Prime Minister
Phil Coorey: Thanks very much, Prime Minister. My name is Phil Coorey and I’m the political editor at the AFR. We’ve only got time for a couple of quick ones. So if I could just ask you about I think an interesting aspect of your speech about the migration, your comments on migration, temporary visa holders. Would you, I mean it is early days, but would you let us into your thinking, would you be looking at changing the overall migration cap to allow in more skilled temporary migrants or just changing the migration mix? What’s your thinking?
Prime Minister: Well, temporary migration isn’t capped, it is demand driven and always has been. But it is really about the design of the classes of the visas and the Ag 2030 Strategy which has been developed by David Littleproud, I think will play a key role in particularly in how those visas can address workforce challenges in the ag sector in particular. But it is not just about the ag sector. Anyone who runs a hospitality business will be aware of these issues and particularly if they’re operating one in regional Australia as well. I mean, backpackers play an important role in that process but our systems to date have not been as direct as they might be. So all I’m saying really is that I’ve got a very open mind on this. We have tried in the past to first get Australians into these jobs and having tried to do that with any number of incentives, and I’m sure Peter Costello remembers the things they were trying back two decades ago. It has been incredibly difficult and we have to call it as it is. And that is, when Australians won’t do the jobs, the jobs still need to be done and I can’t have, as is occurring, horticulturalists ploughing their produce back into their fields because they can’t get the workers. That is a tragedy for our economy and particularly for those producers. So this is a clear area where I think we are going to have to lean more forward on. Not at the expense of Australian workers, as I said. If you’ve got a missing link in your workforce, then that actually impedes growth of your economy, which costs the economy jobs. It’s cost those businesses those opportunities and so I see this as a value-add at the end of the day and we’re going to have to make our case on this but the regional members of my team, my Nationals colleagues who sit in the Cabinet, the Liberal members from right across regional Australia have been very consistent on this view.
Coorey: Would there be conditions tied to these visas, though? You’d have to go to the regions, would there be the lure of permanent residency perhaps at the end?
Prime Minister: I think you have all of those options that you have to consider and you need to think about their broader impact on population growth. I mean, obviously, we’re not seeing any of that at the moment. But yeah, that conditionality is one of the great advantages of the temporary visa system. As a former Immigration Minister, I know it pretty well. You can’t put conditions on permanent visas about where people can live. Rightly, you’re a resident. You’re a citizen, you’re a citizen. You can go wherever you like. But if you’re on a temporary visa, you’re here on conditions. And those conditions can help us direct where people can go which can ease population pressures in metropolitan areas but also hopefully create opportunities in regional areas.
Coorey: PM, you’ve announced another $1.2 billion for apprentices. Since March last year, I think this is your fourth announcement on wage subsidies for apprentices and trainees. We’re up to nearly over 300,000 positions now. Is there an assurance, because it is a wage subsidy for the first 12 months of that apprenticeship. Do you have an idea of what the completion rate would be in terms of getting value for money? I mean, I know you can't prescribe.
Prime Minister: It would be difficult to predict in the current environment, Phil, and one thing I've learnt during COVID-19 is don't get too far ahead of yourself about what the economic conditions are going to be. But, you know, I don't think businesses lightly take on young people into their businesses. I think they do it with intent, taking those people into their employment, particularly in small and medium sized businesses. These are predominantly family businesses in many cases, so many of them in regional parts of the country. And so I don't think they see this as a short term measure. I see a lot of confidence out in these businesses as I move around the country. I was up at a quarry service business just the other day and up in the Hunter and they're growing their business, they're taking on apprentices. I mean, other apprentices that started in the middle of COVID and at the start of COVID and they know the reason they're still in that business is because of these programmes. Those businesses want to take them on because they know they need them and they need to build up those skills. But as we know, when you're in those early parts of the skills development, apprentices won't add as much value as they ultimately will. So by sharing what is the heavier part of that load in the early parts of their training, I think we're giving business the leg up to give them a long term future.
Coorey: You spoke on the vaccine. You talked about hopefully we'll get the results coming out of the UK and Israel and so forth, the efficacy and we’ll be able to treat this hopefully as a bad flu in the not too distant future. But we're still not there yet. And a lot of people in this room I know and outside this room will be worried about the ad hoc nature of border closures and the inability of the Federation to come to an agreed set of rules for shutting them. Isn't that just the way we're going to be for the next six to eight months as the vaccine comes out?
Prime Minister: Yeah, look, I understand the frustration. Believe you me, I've shared it on many occasions. At the end of the day, I think one thing we've learnt during the past year is that states have some sovereign responsibilities and they’re responsible for the decisions they take and they have the authority and power to take them. Wherever possible, we seek to try and get some consistency on that. And we've had some great success on that in some areas, but regrettably, on the borders that has not occurred. What we're now doing this year, though, I think is very different to 2020. The 2020 response to COVID-19 must be different in 2021. Why? Because the risk has changed. I mean, when you don't have a vaccine, when you're building up your health system and you're highly vulnerable at the start of a pandemic or running the quarantine system under great stress, well, you're going to be more cautious because as we see with an outbreak in an unprotected way, then it can have catastrophic effects on your economy. So that is that is understandable. But if you go back to the start of COVID, what were we most concerned about? Thousands upon thousands, upon thousands of Australians dying an undignified death in ICUs right across the country, potentially without ventilators in an agonising and horrific scene. We saw those scenes overseas. These are not made up scenes. We saw the mass graves in New York, we saw the large tents in fields in the UK where the bodies were just lined up, one after the next. Let's not kid ourselves how serious this was. And this year is different. This year that risk with the vaccine means that serious and severe illness don't become that risk. That is changing every day, around about 25,000 or thereabouts aged care residents have already now been vaccinated with their first injection. That's about 270, I think, facilities that have already been reached. They are our most vulnerable. They are the Australians who would be most likely to be victims of COVID-19 without these protections. So once you're able to protect the most vulnerable, once you're able to vaccinate your quarantine workforce, once you're able to vaccinate your frontline health care and aged care and disability care staff, well, it changes. And so the parameters for the decisions that premiers are making this year are different from last year and the justifications for actions will need to be different. Now, good news is it has opened up a lot more this year. You can even get the West Australian now. There you go. That’s great. I hope to get there soon. It's been a long time since I've been to West Australia and for most people. But, you know, those decisions I understood. But this year is different and Phil Gaetjens has been tasked together with all the director generals of the premier's departments to develop a new risk management framework for the states and territories and the Commonwealth to inform these decisions this year. And so that means, you know, it's not just about the health because the health risk is diminished. It's about the economic risk, the impact on livelihoods, the impact on regions. And it's important that all premiers, chief ministers, prime ministers make decisions that are very commensurate with the new risk framework that we are facing this year, which is different to last year. And so for that reason, I expect the decisions made this year should be different to last year.
Coorey: And just finally, PM, I must ask you about the current issues of the day. Issues surrounding your Attorney-General and the Defence Minister does go to workplace culture and they are things people in this room, CEOs and so forth, have had to deal with themselves in their own internals. A couple of questions. Is it still your view you don't need a separate enquiry into the allegations against your Attorney? And he's also your Industrial Relations Minister. Senator Cash is now doing that. What's it mean for the IR Bill, the Industrial Relations Bill, which you were hoping to have next week? Is that now going to spill over into the Budget session?
Prime Minister: Sure. Well, first of all, I believe in the rule of law. I believe in equality before the law. I believe every Australian should face the same legal processes as any other Australian. And on that basis, I see no justification for any extra judicial inquiry that might be set up by a prime minister or any other politician. All Australians are equal before the law. We have competent and authorised agencies to deal with these matters, both through the police and through the courts. And that's where I will make my assessments of those matters, and that's where it should be done. You don't have to go too far from this place to see countries where the rule of law doesn't operate and the chaos on the streets and the mayhem that that can ultimately lead to. So I don't take the rule of law for granted in this country, and I would never do anything that would undermine the rule of law in this country. It is the basis of our democracy. It's also the basis of our strength and stability of our economy. And so for all of these reasons, I'm not entertaining that proposition. Coroners should follow their own processes, they should make their own decisions and if there should be a coronial enquiry, then that is, of course, the process. And I'm happy to see those processes proceed as coroners see fit. On the other matter, the great thing about my team is one of my team, in this case, the Attorney or indeed the Defence Minister, if they're unable to do their duties currently for health reasons, then I have wonderful people I can turn to. In Defence, I can turn to Marise Payne, the first ever female defence minister in this country who understands these issues up and down and backwards and frontways. And she's all over it as am I and we will continue to address those matters each and every day and we won't skip a beat. But I can also say in Industrial Relations and matters of the Attorney-General, I can turn to another great woman in my cabinet, Michaelia Cash, a very accomplished lawyer in her own right, and a former industrial relations minister who has got some experience in getting important industrial relations reforms through the Senate on other occasions when she previously had that portfolio. So once again, we know what our job is. We know what issues are serious and important, and they're important issues to deal with and the sensitive matters raised in Canberra over the course of this last month. But I also know what Australians are relying on me to do, and that is to lead us out of this COVID-19 pandemic and to lead us out of this covid-19 recession and that's exactly what we're going to do.
Coorey: Thank you, Prime Minister.
Prime Minister: Thank you.