ANN SUDMALIS:
I would like to welcome Prime Minister Tony Abbott to the seat of Gilmore. I am very proud that he has taken the opportunity to participate in our Clean Up Australia Day and also we have just recently announced four Green Army projects with Nathan Cattell as CEO – you have all seen some of the work. I am deeply honoured that he has come to visit the site and helped do a little bit of clean up. So, I am going to introduce Tony Abbott.
Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks Ann, and it is terrific to be here at The Farm, an iconic surfing spot and a beautiful piece of God’s own country. So, really good to be here with the local member. Great to be here with the Green Army team on Clean Up Australia Day. This is the 25th annual Clean Up Australia Day. So many Australians are doing something for their country today. Last year some half a million Australians went out for Clean Up Australia Day, they went to seven thousand sites, they collected some 15,000 tonnes of rubbish and I would expect a comparable result today.
It is also terrific to be with Green Army participants. This is one of the signature projects of this Government. I am really proud of the work that is being done and this is going to roll out on an ever wider scale in the months and years ahead and it is great that so much good work is being done here in the electorate of Gilmore and here in the Illawarra district.
I’m looking forward to a week ahead. It is going to be another busy week when we get on with Government. We will have metadata legislation in the Parliament; we have had the bipartisan report of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security which is good. We have got the Intergenerational Report out later in the week and what the Intergenerational Report will show is that, yes, we have a big budgetary challenge – a very big budgetary challenge – but a very substantial start has been made. The Intergenerational Report will show where we would have been under the policies of the former government, where this government is attempting to go and how far we have already gone. I guess the challenge for all of us in these times is to show our typical Australian optimism and, yes, we can look at it and say the glass is half empty, I would always prefer to look at it and say the glass is half full because I am really pleased with the very strong start that this Government has made to sorting out the budgetary mess that we were left by our predecessors.
Ok, are there any questions?
QUESTION:
There are a lot more talk about your leadership again, this time Julie Bishop and Malcolm Turnbull emerging as those who would take your job – what is your reaction to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, this is Clean Up Australia Day and I am not going to do anything except recycle the rubbish and that is what is happening – we are just recycling rubbish today.
QUESTION:
Who is more of a threat to your job though?
PRIME MINISTER:
They are all strong and effective members of my team and we are all getting on with government and that is what I am doing every day.
QUESTION:
Do you maintain the full confidence of the Party Room?
PRIME MINISTER:
We went through all this a few weeks ago, the matter was settled and we are now getting on with government, that is what we are all elected to do; the Government was elected, I was elected, we were all elected to do the right thing by the people of Australia and every day that is exactly what is happening. Every day you will see further and stronger evidence that this is a Government that is focussed on governing in the best interests of the whole people of our country.
QUESTION:
Would it not be in the country’s best interest though, given the talk and the distraction, that you actually just stand down?
PRIME MINISTER:
As I said this is just recycled rubbish and on a day like Clean Up Australia Day, let’s put it in the bag and get rid of it.
QUESTION:
How do you maintain how much support you have from the Party Room and the Ministry – how do you gauge that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, because every single one of my colleagues is getting on with the job. We are all getting on with the job every day and frankly I think that the people of Australia are sick of the insider obsessions of people in Canberra. They want every Member of Parliament to get on with the job of delivering a better government. That is what I am focussed on, that’s what all my colleagues are focussed on.
QUESTION:
Will you be meeting with your backbenchers tonight in Canberra?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I meet with my frontbenchers, I meet with my backbenchers. Canberra is a giant meeting place. That is what the Parliament is.
QUESTION:
Will you be meeting them tonight though?
PRIME MINISTER:
The Parliament is a giant meeting place and I will certainly be meeting with frontbenchers and backbenchers - tonight, tomorrow, tomorrow night, Tuesday, Tuesday night, Wednesday, Wednesday night, Thursday, Thursday night and I dare say all around the country in the next few weeks I will be meeting with frontbenchers and backbenchers because that is what members of Parliament do.
QUESTION:
Josh Frydenberg said that there were some in the Party that would never remain convinced that you should stay in the top job. Do you agree with him?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I accept that you can’t please all of the people all of the time. That is life. The important thing is to get on with the job of government. Governments aren’t elected to do the things that are always and everywhere popular. Governments are elected to do the things that are necessary and so in this coming week you will see the metadata legislation that was very contentious but has now been the subject of a really outstanding, it’s a bipartisan report from the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security. I want to congratulate Dan Tehan, the Chair of that committee, for the extraordinary job he has done. We will see the Intergenerational Report and, yes, while the Intergenerational Report will outline the scale of the challenge, it will also outline the extent of the success already. And that is the strong foundation that the Government will be building on in this year’s Budget.
QUESTION:
Do you wish you had brought your surfboard today, Prime Minister? You come from a surfing reserve in Manly.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that is a very, very good question and I am looking at the surf and I am thinking to myself it is the perfect wave for the elderly long-boarder and I am not going to be driving past The Farm again. I will be bringing the board down and will be putting it to good use.
[ends]