PRIME MINISTER:
It’s great to be here out the back of Old Parliament House with new Parliament House in the background for the launch of Pollie Pedal 2015. I’ve already said a fair bit about Pollie Pedal. I won’t repeat all of it, just to say that for me and for so many of my colleagues over the last 18 years, it’s been a marvellous opportunity to get out of our comfort zone to meet the people of Australia in their comfort zones, in the small towns, in the rural cities, in the villages and hamlets of our country. As long as I am in public life I intend to keep doing it because it’s a very important, vital way of connecting with the real people of Australia.
I’m also here this morning with my friends and ministerial colleagues, Barnaby Joyce and Ian Macfarlane. For too long, people have been talking about country of origin labelling and nothing much has changed. Plainly, whenever we have a problem, with imported food in particular, people want to know more about where their food, where their products, are coming from. That's why it's important that we grasp this particular nettle and actually make a difference.
So, I've tasked these two senior members of the Cabinet to come up with a joint submission. It will be a whole of government piece of work, because it involves health and small business, as well as industry and agriculture. I want a submission to Cabinet by the end of March because we have to get on. The people of Australia want better country of origin labelling and this Government is determined to deliver it to them.
I’m going to ask Ian Macfarlane to say a few words and then Barnaby.
INDUSTRY MINISTER:
Thanks, Prime Minister. This issue has been around for 30 years – or my 30 years anyway since I've been coming to Canberra. We are now in a position where we are going to have to break eggs to make an omelette. There will be costs and there will be changes, but those changes have to be made if consumers are to have the information they need on their food products. So, as the Prime Minister said, Barnaby Joyce, myself, Bruce Billson, Andrew Robb as Trade Minister, Fiona Nash as Assistant Health Minister and my Parliamentary Secretary Karen Andrews have sat down this week and begun a process which will culminate in a Cabinet submission in less than a month and then from there, where necessary, we'll introduce legislation to the House of Representatives and then the Senate and then a discussion with the states.
This matter is urgent. We are giving it our absolute priority. It can be fixed and it will be fixed and the result will be both a graphic, call it a pie chart or call it a graduated symbol, but there will be a graphic and there will be consumer information on the label which says. “this product is made in Australia from” and then whatever the percentage of product is in terms of Australian product will be displayed.
We have a House of Representatives committee that has been reviewing this issue for the last 12 months and Rowan Ramsay the Member for Grey has chaired that committee. He has reported to me and Rowan is involved in the discussions going forward. We will produce a practical result, but it will give consumers the information they need.
AGRICULTURE MINISTER:
Thank you, Prime Minister. Thank you, Macca. This is a discussion that the Australian people have asked us to have. It's something they've demanded and it's quite clear what they want. They want something that is simple, they want something that is diagrammatic, they want something that delivers proportionality and they want something that's compulsory and they want it now. They're sick of asking and it's great to be part of a Government that actually is going to do something about this. It's great to be able to go back to people and say, no, we are acting on that, and there are going to be changes.
I think that the problems that we currently have are no more self-evident than yesterday when I was discussing with people who'd come into Parliament House to talk to us about it, and they said describe the problem. So, I got one of my staff, I said come in here, if something was given to you and it said made in Australia, where do you think the contents would come from? And the staff said, well of course it's obvious that it’d be all from Australia. I said it's not the case. This is the issue that the Australian people are asking us. They want to know what's in the packet, but they also want to know what proportion of that is Australian. They want to make sure that they have the capacity to back Australian farmers.
They want to make sure that they have the capacity to understand that the phytosanitary contents that are part of our nation that we put in place and we’re proud of, gives them capacity to say, I want to purchase that. They want to know that they're backing our nation and so this is self-evident. It's incredibly important and it's something that overwhelmingly I'm hearing all the time especially around the supermarkets, especially around my house with my wife. They say, I want to know exactly where my product comes from and I believe that the government has a responsibility to tell me that. I have now come to the conclusion from recent events that it's not happening and she was very lucky because this is the Government that's going to do it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Ok, do we have any questions?
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, why have you decided to go down this path of having a graphic, rather than perhaps spending the money on enhanced screening?
PRIME MINISTER:
There will be that as well. Obviously, we do need to have enhanced screening at our borders. We do want to ensure that our border protection measures aren't just about ensuring that we don't have illegal arrivals by boat, ensuring that we have proper biosecurity as well.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, last week on this subject you said it was up to business to do more; that you didn’t want to add to the regulatory burden and you were fearful of prices going up. What’s changed?
PRIME MINISTER:
Obviously, we want to do this in a way which is as cost effective as possible. We don't want to add needlessly to the burdens of business but we also do want to ensure that consumers get the information that they need and the public is protected. So, we will do it in the most business-friendly way.
Now, the other thing that we have is an overall commitment to reduce the regulatory burden. We've committed to delivering at least a billion dollars a year in regulatory cost reductions to business and if there's a modest increase in regulatory costs in one area it's got to be more than compensated by a reduction in regulatory costs in another area. So, we'll ensure that overall, the regulatory burden on our businesses and on our people is continuing to reduce.
QUESTION:
Doesn’t it show, Prime Minister, that some red tape is actually required and that your crusade against it in opposition may have been a little juvenile?
PRIME MINISTER:
Obviously, we do need regulation, but it's got to be efficient and effective regulation. And it's got to be necessary, not unnecessary regulation. So, while I think we do need to ensure that the public knows where their food is coming from, the public knows where products are actually made, it's also important that for instance the forms the public fill out are as short and as simple as possible and this is one of the other things that we're looking at as part of our regulatory reduction programme.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, with these steps, do you believe that given you're making these changes, will this be enough for people to confidently go and say buy frozen berries and not end up with Hepatitis A?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I accept that this has been a very serious problem in recent days. I am very pleased that all of the berries from the overseas producers are being held at the border and all of the product which has been made with these potentially contaminated berries has been recalled. So, the system has worked and obviously if you've got any of the relevant product in your freezers, don't use them.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, there are four people in Sydney who are very sick from eating contaminated tuna from Thailand. Would labelling stop them getting sick or do we need to look at quality controlling foreign countries?
PRIME MINISTER:
We need to look at screening and quality control. There's a whole range of measures that need to be operating effectively in order to protect people. And as I said, this is a Government which is strong on border protection – very strong on border protection – and border protection means biosecurity, as well as ensuring that we don't get illegal arrivals by boat.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, your conversation with President Jokowi last night – did you get any positive signs from him?
PRIME MINISTER:
It was a positive sign that the conversation took place. The fact that the President of Indonesia and the Prime Minister of Australia can talk candidly about these issues is a sign of the strength of the relationship and it's a sign of the depth of the friendship between Australia and Indonesia. I don't think it would help the case of these two young Australians if I was to start ventilating in public the contents of the conversation. Suffice to say that the President absolutely understands our position – absolutely understands our position – and I think he is carefully considering Indonesia's position.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, did he give you any hope of a possible stay of execution?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't want to raise hope that might turn out to be dashed. I don't want to reflect on Indonesia or my friend, President Joko Widodo. I want to ensure that as far as is humanly possible, I am speaking out for Australians and for Australian values, but I’ve also got to respect and defend Australia's friendships and one of the very best of our friendships is that with Indonesia.
QUESTION:
Was Philip Hammond right to speculate that you might be sending another 400 troops to Iraq?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there are always very close and collegial discussions between Australia and our principal allies, including the United Kingdom, and yes, for some time now, we've been talking about a further training mission in Iraq. The point I keep making is that we can't do more for Iraq than the people of Iraq are prepared to do for themselves. We can't regain Iraq for the Iraqis – the Iraqis have to regain their country – but what countries like Australia can and should do is offer every possible assistance. The United States is in there with training missions. We've got an advise and assist mission in there already involving up to 200 of our Special Forces. Spain has got a training mission going in in the next few weeks. New Zealand has indicated that they are prepared to make a significant commitment to a training mission and we are talking to the New Zealanders about that mission and I expect to have more to say about this in the next few days.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, do you have any confirmation on the death of the Western man who has been fighting alongside the Kurdish Peshmerga in the north? Do you believe it might be Matthew Gardiner?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I have no information at this stage. A couple more questions?
QUESTION:
[inaudible] soil, Mr Abbott, would that be the right thing to do to make any announcement about extra troops in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Before any announcement is made, I would expect a Cabinet discussion, I would expect consultations with the Opposition and, as a courtesy, I would probably want to take it to the Party Room as well.
QUESTION:
[inaudible] criticism from you and your colleagues of Gillian Triggs. Is that a sign of disunity?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I'm not sure that I would accept that characterisation. The point that Malcolm was making yesterday was that, in the end, it is all about the children and he's absolutely right. I think I made the same point myself at least twice in the Parliament yesterday. Of course it's all about the children, and the great thing about this Government's policies is that the children that Labor put into detention, because the boats kept coming under Labor, are now coming out of detention under the Coalition because the boats have stopped. That's the point I make. Labor put kids into detention; the Coalition is getting kids out of detention. Under Labor, there were almost 2,000 children in immigration detention. It's now just over 100 and it's coming down all the time because the boats have stopped.
This Government stopped the boats; the former government started the boats. The most compassionate, the most humane, the most decent thing you can do is to stop the boats and that's exactly what's happened under this Government. I do look forward one day to getting the big tick of approval from the Human Rights Commission.
Thank you so much.
[ends]