PM: It's fantastic to be here, I'm joined by my Parliamentary colleague, the Member for Chifley, Ed Husic, who's been asking me to come and have a look at this fantastic facility.
I had hoped to be at the opening of it, but I am going to be overseas, so it's great to actually be here today and able to get a sneak peek before it's opened. And I'm of course joined here too by Alan Pendleton, the local Mayor who has been so responsible for this new facility, by very enthusiastic library staff, by people who have been involved in the building, the architect, we've all had an opportunity to look round today.
And I do want to say thank you to Alan and thank you too to his predecessor, to Charlie Lowles for the efforts that they've put in to the development of this, the Mount Druitt Hub, as you've chosen to call it.
This is a terrific partnership between the Federal Government and local council. We came together making a contribution of $4 million each, to enable the development of this new facility here. And just having a look at it, it is going to make a great contribution to education and learning in the local community with this new library space, including the new computing technology, as well as the area for kids, it's going to make a fantastic contribution to education and learning.
And upstairs it's going to make a great contribution to community cohesion, giving people a place to come together, to meet, for senior citizens, for local community groups to come together and have their activities. So it's a great new facility.
It's also been a facility that has created jobs in construction and we want to make sure around the country that we are bringing to people the benefits of work, so for us there is a theme here. It is about education and learning and it is about jobs. It's also about a clean energy future, because in this design, from the solar panels in the roof, to the rest of the way the building has been designed, it's been done thinking about energy use and a clean energy future.
And this building is going to be able to feed electricity back into the grid, as well as power its own activities, as it welcomes people to the library, children to the kids corner and community groups in here.
Today I've had the opportunity to spend some time with Ed, talking about his local electorate and their needs. Clearly this is meeting a need, but in this area too there is a need to be defining the future of manufacturing. As Ed is always very proud to say, he represents an area in the Federal Parliament that is in the top 10 for manufacturing jobs.
Ed has been a very consistent advocate of the future for our manufacturing industries. Ed Husic and a number of other Labor Members have been meeting locally with people who work in manufacturing and considering the future of manufacturing, and have said to me that they are very determined to see manufacturing in their local areas prosper.
I'm determined as Prime Minister to make sure that manufacturing prospers around the country too. We are living in a time of economic change, economic change in the form of a resources boom, being driven by the huge growth for our resources out of China, out of India, out of the countries in our region.
We've come out of the global financial crisis strong as a nation and that's a good thing and our region which continues to grow wants to buy the minerals commodities that we have to sell, that's a good thing too, it mean jobs and prosperity for Australians.
It also means that our Australian dollar has been very high and when we look into the future we see that the strength of the Australian dollar is very likely to be sustained. That does put pressure on trade exposed industries like manufacturing.
We've been conscious of that pressure and conscious that we need to work with manufacturing now, to assist it during these days of transformation and to make sure that in the days that lie beyond the resources boom, that we emerge from the resources boom with a more diversified economy, not a less diversified economy.
It's that thinking that has driven us to do things like budget in the May budget for the Buying Australian at Home and Abroad Package. It's the work that we've been doing through that package, whether it's been in advocating for the steel industry, or though Australian Industry Participation Plans, that is us reaching out to manufacturing and making sure it gets a fair share of the resources boom.
We've also has policies and plans like the New Car Plan, which has been so important to sustaining our automotive industry. We've invested in Enterprise Connect and in a series of other Government programs that support businesses and support manufacturing.
Recently in Canberra I had a Future Jobs Forum, so that we could share strategies as to what else we can do to support manufacturing in the future. I said at that Future Jobs Forum that we would take some immediate steps, including using the power of government money to ensure that when government funds are used to purchase and build new facilities that there is an Australian Industry Participation Plan, that growth in the economy is being used to help support manufacturing.
But I also said we were open to doing more and that we would have a Prime Minister's Manufacturing Taskforce. So I'm very pleased to be here with Ed Husic today, in a great manufacturing part of the country to announce the Terms of Reference and personnel who will serve on that Manufacturing Taskforce, who will advise me and advise government on what more can be done to support jobs and a future for manufacturing.
I do believe we've brought together some great expertise from business, from trade unions and from the academic world; people who are going to be able to help us keep defining a future for manufacturing.
Some great work has already been done by Minister Kim Carr and by the Innovation Council that works with manufacturing. We want to keep working and building on that, we want to catalyse further change, we want to make sure that we are supporting manufacturing industries.
So I'm pleased today to be able to circulate to each of you the names of who will be on the manufacturing taskforce and its terms of reference and I look forward to working with those union leaders, business leaders and those with policy expertise as well as continuing to stay in good touch with vocal advocates for manufacturing like Ed as we continue to support our manufacturing industries during these days of change.
I'm very happy to take any questions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister could you shed some more light on the Federal spin unit that's been created to promote the carbon tax?
PM: We've been bringing information to people about carbon pricing and we'll continue to do so.
JOURNALIST: Today economic modelling showed that the average Australian will be about $2.50 better off under the carbon tax which is higher than the Treasury estimates, does that vindicate your argument that it won't impact on families?
PM: Treasury of course always makes very prudent and careful assumptions and so the Treasury modelling is there for all to see. But NATSEM, which has been described by many people including by me as a very reputable modelling agency, today has released work that shows almost 70 percent of Australian households will come out better off. Now I think that this gives the lie to Mr Abbott's fear campaign. He's been saying to Australian families whether it's here locally or anywhere else in Australia that they should be afraid, he's been trying to whip up fear. I think these figures today are further evidence that Mr Abbott's fear campaign is without foundation; that many Australian families, people who are reliant on the pension, people who get family payments, people who earn less than $80,000 a year, people who are women who are coming back to work after having had kids can look forward to tax cuts, increased pensions and increased family payments as we seize a clean energy future, just like a clean energy future is being seized right here.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what can you tell us about the latest boat arrival and what will happen to those onboard?
PM: I understand that a boat has been intercepted, it will be taken to Christmas Island for processing. If the boat has on it asylum seekers they will be detained for health and security and identity checks in the Christmas Island facility.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, an Australian AusAID worker's been killed in Libya. Do you have a message for their family and what's the Government doing in response to that?
PM: At this stage we have our consular officials and our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade staff working as fast as they can to investigate this matter and to make sure that we've got full details. And so until we're in a position to confirm the full details I'm not going to speculate about the matter. Obviously if there has been any loss of life that is a tragedy for the family involved but we're at the stage where we don't have full details yet.
JOURNALIST: How many more boats do you expect, Prime Minister, in recent months to come? Will it be a flood of boats?
PM: I have said to Australians that as a result of Mr Abbott's very reckless strategy that we will see more boats. We want to be able to implement the arrangement with Malaysia. If we were able to implement that arrangement with Malaysia, then when we saw a boat like the one that has been intercepted we would be transferring asylum seekers on that boat to Malaysia, that's what I want to do as Prime Minister, transfer those asylum seekers to Malaysia to send the strongest possible message that you shouldn't get on a leaky boat, that you shouldn't risk your life, you shouldn't give your money to a people smuggler because they cannot sell you a passage to Australia.
Mr Abbott has denied our country that. And I do note in today's papers we've got the former Minister for Immigration, Phil Ruddock, saying that Mr Abbott's policies and plans are not enough. We have been advised by experts that Mr Abbott's plan about Nauru won't work. And now the former Liberal Minister for Immigration is saying Mr Abbott's plans are not enough to deter boats. I think that's a very significant development given how long Phil Ruddock was Immigration Minister in this country.
Second, today we've seen the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees say that Australia has seen a 19 percent reduction in asylum seekers whilst other developed countries have seen an increase. I think that's an important statistic too and the fact that the Government was preparing to implement the arrangement with Malaysia did make a difference. So they're the facts for the Australian people: former Liberal Immigration Minister says Mr Abbott effectively doesn't have the answer, Mr Abbott blocking the legislation which would enable the Government to transfer asylum seekers to Malaysia and evidence that our arrangement with Malaysia did already have a deterrence effect.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister what's your response to the release of Gilad Shalit?
PM: Well this is a very heart warming moment for him after so many years, five long years of being held unlawfully. So a remarkable moment for this young man, an amazing moment for his family and a great moment for the nation of Israel. So as a human being I've been very touched looking at the photos today and seeing that young man returned to his family.
JOURNALIST: Do you think the debate of Australia becoming a republic should be revisited at all?
PM: I think while the Queen is here in Australia what Australians will be doing is enjoying and celebrating her presence here. I believe she is very well respected by Australians and I think she's going to be tremendously, warmly received from the moment that she sets foot on Australian soil as she will do a little bit later today in Canberra.
Thank you very much.