PM: Thank you very much. It's good to be with you to talk about the results of a very important forum, the first time that business has ever had the opportunity to sit down with the nation's leaders, with the Council of Australian Governments, and talk about productivity.
We have an economy, the fundamentals of which is strong, and that's been reaffirmed today by our unemployment figures.
We see unemployment figures where unemployment has stayed low and, as remarked upon in the room, our economy has created more than 40,000 jobs. That means the Australian economy, in the last month, has created a third of the jobs created in the total US economy.
So the fundamentals of our economy are strong, but it is always a good day to try and increase productivity, it's always a good day to sit down and try and address red tape that stops getting business done.
And that has been the focus of today's forum. The first time in 112 years of federation, business representatives have been able to come face-to-face with leaders and talk about cutting red tape.
Now cutting red tape matters, it matters to small business owners who stay up late at night, or lose the very precious hours of their weekends, in working out their compliance burden.
It matters to bigger businesses, because they can be bound by lots of red tape in many different areas and that holds productivity back.
Today's Forum has actually identified some areas where we can put a spotlight on reducing red tape and increasing productivity. It's something that we are determined to do together, the Commonwealth working with States and Territories, working with business organisations.
We are determined to get this done.
The six priority areas identified by today's Forum were national environmental reform, the treatment of major development proposals, the rationalisation of climate change mitigation programs, further energy market reform, development assessments, and best practice approaches to risk-based regulation.
In addition to these the forum also determined to have a red tape challenge, to ask Australian businesses, large and small, to identify those nuisance regulations, the ones that no longer have a purpose, the ones that are duplicating regulations in other areas that can be done away with, so that governments can act and clear out this undergrowth of regulation that doesn't need to be there.
So today governments have heard the voice of Australian businesses, tomorrow in COAG we will take action, having heard that voice.
So I want to thank the business representatives for having made themselves available.
I'll now turn to Premier Jay Weatherill of South Australia to say a few things, in his capacity as chair of the Council of the Australian Federation.
PREMIER WEATHERILL: Thank you Prime Minister. This has been a very valuable forum for us. The business leaders made a number of very powerful points about the need for reform in this area of regulation.
The important point was made that we live in a fast changing world and so investment decisions are taken and corporations need to respond very quickly, so a speedy regulatory system is a particular imperative in the world that we live in.
The second proposition that they raised, is a pretty self evident one, that investment depends on speed and certainty. So a regulatory system that delivers speed and certainty is one that's going to encourage investment. So this forum has been very advantageous for us.
The other advantage, I think, of this forum us that when we do go back to our states and we seek to implement a number of these national agreements, it's important that they're not disconnected from the views and concerns of the business community.
So bringing this forum together, having it so closely connected with COAG, will assist us when we go back to our states to ensure the passage of this legislation through our state parliaments, because it can be a difficult matter, sometimes getting these reforms through our state parliaments.
One of the measures that emerged today, which we think is a particularly valuable one, is in this area of duplication. The Commonwealth and the States both have environmental legislation, sometimes certain development proposals trigger both of those assessment and approval processes.
The time and delay and uncertainty associated with two development assessment processes is a major concern of business in country, so we've resolved today to work to eliminate that duplication and we think that is a very important step forward, it's one of the concrete outcomes of the discussions today and that will be further advanced in the COAG meeting tomorrow.
PM: If we go now to Tony from the Business Council of Australia, Tony Shepherd.
SHEPHERD: Thank you very much Prime Minister, Minister Wong and Premier Weatherill.
Can I start by congratulating the Prime Minister for this excellent initiative; we hope this will continue to be a fixture ahead of future COAG meetings.
I also thank the State and Territory First Minsters for agreeing to take part in what was a very constructive meeting.
This is an important and historic day for our Federation. We had our nation's political and business leaders seated at the same table, with one common purpose - to make Australia more competitive and productive.
This Forum's an acknowledgement that business has an important role to play in making the Federation work better for all Australians. And business, large and small, is very much on the same page with the reform priorities which we have bought to the table.
We've taken this meeting very seriously; we've put forward a set of six reform priorities that are squarely focussed on supporting business to lift productivity and competitiveness and to ameliorate the impacts of the high dollar.
We've made great progress today on a couple of issues, the commitment by First Ministers to remove the double handling between the Commonwealth, the States, on environmental approvals is a big leap forward.
It shows our governments understand how our future productivity and our future prospects are tied to a capacity to deliver on this huge pipeline of projects.
As I said in today's meeting, the major challenge for the Federation right now is working out how to deal with the uneven growth in the economy - how to make the economy stronger across the whole country.
So we wish COAG well in its deliberations tonight and tomorrow.
We recognise that COAG has many other things, apart from regulation and competition reform on its agenda, and all of these areas are hugely important - these include taxation and the distribution of GST, infrastructure funding, skills development and regulations governing our workplaces.
We don't expect COAG to be able to do everything at once, but coming out of today we are keen to see the beginnings of an action plan for delivering on these priorities.
And of course it's up to business to support the States and Territories in the reforms that follow from the COAG process.
We appreciate the complexity of the challenges facing COAG and also recognise that a number of our concerns are reflected in the current agenda.
We see this forum as an opportunity to sharpen the agenda and meet the challenges with renewed energy and direction. Most importantly it underlies just what can be achieved when government and business come together with common goals and a spirit of cooperation. Thank you
PM: Thanks Tony. Peter, if I could go to you.
ANDERSON: Thank you Prime Minister and ministers and colleagues. Today's Forum was very good for our Federation, it was also very good for our business community.
At the heart of today's meeting was an attempt to make our Federation work better for the economy and if it does, in turn the economy will be stronger in our Federation.
There were a number of areas today which are important next steps in delivering, not just the seamless national economy, but a more robust understanding amongst our governments of the impact of business regulation and red tape.
I'm particularly pleased that our governments - plural - our national Government and our State and Territory Governments have agreed to take on to themself some greater responsibilities and disciplines in the process of making regulation.
We know that there needs to be a robust process when regulation is proposed and we also know that too often good intentions have been lost in implementation.
What the governments have said to us today is that they understand that it's not just a question of harmonisation of some regulation amongst the Federation, or within the Federation, but it's also about improving regulatory quality and looking at best practice regulation in a range of areas.
And robust regulatory impact assessments, appropriate mechanisms for consultation with industry are crucial to that, both at a national and local level.
That's particularly important for small and medium business issues. I think it's important that the community know that today it wasn't just a discussion between governments and major corporations in the country - there were also important small and medium business perspectives put on the table, because a large component of our economy is comprised of SMEs who only operate inside one state, but for whom regulatory quality is crucial.
And the fact that governments have been prepared to take up some of the challenges we presented on that score today is very encouraging.
Finally, also if I can add that we were particularly encouraged that governments are prepared to review some of their own programs associated with carbon mitigation and carbon efficiency. Whatever one's view about the introduction of a carbon tax at a national level is, and as you would all know it's a view that I have that is not supported by my organisation.
But we certainly don't want multiple carbon prices adding dead weight to the economy, if we are going to face a nationally implemented carbon tax, and the willingness of governments to review the multiple programs that exist, which add cost and in some cases considerable cost with very little gain is, I think, a promising sign that we don't want to just load up the cumulative impact of cost on Australian business.
So it's been a good day for our Federation. I think rightly the business community will look at these discussions and look to specific outcomes that benefit the doing of business. That is the challenge that will be presented to us by our own constituents as business leaders, but this has been very important first steps.
PM: Thank you Peter. Innes.
WILCOX: Thank you Prime Minister and Premier Weatherill and my colleagues. Today was a very important day, because it allowed the business community to put forward some perspectives directly on how regulation was impacting on the way that they do business within Australia.
There were a couple of very key themes that emerged from today's discussion, they centred around duplication of regulation between State and Federal Governments and also at local government level, the redundant regulations that we still have on our statute books after a 112 years of history and the need for us to be more globally competitive, that was a theme that emerged right throughout the day, that we need to strip back our regulatory burden to be more nimble and more competitive as a nation.
One of the themes that emerged today was that with our main global competitors, many of them roll out the red carpet for business, but in many cases in Australia we roll out the red tape, and that's of great concern for industry more generally and today's measures are a very clear first step to wind back that accumulated regulation that has built up over those 112 years.
It's a great opportunity for business to put forward perspectives, government at all levels recognised the needs of business and of the business community, large and small, to be able to adapt to the global environment that they face every day and governments have agreed to take steps to wind back the regulatory burden on business.
There is no silver bullet, there's no easy solution, but today was a very positive first step and we thank the Government for initiating today's discussion.
PM: Thank you, and Amanda.
LYNCH: Small business is drowning in a sea of regulation. We need to remove the roadblocks that are actually hampering small business in their efforts to increase productivity and also to improve growth.
This is a start, it's actually a very difficult process that States and the Federal Government have agreed to. In the Communiqué there is an agreement actually look at the red tape, to collect examples of it, to measure progress and to benchmark progress with clear reporting timeframes.
This is what is needed and we are going to insist that these are met. Small business has a very urgent need to have these issues addressed. There's an increase of 30 per cent in small business failures over the last three years, 50 per cent increase last year, it's urgent, we need action now and it's imperative that these issues be addressed.
PM: Thank you very much. So we'll take questions on this directly, if there are other issues of the day we'll take them later.
Phil Coorey.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, can I just, I'm just trying to translate the Communiqué and item number one on the environmental approvals and assessments.
PM: Have you got a version not in English?
JOURNALIST: Sorry, interpret. Sorry. What is it you're actually working towards, or will it be a joint State-Federal approval body, or will it be a State body with some Federal oversight, and I'm not talking about the world heritage and high risk projects, but your run of the mill stuff?
PM: Look, what we want to work towards here is a streamlined system, so that projects don't go through two layers of assessment for no real gain.
And so the classic examples that are brought by business is where people have gone through sequential assessments, so it's double the time, things that have been required for the first assessment are required in a slightly modified form for the second assessment, so they don't even get the benefits of just uplifting the work and re-presenting it, it's got to be redone.
So clearly that is an inefficient system. Having said that, Australians do want to see good environmental protection and good environmental outcomes and so when it comes to things like world heritage areas, of course as a Federal Government we're going to want to see particular care and concern.
So taking those two things - how can we best design a system that works, works in a streamlined fashion, works quickly, so people don't have these sequential assessments, but is still rigorous enough to ensure that we meet environmental standards.
Now that's the aim here and that's what we'll be working with our State colleagues to do, to get a framework as to how to Commonwealth engages and what it engages on and then to work with the States on how their processes roll out, so that we're not doing things twice.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: I'll just take this question, the timeframe for that will be dealt with at COAG tomorrow.
I'll just go to Paul Bongiorno.
JOURNALIST:Senator Wong, a question in regard to cutting red tape. The Queensland Premier has suggested that he has a more ambitious program and if he stuck to COAG's it would hold him back. I suppose, is that true? And I guess the second question would be is there anything stopping the states rushing ahead if that's their will?
MINISTER WONG:If States wish to proceed with red tape reduction faster than the COAG process is delivering, well good luck. And I'm sure businesses would be very happy to see less red tape in state jurisdictions. But what we're trying to focus on here are certain priorities.
And we really listened to the proposition that the business leaders at the table today put to us which was this: we needed to streamline and prioritise the COAG work program; we needed to really focus on certain key reforms when it came to deregulation; and remember this is about reducing compliance load.
There is regulation such as the environmental regulation, to which the Prime Minister has referred, which has a very sound public policy basis. But the question is: can we reduce the compliance load for businesses around that regulation?
So we have picked up in the Communiqué that you have received, the priorities that business organisations, led by the BCA, but all others at the table, have endorsed, and it will inform the COAG work program and I think it has the capacity to be of great benefit to the Australian economy.
PM: We'll just go Katherine and then to Matthew and then come back across. Katherine.
JOURNALIST: Still a little bit confused in terms of EPBC. Prime Minister do you think you have got in principle agreement from the states to go along the model as outlined in this communiqué, because Campbell Newman a moment ago seemed to be suggesting that EPBC approval should be entirely a state matter and that's not what you're proposing here. So just in tangible terms, what do you think has been agreed?
PM: What Premier Newman did in the room, and obviously in speaking to the media as well, did make it clear that it is his view that all approvals should be dealt with at a state level.
Now that is not my view, because we do as a Commonwealth have particular responsibilities, for example in world heritage areas. That's not the only example, Commonwealth waters would be another good example, nuclear issues would be another good example, indeed in the room I said if someone was to propose that they wanted to construct a new Lucas Heights, you would expect the Commonwealth to be engaging in oversight on those kinds of things. I've just been to a Nuclear Security Summit where these matters were canvassed.
So there is a proper role for the Commonwealth too. Now I understand Premier Newman has a different view, but what is encapsulated in the Communiqué in front of you, which will then go to COAG proper tomorrow, is a significant step forward from where we are today.
So this is about making big strides, big progress, in the interests of Australian business, making sure that we don't have unnecessary delays and unnecessary levels of regulation.
So is it everything that everyone one wants? Well it's not everything that Premier Newman would want, but this is a very, very substantial step forward from where we are right now, where business people can point to examples where one year, two years, three years, have gone by when they've been caught up in sequential regulatory approvals processes.
Matthew.
JOURNALIST: COAG, well before Labor took power, has been discussing seamless economy reforms and trying to remove red tape. Can you just give us come context on - is this a new kind of direction altogether, has the formation of your business advisory group happened because the process previously was in some way not working, or wrongheaded, or is this a sort of expanded thing that takes on new areas that weren't envisioned in that earlier process?
PM: I'll get Senator Wong to comment as well, but we have made progress on deregulation and Senator Wong will talk to you about the progress that has been made in a number of priority areas, so we have made progress and that's been done through a particular structure.
The purpose of getting everybody together today is to say: we now want to go to a new stage where business actually gets a direct seat at the table, so rather that it being a process between governments exclusively, business actually gets a seat at the table to identify their priorities and having seen those priorities identified that then creates the next tranche of reform that we are all going to push to get done.
So we've made a lot of progress, we now want to go further, business sitting alongside with us, their ability to bring directly to us the view from the ground, whether it's the view of small business or bigger business, on what needs to be done.
MINISTER WONG:Just a few comments if I can. First, it is the case COAG, certainly since the 2008 agreement on the Seamless National Economy, has been working very hard on a range of reforms - some 27 Seamless National Economy reforms, and we've completed about sixteen, and work continues on the remainder. So those are good steps.
I think the way to look at the Business Advisory Forum is it is a way in which we can bring greater impetus not only to the existing reform agenda but to the next reform agenda, and a sharper focus on what should be the priorities in the next reform agenda. I think that is good for the Federation, it's good for the economy.
I'd make the point also - I think the focus if you look at the Communiqué and the discussion is people around the room understand that deregulation is an important aspect, a key aspect, of meeting the productivity challenge.
Now there are a whole range of other things the Prime Minister will be speaking to First Ministers about tomorrow in terms of productivity, but deregulation is one of the ways in which we can make a contribution to increasing Australia's productivity.
Can I just make one comment on EPBC: I understand people might have views about a different system. There is no Federal Government until this one who has put this amount of cooperation and this amount of streamlining into the environmental approvements process. This is a greater amount of streamlining and a greater amount of cooperation than has ever been proposed before under previous Federal Governments.
PM: OK, yes and then we'll go to Latika. Yes.
JOURNALIST: On the agenda, with energy pricing, can you name a couple of things which would make a significant difference in terms of energy pricing, which is a major cost for business?
PM: If someone wants to take that, Tony might like to speak to the work in the BCA paper.
SHEPHERD: Yes, thank you Prime Minister. Look, one of the things that we raised today was the cost, for example, of the RET system, which one of our members estimated to cost electricity consumers an extra $1.8 billion a year.
So we're not saying that the RET system should be abandoned overnight, but it certainly should be looked at very seriously in the context of carbon pricing and there could be significant savings because if you're running two policies in parallel you might only need one policy and so that's an example of where you could get some efficiency.
Full contestability in the market for electricity supply, generation, transmission and distribution and retail, our market based approach has in the past resulted in lowers costs, certainly in Victoria it has, but they have got full competition from generation through to the retail level.
So that's another example of where contestability could improve the outcome for consumers.
PM: Latika.
JOURNALIST: Probably Tony again, or any of the business leaders really, when Tony Abbott repeals the carbon price, should he get elected, are you worried that prices that have been raised because of the carbon price won't necessarily be dropped once that carbon price is repealed?
And are you worried about how one: you might cope with that given that compensation would be wound back and two: how you could police that at all?
And Prime Minister, if you want to add anything.
PM: I think that's a very, very big stretch from matters discussed in today's Forum.
SHEPHERD: Look, simply put, I mean we haven't seen the Opposition's policy yet on what they're going to do and they haven't been elected, so this double hypothesis is a very dangerous things to deal with.
But I can say, as a general principle, if you have market reform and contestability in electricity supply, you will always end up, in my view, with a more productive and cheaper outcome.
PM: OK, we'll go, yes at the end and then come back.
JOURNALIST: On occupational health and safety, this is a question for the Prime Minister and business, what if any progress was made around that, because Victoria, as you know has been the standout state here. Was there any sense in which this got inched forward and will be discussed tomorrow?
PM: There was a reference to a stock take of the current agenda in the Forum, but the purpose of the Forum was to define the new agenda. On occupational health and safety, and another priority matter from the Seamless National Economy agenda we've already been working on, and that is the National Occupational Licensing System, that will be the subject of discussion at COAG tomorrow.
Phil.
JOURNALIST: Premier Weatherill, back on the EPBC stuff, as the CAF chairman at this event, are any of your other counterparts, apart from Campbell Newman, sort of hostile to this concept that's being negotiated, are any of the other States or Territories saying today that they want sole discretion over environmental assessments.
PREMIER WEATHERILL: No, I think the better way to think of it is that all of them support the proposition that's contained in the Communiqué - that is reducing the duplication between two systems of environmental assessment - it's just that Mr Newman he's on his own in suggesting it should go a whole lot further.
So I think even he would concede that this is a step forward, it's just that it's not as far as he would like to take it. So this was something that was I think, when I, in preparation for today's meeting, when I spoke to each of the Premiers and First Ministers, this was something around which there was a strong consensus.
JOURNALIST: On the issue of the environmental regulation, you could argue that one person's red tape is another person's environmental safeguard. When it comes to state level, we've certainly already seen differences of view about where the line should be drawn. How much risk is there that this in the end is going to be stymied on political definitions of environmental protection vs regulation?
It's one thing to remove duplication, but the next step obviously is where should the environmental assessment line be drawn? How much risk are you at of getting stuck in politics?
PM: Well, I think the fact that we could sit around a table today, with representatives of business who identified this as, and I'd think the representatives of business with us would be prepared to tick this, out of the six priorities raised they identified this as the single biggest one, that they wanted top of the agenda. Other things are important, but this had a particular priority for them.
So if we can be in a room, discuss with business representatives across governments, that this is an area for action, that's a good start.
And I would echo what Senator Wong has said, this is showing more preparedness by the national Government to streamline approvals than has ever happened in the nation's history, whilst we've had Federal environmental legislation.
That doesn't mean that there won't be some hard conversations from here - there will be, this is not simple. We do want to make sure that it works for business whilst protecting our environment, and that's about getting all of the details right.
I'll go to Senator Wong for some comments too. Oh, OK.
JOURNALIST: Tony, do you feel like you're at risk of getting stuck in the middle here, when you get to the next stage?
SHEPHERD: The god is in the detail and tomorrow COAG is going to deal with this in a lot more detail, so let's see what comes out of that.
But the move that the Commonwealth's made and indicated it's prepared to make, may not go as far as some people would like. Obviously I think the States would love to have the sole right to sign off on environmental basis, but if we could just eliminate double assessments and a step approach whereby you have to go through one, and then go through another one almost identical, that would be a significant saving in time and risk.
So if the Commonwealth could rely on the assessments done by the States - and can I say the State assessments, in the experience of our members, are very extensive and would cover anything any reasonable person would want to consider. It's not like we're dealing with States with shoddy environmental standards, far be it.
So, just the reduction of the double assessment would be a great step in the right direction.
WILCOX: I don't think you can underestimate the steps the Commonwealth has taken to date to strip back regulation in this area. This is going to be vitally important to business; there are a lot of protections already in place at the State level, which will remain in place.
We're now at an argument about how far it goes, but the Commonwealth has already put forward a proposition where, apart from quite significant areas where the Commonwealth probably quite rightly does have a role, they'll cede a lot of responsibility here to the States and that will just make doing business much easier and that's what this whole Forum is about. It's quite a significant step.
PM: I think Premier Weatherill wanted to add a comment there and we're going to have to start moving very soon.
PREMIER WEATHERILL: Just to clarify, what's not being put here is that they want a different result out of the State, as opposed to the Commonwealth assessment. What's happening is they're getting approvals under both systems, it's just doubling the amount of time and the costs associated with that, so it shouldn't affect the rigour or the quality of the environmental assessment.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) that the carbon tax will knock $3 billion off the value of two generating assets it wants to flog, are you disposed to compensate them in any way? They say that the Commonwealth has been disposed to compensate Victoria for dealing with its power stations.
PM: Look, all of our policy settings about electricity generation and carbon pricing are clear. They've all been announced.
JOURNALIST: Just two quick things-
PM: Sorry, we're going to have to go soon and I just want to be clear here - do people have further questions about the Business Advisory Forum?
OK, let's take a COAG question there.
JOURNALIST: Just two things, what do you imagine emerging from tomorrow with, in terms of positive outcomes?
And also you had a lot of high powered CEOs around the table today, can you give us a flavour of the tenor of their discussions, where they upset about the carbon tax and the mining tax, as many of them have been publicly, or was there a different flavour and subject matter to today's discussions?
PM: Taking the questions in reverse order: today was about getting something very important done. The focus of the discussion was exactly as we've represented it to you, the focus was on enhancing productivity by reducing red tape.
People have other opportunities to make their views clear about other government policies, but what we where there sitting around the table to do today, was to focus on enhancing our productivity performance and consequently the amount of wealth in the economy and the number of jobs it generates and doing that by reducing red tape. That's what people talked about.
On COAG tomorrow, two big outcomes, or two big matters for the COAG table, we are bringing an important skills reform package to the COAG table.
In our economy now we have got a thirst in many parts of our economy for skilled workers, we know that our economy is generating jobs at 2.5 times the rate for skilled people than unskilled people, which is a long way of saying that if you are an unskilled worker in today's economy and tomorrow's economy, you are going to struggle to get a job, keep a job.
So in those circumstances we want to be reforming our skills system, so people can get that first qualification that makes a difference to their employability and earnings, Certificate III, and then they can go on and get broader and deeper qualifications as well.
So, skills - important to individuals, important to our national economy, as well as taking into tomorrow's meeting what we have worked through today, to decide things like timeframes for enacting the good ideas that have been generated today, discussed today and agreed today.
Is that the last question on COAG? I might get my friends apart from Minister Wong who can stay with me, to retire from the fray and thank you. Thanks, thanks a lot.
PM: I did want to say something very briefly about the tsunami warning last night. As a region in the world we've seen the devastating power of tsunamis. We saw it in Indonesia, Boxing Day 2004.
We saw it in Japan the devastation there. For tens of thousands of people around our region, last night was a terrifying night. I'm very pleased that damage was minimal, that we did not see a major tsunami, but this has been one of those times when the region, as one, has waited, has been ready to react if that was necessary.
Certainly, the Australian Government was receiving continued briefings last night so if we had needed to respond in a humanitarian way we would have been able to do so but fortunately, the worst didn't happen.
Now I'll briefly take questions of the day then I do have to go.
Matthew.
JOURNALIST: Thanks Prime Minister, you are aware that Campbell Newman held a press conference earlier. There's two issues I want to get your response to -
PM: -Sure.
JOURNALIST: He said that if you're worried about red tape, it is the carbon tax that's going to slam huge amounts of red tape on people and he had the legislation to show us how big it was.
I know you're determined to proceed with the tax, but do you accept that it - what's your comment on his claim that is adds red tape to business and secondly, he said that with regard to the closure of the, I think it's the Norwich Park Mine, he says that's the Commonwealth's responsibility and that he blames, to a large extent, your industrial relations laws and that they need to be fixed. I was wondering if I could get a response to that, please.
PM: Well firstly, carbon pricing is going ahead on 1 July, exactly as legislated. That is the most efficient way of cutting carbon pollution in our economy. So, for people who are concerned about productivity, about red tape, about cost, the best way of cutting carbon pollution is by putting a price on carbon, which is what we have done and indeed today's discussion was about how with a price on carbon, less efficient, more costly schemes can now give way because there is a price on carbon.
On the mine closure, it's been made clear by the operators of that mine that there were a variety of factors, including production loss during the Queensland floods and so closure of that mine has been talked about for a long period of time.
Of course, I never want to see anybody lose their jobs and go through that sort of distress, so I am thinking about the workers who have lost their jobs here. It's a difficult day for them and consequently, not time for the playing of politics with these jobs losses.
Broadly, in our economy though, we should note that we are continuing to create jobs. It's important for working Australians that we continue to see strong job creation and we have seen more than 40, 000 jobs created in the last month and to use the words of one of the business leaders, that is a third of the number created in the whole U.S. economy being created here in Australia. That's telling you about the strong fundamentals of the Australian economy.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) HSU affair, do you support strengthening the penalties against corruption and making things more transparent under the Registered Organisations legislation?
PM: Specifically on the HSU, as I've said publically before, proper processes here need to take their course. Generally, of course I want to see working people having the benefit of strong, good trade unions that act in their interests, in the same way that I want our nation to have businesses that play by the rules, in the same way that I want to see charities always upholding the rules as well.
I want to see the best for our nation, for working people in our nation, whether that's good governance in trade unions, businesses or charities.
JOURNALIST: So would you support strengthening the Act?
PM: Proper processes need to be worked through first.
JOURNALIST: On the National Disability Insurance Scheme, what are you looking for from the States in setting this up? Campbell Newman said it should be entirely Federally funded, is that something you agree with?
PM: Disability services are a shared funding system now with State Governments playing their part so I can't imagine really that a State Government would withdraw all of its funding from disability services.
I just don't see how that would be possible or how that would ever be justified to people with disabilities or their families or the community generally - that you would down tools on looking after people with disabilities.
For the future, what we want to see is a better system. It will require Federal State cooperation to deliver it.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) additional money from the states?
PM: Look we have said consistently that in building a National Disability Insurance Scheme, this is a big thing to do, it's a huge thing to do. It's easily a reform the size of the creation of Medicare.
We need to work through it properly, a bit at a time, including having conversations with our State and Territory colleagues about how it would work and how it would be funded. Those conversations are still to come.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, do you have a report or research or anything to go to COAG tomorrow on the NDIS to kick-start this discussion?
PM: Look the principal work for COAG tomorrow is as I have outlined it. It is the focus on the skills package and we will be certainly following up what happened in today's Forum.
The discussion about the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be ongoing and the big matter for resolution at COAG tomorrow is, as has been signalled to you for a very long period of time now, the skills package.
The discussions on the National Disability Insurance Scheme will take some time and they are ongoing.
JOURNALIST: On the skills front, you've put out a very detailed package, that you've announced. Is that what you will be discussing or do you have something new to add to the mix?
PM: That is what we will be discussing.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) positive result on that?
PM: Well we will see form the meeting tomorrow, Michelle, but in our economy today, it is in the interests of everyone, every level of government, every business in the country and every working person in our nation that we get a better skills system.