RICK WILSON MP:
It’s a pleasure for me to have brought the Prime Minister to Kalgoorlie and to visit this wonderful family business that’s kicking goals, not just locally and nationally but internationally. So, I’m going to hand over to the Prime Minister to take your questions.
PRIME MINISTER:
Rick, it is great to be here at Hahn Contracting, it’s great to be here with Senator Chris Back, as well as with the local Member and it’s terrific to be here at this outstanding local business which started off 25 years ago and now employs some 200 people, services the mining industry right around our country and also increasingly internationally.
Now, a lot of good things that we’ve done for businesses like this: we’ve scrapped the carbon tax, we’ve scrapped the mining tax, we’re cutting red tape which is great for business generally. But the Free Trade Agreements which we have now negotiated with our three biggest trading partners will help a lot of businesses like this. This is essentially a services business, as well as a manufacturer and while about 60 per cent of our economy is services, less than 20 per cent of our exports are services. And the great thing about these Free Trade Agreements that we’ve negotiated with China, with Japan and with Korea, is that they are a very good deal for Australian services providers. We will be able to give our services into these important economies and as these economies continue to grow, as the Asian middle class continues to grow, as their industries become more and more sophisticated, it’ll be a tremendous opportunity for Australian services exports, as well as for Australian goods exports.
So, this is a Government which is determined to do the right thing by the businesses of Australia because if you do the right thing by business, you do the right thing by jobs, you do the right thing by wages because the more business can expand, the more business can employ and the more business can expand the more it can afford to pay its workers a bigger and a better salary. So, that’s why the policies of this Government in the end are so good for the workers of Australia and so good for the families of Australia. And again, I’m very proud to be here at a business which has become a great local, state-wide and nation-wide success story.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, can I ask you about car industry subsidy cuts – can you confirm the decision wasn’t taken to Cabinet?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, we made a decision that we were not going to proceed with our legislation to abolish the automotive transformation scheme, so this scheme will continue to operate as legislated. Of course, it will be winding down as the car industry shrinks but, nevertheless, there are a lot of other good things that this Government is doing in South Australia and elsewhere and Minister Macfarlane has had a bit to say about that earlier today.
QUESTION:
Did it go to a full Cabinet meeting?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, it went to the ERC originally and the decision not to proceed with the legislation is the sort of decision which does not necessarily go to Cabinet.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, is it true that only $100 million of new money will be spent, not the $900 million briefed to the Adelaide Advertiser?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not sure that I accept the premise of that question – I really am not sure that I accept the premise of that question. But the scheme will continue to operate; the scheme will continue to operate as legislated and how much is spent under the scheme will depend entirely upon applications that are made to the scheme and the ordinary operation of the scheme.
QUESTION:
Did somebody in Mr Macfarlane's office mislead the paper then about how much will be spent?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I'm afraid I haven't seen the story; I haven't spoken to the Minister. All I know is that the scheme is going to continue to operate as legislated because the legislation that we proposed to abolish the scheme is no longer going ahead.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, it's now 18 months since the election and you’re still trailing Labor in the polls. Why should your MPs still have faith in your leadership?
PRIME MINISTER:
We have delivered on our election commitments; the carbon tax is gone, the mining tax is gone, the boats have stopped. The task of budget repair is well and truly begun, as the Intergenerational Report made clear. So, this is a Government which every day is doing the right thing by the people of Australia. Now, I don't pretend that everything this Government has put forward is popular – I don't pretend that. I absolutely accept that we have asked the Australian people to accept a reality which the former Labor government ran away from. But the trouble with the policies of the former Labor government is that they were going to saddle future generations of Australians with debt and deficit at Greek levels – that's the problem. As the Intergenerational Report makes clear, under the policies of the former government, our debt to GDP ratio was going up to 120 per cent; annual deficits were heading towards 12 per cent of GDP. Under what's already been achieved by this Government, Labor's debt and deficit is halved and the intergenerational theft that was being practised by the former government against our children and grandchildren is well on the way to being fixed.
QUESTION:
When will you turn things around in the polls?
PRIME MINISTER:
I will continue to govern this country in the best interests of the Australian people, and that's what we are doing every day. Every day we are governing this country in the best interests of the Australian people and I think that's what the public want from us. They don't want a Government which obsesses about opinion polls; they want a Government which is focused every day on them. So, if you look at what we've done just over the last few weeks, we have lowered the screening threshold for foreign purchases of agricultural land, we've cracked down on illegal foreign purchases of residential land. We are finally taking some action, which the former government neglected for years, about food labelling so that people will know exactly what is in the goods they buy on our supermarket shelves. We have put forward a grocery code of conduct so that small businesses and big businesses will be on a much more level playing field in the agricultural sector. So, there are a whole range of things that we are doing every day to ensure that the real concerns of the Australian people are being met.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, Liberal MP Andrew Laming wants you to drop plans to index the aged pension against prices rather than wages. Will you listen to that and listen to some of your own backbenchers to consider that?
PRIME MINISTER:
What we said in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook was that we would look at the indexation once the Budget was back into a strong and sustainable surplus. But just on the subject of pensions, can I make myself crystal clear: the pensioners of Australia are better off under this Government. I want to repeat that because it's such an important point and because the Labor Party has been running around complaining – no answers, no solutions, just complaints – but because the Labor Party has been running around complaining, there has been a misapprehension amongst lots of people, but pensioners are better off under this Government because we've scrapped the carbon tax and we’ve kept the carbon tax compensation.
So, by any measure, that is a good deal for the pensioners of Australia. We've scrapped the carbon tax, we've kept the carbon tax compensation. Pensioners are better off today, much better off today, than they were two years ago, because this Government has scrapped the carbon tax but kept the carbon tax compensation.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, the Treasurer has spent two days in court fighting a defamation case. We are not paying for this case but we are paying for his wages. Given the Government's economic policies are the most controversial, is this a waste of taxpayer resources?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think anyone who knows the Treasurer knows that he was working all weekend, so I suppose maybe he is having a bit of time off in lieu today. But the fact is every member of this Government works incredibly hard – incredibly hard, as you'd expect. Every member of this Government works incredibly hard and I think it's pretty unreasonable, if I may say so, for people to start bandying around that kind of question.
QUESTION:
Have you spoken to the Indonesian President yet?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, as you know, I have spoken several times to the Indonesian President about the issue of the Australians on death row. All of us feel very strongly against the drug trade, all of us want to ensure that the evil trade in drugs is eliminated, but these two Australians have been well and truly rehabilitated. Their rehabilitation is a credit to the Indonesian penal system and the last thing I would have thought the Indonesians would want to do is to execute people who have become a force for good in the fight against drugs in Indonesia. I know Indonesia has a terrible drug problem – it really does – but these two Australians who have been thoroughly rehabilitated are now working against the drug trade in the Indonesian prison system and that's why I think it would be so counterproductive to go ahead with these executions.
QUESTION:
Have you spoken to him since you requested the call last Thursday?
PRIME MINISTER:
The request is a standing request. It hasn't yet been accommodated, but it’s a standing request and I hope that I can have a conversation with him as soon as possible.
QUESTION:
Do you feel that you may have been snubbed if he hasn’t responded to that request yet?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I appreciate that we have given this subject a pretty good thrash, he and I, and I'm keen to talk to him again but, in the end, I can request; he may or may not accept. That's the situation.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, Germaine Greer asked Ms Bishop if she would consider supporting the ‘free the nipple’ campaign if it saved the lives of Andrew Chan and… I’ve been asked to ask the question obviously!
PRIME MINISTER:
I can tell you’re rather embarrassed by having to ask the question and, if I may say so, sometimes we really trivialise important issues – we really do trivialise important issues – and with respect, I think that might be going on here: an important issue is being trivialised.
Now, we all hate the drug trade and we all think that people who peddle drugs ought to be punished very severely, but we don't believe that these two Australians deserve to be executed given that they are repentant, they are working against the drug trade and what we really ought to be doing now is conducting ourselves like a mature adult country, making appropriate representations on behalf of our citizens abroad.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister Abbott, can I ask one more question about the automotive industry. Macfarlane says MPs in key seats knew about the auto transformation scheme system before today. Who did you discuss this with and would you say this was another captain's call?
PRIME MINISTER:
There is nothing unusual, nothing unusual, nothing irregular about the decision not to proceed with the legislation to repeal this particular scheme. It was a recommendation of the Minister, the matter had previously been considered by the Expenditure Review Committee of the Cabinet. I know that you're always looking to find fault but I think that the decision not to proceed with the repeal legislation is a perfectly sensible one given the situation in the Senate, given the fact that, as the car industry winds down, there is, if you like, a natural term to the life of this scheme anyway. So, perfectly normal, natural, regular procedures were followed in respect of this particular scheme. I will take let's say two more questions.
QUESTION:
What was your experience down in Northcliffe yesterday?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, thanks for asking that question and it was good to be with Rick and with Nola Marino both of whose areas were devastated by the fires a few weeks back. It was good to be able to talk to people about the practical experience that they'd had, both during the fires and subsequently. It was also good to be able to talk to people about what might be done at all levels of Government to try to ensure that we don’t have catastrophic fires as frequently in the future as we have had in the recent past. As you know, at the time of the fires I was in regular contact with the local members, with Mayor Wade De Campo and also with Minister Michael Keenan who is in charge of Emergency Management Australia. As a result of a decision that the federal government made we were able to get some 260 interstate volunteers into the fire zone. The Army was able to establish a 400 person evacuation centre at Manjimup. So, it was good to be able to talk to local people about the effectiveness of the federal response to the fires. Interestingly, I have been doing a bit of discussion not only with locals but with Senator Back here about what we can do to ensure that we don’t get repeats of these fires. Frankly, we do have to have a more effective forest management strategy in the future than we have had in the recent past. As a rural firefighter myself from NSW, I know that if you do not have regular hazard reduction burns in these fire-prone areas, particularly fire-prone areas on the urban interface, you can get catastrophic fire situations. This was a potentially catastrophic fire. It was the biggest fire in the south-west corner in many, many decades and it was really only a combination of a bit of luck and the skill of the Emergency Services and the volunteers that much worse damage was avoided.
QUESTION:
Just a question about Kalgoorlie now; why did you decide to come here to Kalgoorlie? It has been 11 years since a Prime Minister came here. Labor hasn't been here for a long time. Why did you guys choose?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, pretty obviously, the former government neglected this great city of Kalgoorlie. I was in Kalgoorlie on a number of occasions as a minister in the former government. When I was in Albany before Christmas, I promised Rick, the local member, that I would pay him a proper electoral visit and that's exactly what I'm doing. When the fires were on in the south-west corner, I promised Nola Marino and Rick that I would get down to that area just to pay tribute to the work of the Emergency Services and particularly the volunteers and, again, I'm honouring that commitment. What we tend to forget is the extraordinary contribution of places like Kalgoorlie to Australia's overall wealth and prosperity. There are 30,000 people or thereabouts living here in Kalgoorlie but the exports, the exports and the GDP which are generated by this region benefit people right around our country. So, in being here, I'm not just paying tribute to local people but I'm also acknowledging the importance of a place like Kalgoorlie and the resources sector more generally, to our economy more generally.
Thanks so much.
[ends]