Canberra
PM: What you can see behind is Federal Parliament House, and it's tomorrow that here in Federal Parliament House premiers and chief ministers will come from all around the country to talk about a range of important issues.
But one is the most vital for our country's future, for the future of our kids, for the future of our economy, is making sure that we are properly resourcing every school and that we are improving every school - a better resourced and a better quality education for all of our children.
I am very determined to get this done and I will make that determination very clear in the room when premiers and chief ministers meet tomorrow.
And one thing that premiers and chief ministers need to understand is right across the community, people do value our kids and their future.
They do want to see every child reach his or her potential, they do understand that for the long term our country can only be a strong and fair and smart country if we've got world-class schools.
And if premiers and chief ministers don't sign up for a new school funding plan tomorrow, and the plan for school improvement, then they should expect to see back in their home states and territories community members, just like the community members standing behind me, who care passionately about children and their future and the future of our nation, and who will be making it very clear that they expect the nation's leaders to work together to give our kids and our nation a better future. So that'll be happening in Parliament House tomorrow.
Also on the agenda tomorrow is DisabilityCare, our new plan to make sure that our nation is genuinely extending to people with disabilities and their families the supports that they need.
Labor built Medicare, now we want to build DisabilityCare because for any of us, for all of us, we don't know if sometime in our life story or the story of our families that we will need to confront having a family member or personally having to deal with a disability.
Which is why it's in the interests of every Australian to ensure that we are caring properly for people with disabilities - not only today - but into the future for tomorrow.
I'm very pleased that South Australia, Premier Jay Weatherill, has today indicated South Australia will sign on for the full new DisabilityCare scheme so that it can be rolled out in South Australia for every South Australian with a disability.
I thank him for being the second premier to indicate his support for DisabilityCare in his state.
The first premier was Premier Barry O'Farrell; the second premier, Premier Jay Weatherill.
My sincere thanks go to him for what he has been prepared to do for the people of South Australia, and I look forward during the course of today signing the formal agreement to roll out DisabilityCare in South Australia.
In addition, on tomorrow's agenda we will be discussing what more we can do to work together to combat serious and organised crime.
This is the gang crime, the organised crime, the people who have got money to move, who end up with unexplained wealth, and often seek to evade capture or detection by moving themselves, weapons and money between state borders.
As a nation we've got to make sure there are no gaps, there are no loopholes, there is nowhere to hide, that people who commit serious crimes in our country face the full penalty and the full price, including what can be done through national anti-gang laws and national unexplained wealth laws.
So it is a big agenda; more on it than that, but they are some of the highlights as to what will happen at the Council of Australian Governments meeting tomorrow. And for me it will be a day of arguing very passionately for the future of Australia's kids and Australian education.
I'm happy to take a few quick questions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you've extended the deadline for Gonski to 30 June, but does it concern you that not one state has indicated it's prepared to sign on the line tomorrow, just 24 hours out?
PM: We are going to keep pressing this and the right day to press it, face-to-face, person-to-person, is tomorrow when premiers and chief ministers gather here in Canberra, and that's exactly what I will be doing.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, are you prepared to move at all on the figures or the funding arrangements with any of the states?
PM: The figures are there, the figure is clear, and the figure that matters the most is that we as a Federal Government are prepared to put in $2 for every $1 that state and territory governments put in to get our schools up to a school resourcing standard that means we could be assured that every school in our country has the resources it is needs to get the children in that school a great education.
So there will always be technical work to do and work for officials to do and patiently going through figures; of course we're prepared to do that.
But what we are seeking to achieve is clear, not only in funding, but through school improvement with those new funds. And what we're prepared to step up to do is clear; $2 to every $1, an indexation rate of 4.7 per cent.
And for that we're saying to states and territories, no more cuts, an indexation rate from you of at least three per cent, and then putting in $1 for every $2 from us to get there, to get our schools properly resourced.
And then of course we want to transparently know what's going on in the system so that every parent, every teacher, every community member who cares about the future of education and the future of our country can know what's going on.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, are you saying that you're prepared to then negotiate the timing and the overall dollars?
PM: No, we've made a very clear offer. There is always detail and sub-detail to work through. That is the nature of Commonwealth-state agreements, but what we very clearly put on the table: six-year transition, a two-for-one funding offer from the states, the architecture of the system, a school resource standard where we could be assured every child in every school has the resources for his or her education that will get them a great education.
These things are the architecture of the system, the big things that we have announced, the things that we want for our schools because we know they are right.
This is the end point of five years of very patient, very careful work.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, do you think you can get anyone to sign up tomorrow and if you can't, will there be another meeting before 30 June to try and drive this deal home?
PM: Well, as I've made very clear, we are prepared to sign up and work with any state or territory that will put the kids in that state or territory first.
So we'll work tomorrow, and then work in the days beyond tomorrow if that's necessary. But my message is clear to premiers and chief ministers, there is no time like the present to do the right thing by our kids.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the Greens are putting forward a bill to recognise same-sex marriages in Australia that happen overseas. Will you be supporting that bill?
PM: What I've done, just like Prime Minister John Key in New Zealand, and obviously they have had the vote there, what I've done just like the Prime Minister of New Zealand, is make sure that for my political party there is a conscience vote on this question.
We had a conscience vote when it came to Parliament on the first occasion. We will have a conscience vote for any future votes.
For those that advocate change in our marriage laws, what we need to see is a conscience vote by everyone in Parliament. I think that's the right thing to do, to give people that conscience vote.
And I also think in terms of a Parliament, thinking about change, dealing with change, it is absolutely impossible to see change ever succeeding unless every Parliamentarian gets a conscience vote.
So that is something for the Leader of the Opposition to think about and to deal with.
I do note, of course, that Prime Minister Key is from the conservative side of politics, as is the Leader of the Opposition.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what do you make of the contradictions coming from the Coalition on the funding of Mr Abbott's paid parental leave scheme?
PM: It's clear that the Opposition is in a very big budget mess and where that will end, as it always does with the Liberal Party, is in deep cuts to health and to education.
That's what Liberals do, that's what we've seen them do in states around the nation, and one of the reasons I am so determined to get this school funding agreement is to stop Liberal Government cutbacks hurting our kids.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, can you just explain how you are going to legislate these education reforms before 30 June if the states haven't signed up to them?
PM: We've got a bill before the Parliament and we will keep pursuing that bill and making clear in that bill all the foundation stones and the way in which the system works.
We can of course sign bilateral agreements between the Federal Government and state governments and that's what we're prepared to do as early as tomorrow.
JOURNALIST: Some of the states are saying they don't have enough money to pay for this. Do you have any suggestions as to where they should find cuts in their budgets to allocate the money?
PM: I manage my budget, and in managing my budget we took some really tough decisions, and they haven't been without public controversy and there are some people upset by them. But if you are going to step up to the plate and show leadership then you need to step up and make those tough decisions.
I've done that for the Government, for the nation, in the federal budget. It's not too much to ask premiers and chief ministers to show the same kind of leadership as they manage their own budgets.
JOURNALIST: Carmen Lawrence has suggested that one way of maybe overcoming Colin Barnett's objections to WA getting a proportionally lower share than the other states would be to maybe the Commonwealth help fund construction of schools in WA. Is that something that's under consideration?
PM: Look, we've got a national aspiration here and you and I had a bit of a conversation about this on Sunday when we announced this plan.
I think everyone, wherever you live in our nation, has got an interest in being able to say about our nation that every child in every school is getting a good education and that schools around the country have the resources to do so.
Yes, WA is closer to the standard than a number of other jurisdictions. That's a good thing, that's a great thing.
But that doesn't mean that the people of Western Australia have got no interest in getting their schools up to the standard and more work needs to be done to achieve that, and that they've got no interest in the quality of schooling around the rest of the nation.
People of WA have got a keen interest in what kind of society we're going to be.
Are we going to be a fair society? Are we going to condemn some kids because we weren't prepared to educate them properly to a life of welfare and despondency?
Are we prepared to see a weaker national economy for the long term because we didn't properly educate our children?
These are the big questions that require people to answer with really true to the heart answers, and I think for the people of Western Australia, these questions are as important as they are in other parts of the nation.
And the only real answer, the only decent answer to those questions can be, yes, we do want our kids to get a great education.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, Dennis Jensen said on Twitter that ABSTUDY, because it can't be accessed by non-Indigenous Australians that it's racist and discriminatory?
Is that the case and if not, what does that mean for the Coalition and should Tony Abbott come out and, if he hasn't done so already, come out and smack him on the wrist?
PM: Well, of course not. I don't agree with those views which are very offensive.
It is a question for the Leader of the Opposition about whether or not he endorses these offensive views, so that's a question you will have to put to him.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, on Indigenous health, are you confident the states and territories will support the extension of the Closing the Gap funding?
PM: Well, Minister Macklin has worked long and hard on this and in consultation with states and territories.
This is unambiguously in our nation's interests and in the interests of Indigenous Australians, so I'd certainly hope that that agreement gets endorsed all around the country.
Alright, thank you very much.