THE HON. KELLY O’DWYER MP:
It’s great for the Prime Minister to be here in the Higgins electorate today. The Prime Minister has come here to Very Special Kids today to make a critically important announcement to secure the future of this wonderful and important hospice. The oldest hospice in Australia’s history, it has been running for more than 30 years and the $4 million of funding that has been provided to Very Special Kids will mean that they can plan for the future and continue to serve more than 900 families each and every year who have got children with life threatening illnesses.
It is a wonderful announcement and I really want to thank the Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, for coming here today to make this announcement and to help these wonderful families, all of the volunteers at Very Special Kids – more than 400 of them – the fantastic staff here and all of the donors who make up this wonderful family that is Very Special Kids.
Thank you Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Kelly, thank you so much. Scott, thank you. I'm flanked by two great supporters of Very Special Kids, Kelly O’Dwyer, the local Member for Higgins and Senator Scott Ryan – both big, big supporters of this splendid, splendid place.
Kelly, as a mother of just three weeks, obviously, I guess now has a particular commitment to Very Special Kids having a very special kid of her own now.
Look, it is so important for families that when their children are sick, particularly when they are sick with life-threatening illnesses that there be the best possible care, and that's exactly what children and adolescents have been getting here now for 30 years.
The $4 million that we are making available to Very Special Kids will enable this site to be purchased. I'm sure the Victorian Government will give it to Very Special Kids for the best possible price and that means that no longer will $300,000 a year in rent have to be fundraised. That $300,000 will, in future, be able to be spent on delivering even better care for the kids here at Very Special Kids. I think this is a very good use of
taxpayers funding. Every taxpayer wants the money that is entrusted to the Government to be spent wisely and prudently but almost every taxpayer is a parent, almost every taxpayer has an interest in sick kids getting the best possible attention and that's what will happen even more so as a result of today's announcement.
It has been quite a busy day. I started the day with a run around The Tan, with Simon Cheel who is doing seven marathons in seven days to raise money for Bravehearts. That's all about a different form of child protection.
Then of course I went out to the Endeavour Hills Police Station, the site of the first of the recent terrorist incidents that we've seen in our country, to offer support to the police who are out there keeping us safe – another form of protection.
So, it has been quite a big day of trying to ensure that those who are protecting our community, who are helping our community, understand that they have the firm support of the Commonwealth Government.
Of course, we can only offer the best possible protection if we've got a strong economy to sustain the services that we deliver.
The good news last week was that our economy is growing at 0.9 per cent. It is amongst the best growth in the developed world. It doesn't happen by accident, it happens because the Government has put in place policies to cut tax, to deregulate, to be open to business and we're starting to see some results.
Earlier this week we also saw unemployment fall by 0.2 per cent. There have been almost 300,000 extra jobs created since the election.
Again, these things don't happen by accident. They happen because you've got a Government which is open for business, which is open to business, which is trying to do the right thing by the people who are having a go, creating jobs and building prosperity.
If you've got a Government which is supporting people who are having a go and building prosperity, you are in a position, a much better position, to be able to look after services like the marvellous service that we are here with today with Very Special Kids.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, Jeff Kennett said today that Bill Shorten should resign from Parliament for being in charge of the AWU at a time when it was negotiating dodgy deals for workers. Do you agree with that and do you think Mr Shorten has so far failed to take responsibility for what happened on his watch?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm very conscious of the fact that Cesar Melhem, Mr Shorten's successor as AWU leader in Victoria, has had to resign from his position in the Victorian Parliament. I'm not calling for Mr Shorten to resign, but I am saying that if this is significant enough for Cesar Melhem to resign it's obviously significant enough for Bill Shorten to at least offer us some answers rather than just delivering sermons. My request of Mr Shorten is to level with the Australian people. He had a very important position. He had a position of trust, he had a position where the workers that he represented expected him to do the right thing by them and it seems that too many leaders of that union and other unions weren’t doing the right thing by the workers. They were doing the right thing by the union and the union's power and the pre-selection campaigns of union officials and I think that is incredibly disappointing to the workers of Australia.
QUESTION:
Did the Government pay people smugglers to turn back boats?
PRIME MINISTER:
What the Government has done is stop the boats. We have stopped the boats. We have used a whole range of measures to stop the boats because that's what the Australian people elected us to do. That is not only the right thing by the people of Australia, but it's the decent and humane thing to do because if you stop the boats you stop the deaths. So, we have stopped the boats. We will do whatever we reasonably can – consistent with the principles of a decent and humane society – to ensure that the boats stay stopped. I am never, ever going to apologise for stopping the boats because frankly that was absolutely necessary after the former government created a disaster on our borders.
QUESTION:
Just to returning to my question, did the Government pay people smugglers to turn back boats? This is about the Government paying people smugglers.
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm perfectly aware of the import of your question and what we have done – very firmly for all sorts of good reasons, since September of 2013 – is not comment on operational matters. Every time we comment on operational matters we give information to our enemies. We give information to people who want to do the wrong thing by our country. So, it's been an absolutely firm rule that we don't go into the details of the operational measures needed to stop the boats. We don't go into the details of operational measures to fight crime, we don't go into the details of operational measures on national security and I'm certainly not going to go into the details of operational matters on the water now.
QUESTION:
[Inaudible] Minister on Tuesday told reporters that Australian officials did not pay the crew of a people smuggling boat. Do you stand by the Ministers answers to that question?
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course, I always stand by my Ministers.
QUESTION:
The Opposition’s Richard Marles characterised, if true this suggestion that Government officials have paid people smugglers, by saying that Government officials actions were akin to a floating ATM for people smugglers. What do you say to that description?
PRIME MINISTER:
I say that the Labor Party is still incredibly embarrassed about its record on border protection – incredibly embarrassed about its record on border protection and rather than attempt zingers Richard Marles should actually say where the Labor Party stands on turn-backs. That's what Richard Marles should be explaining – where does the Labor Party stand on turn-backs? If you aren't prepared to turn boats around where it's safe to do so, you aren't prepared to protect our borders and you can't be trusted with our border security.
QUESTION:
Two of your Ministers have denied that people smugglers were paid. Why can’t you offer the same kind of denial?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm maintaining the position which has been the absolutely consistent position of this Government from day one. We are not in the business of giving information to people smugglers because if we talk about our tactics, they'll change their tactics. They will gain an upper hand that no Australian Government should ever allow them to get.
QUESTION:
Why can't you just rule out in principle the idea of not paying people smugglers?
PRIME MINISTER:
Because I'm not in the business of implicitly or explicitly giving information to people smugglers and I'm not in the business of watering down the border protection policies which have saved Australia from a border protection catastrophe created by the former government.
Now, let's again go through the facts. Under the former government, we had almost a thousand boats. We had more than 50,000 illegal arrivals by boat. We had more than a thousand deaths at sea. In July of 2013, because of the catastrophic failure of the former government, people were arriving at the rate of 50,000 a year. People were arriving at Mediterranean levels, because of the disastrous border protection policies of the former government. We came in with the strongest possible mandate to do what was needed to protect our borders. We have done it, it's worked, we are going to keep doing it because it needs to keep working.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, why is the Government blocking an inquiry in Parliament over the Man Monis letter?
PRIME MINISTER:
The Director-General of Security, the head of ASIO, has said that this matter was dealt with appropriately. The head of my department has said that access to that letter would not have made any difference to the outcome of the inquiry into the event. Look, the gentleman in question, the killer in question, because I shouldn't dignify him in any other way, the killer in question was well known to authorities – was absolutely well known to authorities. He'd come to their attention again and again and again. He was brought to the attention of the national security hotline, just a couple of days before he committed his atrocity in Martin Place.
I make two points – first of all, if people are sufficiently determined, are sufficiently merciless, it is very difficult to entirely prevent them from carrying out atrocities, although we have the best and the most professional police and security agencies in the world. Second point – and frankly this is the more important point – is that at every step, at every turn, Monis was given the benefit of the doubt. He was given the benefit of the doubt at every turn. Our system is too soft – our system is too soft. We are in the business of toughening it up because we don't want people like him to slip through the net. We don't want people like him to fall through the cracks and it's interesting that some of the people who are now railing on the basis of this letter are the same people who under different circumstances would be accusing the Government of being too tough.
QUESTION:
Shouldn't that business be transparent, given the Government had to correct Hansard on this matter doesn't it have a responsibility to explain in detail?
PRIME MINISTER:
We have explained it in detail. The Labor Party can hyperventilate all it likes, but we have explained it in detail. What happened was the answers that the Attorney-General and the Minister for Foreign Affairs representing the Attorney-General gave were based on public service advice. They were based on public service advice at a senior level. The advice changed so the record was corrected – simple as that.
QUESTION:
George Brandis announced new legislation today at the terrorism summit. Can you detail what any of that is? It seemed to be about social media and extremism.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, in due course the legislation will be introduced, but as you'd expect the legislation is always evolving because the terrorist threat is constantly evolving. Terrorists regrettably are always trying to work out new ways of doing us harm. They are always trying to work out new ways of escaping the attention of our police and security agencies and our job is to try to be one step ahead of them and that's why, as the threat evolves, the legislation must evolve with it.
QUESTION:
Can I ask you – have you ever been to a wind farm and if so, which one?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I was on Rottnest Island a few years ago and I cycled around the island most mornings and my path took me almost directly under the big wind turbine which has been on Rottnest Island for some time. Now, up close, they are ugly, they are noisy and they may have all sorts of other impacts which I will leave to the scientists to study and that's why I think it's right and proper that state governments should have increased the distance from habitations that these installations now need to keep. It's right and proper that we are having an inquiry into the health impacts of these things. Frankly, it's right and proper that we have reduced the renewable energy target because as things stood, there was going to be an explosion of these things right around our country. There will still be some growth, but it will be much less than it would otherwise have been thanks to measures that this Government has taken.
QUESTION:
Just on the AWU, do you think that Bill Shorten should offer himself for cross-examination at the royal commission as soon as possible to make sure this is all cleared up with sworn testimony?
PRIME MINISTER:
He obviously has some explaining to do. He really does have some explaining to do and I don't want to prejudge him or his testimony, but plainly, some really dodgy things have been happening in the union movement and plainly in the AWU itself, based on the testimony to the royal commission in the last week or so, workers have been ripped off so that union officials can flourish. Now, this is just wrong. This is a fundamental betrayal of the workers of Australia by a movement which claims to be their best friend. So, I certainly think it would help if he would front the royal commission and clear things up.
[ends]