CHRISTIAN PORTER:
Good morning everyone. I’m opening the batting. Welcome to the electorate of Pearce. We’ve got 14,000 square kilometres of probably the best agricultural land anywhere in Australia and, obviously, the Swan Valley with all its fine wineries.
The Prime Minister’s visiting and predominantly we’ve been talking this morning about the fact that the three FTAs – South Korea, Japan and China – will mean that about 98 per cent of all of the wine exports from Australia will be duty free. So, previously we were facing 20 per cent tariffs into places like China. At a wonderful business like Houghtons, that means that for the first time their biggest markets are really opening up to them.
My own observation in an electorate like Pearce is that the free trade agreements we’ve signed will be an absolute turning point and we’ll look back on them probably decades into the future and say this is when things really turned around for this great sector of our economy.
So, we’re just delighted to have the Prime Minister here to talk about this great success story. Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you, Christian, and it is a real pleasure to be here in your electorate at this legendary Australian winemaking establishment – one of the oldest businesses in Western Australia and a business which has contributed greatly to the lives of so many people, both workers and, indeed, people who want to make the most and get the most out of life and it really has been a terrific place to visit today.
Christian’s right – these free trade agreements can make a massive difference to our economy and our society over decades. If you go back to the 1950s and the signing of the first trade agreement between Australia and Japan by prime ministers Kishi and Menzies, this really did help to set up Australia for the ‘60s and ‘70s. That agreement helped to make possible the transition from reliance on Britain to the opportunities of Japan. It helped to make possible the extraordinary mineral developments of Western Australia in the 1960s and ‘70s.
So, these free trade agreements will set us up for the future and of the many sectors that will benefit from these free trade agreements, few are as full of such potential as the wine industry, because as Christian says, there is vast, vast potential for increased Australian wine sales to the countries of North Asia; to the expanding middle classes of North Asia. At the moment, most of our wine exports to these countries face significant tariff barriers – tariff barriers that competitors such as New Zealand have not faced for quite some time – so this does establish a level playing field for our exporters and I’m confident that great businesses like Houghtons will take advantage of this.
So, this is yet another example of the Australian Government – the Commonwealth Government, the Coalition Government in Canberra – setting our country up for the future. This is what we’re on about every day: working for the Australian people, doing everything we humanly can to deliver a strong, safe and prosperous future for everyone. That’s what we’re on about every day: a strong, safe and prosperous future for everyone and these free trade agreements do deliver for the people of Australia.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister can we ask you, can you confirm the jihadist teenager identified in Fairfax newspapers is in fact an Australian?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I don’t want to go into those sorts of details. All I want to do is to say that this Government is doing everything we humanly can to stop Australians from leaving to go overseas to fight with the death cult. We’re doing everything we can to apprehend Australians who are coming back from fighting with the death cult and, very importantly, we are about to begin a very big campaign to try to counter the influence that the death cult has, particularly online, on vulnerable Australians.
Too many Australians, it seems, are being brainwashed online by this death cult and the two teenagers who tried to go to the Middle East just the other day and were stopped through the vigilance of our Border Force are further examples of the lure of the death cult and it’s important that we do everything we can to crackdown on this.
QUESTION:
There’s been criticism the Government has been slow to act in terms of that campaign. Funding was announced seven months ago. What progress has been made?
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s important that we spend the money the right way rather than just blow it and what we want to do is ensure that we are working effectively with community leaders, that we will be working effectively to crackdown on online indoctrination of people. Yes, it’s important to spend the money but it’s important to get value for money and we are determined to make sure that what we do is as effective as it humanly can be.
QUESTION:
So has Joko Widodo returned your latest phone call?
PRIME MINISTER:
As you know, I am certainly wanting to have another conversation with the Indonesian President to build on the conversations that I’ve previously had with him, most recently about a week or so back. As yet, it hasn’t been possible to organise a further conversation, but we won’t stop trying, because it is the constant duty of the Australian government to do whatever we reasonably can to protect our citizens, to defend our interests and to advance our values and while we deplore drug crime, we deplore the death penalty as well.
QUESTION:
Joe Hockey has suggested Australians raid their super funds for job retraining or to buy their first home. Is that really responsible?
PRIME MINISTER:
This is an idea which has been around for quite some time. It’s certainly an idea which has a lot of currency in other countries, for instance, Singapore has long had a situation where people’s savings are accessible for home ownership. So, it’s a perfectly good and respectable idea. I can remember back in the early ‘90s when I was helping John Hewson to draft the Fightback statement, putting in a suggestion to this effect. It’s something that I’m very happy to see further debated, but there are obviously some issues around it and let’s fully consider it. At this stage, we don’t have any plans to introduce it.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, can you provide some more clarity around changes to the aged pension indexation? Will you tie it to inflation or some other measure?
PRIME MINISTER:
As you know, in last year’s Budget we proposed from 2017 for a period of years to index pensions to the CPI and we believe that that is a perfectly justifiable measure given that the former government – the Rudd-Gillard Government – indexed a whole range of social security benefits to CPI. So, we think it’s a perfectly reasonable measure to put in place for a period of time until the budgetary position is substantially improved and we flagged in MYEFO that the CPI indexation of pensions would not be something that would continue indefinitely – it would be something that would be in place until the Budget returned to strong surplus.
QUESTION:
Would you consider tightening rules for access to the aged pension?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. There are no plans to make any changes to the aged pension other than those that were announced in the Budget last year. The point I make is that, as far as I’m concerned, I want the pensioners of Australia to be better off, and they are better off today because the pensioners of Australia have lost the carbon tax but they’ve kept all the carbon tax compensation and, as we said going in to the 2013 election, there would be no changes to the pension and we’re not proposing any changes to the pension in this term of parliament.
QUESTION:
Can your Government afford to spend $1 billion on upgrading the Centrelink computer system at a time when the Budget’s so tight?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, can we afford not to have an efficient Centrelink system? At the moment, the antiquated system – a system that dates back to the 1970s – is costing us tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs because data has to be re-entered manually time and time again. It’s vital for our medium-term and long-term wellbeing that we have efficient and effective systems. So, it’s money that we have to spend and, frankly, this is yet another mess from the former government that this government has got to clean up because they were incapable of taking the long view, they were incapable of being prepared to say yes, we have to spend some money today in order to derive efficiencies and economies in the long-term.
Whether it be their failure to spend properly upgrading the Centrelink systems, whether it be their failure to actually bite the bullet on the future submarines project, wherever you look, the former government was negligent, it was derelict in its duty because sensible governments have got to ensure that our country is set up for the long-term and that’s what this Government is determined to do.
QUESTION:
Do you concede that replacing that computer system will help improve welfare reform?
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely. We need to have a proper computer system which is capable of ensuring that people get paid in a timely way, they get paid at the right time and that all of the administration is as efficient as it possibly can be and that’s what we’re doing.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, just quickly back to Indonesia, has the Indonesian Ambassador been called into DFAT yet, or have any arrangements been made for him to meet with Julie Bishop?
PRIME MINISTER:
My understanding is that the Indonesian Ambassador was called to express Australia’s dismay at the way the two Australians had been treated – the undignified, at times almost macabre way that those two Australians were treated as part of the transfer from the Bali jail to the execution island. Now, we respect Indonesia’s sovereignty, of course, we respect Indonesia’s system, of course, but we think it’s right and proper that Indonesia should look to its own long-term best interests and its own long-term best values and that’s why we keep saying that it’s not in Indonesia’s interests to execute these prisoners who have become an asset in its fight against drug crime and it’s certainly, I believe – we believe, as a government and as a country – is not in accordance with Indonesia’s best values to execute these people who have been thoroughly rehabilitated and reformed.
QUESTION:
Can I go back to pension changes? Andrew Laming, have you spoken to him about some comments he made? He said there’s missiles and torpedos aimed at the policy. Are you worried about further destabilisation from the backbench?
PRIME MINISTER:
I’m not aware of those comments and I’m not going to respond.
QUESTION:
The UN has found that asylum seekers at Manus Island, their conditions are bad and they’re being treated badly and that it all breaches the torture conventions. What are your thoughts on that?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think Australians are pretty sick of being lectured to. I really think Australians are sick of being lectured to by the United Nations, particularly given that we have stopped the boats, and by stopping the boats we have ended the deaths at sea. The most humanitarian, the most decent, the most compassionate thing you can do is stop these boats because hundreds, we think about 1,200 in fact, drowned at sea during the flourishing of the people smuggling trade under the former government. So, the best thing you can do to uphold the universal decencies of mankind, the best thing that you can do to ensure that the best values of our world are realised is to stop the boats and that’s exactly what we have done. We have stopped the boats and I think the UN’s representatives would have a lot more credibility if they were to give some credit to the Australian Government for what we’ve been able to achieve in this area.
QUESTION:
They’re not mutually exclusive, though. Do you accept the UN’s comments in terms of the conditions on Manus Island in isolation?
PRIME MINISTER:
The conditions on Manus Island are reasonable under all the circumstances. All of the basic needs of the people on Manus Island are being met and, as I said, I think the UN would be much better served by giving credit to the Australian Government for what has been achieved in terms of stopping the boats. But certainly, on Manus Island everyone’s need for food, for clothing, for shelter, for safety are being more than met thanks to the good work of the PNG Government, the Australian Government and the people who are running the centre.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, just to go back to the situation in Bali again, do you think it would be a sign of strength if the Indonesian President spared those two men their lives? And similarly, do you think it would go to a lack of strength if he pressed ahead with it simply because?
PRIME MINISTER:
I have nothing but admiration for President Joko Widodo. I’ve already had several meetings with him. I think that his political ascendency is a sign of the maturity of the Indonesian political system. As I’ve said on numerous occasions, Indonesia is on the cusp of greatness, Indonesia is one of the emerging democratic superpowers of the coming century. The relationship between Australia and Indonesia is of critical importance to both countries.
So, I have respect and admiration for the Indonesian President. I am a great friend of Indonesia. As a person and as a Prime Minister, I want the relationship between our two countries to go from strength to strength in the months and years ahead and I’m determined to do everything I can to bring that about. What I do say, though, is that the execution of these two Australians who have been completely rehabilitated – and that’s a credit to the Indonesian prison system – the execution of these two Australians who have become assets to Indonesia in its fight against drug crime is not in Indonesia’s best interests and it isn’t in accordance with Indonesia’s best values. That’s the point I keep making, but I make that point as a friend of Indonesia and as a friend and admirer of President Joko Widodo.
Thank you so much.
[ends]