PM: Like the Premier, the Australian Government acknowledges the contribution of the previous State Labor Government in the development of this project and of the current State Government in bringing the project forward to the Commonwealth for contribution.
Could I say that this strikes the Commonwealth as being a great project for the city of Perth? As the Premier and others have told me, this has been 100 years in the contemplation. And I know the wheels of Government turn slowly but 100 years is a little long and it's good, in fact it's very good, that we now have a plan and most critically funding for action. And we the Commonwealth wish to be partners with the State in making sure that the city of Perth has this brand new amenity in the centre of the city.
Our strategy as an Australian Government in responding to the global recession is to support jobs, business and apprenticeships today by investing in the sort of infrastructure we need for tomorrow and that includes urban infrastructure like this. Making our cities work better.
This project seeks for the first time in 100 years to unite the city's north and south by building this Northbridge Link. It also seeks to create within the heart of that an appropriate open green space, what the Premier describes as a town square.
This I think is good for the city of Perth. But on the jobs front it also, I am advised, will contribute directly to some 350 jobs during construction. Tendering, I understand Premier, will conclude sometime later this year and construction commence next year. This is an important contribution to employment as well.
On top of that I am advised that as far as the urban development is concerned, you will see urban construction up to a value of some $2 billion over time. Therefore this is, as the Premier has just said, one of the most significant urban development proposals in Perth's recent history. Therefore we the Commonwealth are pleased to be partners in the city's progress.
I would also add that from our point of view these sorts of projects are fundamental to the sorts of infrastructure investments we the Australian Government are making across the nation today. Yesterday I was with the Premier in Oakajee committing the Commonwealth to our investment in creating this brand new deep-water port on the west coast of Australia. An exciting development for the long term future. An exciting development which brings together a minerals province, an industrial zone and a brand new port.
We're also committed in our most infrastructure announcements to investment in major hospital projects here in Perth as well and of course when we start unfolding the national high speed broadband network, that will come to WA and to Peth as well.
These are important infrastructure investments for the future but most critically they support jobs and apprenticeships and business in the here and now at a time of considerable economic difficulty.
If I could also just take this opportunity, given our friends from the media are here, to make a quick comment on the severe weather and flooding we're now seeing in northern NSW. That region is now being hit by the same weather system that created the most widespread flooding in Queensland in over 30 years most recently. I understand that overnight local emergency management authorities issued evacuation orders for Lismore and an evacuation centre has been established at Southern Cross University.
It is critical that residents follow the instructions of local authorities and as far as possible stay indoors and avoid the roads. I am advised that at this stage the NSW Government has not as yet declared the region a disaster zone. The Commonwealth through Emergency Management Australia, EMA, will remain in close and constant contact with NSW and the Government and we stand ready to assist in whatever way the Commonwealth can.
And with those remarks I'll open to any questions either of myself, the Premier or anyone else here who you want to throw a question at and the answer to which I can't provide.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just a story from the Daily Telegraph today, is it appropriate for the Liberals to have a website which is bragging that they have the hottest girls in Australian politics?
PM: Um. Should you be directing that here?
JOURNALIST: This is for Laurie Oakes, by the way.
PM: Pass. The um, I will leave that, Mr Turnbull is in town isn't he? Right okay I might leave that one to Mr Turnbull.
JOURNALIST: Are there hot women in the Liberal party?
PREMIER: Talented women.
PM: I think there are people of enormous ability in all of our political parties and I think I will just leave it rest at that.
JOURNALIST: Are the women hotter in Labor or in the Liberals?
PM: I believe we have great talent in the Australian Labor Party. But in terms of the Liberal Party, there are others more qualified to comment on this than myself. And could I say, that's a matter for the Liberal Party.
JOURNALIST: Can I just ask you why, why have some of Australia's lowest income earners been excluded from your stimulus package?
PM: Well I think as the Treasurer would have said yesterday, if there have been any inadvertent omissions, then of course the opportunity exists to make amends for that.
JOURNALIST: Well it seems that there's lots of them, we are talking about people who pay tax as they go, but got it back when they filed the tax return but they have been, apparently a lot of them have been expecting that they would then get the $900 cheque. And they are not. And you have never said, you have never outlined that?
PM: Well Geof, I would say that if you are administering a system as complex as this, which is to dispense payments to millions of Australians and you are seeking to do so with urgency, in order to provide stimulus to the economy, obviously there are going to be individual omissions on the way. And I am sure there is a way in which that can be addressed and I am sure the Treasurer has made appropriate comments on that yesterday.
Let me go back to one other point.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) those people will get the $900?
PM: Let me go back to the general point. Why do we provide these payments in the first place? If you are looking at the depths of a global recession hitting in the final quarter of last year, then the Australian Government was faced with stark choices in terms of providing direct payments to pensioners, carers, veterans and also to families.
Those payments, based on the Treasury advice, had to be delivered as rapidly as possible to provide support to retail in the economy in the critical fourth quarters of last year and the first quarter of this year.
At a time when it was plainly impossible to bring on stream infrastructure developments, in order to provide stimulus to the economy then.
Therefore, we took the right and necessary action. Why is it that Australian retail sales have held up in this period of time, a sector which employs 1.5 million Australians?
Because we did the right thing in response to the advice from the Treasury. Therefore in doing that as rapidly as possible Geof, obviously there would be certain individual omissions which would have occurred in those arrangements.
I am sure the Treasury, in consultation with the Treasurer's office, will investigate any practical measures which might be possible to deal with any inadvertent omissions.
JOURNALIST: You'd agree that those numbers could run into the thousands?
PM: Any inadvertent omissions, when you are dealing with millions of payments and your macro-economic responsibility is to stimulate the general economy at a time when the global economy was crashing through the floor, our responsibility was to make sure that was delivered, in the here and now.
We executed that responsibility for which we make no apology whatsoever.
JOURNALIST: No I understand that, so are you indicating that those people, low income earners, who didn't get the $900 cheque, can make a case for it and you will pay them?
PM: What I have said before, quite plainly and this is consistent with what the Treasurer said yesterday, is that if there have been any inadvertent omissions, as would inevitably be the case in making such widespread stimulus into the economy, then I am sure the Treasury, advised by the Treasurer's office can work through any such individual cases.
That is the right way to do things, and if you are administering something as complex as the nation's family payment system, as large as it is, incorporating millions of families across Australia, inevitably, and this I believe occurs in relation to every payment, you will find individual omissions.
And these -
JOURNALIST: Did you make a mistake in excluding them?
PM: These omissions will always be dealt with administratively and in the correct manner.
JOURNALST: The money that you have pumped into the various infrastructure projects in different states, are they going to be offset or included in the formula for divvying out GST funds?
PM: On the question of GST payments, as the Premier and I have had many private conversations on this in recent times, that formula was laid down quite some time ago.
In fact it was laid down at the time which the then Howard Government reached a distributional formula with all State Governments at the time.
At that stage, I am advised, here in Western Australia, it was the Court Government.
That distributional formula remains in place. When it comes to infrastructure investments, we have made those on the basis of advice of bodies such as Infrastructure Australia and other departmental advice as appropriate, to ensure that we get the best value for money for the Australian taxpayer against our strategic objective, which is to support jobs, support businesses today and invest in this sort of critical infrastructure for tomorrow.
JOURNALIST: But will they be included or offset? I mean, will that come into the way that (inaudible) -
PM: The GST distributional formula remains at is has always been.
JOURNALIST: BHP Bilition is forging ahead with its plans to mine uranium in WA's goldfields. How do you feel about WA having a uranium mine?
PM: Well as you know, as leader of the parliamentary Labor party, I changed the policy of the federal Labor Party in terms of the whole question of the mining of uranium and the expansion of mines.
And that was a policy decision we took with great difficulty through the National Conference of the Australian Labor Party in 2007. National policy changed at that point. Simultaneously what I said at that stage was that individual state approval processes were then the matters for democratically elected State Governments. And different State Governments have had different responses to that. And that is as it should be.
And so therefore the policy framework was set by us in opposition, reflected in the actions we've taken in government and state governments therefore will act as appropriate on local approval.
JOURNALIST: Just on mining, the mining industry has said that under the current carbon trading scheme as it stands, 20,000 jobs through the mining industry will be lost as it stands now. I mean does that need to be reviewed before it's introduced?
PM: I think the only comprehensive modelling exercise of the whole-of-economy impacts of our proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme has been undertaken by the Commonwealth Treasury. The Treasury modelling was released quite some time ago and indicated the overall net positive impact for the whole economy of a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme of the type we've described. That is the only economy-wide modelling which has been done.
If I could make one other broader point as well - it is quite plain to anyone who analyses the numbers carefully that the economic cost of inaction on climate change is far greater than the economic cost of action. Also here in Western Australia, as the Premier and I discussed yesterday when we were in Geraldton, there are enormous renewable energy opportunities for the future, each of which is capable of generating new jobs.
For example, you have rich potential in this state not just in relation to solar energy, but also in relation to wind, wave, tidal energy and as I am advised also geothermal as well. These provide great opportunities and let me just make one final point; that is why, the Federal Government in the Budget has put forward a $4.5 billion National Clean Energy Initiative.
Why? Not just to carve out the new energy, clean green energy options for Australia's future, but to provide jobs on the way through as well. On the solar front, our friends in WA should pay particular attention to the opportunities which present themselves here as well. We've indicated a $1.4 billion-plus investment in what we plan to be the single largest solar energy initiative anywhere in the world, up to a 1000 megawatts, that provides huge opportunities also for employment for local business and also part of the clean energy future
JOURNALIST: Will that be enough to pick up the slack for the 20,000 jobs given the (inaudible) -
PM: Well, as I said the challenge of government is actually to chart a course of action which takes Australia through our current circumstances and into the medium and long term future as well. Therefore, the economic costs of inaction are far greater than the economic cost of action. If you wish to see evidence of that look carefully at what the Treasury modelling has to say of the economy-wide implications of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme that we have put forward.
It is a balanced scheme, it provides within it adjustment arrangements for various industry sectors. Any government around the world introducing such schemes at this time are obviously going to have to make tough decisions. We don't resile from those tough decisions, they are necessary for the future.
JOURNALIST: What about nuclear energy, Prime Minister? If a carbon capture storage ends up being economically and practically unviable, will the Government look at that?
PM: Well, our policy when it comes to nuclear power generation in Australia is clear and has not changed.
On the question of carbon capture and storage, CCS technologies, I mentioned before a $4.5 billion clean energy initiative in the Budget. $2 billion plus of that is in the direction of carbon capture and storage, CCS, a group of four related technologies.
Let's not forget this is the single largest coal exporting country in the world.
Therefore, we have a national and international responsibility to establish the workability of these technologies and at what price. And our long discussions with affected industries in coal and power generation have pointed to the absolute necessity of making these investments now to establish their technical feasibility and the price at which coal fired power can be delivered as a consequence of applying integrated CCS technologies.
Furthermore, we are seeking to do so internationally. We've established the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute. Why? Because there is an absence of global coordination on this.
Look at figures for China on coal. Despite all that's been said, China's coal fired electricity generation will go up from what I understand is at present around about 40 per cent of China's power generation to about 43 per cent of China's power generation in the medium term future.
Unless we tackle the challenge of coal, than we are not properly tackling the challenge of climate change. That is why we are dealing directly with CCS technology investment. This is one of the largest governmental investments in carbon capture and storage technologies anywhere in the world.
And having said that guys, I've got to zip because I am due elsewhere.