PRIME MINISTER:
Barnaby, thank you for welcoming me here to the University of New England, to Armidale and the extraordinary science and innovation that is being undertaken here. A lot of people think that innovation is all about the big cloud service providers, it’s all for technology in the cities, but here we are, Australian agriculture is at the absolute cutting edge of innovation.
Our farmers are the most productive in every field, from animal husbandry, to cropping, and it is because of scientists like the men and women that we've seen here today, that they are able to do that. Constantly pushing the frontier of innovation, using science and the latest technologies to enable us to do more on the land. It is very inspiring.
Barnaby and I like to think that we are pretty progressive as farmers, but I think we've got a lot to learn here, Barnaby. What do you reckon?
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER:
It's great, PM. What it does, is you come out here and it's not supposed to look like Cape Canaveral, but what it does is, is it shows you that this erudite process of making sure that we remain at the cutting edge, that we build on this centre of excellence which is Armidale. People like Professor Amanda Doughty - and showing the technology they are using in the sheep industry right now, so you can get the assessment of the health of your flock at a concentration point; whether that is water immediately through the day and how you get the better productivity of your land, and how there is a preference by stock for certain areas, so if you can grow that preference and grow that capacity of the land to transfer vegetable matter into protein matter across your whole paddock, you might not need to buy the next-door neighbour's property. You get a better return out of the property you own. And this is seen in real form.
The highest yielding cotton in the world is Australian and where was the technology for that developed, where is the cutting edge for that? Right here, right here in Armidale where they do that research. This is so important, we've moved on from someone putting their hand in a bucket full of arsenic with a copper drenching gun and going along and drenching the sheep, and we will continue to move on, we have now got expansive chemicals, expansive drenchers, back liners, we’re now going into X-ray assessment on sheep carcasses while they're alive, this is great stuff, and that is why Australia still has a solid pillar of its economy through our rural exports. In fact, I know coal is coming back into its own, but in fact as we speak, the second biggest export in our nation are rural exports and it's places like this, it doesn't happen by accident, it happens by innovation.
PRIME MINISTER:
And it underlines the fact that innovation is for every aspect of our economy. If we are to remain competitive and productive, if we want to grow our economy and deliver better and better paid jobs for Australians, then we have to be innovative right across the board. Just this week I have been to a public school in Sydney, in Croydon, seeing kids, 9 year olds learning how to write computer code and we took Michelle Simmons along, Barnaby, who is the lady at the University of New South Wales that is heading up Australia’s effort in quantum computing – she is really at the absolute frontier of computer science. What an inspiration to those kids. And then we were down at the fish markets and seeing how a very innovative platform, Your Grocer, is enabling lots of small businesses to sell online, to deal with their customers online and compete very effectively with the big retailers. Again, great example of technology, innovation, entrepreneurship.
Now we are here, agriculture, the oldest industry in human history and here we are seeing the innovation that is leading the way to ensure that Australian farmers remain the world’s best.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, first off, welcome to Armidale.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you, good to be here.
JOURNALIST:
It’s to talk about innovation in Armidale, about, first off, the APVMA relocation. Is this turning into a bit of a debacle for the Government? Is this bad policy when we are seeing number released, cost benefit analysis not favourable and potentially scientists not wanting to relocate from the city?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it is very important that we have more research and more educational centres in regional Australia. The APVMA naturally, here, particularly with the connection with the University of New England is a very logical connection. But there are many powerful arguments for seeing more of our research outside of the big cities. It underpins the economies in regional centres, many of which have been challenged of course by the downturn in the mining construction boom, not so much an issue here but in other parts of Australia – education, science, research can provide a very good underpinning for regional economies.
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER:
I think that what you’ve seen here, and it is great that everybody is here today, it is great the Prime Minister is here today, this is Armidale – it is at the cutting edge of research and development in the agricultural industry. It has the University of New England. It has a rural science department from which many of the people who work from APVMA graduated. It has a rural science department that is actually developing the course for APVMA. It has the CSIRO, it has the breed societies. We have 7,000 acres here that can be used for the research and development on some of those chemicals that are actually going to be required for approval. It is working in a dynamic form, so that people can work online in that approval process.
We are being dynamic about this, but we do have a vision. We are not a government that is lacked of vision. We have a vision for centre for excellence, a vision for driving issues forward. Who do we find is the preeminent complainer about this? The Labor Party. What is their vision? Well, there is none. There is no vision from the Labor Party except commentary on our policy because we are the only ones with policy, we’re the only ones with vision and we’re the only ones driving things forward and we are putting runs on the board. Remember, record commodity prices, we’ve had record beef prices, record sheep prices, record cotton prices, record pork prices, record sugar prices and expansion in the actual volume and the price we are getting.
So we can stand behind the reality of good government because we've actually delivered the real results, but a part of that good governance is you must have vision and you must have the courage to stand behind your vision. We do, we are going to have centres of excellence, and not just here for APVMA, but for Wagga with RIRDC – the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, the Grains Research Development Corporation, part of which moves to Toowoomba. For fisheries, part of which moves down to Adelaide. We are doing this because we believe in the growth of our nation across our nation. The Labor Party believes in the parochial sentiment that we just stand still and go nowhere and complain about anybody who has an idea.
JOURNALIST:
If we’re talking no jobs in Armidale, we’ve had the digital hub for TAFE, APV [inaudible] will bring jobs. It’s not white collar jobs that Armidale really needs, its blue collar jobs for those that are unskilled labour. How does that fit in to this equation when we’re giving jobs to those who are already educated?
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER:
I’ve never had anybody in Armidale complain about jobs coming in to this town. When you think about it, and you can see that in the cost benefit analysis, there is an exponential benefit to Armidale and almost a microbial detriment to Canberra, which will grow in any case. Remember, we are spending more on the renovations of Parliament House, about four times as much as what it costs to move APVMA here. Let’s cry no beer - Canberra is a beautiful city, a wonderful city, God bless Canberra. But let’s make sure that the largess of our nation and a vision of our nation goes beyond one town in our nation.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, do you stand behind the economic performance of the nation of late. The September quarter was clearly a poor performance?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes it’s a – the September quarter’s national accounts figures are a real reminder, a wake-up call if you like that we have to continue doing everything we can to encourage stronger investment, because more investment leads to more jobs. Every element of our National Economic Plan, the innovation agenda, the defence industry agenda, the reforms to industrial relations, restoring the rule of law to the construction sector which we’ve succeeded in doing through the Senate just in the last few weeks.
All of those measures, all of our investments in infrastructure, our cuts to business tax which will improve return on investment, everything we are doing is designed to promote more investment, that’s what we are seeking to do because we know the mining construction boom saw mining investment up to nine per cent of GDP, that was 2012 – it was always going to come off – that’s the transition Barnaby and I have been talking about. How do you transition the economy from that boom, which couldn’t go on forever, into continued strong growth? Now what we’ve got to do is make sure we get more investment across the board. Investment is not strong enough at the moment, we need more. We are seeking to encourage, we’re incentivising – what is the Labor Party doing? They’re opposing business tax cuts, they want to increase taxes, they want to leave the CFMEU to run riot on business sites. There is not one Labor policy that would encourage any business to invest or employ. All of our policies are designed to do that. That’s the big choice.
Look at Labor on power prices. We are standing up for lower power prices, we know that the power prices are largely in the hands of state government but we’re not going to take any steps that would put upward pressure on energy prices. Everything the Labor Party wants to do is going to do exactly that. Look at South Australia, that’s a great example of Labor leadership on energy. They can’t even keep the lights on. They have got the highest prices for electricity in Australia, this is a state that wants to attract industry, they have got the highest prices for electricity in Australia and they can’t even keep it on. And they are the ones that – their Premier was out there today lecturing us all about how we should run the electricity networks around the country. He cannot even keep the lights on in his own state, and when they are on, the customers are paying the highest prices in Australia.
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER:
If you just look at South Australia, I think it is a great example of bad policy. Premier Jay Wetherill says he wants to go it alone, well he is going to be alone and in the dark. I mean it really and truly, you’ve got to be a realist, you cannot be a philosopher on a log. You’ve got to understand that industry and mums and dads in houses, want affordable power and reliable power. And if you can’t deliver that you won’t have industry and you won’t have happy households.
JOURNALIST:
Can you make a statement on the carbon trading scheme, just what the Federal position is?
PRIME MINISTER:
The states pursued their own agendas on energy policy and to the cost of their businesses and the cost of households. And a good case of that is South Australia. That is the – we don’t have to theorise about that, that is the state that has gone it alone with a very ideological approach to energy and the consequence of that has been the most expensive and the least reliable energy in Australia. And this is a state that needs more investment and more industry.
How can Labor seriously lecture everybody about energy management? They have got, for example – we have an emissions reduction target which we agreed to as part of the Paris Climate Agreement, 26-28 per cent by 2030. We’re on track to get there. We’re going to meet and beat our 2020 target and we’re on track to get to the 2030 target. The Labor Party wants to double it. The Queensland Labor Government has got I think four per cent of renewables in their mix, they want to increase it to 50 per cent. They have got no idea how they will get there, they have got no idea what it will cost. This is all ideology. Australians expect governments, state governments to have the control over this in particular, and federal governments so far as we can influence it, to do everything we can to keep the lights on and ensure that energy is affordable and of course meet our emissions reduction targets but they have to be responsible ones.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Turnbull, what are your objections to a state based emissions trading scheme?
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s a national electricity market and this is part of the problem that you’ve got – for example we have a national renewable energy target but you’ve got states setting up their own and contradictory renewable targets, which are absolutely ideologically based. Now, the fundamental challenge for governments is this simple – you’ve got to achieve three things; one, you’ve got to keep the lights on otherwise, like Jay Wetherill, you’ll be putting your state in to the dark and this has happened too often there.
If you talk to businesses in South Australia, energy affordability and reliability is the single biggest concern. You’ve got to keep the lights on. It’s got to be affordable. Households are paying more than enough for energy. Electricity prices are too high already. They are too high already. What we can’t be doing is undertaking policies that are going to make them higher and higher still. That is undoubtedly what the Labor Party is doing. If you want less reliable power and more expensive power, Bill Shorten is you man. That is what his policies will deliver. You can look to South Australia to see the evidence of it.
Thirdly, we’ve got to meet our emissions reduction targets and we are on track to do that. We have beaten our Kyoto target, we are on track to meet and indeed beat our 2020 target. We’ve got a responsible 2030 target. So that’s what you’ve got to achieve at the end of the day. The key thing is: keep the lights on and make sure it’s affordable. Labor’s policies will have less reliable energy and much more expensive energy. That's what Labor offers, less security, less affordability.
JOURNALIST:
Unfortunately the ABC is unfortunately dropping in and out. Are you satisfied with the level of communications in regional Australia at the moment, the quality at which they're at?
PRIME MINISTER:
There is always scope for improvement and as you know, just dealing with the NBN, as Barnaby knows in particular, representing this district, the Labor Party left us with a complete wreck of a project with the NBN. After six years they had connected about 50,000 premises in the whole country. We are connecting, activating – that’s to say signing up paying customers of the NBN under the new management that I installed as Communications Minister – we’re connecting about 90,000 plus every four weeks. So we’re doing nearly twice as many in a month as Labor did in six years. So it is ramping up, but it’s a huge job. There is now over 3.5 million premises that can connect to the NBN. It will be half done by June 30 next year, the company expects and forecasts. It will be complete by 2019-20. So it is a very, very big project, a very complex one. But boy, we inherited an absolutely failed project. It’s one of the few cases, actually where a bad project has gotten better and not worse. So it’s a great credit to the management.
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER:
If I could just briefly add to that Prime Minister. As I drove up, the Telstra was not working at Uralla and people ringing me up were saying: “I can’t hear you”. I’ve never quite worked out the purpose of the conversation where people ring you up to tell you they can’t hear you. Then why did they ring you up? But that’s got nothing to do with the NBN. That’s got everything to do with Telstra. So in any issues they having at the moment, I don’t know whether you can attribute them to the NBN. You might have a generic problem that’s happening within Telstra, it’s a private company, go talk to them.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah to be frank, the fixed wireless rollout is going ahead very well in regional Australia. The satellites are now up. I’d also say on Telstra and you know, the other mobile phone companies, you’ve got to remember that Labor was in for six years, embarked on a massive NBN project with no planning, no proper strategy and left us –as I said – with a real mess to sort out. But in that six years they did not spend one cent on mobile black spots. Not one cent, not one. We’ve committed well over $200 million of government money on mobile black spots. We’ve just announced the results of round two, round one having been complete a little while back. There’s now close to 700 black spots across the country are being addressed with, in effect, a government subsidy. Some state contributions, some corporate contributions and of course the support of the Telcos. So we’re removing them.
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER:
If I could just add to that, this is so important, what the Prime Minister said. Before we came to Government, the Labor-Green-Independent alliance had not delivered one mobile new phone tower in their term of government. In round one, 499 new and upgraded mobile phone towers were provided, financed for, and we’re rolling them out. You saw 32 in this electorate in round one. In round two, 266. And we’ve seen another four. So areas – and using here as an example – such as Copeton Dam, such as Drake, areas on the peripheries of our electorates, the Woolomins and Walcha Road Hill, which you know very well. This is a program of a Government with a vision; a vision to deliver that mobile phone capacity. It even works in what we’re doing here, if you’re trying to control wild dogs and you have to get that reception so facial recognition technology to a mobile phone tower, who is the Government that’s putting them in? We are.
JOURNALIST:
Do you want to see domestic violence leave prioritized at COAG? And do you want to see it happen at all?
PRIME MINISTER:
We certainly encourage and welcome companies that make provision for that in their arrangements with their employees. The matter is currently before the Fair Work Commission and so we – our position is to let that hearing proceed and then we will examine, reconsider the matter, after the Fair Work Commission has made its decision. But it is under active consideration by the Fair Work Commission, they’re the independent workplace tribunal that has got the right qualifications and jurisdiction to examine it.
JOURNALIST:
The police operation in Sydney this morning, do you know the nature of it? There was an explosive device? Suspected explosive device discovered at a substation in Sydney?
PRIME MINISTER:
I have heard that report. The matter is being carefully investigated by the police bomb squad and I’m sure they will have more to say about it later in the day as investigations continue.
JOURNALIST:
Do you know anything about the nature of the incident?
PRIME MINISTER:
No just what we’ve discussed. Ok thanks.
[ENDS]