PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you very much Will, Presidents Page and Alston. It’s wonderful to be here with so many of my Federal colleagues, Senator Sinodinos, the Cabinet Secretary. Several Queenslanders have decided, quite sensibly that its cooler in Tasmania – Jane Prentice the Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services and Senator James McGrath my Assistant Minister. Of course the powerful Tasmanian Federal team, President Parry, the President of the Senate who is facing some interesting challenges as he was describing to us last night. Senator Bushby and Senator Abetz, the indefatigable Senator Abetz and of course the newest recruit Jonno Duniam. So it’s wonderful to be here. It’s always good to be back in the beautiful state of Tasmania to talk about how my Government is working with Will and his team to deliver a better future for Tasmanians.
I’d like to pay tribute firstly to a great champion of Tasmania, Bruce Goodluck. We were all very sad to learn of his passing and our thoughts and prayers are with Bruce’s wife, Cynthia, his family and friends.
Bruce is remembered fondly for his cheerfulness, his mischievous sense of humour, and his many unforgettable efforts to generate publicity - not least when he accepted a dare to walk into the House of Representatives Chamber dressed as a chicken. But most of all, he will be remembered as a tireless advocate for this state. Bruce’s work ethic typified so much of what we admire about Tasmanians.
And today we also remember a heroic son of Tasmania taken from us far too soon. Cameron Baird was born in Burnie in 1981 and joined the Army when he was eighteen. Cameron deployed to Afghanistan four times and was awarded the Medal for Gallantry in 2007.
On 22 June 2013 he was killed while leading a Special Operations Task Group team into combat with insurgents in Uruzgan Province. The following year he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his heroism in that engagement. Today at Currumbin in Queensland, his parents with whom I spoke this morning will unveil a statue of their gallant son at their local RSL.
Let us stand and honour with a moment’s silence Corporal Cameron Baird and all those Australian servicemen and women who have died so that we may live in freedom.
Lest we forget.
Mr President, Mr President, Mr President. Three Presidents! A very presidential table.
Tasmanians are hard-working, independent, enterprising - prepared to back yourselves to build a brighter future for your families, your communities, your State, your nation.
These are the values we need now, more than ever, and we only have to look across Bass Strait, to find these values flourishing.
You need a government that enables you to do your best, that provides the right environment for you to prosper.
That is a Coalition Government, a Liberal National government, and after a tough election campaign, it is the government we are providing.
We took a thoroughly Liberal platform to the election, based on business tax cuts, industrial relations reform, responsible fiscal management and investment in infrastructure so we can afford the services, the lifestyle and prosperity we have come to expect.
The result was tight, and we suffered setbacks, including here in Tasmania.
Labor and the unions threw everything at us: the outrageous Medicare lie, fraudulent text messages, phone calls, robo-calls designed to scare older and vulnerable Australians. It was a campaign of Labor unmatched in its deceit and its cynicism.
But despite his bravado since the election, Bill Shorten cannot deny the result - the Liberal and National parties won a majority and we are back in Government.
It is the first time since John Howard won the 2004 election that a Federal Government has been returned with a majority in its own right.
We owe this success to the dedicated men and women of the Liberal Party, and I thank the Tasmanian division for its hard work during the campaign.
We welcome Senator Duniam to Parliament as a new Liberal voice for Tasmania.
Can I also add to my list of federal colleagues Zed Seselja, the Assistant Minister for Social Services and Settlement, who is here having discussions with the Premier about the recent intake of Syrian refugees, that we are able to welcome to our country because of our strong border protection policies. Because we have been able to secure our borders after Labor’s catastrophic and tragic failure in border policy, because we’ve been able to secure our borders, we are able to maintain one of the most generous humanitarian programmes in the world. But the difference is that the Australian Government, the representatives of the Australian people determine which refugees come to Australia. We don’t outsource that choice to people smugglers like Labor did. Now we must also acknowledge our losses here in Tasmania.
I want to thank former Minister for Tourism and International Education, Senator Richard Colbeck, for his terrific contribution in government and in opposition.
I agree Premier that the significant increase in tourism numbers is a shared responsibility of the Tasmanian Minister for Tourism – I wonder who that is? – and Senator Colbeck. Richard served the people of this state with distinction and effectiveness and as our only Senator who lived in the State’s north, will be sorely missed.
I also pay tribute to the three amigos – Eric Hutchinson, Andrew Nikolic and Brett Whiteley. They fought hard for the people of their electorates; they were diligent and dedicated representatives for Tasmania. They secured investment that will benefit the communities that they represented for many years to come. We must make sure that when the next election comes, we remind the electors of those three seats that it as the three amigos that secured the investments, the benefits of which will be seen in very practical ways by 2019.
All were defending tight margins. All still have much to contribute to public life.
And to our candidates who worked so hard but did not get over the line - Marcus Allan in Denison, Amanda-Sue Markham in Franklin and John Tucker in the Senate - thank you for your efforts. Everyone who stands up to be counted, who gets involved in this great democracy on behalf of our party, should be proud. We honour them, as we honour every member of the Liberal Party that gets out there and helps us secure Government, secure the ability to deliver for the Australian people.
A full and frank review is underway and will help us learn from the campaign, including how to counter Labor’s aggressive ground game, and its large field force, supported by unions and third-party activists from groups like GetUp.
Our opponents’ dishonest and deceitful campaign strategies should not, and will not, go unchallenged.
But we must also look within and transform our party so that we can face future elections in a better position to win back those seats.
We need a much larger and much more representative membership.
Our party’s membership has shrunk over the years - my generation and my children's generation are not “joiners” in the way our parents and grandparents were. The Liberal Party is not unique at all in this regard, this is happening across the board.
But we must not forget that our strength is our grassroots - they must be deeper, broader and genuinely constitute a cross section of the people we seek to represent.
To achieve this we need greater involvement from our committed members. That includes selection of parliamentary candidates and strengthening the membership’s capacity to contribute to policy,
I am determined, as I am sure you are, to build a bigger and better Liberal Party. We need a bigger, broader, grassroots base, it’s critical for us to do that.
I am keen to hear your ideas on what you propose to do in Tasmania to make our party more accessible and to broaden its reach. You can count on my support as you deliberate and decide to do that. But we all need a bigger Liberal Party.
Now the best way for me and my colleagues to prepare for the next election is by getting on with the job of governing. As Richard Alston attributed to John Howard, it was actually Sir John Carrick who said that to John Howard, that you can’t fatten the pig on market day. What that means is, if you’ve got issues, vulnerabilities, there is no point trying to address them with a slick ad in the campaign. You’ve got to do that work years in advance and that’s exactly what we’re doing. We promised many things to this great state and we will deliver every one of them.
It is great to be working alongside the Hodgman Liberal Government.
Will and I are old friends – well, he’s very young and handsome of course – but we are old friends. We’ve been friends for a long time and I must say I was very touched Will, that when you were in Sydney with Nikki and the children on her birthday, you called into our place and we had a joint family celebration of that special occasion. So it was wonderful to do that and we’re very good friends. We understand and of course we have great relationships, long-standing relationship and a number of your colleagues have been in federal Parliament. I mentioned Michael, Guy Barnett is another one. Very strong relationships between the Federal team and the State team.
There are great signs of momentum in the Tasmanian economy.
Enterprising Tasmanians are storming the big markets of Asia, selling into those markets the best food and wine in the world.
Many of these are the nearly 1,000 Tasmanian businesses that have turnover between $2 and $10 million a year, and if we can persuade the Senate to do so, they will get a tax cut this year. Imagine what that additional money does for them – if you lower business taxes, you increase the return on investment. So what do you get? You get more investment. If you get more investment, you get more jobs.
Now exports from Tasmania have been remarkable. The enthusiasm in China for Tasmania is remarkable. The President, on all the occasions that I’ve met him in this year, Tasmania and his fondness for Tasmania has been a great topic of conversation. I've eaten Tasmanian oysters in Shanghai and they taste every bit as good there as they do here.
Tasmanian-branded exports to China, including salmon, apples and cherries, have soared 43 percent in the past two years to 2015-16.
Launceston’s very own Australian Honey Products is a great example.
Here we have the largest honey company in Tasmania selling premium quality honey into China. They already had strong sales figures, but since CHAFTA, have put on two more sales staff, trained another seven beekeepers and built a new factory in Sheffield, thanks to a Federal Government innovation grant. So there’s real jobs on the ground, real action, real innovation.
Tasmanian international services exports were 29.7 per cent higher over the past two years. Tasmania exported just over half a billion dollars of services in 2015-16 – much of it tourism and education.
Tasmanian tourism numbers continue to grow strongly.
Tasmania received 224,000 international visitors during the year ending June 30. Since the Coalition took office,these figures are up 44 per cent.
These are all encouraging signs that business is taking up the great economic opportunities on offer in our region.
But there is much more work to be done.
We know that education attainment in Tasmania is less than it should be.
Wages are lower on average than they should be.
You've seen strong growth across the State – but not as strong as it should be in some regions. Youth unemployment is still far too high in Tasmania.
My Government and the Hodgman Liberal Government are working together to turn this around.
The Joint Tasmania and Commonwealth Economic Council has championed a number of competitive reforms and investments to boost jobs and growth here.
Among these are the Major Projects Approval Agency to expedite investment in Tasmania, the rollout of irrigation schemes across the State – one of my great passions, I won’t get started on water or we’ll be here all day – but also we’re extending, as we’ve described, the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme.
We’ve teamed up on the $24 million Tasmanian Jobs and Investment fund that will deliver 800 new jobs and leverage almost $68 million in new investment in the State, with a focus again on regional Tasmania.
When the council meets in March, Will and I will bring renewed energy and focus to set out new priorities that strengthen the economy further.
Another priority is investment in education to deliver the great well-paid jobs of the future.
As part of our City Deal for Launceston, we are supporting higher education in Tasmania by contributing $150 million to relocate and expand the University of Tasmania’s campuses in Burnie and Launceston, and of course we’re committing $7.5 million to the City Heart project here in Launceston. We are creating an exciting future for Tasmania, driven by education, innovation, investment, and great jobs, all supported by investment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
We are investing over $2.1 billion to enhance Tasmania’s status as the global hub for Antarctic research, and Hobart as our strategic gateway to East Antarctica. This includes $38 million extending the Hobart International Airport runway to support the RAAF’s heavy lift capability. Australia’s new Icebreaker - a custom built ship - is due to arrive in mid-2020. It will be the most capable icebreaker in the Southern Ocean, and more than $1.1 billion of the operational and maintenance spend will be in Australia, with the majority expected to be in Tasmania.
Contrary to the dishonest claims of Labor and the Greens, we continue to support a year-round presence on Macquarie Island for research, climate monitoring and Southern Ocean weather forecasting capabilities.
We are investing more money every year into Medicare, hospitals and medicines. Our hospital agreement negotiated last year will fund $2 billion over 5 years for public hospitals her in Tasmania. We are improving primary care and our new Health Care Homes policy will see people with chronic and complex illnesses have their care coordinated by a GP-led team, with the aim of keeping them well at home and out of hospital. Tasmania is one of our ten pilots for Health Care Homes.
I am passionately committed to address the challenge of mental illness and suicide, particularly for young people.
My Government is investing $192 million in a modern 21st century mental health system. Here in Tasmania, we will be funding the Primary Health Network as a lead site to champion mental health reform.
We are also investing heavily in the infrastructure Tasmania needs to boost productivity.
$400 million toward the upgrade of the Midland Highway, generating more than 250 jobs.
Another $60 million for Tranche II irrigation projects that Will mentioned.
$60 million in Freight Rail Revitalisation.
$26 million to upgrade the Brooker Highway.
Our Enterprise Tax Plan fuels the confidence and energy of small businesses and give them the incentive to grow their markets, increase their earnings, re-invest in the business and hire more Tasmanians.
Through our PaTH employment program, we are encouraging young Tasmanians wanting to make their start in the workforce, and to build the skills that will help guarantee a successful career. This year, we sought expressions of interest from employers and other organisations nationally to deliver training for stage 1 of this program to help our youth into jobs.
All this will help ensure that nobody is left behind as the Australian economy transitions from the post mining construction boom. We want to ensure that every Australian, every Australian community continues to enjoy strong economic growth.
This term of Government must be about the bread and butter issues that occupy people’s thoughts when they get up in the morning and when they lay down at night: their jobs, their health and education, whether they can pay their bills, their opportunities to get ahead, their children’s opportunities to get ahead, and their security.
Now there has been a lot of commentary about the Senate crossbench, and predictions that it can’t work. We are proving them wrong.
Let’s talk about the facts, not the mythology and conjecture.
There are 76 Seats in the Senate – the election saw the Coalition with 30, the Crossbench 11, Labor and the Greens together with 35, a majority is 39.
In the last Parliament there were eight cross benchers, six of whom had been newly elected at the 2013 half Senate election.
Had there been a half Senate election this year, instead of a double dissolution, we could have reasonably expected another six crossbenchers being elected for a total crossbench larger than was elected in the double dissolution.
It’s important to reflect on that. People say the 11 cross benchers are there because of the double dissolution election. If we had a half Senate election, we could have very reasonably expected to have the same number of crossbenchers elected as the year before, and then you’d have 12.
Our constructive, pragmatic approach to governing has already resulted in very good outcomes for the Australian people.
Just a few weeks into the 45th Parliament, we have introduced 56 bill packages and have already passed 12.
The Omnibus Savings Bill contained $6b in savings measures to get our budget back into shape. We’ve got a long way to go, I might add, but it’s a start.
We protected the volunteer firefighters from union take over. We have added to our big export trade deals with another trade deal with Singapore, creating many new export opportunities especially for the services sector.
And we have delivered as promised, income tax cuts that will ensure more than 500,000 hardworking middle-income Australians don’t go into the second highest tax bracket.
We have passed in the House of Representatives our changes to the Backpacker Tax, which will reduce the income tax rate for visitors on working holidaymaker visas who earn $37,000 or less, from 32.5 per cent to 19 per cent.
This is important to orchardists of Tasmania, and we urge the Senate to pass these reforms, urgently, so we can offer an internationally competitive tax regime for working holidaymakers.
We are also urging the Senate to approve the plebiscite to allow a vote on same sex marriage by the Australian people, and to pass our reforms to clean up Labor’s disastrous Vocational Education loan scandal.
The House of Representatives has also passed the Bill to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the Registered Organisations Bill.
The case to re-establish the ABCC could not be clearer. The lawlessness, the thuggery and standover tactics of the CFMEU, exposed by the Heydon Royal Commission, just as it was exposed years ago by the Cole Royal Commission, and seen on worksites across the country every day, is costing Australia’s building and construction industry and the taxpayers that pay for so much of it, billions of dollars and thousands of jobs.
Let me be clear; this is about the future of the Australian economy.
The ABCC legislation will put a cop back on the beat in the construction industry. An efficient construction industry, and the infrastructure it provides, is vital for our future prosperity – for Tasmania, as everywhere else in the nation.
Let me set out a few facts on the ABCC legislation and industrial reform generally:
It was my Government which secured a double dissolution trigger on the ABCC Bill and you may recall that to do so, I went to the length of proroguing Parliament and forcing the Senate to vote on the Bill thus thwarting Labor’s plan to filibuster the bill without resolution, so that we couldn’t get that trigger.
It was my Government which reformed the Senate voting system, and was my Government which called the double dissolution election at the cost of running an eight week campaign – that’s something we won’t do again I can assure you, but we didn’t have a lot of choice.
But those are all actions which demonstrate that it was the Turnbull Government that ensured we had a Senate where passage of the ABCC bill is possible - it had absolutely no prospect of passage in the last Senate and it would have had no prospect of passage in the next Senate had we gone to a half Senate election in this year. Because of the double dissolution we have the option of a joint sitting of both houses if the Senate does not pass those bills.
So my friends, on these issues of tacking the lawlessness in the construction sector, of ensuring that unions are accountable, tackling those big issues of reform, actions speak louder than words, regretful or otherwise.
Bill Shorten and Labor are owned and operated by militant unions who hold the nation to ransom with their behaviour on building sites.
The Labor Party of today are not the Labor Party of Hawke and Keating. The Labor Part of today is a wholly owned subsidiary of very militant trade unions. You see that in Canberra, you see that in Victoria, you see that in Queensland especially.
My Government, our Party, doesn’t back union thugs like Labor does - we back hard working Australians, law abiding Australians who back themselves and cherish the rule of law, such a fundamental part of our great democracy. We want to restore the rule of law to the workplace and the construction sector in particular where it has been so much defied.
Budget repair is central to our plan for a more prosperous Australia and the challenge of balancing the books must be taken up by all of us.
In the May Budget we set out a carefully considered roadmap for responsible fiscal management.
Governments must live within their means. It is the only way to guarantee future funding for critical services like health, schools and infrastructure.
We will continue to pursue tax reform. We have set out the way in which to deliver a fairer and more sustainable superannuation system.
Our free trade agreements and National Innovation and Science Agenda are encouraging investment and creating the jobs of the future. We’re providing the strong economic leadership we need to remain a prosperous, fair and secure nation.
We have recorded economic growth of 3.3 per cent, among the strongest of any advanced economy, and exports are up 9.6 per cent.
Mr Shorten and Labor by contrast, fail the test of economic leadership absolutely.
Labor would crush the opportunities of our children and grandchildren beneath a mountain of debt; undermining growth and hurting Australian families.
Our decisions in this term will decide whether our children and grandchildren enjoy the same standard of living we do.
The job ahead of us carries great responsibility. My government is back to work in the knowledge that the stakes have never been so high.
Tasmanians don't want a Government that refuses to address our economic and fiscal challenges.
More jobs, higher wages, and a generous social safety net – that is what Tasmanians and all Australians want, and that is what my Government is committed to deliver.
With your Senate team relentlessly advancing Tasmania’s interests in Canberra and the Federal Government working side by side with the Hodgman Liberal Government, we will ensure the trust and support of the Tasmanian people and build a brighter future for us all.
We will not distracted from the great responsibility with which the Australian people have entrusted us.
We are governing, we are leading, we are delivering.
Thank you very much
ENDS