PRIME MINISTER:
Well, ladies and gentlemen the National Crime Community Prevention programme is an entirely new initiative from the Federal Government. In next Tuesday night's budget we're going to set aside a sum of $20 million and the whole purpose of this fund is to give grants to local voluntary not-for-profit organisations be it a sporting club, be it a service club, be it any other local community organisation which has a plan to minimise and or prevent crime.
As we all know, crime is entirely local in character, or overwhelmingly local in character. I find as I go around the Australian community there's an enormous desire on the part of people at a grass roots level to work with police and to work together as local communities not only to catch criminals but also to prevent crime occurring in the first place. And the purpose of this programme to respond to that and we'll be asking local groups to submit applications, there'll be different streams, there'll be ones designed to provide initiatives at a local level to prevent crime, there'll be others designed to provide safer communities. The programmes will be administered in a very flexible way. The whole purpose is to invite local organisations to put forward to the Federal Government proposals that they believe will prevent or reduce the incidence of crime in their local area, they won't be limited in scope, but providing the proposal is good and subject of course to the funding availability in the early stages of the programme, we will fund them.
But this is something the national government has not done before, but it is something that the community wants, it's something we have seen work quite successfully in other countries - in Britain and in Canada - and we believe it can work very successfully in Australia. It is something that obviously would be done in full co-operation with local police and I take this opportunity of saying that this is an initiative to support and complement the work of the police who, I believe, in Australia do a tremendous job, often in extremely difficult circumstances, they need always our help and our sense of support and solidarity and the idea of this programme is to enlist what I find to be a great desire on the part of Australians everywhere at a local level to do their bit to reduce or prevent crime.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister (inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
I beg your pardon?
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
What this will... the difference it'll make is that it will give money to local organisations. And you might have a local sporting club that's got a great idea to keep kids off the street and stop them falling into crime and those sort of ideas fall between the stools now and they'll come along to their local federal member and say - look this is my plan, this is our plan to get the kids off the streets in this part of New South Wales or this part of Victoria or Queensland or wherever it may be, on the Central Coast, and we'd like you to have a look at it and if it's a good scheme we'll provide some money for it. Now this is grass roots response at its very best and at the moment those sorts of things, this is not a criticism of anybody, I haven't come here to criticise anybody, I've come here to offer something more and to offer a Federal Government response to this issue.
JOURNALIST:
The papers today are flagging changes to end the baby bonus scheme you've got...
PRIME MINISTER:
What's that got to do with crime prevention?
JOURNALIST:
I'm just wondering, while we're here...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, come along, tune in on Tuesday night and as far as the budget is concerned what we're going to do for the future of the Australian economy will be revealed.
JOURNALIST:
Can we call it a social revolution? It's a dramatic change...
PRIME MINISTER:
We always deliver good policy, economic policy which is the foundation of social stability and family stability in this country.
JOURNALIST:
Can we expect a few surprises then?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not going to talk about the budget. I don't blame you for asking me.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible) everyone can line up, how...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the judgement will be made by the Federal Government. I'm going to get - and I'm very grateful that he's been willing to do it - a former commissioner of the Australian Federal Police and also from the Northern Territory Mick Palmer, who is going to go around as an ambassador for this programme and he will talk to different groups. But I can see, for example, on the Central Coast you might have one of the local sporting clubs that have got a proposal which they believe will better occupy the time of some people who they think might, if their time is not better occupied, fall in to wrongdoing and if that proposal makes sense and it stacks up then that's the sort of programme that could be funded. Other proposals have been raised by a couple of my colleagues in Queensland involve a system whereby a local service organisation can establish a contact point with a lot of elderly people in the area who are living on their own and they arrange to talk to them each day and if they don't make contact with them then they go and see what's happening. All of these are ways of not only preventing crime but giving the community a greater sense of being in it together and anything that a national government can do to respond to the desire of local communities to contribute, most Australians have a great passion to be very good citizens, most Australians want stable communities, they want safe communities, they yearn for the time when they could walk around safe at night and leave, you know, as it were, leave the door unlocked - everybody wants that. Now, we don't feel like that any more and that's just the way in which society has changed. But the way in which you can respond to the desire of local communities to reclaim their community safety is, of course, many and varied. But one way is to provide a bit of support for local initiatives and that's what the Federal Government will do.
JOURNALIST:
How far is $20 million going to go?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, $20 million is a start and, obviously, if the programme is very successful then we may well look at making it bigger. But you've got to start with a sensible amount. It's not peanuts, $20 million is quite a lot of money and over a period of time if the programmes work very well, well we would obviously look at making it bigger.
JOURNALIST:
Why not just give the money to local policing organisations?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well local policing organisations are part of the law enforcement structure of the state. These are programmes that are designed that are sponsored and are thought of and conceived by local organisations and you need both. You need the police carrying out the day to day law enforcement job, you need local communities putting up ideas, local groups and, obviously, all of those ideas would be implemented in co-operation or certainly with the knowledge of the local police. This in no way cuts across the role of the police. In fact, it will complement it and if it succeeds in its task of even greater community involvement, a further reduction in the potential for crime in an area it will be of enormous benefit to the local police.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, this is not a budget question, it's a community question. Did you think it's very important to get mothers back to work after having children?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, my philosophy Damien has always been that you should have choice when it comes to your family arrangements. I've never believed that the Government should tell mothers whether they should stay at home and care for their children full time or if they should go back into the workforce part time or full time. It's a matter of choice and all of our policies in the past and all of our policies in the future will be geared towards facilitating and supporting that choice. There's nothing better than for parents to spend as much time as they can with their children, particularly when they're young but I appreciate juggling work and family is a hard challenge and what we've tried to do is to provide people with choice and we'll continue with that philosophy and, of course, along the way keep their interest rates down and keep their job security and keep a strong economy. You cannot do anything without a strong economy. If we muck up the economy and we go back to high interest rates and high unemployment and high debt, which we had a few years ago, you won't be able to afford anything. The basis of provision of additional help for people is a strong economy, without a strong economy you don't have a hope.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
There are some challenges ahead internationally and the drought is far from gone in this country, particularly in New South Wales and parts of Queensland and nobody should take our great economic prosperity for granted. It could easily be lost if the wrong policies and the wrong people get control.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible) doctors here on the coast.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, there is a shortage of local doctors on the Central Coast. That's why we have increased in the MedicarePlus package the doctor stream all over Australia and also we have introduced support for practice nurses. The way to get more doctors is, obviously, to increase the supply in different ways and to increase the supply of practice nurses and we're funding them in a new and different way for the first time and that over time will make a difference here on the Central Coast.
[ends]