ANGUS TAYLOR:
Welcome everybody and welcome to the Prime Minister on a brisk day in Goulburn. It’s wonderful to have him here in this region and particularly to have him here on a farm in this region. A lot of people don’t realise that this area was the birthplace of modern Australian agriculture. The merino wool industry grew here initially on the back of an open access agreement with the UK, with England, and agriculture has gone and become one of the great industries of this area ever since. We’re seeing a resurgence now with the investment in silos, in water infrastructure and in other equipment here for farmers in this region.
So it’s wonderful to have the Prime Minister here to see it. Thank you very much for coming.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, thank you very much, Angus. It is great to be here with Angus Taylor, one of our really outstanding new members of parliament – someone who came into the Parliament from a very successful career in farming and in finance and Angus is very much one of the up and coming people in the Coalition Party Room.
A lot of good things are happening in the electorate of Hume. Just the other day as part of our mobile black spot programme we announced new or upgraded base stations in 18 locations. The NBN, by the end of next year will have passed 31,000 plus premises in this area because modern agriculture is a highly sophisticated business and the latest telecommunications is obviously a very important part of agriculture.
I’m mostly here today to talk to local farmers about the Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper and I want to thank the Reynolds family – two generations of the Reynolds family – for making Angus and myself so welcome here today. This White Paper is all about ensuring that agriculture is at least as big a part of our economic future as it has been of our economic history.
Agriculture is a $51 billion a year sector, it’s 15 per cent of our total exports, we’re one of the largest in the world beef exporters, one of the largest in the world lamb and mutton exporters and we want this to get bigger and better in the years and decades to come and that’s exactly what this agriculture White Paper is all about.
The agricultural White Paper builds on what we announced at Budget time. Obviously, here on the Reynolds’ farm they have been able to take advantage of the $20,000 instant write off. As you saw, the new quadbike out there, you’ve seen the new fodder storages out there, but the ag White Paper has also got in it instant asset write off for fencing, instant write off for on farm water infrastructure, fodder storage infrastructure is written off over three years.
So there’s a whole range of measures in this White Paper. There’s the water fund – the half a billion dollar water fund – there’s $200 million to upgrade our biosecurity; there’s $100 million more for agricultural research; there's $100 million for pest eradication.
This is a comprehensive road map for the future of agriculture in our country. It's been informed by people like Angus Taylor who know farming from the inside as well as from the outside. Obviously, it's been steered by Barnaby Joyce, the Agriculture Minister, who has brought enormous passion and commitment to this task. I'm very proud of it and what I sense amongst the farmers of this area and farmers right around Australia is some gratitude for the recognition that the Government has given to them, some appreciation that finally they are being acknowledged as tomorrow's people as well as yesterday's people. So I think this is very, very good and it's of a piece with what the Government is doing to boost our economy more generally.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, where is Barnaby Joyce? Why are you visiting a farm without your Agriculture Minister? Is he off sulking because of the mine that’s going to be approved in his electorate?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, Barnaby is doing his job. He's doing his job extremely well and his job is going out to market the agriculture White Paper where he is, just as it's my job to market the agriculture White Paper where I am. We are both doing our job to the best of our ability and as far as I'm concerned, that means we get double the marketing advantage on a day like today.
QUESTION:
Is coming out here and talking to farmers part of your election strategy and are you going to a double dissolution election?
PRIME MINISTER:
There's always a lot of hyperventilating, if I may say so, from the media about will there or won't there be an election any time soon. Can I just say that we've had the best fortnight in the life of this Parliament. We've just had a fortnight where a lot of legislation was passed, where some $14 billion worth of much needed savings were realised through sensible decisions at last by the Greens and by the Labor Party to support Government initiatives. Why would you want to close the Parliament down just when it's starting to work?
QUESTION:
Would you seek a double dissolution on industrial relations, though?
PRIME MINISTER:
Again, I don't want our workplace relations legislation blocked; I want our workplace legislation passed. That's what I want and, in my judgment, sensible Labor people, decent working people, are appalled by the revelations in the Royal Commission and they want to see unionism in this country cleaned up. I want to see unionism in this country cleaned up. So, we want the registered organisations commission Bill passed because that will extend the same standards of governance to unions that we’ve long had with corporations. I want to see the Australian Building and Construction Commission Bill passed because that will ensure that the rule of law operates on big construction sites in our cities and towns. I want this legislation passed, I don’t want it blocked for a second.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, can I ask about the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. You’ve been accused of trying to kill it by stealth this morning. Steve Ciobo has come out and said that it was an election commitment to get rid of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Are you trying to get rid of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation by stealth or not?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it’s no secret that we would like to see it go because it was an election commitment that we made to be rid of it. We did put legislation into the Parliament to that effect and that legislation wasn’t passed. As long as it exists, it might as well be as useful as possible and the most useful thing that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation can do is not to invest in established technologies and not to invest in businesses that can easily get funding from the finance sector, the banks more generally. The best thing that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation can do is invest in new and emerging technologies, the things that might not otherwise get finance, and that’s why we’ve got this draft direction.
QUESTION:
[inaudible] bit to say about this this morning. He’s also released a report saying that the Government should take a position to Paris of trying to reduce emissions by 40 to 60 per cent of 2000 levels by 2020. What do you make of that – that target?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we’ll take a very strong and credible position to Paris. It will build on the strong and credible work in emissions reduction that's already been achieved here in Australia. This Government doesn't get enough credit, Australia doesn't get enough credit, for the emissions reduction work that we have already done. We don't get enough credit for the environmental protection that has already been achieved and while I'm on the subject let me again congratulate Greg Hunt for his work in getting the Great Barrier Reef taken off the World Heritage Commission endangered list. It went on because the Labor government, the Rudd-Gillard government, didn't adequately manage the protection of the reef. It's gone off because this Government – the Abbott Government – with Greg Hunt as Environment Minister, has much better managed this and we've very successfully worked with the Queensland government to bring this about. So, we'll take a strong and credible position to the climate change conference later in the year, it will build on the 13 per cent reduction in emissions from 2005 levels that we are well and truly on track to achieve by 2020. The difference between Australia and a lot of other countries, quite frankly is, when we make commitments to reduce emissions we keep them. Other countries make all these airy fairy promises, that in the end never come to an anything.
QUESTION:
Is Barnaby Joyce safe in his job? Is he going to continue as Agriculture Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely. He is doing an outstanding job, he is passionate, he is committed, he is knowledgeable and this White Paper is a tribute to his good work.
QUESTION:
Do you think the target that we take to Paris will be similar to that of New Zealand, which is around 30 per cent of 2005 levels?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not going to speculate in advance of a decision by the Cabinet and the Party Room. We flagged that we would finalise our position about the middle of the year and we've got a Party Room meeting coming up at the beginning of August. I'm not going to flag any final position in advance of due process and proper consideration. But it will be a strong and credible position – a strong and credible position that builds on the 13 per cent reduction that we will have achieved by 2020.
QUESTION:
Are you worried that China can launch a missile that could reach Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I'm very pleased that our friendship is China is getting stronger and stronger all the time. I would rather focus on the strength of the friendship rather than on hypothetical possibilities in many, many years’ time. Australia has a good and strong friendship with China. We have the closest possible relationship, including a security relationship with the United States. Strong friendships with China, strong security relationships with the United States. This is the best way to ensure the peace, security and prosperity of our region. We all want China to continue to grow and advance and strengthen, and we all want the United States to stay a strong security partner in our region.
[ends]