Subjects: Visit to Grafton; Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper – stronger farmers, stronger economy; Shenhua mine; Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption.
E&OE……………………….……………………………………………………………
MR KEVIN HOGAN MP:
Thank you all for being here. It’s a wonderful day obviously for a number of reasons. Primarily it’s wonderful to have the Prime Minister of Australia in Grafton, in McLaren’s Valley today and the electorate of Page. I’m talking to a lot of farmers in the area and obviously small businesses and a lot of the things that we have put into the White Ag Paper, the Agriculture White Paper and also obviously the small business that we’ve done in the budget, a lot of it is still not necessarily understood or known by a lot of people in the community. So it’s great to have the Prime Minister here to promote this, to talk about this great policy that we have for farmers in our region which is going to spur a lot of activity. We’ve spoken to Joe this morning already and he’s talking about a number of things here that he’s looking to do on the back of the White Ag Paper. So thank you for being here and Prime Minister it’s wonderful to have you here.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, thanks Kevin, it’s great to be here with Kevin Hogan the Local Member for Page. It’s great to be on the property of Joe and Liz Austen to talk about the sorts of things which this Government is doing to promote agriculture.
Obviously agriculture is a very, very important part of our economy and I’m determined that agriculture is going to be even more important in the future than it’s been in the past. That’s why this White Paper is spending $830 million over the forward estimates, all up there’s about $1.3 billion worth of spending, then on top of that there’s drought loan monies available.
Some of the things that are obviously very exciting for Joe Austen are things like the instant depreciation of fencing, the instant depreciation of water infrastructure on farm, the instant depreciation of fodder storage facilities – like that one over there – this is an Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper which has been informed by people who know what they’re talking about, who know what they’re doing. We want to build on the great strengths of Australian agriculture in the months and years and decades to come because this is a very, very important part of our future.
What we’re doing with agriculture is of a piece with what we’re doing generally; to be more open for business. It builds on the Budget for small business, including the $20,000 instant asset write-off – the great thing about the $20,000 instant asset write-off is that you can have it again and again and again. If you’re a small business you can write-off one item for $19,999, then you can write-off another one for $19,999 again and again and again because what we want to do is maximise the capacity of small business to go out there and invest in a better business, invest in employing more people and invest in better service for their customers.
So, I’m really pleased to be here with Kevin. I think this is one of the great agricultural areas of our country and it’s certainly one of the areas that’s going to benefit from this White Paper.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister we were expecting to see the Agriculture Minister here today. Did he cancel because of his fury or discontent, at the very least, over the Shenhua mine approval?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well no, Barnaby is scheduled to be up in Mackay, that’s where he is right now selling the Agriculture White Paper and later on today he’ll be further north in Queensland. So his schedule and my schedule are simply different but it would have been nice, sure, but unfortunately he’d made commitments elsewhere when I made the commitment here. But that’s what we’re all doing; we’re out there selling the message of a good Government which is getting on with the job of helping the businesses of Australia, particularly the agricultural businesses.
QUESTION:
His comments were quite strong, he said the world’s gone mad. I mean is that appropriate behaviour for a Cabinet Minister to say such strong reaction in response to the decision?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I’m a Local Member, we are all Local Members first and often as a Local Member you will very strongly represent the views of your constituents. I can remember some years ago in the life of the Howard Government I was very vocal about mobile phone base stations that had been placed in my electorate and I was very hostile to them but I also accepted that there were government policies and things happened under government policies and sometimes as a Local Member you’ve got to give voice to the feelings of your constituents while at the same time being a loyal member of the Government.
QUESTION:
How involved in the decision making process for that approval were you? Was it a captain’s call? We know the Environment Minister is on leave at the moment.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, it was the Environment Minister who made the decision, as you’d expect and look, in respect of this particular mine, I can understand why local people are very concerned to protect their environment – absolutely I can understand that – but this particular mine as I understand it, is subject to very, very strict environmental operating standards. If any of 18 fundamental conditions are breached, the mines operation can be stopped – that’s my understanding. The mine itself will use less than one one thousandth of the available groundwater – it’s actually a mine in the hill country, it’s not a mine that is on prime agricultural land – so I think this is another one of those situations where high quality agriculture and mining can continue to coexist.
QUESTION:
So you think that that farm land is going to remain viable then?
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely, that’s the understanding that I have based on the briefing notes that I’ve seen.
QUESTION:
How can the community have confidence when the Minister doesn’t have confidence, the Agriculture Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, as I said, you can do a lot of things as a Local Member, Local Members are required from time-to-time to give voice to the feelings of their constituents, that’s what Local Members do – I’ve done it myself as a Member and a Minister in a government – and sure Barnaby speaking on behalf of many of his constituents is disappointed but at the same time these are very strict environmental standards and they are standards that have been put in place by a good Government which is determined to strengthen our economy while at the same time protecting our environment.
QUESTION:
There are concerns a free trade agreement will result in the project primarily employing Chinese nationals with profits and coal going to China, what will locals get out of it?
PRIME MINISTER:
They’ll get a very large amount of investment, over $1 billion as I understand it. The vast majority of that spending will be spent with Australian businesses that will get on with the job of building the infrastructure that will make it all happen. I am absolutely confident that the vast majority of the people employed at this mine will be Australians. So if you look at what the mining industry does for our country; it provides massive employment, it provides massive investment and it provides massive prosperity and the important thing is to ensure that we have a strong and growing mining industry consistent with the best environmental standards – and that’s what we’ve always done in this country.
QUESTION:
To the the Royal Commission and Eric Abetz yesterday likened Bill Shorten’s behaviour to that of Craig Thomson, do you back that assertion?
PRIME MINISTER:
I’m not going to offer a running commentary on the Royal Commission. Obviously there are matters unfolding at the Royal Commission and I’ll just leave those matters to speak for themselves. The important thing is to ensure that we have the best and cleanest union movement. The important thing is to ensure that we’ve got honest unions that are being run for the benefit of their members and that frankly means passing the Registered Organisations Commission Bill which is currently before the Parliament, it means passing the Australian Building and Construction Commission Bill that’s currently before the Parliament and that’s really what we need. We need to strengthen our institutional arrangements so that the kinds of things that we’ve seen highlighted at the Royal Commission can’t happen in the future.
QUESTION:
So do you think then that the Opposition Leader should resign, that’s one of the claims that’s been made today?
PRIME MINISTER:
Again, I’m just not going to get into matters that are currently before the Royal Commission. What I want to see is an honest, decent union movement that is run behalf of honest decent workers, that’s what I want and there’s legislation before the Parliament that will make that much, much more likely.
QUESTION:
Nick Xenophon has talked about a financial arms race and calling for tighter regulations of the political donations. I mean it has brought up political donations. Has the Liberal Party ever used political donations to fund campaign workers?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well again, I’m just not going to get into the sorts of issues which have been canvassed in great detail before the Royal Commission. As for the reform of election funding, the reform of those sorts of matters, that’s really a matter for the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. It’s released a couple of reports and they’re reports the Government is considering.
QUESTION:
Just on QandA, the reference has come out, are you going to lift the ban on frontbenchers appearing on QandA?
PRIME MINISTER:
The issue is; this particular programme has really got a bit out of control, that’s the issue and we see Labor Members of Parliament complaining about it in the media today and because it’s got out of control I don’t really want to give it any further advertising. So I think enough has been said about it.
QUESTION:
Can I just clarify, sorry, the Agriculture Minister, so he was never supposed to attend today’s event, is that right?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I honestly don’t know exactly what arrangements might have been canvassed but it wasn’t possible for him to be in both Mackay, where he has a commitment and Grafton where I have a commitment. Look nothing gives me greater pleasure than to be on the hustings with Barnaby.
It was terrific to be able to launch the Agricultural White Paper with him a few days ago. Obviously he has a big job getting out and about to tell the country about this important White Paper which is going to be so good for the farmers of Australia, which is going to make it a lot easier for them to get on with their business. Frankly, we’ve got two marketing campaigns going today; one that I’m doing here with Kevin and the other which Barnaby is doing up with George Christenson in Mackay.
Thanks so much.
[ends]