this and all this week I have focussed on what I do which is making sure we're investing for the future and building a stronger future for our country.
That is what I am intending to do. All of this across the week we have got lots of rumour, lots of speculation.
We have got Mr Murphy who has had a continuing view for some time now. So I don't worry about any of that, I just get on with it.
JOURNALIST: How much faith do you have in Kevin Rudd's sincerity when he's out in western Sydney and in the spotlight saying one thing but the visual images tend to suggest something else? Do you trust Kevin Rudd?
PM: I am expecting all of the team to be out there campaigning and campaigning hard.
Yesterday whilst I was here with the Premier in South Australia announcing that South Australia had signed on to our new school reforms, around the country Labor MPs were out talking about school funding, particularly pressing those jurisdictions who haven't signed yet to get on board and to invest in their children's future.
So I expected Labor MPs to be out at schools yesterday and they were including Mr Rudd.
JOURNALIST: Would you prefer Mr Rudd kept a slightly lower profile?
PM: I expect everybody to be out there campaigning including campaigning on school funding reform.
If I can say something very specific about school funding reform, I came here to South Australia yesterday to make a major announcement for the children of this state and for the future of this state.
This is Labor work driven by Labor values. I was delighted to be able to deliver it here with a Labor Premier.
But it's also the kind of priority that a Liberal who is determined not to be a wrecker can put at the front of the queue. Premier O'Farrell's done that.
I notice today that the Premier of Victoria is suggesting that he's considering Victoria signing on and putting the children of Victoria first.
I would urge him to do that, to put the children first and the politics second.
JOURNALIST: He does want a really good deal though, are you able to give him what he wants?
PM: All of this is a very good deal for Australia's children.
What we are taking to every state and every territory is the same model for school funding.
It works the same way for every school, a school resource standard inclusive of extra resources for the kids we know bring some disadvantages to school.
It is all about not just kids who are in school today, this is a reform for quality education for generations and generations to come.
What we are trying to achieve around the country would be making a difference for the quality of our children's education in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years; it is a reform of that magnitude.
It is why I'm so passionate about delivering it.
JOURNALIST: With all the concessions being made and presumably more with Victoria and other yet-to-sign-on states, where is the extra money coming from?
PM: We did provision at Budget time for some extra resources for schools.
But if I can chip you a little bit on the word of your question, it is the same model.
What we always said when we put the figures out one Sunday, we said this is what we've got on the table, these are the figures for individual states, all of it is plus indexation.
We then said we would go into an intensive process with states.
That intensive process with South Australia yielded the figures that we announced yesterday so that is the model at work.
Greater collaboration, getting a better understanding of the figures and we announced the agreement yesterday.
In Western Australia we have made one change because we have got a better understanding of their cost base which is different to the rest of the country's as a result of the WA economy where people can go teaching but they can also go and earn six figure sums working in the resources sector.
So the cost base for WA schools reflects that.
Any impression that anybody is trying to create that this is something outside the working of the model we first announced, that is absolutely wrong.
It is the model at work with the benefit of further information.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just very quickly again on leadership, can you honestly say you are not feeling any outside pressure that seems to be growing by the day? Can you honestly say that?
PM: I can honestly say that I am here and delighted to be getting on with the job and the things that I focussed on this week, what's taken most of the time, has been the focus on the work on schools.
So I mean all the rumour and speculation I just let that wash its way around.
JOURNALIST: Are you getting fed up it though?
PM: Look, yes, you must be fed up with writing it, don't worry about it.
JOURNALIST: You say rumour and speculation but here's a Labor MP willing to speak out and call for Kevin Rudd to be installed-
PREMIER WEATHERILL: Are you interested in another Labor MP's perspective?
My support for the Prime Minister is absolute and I am very pleased that she has come here today to make this magnificent announcement for South Australia and was here yesterday making another magnificent announcement for South Australia.
That is the real work that the people, the citizens of this country are interested in, not this nonsense, thank you.
PM: But my answer to your question is the Member of Parliament you refer to has had a long-standing view.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just asking about Syria. America's now looking at supporting a no-fly zone, what's your position?
PM: That is not my understanding, I would have to say.
My understanding is that the United States is contemplating providing some assistance to the opposition forces in Syria.
I understand why the United States has come to that conclusion.
The United States, President Obama, some time back indicated that a red line for him was the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
He asked his intelligence agencies to provide careful and the best possible reporting on the use of chemical weapons.
Those intelligence agencies have reported that chemical weapons have been used.
That too is the view of the Australian National Security Committee on the best evidence available to us, the national security community in Australia.
President Obama as a result of that advice has indicated that the US is prepared to provide some resources to opposition forces.
I can understand that decision.
For Australia, we are obviously a long way away.
No approaches have been made to us by the United States in relation to the matter and I don't anticipate any will be.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what's your reaction to Howard Sattler being sacked?
PM: Anything I wanted to say about that matter I said yesterday.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, there's been some reports that some fishermen were told by authorities not to help an asylum seeker boat in trouble, does this not contravene our obligations at sea?
PM: Look, I have seen those reports, the Minister for Immigration is actually speaking publicly today and can deal with any of this kind of reporting.
Thank you very much.