PM: I'm here in Sydney with Jacinta Collins the Parliamentary Secretary for Workplace Relations and I've had the enormous privilege this morning of spending some time with people who work in our social and community services sector and I can see a number of them still in the room.
These are hard working Australians who support people with disabilities, who work with our homeless, who support women when they've been the victims of sexual assault, who support families in crisis; they do some of the most important work in our society. But because this work has been predominantly done by women it's been undervalued and underpaid.
To give you just one snapshot statistic there, in this sector, the social and community services sector, around two thirds of the workers have post-school qualifications compared with half in the Australian workforce generally and yet when we compare pay, these workers on average get $46,000 a year whereas the Australian average is $58,000 a year - showing you that they have been undervalued and underpaid.
When Labor came to government we got rid of the hated WorkChoices and replaced it with the Fair Work Act. Amongst a huge set of reforms to make a real difference for working Australians, I ensured that we put in the Fair Work Act a decent equal pay principle. A decent section of the Act which meant underpaid working women could go to Fair Work Australia and get equal pay.
The Australian Services Union has taken the first test case to do just that, to get wage justice for people who work in the social and community sector, predominantly women, but also the men who work alongside them.
Today I've come to meet with those workers and announce that the Government will join with the Australian Services Union in a submission to Fair Work Australia to get these workers equal pay and we expect that we will be joined by responsible providers and possibly state governments in that application.
We will be saying to the Industrial Relations Commission that they should give these workers comparable wages to what has been achieved in Queensland through its industrial system. That does mean that we'll see increases in the order of $7,000 a year for workers in the disability sector. That's an important recognition of the work that these workers do.
We need to fund this and the Commonwealth will fund its fair share and today I'm calling on state and territory governments to also fund their fair share of these increases for social and community services workers.
For the Commonwealth we anticipate the cost will be around $2 billion phased in over a six year period. That's a lot of money and we'll make the budget choices necessary through our strict budget discipline to find that money and to offset it in the Federal Budget.
But budgets are about choices and they're about what you value and as a Labor Government we value the work of working Australians, we value the work of working women and we believe that they should be treated with fairness and decency in their workplaces and that's what equal pay is all about.
I'm very happy to take any questions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister how confident are you that Fair Work Australia will accept your joint submission?
PM: Well Fair Work Australia is an independent industrial umpire. We deliberately set it up as an independent commission after we'd seen the former government try and destroy the industrial umpire. But I do believe that the Federal Government, coming with the Australian Services Union and other unions and we will be looking to be joined by responsible providers, I do believe that that will be a very persuasive voice before Fair Work Australia.
Fair Work Australia's already taken the first really big step and that is to say that these workers are underpaid and undervalued and it asked the parties to come back with a view about what should happen next and we're going to raise our voice very strongly about what should happen next. These workers, these working women and the men who work alongside them deserve fairness and decency, that's the Labor way.
JOURNALIST: You call on the states and territories to contribute their fair share, how much is that?
PM: Well we as a Federal Government are not a major direct employer of workers in this sector but we fund a lot of work that community and social services sector workers do, so for the work that we fund we will step up the funding so that these pay rises can be paid.
We'd be asking state and territory governments to do the same where they fund work in this sector they should step up too and provide the right additional funding so that there can be equal pay and decency at work for these working people.
JOURNALIST: Can that 20 per cent rise be delivered though if state government don't contribute their fair share?
PM: We will do as a Federal Government what we need to to ensure that these rises are funded. We will pay our fair share.
So what we do is not conditional on what happens with state and territory governments, we will do the right thing anyway, but I'm calling on those state and territory governments to join us in doing the right thing.
JOURNALIST: Have you had any indications from the states and territories?
PM: We have kept in contact with states and territories throughout the Fair Work Australia process. We've advised states and territories that we are taking this step today, that we are committing as a Federal Labor Government that we will go to Fair Work Australia saying that these working people deserve equal pay, that these working women have been discriminated against for too long and it's time to fix it - we've certainly said that to state and territory governments and we are looking forward to their response and asking them to join us in getting fair pay for these working women and the men who work alongside them.
And having had the opportunity to talk to them today, these very hard working, dedicated professionals haven't just spoken to me about what it means for them personally, though of course it does mean more money for them personally, they've spoken about what it means for the service that they work in.
They see too much staff turnover because people simply can't afford to stay doing these jobs even when they love them. They can't get the recruits they need because people can earn more money doing less stressful work even though they'd prefer to be working in this sector.
It's in the interest of every Australian that we've got a healthy, vibrant social and community services sector supporting Australians who need help the most - so making sure that there's equal pay and fair pay is good for the individual working people involved, it's fair to them, but it's also right to strengthen our social and community services sector, which at the end of the day we all rely on as Australians.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister what do you make of, just on another issues, the changes to the hierarchy of News Limited?
PM: Look I made a statement yesterday about John Hartigan's contribution as CEO of News Limited. I've described him as a giant in the industry, someone who's risen from the most junior ranks in newspapers right up to the top and I've wished him well for the future.
JOURNALIST: And his replacement?
PM: Well I'll certainly be interested to get to know his replacement. I think yesterday was a good time to say a few things about John and we'll certainly be looking forward to working with the new appointees at News Limited.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister what do you make of the Glenn Sterle arguing that the TWU should challenge the Fair Work ruling on Qantas?
PM: Well no appeal's been lodged. The approach the Government's taken on Qantas is to say we certainly did not want to see the extreme industrial action that Qantas took and the grounding of planes and the disruption that meant for passengers, so we acted quickly to get the planes back in the sky.
Now is the time for parties to come together and to sort this dispute out, if they're not able to do so then Fair Work Australia, our industrial umpire, will do it for them. But I can certainly say to members of the travelling public, to passengers who are going on Qantas that we've taken the action necessary to make sure that there is no industrial action and no more disruption of passengers.
JOURNALIST: Are those comments unnecessary or unhelpful?
PM: Well as I've said there is no appeal which has been lodged.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, in September the Australian Government circulated a brochure to letterboxes titled ‘What the carbon price means to you'. The brochure mentions the wish to reduce emissions by five per cent by the year 2000, but neglects to mention what those year 2000 levels were.
Just in order to allow Australians to quantify the size of the challenge can you explain that to them and how they were measured?
PM: Well we set the carbon pollution reduction targets for some time now so -5 per cent by the year 2020. So what that means in perhaps terms that people can find easiest to imagine, it means 160 million tonnes less of carbon pollution, that's the equivalent of taking 45 million cars off the road.
I think we've got around 12 million vehicles in Australia today, so if you try and get a mental picture of 45 million cars, that's a lot of difference, that reaching that -5 per cent target will mean.
JOURNALIST: What was the year 2000 figure that's been reduced by five per cent?
PM: The baseline is 2000, it's a reduction of five per cent, so it's just straight maths but the five per cent is 160 million tonnes.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, there's been some violent scenes involving striking workers outside a chicken factory in Melbourne. What do you have to say about their actions?
PM: Well there's no cause for violence in any situation at all and certainly no cause for violence in an industrial situation. No one should be involved in violent acts in an industrial situation.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister the unemployment levels are falling for a second straight month, what do you put that down to?
PM: Well our economy is a strong and resilient economy, we're not immune from events overseas and I do want to say today as we've seen some of the news overnight from Europe and some of the volatility in markets as a result, that it is vital that Europe gets its house in order.
Some progress has been made, but I reiterate what I was saying at the G20, progress has been made through the agreement in late October by European leaders to act. Some progress was also made at the G20 but European leaders need to implement the decisions that they have taken and it is very important that the world continues to speak with one voice to Europe and to say to Europe and the eurozone - get your house in order.
Here in Australia we're not immune from the global economy but we have a strong and resilient economy, we're in the region of the world that continues to grow, in the Asian region.
We are still seeing strong prices for the resources that we sell. Now there are other sectors of the economy under pressure like manufacturing and as a government we want to make sure that we come through this resources boom with a strong diversified economy that offers people opportunity right throughout the country. It's certainly a Labor mantra to make sure we've got opportunity for all and that means that we've got to have a strong diversified economy, that's what we're seeking to achieve.
Today's job numbers show that we are creating full time jobs, unemployment by the standards of the world is low in Australia. I think that means we should be saying to each other - we came through the global financial crisis strong, we worked together to achieve that as Australians, government, employers, unions, working together.
Now we need to keep working together to manage our patchwork economy in the interests of working people.
JOURNALIST: Will you be signing a free trade agreement with Korea at APEC?
PM: We've continue to work with Korea on a free trade agreement and we'll continue to do so. Those discussions are in an advanced state but they are continuing.
Thank you.