PRIME MINISTER:
It was terrific to arrive here at RAAF base Edinburgh today in one of the Royal Australia Air Force’s Wedgetail aircraft. This a highly sophisticated airborne early warning and control aircraft; a very important part of our military capability and, of course, amongst other things today I confirm that $78 million will be spent over the next few years on continuing support work for our AEW&C aircraft. Here at RAAF base Edinburgh, we will be basing in the years to come the Triton unmanned surveillance aircraft. This will be, again, a very important part of our future military capability. It will complement the Poseidon P8 aircraft whose purchase I announced a few weeks ago in Canberra. This is essentially a defence announcement, not a regional assistance announcement, but nevertheless when we do have enhanced defence equipment, where we do have enhanced defence capabilities there are inevitably and always economic spinoffs for the area that's hosting them. There will be $100 million worth of additional work largely here at RAAF base Edinburgh to enable the Tritons to operate out of this base.
This is good news for South Australia. I'm pleased to be joined today by my South Australian colleague, the Leader, Steven Marshall and I am hopeful of being able to work constructively with Steven Marshall as premier after Saturday. As the leader of our nation, I want to work constructively with all of the Premiers and Chief Ministers regardless of their political persuasions, but I do note that Steven wants to work constructively with the Commonwealth; the incumbent Premier thinks that his role is to fight with the Commonwealth. Well I think the Australian people want better than that. I think the South Australian people want better than that. They expect their leaders, their state leader and their national leader to work constructively together like adults and that certainly is what I am looking forward to after Saturday.
STEVEN MARSHALL:
Thank you Prime Minister. Can I just say a welcome to Adelaide again, the second visit in the last week. We appreciate your interest in South Australia. We certainly appreciate your interest in the defence sector and our capability here in South Australia. We’ve built that capability over many decades, we’re very proud of it. It’s a very significant industry for our state and as I’ve mentioned to you on all of our meetings we want to work very constructively with the Commonwealth to bring some of those defence contracts here to South Australia, they’re very important to our future as a state.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, if you want adult conversations with future governments are you saying that’s why Jay Weatherill wasn’t invited today?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we’re in the middle of an election campaign and Mr Weatherill’s whole basis for re-election is that he wants to have a fight with Canberra. I don’t want to stage a fight today, I want to have an announcement today and I would like to make the announcement with someone who wants to work with the Commonwealth rather than with someone who wants to fight with the Commonwealth.
QUESTION:
Aren’t you effectively having a fight by inviting a Liberal Opposition leader instead of a sitting Premier as protocol would generally dictate?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we are in an election campaign and in an election campaign the caretaker conventions dictate that the Premier and the alternative premier are of equal status. There is one of the two who wants to work constructively with the Commonwealth, the other of the two wants to fight with the Commonwealth. The last thing I want to do is to see a deliberate, wilful picking of fights. That’s not what I’m in the business of. I’m in the business of working constructively with whoever happens to be the premier. One of the candidates for the premiership wants to work constructively with me, the other wants to fight with me and as far as I can work out and I’ve been in South Australia quite a lot over the last few years, South Australians want a premier who will work with Canberra, not a premier who will fight with Canberra.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, are you committed to the repeal of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act and would you consider a replacement clause for that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, we’re committed to precisely honouring our election promises. We are committed to the commitments that we made to the people before the election and we were quite careful before the election in saying that we absolutely supported free speech. We believe that in any robust democracy, sometimes free speech would be hurtful to some people, some people are inevitably going to dislike a robust debate. They are going to be upset, offended, insulted perhaps by robust debate and that's just the price you pay for free speech. So because of that, we said that we were very committed to the repeal of Section18C in its current form. That was the position we took into the election and that's the commitment we will be implementing shortly.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, the defence industry’s pretty chuffed with this announcement, but what they really want is some word on the subs or on a fourth Air Warfare Destroyer. Can you give them any kind of reassurance that that’s coming sooner rather than later?
PRIME MINISTER:
Ok, Tory, we make defence decisions on the basis of defence imperatives, not on the basis of industry assistance imperatives or regional assistance imperatives. So we’re not looking at defence as some kind of job creation programme, we’re looking at defence as a defence of the nation programme and I think it is important to make that absolutely crystal clear. That said, as Steven Marshall has just indicated, South Australia has a very high level of expertise when it comes to defence manufacturing, when it comes to defence support. Again, for years now, we’ve been saying that work on the future generation of submarines would centre on the South Australian shipyards. So I want to make that crystal clear, just as we said before the election, so we will do after the election, we will ensure that work on the future submarines centres on the South Australian shipyards.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, do you embrace user pays for infrastructure development?
PRIME MINISTER:
User pays has long been an important part of road infrastructure and infrastructure more generally. There are right around Australia a number of toll roads. Heavy vehicles pay for the infrastructure they use, in some cases more than pay for the infrastructure that they use with the registration fees that they pay. So, yes, I do support an element of user pays when it comes to road infrastructure. I understand that there is some suggestion in a report that might be released today about putting GPS equipment into every car. That certainly is a novel suggestion by Australian standards and it's not something that this Government is considering.
QUESTION:
Ken Henry has suggested that the GST will need to be increased and also that you’ll be limited in terms of spending on social programmes without further tax reform. How do you respond to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, Ken Henry is a distinguished retired federal public servant. He’s a distinguished former Secretary of the Treasury. He deserves to be listened to with respect, but they're just private views of a private citizen and we have a tax reform programme and tax reform begins with repeal of the carbon tax, repeal of the mining tax, reduction of the company tax. These are the tax reforms that are currently before the Senate and I call on the Labor Party to stop siding with the Greens and against the people. Accept that the people voted to repeal the carbon tax and the mining tax and let the Government get on with the job.
QUESTION:
Are you proposing a new levy for the paid parental leave scheme? How confident are you that the next Senate will pass your scheme?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, again, we have a very clear mandate. This wasn't just a policy that the Coalition took to the 2013 election, it was the policy that we took to the 2010 election. This is a policy to which I am personally very committed. It wasn't something that I dreamt up on International Women's Day 2010, it was something that I had written about extensively in my book Battlelines quite some time before I became the Leader of the Coalition in Canberra. The other important thing to remember about paid parental leave is this is an economic reform because it will boost participation; it will boost productivity by keeping more of our most effective workers in the workforce at a critical time in their lives. So, this is not just a social policy. It’s not just a family policy. It’s an important economic policy and if we are serious about making the most of all of our people, if we’re serious about giving all of our people the opportunity to be economic contributors as well as social and cultural contributors, this reform is an idea whose time has come.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, this reform needs to be negotiated through the Parliament so what will you be willing to concede and do you concede that you will have to renegotiate some parts of it or not get it through at all?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I’ll be taking to the Parliament the policy that we took to the election. I will be taking to the Parliament the policy that we took to the election and my expectation is that the Parliament will respect the mandate that the Government has; will respect the fact that we took this to the people, not just in 2013, but in 2010 which is obviously a pretty big sign of our commitment to the policy.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, aren’t you ignoring the political reality though of the Senate? The Greens for one have indicated that they’re probably most likely to negotiate, but they want a cap at $100,000. Will you look at that proposal?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the point I’ll be making to anyone who comes to me with alternatives, is that if you’re a Commonwealth public servant, if you’re a Member of Parliament, if you are a political staffer, you get paid parental leave at your wage and if your wage is $100,000 you get paid at that rate, if your wage is $200,000 you get paid at that rate, if your wage is $300,000 you get paid at that rate.
Now, if it’s good for Commonwealth public servants, if it’s good for politicians, if it’s good for Members of Parliament’s staff, why shouldn’t it be good for the rest of the Australian population?
QUESTION:
The ABS has announced jobs statistics today – six per cent, so, steady at a national level, but a 0.1 per cent increase in South Australia. Do you take that as a sign that a lot more needs to be done to decrease unemployment?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I certainly take this is an important spur to further economic reform. Plainly unemployment at 6 per cent is much higher than we would like it and plainly if we want to see more people employed we’ve got to get taxes down, we’ve got to get regulation down and this just makes me more determined than ever to get our tax reform package through the Senate – to get rid of the carbon tax which is a tax on jobs, to get rid of the mining tax which is a tax on investment, to get rid of unnecessary red-tape which strangles the businesses upon whom people are relying for their employment.
I do point out though that it was forecast that under the Labor Party’s policies unemployment would be about 6.25 per cent at this stage, so while I’m not in any way satisfied with today’s figures – I’m deeply dissatisfied with today’s figures – they are a little better than was forecast to happen under Labor.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, can you clarify the North-South Corridor, the level of Federal funding, can you clarify what that would be for the entire route? And you’ve talked about toll roads, would you see toll roads in South Australia as being a way of fixing the problem?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, in the end it would be up to the state government of the day to decide whether these roads were tolled or not. Our commitment is half a billion dollars towards the Darlington upgrade and we are happy to make commitments of a similar order to similar upgrades in the future. We want to work with the state government, hand-in-hand, to try to ensure that the full North-South upgrade takes place within a decade. This is a project that’s been talked about for 40 years and not much of it’s been done – let’s get cracking, let’s give the people of South Australia the decent roads that they need to drive on.
QUESTION:
Lateline had a story last night about a number of Aboriginal people who have been locked up without being convicted of crimes because they’re unfit to plead. There was a woman in jail in Kalgoorlie for 18 months because she had suffered foetal alcohol syndrome. What are your views about that matter?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I haven’t seen the programme. I’m seeking advice on the issue and I’d rather not comment until I’ve got the advice.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, are you concerned about reports that the National Rental Affordability Scheme has been used to provide housing to foreign students rather than people on low incomes?
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s typical of the incompetence and the untrustworthiness that we, alas, had too much of from the former government.
I’m all in favour of trying to ensure that we make housing available to people on low incomes and I support intelligent policies to make that happen. But plainly this NRAS – National Rental Affordability Scheme – programme hasn’t worked as planned and proof of that is the fact that the Queensland government changed the rules once they knew what was happening to ensure that this kind of unintended consequence was ruled out.
QUESTION:
Both John Howard and Peter Costello have reportedly backed Martin Parkinson and in fact given him a glowing assessment. Do you stand by your decision to dump Mr Parkinson and can I also ask for your reaction to Ken Henry’s comment that it was an attempt for you to appoint someone who would be of a more comfortable political character?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look, I’m not going to respond to comments that other people have made because my argument is with the Labor Party, not with members of the community.
I simply want to say that Martin Parkinson has been a very distinguished public servant for many, many years now. I think he is doing a fine job as the Head of Treasury and I look forward to continuing for some time to work with him.
But you’ve got to understand that incoming governments do very much want to place their stamp on the economic policy of the country and that’s exactly what we are doing – we are placing our stamp on the economic policy of the country. Let there be no doubt that Australia’s policy direction changed very substantially back in September of last year. Australia, at the official level, went from being a high tax, high regulating government to being a low tax, deregulated government. That’s a very, very big change and we expect everyone in the system to be working enthusiastically with us as we re-shape our country to provide more jobs and greater prosperity for all.
That’s one of the reasons why I’m so pleased to be here with Steven Marshall today. Steven Marshall and I want to do essentially the same thing: we want to get taxes down, we want to get regulation down, we want to get prosperity up and employment up and we trust the people of our country – the people of this state – we trust their creativity, their ingenuity. We know that what the people of this state and this country need is not a hand out but a hand up and the best hand up you can give them is to get taxes down and regulation down.
Thank you so much.
[ends]