Doorstop - Hurstville NSW
4 October 2018
Prime Minister, Minister for Immigration Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship
THE HON DAVID COLEMAN MP, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS AND CITIZENSHIP: All right, well good afternoon everyone and welcome to Hurstville. It’s been terrific to visit some small businesses here in Hurstville today. Hurstville really is the economic heart of the central region. Thousands and thousands of people are employed in the Hurstville area and so many of those people are employed by people who have immigrated to Australia in search of opportunity. They’ve gone out and taken a risk, started a business, in the process employing so many, so many Australians. In fact around the nation about 1.4 million people are employed in businesses that were started by a migrant and that’s a really powerful statistic. It explains one of the really important benefits that we see through immigration, in helping to grow the economy. In my electorate of Banks, we’re fortunate to have a very multicultural community of around 30,000 people of Chinese background. So many people of Chinese background in my community have started businesses, have done so many positive things for our community. So it was great to introduce the PM to a few small business owners today and to chat to some of the employees about all the good work that’s going on here in Hurstville. I’ll hand over to the PM.
PRIME MINISTER: Thank you David and you’re doing a great job as our Minister for Immigration, Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship and particularly here as the Member for Banks. We’re his neighbours, between Cook and Banks, I’ve seen the great work David has particularly done with Chinese Australian community here right across southern Sydney. But I’m here because I’m passionate about small business. I’m passionate about Australians getting jobs and I’m passionate about the role that the many different ethnic communities right across Australia play in achieving those two things for Australia. What we’ve seen here as we’ve walked around the streets of Hurstville are Australians who have come to make a contribution and not take one. Here they are, investing, starting businesses. Was it one in three businesses started by migrants here? I mean this is the economic heart of this part of southern Sydney and it is being built on the investment and the commitment of Chinese Australians who are starting businesses, investing, as we’ve just seen, and creating jobs here for Australians.
Another big part of our agenda as a Government though is to keep Australians together. I think the key to that is to always recognise, always acknowledge the contributions that are made by all sections, all parts of the Australian family. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been here for 60,000 years or if you’ve been here for 60 minutes, you’ve come to make a contribution. If you’re here to make a contribution rather than take one then you have a big role to play in the future of our country and that’s what we see all around the city. So it’s great to celebrate it David. This is going to be and continue to be a big part of our agenda as a Government, bringing all Australians together for those purposes of ensuring our economy is strong so we can guarantee the essential services Australians rely on. That we keep Australians safe and we keep Australians together.
Happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: PM an important stand announced today on Russia and cyber security. Can you talk us through that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well look the online environment is not the Wild West and the international rules apply. The rule of law needs to apply and our support for the rule of law and international law applies around the world, whether it's online or offline or wherever it happens to be.
We’re going to call this stuff out and that's what we've done today. That's what other countries like the UK are doing. It’s not on and as an international community, we need to send that message very, very clearly. I understand others have expressed similar sentiments and others will and the random areas and where these things are occurring - in sports, doping, or in areas of economic interest – it’s just not on. As an international community, we need to make that incredibly clear and as a Government we are doing exactly that.
JOURNALIST: What can we do substantively though to punish the Russians for this type of behaviour? What can Australia do?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we need to look at specific areas of relationship we had with the Russians and we’ll obviously do that. But you make a lot more ground I think, when you do things together as an international community. So we’ll be working closely with our international partners in this area. We've already seen the outrageous actions when it came to the poisoning scandals that we saw in the United Kingdom and we stood with the UK in their moment of need on those issues and called that behaviour out as well. We will continue to do that, we’re not going to cop it.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what evidence is there that Russia is responsible and what response are you expecting from the Kremlin.
PRIME MINISTER: The response I'm most focused on now is the coordinated response of the international community and these issues and cyber security and cyber operations and all of these sorts of things, I think, we’re all a lot more aware of these things today and we all know what's going on and they know what's going on too. So we’re going to call it out.
JOURNALIST: Will you match the Opposition’s plan to provide subsidised pre-school [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER: What I’d like to know - because the Labor Party haven't explained it yet - they actually don't seem to have funded anything for three year-olds at all. They can't decide whether the funding is over two years or four years. They haven't explained what the support of the states and territories is going to be for this, because my understanding is that sort of funding would have to be matched by the states and territories. So what we have is just another announcement from the Labor Party wanting to spend your money with higher taxes, with detail that’s all over the place. That's why at the end of the day, Labor will make lots and lots of promises between now and the next election. Every time you hear Bill Shorten saying he wants to spend more money, know that you're going to pay for it with higher taxes.
The Labor Party has committed to taxing Australians more, keeping more for the Government of what you earn, every day. Whether you’re a small business, whether you own an investment property, whether you are just going to work and paying income tax, they are going to pull out $70 billion of the personal income tax relief that we have legislated. They are going to ensure that small businesses like the ones we were just meeting now, will pay higher rates of tax. So every time you see Bill Shorten promising to spend money, know that he is promising to spend your money. He is promising to get more money out of you, by taxing you more.
JOURNALIST: Australia has been slipping down the international rankings though when it comes to education. Do you think by getting more three year-olds to access preschool would be a way too - ?
PRIME MINISTER: And we’ve backed that in. When I was Social Services Minister, I was very involved in increasing our investment into early childhood education. Our early childhood education support through the child care program, is the biggest change to child care that we've seen since subsidies were first introduced into that system. That's seeing more children staying longer and ensuring that the early childhood education component of what they're receiving in child care, is more certain. They no longer hit the barrier three quarters into the year, where they no longer get the subsidies. We've got rid that. The subsidies run all year.
So, we've invested billions more in child care, which has also meant more into early childhood education. We have supported every single year until the end of 2019, the universal access funding, done in partnership with the states. That's currently going to the end of 2019 and we are currently working with the states and territories as to how we might take that program forward.
But what we want to see though from the states, is with the money that we've already invested - you know, $440 million a year - we want to see the take-up rates and the participation rates in early childhood education, particularly for preschools, increase. It’s one thing to invest money, but you know, taxpayers expect results for it. And when we go into partnerships with the states and territories, we expect them to deliver results and we want to see improved results in that area from the investments we've already been making. We will be considering further investments in that area in the future.
JOURNALIST: Will you consider taking it to three year olds as well?
PRIME MINISTER: We're open to a lot of these things. You've got to pay for these things. But we've been committed to the universal access for preschool for the last five years. We've done that every year in government and we've extended it out to the end of next year, so the funding is secure all the way to the end of 2019. We will go through that process through MYEFO and the Budget as usual, as we've done and continue to deliver the funding each and every year.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER: I couldn't quite hear that.
JOURNALIST: The breach rates for Indigenous people in the community development program are disproportionately high in remote areas. Will the Government make allowances for the circumstances of Indigenous people?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, 93 per cent of those breaches in interprets of those penalties, have been waived in the past. So I think there has always been a very flexible approach taken by those administering those programs. But you know, we run a Work for the Dole program. We expect all Australians to turn up for Work for the Dole, for those who’re involved in those programs and we don't like to make exceptions in that area and we don't. So there has got to be one rule for everybody when it comes to Work for the Dole, and I think that's what Australians would expect.
JOURNALIST: So when you [inaudible] breaching on average about 15 times in some communities, is that just too high, those [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, there’s clearly challenges in those communities and this morning I met with my Indigenous Advisory Council and we discussed a lot of issues this morning. In particular we were talking about getting young Indigenous Australians, all Indigenous Australians of working age, into jobs particularly here in Sydney and Western Sydney and the Indigenous hub in Western Sydney. We want to see more Indigenous Australians in work. I want to see more Indigenous children in school. I want to see more Indigenous families living in safe communities.
That's my objective, because being safe, being healthy, going to school, getting a job, growing older with dignity and respect and having choices, I want that for all Australians and that includes Indigenous Australians, of course.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, when [inaudible] expect the delivery of [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER: Well I’ll let David comment on that.
MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS AND CITIZENSHIP: That's an issue that I've been looking at in recent weeks since taking on the role the Minister for Immigration and discussing that with the Department. I will be having more to say about that shortly.
JOURNALIST: Do you think that having such a large fee, $20,000 for the ten year [inaudible] does that mean [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER: Well in terms of the temporary sponsored parent visa, it’s about creating opportunities for families to bring parents out for that temporary period. We think it’s an important area and it's something that as I say, we’ll be having more to say on. This is not something that the Labor Party properly addressed when they were in government. It’s something that we've committed to addressing and it's something that we will be taking forward.
PRIME MINISTER: A bit more work to do there. A bit more work to do there. Yes?
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible] Nationals MPs are saying that you’ve been tasked with helping craft a new agricultural visa to help with the picking season this summer. Can we expect an announcement before the end of the year?
MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS AND CITIZENSHIP: Look I'm not going to pre-empt a timeline. What I would say is where there are opportunities for the immigration system to be better matched to regional needs, then that's what we should be looking at and that's what we are looking at. There have been some calls from farmers' groups and from agricultural groups to say that they think that the system could be better matched to their needs. That's something we are looking at very closely.
PRIME MINISTER: And let me add to that. With the harvest season approaching, what we need to know is where are the jobs needed? When are the jobs needed? For how long are those jobs needed, in which particular areas? Are there Australians who are there right now who can be doing those jobs and what can we be doing to ensure that those Australians are going into those jobs?
You know, we’ll look at all the issues around welfare and so on to ensure that Australians are going into these jobs, but where there is real shortages, you can't let the fruit rot on the vine. I get that. I was just up - I think it was last week - up in the Glasshouse Mountains and that is probably one of the sectors, in the strawberry farming which we've had a bit to say about lately. If you don't pick them, you can lose the whole field. So those labour access issues are very important but let’s not forget the fact that in these areas there are Australians who can and should be doing this work and I want to make sure that they’re being given the opportunities to do that and not giving a leave pass for not doing it either.
JOURNALIST: So Minister [inaudible] likely to be focussed on higher skilled workers what exactly, what skills are you targeting?
MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS AND CITIZENSHIP: Well, again, I'm not going to pre-empt the outcome of the process we're going through. But where there are opportunities for the programs to be better matched to regional needs, we’ll look at addressing those.
JOURNALIST: Will you make sure that it doesn’t undermine the seasonal workers visa program for Pacific nations?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes.
MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS AND CITIZENSHIP: Well obviously, we've already made a very clear statement about the importance of seasonal workers program and we’ll look at ways of providing additional opportunities in regional areas.
PRIME MINISTER: The Pacific Islander Scheme has the priority in our program. Of course it does and that's the assurance I give to all of the Pacific Island leaders who we’ve been engaging closely. But we also know there are limits to how much that scheme can meet the overall demand, but we need to get a much better handle on that level of demand. So I'm highly sympathetic to that, particularly coming into this next season and so short-term issues that need to be addressed, which we've been working on closely with our rural and regional colleagues, both within the Liberal Party and the National Party. But there are longer-term issues that need to be addressed. We also want to make sure of this; that is anyone who comes to work in this country, has to be treated properly. I want to be absolutely certain that those who are going to work in these areas and going to work in those environments are properly looked after and properly catered for. We've seen some things in the past which hasn't thrilled me, frankly, and this is a deal, this is a compact when we do these things, where we allow people to take on that work, where there are real shortages and Australians can’t do the work. They’ve also got to be treated properly and I’ll be keeping a very close eye on that.
Thanks very much, good to see you.
