PRIME MINISTER:
It’s terrific to be here at Marist Youth Care to help launch the Forrest Report. I hope that today is a new dawn for indigenous people. I think this is a potential watershed for Australia more generally. I want to thank Andrew Forrest for his extraordinary energy and commitment, the insights and the passion that he has brought to this task.
It is so important that when it comes to indigenous communities the kids go to school, the adults go to work and communities are safe. All of the recommendations in the Forrest Review are about trying to ensure that we do get the kids to school, that we do get the adults into work and therefore that communities will be much safer than they are at the present time.
It’s a big, bold and brave report, but frankly, we should be prepared to have big dreams, and one of the reasons why Andrew Forrest has succeeded is because he has had big dreams. One of the reasons why our country has succeeded is because enough of us have had big dreams and we’ve worked to make them happen.
So, I’m very pleased and proud to be here with Andrew today and I might ask him to speak to his report.
ANDREW FORREST:
Thank you, Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen, it does take a brave Government to commission such a review, I am trusting that the leaders of our Opposition will also go completely bipartisan on this. I have met their objectives – this is not a blunderbuss approach, this has been put out to the community. It does not in any way offend the Racial Discrimination Act and it is policies which don’t have to stop at the feet of indigenous people. I’ve introduced to the Prime Minister and to our, I think very good Government, what is effectively a machine and there will be the temptation to pull the spark plug out, maybe pull a five wheel off or even a cylinder, but of course, the engine then won’t work. This is, and the experts have studied the review with me and said, this will end the disparity. But in that process, it asks all Australians to come on that journey. I ask all Australians to join the journey to end the disparity, protect Australia’s most vulnerable people, make our community safer and join the courage of our Prime Minister to have commissioned this review and challenge our Government to now implement it. I thank you.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, Andrew Forrest says that in order for these measures to work you can’t cherry-pick from them. Are you ruling out expanding a form of income quarantining?
PRIME MINISTER:
We have no plans to expand welfare quarantining as widely as Andrew is recommending, but welfare quarantining has been in place for quite some time.
It began in the remote communities of the Northern Territory as part of the intervention back in 2007. It was expanded by the former Labor government to all long-term unemployment beneficiaries in the Northern Territory, regardless of their race or culture or location. It was subsequently trialled in a number of areas in Western Australia and elsewhere. So, while we are not currently planning the breadth of expansion that Andrew is recommending, I certainly don’t rule out wider quarantining in the months and years ahead.
One of the beauties of this card which Andrew is asking us to work towards is that it’s not only something that could make it easier to have welfare quarantining, it could also be something that people could actually embrace voluntarily as a way of better budgeting for their own personal circumstances. It could easily be something that could be embraced as a form of household income management along the lines of what Noel Pearson has been trying to encourage people to do in Cape York. So, you shouldn’t see this recommendation of Andrew’s as in any way some kind of a punitive thing; it’s actually an opportunity for people to ensure that the income that they are deriving from the taxpayer is as effectively and efficiently deployed for the benefit of them and their families as possible.
ANDREW FORREST:
Just with respect, I’d really like us all to remove from our lexicon what I’ve heard that this is ‘wide income management’ this is ‘welfare quarantining’. It’s really nothing of the sort. This card gives you complete freedom. You can buy whatever you like with it. We’re just simply asking the Australian people: should the hard-earned dollars of taxpayers be used to also buy alcohol and illicit drugs? It’s with that question that we’re introducing a mainstream financial product which I would recommend be issued by the banks, be welcomed by all retailers, but it just assists people to make proper decisions. It’s a mainstream financial, normal debit card. It’s not quarantining, it’s not income management and I know there’s been some scare tactics around that, but it’s nothing of the sort. It’s just a simple credit card which encourages people to make better short-term choices.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, so that is something you addressed in a speech in 2011 saying that this type of quarantining is justified because people should have the right to know where their taxpayer dollars are going and also that what’s right for the Northern Territory should be right for the rest of Australia. Are you changing your mind on any of those issues?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it’s very important that we try to ensure that as far as is humanly possible, taxpayers’ dollars are being appropriately spent. That’s why the Howard government, back in 2007, first introduced welfare quarantining in the remote communities of the Northern Territory, that’s why the Rudd/Gillard government expanded a form of welfare quarantining to long-term unemployed people in the Northern Territory, why it was further expanded under the former government. But, I stress, this is about trying to ensure that people have better lives. It’s very easy to generate a ‘shock horror’ headline, but that doesn’t actually help the debate. What we need to do is calmly, coolly and compassionately consider what can we do to try to ensure that people, particularly in difficult community circumstances, are better assisted to lift themselves and to lift their families out of the welfare culture and into the economic mainstream of our community. That’s what Andrew’s report is all about.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, can you identify one specific initiative in the Forrest Report which you will implement by the end of this term of Government?
PRIME MINISTER:
We’ve now got six weeks of community consultation and I have established an Implementation Feasibility Taskforce in my Department which will be reporting swiftly. It will be working also with the team that’s working with the McClure Review in the Department of Social Services. So, there is a whole of government approach to this but it's being spearheaded by the Implementation Feasibility Taskforce in my Department. We've also got a subcommittee of the Indigenous Advisory Committee which David Peever, formally from Rio, is going to chair. So, we are working urgently on this visionary report, on this watershed report, to try to ensure that as much of it as we can is implemented as quickly as we can.
But let me tell you, we are determined to take stronger steps to ensure that every kid goes to school every day. We are determined to implement new measures to ensure that the poison of sit-down money is ended for all time in remote indigenous communities. We are in the process of changing Job Services Australia, not just indigenous employment services but employment services right around the country to make them more outcome focused and employer-led. We are already implementing the recommendations of the Forrest Review because, as I said at the beginning of my remarks today, Andrew Forrest and I are at one on the fundamentals of indigenous policy which are; the kids go to school, the adults go to work and communities are safe.
ANDREW FORREST:
I think that's a really good point, Prime Minister. What we discovered and your own Prime Minister and Cabinet team were just invaluable in this journey, what we discovered was that the disparity ends for any first Australian with a decent education. You have no difference in employment outcomes if you've gone to year 10 and decided to even quit there but gone on to get a certificate 3 or 4, or let's call it, year 12, and gone on to further education. We have no more disparity. We know we can end the disparity right there. So, it's given us complete hope and if you take it a little further to say indigenous women with a degree, well they are actually more successful in employment outcomes than non- indigenous women. We know we have the levers in our hands. We all need to encourage the Prime Minister, and all of you particularly in media will play such an important role here, to encourage our Government and to encourage our Opposition to be completely bipartisan and bring the disparity to an end.
QUESTION:
What do you think among the new initiatives that are proposed in the Forrest Report, are there any at this stage that you think are particularly promising that you would hope to say by the end of this term of government, “I will make definite progress or actually implement something?” Is there anything that stands out?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Ean, look, it's a very big report and there are extensive implementation issues that will need to be worked through for all of the recommendations but let me take just one recommendation – a very important recommendation – and that is for further sanctions on families where the kids don't go to school. Now, when you and I were growing up there were truancy laws in all of the states and territories which were enforced. It’s one of the reasons why we had a very general acceptance of the need for every kid to go to school every day. I'm afraid over the last decade or so the truancy laws have effectively become a dead letter, that's one of reasons why the Rudd/Gillard Government started to introduce welfare quarantining for families that didn't send their kids to school. Now, I don't say that welfare quarantining in these circumstances is necessarily the only answer but I am absolutely determined to have some form of sanctions where the kids aren't going to school. There have to be consequences for suboptimal behaviour. In so many areas of our society for too long there haven't been consequences for suboptimal behaviour and that must change. Now, the easiest way to bring about change would be for the states and territories, once more, to enforce the truancy laws. I can't force the states and territories to do that so if the states and territories aren't prepared to do this or aren't prepared to do it in what I think is a reasonable time frame with enough decisiveness, I will look at what we can do at a federal level to make this a reality.
Let's not forget, Andrew's report is tackling some of the most intractable issues our country has faced. We're not talking here about a problem which has just blown up in the last three or four years. We're not talking about a crisis that happened a fortnight ago or a month ago. We're talking here about something which has been generations in the making and if it was easy to fix it would have been fixed years ago because there's been an abundance of goodwill and God knows there's been an absolute semitrailer load of funding over the years. What we've got to try to ensure is that we do things differently because if we don't do things differently nothing will change. I mean that old phrase, if you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got and this idea that we can just keep doing more of the same and expect that we're going to get dramatically different outcomes is wrong. Andrew has realised that and what he's trying to do is to, I guess, galvanise us into appreciating that the goodwill that is there, the optimism that is there, the new spirit which I think does exist when it comes to indigenous policy in particular is harnessed to get much better outcomes, because we don't want to invest a new lot of money, we don't want to have a remobilisation of government and find yet again terrible frustration and disappointment at the end of that journey.
QUESTION:
What potentially could the Federal Government do to provide in the way of sanctions, as you mentioned, for families where the kids don't go to school?
PRIME MINISTER:
That's exactly what the implementation feasibility taskforce will be looking at.
ANDREW FORREST:
I mean it's clear in the report, we simply ask families on family benefits allowance to do what all other Australians, what you're doing right now, to do what you said you would do. You're receiving family benefits allowance to send your kids to school. We say all you have to do is that. If you stop doing that or if you’re not prepared to do that then why should the nation’s precious capital be promoting a greater cash bank balance which could be put to any cause but doing what you said you’d do – just send your kids to school.
QUESTION:
Is that a good idea, Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it is a very good idea to send your kids to school and frankly I think parents have got to take a good long hard look at themselves if the kids don’t go to school. So, yes, there do need to be consequences for bad behaviour, for suboptimal behaviour. That’s what I’m determined to ensure we have.
Alright, well look, Andrew thanks so much.
Ok, just on the subject of Gaza. We’ve been working at the UN and elsewhere for an immediate ceasefire and thank God that’s what there is. As I understand it a 72 hour ceasefire will shortly be taking place. It’s a ceasefire that as I understand it has been agreed by both the Israeli government and Hamas and that will be a marvellous humanitarian thing.
QUESTION:
In terms of the school that was bombed by the Israelis, you know, dozens of people killed. The other day you said Israel, you defended them having the right to defend themselves, but do you deplore this kind of action that leaves so many civilians killed?
PRIME MINISTER:
I deplore the indiscriminate rain of missiles from Gaza onto Israel, I deplore any actions which result in civilian deaths and obviously we've seen far too much of that over the last few weeks.
QUESTION:
My Pyne was talking about whether or not about you might reverse the onus of proof for Australians who go to war zones, particularly Syria, saying if they come back from Syria they have to prove that they weren't engaged in the conflict. Can you tell us a little bit – is that the policy that you're now adopting?
PRIME MINISTER:
The first priority of Government is to keep our community safe. Let me repeat it because it’s so important; the first priority of Government is to keep our community safe and anyone who has gone overseas to engage jihadist activity, I think, is a potential danger to the Australian community. We do not want people who have radicalised and militarised to be coming back to this country, not only with a message of hate but with the knowledge and the insights that might enable them to bring some of the horrors the Middle East back to our country.
So we are determined to ensure that we do everything we reasonably can, consistent with our traditional principles of justice and freedom, to keep our community safe and the Government will have more to say on this in the next few days.
QUESTION:
How will you be able to prove whether people have participated in terrorist activity?
PRIME MINISTER:
We'll have more to say on this in the next few days.
QUESTION:
With the situation in Ukraine, have you heard any reports from the police who’ve been able to enter the crash site?
PRIME MINISTER:
OK, well it's about half past two in the morning in the Ukraine and I haven't had any reports since late evening Ukraine time, or about midnight or so our time. But at that stage the team that had gone in, the Dutch/Australian team along with the Organisation for Security Co-operation in Europe had been onto the site and had exited the site and as I understand it, had recovered some more remains and our plan is to send a larger team in today to really substantially begin the thorough professional search of the site to ensure that remains are recovered, the investigation is assisted and justice can be done.
We want to get in as quickly as we can, we want to get in as safely as we can, we want to get in, we want to get cracking and then we want to get out because it is a dangerous part of the world and this is a risky mission. But at every step of the way the Government has been guided by the best expert advice, the best professional advice and don't forget that we've got Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston there on the ground in Kiev who is completely plugged in to what's happening, particularly with the OSCE and I am confident that this mission is as safe as it reasonably can be under the circumstances.
We do not lightly put Australian personnel in harm's way, but let's not forget 298 innocent people have been murdered, 38 Australians have been murdered and we owe it to our dead to bring them back. We owe it to their families to bring them back and that’s what the Government is determined to do.
[ends]