HOST: G'day, Julia.
PM: Good morning.
HOST: Oh - Prime Minister. Does it matter how I address you?
PM: Either is fine.
HOST: Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, welcome to 2TM.
PM: Thank you very much. It's great to be here.
HOST: Welcome to Tamworth, welcome to the North West, and welcome to the house of Windsor.
PM: The house of Windsor - I didn't know he was related.
HOST: Well, did he ask you to come to this area, or did you come of your own volition?
PM: Certainly, Tony Windsor's invited me to be in his federal electorate, and we've got to do some great things whilst I've been here.
Yesterday, I had the great honour of opening, officially, the Sports Dome, and then going to the hospital, seeing the Stage 2 redevelopment plans. We've been pleased to be able to provide $120 million of funding for that.
HOST: A lot of money.
PM: It is a lot of money, and I walked through the maternity section as it is now and met some great staff and some lovely mums, but it is an old-fashioned building.
HOST: It is.
PM: You do need a new facility, and I'm glad Stage 2 will get you that, and I was able to announce, too, $20 million for more clinical education here in Tamworth and also in Armidale, because if we train health professionals in this community they're far more likely to stay when they're in professional practice - and you need them.
HOST: Yes. The Sports Dome itself - your opinion on it? I haven't seen it. What's it like inside? It must be enormous?
PM: I was amazed by the size of it. When you drive up it just looks huge - it is huge - looks huge. We walked into one bit of it and really had to get up to the second level to get the full view across, but it's a very impressive, very sizable facility, and we met a lot of excited kids who were there to play netball and basketball.
HOST: I've got to say, you go over very well with the younger generation. They love you. The kids loved you yesterday.
PM: I like meeting kids. They're the future, and my big passion coming into politics was making sure every child got a great chance in life, so I always like mucking around with kids - and they ask you the hardest questions.
HOST: The good thing about kids is they're so innocent, and they're not going to plot against you, they're not going to, like some media - ours excepted. They're not out to get you.
PM: No, they're not, but they can ask, in all innocence, some of the toughest questions.
HOST: Difficult. All right, Prime Minister, you have a vision for rural Australia - what is it?
PM: I do have a vision for rural Australia. I think it's a great place to live. People love the lifestyle. They come here out of choice. They want to make their life here, but there are some things that have held rural Australia back, and our regional towns: the tyranny of distance - it's been harder to trade, harder to get your economy going, and the National Broadband Network is going to make a huge difference to that.
HOST: Absolutely.
PM: The world will literally be one click away, so that will make a huge difference for businesses, and then I think there's been this sense that if you live in a regional town, well, maybe you have to sort of put up with second-class services. We can make a difference to that. We are making a difference here with the hospital and with things like the Sports Dome, and we want to continue making that difference with more than $4 billion in the recent Budget dedicated - healthcare, hospitals, university, roads - in regional Australia.
HOST: All right, after this, of course, you're off to Armidale and the roll out of the NBN - National Broadband Network. Why Armidale? Why is it starting regionally? Is that an idea of yours, or maybe Tony Windsor's?
PM: Certainly, Tony Windsor has pushed hard to get the National Broadband Network, but actually, the decision about early release sites was taken by the NBN Co, the company that we have charged with the responsibility of rolling out the broadband, and what they wanted to do was to have release sites of different types around the country, so from those early release sites they could learn some lessons about the broader roll out.
So, Armidale is one of the early release sites, but, for example, a growth corridor in Adelaide, a metropolitan growth corridor, is one of the early release sites - different kinds of terrain, different kinds of issues, and that will help NBN Co learn the lesson as the roll out broadens.
I'm going to Armidale to do the pushing of the button and turning the NBN on.
HOST: More schools?
PM: I'm going via a school, I'm going to Tamworth Public School first.
HOST: More schools, good morning here in Tamworth. Look, it's a lightening visit, I know you have commitments. I'm going to let you go, but I want to ask you this, after your first year - it's not a year yet?
PM: No, it's not.
HOST: But your first year, how have you fared, in your opinion, the Gillard Government, in your first year of office?
PM: I think we've set about doing some of the big things that needed to be done. They haven't been easy things, and I know debates like carbon pricing are controversial and people are really trying to think it through, but we're methodically going about the things that we need to get done to make sure this nation has got a strong economy in the future and we continue that wonderful Aussie fair go.
So, the nature of choices in a democracy is you face some very difficult choices, but I'm a great optimist about this country's future and there's no challenge that's too big that we can't conquer it together, so even things like climate change, which seem big, big challenges-
HOST: -Well, they are.
PM: They are big challenges, but we'll get there together and we'll get this job done.
HOST: Let's be patient, folks, huh?
PM: That's right, and certainly on carbon pricing I am asking people for a couple of months of patience, and then they'll be able to see all of the details, all of the assistance to their households, sit there with the calculator and work it out rather than believing some of the silly fear campaign that's going on at the moment.
HOST: From some people.
PM: From some people.
HOST: Some quarters. Your report card so far, out of 10, what do you give yourself out of 10? Just give us the number.
PM: Oh, look, I don't think I would go for a number. I'd put on a report card ‘working hard and a lot more hard work to do.'
HOST: And I hope the time to do it, too. You're going for full term, of course.
PM: Look, I'm very confident the Government will go to an election on the ordinary cycle in 2013.
HOST: Will you make me a promise right now?
PM: I'll see what I can do.
HOST: I've got to say you look as great as you do live than in the papers or on television or whatever - present yourself very well.
PM: Thank you.
HOST: Will you come back in January and officiate in the festival next year? It's our 40th - I know what's on the cards, people are shaking their heads - would you come back in January and officiate for our 40th festival here? Have you been to a festival?
PM: No, I haven't.
HOST: It's unreal. We'd love to have you.
PM: Everybody who's ever come has given me a glowing report. You would know Simon Crean's been a bit of a regular, so he always comes back talking it up, so we will see what we can do, but the one thing you don't want is you don't want me singing.
HOST: How about line dancing?
PM: I'm not sure about line dancing. I'd be the one at the end out of step with everybody else.
HOST: Prime Minister, it's been a great pleasure.
PM: Thank you very much.