ASSISTANT EMPLOYMENT MINISTER:
It’s great to be here with the Prime Minister and Ministers at Injinoo Community Hall. We’re seeing a fantastic example of the Community Development Programme delivering outcomes for this community and at the same time allowing the participants to learn new skills and give back to that community. Work is so vitally important and if we can provide training and assistance for people on their journey into work and while doing that build positive benefits for the community, it’s a great thing. Right across the Torres Strait as the Ministers have travelled, they’ve seen great examples of the Community Development Programme positively delivering outcomes, not only for jobseekers but also for the communities themselves.
HEALTH MINISTER:
Thanks, Luke, thanks, PM. It’s terrific to be at the Injinoo Community Hall here getting our hands dirty. To have healthy people you must have healthy communities and we are seeing a terrific example of just that. Having a laugh with the women, listening to their stories, going later with the PM and others to open a clinic with a specific focus on women’s health, it’s going to be a really special day for me. And for us, looking at the needs here in the NPA and, indeed, the wider Torres Strait, we are focusing on primary health because it’s so difficult to get people to hospital, they key has to be to keep them out of hospital. There are lots of initiatives on the ground and you find out as Health Minister what works and what doesn’t work by actually being here. It’s great to spend these few days here.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you very much, Sussan, and thank you, Luke. It is terrific to be here for another day at the north end of Cape York with my colleague, Sussan Ley, the Minister for Health, Luke Hartsuyker, the Assistant Minister for Employment.
As you know, every day this Government's focus is on jobs, growth and community safety. Every day in remote parts of Australia our focus is on getting the kids to school, the adults to work and communities safe.
Yesterday, I saw some tremendous work in schools. I will be seeing some more work in Injinoo School in a little while, but today, the focus has been on community jobs. The Community Development Programme which is the replacement programme that this Government has put into operation to ensure that all working-aged adults are at work, preferably for a wage but, if not, for their social security benefits, is in full swing here at Injinoo.
I want to say what a pleasure it was to work with local people. They work with a will. They work with obvious aptitude. They've got a lot of basic skills and the important thing is to try to put people to work, develop their skills and build a work culture. People here, just as anywhere else, can do almost anything if they've got a mind to and if they are given the right encouragement and the Community Development Programme is about giving local people in remote areas the encouragement they need to have a go and I'm so proud I was able to have a go with them this morning.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, just on constitutional recognition, a Government backbencher, Ian Goodenough, today has called for migrants to be recognised as well as Indigenous people. Do you support his idea?
PRIME MINISTER:
Modern Australia, as I have said on many occasions, has an Indigenous heritage, a British foundation and a multicultural character. That's the reality of modern Australia. Perhaps that might be enshrined somewhere in the Constitution but, in the end, what I am on about, what I think our country needs to be on about, is Indigenous recognition. That was the great silence in our Constitution. That was the serious omission from the otherwise magnificent work of our constitutional founders back in the 1890s. They were a product of their time. Let's remedy that oversight. Let's end the great silence and let's finally acknowledge Indigenous people in our nation's founding document.
QUESTION:
You do seem to be quite open to it in a theoretical sense, so could you see a question in the next term of parliament that encapsulates both of those issues?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. This is about Indigenous recognition. That's what it's about. As I said, it is a reality – an undoubted reality – that modern Australia has an Indigenous heritage, a British foundation and a multicultural character. That is a reality. What we are on about as a Government, what we should be on about as a people, is recognising the first Australians in our nation's founding document.
QUESTION:
You have touched on the mistakes of the past in recent days. Was one of those mistakes the Coalition opposing the Mabo legislation?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, at the time I thought that our position was eminently justified, but people have the capacity to grow. There are lots of things that were once taken for granted that we now no longer regard as right and proper and, similarly, we have grown through that period. We have come to terms with native title, we have come to terms with land rights, we have come to terms with the first Australians in a way that we hadn't quite even 20 years ago. So, I'm very comfortable with the Native Title Act, I'm very comfortable with the Land Rights Act. These are things that are an important part of our current dispensation.
QUESTION:
In hindsight, you would have supported it?
PRIME MINISTER:
These are hypothetical questions and I'm not in the business of counterfactuals. The important thing is to get on with the job of building a better Australia today and that's what I'm determined to do.
QUESTION:
Do you think it is a good foundation, native title, though? Do you think it is a working, practical foundation?
PRIME MINISTER:
That's a very fair question and what I want to ensure is that native title land is not just a cultural and spiritual asset but an economic asset too. What I saw on Sunday in Broome under the leadership of Pat Dodson was a remarkable thing: land over which that particular Land Council had secured native title had been converted under the auspices of the Land Council from native title to freehold title, from communal title to individual title. Now, as far as I'm aware, this is the first time anywhere in Australia that this has been done. I think it's greatly to Pat Dodson's credit and his community's credit that they have managed to do this because Aboriginal land should not simply be something for them to look at, walk over, hunt on – it should be something that helps them to become part of the economic as well as the cultural mainstream of our country.
QUESTION:
How worrying is it that Indigenous people have a lower life expectancy and what is the Government doing to counteract or to help that?
PRIME MINISTER:
This is not a recent phenomenon. Indigenous people have had dramatically lower life expectancies than the rest of our Australian community for, really, a couple of hundred years. It is important to close this particular gap. This Government is building on the work of its predecessors and, certainly, in many areas, there are a lot of encouraging developments. Maternal health has improved dramatically. Child health has improved dramatically. There is a long way to go when it comes to tackling obesity and diabetes and other lifestyle illnesses, but the people here are very conscious of the need to have a healthier lifestyle. I have been talking to people in the Torres Strait and here on Cape York about better diets and more exercise and tomorrow morning at about 6:15 I will be doing boot camp with some of the locals because they know that there's got to be more exercise in their life. One of the great things about this Community Development Programme is that, by getting people to work, things like this – this hall renewal project – on things like community gardens, we do actually get people active again.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, there seems to be another different proposal for a referendum on a different issue also every day coming from your Government now. Are you concerned there are people in the Coalition who are trying to kill off the prospects of change to recognise Indigenous people?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't think anyone is doing that.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, just in terms of a community near here, the Glencore mining company, there’s a stoush between the community and the State Government over the decision to give Glencore that approval. Do you think that decision should be reviewed? Do you agree with the decision that was made?
PRIME MINISTER:
I've certainly had a number of conversations with Noel Pearson, Richie Ahmat, people heavily involved with the Aurukun community. I have also had conversations with Glencore because, whatever happens there, the important thing is that local people are able to get the benefit of that development and the most important benefit, of course, are secure, well-paid jobs. That's what I'm focused on: ensuring that whoever the developer might be, that there are secure, well-paid jobs for significant numbers of local people and that significant numbers of local people are motivated to apply for the jobs that are there.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, does the Government have anyone in mind to replace Dyson Heydon?
PRIME MINISTER:
The import thing is that the Royal Commission will continue. We have seen an abundance of evidence of rorts, rackets and rip-offs inside the union movement. We have seen an abundance of evidence of union officials ripping off workers to help themselves, ripping off workers to push their own personal barrows inside the Labor Party. We’ve seen a number of arrests and pending prosecutions arising out of evidence to the Royal Commission. This is an absolutely vital Royal Commission. Even someone of the stature of Martin Ferguson says this is an important part of cleaning up the union movement, an important part of cleaning up the Labor Party. So it must and will go on regardless of any decision that Dyson Heydon AC QC makes in the next day or so.
QUESTION:
But are you canvasing a replacement?
PRIME MINISTER:
The Royal Commission will go on.
QUESTION:
Would you like to see him continue?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm just not going to pre-empt the decision that he, as the Royal Commissioner, has to make other than to say he is a man of the most profound integrity and, whichever decision he makes, will be a decision which ought to be respected by the Australian community.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, are you behind the times on the issue of a republic and is Joe Hockey leading a push to make that happen?
PRIME MINISTER:
Joe is leading a push to make Australia a stronger and more competitive economy. That's what Joe is doing. Joe is leading a push to make Australia a stronger and more competitive economy. I am proud of the work he's done. I'm proud of the work he's doing. Lower taxes, less regulation, higher productivity: that's what we are on about every single day and that obviously is Joe's overwhelming focus.
QUESTION:
Is it frustrating for you that he is bringing this up while you are not in Canberra?
PRIME MINISTER:
My understanding is that it kind of seeped out via a Republican activist and, fair enough, but, look, there are lots of friendship groups in our Parliament; I think I might even be a member of a few myself, but there are lots of friendship groups in our Parliament and it is no big deal there should be another one.
QUESTION:
What's your position on becoming a Republic?
PRIME MINISTER:
My position on this is very well known. It's very, very, well-known and I'm not going to prosecute those issues for and against today. Today, I am an on about encouraging, celebrating Indigenous people, all Australians who are prepared to have a go. I'm just so proud of those I was able to spend a couple of hours with this morning doing good things for their community, having a go, making a go of their lives and helping their community to be better tomorrow than it is today. I think you can see the transformation taking place behind us right now.
Thanks so much.
[ends]