Subject(s): Visit to NT; Election campaign; Better Schools Plan
PM: As a Queenslander, I feel like this is my second home. Luke here I've known for a long, long time.
Luke is a professional soldier by training, 13 years if I'm right, or thereabouts, and so don’t mess with him basically, he knows what he’s doing.
His wonderful wife Kate is a great friend of mine. She worked with me when I was Foreign Minister; she’s now working for me as Prime Minister.
So she’s a really talented person and I enjoy working with her and have done for years. Now you have a new baby daughter who I met for the first time this morning.
LUKE GOSLING, ALP CANDIDATE FOR SOLOMON: Sally.
PM: Baby Sally was crawling round the floor of the Prime Minister’s Office this morning and basically creating mayhem, but it was good mayhem.
Now I think you all know Luke’s background, professional soldier, lived in the Territory now for how many years, mate?
GOSLING: On and off since 2002.
PM: On and off since 2002, served in Timor just across the water there, and is committed to this local community.
He’s committed to the wellbeing of our servicemen and women, because he’s a professional soldier himself.
He knows what it means to put on the uniform of Australia; he knows therefore what it means to look after our Diggers once they leave the services as well.
When it comes to this part of the world, I have had one mission as Prime Minister of Australia over the years again now. And that is to make sure that people in the Territory get a fair go.
That means that we have an improvement to the health services up here.
I'm so pleased that when I was here last as Prime Minister, we opened the Alan Walker cancer centre at Royal Darwin Hospital. I remember it clearly.
Prior to that, people in Darwin had to travel to Adelaide in order to get the most routine cancer procedures.
Now it is available here in Royal Darwin Hospital for local people. That is a huge change for locals here in the Territory.
But you know with health and hospitals, it’s one step at a time, and the next step is to provide proper hospital services to the people of Palmerston.
That’s why the Government is committed to building a new hospital at Palmerston.
We have put forward $70 million and I would call upon the Country Liberal Party government of the Northern Territory to stump up the $40 million we need to make this work.
That’s a fair partnership, we’re providing $70 million, we’re asking them for $40 million.
It’s time we got real about it because I know across the community; I spoke with a bloke called Pete this morning on morning radio – Hi Pete wherever you are – and I know he and others have been campaigning for this for a long time.
There’s a big population out there, it’s a young community, they need a local hospital.
Can I say also that the future of the Territory will rest on the shoulders of candidates in the House of Representatives like Luke Gosling.
And like also of course Warren Snowdon, our Member for Lingiari who’s already a minister of the government.
I would encourage all Territorians to get behind Luke and to make sure that we turn Solomon into a win for the Government and more importantly a win for delivering better services for health, for hospitals, for schools and for the community here in the Northern Territory.
Thank you folks, I'm happy to take some questions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, where is the Gonski deal at?
PM: The question today about the Better Schools Plan for Australia.
I'm pleased to announce that today Bill Shorten, the Education Minister, reached an agreement with the Government of Tasmania so the state of Tasmania is signed on to the Better Schools Plan.
So we have New South Wales, we have South Australia, we have Tasmania, we have the Australian Capital Territory, and our negotiations with various others are going not badly.
So can I just say this is a Better Schools Plan for the nation. What’s it about? It’s about lifting the standards of each school, and if you’ve got a kid in grade 3 who is falling behind in reading and writing, in numeracy and literacy, Gonski – the Better Schools Plan – is about providing the money to get in a specialist tutor to bring that kid back up to scratch.
It’s very practical, so I'm really pleased Tasmania has joined and I would say directly to Mr Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, get behind a positive plan for Australia’s future. Get behind a positive Better Schools Plan for Australia’s future.
Australian schools want it, Australian schoolkids want it. Classroom teachers want it. And I’d just say stop being so negative Mr Abbott and support the Government’s positive initiative for Australia.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, are you reconsidering Nova Peris’ preselection?
PM: I said this morning from Canberra my attitude to this is that we have in Trish Crossin a person who has been an excellent senator for the Northern Territory, and we have also in Nova a fantastic candidate for the Australian Labor Party as well.
I have spoken at some length with Trish and I've been consulting locally with members of the Northern Territory branch of the Labor Party.
Since I've been here I've been speaking with the President and the Secretary of the Northern Territory branch.
And I said this morning I wanted to consult with them, to see what their views were.
And they have told me on behalf of the leadership of the Labor Party here in the Northern Territory that despite all the difficulties that have happened with the national intervention in the preselection, that they want here in the Territory, the Australian Labor Party members want us to get behind Nova as the Australian Labor Party candidate for the senate.
I support their local recommendation.
This is of course a very difficult thing for Trish. Trish Crossin has been a friend of mine for 15 years. Trish Crossin has been a wonderful representative for the Territory.
I spoke to her again this morning and I've spoken to her in recent days. This is very tough for her, and frankly it’s very tough for all of us.
But I've got to say we’ve got to look to the future and we’ve got to get behind Nova in what is going to be a tight senate race here in the Northern Territory and a tight race for us all.
So the bottom line is this. I don’t like the way in which it was handled, that’s the truth, six months ago.
We have an election due in several months’ time, and therefore we’ve got to get on with the business of uniting behind our Labor candidates Luke Gosling here in the seat of Solomon and of course Nova in the senate.
JOURNALIST: What’s your reaction to the polls out today?
PM: You may find this strange, but I have not read them. I've been bedding down the whole process of party reform.
Yesterday in Australia I put to the Australian parliamentary Labor Party caucus a plan for the future, a plan which says that if the Australian people vote for a Labor leader at an election time, they can be guaranteed that that person will remain as Prime Minister through until the next election.
That’s what the Australian people want. They have a right to have that certainty. On top of that, we have now new rules for the election of Labor leaders.
That is, 50 per cent for the parliamentary Labor Party and 50 per cent for the members of the Labor Party right across Australia.
So you can have tens of thousands of people being able to put up their hand and vote for a future leader of the Labor Party, and on top of that the parliamentary party retaining 50 per cent for itself.
This is the most democratic reform that the Labor Party has had in 120 years.
JOURNALIST: Will you release the sealed part of the Bracks Review?
PM: That I will leave to the executive of the Australian Labor Party. I am aware of the history of that and I’ll leave it to others.
JOURNALIST: Just to go back to education, what do you have to say to the Territory Government about them not signing onto the reforms yet?
PM: Well I'm going to be speaking with the Chief Minister I think late this afternoon early this evening. I've met him once before and I look forward to a further discussion.
I would say to the Chief Minister, put party politics to one side, it’s time to be positive about the future. Any mug can play negative politics; it’s frankly the easiest game to play in politics.
The hard thing to do is to put forward positive plans for the future which works. This plan works, and for the nation it delivers an extra $16 billion of funding to the schoolkids of Australia.
It’s about better schools, better opportunities for our kids, so I’d day to the Chief Minister here get behind the plan.
Don’t play Territory politics; it’s the easiest game in the world to play. State politics, Territory politics, local politics.
Look to the future and look in the eyes of each of the young kids in the Territory and say do I want more funding for each of those kids at school?
If this little possum here has a problem with reading and writing at some stage, do I want her to get the intervention that she needs? Of course I do.
If this one is doing really well at maths and she needs some extra coaching to jump a year, do I want the extra coaching to come for her? Of course I do.
And I think he should as well.
JOURNALIST: Are you willing to alter the model that’s previously been offered to the Territory?
PM: The model that we've put is a pretty good one, and if it’s good enough for the good people of New South Wales – I'm not from New South Wales, you’re not from New South Wales, I'm told it’s a pretty big state, in fact it’s the largest state in the country.
So if the good people of New South Wales through their Liberal-National government can accept this as a reasonable model, the people of South Australia through their government, the people of Tasmania through their government, I think it’s a pretty good model for the NT to get behind as well.
I want better schools and I want better opportunities for kids like these here in the Territory.