Subjects: The Coalition's plans for a stronger Australia; Julia Gillard’s carbon tax; the Coalition's $1 billion commitment to Brisbane's Gateway Motorway extension; Royal Commission into child sexual abuse; indigenous representation in Parliament; Queensland; Federal Budget; Federal LNP candidates.
EO&E...........................................................................................................................................
TONY ABBOTT:
It’s great to be here at the Pine River Bowls Club. I want to thank Ron and Maureen and all of the officials who have made myself and Peter Dutton so welcome. Peter, of course, as well as being the Shadow Minister for Health, is the local member. It's also good to be with Troy Postle, who is the power broker for the club; the person who organisers the power supply here at this club and at many other businesses throughout south eastern Queensland.
What I am determined to do should I become Prime Minister of this great country is reduce the pressure on families’ cost of living, reduce the pressure on jobs and investment which so many of the current government’s policies is increasing.
We’ve got a government which is making it harder for people to meet their monthly bills through the carbon tax. We've got a government which is making it harder for businesses to keep employing people, and investing, because of the carbon tax and the mining tax. Economic reform starts with getting unnecessary taxes off people's backs. Tax reform starts with getting rid of the carbon tax and the mining tax, and I am determined to do that because there are going to be practical benefits for people like the bowlers here at the Pine River Bowls Club.
Now, in the last quarter, we saw power bills up 15 per cent, we saw gas bills up 14 per cent, we saw the general cost of living go up by 1.4 per cent, but for pensioners, the cost of living went up by 1.9 per cent. These are burdens that the pensioners of Australia should not face. These are burdens that the families of Australia should not face. These are burdens that the businesses of Australia and the institutions of Australia should not face, and that's why I'm going to take them off people.
I'm in Brisbane. There are other things that obviously are concerning the people of Brisbane right now. I drove out of the city to come up here against the traffic. I saw the queues and queues of vehicles trying to get into the city. We need modern infrastructure in this country. I congratulate Campbell Newman for the work he has done as Lord Mayor of Brisbane and for the work he is going to do as Premier of this great state, but plainly, if we are going to have modern, 21st century infrastructure in this city, in this state, in this country, we need a federal investment. That's why I have committed $1 billion to the Gateway Motorway extension. That will very significantly help the traffic flows in Brisbane. This is a very important part of my plan, to give the people of Brisbane and Queensland and Australia a better future.
I'm going to ask Peter to say a few words about what's happening here in the local area, and then I'm going to ask Troy Postle to say a few words about what he is experiencing with power prices for his customers.
PETER DUTTON:
Thank you very much, Tony. Thank you for being here today and thank you very much to Ron, Maureen and to Wayne for making us feel so welcome.
Just talking to some pensioners and self-funded retirees before, their biggest concern is that they are on fixed incomes and somebody who is drawing money down from a small investment that they might have in the bank only gets a fixed rate of return from the bank. Pensioners only get a certain amount each fortnight and the trouble for them is that the cost of living pressures keep going up under this Labor Government and whilst Julia Gillard said the carbon tax would only be paid by the top 500 emitters in this country, everybody knows when they see their electricity bill that costs just keep going up and up and up and for people who can't pass that cost on anywhere else, pensioners have to absorb it, self-funded retirees have to absorb it and it just makes it very hard to balance the family budget.
I also want to say thank you very much to Tony for his commitment to the Gateway upgrade. People, particularly on the north side of Brisbane in the outer northern suburbs, will benefit greatly from an upgrade of the Gateway because people are sick to death of sitting in gridlock as they go into work in the city each day and I think this will be of enormous benefit to them and I hope that we can say to the people of Brisbane in particular it's too long that we've suffered under Labor governments where infrastructure just hasn't been provided and I think we can get this city moving again with Campbell Newman as Premier and with Tony Abbott as Prime Minister.
TONY ABBOTT:
Thanks, mate. Troy?
TROY POSTLE:
Thanks, Tony. My name is Troy Postle from Power Select. I've been involved in the Queensland electricity market and the national electricity market for over 13 years and this carbon tax is having a massive impact on clubs such as this today. $3,500 per month, excluding GST, their bills are going up and they've got to find that money somewhere and realistically from the clubs that I’m talking to and looking after - about 500 businesses throughout Queensland for their electricity bills - the way that they are saying they’re going to be able to compensate or allow for this carbon tax is to start laying people off and I find that very difficult to believe, but they just can't absorb the cost of this carbon tax and there’s a lot of money. I’ve got one of the hotels that I look after on the Gold Coast, $157,000 a year, excluding GST, their electricity bills have gone up by and they’re saying to me, "Where do we find this money?" So, I'm trying to help them reduce their costs as much as I possibly can which is what my business is about, but this is something that has come out of left field for them and they don't know how to compensate for it.
TONY ABBOTT:
Thanks, Troy. Ok, do we have any questions?
QUESTION:
Yes. Christopher Pyne says he thinks that the seal of the confessional should be broken if priests are confessing to crimes such as pedophilia. Do you?
TONY ABBOTT:
I think that everyone has to obey the law. That's what everyone has to do. Now, there are various requirements on people. If they become aware of sexual offences against children, those legal requirements must be adhered to and the law is no respecter of persons. Everyone has to obey the law, regardless of what job they're doing, regardless of what position they hold.
QUESTION:
So, that includes priests as well?
TONY ABBOTT:
Indeed.
QUESTION:
Ken Wyatt's mother was a member of the stolen generation, that's why he was born on a mission, not in the bush. Does that make you rethink what you said about him?
TONY ABBOTT:
There has been some very misleading reporting, some very misleading reporting on this issue; suffice to say that I am absolutely determined, absolutely determined to do what I can to get more indigenous people into the Parliament, and I am incredibly proud to have in our ranks Ken Wyatt who I am very proud to say was the first indigenous member of the House of Representatives.
QUESTION:
His family says the comments were offensive to indigenous Australians. You don't see it that way?
TONY ABBOTT:
As I said, I'm very proud to have Ken in my team, really proud to have Ken in my team and I want to boost the number of indigenous people in our national Parliament.
QUESTION:
And are there any circumstances under which we should consider nuclear submarines?
TONY ABBOTT:
Look, it's not our policy. It isn't our policy to have them. Obviously, we think it is important to have a strong and effective submarine force. These sorts of technical decisions are not decisions that can be made from opposition but certainly we don’t have a policy to go nuclear.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, do you think any laws need to be changed so that confessionals are no longer immune?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, as I said, different states have different positions and regardless of where you are, regardless of who you are, you've got to obey the law.
QUESTION:
Do you think they're adequate in all the states?
TONY ABBOTT:
Look, I'm not a lawyer and we're at the beginning of a process here which the Prime Minister announced on Monday. Let's see where the process takes us.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, how much time do you plan to spend in Queensland in the lead up to the next election?
TONY ABBOTT:
Look, I'm in Queensland a lot - always have been and, as far as I'm concerned, always will be - because Queensland is such an important part of our country. As a youngster, I holidayed a lot on the Gold Coast. In fact, our annual summer holiday for about 15 years was on the Gold Coast. So, I regard myself as a great fan of Queensland, and that's always going to be the case, and certainly Queensland was very good to the Coalition at the last federal election and I intend to do what I can to ensure that it's even better to us at the next federal election.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, there is a Community Cabinet tonight nearby in the northern suburbs of Brisbane. What do you think are the main issues on people's minds here in the northern suburbs?
TONY ABBOTT:
People want a competent government. That’s what they want. They want a government that can get the Budget under control, can get the borders under control and can take the pressure off people's cost of living. That's what they want. Now, unfortunately we've got a government which will never deliver an honest budget surplus, a government which has completely lost control of our borders, and a government which is so oblivious to the real cost of living pressures that families are under that they think the carbon tax didn't hurt. Well, I have a message for the people of Australia: a government that thinks new taxes don't hurt is a government which is going to pile on further new taxes if it gets re-elected.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, you just said there that keeping the borders under control, you listed that before other factors. Do you really think the people in the northern suburbs of Brisbane are concerned more about border control than they are about local issues?
TONY ABBOTT:
I think people in places like metropolitan Brisbane are capable of being anxious about more than one thing at any one time and I think they're entitled to be very concerned about the multitudinous failures of this government. As I said, this is a government which promised on no fewer than 150 occasions since May of 2010 that there would be a Budget surplus in the current financial year. They will never deliver an honest Budget surplus in this or any other year. They notoriously promised five days before the last election "there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead". They gave us one and, in so doing, they inflicted gratuitous harm on every Australians' cost of living. So, look, I think the people of Brisbane, the people of Melbourne, the people of Sydney, the people of Australia generally want a competent and trustworthy government that can fix their problems.
QUESTION:
How much of Queensland do you think you can win at the next election?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, look we have very good candidates. We have some excellent candidates. Yesterday I was with Bill Glasson who is our candidate for Griffith - probably one of Australia's leading ophthalmologists, a man who has devoted much of his life to serving our community, including working with indigenous people in far western Queensland. We've got Luke Howarth, our candidate in Petrie. We have got Malcolm Cole, our candidate in Moreton. We’ve got Rod McGarvie, our candidate in Lilley. These are all candidates here in Brisbane who I think will do extremely well. I'm very proud of them and I look forward to working with them very, very regularly in the run-up to the election.
Thank you.
Location:
Federal