PRIME MINISTER:
It’s very good to be here at the Australian Industry Group Sir William Tyree Inaugural Lecture. It’s an honour to be speaking at the AIG in such a good cause. I knew Sir William Tyree. He was not just one of our most distinguished industrialists, but he was also a very distinguished philanthropist, a great Australian, and I want to congratulate the Australian Industry Group for beginning this series of Sir William Tyree memorial lectures. As for the lecture itself, I just want to point out that everything this Government does is about creating jobs, building prosperity, and the best way to create jobs and to build prosperity is to make it easier for the entrepreneurs of Australia, for the businesses of Australia, to get on with their job. Our job is to make it easier for them to do their job which in turn is creating jobs. I was very pleased by the warmth of the reception and certainly every indication is that the AIG is very supportive of what the Government is attempting to do.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, can we ask you about Russia's trade sanctions. What is the effect on farmers and other exports?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't want to minimise this issue obviously because we do do hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of agricultural business every year with Russia. But let's be very clear about this – Russia has been a bully. Russia is a big country trying to bully a small country. Right at this moment, Russian forces are massing on the border with Ukraine. If there is any movement by Russian forces across the border, it won't be a humanitarian mission, it will be an invasion – it will be an invasion. And I say to President Putin that if he wants to be regarded as a world leader, as opposed to becoming an international outcast, hold your forces back. Stay behind the border, let the business of Ukraine be sorted out by Ukrainians.
QUESTION:
Apart from calling him a bully though, shouldn't we be doing more to put pressure on him? Should we be joining the harsher sanctions for instance that the United States and Europe have put in place?
PRIME MINISTER:
I want to say very clearly that we are working towards stronger sanctions. We have sanctions in place. I didn't want to change the level of our sanctions while we had personnel on the ground within 20 or 30 kilometres of the Russian border, but now that our personnel have withdrawn from the site, now that our personnel are in the process of returning to the Netherlands after largely completing Operation Bring Them Home, certainly you will find increased sanctions by Australia. The way to avoid increased sanctions is for Russia to call off what appears to be in preparation for Russia to respect the independence of Ukraine, to stop interfering in the affairs of Ukraine, and to stop supporting separatists in Ukraine, to stop arming separatists in Ukraine, because we have all seen the tragic consequences of what happens when separatists are given access to sophisticated weapons, 298 innocent people are dead, 38 people who called Australia home are dead because of Russian-supplied sophisticated weaponry that these rebels were incapable of using.
QUESTION:
What do you think of the fact that this announcement came just as we were in a day of national mourning, do you think it says anything about Putin and his regime?
PRIME MINISTER:
I hope very much that President Putin will step back from the brink because any attempt by Russia to move its forces across the border would not be a humanitarian mission, it would be an invasion. It would be utterly unacceptable and certainly it will spark a response – including a response from Australia.
QUESTION:
Will the Government assist farmers and other exporters who get caught in the middle by this?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't want to underestimate, as I said, the impact of what Russia is proposing but I also want to see it in proportion, to keep it in perspective and while there are a few hundreds of millions of Australian agriculture exports to Russia in the great scheme of Australia's agricultural exports these are relatively small amounts.
QUESTION:
But what do you think about Barnaby Joyce’s idea of asking Indonesia to increase imports of Australian produce to help out our local industry?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we're always trying to increase our exports of local produce and luckily thanks to the good work of Barnaby and others the live cattle trade with Indonesia is in very, very good shape again after it was almost destroyed by the folly of the former government.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, on another matter – do you believe that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't and that so-called research has long been discredited.
QUESTION:
Will you reprimand Senator Abetz for talking about it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I've already had a conversation with Eric. I think that he's a little sheepish about it all and I don't think you'll find that kind of thing being said again.
QUESTION:
But did he say he doesn't believe it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I've had a conversation with him. I think he's feeling a little sheepish about the way his comments have skyrocketed and I don't think you'll see them again.
QUESTION:
In terms of your metadata policy, do you think your Government may have made a mess of explaining it?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, we've been absolutely crystal clear all along that we are protecting the Australian community from the threat of returning terrorists and we've just seen dramatic new developments in northern Iraq, the threat posed by the ISIL insurgency is real, what we are now dealing with is not a terrorist group but a terrorist army, quite a well organised and effective terrorist army equipped with tanks and heavy weapons which has not only defeated the Iraqi army but now looks like it's defeating the Peshmergas which up till now have kept the Kurdish enclave safe. So this is a very, very serious situation. There are 150 Australians who are known to have been involved with this dreadful, dreadful terrorist organisation and it is absolutely incumbent upon the Australian Government to do everything we reasonably can to keep our community safe. What these people are using is modern technology to bring about barbaric and medieval outcomes, this is a very serious threat and you will find that the Australian Government will deal with it.
QUESTION:
But how can you expect people here at home to trust the Government when it's found it so difficult to explain its policy anyway?
PRIME MINISTER:
I utterly and completely reject your assertion there. I absolutely reject that assertion. What we are doing is exploring with the telecom and the internet providers, we are exploring with them the options that we need to explore to produce data that will give us the retention of metadata, the retention of metadata and reasonable access to it. Now, all the advice from the security agencies – reinforced by the public statements today of David Irvine, the Head of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation, and Deputy Commissioner Colvin of the Australian Federal Police – all of the advice that we have received from our experts, all of the advice that the former government was getting from the same experts is that we need to retain and to access metadata if we are to effectively combat the terrorist threat here in Australia.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, why is the Government outsourcing Medicare and PBS claims and services?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we're not doing what you say we're doing. We are exploring various avenues of delivering these services more effectively. This was something that we pledged to do on Budget night, we’re putting into effect what we said we would do on Budget night. That is to explore the best possible ways of ensuring that Australians get swift and effective access to services and that's what you'd expect a good government to do.
QUESTION:
On Barack Obama's announcement that the US is going to have targeted attacks. Are you concerned that this might lead to ground troops going back in and Australia being involved again in the future possibly?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well President Obama was very clear in his statement a couple of hours ago, that this was about targeted air strikes, it was about lending support to people in imminent danger from this ferocious and barbaric movement, so this is a limited and targeted intervention to protect people facing a truly horrific future should they fall into the hands of this terrorist movement. Given the threat that this terrorist movement poses, given the fact that we are now looking at a terrorist movement that has shown the capacity to defeat at least one army, that has shown over the last few months capacity to capture and hold large areas of ground, that has shown the potential to form, not just a terrorist enclave, but to create a terrorist state, in a very dangerous and unstable part of the world, I welcome the President's announcements and I thank him for what he's doing to stand up for decency right around the world but particularly in the Middle East.
[ends]