Prime Minister
PRIME MINISTER: My great privilege for Jenny and I and my family to join with the Abdallah and Sakr families on what is always a sad day, but it's also a day of hope. I forgive. These are powerful words. And the Abdallah family and the Sakr family have brought them back into our language as Australians. And they've demonstrated the power of them. As prime minister, you learn a lot about human frailties as you move around this country, but you also learn a lot about human resilience and the strength and indeed the faith of so many Australians who have gone through such difficult times. But the grief and the sadness and the sorrow that the Abdallah and the Sakr families have known and live with is unimaginable. But you've seen their great faith and grace on display, and it is a lesson to us all. I4Give is a very important day, and it's one that I hope continues to grow, not just here in this country, but something uniquely Australian that catches on far beyond our shores because the power of forgiveness is as those of us who know in our own lives, it is incredibly transformative. As Danny says, you have a choice to be bitter or to be better. And I think that's an encouragement for all of us.
Today, I also want to pay my respects and give my thanks to Her Majesty today with that remarkable length of service. I've had the great privilege to meet Her Majesty on several occasions, and I have never met anyone more impressive, more remarkable. Her wisdom, her kindness, her sense of duty is something that I think all of us here in Australia can be very grateful for. And so to you, Your Majesty from Australia, thank you for all your many years of service. And may God save The Queen.
And finally, as we go into this parliamentary week, there are many important matters that we'll be addressing. One of those we will be addressing very early on is the issue of the opening up of our international borders to international visitors again. As people will know, we have already opened up our borders to skilled migrants and backpackers and students. And that has been happening now for some months. And we are considering the further opening of the borders to international visitors as many of our states now move through and pass their peaks. The key issue that we have been examining and I have asked for advice from our health officials now over recent weeks, is how that decision could impact on our hospitals, which has been our primary consideration. But the previous opening up of the borders has gone very well and we are looking forward and to be able to make that decision to open up our borders and welcome visitors back to Australia again as soon as we safely and possibly can. But I really do not believe that is far away.
Challenges in aged care and so many other areas continue. I thank all of those who continue to work so incredibly hard to deal with the situation, which is so incredibly tough, and now I'm happy to take a few questions.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER: Well, quite easy, actually, because, you know, politics is a brutal business and anyone who pretends it's not and anybody who pretends that from time to time, people don't get angry or bitter and don't act like other human beings, then if you can't accept and understand each other's frailties and be forgiving in those circumstances, then frankly, that says a lot more about you than it does about others. And so that is what my faith is always informed me to do the same as it has so many others, and I'm thankful for that. You know, politicians, they're no different to anyone else. And people say things and people feel things. People get angry, people get bitter. Of course they do. That's all of us. And so who am I to be judging someone else?
JOURNALIST: And how are you going to keep the public [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER: No, I don't believe so, because our record speaks to our working relationship. And I think as I said yesterday, we have both surprised each other. We hadn't had a close relationship in the past. But as we came together, him as the leader of the Nationals and I as the leader of the Liberals, as the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, we have to continue to combat this pandemic. We've landed the biggest international security agreement Australia has been able to deliver since ANZUS itself, and we continue to drive the unemployment rate down below four per cent. These are the achievements of our government as we fight a pandemic and have one of the strongest economies going through this pandemic. One of the lowest death rates of any country in the world and one of the highest vaccination rates. So together, Barnaby and I are getting on with it. We understand the frailties of all individuals and human beings. And if people think it's any different in politics to their own lives, they'd be mistaken. So we'll just get on with it the same way Australians get on with it.
JOURNALIST: If the Deputy Prime Minister thinks you're a liar, why should voters think differently?
PRIME MINISTER: Because he doesn't think that. And he made that very clear yesterday.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible], when you were a Minister, [inaudible], changed observation?
PRIME MINISTER: We work together directly, a prime minister and a deputy prime minister work very closely together and his observations of me, and that relationship has completely transformed his view that he had as a backbencher at a time when his head was in a very different place.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible], liar and a horrible person, why are members of your own party turning against you now?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I don't believe that's the case. And my record with my party members and my party in the parliament has been the most united Liberal Party and the Coalition that we have seen. I mean, we've worked together to achieve a net zero commitment by 2050. Everybody said we couldn't have done that as a Coalition. But the Deputy Prime Minister and I, we agreed that. We have our differences when it comes to issues and we work through them and we get to results as we have on that issue. So our record is one of working together and working for Australia. Now, I'm sure if anyone went out there and checked what everybody has ever said about them, including all of us here, you will find people who will say not the most pleasant things about you. No one is immune to that. The question is, how do you respond to it as an individual? And today, on I forgive day, I think we get a very good lesson about that. I think this day is all about understanding human frailty. Human frailty, it's real. We all share it. We all live with it and we all need to be more understanding of it. Politicians are no different to people watching me now. People asking me questions now. People anywhere around the country. We all need to be more understanding of each other in that way. And that's certainly the approach that I adopt, especially with my colleagues.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible] what is being said about you. What about those who are leaking? What's being said about [inaudible] how do you forgive that?
PRIME MINISTER: None of them are in my Cabinet.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER: I don't let them distract me. We're facing a global pandemic which we've fought for the last two years. We fought through fires, through floods, through pestilence, cyclones, and we've been leading this country through one of the most difficult times we have known since the Second World War and the Great Depression. What people send around in texts, I frankly could not care less about. And frankly, Australians are far more interested in their jobs and their lives than what people are sending in text messages to each other. I'm focused on what they need. I am focused on their needs. I'm focused on their frustrations and focused on continuing to lead this country through this pandemic and to the strong economy and a strong society I know we will have on the other side. And we have the plan to achieve that. That's the plan that's been taking us through. And that's the plan that will continue to take us through. But today is all about remembering Antony, Angelina and Sienna and Veronique. It's about remembering the incredible act of grace by the Aballah and the Sakr families. It's about learning from their terrible experience and taking those lessons to ourselves and finding the strength within us all because we're all suffering from the same human condition. And finding the way forward and a huge part of that is to forgive. Thanks very much, everyone.