HOST: Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard good morning.
PM: Good morning and you look lovely. And I'm sure you look lovely even before the make-up suggestions.
HOST: Thank you very, very much. Welcome to the north of the state. You had a busy day yesterday?
PM: I did have a busy day yesterday, and I've got another great day in front of me.
Today, I will be signing the agreement for DisabilityCare in Tasmania with the Premier, Lara Giddings.
So I'm really proud about that right here today so that we know the full scheme will roll out in Tasmania, making a difference for people with disabilities now but really a difference for everybody who lives here because you never know whether it's going to be you or a family member who will confront a disability some time during your life.
And then I'm out to the maritime college too and we have got some special announcements about more investments in workforce for shipping and also in Bell Bay because we do want to see Tassie exporting into Asia and getting all of the benefits of that growth in the Asian middle class who want the things that Tassie makes so well, including all of your wonderful food and agricultural produce.
HOST: If you've got five minutes today we could send you out to Agfest and you could sample some of it?
PM: I would love to and we've just been chatting about that outside; 60,000 people at Agfest, it would be a great day, but unfortunately the program doesn't let me go and do that but I will be well represented by Sid Sidebottom our Parliamentary Secretary.
HOST: Let's talk about the NDIS, the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
The rollout that is going to start happening in Tasmania is going to deal with a specific demographic. It's a specific trial looking at the, I believe, 15 to 24 year olds. Why that age group in Tasmania?
PM: That's the launch age group, so the scheme will launch on 1 July. It's launching in various parts of the country and we wanted to learn from those launch sites the lessons for the full rollout of the scheme.
So we deliberately wanted to select different population cohorts and different kinds of areas so we could learn comprehensive lessons.
So for example, South Australia is launching with children. We'll learn something about how to best care for kids.
You're launching with adolescents moving into adulthood, and so we'll learn here about what it's like to change modes of care as a young person is gaining increasing independence, just the way all teenagers want to have more of a say and there is the time that they get more decision-making and parents start to take a step back; what that means in terms of DisabilityCare.
In other parts of the country, we're doing geographic sites to work out how the full model will work.
The agreement I will strike today, we've already agreed with Tasmania, the launch arrangements, so, tick, that's happening.
The agreement I will strike today with Tasmania will move from launch to everyone who is confronting a disability in Tasmania.
HOST: With this trial that is actually going to start for this age group, what sort of numbers do you understand will be included in that trial?
PM: There will be around a thousand young people included in that trial.
HOST: That would have to go close to covering everyone perhaps in the state in that age bracket, I would have thought?
PM: I suspect it does, but we needed to work out with the Tasmanian Government all of the arrangements so there is the focus on a thousand, but we will move now from launch, 2016 it will start rolling out more broadly, beyond young people.
And then by 1 July 2019 it will cover everybody in Tasmania with a serious disability.
HOST: I had a question on my Facebook page last night to pose to you from Chris. Who exactly is covered under the National Disability Insurance Scheme, what sort of issues are covered and does it extend to mental health?
PM: Yes it does. This is for people with serious disabilities and the legislation to set it up has already passed the Parliament, so there is plenty of information available from government websites.
But serious disabilities, physical obviously, so people who are in wheelchairs, don't have the physical attributes to be able to move themselves, may not be able to shower themselves, toilet themselves, feed themselves, people who need extra assistance.
But it also covers people who are profoundly mentally ill, and that is putting a very big burden on their lives.
It can cover as well children with profound developmental delays, with serious autism which is preventing them from engaging fully in life.
HOST: Tasmania is the fourth state, I believe, to sign on. What role does the State Government have in this and how do you see the Tasmanian health system fitting in with this process?
PM: The Tasmanian Government is right there with us on DisabilityCare. We can only do this together.
So for the long-term funding arrangements, we are providing around half the money and the Tasmanian Government is providing around half the money.
Now as a result of the announcements that I've made yesterday, we will be striking a Medicare levy, 0.5 per cent.
That will help us with all of the costs of running DisabilityCare from the Federal Government, but there will also be a share of that money that comes to the Tasmanian State Government to assist them with their costs.
HOST: You've got bipartisan support for the NDIS. You've touched on the levy. Why not introduce the levy now?
PM: We've got bipartisan support, or we had it, for the passage of the legislation that created DisabilityCare.
Right now I've got no idea what the Opposition thinks about the Medicare levy.
They haven't made any announcements about that yet.
I believe the Leader of the Opposition has said he would do that today.
So what I'm saying is we want to secure this funding source for the long term to make a difference for people with disabilities.
There are two ways of doing that: we can have bipartisan support or if the Opposition is not prepared to support it the Australian people can speak loudly on this issue in September and endorse it.
HOST: If the Opposition Leader does come out and support it today, will you take this back to the next sitting of Parliament?
PM: Yes we will, but if the Opposition says they won't support it then I'm not going to play some political game that has the legislation perhaps getting through on the votes of others only to be repealed if the Opposition becomes the Government in September.
What secures this for the long term isn't that kind of political manoeuvring.
What would secure it for the long term is bipartisan support or for the Australian people to specifically endorse it via their votes in September.
HOST: Let's talk about the NDIS in practical terms. What is it going to buy? What is this levy actually going to buy for the young people who are part of this trial rollout, and eventually for everyone as they are brought into the scheme?
PM: Well, the way it works, what happens at the moment if you've got a disability, what's available to you for your care depends how you got your disability, are you under a transport accident or a workers compensation scheme, where you live in the country because some states have better systems than others, what service providers are prepared to offer you and whether you sneak in under the caps because these things are capped or whether you're the person who knocks on the door and they say, sorry, we've used all of our services for this year, we can't help you. That's not good enough.
What DisabilityCare would do would put you, if you were a person with a disability in the driver's seat.
You would be able to define what care you needed and then source it from service providers.
So you would be the decision-maker, rather than the person with the begging bowl out looking to service providers saying, can I please have this, oh sorry, you only offer that, I will take that then.
What's it mean in a practical sense, for many people now with disabilities, they only get the care to have a shower maybe once a week. That's not good enough for a nation like ours.
People get a wheelchair, but then their needs change - or the wheelchair, these motorised wheelchairs, they don't last forever, they need a new one - they go on a queue and they wait and they wait and they wait for a new wheelchair.
Well that's not good enough for a nation like ours either.
So those really practical things, if you put yourself in that position you would have had a shower this morning, I had a shower this morning. We just think that's part of life.
If someone said to us, you're going to have your next shower in a week's time, how would we feel about that?
If you really put yourself in that position, I think you can feel the power of it.
HOST: So the people that are inside the scheme will be able to say, this is what I want, I know it's going to cost this, and the scheme will fund it.
PM: The scheme will fund all reasonable supports for people.
HOST: What's the overall price tag?
PM: It's a lot of money. It is a lot of money. It builds up to being billions and billions of dollars, that's the truth of it, it's not cheap.
Not cheap here in Tasmania. The figures from Tasmania that will flow from the agreement that we sign today are large figures.
Both governments putting in a lot more than $200 million each, so it's big money.
How do you fund it, that's the question that I've been grappling with and I've asked the nation to grapple with in recent days.
I think part of the costs of this should be funded by all of us through an increase in the Medicare levy.
HOST: Assuming the levy goes through and we have a pool of money starting to accumulate to fund the NDIS or DisabilityCare, how will you protect that pool of money from some future government saying, we need that, there's another global financial crisis on the way? How will you protect that from anyone dipping their fingers into the honey pot?
PM: We are going to the money in a special account so it is clear that the money raised from the Medicare levy is there and every cent of it will be spent on DisabilityCare.
So we've been very clear about that commitment. I can only give commitments for my political party, for our side of politics so you will also need to put that question to others.
But in order to fund this, the cost of it from the Federal Government's point of view is going to be more than is raised by this increase in the Medicare levy, but I am asking Australians to chip in through this increase in the Medicare levy and we'll make big savings decisions to do the rest.
Already we've done things like tough decisions like the changing the private health insurance rebate, a lot of people didn't like it, but we took a big decision like that so that we would have savings that grew over time, that could be used for DisabilityCare.
HOST: Prime Minister, we've got a number of questions that have come in from listeners. Can we throw a few of these at you?
PM: Yes, no problems at all.
HOST: Jason says, why have you decided to have such a long lead-up to the election, why not the normal timeframe?
PM: I knew that what would happen this year, after a pretty fevered period in politics ever since the 2010 election, people have had to live with the Opposition playing a very negative political game and basically calling for an election every fifteen minutes.
I knew that if we went into this year with the election date not defined that hours and hours and hours and hours of time would be spent in election speculation.
People would be chasing me round Canberra just to see if I was going to the Governor-General's.
The Opposition would be out every day saying election now, election now.
I decided to cut all of that, to define the election date, to give people certainty and to try to get a spotlight on the issues that matter for our nation's future.
And I'm glad that we've spent so much of this interview today talking about an issue that profoundly matters like DisabilityCare.
HOST: We've got a question for Bob from Andover, Good morning to you Bob. What will you do about food security so that we don't have to rely on imports?
PM: You don't need to worry about that. I can give Bob a very clear assurance. We are a great food producing nation.
We are a great food exporting nation and we produce more food than we would ever need or ever use.
We are able not only to provide food to Australians but to make a lot of money by exporting it overseas. This is a huge opportunity for Tasmania.
We live in the region of the world that is fast becoming the biggest consumer market the planet has ever known - the biggest middle class the planet has ever had.
They will want the things Tassie makes, the great wine, all of the things that we love about Tasmania, the great food, and that's a huge export opportunity.
HOST: This one has come in from Judy and I think Judy's probably reacting to the chillier start this morning. She's asking, will the Prime Minister reinstate the insulation subsidy for Tasmania?
PM: Well, it is a chilly start today. I felt that as I wandered out to get in the car to come here. We, of course, did for a period of time subsidise insulation.
We haven't got any plans to do that again so I'm going to disappoint her. But insulation does make a difference to your energy costs.
HOST: Now, Tony has called through a question; a number of questions here, really. Why do working parents have to pay more for child care, shouldn't the unemployed pay more, working families seem to be struggling more than those who can but choose not to work?
PM: When it comes to the cost of child care, it can be really tough for people to make it all add up and particularly for women returning from work. Does it add up to go back to work, I'm really conscious of that.
So we've done two big things as a government. We've changed the child care system so there's more money going to support families with the costs of child care than ever before.
And we've changed the tax system so if you are a woman returning to work for example, you won't pay a cent of tax until you earn more than $18,200 a year.
That means for a lot of casual or part time working people, they now pay no tax, indeed a million people are coming out of the tax system.
So we've tried to help with those pressures.
For people who are unemployed, the approach we take is to try and create jobs and get people into work and here in Tasmania we've got a very clear focus on creating jobs and harnessing economic growth because we know there have been some difficult days in the Tassie economy.
HOST: Prime Minister, we've got a message through on the SMS and it is perhaps more just a little bit of a statement and it says, ‘Hi Julia, I remember you just as a member sitting on the plane next to me.'
PM: Oh, there you go, that's nice!
HOST: Thank you very much to Bruce. Actually we both hail from South Australia, very similar stomping ground. You're Unley High, I was Blackwood High. What do you miss most about your life over there?
PM: Look the main thing I miss is obviously day-to-day is my family. All of my family is there.
So to spend any family time, whether it's with my mum or my sister or my niece or my nephew and we've got a new baby on the way - my niece is having a baby due in July so I'm looking forward to the title of great aunt.
I think it has got merits in all sorts of directions doesn't it - the meaning of the word great in all sorts of ways! Great aunt - I'm looking forward to that, so it's time with family.
HOST: Is that better title than Prime Minister?
PM: I think it's a different kind of title. It'll have more meaning in my family for a longer period of time.
HOST: Prime Minister Julia Gillard, thank you for joining us this morning.
PM: Thank you.