Subjects: Productivity Commission inquiry into childcare system; AWU slush fund matter; Royal Commission into child abuse; Nielson Poll; Julia Gillard’s carbon tax; cost of living pressures; private health rebate; Greiner-Brumby review.
EO&E...........................................................................................................................................
TONY ABBOTT:
It’s terrific to be here at the Majura Park Childcare Centre. It’s great to be with Margie who of course runs an occasional care centre in St Ives in Sydney. It’s also terrific to be here with Sussan Ley who has done a really, really good job preparing these terms of reference for what we hope will be a watershed productivity commission inquiry into our whole childcare system. Now, I’ll ask Sussan in a moment to say a bit more about the terms of reference and to say a bit more about what she discovered as she was talking to the sector as we prepared those terms of reference.
What I want to say is that families come in all different shapes and sizes these days. Workplaces come in all different shapes and sizes and that means that child care has got to come in all different shapes and sizes. We need a system which is affordable, which is accessible but it has got to be practical as well. One of the difficulties that we’ve got is that our child care system was generally formulated, a generation ago when the vast majority of people were working 9-5. These days we have a 24-7 economy and we need a child care sector that reflects the economic and the family realities that Australians today face. So, the Productivity Commission will look very importantly at how we can increase female participation. It will look at the productivity benefits of increasing female participation. It will look at the impact on our economy generally, on our GDP, on our productivity, of increasing female participation and then it will look at the child care sector itself and try to explore how we can make the sector more flexible and more practical.
We do need to look at in home care because for a lot of people that will probably be a good option. We do need to look at all the various ways of funding child care but we have to be fiscally responsible and that’s why I stress it will be within the existing broad funding envelope but I do think this is important. A serious look at child care, how we are doing it, how we are funding it, how we are organising is long, long overdue. We had a very instructive Productivity Commission inquiry into our aged care system. I think we need the same sort of inquiry into our child care system. I’m going to ask Sussan to say a few words and then Margie might like to say something based on her practical experience.
SUSSAN LEY:
Thanks Tony, thanks Natalie for having us here. Everywhere, I’ve gone in my quest to find solutions for Australian families, I’ve been told two things. We can’t find the child care we want, for the hours that we want, at the price that we can afford and we can’t do the job we’re trained for, for that very reason. So, the policy settings of ten years ago just don’t work today. That’s why I am really excited about a future Productivity Commission inquiry which will examine everything and leave nothing to chance and certainly nothing to this Government about what we do to look after families for the next 20 years.
There’s quite a lot of detail in the Productivity Commission terms of reference but what I particularly want to stress is this is about every child. This is about the most vulnerable children in Australia, just as it is about the children of better off public servants here in Canberra. We want to make sure that every child has the best start in life and at the moment the system is failing and I believe it can really be fixed.
TONY ABBOTT:
Darling.
MARGIE ABBOTT:
Thank you. As the Director of an early childhood centre I support everything that Sussan and Tony have mentioned. I am delighted to be here today to view quality early childhood education. I think when I travel Australia and when I talk to the families who attend my centre, what they want the focus to be on is the debate about affordable care, quality care and they want the pressures lifted from home budgets. So, this Productivity Commission, if this can give us some answers to some questions I think that will be a good thing for Australian families.
TONY ABBOTT:
Ok, do we have any questions?
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, the strong emphasis on home care in some of these terms of reference I’ve just looked through. How can you say that only the funding within the envelope will assist, when this is going to be quite expensive? So, are you flagging either changes to the childcare benefit here or the rebate?
TONY ABBOTT:
I want a very broad ranging inquiry and I don’t want to rule things out and put things off limits.
QUESTION:
But you’ve just ruled out extra funding?
TONY ABBOTT:
What I’ve said is that we need to operate within the current funding envelope. One of the reasons why a Productivity Commission inquiry is, I believe, the best way forward is because the Productivity Commission is very well placed to look at the impact of more accessible and more widely available childcare on participation and the impact of increased female participation on productivity and on the size of our economy. Because if we can increase the size of our economy, obviously that increases the size of the revenue. So, the Productivity Commission is perfectly placed to look at all aspects of childcare, including its impact on our economy.
QUESTION:
Do you think it's fair for the Government to raise questions about Julie Bishop's past as a lawyer and do you think she has any questions to answer?
TONY ABBOTT:
It's perfectly fair for the Government to raise these questions just as it's perfectly fair for us to raise questions and I would invite everyone who was in legal practice at that time and who has questions raised about the professionalism of their practice to be as open and transparent as Julie Bishop has been.
QUESTION:
Where do you draw the line though Mr Abbott? This is going back some 10, 15, 20 years? Should all politicians be accountable for things they did two decades ago?
TONY ABBOTT:
Let's be very clear about this. Questions about the Prime Minister's conduct in the AWU slush fund matter weren't raised by the Opposition, they were first raised in the Parliament by the former Attorney-General Robert McClelland. So it's not the Coalition that raised this initially. It was initially raised by one of the Prime Minister's own Ministers. Now since then, an absolute welter of new facts have come to light. The Prime Minister does have questions to answer. I'm happy to give her the benefit of the doubt, but we've got to hear her side of the story and all we've heard so far from the Prime Minister is stonewalling. Now Julie Bishop was asked some questions about these sorts of issues in respect of her practice the other day. She was completely upfront, transparent and open. She answered the questions as she should and I think that's a very good example to be followed.
QUESTION:
Michael Chaney said in today’s Financial Review that growth in the Australian economy will fall off a cliff after 2015, the less than 2.5 per cent annually without reduction in red tape and industrial relations reform. Now, Innes Willox said a similar thing on Friday from the AI group. When will you actually reveal, in a concrete sense, a practical sense, what you will do to reform the industrial relations system Mr Abbott?
TONY ABBOTT:
I've been talking for months now about the importance of reform here and we need reform that addresses the flexibility problem, the militancy problem and above all else the productivity problem but it's got to be careful, cautious, responsible reform which acknowledges the absolute necessity of preserving peoples’ take-home pay. Now…
QUESTION:
But business is asking for more detail than that Mr Abbott, as you say you’ve been talking about it for months.
TONY ABBOTT:
And in good time before the next election, that's exactly what they'll get. But the general point I want to make is that we do need to make our economy more productive. Michael Chaney is absolutely right. We do need to make our economy more productive. This Government has failed the productivity test. It's totally failed the productivity test. It's made our economy less productive and that's why we have already announced that business will get a $1 billion a year reduction in red tape costs. We are very committed to a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme that will allow more Australian mothers to be economic as well as social and family contributors and this is all about building a more productive economy that will produce greater prosperity and ultimately a more cohesive society and happier families.
QUESTION:
Do you think it's fair to ask State Governments to contribute to the costs of running a Royal Commission into child abuse?
TONY ABBOTT:
Look, this is going to be a national Royal Commission and I think that does make it first and foremost the responsibility of the national Government.
QUESTION:
So there should be no state contribution in terms of funding?
TONY ABBOTT:
That's the kind of thing that the Prime Minister will need to talk to the States about and let's see what happens, but the Prime Minister has announced this Royal Commission, she has yet to announce terms of reference, personnel or funding. She's now consulting about it and let's see what those consultations produce.
QUESTION:
Have you seen the Nielsen poll this morning showing the Coalition with a six point lead two-party preferred?
TONY ABBOTT:
Look, every day I just get on with my job which is holding the Government to account and presenting a credible alternative to the Australian people and that's why I think this Productivity Commission inquiry into childcare is so important because Australian families understand that their cost of living pressures are growing, their burdens are getting worse, we’ve got private health insurance rebates which are going to go up because of this Governments’ policies, we’ve got cost of living pressures getting worse, much worse because of the carbon tax, amongst other things. We’ve got the fact that this Government didn’t deliver on its childcare promises to end the double drop off, to build 260 new childcare centers so people are very anxious about the performance of this Government and they want to know that things can be better. Now, the point I keep making is there is nothing wrong with this great country of ours that a change of government wouldn’t improve and I think right now the Australian people’s mood is despondent but there is nothing wrong with our country that a change of government wouldn’t fix.
QUESTION:
On cost of living, Nielsen today shows that more people and this is the fourth month in a row say that they’re actually no worse off under the carbon tax, more people support the carbon tax and your personal standing has taken another setback. Do you need to redefine yourself as some in your party room are saying and how will you do that over the summer?
TONY ABBOTT:
Again, I’m not going to get into the detail of polls. I think if you are a fair minded observer you would say there has been a very consistent level of opposition to the carbon tax because the public understand that this is a tax which will hurt them without helping the environment. It won’t clean up the environment but it will clean out people’s wallets and that’s what it’s doing. Every time your power bill goes up, that’s the carbon tax doing its job. Every time your power bill goes up, government ministers are saying, well, that’s why we put a price on carbon, to make your power more expensive.
QUESTION:
But do you think people still believe that though? Do you think people still care about the carbon tax?
TONY ABBOTT:
I think people always care about things that are going to damage their cost of living and I think people are always disappointed, to put it at its kindest, I think they’re always disappointed with a government which seems oblivious to the pain that its policies are causing the Australian family. Now, a government which thinks that it can get away with imposing a new tax, is a government that will impose more new taxes. A government which thinks that the carbon tax hasn’t hurt, is a government which is going to increase taxes if it gets re-elected.
QUESTION:
Is there any need or are you reviewing your tactics on the carbon tax?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, as you know, I talk about the carbon tax just about every day because this was a fundamental breach of trust with the Australian electorate as well as being a really counterproductive policy. It’s a bad tax based on a lie. It’s a stupid tax which is going to hurt people and the longer it lasts, the more it will hurt them.
QUESTION:
On the rising cost of living, health funds want to increase premiums by up to $150 a year. Should the federal government be intervening?
TONY ABBOTT:
The federal government does have a reserve power over premiums. In the end, premiums do have to be approved by the minister. That was true under the former government. It’s true under the present government but in the end, it is the policy environment which is ultimately responsible for premiums and when you have got a government which is means testing the private health insurance rebate in clear breach of an election commitment, when you've got a government which is changing the indexation for the rebate which is going to mean everyone's rebate starts to get more expensive from the middle of next year, this is a government which doesn't like private health insurance. It has been bad for Medicare, this government, with its changes to the safety net but it has been very bad for private health insurance.
QUESTION:
Colin Barnett said today that if WA's GST take falls below 30 per cent in the next couple of years, essentially the state will look to Asia before Canberra. How would the Coalition, how would a Liberal government fix that given the ructions you’ve faced in Liberal branch in the last few months?
TONY ABBOTT:
We’ve got a review looking at the GST and the whole range of Commonwealth/state financial relationships. It is very important that not only it be fair but that it be seen to be fair. What I want to see is far more transparency in the Commonwealth/State financial arrangements and we will have more to say on this when we see the result of the Greiner-Brumby review.
Thanks so much.
Location:
Federal