Doorstop, Queensland
24 May 2019
Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister
PRIME MINISTER: Well it's great to be here with the Deputy PM Michael McCormack and it's great to be out here in Burke and Wills. It was tremendous to be in Cloncurry last night where I was able to meet with the North Queensland Livestock Industry Recovery Agency and to be able to speak with a lot of locals and here today at the Campdraft, it's a great opportunity to hear back from people how everything is going. We were out at Gypsy Plains this morning with Jacqueline who I introduced people at the campaign launch a little while ago, to see the transformation in the time since the dreadful floods.
A key reason for coming here today with Michael is to just remind the country that there's still a lot of work to do here. There's still a long road ahead and we've had the election and that's had a lot of focus and attention and rightly so. We’re very grateful for the tremendous support that both Michael and I and our parties have received from the Australian people, to get on with the job.
Getting on with the job means getting here. This is a job that needs to get done and the Authority is doing a terrific job rolling out what now will be $300 million worth of grants, which will be there for rebuilding, restocking, replanting, enabling people to move on and get back up on their feet. It's being supported well by organisations like QRIDA and others, where we're working in lockstep to make sure that we really just do rebuild this incredibly important industry and way of life up here in north Queensland. This is what we were elected to do; just to get back to work and get on with it. I want to thank particularly Shane Stone and all of his team and the board members and just the community, for the way that they have responded and they've got around each other. For their optimism and for their resilience and their determination.
When you come here you can only just be filled with pride and admiration for these wonderful Australians. This is such an important way of life in Australia and we're going to make sure that continues. So we'll get around a bit more today and we'll get a bit more feedback. The programme that we’ve set up here with Authority is to be listening all the time, to be responsive. Shane and his team spend an enormous amount of time on the road getting around and listening to people and making sure that our programs are hitting the mark. So far I think Michael, that’s the feedback we're getting; that it is hitting the mark. At a time when people really needed the government to be here, we have been here. Being here has been a great encouragement to people and it's enabled them to get on with the work that they've been doing.
I mean last time I was here there were carcasses on the ground, the smell was overwhelming. Those carcasses have now been disposed of, that was a brutally hard job. Now we were going to the rebuilding phase and we’ll be there for that. So that's why we're here; to listen and to monitor progress and we're here because we're back at work.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister reports this morning that three orphaned Islamic State children will soon return to Australia, can you give us an insight into what involvement the Australian Government has had in that process and what condition these children can expect when they do return?
PRIME MINISTER: No, I'm not going to get into commentary on what are very sensitive matters. These are issues that really do fall under the banner of national security in how they handled. I don't want to put at risk, or compromise the safety of anyone. I certainly won't be doing that in relation to any Australian officials or others who are engaged in these issues. It's a very sensitive matter and we'll continue to manage and manage it very carefully. It's important that we don't compromise anything.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister what's your message to the Queensland State Government on the Adani mine at the moment?
PRIME MINISTER: Get on with it. I mean regardless of who is proposing a mine or what the mine is, it just should comply with the relevant regulation and legislation, like any other project. People should have the certainty about those processes being followed and not being delayed. So that's what should happen. They have a decision to make, they're the authority on these questions and they should make those decisions.
I was talking to Prime Minister Modi last night to congratulate him on his election win. He was kindly returning the favour and India is going to be an incredibly important investment partner for Australia. It's a two way street. India will be an enormously big trading partner for Australia in the future and what does concern me, has been the commentary particularly that came from the Labor Party on this, about the concerns that it was an Indian company. I mean, what on earth has that got to do with it?
They're a company that is investing in creating jobs and they should be subject to the same rules as everybody else and treated with the same respect as anyone else.
JOURNALIST: We hear this morning that Anthony Albanese wants to split up the tax cuts that the Coalition is offering and they will agree to the first tranche but block the second. What's your response to that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well Labor haven't learned the lessons of last Saturday. I mean Bill Shorten did exactly the same thing, this is just Bill Shorten, you know, in a different shirt. I mean did he not get the message from Australians that they want a government that backs aspiration? Legislation that backs aspiration? Tax relief, we took to the Australian people. It sets out a plan over the next seven years and that's what Australians voted for on the weekend. It seems that Anthony Albanese is no different to Bill Shorten.
JOURNALIST: Just finally on a local question if I may, we heard from farmers this morning and last night that they've just suffered through floods and now they're facing the prospect of returning to drought by year's end. When will your Government introduce a comprehensive drought policy and will you keep on a drought envoy? Do you envisage that being Barnaby Joyce?
PRIME MINISTER: Well matters regarding personnel I’ll be dealing with later, but we have a comprehensive drought policy. We had the comprehensive Drought Summit and we have over $6 billion that has been committed to actually dealing with the drought. We have a Drought Fund that we tried to get through Parliament and the Labor Party opposed it. So the only Party in this country that doesn't have a drought policy, is the Labor Party – I’d add a few more actually, the Greens and a few more.
But we have a drought policy and we’ve been managing that policy, both Michael and I at the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister level and right across our ministry because it affects so many different portfolios. So we'll continue on with that.
Great to be here, cheers.
