ZED SESELJA:
Welcome to West Belconnen and to Elite Meats and thank you to Wes and James for hosting us. It’s great to have the Prime Minister here; it’s great to have my colleague and friend Peter Hendy – one of our great regional MPs – here in the Canberra area.
Fantastic to be here and obviously this is just another example of another great small business that we want to see doing good things, we want to see this small business grow, we want them employing more people and I think what Wes and James have had to say is that they’re getting a boost and that’s certainly what we want to see. So, that’s certainly what I’m hearing from a lot of businesses here in Canberra and no doubt Peter is in the region and in other parts of Australia as well.
So, great to have the Prime Minister here and I’ll hand over.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks, Zed. It is good to be here. It’s good to be with Peter Hendy – the Member for Eden-Monaro – as well as our Senator for the ACT.
But I just want to say how pleased I am to be with Wes and James here at Elite Meats. This particular butchery gained some fame shortly after the Budget by putting a sign up saying thank you to Joe Hockey for finally recognising the job that small business does.
I think right around our country, small businesses are feeling enthused and energised because at last there is a Government which doesn't just talk about small business, but which has specifically delivered for them.
I was a small business minister in the Howard government. We talked a lot about small business but we were very reluctant to have policies that were specifically targeted to small business. This is a tax cut and an instant asset write off that is specifically targeted to small business. And the surge of confidence that I have observed right around the country is the result of this specific tax cut directed towards small business.
As you know, yesterday's national accounts figures showed strong growth – encouragingly strong growth – for the quarter. Growth was up by 0.9 per cent – way above expectations. There was a five per cent boost to export volumes – the biggest increase in a quarter for fifteen years. There was an almost five per cent boost to housing starts – the biggest quarterly boost for six years.
Now, this kind of performance doesn't happen by accident. It happens because you've got a Government which is open for business. It happens because you've got a Government which is putting the right policies in place. The carbon tax is gone. The mining tax is gone. The small business tax cut in this Budget. We saw $30 billion worth of savings achieved in last year's Budget. We've seen three Free Trade Agreements. We've seen $2 billion worth of deregulation, cost-cutting. All of this is helping to boost our economy.
This Government has a plan. We've always had a plan but the plan is now bringing about practical results for the people of Australia – our plan for a strong and prosperous economy, for a safe and secure Australia. Look at the statistics yesterday and I've got to say, the plan is working.
Now, it's good to be here with Peter Hendy. Peter is not only a Member of Parliament but he was a small businessman himself before coming into the Parliament. I might ask him to say a few words.
PETER HENDY:
Thank you, Prime Minister – and thank you, Zed.
My electorate next door here in Eden-Monaro is a rural and regional electorate and we depend enormously on small business. It is the lifeblood of country towns. And so I have been very passionate, I grew up in a small business family, I have been very passionate about small business, I have run a small business myself. And this package has energised business across the electorate.
Thank you, Prime Minister, thank you to Joe Hockey and I think we're really hitting a lot of runs here with respect to small business.
PRIME MINISTER:
Ok, do we have any questions?
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, can I take you to the South China Sea? What do you think of the way that the Chinese are behaving there in terraforming islands? And would you send an Australian ship into those waters to test Australia's right for free navigation?
PRIME MINISTER:
Chris, I should begin by saying that China is a very good friend of Australia and it's a friendship which is getting stronger all the time. Of course, China's not our only friend and we have other friends around the South China Sea and we have friends and allies that have a very strong interest in the South China Sea. We’ve always had a very clear position on the South China Sea. We take no sides in the many territorial disputes in that region. But we deplore any unilateral alteration of the status quo. We believe that disputes should be settled peacefully in accordance with international law and we do what we can to uphold freedom of navigation on the sea and in the air. So, that's our position. It's long been our position and it will continue to be our position.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, the Aboriginal Custody Notification Service will be defunded at the end of the month. It's played a huge role in preventing Aboriginal deaths in custody in the ACT and NSW. Why is such an important service being defunded by a Prime Minister who said he would be the Prime Minister for indigenous affairs?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I'm not going to specifically comment because you are putting a matter of detail to me that I haven't been briefed on, but we are very determined to ensure that we fund the services we need, provided they are working well and just because a service has previously been funded doesn't guarantee that it will always be funded. It's got to be working well and it's got to be supplying a contemporary need.
QUESTION:
I put to you, Prime Minister, it is because it prevented Aboriginal deaths in custody for the past 15 years. I would say you need the service, so why is it being defunded?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that's a very fair point and you are really making a statement. I will take that statement as your position and my office will come back to you with some detail.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, why won't you give Labor a briefing on your proposed changes to citizenship laws it has asked for when you are the one that has been pressuring the opposition to reveal its stance?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, at the moment we have a principle. That's what's at issue at the moment – a principle. In a week or so's time, the legislation will be introduced into the Parliament and once the legislation has been introduced into the Parliament, of course the Labor Party will get a briefing and the Labor Party knows that they will get a briefing as soon as the legislation is introduced into the Parliament. But the principle is absolutely clear. The Government will strip citizenship from terrorists who are dual nationals. My question to the Labor Party is: where do you stand on that principle? We know where we stand. We think that anyone who raises a gun or a knife to an Australian because of who we are has utterly forfeited any right to be considered one of us. I think that's a very clear principle. The Government supports it and we will put it into practice with this legislation. Where does the Labor Party stand?
QUESTION:
Do you think that's going to be a deterrent to people going to fight for Islamic State if the threat of death is what these people are willing to take on and going to fight in Iraq is taking their citizenship away going to do that?
PRIME MINISTER:
It's not the only thing we are proposing to do. As you know, we've spent about $1.3 billion to improve the resources available to our police and security agencies. We've boosted the laws so that our police and security agencies have better powers. We have a powerful military force in the Middle East right now which is very effectively mounting air strikes against the Daesh death cult and we have got military trainers working with the Iraqi Army and a small special forces component advising and assisting the Iraqi special forces. So, we are acting across a wide range of areas to try to ensure first that Australians don't go. Second, that Australians who come back can be dealt with. Third, that we deal with this international menace at its source in Northern Iraq.
QUESTION:
Can I ask you about Rosie Batty's comments about domestic violence? You probably know she has likened it to terrorism and she's asked for specific things – relationship education – as part of the curriculum, teaching respect for women. Surely there is more Government can be doing. What more can you do?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, thanks Mark. I have enormous admiration and respect for Rosie Batty. There was rightly universal acclamation when she was made Australian of the Year. Yes, there is a lot we can do and there is $100 million more for the action strategy against domestic violence. There is the $30 million joint Federal-State campaign that will soon be rolling out. Rosie Batty is the Deputy Chair of the COAG taskforce that Ken Lay, the former Victorian Police Commissioner, is heading up. There is money available to implement the recommendations of that taskforce. We shouldn't forget, though, that an enormous amount is already being done. There are all sorts of counselling services that are available. The State and Territory police forces spend an enormous amount of time and resources dealing with domestic violence. I asked Ken Lay roughly what percentage of Victorian Police time would be devoted to domestic violence and he said about 50 per cent. It's not as if nothing is being done here. An enormous amount is being done and the challenge is to do it more effectively. Even deeper, the challenge is not just to spend more, it's to look into our hearts, ask ourselves what our best values are and for blokes to say "no more". Because the tragedy is that the vast majority of domestic violence is perpetrated by men against women. It is not a brave or manly thing to strike, threaten or bully a woman or a child and every single Australian man needs to understand that.
QUESTION:
Will you explain to us what you have written to some backbench members who raised the issue of citizenship to you in a letter?
PRIME MINISTER:
I have certainly encouraged them to continue to give the Government strong backing on national security matters.
QUESTION:
In the state of NSW, it has been reported that the mystery owner of the most famous trophy homes in Altona in Point Piper is actually a Chinese developer who is concealing his identify behind an elderly couple in Melbourne. What's your reaction to this?
PRIME MINISTER:
It goes to show how important it is that we beef up the Foreign Investment Review Board powers to investigate and ensure the law is enforced. We have long had a sensible Foreign Investment Review Board regime for ensuring that Australians get first dibs on established residential housing. That's as it should be. We don't mind foreigners building new housing because that adds to the overall stock although there are rules governing that as well but the problem was that, under the former government, the rules simply weren't enforced. There was not a single prosecution launched in six years of Labor. We have changed that already. Interestingly, it seems that once you look into this, there are all sorts of things you discover going on behind the scenes and that's why I think the public are very pleased that finally there is a government that takes these rules seriously.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, we have had the end of Reconciliation Week which maybe didn't get a lot of national attention. Is it time to think about a national Indigenous holiday, there is a Martin Luther King Day in America, perhaps Mabo Day here in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't rule it out and I certainly think that reconciliation is an absolutely crucial national challenge, as is the challenge of constitutional recognition. I have to say that at the moment, our priority is trying to bring the recognition campaign to an appropriate point. As you know, the joint Parliamentary committee on constitutional recognition will be bringing down a report shortly – on 6 July I think it is, Bill Shorten and myself are meeting with a number of significant Indigenous leaders to chart a way forward. My priority in this area is to bring the recognition campaign to a point where we can successfully put something to the people. It's very important that we get this right. It's more important that we get it right than that we rush it but, nevertheless, that is my priority at this time.
Thanks so much.
[ends]