After blasting the media contingent travelling with the Prime Minister for their appalling performance yesterday, it’s only fair that I note that today in Darwin the media were substantially better in focussing on policy issues. The transcript follows.

TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE
CASUARINA, DARWIN
8 AUGUST 2010

E & O E – PROOF ONLY

Subjects: National Rental Affordability Scheme; No School No Play Policy; School Chaplains Program; Election Campaign; People Smuggling; Private Health Insurance Rebate.

PM: I am here today in the Federal Electorate of Solomon in Darwin with our local Member of Parliament Damian Hale. I am also joined by Senator Trish Crossin and I am here today to make three important announcements.

First, Darwin of course is a fantastic place and I have got some great local people here and Damian as a great local representative. Darwin is a fantastic place but it is also a place where housing is very expensive as a result of the pressures of growth. So today, with Damian Hale, our Member for Solomon, I announce that a re-elected Gillard Government will deliver though our National Rental Affordability Scheme 1,200 new residences in Darwin. These new homes will be built here in Darwin and made available to Australians of low and middle incomes. I think this is good news for the people of Darwin for those people who are struggling to imagine how they could get secure housing here. At the start of this election campaign I talked about those parts of the country that were growing, that were prosperous, that had jobs and the pressures that that could bring. Obviously we see some of those pressures here in Darwin and this investment from the National Rental Affordability Scheme will make a difference. And then today I would like to make two announcements which will be for the betterment of school education.

First and foremostly, I have been trying my hand at hockey not because I have got any aspirations about greatness, but to make the point that kids love to play sport and a re-elected Gillard Government will work with our great sporting codes to implement what we call a No School No Play Policy. That is, we will work with our great sporting codes so that when kids go and play sport on the weekend one of the questions for them, one of the things that the sporting organisation is seeking to achieve is that kids have been in school. So that will be done by sporting organisations and there’s not one way to do it but what we know is that if we can say to kids that access to sport, to something that they enjoy is earned as a privilege because they attend at school then that makes a difference to school attendance. I want kids to have the skills they need for life and work. Kids can only get those skills if they are at school. We cannot afford to have young people only intermittently attending their local school. This is a problem around the country and it’s been a particular problem in indigenous communities and we will work with our great sporting codes to implement this policy.

And then thirdly, I announce that a re-elected Gillard Government will invest in broadening the School Chaplains Program. When I was Minister for Education I got great feedback around the country about the role that school chaplains were playing in school providing pastoral care, providing that little bit of extra assistance for kids in need. There are 2,700 chaplains now and when I was Minister for Education I was concerned that rural and regional schools had tended to miss out on getting the funding for a school chaplain. Often the poorer schools in our country had missed out on getting the funding. The funding had been distributed by application rounds and so sometimes those schools most in need hadn’t had the ability to fill in the application to get the funding. So we will give current school chaplains certainty but we will draw off the work of the review to invest in a further 1,000 chaplains around the country particularly looking at those schools in real need that have missed out on the current distribution of chaplains and that bit of pastoral support and extra care.

Finally can I conclude by saying this: on the day where Mr Abbott of course will be appearing at his Liberal Party campaign launch at a staged managed event, I will take this opportunity to say as Australians assess whatever it is this that Mr Abbott announces at his campaign launch today, that the issue at this the centre of this campaign is the strength of our economy. We can only make available resources for things like affordable housing, for investments in school chaplains, for investments in education and health. We can only make those things available when our economy is strong.

And the track record of this Government is as follows: we have the lowest unemployment compared to all of the major advanced economies in the world coming out of the global financial crisis. Underlying inflation is lower now than when we came to office. Official interest rates are 2.25 percentage points lower now than the peak that we saw under the Howard Government of which Mr Abbott was a senior member. We’ve got stronger economic growth coming out of the global financial crisis than other major advanced economies and none of the other major advanced economies avoided recession and we did. So for Australian families the choice here as we hear from Mr Abbott today at his campaign launch and as we move to election day is to assess who has the skills, capacity and judgement to keep our economy strong. And every major judgement call you need to make about the economy Mr Abbott is making the wrong call. He made the wrong call when this nation was threatened by the global financial crisis and global recession. He made the call to not support jobs and see this country to go into recession. And for the future he’s making the wrong calls to put a tax on grocery prices. To not invest in the things that will make this country prosperous in the future, the National Broadband Network and into skills. These are the wrong economic judgement calls for the future and there’s nothing more important for the future of Australia and Australian families than the strength our economy.

I’m very happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: Is the risk here, (inaudible) going to school anyway? Are you going to stop them from being involved in a group activity sport which is very important to them and might send them off the rails even further?

PM: Well the message here is kids should be in school and as a nation I believe it’s appropriate to send a message in any way we can that kids should be in school. We can’t get kids a good education unless they regularly attend at school. Of course there are times when children aren’t able to attend school, when they’re unwell and other occasions. We understand that but there is a lot of absenteeism for no reason and no purpose. Kids should be in school. Any measure we can implement to get kids regularly attending school is worth implementing.

JOURNALIST: Can I just ask how new is this? My understanding is that this sort of No school No play has been going on in quite a few schools for quite a while and how does a federal government implement this in each and every school and how does it apply just to Darwin across the board?

PM: This applies across the board and what’s new here is that we have agreement in the Minister for Sport, Kate Ellis has worked on this, as has our Minister for Employment and Participation, Senator Mark Arbib. And what they’ve done is they’ve worked with our sporting codes so whether it’s aussie rules, whether it’s league or union, whether it’s hockey or soccer, they’ve worked with our great sporting codes to come to arrangements about how these codes, through their local activities, will work to reinforce the message that kids should be at school.

Latika.

JOURNALIST: On that policy how can you make any real progress when it’s on a (inaudible) when it’s voluntary, is that what I’m saying is it right? And also on the school chaplains, wouldn’t it be better, have you discussed the merits of introducing secular counsellors instead of (inaudible) chaplains?

PM: Well to take the second one first, the work of chaplains has been evaluated and school communities have said and said very strongly that they find the work of chaplains valuable, the extra pastoral support and care. So obviously we’ve drawn on the views school communities around the country to inform us about the role that chaplains can play. And as Minister for Education I was able to directly meet with school communities and with chaplains to see this work first hand. So in my view the evidence is in and the evidence is clear that school chaplains do make a difference and that’s why we are building on it for the future. On the No School No Play Policy, we are going to work with sporting codes about how they reinforce the message about attendance at school. But we have seen through the things that we’ve invested in whether it’s the Clontarf Foundation or other mechanisms that if you can bring sport and school attendance and school achievement together it’s a powerful combination and that’s what we want to do working with our great sporting codes. We’ll go to the back and then come forward.

Yes?

JOURNALIST: Is there risk though there that some children may suffer if this, their parents responsibility that they haven’t been attending school?

PM: Well the message here to parents is kids should be at school and there’s no excuse for not getting kids to school regularly. I believe that without any sense of ambiguity. Kids should be in school. We cannot get kids a great education if they do not regularly attend school and I’ve been to schools in the Northern Territory and around the country where the teachers make this point. The teachers, doing their best, doing a great job, but if kids are there one day in three then how do you make sure they learn to read, they learn to write, they get the skills they need for life and work. Kids should be in school. Kids need to get that message but of course, so do their parents.

Yes.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) Channel Nine apologised for (inaudible) Mark Latham yesterday. Are you satisfied with that apology and how appropriate was that made?

PM: Well David Gyngell, the CEO of Channel Nine has spoken to me. He has forwarded his apology on behalf of Channel Nine and I’ve accepted that apology. Obviously Mr Gyngell himself came to the view that the conduct yesterday was inappropriate.

JOURNALIST: And should Channel Nine drop the Latham segment and was it appropriate for them to air it?

PM: Look it’s a matter for Channel Nine what decisions it makes, but Mr Gyngell has obviously made clear, as CEO of Channel Nine, that he thought there was something to apologise for yesterday and there was.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister. On No School No Play, the funding has been allocated from the Indigenous Education Program. Is this something for all children or is it targeted at indigenous children?

PM: Well we know when we look at non-attendance around the country that unfortunately, and tragically what we will is a pattern of non attendance, particularly by indigenous kids so there’s a reason that a focus here is attendance by indigenous children. But as we work with our great sporting codes, obviously they’re running sport, on the weekends and around the country and in communities like Darwin there would be many schools where many of the children that are attending the sport on the weekend are indigenous children but not all of them. And the focus of course for every child in every school is they’ve got to be at school to get a great education.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister (inaudible), is it going to be voluntary for sporting clubs to decide whether or not they play a kid if they haven’t gone to school? Is this really going to work in some country areas where, some, a lot of cases, often kids who don’t go to school are sometimes the best players and they often, in those country clubs, they’re often strapped for players. Are they really going to say no, we’re not going to play Johnny today because he didn’t turn up for school?

PM: Well that’s reinforcing in me the power of this message which is – we have had experience, there is experience now, there are people who can talk to you from the Contarf Foundation and others about the way in which sport and schooling can be combined. The love of sport, the desire to play, aussie rules, soccer, hockey, league, whatever it is, the desire to play that can be used to drive school attendance and school performance. Now this isn’t that, knowing the power of that combination is not new, the Contarf Foundation and others have used the power of that combination. What we’re going to do now is work with our great sporting codes to roll that out more generally and yes, we will work with them on different mechanisms. But if I can turn your question around – can you imagine the power of the message in a country community where the best player is a kid who is not regularly attending school, where the thing that that child loves, the message comes through to him or her loud and clear from his or her sporting coach, we need you to go to school, get to school, your other team mates are relying on you. The team’s relying on you. This is about something more than yourself. This is about the obligation you’ve got to your team mates in the game that you love. Imagine the power of that message. That message can be used to get better attendance at school.

JOURNALIST: Can you explain how it actually works? Like, so what happens? Students -

PM: It will work in different ways. There are examples given in the media release and those examples are operative in some parts of the country.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) sporting organisations (inaudible) code and I don’t go to school. What’s the worse thing that can happen to you?

PM: That you’re not allowed to play.

JOURNALIST: Will a club actually be in touch with the school to find out whether the kid has gone to school or not so they will know not to (inaudible).

PM: Yes of course, people will need the information and let’s get clear here. Our great sporting codes rolling out sport for kids are working with schools. Much of their sport happens in school grounds, school facilities, associated with schools, so yes, there need to be community linkages and our great sporting codes have said yep, they’ll be stepping up. They’ll be stepping up to use the influence of sport to help with school attendance. Now there’s not one mechanism here. Kids are different. Games are different. Arrangements in different communities will be different. That’s a great thing. That’s a strength. That’s something that we can harness because people can learn from how others are doing it, who’s doing it most effectively. But the message here is a clear one. Kids need to be in school. If there are things we can do and obviously the people who run aussie rules, league, union, hockey, soccer and so on, netball, a huge participation sport for young girls, are the people who run these sporting codes believe they can step up to the mark and assist with working with kids to drive better school attendance, this policy means the Government, those sporting codes will be working together to drive this policy, will improve school attendance, it’s a good thing.

JOURNALIST: When you say working together with the sporting codes, I mean, sporting codes get a lot of government grants. Is this going to be one of the conditions abiding to government grants to (inaudible) enforce this? You can have all the voluntary codes in the world but at the end of the day, as Nick says, you know, some of the country teams would play their best players regardless and -

PM: Look Kate Ellis, the Minister for Sport, is joining with coaches and with representatives of these sporting codes. They don’t need to be required through the power -

JOURNALIST: (inaudible)

PM: No they don’t, well no, and that’s saying a fantastic thing about them. There’s no sense here that their motivation is about funding. Their motivation is because they believe, like I do, kids should be in school. I mean, people who care about kids sport care about kids and if you care about kids then it’s obvious, kids should be in school.

JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)

PM: Well if I can, I can refer you to the release. It tells you the codes that have signed up and are working in partnership with us, Australian Rugby League, the Australian Football League, Australian Rugby Union, the Football Federation of Australia, Netball Australia, Basketball Australia, Hockey Australia and Cricket Australia, that’s -

JOURNALIST: They’ve agreed to ban kids from playing (inaudible)?

PM: They’ve agreed to work in partnership for the delivery of this program with its focus on school attendance.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) housing affordability and issue here which you’ve made and announcement on today. Isn’t one of the fundamental problems with housing affordability land supply and how do you, your policies on that issue fit with your policy for a sustainable Australia? Is there a conflict there between the two?

PM: Well, at the very start of this campaign I talked about a sustainable Australia, not a big Australia. And I’m glad you raised the issue because, of course, this is one of the central contradictions, one of the central flip flops and misjudgements that we’ve seen from Mr Abbott. I mean, Mr Abbott was a big Australia man; now he’s a sustainable Australia man. Mr Abbott was for no more taxes; now, of course, he’s putting a tax on groceries. Mr Abbott was there saying Paid Parental Leave, over his dead body, never; and now he’s asking people to believe that if elected, he’s going to deliver paid parental leave. I mean, I think Australians can see those contradictions day after day unfolding from Mr Abbott.

On a sustainable Australia, what I said at the start of this campaign is that there are communities around the country, regional areas that are growing, that are experiencing the pressures of that growth but also want to see that growth. That there are job opportunities, that there is wealth there. And we announced at the start of the campaign the Better Regional Cities Program to assist those places with more affordable housing. Here in Darwin we’re taking a special measure through the National Rental Affordability Scheme. The statistics show us that Darwin, in terms of the price of housing, is one of the most expensive places you can choose to live. That’s a constraint then on who can come and live here. We want to make a difference for that. And I will just turn to Damian Hale as the local representative, just to describe a little bit how this will work in Darwin. Thanks Damian.

HALE: Thanks a lot, Prime Minister. It’s one of the really important issues facing the Northern Territory. It’s certainly into the future as we wait, we’ve got some big oil and gas projects coming online towards the end of next year and certainly housing. We don’t want to be in a situation in Darwin where people are flying in and flying out. That’s no good for our economy. And certainly the threats from Tony Abbott in withdrawing stimulus from our economy is certainly something that Northern Territorians are really worried about and I’m glad that I’ve been able to, through Tanya Plibersek, it’s something that having a Housing Minister’s been really good for us, especially in remote and regional parts of Australia, and having someone that you can actually talk to about these issues. This isn’t something that’s just crept up on the Northern Territory, it’s been something that’s been coming in over a period of time. In 12 years there was no involvement from the Federal Government in this area and since Tanya and Julia have been involved, we’ve been able to secure these affordable homes so it’s been really good for us up here.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, on Mr Abbott’s policy today on (inaudible) do you support that?

PM: Oh I will look at the details of Mr Abbott’s policy. Obviously all I’ve seen is the newspaper reports. But the facts are these: in May this year, legislation went through the federal Parliament, legislation brought to the Parliament by the Government. It was supported by the Liberal Party. But that legislation delivered tougher penalties, a crackdown on people smuggling. And it particularly criminalised conduct of those who work to support people smugglers and it increased penalties considerably for people smugglers whose conduct risks human life and occasions the loss of life. The Parliament, at the Government’s insistence, dealt with that legislation and it was passed. So that work – already done. Now as I understand it, Mr Abbott will announce today a number of other measures. I will need to look at the details of them but given the Government put legislation into the Parliament, it cleared through the Parliament, I will see what addition these measures are to what has already been done and whether the further modest measures that Mr Abbott is suggesting are worthy measures. We would need some details to assess that.

JOURNALIST: Ms Gillard?

PM: Yes?

JOURNALIST: Most of the crews of these boats are 15 year old Indonesian kids. Are we really talking about sending some of these kids to jail in Australia for 10 years, or whatever the sentence is that Mr Abbott’s talking about? Secondly, on your, (inaudible) how’s negotiations going with East Timor for the regional processing centre. Can you give a timeframe for when that will be up and running (inaudible) in operation?

PM: Well, obviously the Government believes that people smuggling is an evil trade that profits off human misery. And when you profit off human misery, desperate people, there are times when people lose their lives. And that’s what motivated the Government to introduce the legislation in May, which the Liberal Party did support, in order to deliver even tougher penalties on people smuggling and I support that. On dialogue with East Timor, the Government commenced dialogue with East Timor. We are obviously in a caretaker period now. If re-elected as Prime Minister on 21 August then I will pursue that dialogue to its conclusion. And can I say, I think there is another of Mr Abbott’s moving around here, flip flops, say one thing one day, do another the next. We’ve seen it on paid parental leave, we’ve seen it on tax, we’ve seen it on climate change where even Mr Turnbull describes him as a weather vane. I think he’s tried to persuade the Australian people on WorkChoices only to immediately go back to talking about reintroducing the worst aspects of WorkChoices. On discussions with other countries, Mr Abbott, through a policy document launched by his political party this year, said that he thought it was inappropriate for the Opposition to be naming countries whilst in Opposition and he thought it was inappropriate for them to be having dialogue with countries whilst in Opposition. He seems to have completely changed his mind about all of that. Once again, what this goes to is the fragility of Mr Abbott’s judgments. The fact that if he says something to you one day, he is quite likely to say something entirely different the next day. But what is constant for Mr Abbott, what goes unchanging each and every day is Mr Abbott is committed to WorkChoices and Mr Abbott has got no plans to keep our economy strong. Yes?

JOURNALIST: Ms Gillard, are you relieved to be actually talking about policy today as opposed to other things and just in case you’re not, among friends, when you were hitting the bookie club today did you secretly hope it was Mark Latham’s head?

PM: Well, I respond to the questions I’m asked at press conferences so there might be a consideration about the importance of policy when questions are asked, and I’m glad people are interested in the policy today. Number two, I’ve said everything I’ve got to say on the incidence yesterday and I’ve accepted Mr Gyngell’s apology. I think you missed out on a question so that’s not fair.

JOURNALIST: That’s ok. I was just wondering if Labor is committed to keeping the private health insurance rebate?

PM: We’ve obviously made our statements on private health insurance and taken our actions in government. I believe the private health insurance rebate assists families and therefore it should stay in place, but I also believe that for upper income earners in our society that we can pay our own private health insurance. I don’t ask for people who work as waiting staff in restaurants or people who work as council workers repairing our roads to pay for my private health insurance – I can pay for my own. That’s why we support a private health insurance rebate arrangement with an appropriate means test.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) next questions about the regional processing centre. Can you guarantee one will be up and running in the first term of your government, and if not, how can people believe this is a serious policy? Do you have a timeframe?

PM: I’ve answered this question before. I’m for honesty. I’m for saying the same things consistently. Mr Abbott takes a different approach. You know, 24 hours, he thinks the politics has changed, he will say something else. Ask Mr Turnbull about his views of climate change. You know, that’s Mr Abbott. For me, I say the same thing because I try and be as honest as I can with the Australian people. And on the first day as Prime Minister, I made a statement about asylum seekers and people smuggling. I said then, upfront, there is no quick fix. We will work with East Timor to deliver a regional processing centre. We will work to deliver a regional processing framework. The person who is struggling with contradictions here is Mr Abbott. Thank you very much.