PRIME MINISTER:
Zero childhood cancer, that is the goal. $20 million committed in the election, we are delivering today to support Glenn and his team's work on this vital national priority. We've seen what a difference it can make. We've seen how important it is to be able to ensure that childhood cancers can be cured. The key is the research and the collaboration that flows from this initiative across so many research institutions in Australia and around the world. Ensuring that children are treated with precisely the right drug, that will target that particular tumour in that particular child. That will do the maximum damage to the tumour and minimal damage to other organs, that is the goal. The work, as Glenn described, is progressing well. Therapies are improving. The story on childhood cancer is a very good one in terms of increasing survivorship over time.
Prognoses are much better today than they were a generation ago, but we want to make them better, and that's our commitment. That's why we are committing $20 million. It's why the Commonwealth is the largest investor in cancer research and the Health Minister will speak about that in a moment, and I will ask Glenn to say a few words as well.
This is often a sad place and it is easy to be touched by the stories here, but above all, this hospital, the work of this hospital, is one filled with hope and achievement and stories of recovery that fill us with joy. So this is a very positive story. It is a very, very optimistic time, and what Glenn is doing and what we are backing, is going to change lives and save lives. Susan?
MINISTER FOR HEALTH:
Thank you, Prime Minister. Thank you Glenn, to you and your team. I'm delighted that we are here delivering on our election commitment of $20 million for Zero Childhood Cancer. That's a real target. Zero childhood cancer by 2020. We've seen, as the Prime Minister said, the prognoses improve. But we know that for 30 per cent of the almost 1,000 children who are diagnosed each year, that prognosis is not good. So in delivering a personalised approach that maps the genome of the individual against the molecular make-up of the cancer, applies a drug library to say: “What works?” in real-time, and then actually - without delay - provides that treatment to the child, is absolutely cutting edge.
I'm so proud that we in Australia are being looked at by other countries, and the work that will be done by this network, not just here in Sydney, but across Australia. This is a hub and spoke reaching out to rural electorates like my own, reaching out to every child. That data, that treatment and that approach will link internationally and we know with the researchers and the scientists and the clinicians that we've met today, we can continue to lead the world.
But most importantly, we can absolutely achieve this goal. Cancer has just passed cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death in Australia and there is no more tragic diagnosis than when it's a child. We've invested $2 billion into research since the year 2000 and with our Medical Research Future Fund coming online right now, we know that we've got more dollars to allocate to this really, really important research cause.
So thank you all so very much. Thank you again Glenn, for you and your team, because you make it real, you make it happen and you touch so much lives.
PRIME MINISTER:
Glenn, did you want to say something?
PROFESSOR GLENN MARSHALL AM:
Thank you, Prime Minister. I would just like to say on behalf of the Children's Cancer Institute and the kids' cancer centre at Sydney Children's Hospital how grateful we are - as clinicians, as scientists but also I represent the parents and the children - for this incredible investment in what we are trying to do. Here over the next year we will be enrolling over 100 children with the very highest risk of failure from conventional treatment, so their chance of success is very low. So this investment by our Government, our community, is actually in hope, really, for these people. The project is also driven by amazing advances in the technology of how drugs are discovered, how better - as the Prime Minister put it - the target is identified and the drug is matched to that target.
We are very confident we are going to make a big impact here. It is internationally unique. We have partners all over Australia and internationally. All of the eight children’s cancer centres in Australia will be enrolling children as of early next year. I suppose the other comment I would like to make
is just how important it is to have community backing for what we are doing. We have some pretty dark days here you know, and I think for me, anyway, to get out of bed in the morning and know that the entire community is actually supporting what we are doing is actually really, really important.
So thank you again to both of you.
PRIME MINISTER:
We will take questions on the Zero Childhood Cancer initiative and then I have some observations to make about two other matters. No questions on this? Very well.
I want to make some observations about a very significant joint counter-terrorism operation in Western Sydney this morning. Two individuals have been arrested and taken into custody. As this is an ongoing investigation, there are limits on what I can say, but I have spoken with the Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin this morning. I understand that the AFP and the NSW Police have just done a joint press conference. I can say that one of the individuals is a 17-year-old youth, who is expected to be charged later this afternoon with foreign incursion offences, including attempting to travel to the conflict zone and playing an active role in encouraging other persons, another person, to attempt to travel to that region. The second man arrested is a 24-year-old who is expected to be charged with a foreign incursion offence. This is very significant, as it is alleged that this man travelled to Syria in 2013 to join the group then known as Jabhat al-Nusra before returning to Australia in February 2014. This is another example of the excellent work our law enforcement and security agencies are doing 24 hours a day, seven days a week to keep us safe.
It is why my Government continues to give those agencies the resources and the legislative powers they need to keep us safe. It is why our ADF men and women, our servicemen and women, are in the Middle East right now, as we speak, seeking to destroy Daesh, to eliminate that terrorist organisation, again to keep us safe. We have to keep on adapting and modernising our tactics, our legislation to deal with these evolving threats. We must not underestimate our enemies. They are agile. They are tech savvy. We have to move as quickly as them.
We have vital legislation that we need to be passed by the Parliament this year. We are reforming the control order regime, so – regrettably - it can apply to someone as young as 14. It gives me no joy to say we need to do that but plainly, we do. We have changes to the law to enable post sentence detention of terrorist offenders, so that if a person is in jail on a serious terrorist offence and they remain a threat to the community, a court can keep them in continuing detention. We also are amending the law to ensure that our targeting regime in the Middle East, matches our international obligations, so that our Australian Defence Force are not restricted in their ability to target and destroy Daesh, this terrorist group or ISIL, this terrorist group that seeks to do us so much harm.
The other point, other matter about which Minister Josh Frydenberg will have more to say today is the matter of the closure of the Hazelwood power station. This has been foreshadowed for some time and we have established some time ago, a ministerial task group within the Government, to ensure that we provide the support that the community needs, to ensure that there are jobs and opportunities for the workers that will lose their jobs as a result of this power station closing.
This is a very tough time for the valley, a very, very tough time. Russell Broadbent, the Member for
McMillan, Darren Chester, the Infrastructure Minister and Member for Gippsland, will be representing us, leading the effort on the working group that will work with the State Government to ensure that we bring together, in a collaborative way, our responses, to ensure that there is the right support for jobs, for business opportunities, for the community as a result of this very significant closure.
Our thoughts today are with the tough times for the men and women who work at Hazelwood and of course the many others in that community whose jobs depend on that power station.
JOURNALIST:
PM – can I just ask - on the terror issue, given that we are seeing these younger people involved in these situations, does it mean that deradicalisation programs need to improve?
PRIME MINISTER:
Deradicalisation is an ongoing effort and we are constantly evolving and improving in the light of experience. The disturbing feature that we are seeing increasingly, is very young people who have not been on the radar screen of any of our counter terrorist agencies, State or Federal, becoming very quickly radicalised and either attempting or undertaking terrorist acts. This is a key priority of the Government. We are keenly focused on it, as you know, we are, and it is a vital part of our agenda.
JOURNALIST:
PM - one of the two men arrested today has been back from the conflict zone for quite some time. Do you find it unusual that he is only being arrested now?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think a similar question was put to the conference, the press conference with the New South Wales and Federal Police a little while ago. I believe the answer was it always takes time to turn intelligence into evidence. That is a matter that you should address to the police. That was their answer as I understand it.
JOURNALIST:
On the shemozzle in the Senate, how much of a blow is this to you being able to get your agenda through the upper house?
PRIME MINISTER:
I know that our opponents are trying to play this up. Let me be clear about this. We do not have majority in the Senate. However, take the ABCC and Registered Organisations bills, what are they designed to do? Restore the rule of law to the construction sector. You would think that with 113 officials of the CFMEU before the courts, you would think with the track record of corruption and mismanagement and misappropriation by union officials, you would think that Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Labor Party would say: "Right, here is an opportunity to clean up our act".
If he supported that legislation, it would sail through. But no. He is a wholly owned subsidiary of militant trade unions. He was up on the weekend in Queensland defending the CFMEU. This is a union that shut down the city of Brisbane. This is a union whose lawlessness is one of the great scandals, one of the great handbrakes on economic development around Australia but particularly in Brisbane. He is a wholly owned subsidiary. You talk about senators and senators' qualifications. What about Mr Shorten? He handpicked Kimberley Kitching to be a Labor Senator. His pick. His captain's call. He chose her. The Heydon Royal Commission into trade union corruption recommended that the Director of Public Prosecution considering laying criminal charges against her. That was her. That is what came out of the Royal Commission for her. Mr Shorten hasn't explained why she is qualified to be in the Senate but she is a factional ally and, frankly, when it comes to those militant unions, he does as he is told.
JOURNALIST:
But you’ve mentioned the ABCC. It appears that is off the agenda for next week. When is this bill going to the upper house?
PRIME MINISTER:
We will continue talking to the cross benchers, as we do. Again, if Labor decided to support it, I don't anticipate that is going to change, but if they did then things would be different. We obviously have to work with the cross benchers and we will continue to do that. The legislation in the Senate next week includes very, very time-sensitive legislation, most notably of course the Same Sex Plebiscite Bill which we need to get passed if we're to have a vote in February and obviously the appropriation bills which give the Government the money it needs to pay for pensions and salaries and everything else.
JOURNALIST:
If the ABCC is so important, will you get to it this year? Mitch Fifield won’t say – he was asked five times today and wouldn't give an answer?
PRIME MINISTER:
It will depend on our discussions with the cross bench. The reality is, as John Howard always said, politics is governed by the iron law of arithmetic. So we will continue talking with the cross bench and when we believe there is a majority there to support it, we will present the bills.
JOURNALIST:
But if you're not committing to a vote by the end of the year, doesn't that make a mockery of the fact that the same bill was so important before the last election?
PRIME MINISTER:
It is important that we commit to a vote that we can win in the Senate.
JOURNALIST:
So -
PRIME MINISTER:
With great respect, you are seeking to illicit from me what is a penetrating glimpse of the obvious. I am committed to the passage of the ABCC Bill and the Registered Organisations Bill. We will present them to the Senate when we believe there is a majority that will support it and on terms that we will accept, and that we will continue talking to the cross bench towards that end. That has been ever thus. There is no change there.
JOURNALIST:
The cross bench is in chaos Prime Minister. Surely, you must agree with that?
PRIME MINISTER:
(Laughs)
Really. Look seriously, there are two cross benchers whose eligibility will be considered by the High Court. The rest of the cross bench are unaffected. You assert the Senate is in chaos, there is no chaos. The Senate will continue. The reality is that issues of the eligibility of senators - and indeed members of the House of Representatives - have been considered by the courts from time to time, in fact quite regularly over the years. So these two matters have been quite properly brought to the attention of the President of the Senate by the Government, by the Special Minister of State and the Attorney-General. The Senate will, under Section 376, I have no doubt , and the Government will support this, Section 376 of the Electoral Act refer the matter to the High Court. Part of my job, the Government's job, is to uphold the constitution so it is a matter for the court to determine, whether in the case of Mr Day, he was validly elected, whether he is eligible to stand. In the case of Mr Culleton, the same question which of course affects whether he is eligible to continue sitting. But it is a matter for the court. This is orderly business, this is what happens in a constitutional democracy, governed by the rule of law; these issues arise, the Government advises the President of the Senate appropriately and as soon as the legal advice came to hand and the President of the Senate will put it to the Senate, we will support the matters going to the High Court.
JOURNALIST:
Do you want the Culleton and Day issues to be dealt with this year? Do you want the High Court to expedite it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it is always, it will always be desirable for these matters to be dealt with as soon as possible. But again, we will be in the hands of the court. But clearly matters that are better dealt with quickly. In the Culleton matter, the facts are very clear. It is really just a question of law. In the Day matter, there may be some contention about the facts. But in the Culleton matter, it is - as far as I can see, I don't want to step in and do the work of the Attorney - but in the Culleton matter it seems to be a question of law.
JOURNALIST:
You described the process as orderly. Would you describe Senator Culleton's comments yesterday as orderly?
PRIME MINISTER:
(Laughs)
I think there is more than enough of you commenting on Mr Culleton, Senator Culleton's press conference. I will leave that to others. I just want to stress to you that what we are seeing, is something we have seen before; where issues of this kind arise and they then are referred to the High Court, Court of Disputed Returns in that capacity and the matter will be determined. The Constitution will be upheld. We are getting on with the business of government, we are governing, keeping Australians safe from terror. We are supporting the Zero Childhood Cancer Initiative. We are getting Budget savings through the House and through the Senate. We are legislating, we’re governing, we are leading, we are delivering. The High Court will do its work and that is part of our constitutional obligation, to support it.
Thanks so much.
[Ends]