PRIME MINISTER:
It's great to be here in Melbourne at the Hub. It's great to be with my friend and colleague, Bruce Billson, the Minister for Small Business to talk to young entrepreneurs about what we can do for them with the Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda that we released yesterday. This is about trying to ensure that we promote entrepreneurship. Yes, we want low costs. Yes, we want more skills. Yes, we want better infrastructure but we do want to encourage that creative spark, that 'have a go' genius which is so much a part of the Australian character. At places like the Hub there are dozens of people, you saw them out there, all of them with an idea, all of them wanting to make that idea work and with the kind of policy items that we have here in this agenda paper, particularly the employee share scheme policies, we are hoping to make it easier for them to get ahead. We are hoping to make it easier for them to attract the very best staff, to get on and make a go of things. That is what this paper is all about. We are a fundamentally strong economy. We have great strengths but we can never rest on our laurels. We have always got to be looking to do more and better if tomorrow is going to be better than today.
It is the reforms of today that make tomorrow's prosperity and that is why the Government is looking to have a country which is smarter, which is better, which is richer, which plays more on its strengths and that is exactly what we did yesterday with our Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda. I am going to ask Bruce to add to these remarks and then I will take some questions.
SMALL BUSINESS MINISTER:
Prime Minister, it is great to have you in Melbourne again here at the Hub. Here is a building full of enterprising Australians having a go, creating opportunities, being the driving force, the engine room of future jobs and economic growth in our country. They have got all the ideas, all the energy but they need positive and supportive policy settings. That is why I was so encouraged about their positive response to yesterday's announcements, particularly around employee share ownership schemes and about our commitment to finalising crowd funding source framework for this country.
We're about energising enterprise, that is our contribution to building a strong and prosperous economy for a safe and secure future and there is so much to be upbeat about as you have seen, Prime Minister, with those enterprising citizens and great young people that we met with today.
PRIME MINISTER:
Ok, do we have some questions and let's start off on the competitiveness agenda? Do you want to ask me about employee share ownership and the fact that the former government, by changing the law on employee share ownership, basically killed it dead? We want to start it up again. That's what we want to do with employee share ownership. We want to make it possible for start-ups, in particular, to attract bright people into the business and we want to make it easier for established companies to turn workers into stakeholders and that is why this employee share initiative is such an important part of our competitiveness agenda.
I am sure I am stimulating questions on the competitiveness agenda.
QUESTION:
I have questions on defence if we can turn to that? The RSL has slammed the Government's plan today and said it is not good enough. Will you budge on that figure – that 1.5 per cent pay rise for Defence employees?
PRIME MINISTER:
All of us want to do the right thing by members of our Armed Forces. We want to do the right thing by everyone in the public sector but we particularly want to do the right thing by members of our Armed Forces. Any member of the Armed Forces who is deployed to a combat zone will receive very significant allowances on top of his or her pay. All that will continue but when you're in a situation of massive deficit because of a six year spending spree by the former government you simply can't afford the kind of generosity that might have been possible when we had $20 billion surpluses. When you're in a situation of $50 billion deficit you cannot be as generous as you are when you're in a situation of $20 billion surplus. At the moment, we are simply borrowing money to pay people. That is why it is important that we have very significant pay restraint.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, why have Special Forces not yet been given legal clearance to go into Iraq? Is the new Prime Minister expressing any reluctance?
PRIME MINISTER:
I made it very clear to Prime Minister Abadi in New York, a couple of weeks ago, that we were very, very keen to help. I made it crystal clear that our Special Forces are ready to go. There is an enormous amount of good they can do inside Iraq but we owe it to our Special Forces only to deploy them with the right legal protections. With the new government of Iraq still forming, it is taking a little longer than we would have liked to put those legal protections in place but I am confident that the situation will be resolved in the next few days and our forces will be able to deploy into Iraq on advise and assist missions to help the Iraqi Security Forces. Nevertheless, just about every day now Australian Super Hornets are flying combat air patrols over Iraq and they are doing very important work to disrupt and degrade the ISIL death cult.
QUESTION:
Is there, Prime Minister, a reluctance from Vladimir Putin to meet you on the sidelines at the G20? There are some reports that he doesn't want to see you on the sidelines of the conference.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look, he is coming to our country as part of the G20. He is obviously a guest of Australia and I would certainly expect the President of Russia to meet the Prime Minister of Australia while he is in Australia. As you know, I will be having a very robust discussion with him about the 38 innocent Australians who were murdered by Russian-backed rebels using Russian supplied equipment.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, just to be clear on Iraq, the Iraqi Foreign Minister said they were absolutely against foreign military bases in the presence of foreign military forces on the ground. To you, does that preclude Special Forces? Are Special Forces a different case to what he is talking about there?
PRIME MINISTER:
We have always drawn a distinction between combat troops on the ground, which we do not intend to send, and Special Forces on advise and assist missions. We are not proposing independent combat operations by Australian and other coalition forces. What we are proposing are advise and assist missions to help the Iraqi Security Forces to reclaim their country. So, it is about helping the people of Iraq to reclaim their country. It is not about independent combat operations by outsiders.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, do you believe there is a problem with the proposed status of forces agreement?
PRIME MINISTER:
There's obviously not a problem for the Americans, because the Americans are on the ground in some strength already on what they think is a satisfactory legal basis, and we want the same kind of legal protections that the American forces in Iraq have and we think that's fair and reasonable. We are proposing to deploy up to 200 Special Forces on advise and assist missions. We are doing this because we want to help the people of Iraq, because we want to help protect the people of Iraq from the ISIL death cult and we think it's only right and proper when we are there to help the people of Iraq, to help the Government of Iraq, that we can go in on the same kind of legal basis as the Americans.
QUESTION:
Have you been briefed on the meeting between Mark Binskin, Barack Obama and other US military leaders, and if so, what can Australia take from that meeting?
PRIME MINISTER:
I haven't been briefed on that meeting. I know the meeting was to take place. It's a very important part of the developing coalition against the ISIL death cult. Let's never forget that the ISIL death cult has effectively declared war on the world and this is the world's fightback.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, on submarines, how do you view the arguments from two South Australian Liberal senators in favour of building submarines in South Australia? Is this just parochialism of Local members, or do they have a point?
PRIME MINISTER:
We said during the election campaign that the Australian work on the next generation of submarines would centre on the South Australian ship yards and we will absolutely honour that commitment, but we should make decisions on the next generation of submarines based on defence logic, not based on industry policy or on regional policy. We want the very best submarines and we want them at the best possible price and they're the criteria that we should look at as we finalise decision making in this area.
QUESTION:
Christopher Pyne said that the P-tech school trial will be held in Geelong. What was the reasoning behind that decision?
PRIME MINISTER:
It's important that we go ahead with this trial because we know that overseas, particularly in the United States, these technical schools, schools that are focused on science, technology, engineering and maths – or STEM as we tend to call it these days – we know these have been quite successful, quite promising and you've got businesses such as IBM which are sponsoring these schools, putting in a bit of money, putting in a lot of expertise and generally mentoring and helping the students there. So, we think this model has potential applicability to Australia and why not start the first of them in Geelong?
QUESTION:
The G20 world leaders, will they be sleeping rough in Brisbane? I understand you have cancelled that $8 million worth of luxury accommodation. Where are they going to sleep? In tents?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, they will be staying in the splendid hotels of Brisbane. What we decided that we weren't prepared to do was spend $8 million on temporary renovations, or temporary changes, to those hotels to knock out walls to provide even larger presidential suites and even more sumptuous accommodation. We think that the hotels of Brisbane are more than good enough to accommodate people and we thought that it was unnecessary to spend more to further improve them.
QUESTION:
But what about your friend, Vladimir?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look, my friend will be staying in a fine hotel, I'm sure. I'm sure that will be a comfort to him after the robust conversations that he will have.
QUESTION:
You said that the Australian Government was considering documents from the Iraqis on SAS involvement. Who is responsible for taking the next step?
PRIME MINISTER:
As I said, it's absolutely vital that our forces are contributing to the people of Iraq on a sound legal basis. We have the invitation – the public invitation – the public welcome from the new Prime Minister of Iraq to our forces. We've got our Super Hornets that are flying combat air patrols and sometimes strike missions over Iraq right now. We do want to supplement that with advise and assist missions by our Special Forces. We think that our Special Forces can contribute to a much more effective Iraqi security force. We believe that our Special Forces can help the Iraqis to do far more to help themselves, to reclaim some of the territory that has been lost and we need it to happen on the right legal basis and that's what we're working on.
QUESTION:
The ANU has divested itself of some of its shares in energy companies, copped a bit of criticism from members of your Government. Now some former Liberal leaders have said universities should be free to do I guess what they want. What's your response to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course they should be free to do what they want, but when they make stupid decisions we should be free to criticise them. Any entity which says that they're simply not going to invest in energy companies is frankly depriving its members of the benefit of some very good investments, because Australia ought to be one of the world's energy super powers. We ought to be the world's affordable energy capital and that means in the months and years and decades to come, Australia's energy companies will be a very, very good investment for people who are sensible enough to see where their opportunities are.
Thank you.
[ends]