PM: I'm here in Perth today with Senator Chris Evans - with our Minister who has been responsible for the development of the skills agreement that I was able to reach at COAG last week.
Can I thank the people from L & M Radiators for having us here today. This a great business and it's a really interesting business to talk about what's happening in our economy now and what's happening with skills.
This is a business that services the mining industry, making these huge radiators that you can see behind me but not just that.
This is a manufacturing business that is exporting its products around the world. It's showing what can be achieved in today's Australian economy and part of the secret for this business is that they've got a focus on skills and training and we've been able to partner with this business to ensure that throughout the workforce people have got the benefit of the opportunities to get a Certificate III qualification or above and always focusing on skills, always focusing on quality has brought great results to this company.
Now people might think, well from the point of view of a business, that makes some sense but what's a Certificate III for an individual?
Well, put at its most simple, it's about earning $400,000 more over your working life. A Certificate III qualification is the first level of qualification that makes a real difference to what you earn and how employable you are.
Here in Western Australia there are around 400,000 WA people who don't have a qualification at Certificate III level or above. And yet we know that in the years to come to 2015 there'll be 76,000 new jobs for people with those qualifications and we know that this economy too is hungry for people with the upper level skills, with skills like diplomas.
Now all of this is why we took the approach last week of announcing a new skills package signed onto by Western Australia and all the States and Territories of the nation. It will offer to people, as an entitlement, the ability to get a Certificate III qualification if they lack one and if they want one of those upper level qualifications than rather than worrying about how am I going to pay the fees, they can study now and pay later.
That is, they can get the same deal at university students do. So, this is about opportunities for the future of Australians, it's about a more productive workforce and economy for the future. It's about what's happening in this business today but we want to see happening right around the nation.
I'm also very pleased to be here in Western Australia on the day on which we have announced a new package for workers above 50 years of age.
Unfortunately, in some workplaces there is discrimination against older workers. We've sought expert advice about this and having received those recommendations, we've announced today a new plan to create a special $1000 bonus for employers who give one of these workers a chance, give them a job and keep then in a job.
This is all about extending opportunity too and making sure that there aren't unfortunate barriers that stop people getting the opportunities they need.
Today too we've seen the results of the most recent work of the International Monetary Fund - the global expert agency that looks at economies around the world and says to the world what is happening in each of them.
The IMF has said today that our economy, this year and next year, will out perform all of the major advanced economies in the world. The IMF has said that the Australian economy is a world-beater.
This is great news. What it's reconfirming that we came out of the global financial crisis strong. We protected jobs. We didn't go into recession and so we have the economy that we have today and it's the right thing in this economy to bring our budget to surplus to give us a buffer for the future in case the uncertain global economy takes a downward turn as well as to give the Reserve Bank the maximum room to move on interest rates, should it chose to do so.
Now on the say on which the IMF has said our economy is beating the world, Tony Abbott has been out today talking our economy down.
Now, that negativity from Mr Abbott costs. That negativity, scaring people about our economy when it is a world-beater costs. That negativity can cost in scaring employers not into offering the next job or taking the next apprentice. It's more of the same from Mr Abbott - talking our economy down and being negative about it even as the IMF has said our economy is a world-beater.
I'm happy to take any questions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, were you aware of those Kevin Rudd's deal with Andrew Forrest just before you took over the prime ministership?
PM: Look, I've seen those reports today. Mr Forrest, in the past has said that the minerals resource rent tax was going to break his business and be the end of Fortescue Metals. And then of course he said that he wasn't going to pay any tax at all and didn't pay any tax now. In today's newspapers we've seen rehashed old claims about all of this, just old nonsense re-presented.
What happened here is, after I became Prime Minister, I sat down with the biggest miners in the country and worked through an arrangement to make sure that around the nation we see mining pay more tax because it can when it is super-profitable, and that we use that to benefit other Australians.
Here in WA, better than most parts of the country people know about the resources boom, but they also know it's not everybody's boom. And for those Australians who aren't feeling the direct result of the resources boom, I want to make sure they get their fair share, and that's what I did as Prime Minister.
JOURNALIST: But did you know about the deal that he'd done?
PM: Well, I've just described it as old nonsense for a reason.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, your comments that Premier Barnett has not spread the mineral wealth fairly, has said that's naivety that can only come from Canberra and the rest of Australia should work a lot harder. Now this is set in the context where WA's GST receipts are set to drop to 55 cents in the dollar.
Now firstly can you elaborate on what you meant by Premier Barnett not fairly sharing the mineral wealth and two would this animosity between the Barnett Government and your government be over if GST receipts in this state were rectified?
PM: Well, I'm going to take that in the reverse order if I can. First and foremost, I am very happy to work Premier Barnett on good results for Western Australia and I'm standing here in this business today talking about a good result for WA that the Federal Government worked on and that Premier Barnett agreed to.
In just the same way Premier Barnett and I were able to agree major health reform for this state which means there more money in the hospitals than there otherwise would have been. It means people will face less waiting time in the emergency department or if they need elective surgery. So I'm always happy to work with Premier Barnett and get things done for the people of WA.
What I said in those comments and what I mean is simply this: many Australians would know about the strength of the resources boom in Western Australia. It's known all around the nation, it's known in many parts of the world. What may be less apparent to others outside Western Australia is that there are many Australian families who sit at their kitchen table, look at their pay packets and their bills and say gee, I'm not taking part in this boom. This doesn't seem to be a boom for me.
They are feeling under pressure, and as a Federal Government we want to be getting the needs of those families. As Prime Minister, I get it that those families are looming to us to work with them as they feel this pressure which is why we've done things like record investments in health and education. That's why we want to build new services like the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It's why we've invested so heavily in infrastructure in this state.
JOURNALIST: The State Government yesterday announced cuts over four years worth over a billion dollars, blaming the GST and the fact that our GST is dropping so much. Do you think that's just an excuse and that's starting to wear a bit thin?
PM: Government revenues, Federal Government and State Government, have been hit by the Global Financial Crisis and by the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. For the Federal Government, our revenues have been hit by $140 billion. Let me say that again: $140 billion. It's an extraordinary amount of money.
Now what you have to do as a Federal Government when your revenues have been hit like that, but the economy requires you to return your budget to surplus, is to get the work done to make the hard choices to recognise you've lost revenues, to look to make savings and we've done that.
We have matched all of our expenditure with savings since mid-2009. That's the hard work of government and if the Western Australian Treasurer who made these comments isn't capable of doing that hard work of government here in WA, well he should hand the job over to someone who can.
JOURNALIST: Colin Barnett was part of the Liberal Government which struck the GST deal with John Howard's Liberals back in the day. They don't seem to like the figures that have been generated by that complex formula today, yet that's somehow your fault. Is that fair?
PM: Look, if we go across the sweep of Australian history we've looked to ensure that Australians around the nation can have state governments provide basically comparable services to them, that we haven't wanted Australians who live in parts of the country that are less prosperous to really, really miss out.
That's the way it's worked. Now there was a long period of time when WA was a beneficiary from that system. Now of course with this extraordinary resources boom WA is seeing its GST share drop.
Now I understand that Western Australians are concerned about that. I have had people just come up and have a chat with me about it and I did make the comment to the newspaper this morning, there's nowhere else I travel in Australia where people will wander up and start a conversation about the GST.
They'll wander up and start a conversation about a lot of things - jobs and health and education and carbon pricing and what have you. But this is the only place in Australia where people wander up and want to talk about the GST
So it's clearly on people's minds and because it's clearly on people's minds, I decided that we ought to have a thorough review to look at it. I wasn't underestimating the complexity of it, but we got three eminent Australians to do it, two who have been Premiers themselves and Premier Barnett at the time welcomed that process of us having that GST review.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) changes resulting from the review though. What's the point in reviewing it?
PM: Well, you're really asking me to put a very big cart before a horse. You have a review to see what's happening, to make sure you've got all of the information and to get some people with expertise to recommend changes to you. We are still in that process, indeed we've very shortly we'll be in a position to release the first interim report of this body.
And then it will work through and give us final recommendations in due course, but the fact that I was prepared to have a review indicates that I listened to the voices of the people of Western Australia and thought that was the right thing to do.
JOURNALIST: On the IMF, the IMF's downgraded forecast for WA, for Australia, from 3.3 to 3 per cent. Isn't Tony Abbott right then when he says that the economy's underperforming?
PM: Can I invite you to look at the IMF's conclusions, that our economy now and next year is outperforming the major advanced economies of the world.
I go to a lot of international meetings and let me tell you, the leaders I sit down with would cheerfully chew their right arms off to have the macroeconomic signs that we have in this country.
If I said to President Obama ‘Do you want Australia's unemployment rate?' he would start chewing his right arm off to have it and he is in a better position than many of the countries in Europe where people are looking at unemployment of more than 10 per cent.
Around the world we are talking about millions and millions of people who are unemployed. We are talking about economies that today are smaller than they were before the GFC started.
Our economy is bigger than it was and it's growing and we've got an unemployment rate at 5.2 per cent and we didn't have a recession. That's what's happening in the Australian economy and against that Tony Abbott's negative.
What would he want? He'd want us to be the US, with unemployment more than eight per cent? He'd want us to be the Eurozone, with unemployment with more than 10 per cent? He'd want us to be Greece, would he?
I mean this is nonsense stuff and it's the sort of stuff you would only hear from someone who's addicted to negativity.
Now if that's all it was, well maybe people would just say that's political argy bargy, but what I feel and what really concerns me, is that out there in the Australian economy there's an employer listening to Tony Abbott who thinks ‘Well I won't put that next worker on'. Or an employer listening to Tony Abbott who says ‘Well I won't give that next apprentice a go'.
That's the cost of this kind of negativity.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister last year you intervened in a case of a 14 year-old boy arrested for drugs in Bali. Why is it that your government won't assist in the case of a 16 year-old Indonesian boy being held in an adult prison here in WA?
PM: Look, I'm aware of this case. First, let me say this - I don't want to see children in Australian jails, of course I don't, and I was very concerned during the course of last year, when evidence came to light that potentially some errors had been made about identifying people's ages, that we had to do better than that.
And so I said to the government departments that work in this area, particularly the Department of Immigration that we had to find a way to do better than that because I don't want to see kids in jails.
On the individual case that you raise, my understanding is that claims have been made about a birth certificate, that birth certificate was available to both the prosecution and the defence when this matter went to court. The court specifically determined the question of this person's age and determined that this person was not a minor, they were not a child.
JOURNALIST: There are claims that this is new evidence.
PM: I'm saying to you, my clear advice is that the birth certificate that is the subject of new evidence claims was available to the prosecution and the defence at the time the matter went to court.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: The person in question can appeal the decision if they choose to do so. These are legal processes, a court has made a determination and so consequently if the person involved wants to make a further legal process, that's a matter for them.
But, you know, there's the specific incident you raise and there's the general case. I don't want to see kids in jail. I want our systems to be right so that we do not have kids in jail, but also we've got courts making determinations and people have got the evidence, both the prosecution and the defence, I think we have to recognise that about the individual example.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what do you understand about the mining boom and Colin Barnett?
PM: Well I think, what I'm saying about the economy of this state and really the economy of the Australian nation, is the fundamentals of our economy. We've just been through that and how they compare with the rest of the world.
That means at this time in our economy's history it's the right thing to do to be bringing the budget back to surplus and we will. But we also know that our economy is a patchwork, that some places and some industries are doing much, much better than others.
That is true in Western Australia, as it's true of the nation overall and so it's a mistake to think that every Western Australian is getting showered in benefits from the resources boom. I understand that, we understand that as we make federal policy to improve health, education, give people new opportunities for skills to better invest in infrastructure in this state, compared with the old Howard Government and to make sure we're building the things people will need for the future, like a National Disability Insurance Scheme.
JOURNALIST: On that note, is fifty-five cents on the dollar fair?
PM: Well I've just answered how I was concerned about it and therefore started the GST review.
Thank you very much.