PRIME MINISTER:
It’s good to be here at the Mater Hospital. The Mater is one of Australia’s finest hospitals. It has a long tradition of outstanding medical care and pastoral care. It's really good to be here with my friend and colleague, the Minister for Health, Peter Dutton, to provide cancer patients with the certainty of funding for chemotherapy infusion drugs through Christmas and ongoing.
It's very important that people who are receiving treatment for serious illness are confident that that treatment is going to continue and unfortunately the former government had failed to fund chemotherapy infusions past 1st January. They were leaving patients in limbo over Christmas and so we are cleaning up this particular Labor mess and that, if I may so has been a bit of a motif of our Government over the last ten weeks or so. We are grappling with the record that Labor left behind it. We are cleaning up Labor's mess, whether it be chemotherapy funding, whether it be the $1.2 billion ripped out of schools just before the election, whether it be the NBN white elephant, whether it be the disaster on our borders, whether it be the debt limit problem, above all else the carbon tax. We are cleaning up Labor's mess.
As you know, Parliament is coming back for the final fortnight of the year on Monday and there is a real challenge here for the Leader of the Opposition. He must not stay in denial over the election result and the best thing that he can do for the people of Australia this Christmas is give them a $550 a year per household benefit by not opposing the carbon tax repeal legislation. If Mr Shorten persists in opposing the carbon tax repeal legislation, there are a couple of important consequences for him, never again will he be able to accuse the Government of breaking a commitment because he will be standing in the way of us keeping the most fundamental commitment of all, namely to repeal the carbon tax. Never again will he be able to accuse the Government of making it difficult for families, because he will be standing in the way of us giving the greatest benefit for families of all, namely the repeal of the carbon tax.
So I'm looking forward to the final sitting fortnight of the year. I'm looking forward to getting on with the job of implementing our commitments and responding intelligently to the developments of the day, but there's a real challenge here for the Opposition – stop being government change deniers and actually allow the Parliament to do what the people asked it to do and repeal the carbon tax.
I'm going to ask Peter Dutton to say a few words and obviously then I will take some questions.
MINISTER DUTTON:
Thanks very much, Prime Minister. Firstly, thank you very much to John and all the staff here, thank you very much to the patients that we saw as well. It's only been two-and-a-half months since the election but Labor's bad legacy will last for many years and perhaps one of the worst decisions of the former Labor government was to provide inadequate funding for chemotherapy services in our country. The announcement that the Prime Minister and I make today will benefit 150,000 Australians, but many millions of Australians will benefit otherwise because the families, the carers were facing a Christmas with uncertainty and for the former government to stop the funding adequacy on the 31st of December, it may have been a tricky political stunt to try and set this Government up, but we have cleaned this Labor mess up and we are providing certainty to those families, not just through Christmas but into the New Year as well.
I want to thank all of those thousands of patients who have contacted their local members of Parliament right around the country with their anger at the former Labor government's mess in this area. We have moved very quickly over the course of the last two months to work out the best way forward to provide certainty to chemotherapy patients and in the announcement today we deliver that certainty. There are many other areas that Labor has messed up, particularly in the health portfolio. We are working methodically through those issues so that we can provide a better more stable and sustainable health system for all Australians in the years ahead and I thank very much the Prime Minister for his personal intervention and interest in this area to get certainty for patients over Christmas. We will make sure that we can deliver into the future with a sustainable health system. It's a number one priority of this Government.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, on Qantas, can you rule out the Government going back into the airline business?
PRIME MINISTER:
What I want to do is ensure that we have a strong and competitive Qantas in a vigorously competitive aviation market. That’s what I want to do. Now there are a number of proposals that are being debated in the community. Let's see where that debate goes. The Government doesn't have to make a decision today or tomorrow or next week on this. The important thing is to carefully consider the various proposals that are before us and do what's best for taxpayers, what's best for aviation consumers and what's best for great Australian companies like Qantas.
QUESTION:
The Assistant Treasurer has described providing financial help to airlines as a pandora’s box. Do you share his hesitation?
PRIME MINISTER:
It's very important that we try to ensure that we take the burdens off business. That's the first job of Government, not to prop businesses up, but to take the burdens off business and this is why it's so important to repeal the carbon tax because the carbon tax is adding tens of millions of dollars to Qantas’s costs and if the Labor Party are fair dinkum about trying to help companies like Qantas, they would not stand in the way of the carbon tax repeal legislation.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, you just spoke about cleaning up the mess. Are you going to personally intervene to clean up the mess on education?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's a mess that we have inherited from the Labor Party, because Labor ripped $1.2 billion out of schools funding in the pre-election fiscal outlook. Just a few weeks before polling day, Labor quietly ripped $1.2 billion out of school funding, as admitted finally, by the Shadow Treasurer just the other day. Now we are putting some of that money back in. We can't put it all back in, given the fiscal emergency that we face. But nevertheless we are putting $230 million that Labor ripped out, back in. There will be $230 million more for schools next year under the Coalition than would have been the case under Labor.
QUESTION:
PM, yesterday Adrian Piccoli seemed to suggest that he would take the Government to court if the Gonski deal was abandoned. What do you make of that and are you concerned that there could be legal action over this issue?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I'm not. Because I am confident what we are doing is the right thing by the States, by all of the States collectively and the right thing by the students of Australia. We need a school funding system which is national and fair. It was neither national, nor fair under the former government – yet again more of Labor's messes that the Coalition is carefully and methodically moving to fix.
QUESTION:
Why is everyone against you? It seems that almost every State and Territory thinks you are doing the wrong thing?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think that if you were to talk to Western Australia, if you were to talk to Queensland, if you were talk to the Northern Territory – all of which were the victims of Labor’s $1.2 billion smash and grab raid on schools, they would say thank God there is now a Government in place which wants a system, which is both national and fair. That is what we will get. We will get a fair and national system from a Government which is more than keeping its commitments. Our commitment, our pre-election commitment was to maintain the same quantum of funding over the next four years as Labor put in. We are actually doing better than that. We are putting an extra $230 million in there so that next year, schools will get either what Labor promised or what Labor offered and then ripped off.
QUESTION:
Will public schools be first on the hit list if there are cuts in the sector as the Ministers from around the States and Territories claim Mr Pyne suggested yesterday.
PRIME MINISTER:
Alex, you are using loaded language there. We are putting money into schools. Under the former government, originally there was $2.8 billion going in, $2.8 billion more going in. Then they ripped $1.2 billion out without telling anyone before the election. We are going to put some of that money back so there will in fact be $1.83 billion more under us going forward and there will be $230 million more under us than there would have been under the Labor Government had it been returned.
QUESTION:
That is being seen as a broken election promise?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it isn't. It just isn’t.
QUESTION:
You are not breaking the promise?
PRIME MINISTER:
This is a Government which will always keep its commitments. We understand that one of the things that bedevilled the former government was the breach of trust over the carbon tax. We will absolutely keep our commitments and our commitment was to have the same quantum of funding for schools over the four years coming that the Labor Party have put forward. In fact we are doing better than that. We are putting $230 million in of the $1.2 billion that Labor ripped out.
QUESTION:
Have you replied to Barry O'Farrell's letter on this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm in constant dialogue with my Coalition colleagues and…
QUESTION:
[inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
…and that's an ongoing dialogue.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, we’re entering December. A lot of people getting ready to do their Christmas shopping. What is your message to Australian consumers this year? Should they be looking to buy locally and support Australian [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER:
I hope that consumers are going into Christmas with confidence. We are a great country and a great people and we have now got a Government which is doing its best to keep its commitments and to clean up the mess which we inherited from our predecessor. Now, the point I keep making is that as far as I'm concerned, Australia is very much under new management and open for business and we want to encourage Australians to spend responsibly, to invest responsibly, to employ responsibly, because that's what helps to build the better society that all of us want and deserve.
QUESTION:
Have you had more of a chance to consider the Greens’ proposal to abandon the debt ceiling altogether?
PRIME MINISTER:
The problem that we have inherited is Labor's debt that was skyrocketing to way beyond $400 billion. Now this is the mess that we have inherited when it comes to debt. A previous Government which inherited $50 billion in the bank, that's what they inherited from the Howard-Costello Government, they inherited $50 billion in the bank and because of the spending spree that was begun by Kevin Rudd and continued by Julia Gillard, our gross debt is skyrocketing way beyond $400 billion. Now, the $300 billion debt limit on Treasury’s own figures is going to be breached in December. So we have got to deal with this. We have got to deal with this and the Government will. We will deal with it.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, in regards to GrainCorp, your former ministerial colleague described it as a shocking and disappointing decision that will have political and economic repercussions. What’s your response?
PRIME MINISTER:
I want to absolutely stress that Australia is open for business. So far the Treasurer has dealt with 131 major foreign investment applications and 130 of them have been approved. So far, the Minister for the Environment has provided environmental approvals for $160 billion worth of major projects. So with 130 out of 131 foreign investment proposals being approved with $160 billion worth of new projects getting an environmental go ahead, this is a country which is open for business and this is one of the many reasons why consumers should approach Christmas with confidence.
QUESTION:
Were these patients not going to have chemotherapy?
PRIME MINISTER:
The problem under the former government was that the funding ran out on the 31st of December – the funding to ensure that pharmacists were able to dispense these very important chemotherapy infusions. Now as part of cleaning up Labor's mess, we have put $82 million into the system to ensure that 150,000 cancer patients have got the certainty they need that their treatment can continue. I'm very pleased to have been able to work so closely with Minister Dutton on this.
QUESTION:
Were they not going to have chemotherapy?
PRIME MINISTER:
There was no funding for the dispensing, there was no funding set aside for the dispensing of that treatment. The former government's funding for the dispensing of chemotherapy infusions ran out on the 31st December. We are continuing that funding and we are giving cancer patients and their families the certainty that they need and deserve that treatment can continue.
QUESTION:
How long will that funding be over for, what period of time?
PRIME MINISTER:
We are determined to ensure that never again do cancer patients face this kind of uncertainty and I'm delighted that we have been able to resolve this issue and ensure that cancer patients and their families can have the best possible Christmas. Thank you.
[ends]