PM: It’s great to be here with the Mayor of Mackay and also our candidate for this terrific seat of Dawson, Bronwyn Taha.
And Bronwyn, I know, lives in Proserpine with her husband Darren and you’ve got two kids, so you’re pretty well connected to this local community. I’m told, according to my notes here, you’re a member of the Midge Point Branch of the SES?
BRONWYN TAHA, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR DAWSON: Yes, I am a proud member.
PM: There you go. So, serious SES work over here. If you get in strife ring your local Labor candidate. No, dial the right number actually.
This is my fourteenth visit to Mackay as Prime Minister. That’s quite a lot. So I said to the coppers coming in, I think I’ve been to Mackay more than any other regional centre in Queensland.
It’s a terrific place. I remember, when I’ve come here before, that beautiful spot to stay near the Marina, and the fantastic walk you’ve got there as well.
But it’s a dynamic regional economy. Of course, you’ve got the huge mining developments in the hinterland, but it’s a great city and regional services centre as well.
What we’re here to talk about today is an investment in, of course, local sporting infrastructure.
I would’ve loved to be up here for the opening of this and I just wasn’t able, physically, to make it. But thank you to those who tried to invite me.
But why I’m so passionate about this sort of investment in regional Australian centres and cities is because it develops team sports.
It develops our regional sporting culture. It develops and trains the football players of the future.
And these young kids we’ve seen running out here today, you’ve probably seen one or two of them will be playing State of Origin in the future.
And because they’re going to get all that encouragement of playing on a good field, with a great stadium, that attracts the best players from around the region and around the state.
Of course it’s not just this investment – which is $11.3 million – to the Mackay regional economy; just over this way we’ve got the Indoor Basketball Stadium, and that is an investment of a further $6 or $7 million.
And that’s going to be home to the Mackay Meteors and the Meteorettes. There you go.
And what I love about Queensland centres, having grown up in one myself, is the way they encourage local people to get involved in team sport, and provide a great atmosphere and environment for kids to reach their best and excel and to go on to high levels of competition.
If you look at our State of Origin teams and our big teams in the NRL, so many of them come from regional centres around Australia, particularly in Queensland.
And I think it’s a tribute to communities and clubs like this one, and the Mackay Cutters, that you’ve produced such great players in the past.
But the other thing I’d say is this: in our commitment to this region, centred in Mackay, we don’t just come here and talk about things. We do things. And I’m proud of that fact.
I was looking at the list as I came in just now. We’ve invested about $130 million in local schools; we’ve built 53 new school libraries in this region.
That’s a lot of libraries, and that’s to make sure our kids have the best opportunities for the future.
We have built five new science and language centres. We’ve built four new Trades Training Centres in this region, benefitting nine secondary schools across the electorate of Dawson.
We’ve put nearly 6000 computers into the high schools in this community, so there’s no digital divide between kids growing up in Mackay and kids growing up in any other part of Australia.
And here’s my one point about education in the future.
Right now we’re trying to roll out a Better Schools Plan for Australia.
We’ve got New South Wales to sign on, we’ve got South Australia to sign on, we’ve got Tasmania to sign on; we’ve got the Independent Schools Association of Australia to sign on.
Now I saw the Premier of Queensland last week in the hope we’d get Queensland to sign on as well. And I hope he does.
Because here’s the benefit: if we get agreement on this, it’s a further $3.8 billion investment into Queensland schools over the next six years.
And so that’s $3.8 billion extra. That’s huge.
Let me give you an example. Mackay State High, under this plan, would receive $9.8 million in public funding – additional – over the next six years.
That’s an increase of 54 per cent. These are massive increases.
Why are we doing it? We’re doing it because we want the kids who grow up in these schools and are educated in these schools to have great opportunities.
If they are falling behind – either in primary school or high school – then we want to have resources in the school so that a kid can be taken out of a class and get specialist attention to bring them back into the mainstream.
Most of us have had kids at some stage or another who we think are ahead of the class or a bit behind, actually.
And the best thing to make a parent feel better about it is to make sure that when that happens, there is enough resources for a tutor to come in, take the kid off a couple of hours a day, three or four days a week, bring them back on literacy and numeracy and that sort of thing.
That’s what these resources are for. It’s designed to produce better schools and better education outcomes for our kids and to make sure that all of our schools lift their performance.
That’s why we’re requiring schools to develop their own performance plans which then become public, and transparent, and available to the community.
So that you know where the school was before and how it’s improving against each of these defined measures.
On health, we’ve invested also some $15 million to James Cook University, including funding for the University’s Clinical School, and I understand that’s been a successful investment as well.
Townsville and Mackay Medicare Local has been invested in as well, to provide flexible referral services for people, often out of hours.
If I could also refer to the National Broadband Network, where we have some 10,700 homes and businesses in and around Mackay, in this region, where the fibre network is under construction or complete.
And by mid-2016, we’ve have approximately 35,600 either under construction or completed.
Now, people often ask me what does the NBN mean. For regional cities like Mackay, it’s a huge difference.
It means it helps us overcome the tyranny of distance, which is really important, because if you’re here and you’ve got to go everywhere else in order to business, what the NBN does is you can have live, immediate video conferencing, there and then, with anybody in Australia.
And if you’re designing this stadium you could be sitting here in Mackay, talking to the architect – whoever they are, the designer in Whoop-Whoop, talking about the plan online, with all of the technology, every single detail, pumped down the tube.
And you can say we want this change to that, this change to that, and do it in 15 minutes, as opposed to teams of people flying backwards and forwards. That’s what it’s about.
Or if it’s in the case of medicine, and a Mackay-based hospital, you might need a specialist cardiologist who deals with one particular heart condition.
There might only be five in Australia, but you’ve got someone who is suffering from that condition here.
Through the NBN, by linking the hospitals around the country, you’re going to be able to have immediate diagnostics undertaken down the line, with a specialist cardiologist in Melbourne who says, ‘I know that condition, this is the symptomatology, this is what you need to do in terms of a surgical procedure, and by the way, don’t prescribe these drugs’.
And similarly with education – let’s take Mackay State High School.
The language they teach there – I’m sure they teach a foreign language – they’ll be able to have real-time communication with a school in France, Germany, Japan, China, wherever they’re learning that language. Like, right on screen, in time.
And so they can exchange language classes with each other.
It’s about bringing the world together, and therefore overcoming the tyranny of distance.
And so, as a kid who grew up in a regional town – Nambour, much closer to Brisbane than you folks – I know how important it is to be able to be connected.
And this is designed to break down the walls of geographical separation.
People can live here for the wonderful quality of life that you’ve got, but then they can also communicate directly and do business around the world.
Good for business, good for families, good for schools, good for hospitals, good for healthcare.
Finally, this is going to be an interesting old election.
We in the Government, in order to have the best voice possible for Mackay and this region, we are looking forward very much to having Bronwyn join us in Canberra.
Now, whatever your politics here at a gathering like this, I would like her very much to be on our team and so that her voice in the future can bring arguments, such as the one I had before for a stadium like this, so that we can get behind and partner with the Mackay Regional Council.
JOURNALIST: Are you coming here to announce funding for the ongoing operations of the stadium?
I’m not sure whether you’re aware but it has hit financial trouble and is a project that you funded in the 2007 campaign. Will you fund its ongoing operation?
PM: What I’ve just run through is probably something in the order of about $300 or $400 million investment in recent times.
The reason I’m also here, on what is a flying visit, is to actually sit down with the council in a minute because I want to hear what they’ve got to say about their priorities for future investment in this region.
What I do, whenever I go to a regional centre – whether it’s Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, whether it’s Rocky or Gladstone or anywhere else – is to sit down with the council, sit down with the mayor, listen to them carefully about their priorities, usually talk to the local chamber of commerce, have a chat to the local newspaper editor, to see what the hell’s going on and what where we can productively assist.
So no, I’m not here with a specific flagship announcement on anything. I’m here to celebrate what we’ve done, I think you’d appreciate it’s a good thing.
JOURNALIST: But if it goes broke it’s no good to anyone really.
PM: Oh so you don’t like it?
JOURNALIST: No, I’m not saying that.
PM: Okay that’s good; this one actually likes it, that’s good to hear that. I’m here to listen to what the council says. And that’s the right thing to do.
I believe in actually being consultative about these things.
And to hear that’s a priority – and when I’ve been here before they wanted this thing – that’s good. They said they wanted that down there. It’s being built.
When I look at all the schools in this area I see we’ve actually built libraries. Have you found a local P&C or P&F at one of your local schools who doesn’t like their new school library? Didn’t think so.
That’s $131 million worth of investment. So I listen to what the locals have to say through the council.
JOURNALIST: But if the council does feel that they need financial assistance, is that something that you’ll – that the Federal Government – may be able to do?
PM: Well, as you can see from the list of stuff we’ve done, we have a pretty good cooperative relationship with the council here.
We’ve done so in the past, I don’t see why we wouldn’t do so in the future.
But I’m all about priorities. Each one here around this community would have a list of 20 different priorities about what is needed in this area.
I bet your Local Government – and I’ve had uncles who have been mayors themselves over the years, usually National Party mayors by the way in my case – is they actually have a feel for what the real distillation of priorities is.
That’s why I take it seriously.
All that I’m saying is, I’m here for a brief time – a very brief time – but I want to listen. But also celebrate some of the stuff that we’ve done.
JOURNALIST: Talking about priorities, obviously Tony Abbott was in town this morning talking about his plan for the Bruce Highway. What’s your response for his plan for it being bigger and better?
PM: Well I think, what I know about the good people of Mackay and of Queensland is that they prefer to see a record of action rather than a pile of rhetoric.
So what’s our record of action?
We have invested $5.8 billion in the Bruce Highway. Four times more than occurred under the Howard Government, of which he was a Minister. Four times more.
So I saw Mr Abbott say earlier somewhere that yes, this Government had invested a little bit more.
But when I went to school in Eumundi, four times more was 400 per cent more. And 400 per cent is not a little bit; it’s actually quite a big bit.
So that’s the record. Anyone doubt the record? Anyone challenging it? Because when he was asked this question today he said yes after the third question: this Government had funded more in the Bruce.
And as for the future, our plans are costed, they are consulted with the local regional councils, and in this neck of the woods we’ve also been working on the upgrade of the Bruce southern approach to Mackay, with federal funding of $50 million.
So $50 million there.
I’ve just been in Gladstone, a project of about $150 million which is the Calliope Crossroads.
I’ve just been, also, up in Cairns, a very large project in the Bruce and its southern approaches to Cairns.
We’ve invested something like $400 million in recent times constructing a massive series of road works around Townsville.
You know what we’re doing with the Bruce? We have a strategic plan whereby each of the major regional centres – we start with the centre and we move out to make sure where most of the traffic accidents occur, which is on the approaches to towns, cities either side – we tackle those first.
The long term plan, as I said elsewhere this week, is that I want to see a dual carriageway from Melbourne to Cairns.
I want to see – I’ve seen on the Hume what’s now been built on the Pacific – and I now want to see on the Bruce.
But it’s got to be funded, and it’s got to be real. And if Mr Abbott suddenly discovered the Bruce Highway, where was he for 12 years?
And by the way, there’s a bloke just down the road there called Warren Truss. He was the Transport Minister in the Howard Government.
He had plenty of time to work on the Bruce. He’s a local fella. But they managed to spend only 25 per cent of what we’ve committed. I’ll let locals work out the mathematics of that.
JOURNALIST: Will you be reviewing how much is actually on the table from the Federal Government for the Bruce?
PM: As long as there’s some appropriate recognition from good folk in the local community about what has happened, then as I’ve said before we will always keep open our future policy considerations on road infrastructure across the nation, consistent with budget discipline.
This council works to a budget discipline, we work to a budget discipline, and I’ve been very disciplined in the past about what we’re going to invest in here.
All of these things have been budgeted for, including the Bruce Highway upgrade which is occurring to the southern approaches of Mackay here.
JOURNALIST: Mr Abbott committed to construction Stage One of the Ring Road this morning. Will you commit to the same thing?
PM: I believe in taking these things methodically, step by step. And that’s why I’m here to talk to the council.
It’s all very good to pull one thing out of the sky after another and say we might do it, and all the commitments that we’ve made in the 12 years they had to act before – but nothing happened.
The thing is, I’ll listen to the council, I’ve talked to Minister Albanese, who has undertaken the single biggest investment in the Bruce Highway of any Australian Government ever.
And we, therefore, are strong partners in the future of the Bruce.
Our record and the runs are on the board, and we look forward to being partners in the future.
Any other local questions before I have a chat to the council?
JOUNRLAIST: (Inaudible)
PM: I’d say that number one, if you look to what we’ve done with the new carbon price, through the emissions trading scheme, the carbon price has just been reduced from $26 a tonne to $6 a tonne.
Secondly, for families up here in Mackay, what does that mean?
It means that under this scheme, that you will end up having average families $380 a year better off. Under Mr Abbott’s scheme, you’ll have people $1200 a year worse off.
If you’re concerned about cost of living pressures up here in Mackay and this part of Queensland, I think people will focus on that.
And as for industry, of course we’ll continue to support industry in their adjustments.
The other thing I’d draw your attention to is: you’ve just spoken about the mines over there. If we go in the other direction we have the reef.
And the Great Barrier Reef is pretty important to us. And because of that, we’re acting on climate change.
We don’t hold a view that climate change is crap.
That’s what Mr Abbott has said his view of climate change is. Quote, unquote. His words, not mine.
Because if you don’t work on climate change nationally and internationally, the reef won’t be here for our kids or our grandkids.
That’s the problem.
And so we’re acting on this is a responsible way. We brought in a renewable energy target of 20 per cent, we have an emissions trading scheme, and on top of that we’ve ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
And so we believe you can do that and still be sensitive to cost of living pressures, support industry in their adjustment, and do the right thing by the reef for the future in a balanced way.
Looking after the reef, supporting our industries. That’s our approach for the future.
[ENDS]