PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning. It’s terrific to be here at the world famous Peter Mac Cancer Centre to talk about the Medical Research Future Fund which the Government is implementing as part of this year’s Budget. This is a very important investment in the long term health and welfare and the Australian community. This is a country which has recognised its expertise in a number of fields – sport in particular. What we don’t always understand enough is just how good we are here in Australia at health and medical research. We have about a quarter of a per cent of the world’s population, but we will typically produce up to five per cent of the world’s refereed medical research. We have world-class researchers, they have produced international breakthroughs. One of the reasons why Australians born today live 25 years longer than Australians born 100 years ago is because of the research of people like the researchers and the clinicians here at the Peter Mac Cancer Centre. So, this is a really important measure. Obviously, it will be going before the Parliament in the next month or so. It’s very important that people understand that if we are serious about a better Australia, this is the kind of investment that we need to make, and yes, it has to be paid for, but nevertheless this is the kind of investment that will have massive long term benefits for the Australian people.
I should just offer a couple more general observations about the Budget. It’s a Budget for savings – sure – but it’s a Budget for building as well. It’s a Budget for living within our means, but it’s a Budget for playing to our strengths and one of the very great strengths of Australia is our top class medical research community and I’m really proud to be here at the Peter Mac today to pay tribute to them for the extraordinary work that they do.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, just on a national security issue – what role should parents be playing in curbing home-grown terrorism?
PRIME MINISTER:
We need to understand that this is a very, very significant issue and it’s more of an issue today than it was a couple of years ago because of the unfolding disaster in Northern Iraq and Eastern Syria. There are at least 60 Australians fighting with the ISIL movement in Northern Iraq and Eastern Syria. There’s about 100 Australians who are working to facilitate and support the ISIL movement. This is a movement as we have seen on our television screens and on the front pages of our newspapers of utter ferocity. Medieval barbarism allied to modern technology – that’s how serious and how dangerous this movement is and because of the Australians who are involved with the movement, what might otherwise be a problem in a faraway country is a problem for us. It is a problem for us.
So, there’s a range of measures that the Government is putting in place. Obviously we’re boosting our security services generally. We’ve got new laws to ensure that people coming back from terrorist activity in the Middle East can be arrested and detained. It’s also important though that we are engaged with the community so that everyone understands that the enemy here is terrorism, it’s not any particular religion. What we are targeting is extremism, not members of any particular community.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, what can you say about the Government’s $64 million investment in counter-terrorism measures?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there’s a range of elements to it and beefed up police work is important, but so is greater engagement with the community and it’s very important that every Australia understands that we are all part of Team Australia and the job of the Government is not to target any particular community, but to target extremism to try to monitor people who have been engaged in terrorist activity overseas and this is my constant message. I have to say I’ve been heartened in recent days by the response that I’ve had from leaders of Australia’s Islamic community. One of them indeed at the end of last week’s consultations said quite exuberantly, he said “We are all part of Team Australia, and you are our captain”.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, returning to the subject of research, Christopher Pyne on The Bolt Report on Sunday couldn’t rule out the possibility – if certain things aren’t passed – of cuts to higher education research. Can you rule that out?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, what I certainly want to stress is the importance of research – the importance of science.
QUESTION:
Can you rule it out though?
PRIME MINISTER:
We want to get our higher education changes through – that’s what we want to do. We want to get our higher education changes through because they will be good for universities, they will be good for research, they will be good for Australia, but what we are doing is we are modestly reducing government funding but at the same time we are liberating – we are liberating – our universities to achieve what they can because if there is one institution that ought to be capable of looking after its own affairs it is a university, which is by definition a bastion of our best and brightest. But I want to stress here at the Peter Mac – this is a Government which is dedicated to science, which is devoted to research, and wants to massively increase Australia’s research effort.
QUESTION:
If you don’t get those savings measures through, will you raise taxes?
PRIME MINISTER:
We want to get taxes down – that’s what we want to do and we want over time to see significant tax reform in this country. The tax reform has started already with the abolition of the carbon tax and I hope in the next week or so we might see the abolition of the mining tax as well because this is a Government which is absolutely committed to getting taxes down and to delivering to the Australian community the kind of benefit that reducing taxes gives.
QUESTION:
That doesn’t actually answer the question though. Will you raise taxes though, if you can’t get the savings measures through Parliament?
PRIME MINISTER:
We don’t support raising taxes; we support cutting taxes. We’ve just abolished the carbon tax and that means that every Australian household on average will be $550 a year better off and our next major initiative before the Parliament will be abolishing the mining tax.
QUESTION:
You’re contradicting your Finance Minister there though.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t accept the proposition that you’re putting to me. We will get the Budget back under control, but the way to get the Budget back under control is by sensible savings so that we can get taxes down.
QUESTION:
Penny Wong told the ABC this morning that the parts of the Budget that are blocked are the parts that are unfair. What’s your response to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Penny Wong was part of a Government that saddled every Australian man, woman and child with debt skyrocketing towards $25,000 each – each! Penny Wong helped to burden everyone in this room with Commonwealth debt heading for $25,000 for each and every one of you. What’s fair about that? What's fair about this generation dumping our burdens on our children and grandchildren? If we are going to have intergenerational fairness, we’ve got to get spending under control; we have to get debt and deficit under control. That's why this Budget is a fundamentally fair measure.
QUESTION:
But you are talking to the US about joining in or assisting with a possible offensive against the Islamic State?
PRIME MINISTER:
We obviously are doing what we can as good international citizens to try to address the humanitarian disaster that we have seen unfolding on our television screens in recent months in Northern Iraq. We have already been part of the humanitarian airdrop to people trapped on Mount Sinjar. We stand ready to join further humanitarian efforts to relieve the suffering of people who are surrounded by the murderous hoards of the ISIL movement. Look, we continue to have discussions about what we can do as part of the international community to ensure that there is a modicum of peace and safety for the people of Northern Iraq.
QUESTION:
Just back to the Budget, Barnaby Joyce yesterday called it a “financial melanoma” waiting to kill us unless it’s been fixed – what do you make of this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, it’s a very colourful bit of phraseology. Barnaby’s essentially right. If we don’t get the Budget back under control there will be long term pain for the Australian people and the point I keep making is that if we’re not prepared to take the tough decisions today, we end up having to make even tougher decisions tomorrow.
QUESTION:
Will the GP co-payment get through in its current form?
PRIME MINISTER:
We certainly think it should and that’s what we’re working towards and look, there’s all sorts of things that are being floated and speculated up. I just want to reassure everyone that the Government carefully considered our nation’s finances. It was a very long and detailed examination of our nation’s finances that produced the Budget. It’s a good Budget, we stand by all the measures in the Budget, but I just want to stress the overall purpose of the Budget – it is to rescue this country’s future because we simply could not go on borrowing $1 billion every single month just to pay the interest on Labor’s debt and deficit.
QUESTION:
You’ve said you’ll probably make more money available for the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse. Can you confirm that you will?
PRIME MINISTER:
We certainly support the Royal Commission’s work. We’ve supported the Royal Commission from the beginning. Child sexual abuse is an utterly horrific crime – an utterly horrific crime. It does need to be completely eliminated from our community. The Royal Commission is a very important part of that and the last thing we want to do is to see the Royal Commission’s work prematurely curtailed.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, youth unemployment in Victoria is at its lowest level in 15 years, second only behind Tasmania. How will restricting welfare payments for young people actually help that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the interesting thing is that if a young person wants to receive a government benefit there’s a very easy way to do that and that is to actually go into further education or training. I say to people who are about to leave school: earn or learn. What is unacceptable to our community and what should be unacceptable to you is leaving school to go on a welfare benefit. That is no way to begin your life – it is no way to begin your life as a constructive contributor to the Australian community. Thanks to things like the Trade Support Loans, we’ve got more opportunity for people to improve themselves than ever before and I think those opportunities should be taken.
QUESTION:
Back to the Government’s investment in counter-terrorism measures, investments aimed at combating home-grown terrorism and to deter Australians from joining overseas terrorist activities. How are you proposing planning to do this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there’s a whole range of measures that the Government has in place and that will be expanded and strengthened over time. We want to stop radicalised youngsters from leaving this country to join terrorist groups overseas. We want to work with our allies and partners to try to monitor them while they are overseas. Certainly if they attempt to come back to Australia we want to be able to arrest and detain people, we want to be able to charge them and jail them where they have been working with terrorist groups overseas because this is a very serious offence under Australian law. But we also want to work with communities here in Australia and indeed we want to work with our allies and partners around the world to reduce the impetus towards radicalisation and there’s money for community engagement in the money that was detailed today and that certainly means mentoring, it means working with alienated young people, it means trying to ensure that every Australian, regardless of his or her faith, regardless of his or her ethnic or cultural background understands that there is a place, a place for him or her in this great country of ours.
Thank you.
[ends]