PRIME MINISTER:
Well good morning.
The Leaders’ Meeting here today at the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit, really historic moment in our deepening and strengthening relations with our neighbors.
And also what an outcome in South Australia. Congratulations to Steven Marshall, I spoke with the Premier-elect this morning. It is a great performance by him and the South Australian Liberals to finally bring to an end, many, many years – 16 years of Labor Government. In fact, its 25 years since the Liberal Party won government from the Labor Party in South Australia.
And of course Jay Weatherill who graciously conceded defeat last night - Jay Weatherill said this was a referendum on energy policy and, you know, that he was a very ferocious opponent as Josh Frydenberg found out, ferocious opponent of our National Energy Guarantee, he said it was a referendum, well the people have spoken. And they have spoken in favour of our policies which support affordable and reliable energy, which will ensure we can meet our Paris commitments and at the same time ensure that we can keep the lights on and indeed afford to keep the lights on.
So, it’s a great outcome and I want to congratulate the South Australian Liberals, Steven Marshall and their team for a very, very important and historic win.
JOURNALIST:
Conversely, Prime Minister Labor retained Batman against all odds and a strong Green campaign, is there a message there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we weren’t involved in that election. I guess it tells you a lot about Bill Shorten’s situation that he’s crowing about holding a seat that the Labor Party have had for 50 years.
JOURNALIST:
Does the win in South Australia also give you some sort of encouragement and the federal Liberal Party?
PRIME MINISTER:
State elections are overwhelmingly fought on state issues. But in South Australia energy policy was made the central issue and that is a federal issue as well. And Jay Weatherill was the most vocal opponent of our National Energy Guarantee.
So, this is state election where the Labor Premier chose to make federal energy policy the issue and he went out and said this is a referendum on energy policy. His approach, which has led to the most expensive and least reliable energy in the country versus the approach we’re taking. As you know, he butted heads with Josh Frydenberg, he made a big deal of his opposition to the federal government’s, to my government’s energy policy, and he asked the South Australian people to vote on it.
So, I think in this case, this is definitely a very strong endorsement of our energy policy.
JOURNALIST:
And politically Prime Minister how much have the chances of bringing the NEG into law improved with the result last night?
PRIME MINISTER:
They’ve improved considerably because I was always very confident that the National Energy Guarantee would be approved by COAG, but obviously South Australia had shown that it was opposed to it. How much of that was politics and how much was substance we will never know because there’s been a change of government. But now you have a South Australian Premier who, like us, is committed to ensuring that we have affordable and reliable energy, that we meet out emissions reduction obligations, that we can keep the lights on, and afford to keep them on.
So thank you all very much indeed.
JOURNALIST:
Can I ask how the Summit is going?
PRIME MINISTER:
The Summit is going very well. As I said at the outset, this is a historic meeting.
This is such an important part of our future, this is the fastest growing region in the world, it is critically important to our future. We are a successful multicultural society here in Australia, the most successful in the world. There are 700,000 Australians with family backgrounds from ASEAN.
This is our future in our region, this is a great Summit, very positive and constructive discussions. And on that note I must love you and leave you.
Thank you.