Community and women’s sports funding; keeping Australians safe; social media laws; Eddie McGuire; drought assistance; Labor’s housing tax; Brunei; preferences
Prime Minister
MELISSA MCINTOSH, LIBERAL CANDIDATE FOR LINDSAY: Good morning, I’m Melissa McIntosh the Liberal candidate for Lindsay. Thank you for being here today and for at the Penrith Regional Sports Centre, and Luke thank you for having us here. To Prime Minister Scott Morrison, welcome back to Penrith. We have Australia’s Sports Minister Brigit McKenzie here today and Marise Payne, the Senator for Western Sydney.
Healthy active lifestyles are part of my plan for Lindsay and as a mum of three children and having a husband who is an Olympic athlete, I know the importance of investment in grassroots sport, just like here today and how that makes people more active in our community, it creates the champions of the future. I’d like to welcome the Prime Minister Scott Morrison to make a special announcement here in Penrith. Thank you Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER: Well thank you Melissa and it’s great to be here with Marise and Bridget as well. This is not an unfamiliar place to so many parents and kids all around the country. Saturday morning sport, whether it’s in the basketball stadium, the netball court, down at the football pitch, the rugby league oval or on the AFL oval, wherever you happen to be this morning, this is not an unfamiliar sight.
There is nothing better, frankly, than seeing kids get together and playing sport. This is where the champions of tomorrow come from, of course they do. But, more importantly, this is where kids just have a great time, get together, live a healthy lifestyle and get to know the importance of teamwork friendship. These are the sorts of places that bring Australians together.
So, as Prime Minister, I want to see our economy remain strong, so we can invest in the things that keep Australians safe and the essential services that Australians rely on, that also bring Australians together. That’s why today I want to make sure that boys and girls all have the same opportunities, equal access to the sort of facilities that they need in order to participate in these sorts of sports today and into the future.
I was up swimming at the Valley Pool in Brisbane earlier this week and that’s where Madam Butterfly Susie O'Neill used to train. I thought to myself, “Imagine what it would be like if the Valley Pool didn’t have a girls’ changing room.” We would never have seen the sort of wonderful talent in women’s sport particularly in that area. But the same is true today; whether with soccer or AFL or rugby league or hockey or even in basketball and other sports like that, so many more girls are playing these sports and it’s absolutely fantastic. But it means we need to upgrade the facilities to make sure there are opportunities for girls and boys.
So today we are pleased to announce that we are putting into next weeks’ Budget, $190 million into our sports program, which Bridget will tell you more about. The principal objective of that is to ensure that there are changing facilities and other facilities to support more girls and women’s participation in sport all around the country. The facilities have to be there. So, we are very excited about this. This is how you bring Australians together. In Australia, we do that so much through sport, the clubs, the community that comes together and gets around sport. So, this is an investment in the cohesiveness of our community, in our communities coming together and forming friendships, lasting relationships, which underpin the strength of our communities. Whether it is here in Western Sydney, which Melissa knows very well, and Marise knows very well, as Western Sydney residents or anywhere else in the country, this is what makes Australia so great. I am so pleased to be making that announcement and Bridget will go through that in just a second.
The other thing we are announcing today is a major investment in next weeks’ Budget in keeping Australians safe. Some $570 million will be invested in the AFP, ASIO and other security agencies to combat the real threats that our whole society faces, particularly in relation to terrorism. That is going to keep Australians safe into the future, that money is going into the area of counter-terrorism, dealing with all the extremist threats we face. Today we are monitoring eight times more people than we were five years ago. Now, it’s sad that it’s necessary, but it is, to keep Australians safe. That’s why we need to keep investing more in our security agencies and our Federal Police to keep Australians safe.
So whether it’s keeping Australians safe, keeping Australians together like we are today with this community sports program to support girls going into sport, all of this is made possible by the first thing – that is to keep our economy strong. Without a strong economy, you can't invest in these important services.
We will keep the economy strong. You will see that in next week's Budget and we will do that without increasing taxes, but by continuing to back the hard work of Australians that make our economy stronger.
SENATOR THE HON BRIDGET MCKENZIE, MINISTER FOR REGIONAL SERVICES, SPORT, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND DECENTRALISATION : Thanks PM and what a fantastic announcement. As Sports Minister, as outlined in our National Sports Plan ‘Sport 2030’, our Government wants Australia to be the most healthy and active nation, known internationally for our sporting success and our sporting integrity. That starts by investing right here, in community clubs like this. We have had our Community Sports Infrastructure Fund, which is completely oversubscribed - the first $60 million we had nearly $400 million worth of applications. Nearly 2,000 clubs from basketball, AFL, netball, lacrosse, you name it, they put their requests in. Because, for all the mums and dads out there who on Saturdays like this, are out ferrying kids from club to club and sport to sport, keeping them active, and then they’ve got to be one of 1.8 million volunteers in sport across this country, getting out to Bunnings and doing the sausages to raise the money to actually invest back into the community.
One of the great success stories, I think, for us as a nation has been our female international sports stars. Our Matildas, the Southern Stars cricketers, AFLW has its grand final tomorrow in Adelaide, our Rugby Union, our Rugby League girls. Now their success has meant that in clubs right around the country, there has been a tsunami of interest from young women and girls heading into clubs in the local communities, aspiring to be what they have now seen; aspiring to be that next generation of elite athlete in those once male-dominated sports. Which is fantastic, right? We want to see that happen but it has meant that there’s a lot of pressure points in our local clubs, community clubs in those codes. That means when as Sports Minister I walk into change rooms right across the country of every code, every creed, every colour, and you walk into a boys’ change room and there’s one place to go to the toilet and there’s one showerhead to have a shower after the game. Now, young women and girls don’t necessarily like to do that after a game, we’ve got young women getting changed in cars, we’ve got people getting changed behind towels, we’ve got worse still, young women and girls after their games leaving the club, heading home to have a shower and get changed and not bothering to come back. One of the great things about participating in a sports club is that sense of connectedness, of scoring the next game and sitting round and barracking for the seniors and thinking; “One day I’m going to be out on that field or on that court being as good as they are.”
So keeping young women and girls in local clubs, that sense of belonging, means investing in girls change rooms, facilities that include everybody. That’s why it’s fantastic that, as part of $190 million, yes, we’ve got $42.5 million going into another round of that Community Infrastructure Grant which is being used for increasing participation of all groups in our society, but specifically $150 million from our federal government into female change rooms, into making sure our swimming pools are exactly as we need them to be for the next generation. Because we’ve got a goal; we know inactivity is a problem in this country and every one dollar we spend on sport and physical activity gives us a $7 return in the health budget. We know sport is good for you physically, we know it’s great for you mentally and we also know it keeps families and communities together. That’s why we’re very, very proud to invest in this type of infrastructure, into communities, because we know that, yes, we’ll produce the next generation of elite athletes, but we’ll also produce the D Grade netballers who are 50, who are still enjoying their sport, staying active and connected with their community. Thank you.
SENATOR THE HON MARISE PAYNE, MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS: I’d just say Prime Minister, these two announcements today in Bridget’s area with Melissa and the Prime Minister here, are very important right across Western Sydney. We’ve seen contributions from the Community Sports Grants program to the Kingsway Fields at Saint Marys, Hunter Fields at Emu Plains, the softball diamond at Glenmore Park, already making a difference to clubs for girls and the boys who play in those sports. So, as we increase the numbers of young women playing sport around Penrith, we look forward to supporting them the way they deserve to be supported and maximizing their participation. So, Prime Minister and Bridget McKenzie, thank you very much for what you’re delivering here in Western Sydney today.
PRIME MINISTER: Happy to take some questions first on these two topics which I have raised and then we can take on other issues. Well, everyone is excited about sport, that’s good. The kids are excited about sport and the Panthers are out there against the Storm out at Bathurst.
MINISTER FOR REGIONAL SERVICES, SPORT, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND DECENTRALISATION: Go Storm!
[Laughter]
PRIME MINISTER: I’ll be backing the Panthers against the Storm I can assure you of that.
[Cheers]
And to Gal, game 329 up there at SMILES Stadium in Townsville, we’ll have a big announcement also up there in Townsville today. So great to see the Cowboys up there in north Queensland, they did such a great job after the floods. I was up there firsthand to see what the Cowboys did up there and it was great to be able to support them and the facilities that they need. We’re making an announcement up there today. But I won’t be wishing them well on the field today, I’ll be looking for the Sharks to take it home against the Cowboys.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister can I ask you a question on NDIS, can you confirm the NDIS underspend this financial year and next will be returned to consolidated revenue?
PRIME MINISTER: All these details are dealt with in the Budget. It’s on Tuesday night.
JOURNALIST: Why haven’t participants been fully utilizing their plans and therefore getting all the services they’ve been assessed as needing?
PRIME MINISTER: That makes assumptions that aren’t necessarily true.
JOURNALIST: You announced tougher social media legislation you’d like to get through this week?
PRIME MINISTER: Yep.
JOURNALIST: Can you talk us through how you’d enforce that legislation?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, the social media laws that we’ll be introducing to the Parliament this week are about calling out the social media companies on their responsibilities. They have a responsibility when they put these platforms into public use, to make sure they are safe and that they cannot be weaponized by terrorists. Similarly, they shouldn't be able to be weaponized for other forms of harm that can affect the youngest of us around here today, through to the most serious of criminal offences.
They have the technology to do this and they have the opportunity to do it. We’re going to insist that they do it and if they don't, they will face the steepest financial penalties imaginable for them. And on top of that, prison terms for executives who are found responsible. So, we need to put that legislation in place to make sure these social media companies take responsibility, use the technology they build to ensure they can protect against their platforms being weaponized by terrorists. Now this is something we will put into the Parliament next week, we will take it to our Party Room, we will engage with the Opposition, we will seek to do that as quickly as possible. I had the opportunity to discuss it yesterday with Prime Minister Ardern when I was in New Zealand. It is a matter I have already taken up with Prime Minister Abe, the President of the G20 this year. We will be taking, basically, our package forward as a very constructive way of dealing with this. We are building some momentum on this globally; it’s great to have support from New Zealand of course, after the horrific events they have experienced there. We are seeing a lot of interest from a lot of other G20 countries.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER: The penalties, well, this will all be outlined in the bill we’ll release and we are still working through some of those details. But, those penalties the Attorney General will also speak to, it will be expressed as a percentage of the turnover of the company. Now when you look at the billions and billions and billions that these companies rake in from their platforms, we’re talking very serious penalties.
JOURNALIST: How many schools have taken you up on your offer for more security, religious schools that is, and why?
PRIME MINISTER: Sadly, it has always been the case for religious schools - particularly Jewish schools I must say, who have raised this issue with me regularly - that they have needed that security. They have already been putting it in, out of their own pocket. That’s one of the many reasons why I decided to upgrade the security package for all schools, not just for Jewish schools, but also for Islamic schools and any other faith-based schools, or any schools for that matter that have that need to ensure their children are kept safe. Because these are places of - as they describe it - mass gathering; for people of different faiths. It’s important that where we have a society where these threats are present, the Government has a responsibility to keep Australians safe. Now that addition package was only announced a few weeks ago, but I do know there are already standing applications and interest from religious schools all around the country. So that money will be going out where it’s needed.
JOURNALIST: And the extra money for the AFP, is that in response to some concern that perhaps, we let the terrorist slip through the net?
PRIME MINISTER: No, no. What this is a recognition of is the growing threat of extremist terrorism in so many different forms. As I said, eight times the number of people we have got under surveillance now, than we had five years ago. This funding is in response, sadly, to the demand that is there. It is also doing things with new threats, which can occur around drone attacks and being able to counter that. There is also funding going into cyber-terrorism as well and countering those threats to Australia. There is money going into the intelligence-gathering activities of ASIO. With the AFP, it’s everything from protection surveillance – remember that our agencies thwarted 15 terrorist attacks in Australia, that’s what our agencies have done. We want to make sure that they continue to have the resources they need to do that job and keep Australians safe. This is core business for the Government, it always has been. It’s our Government doing what our Government has always done; that is ensuring that our security agencies have the resources they need.
Under the previous Labor government they withered, they were allowed to wither. Our Government has restored funding to security agencies and Defence forces, so they’re equipped to do the job all Australians ask of them.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister what do you make of Eddie McGuire's comments last night about Cynthia Banham?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I understand that Eddie has withdrawn the comments and has apologised for them. I haven't personally seen the comments that Eddie made, but if that’s what he has done, I'm sure that’s the appropriate thing to do.
JOURNALIST: But in the past, he has made a series of offensive comments about a female journalist. Should he have this platform when he is offending a lot of people? Hurting people in the community?
PRIME MINISTER: Everybody is responsible for everything they say and do. He needs to take responsibility for what he says and does.
JOURNALIST: Could I put a question to the Minister? There’s about three weeks left for farmers in western New South Wales to get a winter crop in. A lot of people are looking at the third failed winter crop in as many years, and there is talk [inaudible] can we expect more drought relief in the Budget?
MINISTER FOR REGIONAL SERVICES, SPORT, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND DECENTRALISATION: Well the $7 billion that our Government has put forward from a federal perspective is to support drought-stricken farmers and more broadly their community and the industry as a whole. That has been very well conducted. I have just come back from Gunnedah actually overnight. I have been out there at Moree and on the ground in Narrabri, talking to producers about these issues. They are very much looking forward to some much-needed rain but the drought seems to be continuous. Our government has made it very, very clear that we will continue to provide the support that not only our farmers need, but importantly also those regional communities and service industries that support the farming sector. We’re making sure that when it does rain, as it will, that those service industries are there to be able to assist our farmers to remain productive.
[Interruption]
Great, bravo! That’s why last week I was able to announce an additional 15 local government areas that will be recipients of our Drought Communities Funding. That’s the $1 million to those local communities to assist projects and Councils, to assist [inaudible]. We know the recovery will take a long time and we’ve made it clear that we’re prepared to stand with our farmers and communities until the job is done.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister under the Opposition’s negative gearing plan, sorry, under the new plan, negative gearing will apply to new constructions. How is that going to affect supply?
PRIME MINISTER: When you increase taxes on housing and when this person goes and buys a new property, they can't sell it to an investor. So the pool of people you can sell your property to is smaller, which means it’s worth less. The Labor Party doesn't understand how the housing market works. SQM Research has already shown that it could result in rents increasing, in Queensland for example, by more than 20 per cent. So Labor's housing taxes will increase rents, undermine the value of everybody's home whether you’re an investor or a first-time buyer, and undermine confidence in the economy by putting at risk the housing market, which is so important to the fundamental confidence that consumers have in our economy. It is a sledgehammer of a policy that is reckless and it sucks the aspiration from Australians who are just working hard and trying to get ahead.
See, next week's Budget is going to be backing in people working hard, trying to do the right thing for their families and for their communities. People who are having a go will get a fair go under the Budget that we will hand down next week. This is a Budget for Australians who aspire to keep doing better and think big things about our country and their part in it, just by going to work every day, raising their families, keeping their communities together.
Our Budget next week is there to back them in so they can keep doing that, so we can make Australia as strong as it can be. I want people to keep more of what they earn, because it’s hard work earning it. When they can keep more of what they earn, they can do more for their families and do more for their communities, which is what makes Australia stronger.
JOURNALIST: On the social media laws, what do you say to claims you’re trying to rush them through before the election?
PRIME MINISTER: I think it’s urgent that we should do it. I don't think we should delay, I think this is exactly what we should be doing. Why would we delay it? It’s incredibly important we take the action now to deal with social media companies and make sure they’re in no doubt that if they don't get their act together on this, they will face the stiffest penalties imaginable. So, I’m not kidding with them, I got them all together in Brisbane last week. I gave them a hearing, they know what they need to do. We are establishing a task force between the social media companies, the technology experts, our experts sitting with our key intelligence and other security agencies, to make sure that they can get their programs in place and be doing the right thing. That’s the work they need to do. If they fail to do that work, if they fail to provide the protections, then I will ensure there is a legal framework in place, that the laws are there to catch those who are not going to live up to their responsibilities. So, it is a very strong message and we’re not mucking around and we’re very direct with them. They have the technology and I would only hope that they would follow through on the intent they indicated to me the other day.
But we’ll see. If they fail, I can assure you there will be laws in place to deal with those who aren’t going to stump up.
JOURNALIST: Won’t that be rushed though, without the proper oversight of a Senate Committee or further consultation?
PRIME MINISTER: This is not a particularly complicated matter and it builds off the laws that we already have in relation to child pornography, so it leverages those laws and the Attorney General will talk about those over the course of today. These are straightforward laws, they’re not difficult, it’s not hard to hold people to account. I don't think we should delay, I think we should get on with it and I’d look forward – once we’ve taken the bill through our Party Room and consulted with the Opposition – I’d hope we’d be able to tidy this up in a few days.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what do you make of Brunei and their new laws where gay people can be stoned to death coming in very soon?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, I’ll let the Foreign Minister speak about it, she’s been working on this.
FOREIGN MINISTER: Thanks Prime Minister, if I may also add on the matter of the legislation concerning social media platforms, I’ve been consulting and speaking with a number of international counterparts in the region and beyond. Just yesterday I sat down with our counterparts from Singapore here in Sydney for our Singapore-Australia Joint Ministerial Council and it’s fair to say that following the events in Christchurch there is very significant and widespread concern about what was enabled through social media platforms, to be streamed live in those circumstances. I can’t imagine for a moment what excuse there would be for a government delaying the enactment of laws such as this. In fact, I’d suggest that advocating a delay of these laws would in fact be irresponsible, given what we’ve seen in recent weeks, tragically, in New Zealand.
In relation to Brunei, we understand that as has been mooted for some time now, the Brunei government intends to introduce Sharia law as it’s national law. This is an issue which the Government through my predecessor and I have taken up with the government of Brunei. We are strong supporters of human rights right across this region and more broadly, including in Brunei. We are absolute opponents of the death penalty in all circumstances, so any suggestion that laws would facilitate the application of the death penalty is a matter of concern to Australia. These are communications we will continue to have with our counterparts, I conveyed our views as recently, again, as last week to Erywan, to the Foreign Minister of Brunei and we will continue to do so. They are matters of some human rights concern.
PRIME MINISTER: Just while on the issue of foreign policy, I made a comment that was reported in the Australian today. The Greens have a policy to walk away from the US Alliance. Now, there has been no more significant factor in Australia’s strategic defence arrangements and security arrangements, than our Alliance with the United States. Now, that Alliance of course has had bipartisan support, as you’d expect it to. But what I find troubling is that the Labor Party would preference the Greens - who wish to abolish the US Alliance – over the Liberal Party who has stood forthright for that Alliance. Now there are plenty of other extremist policies of the Greens that people are very well aware of; they want to introduce death taxes for example, they want to completely abolish our border protection regime. So, it beggars belief that the Labor Party could be taken seriously on issues of national security when they’re going to preference the Greens ahead of the Liberal Party at the next election. Now the Labor Party has set out the standard on these things, when it comes to determining matters of preferences. So here’s the test for Bill Shorten; if you’re serious about national security and keeping Australians safe, do not preference the Greens ahead of the Liberal Party. Do the right thing and ensure that a Party that has always stood for the Alliance and Australia’s national security, and keeping Australians safe, would receive a higher preference from the Labor Party than the Greens.
To do otherwise would be to have an equivalence between the Greens and the Labor Party, which I think many Australians have long suspected.
So the ball is in your court, Bill. You tell us what you really think about national security and we’ll know your answer by where you preference the Greens and the Liberal Party at the next election.
Okay, thanks very much.