PRIME MINISTER:

I want to thank Aunty Matilda for her welcome to country and acknowledge we are on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land and pay my respects to elders past and present.

Thank you Professor Ngiare Brown for your leadership today and as a member of the Indigenous Advisory Council.

I want to acknowledge Senator Nigel Scullion, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, the Honourable Ken Wyatt, Minister for Aged Care and Indigenous Health, Bill Shorten, Leader of the Opposition and all other Members of Parliament, ministerial colleagues, and especially the Honourable Linda Burney, Member for Barton, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, Senator Pat Dodson and Senator Jacqui Lambie.

I want to also acknowledge Richard Weston, the Chief Executive of the Healing Foundation and of course Mick Dodson, one of the authors of the Bringing Them Home Report.

This week we honour those milestones that helped the nation chart a course towards reconciliation – the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Referendum, 25 years since the Mabo High Court decision and 20 years, as Mick reminded us, since the Bringing Them Home report.

Today, we again acknowledge the Stolen Generations – those Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly removed from their parents simply because they were Aboriginal.

Again we say sorry.

We acknowledge that this removal separated you from your families, from your lands and your languages and cultures that for 50,000 years your ancestors had protected and cared for.

We acknowledge the continuing deep personal pain that affects your lives and those of your families.

This is a period of our history where loss and grief almost consumed a people.

As Prime Minister, I had a window into both this loss and grief, but also the survival and resilience, in a very real way early last year.

In preparing the first Closing the Gap speech that I gave as Prime Minister I wanted to show my respect to the original inhabitants of this land by speaking in language. I wanted to show the richness and diversity of the culture of our First Australians – something of which I believe we should all be proud of.

While working with the Bell family and the Ngunnawal language group here in Canberra, and one of the linguists from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, I was told: “We have lost many words. Only fragments remain, but those are cherished and they’re being recovered, drawn out from all of that loss and built patiently together, rebuilt with research.”

And so for the first time as Prime Minister I was able to speak in the House of Representatives in the language of the original inhabitants of this place.

Yanggu gulanyin ngalawiri, dhunayi, Ngunawal dhawra. Wanggarralijinyin mariny bulan bugarabang.

I realised that not only had Aboriginal people been denied the right to their families, but we had denied them the right to their stories, their songs, their culture, their language.

And all Australians lost from that.

The Ngunnawal language group here in Canberra have recovered enough language to write some children’s and other short books in language.

One of those remnants was a lullaby, an old Aboriginal woman remembered more than a hundred years ago.

And this is some of what the old lady remembered:

Nudula nindi wurula bulu i bulu gun wurula bulu nura dula…nuru wurula guni

I am rocking you slowly skyward…singing.

It is heartbreaking to read those words – to speak them – knowing that a little baby was rocked to sleep by a mother who wanted no more than that her baby should be safe, comforted with a lullaby in her own tongue.

But that little baby was far from safe – nor was her mother, nor was the language in which she sang.

Yes, loss, but this is also a story of survival.

And over the years, many of you here have bravely told your stories, as Mick reminded us, including to the writers of the original report.

You stepped forward to hold a mirror up to our nation, for truth is the first step towards healing.

So I want to acknowledge the hard work, the emotional work, of co-commissioners Mick Dodson and the late Sir Roland Wilson, their staff and so many others.

Thank you to the Healing Foundation’s Stolen Generations Reference Committee for your work on the action plan for healing being presented today, two decades on from the Bringing Them Home report.

In 2008, Prime Minister Rudd delivered the National Apology to the Stolen Generations and their families. Your stories were no longer questioned. Your pain was acknowledged, recognised.

On behalf of the nation we said sorry – you graciously held those long awaited words in your hearts.

But there is much unfinished business. And today’s report will guide us on the progress we are yet to make. As our Stolen Generations members’ age, your needs are changing.

We will carefully consider the recommendations, and I want to thank you, all of you who contributed.

In acknowledging the trauma of the past, we also look to the future with hope and optimism.

We have Indigenous scholars, doctors, pilots, politicians, ministers. People proud of their identity.

Together, we are building a country where our Indigenous children are limited only by their imagination.

Tomorrow we will welcome 50 Young Indigenous Parliamentarians into the building.

We can show Indigenous children from Cape York to Ceduna, from La Perouse to Broome that they can be anything they set their mind to. That the equality denied to you, the Stolen Generation because of your Aboriginal identity, will not be denied to the children of today.

And as Prime Minister, I will continue to acknowledge that being Aboriginal and a Torres Strait Islander Australian means to be successful, to achieve, to have big dreams and high hopes, and to draw strength from your identity as an Indigenous person in this great country. 

So thank you for this report, thank you and above all, thank you for the gracious way that you have walked with us to heal these wounds as we build a reconciled nation.

Thank you.

[ENDS]

PRIME MINISTER:

Alan, former Prime Minister John Howard, Janette Howard, Tony Abbott, my many ministerial colleagues and Parliamentary colleagues, dear friends, admirers of Robert Menzies one and all – and above all, Heather. I was reading again, the letter your father wrote to you. His wit and his affection for you and his love for you, the dedication he showed over all those years, inspire us today. So we’re so honoured that you’re here with us tonight.

Menzies gave these radio talks in 1942 and the most famous one, the ‘Forgotten People’ which we shall shortly hear, was given on this day, this evening, 75 years ago.

This was a time that Churchill described as the ‘hinge of fate’, 1942. It was as though one catastrophe was being piled onto another. Pearl Harbour had been bombed, the pride of the American Navy had been sunk or disabled, save its aircraft carriers mercifully. Singapore had fallen. 22,000 Australian soldiers were prisoners of the Japanese. Those that weren’t, were in the most part in the Middle East.

The Japanese seemed as irresistible and just two weeks before Menzies gave this broadcast which we’ll hear tonight, there was the Battle of the Coral Sea. For the first time, the hinge of fate started to turn. Australians and Americans of the United States Navy and the Royal Australian Navy, serving together under a joint command, succeeded in turning back the Japanese.

So on this day 75 years ago, Australians could begin cooly to consider, in the absence of bravado, that the tide had turned. This speech we’re going to hear tonight of Menzies’ is not the first. But more than any other, it summoned up all of his characteristically eloquent and principled vision for Australia beyond the war. 

Liberal democracies in those years seemed caught between the hammer of fascism and the anvil of communism, each offering the vision of the mighty all-knowing State. So as Menzies spoke in the broadcast, and in the other 36 broadcasts he did so with the sound reason of a generous and liberal mind.

He spoke up for the foot soldiers in Edmund Burke’s small platoons, equally forgotten in the boardrooms of the mighty corporations and in the back rooms of the Trades Hall.

With a common sense that resonates right up today, indeed this very night, he dismissed those who try to wage a hate-filled class war and divide Australians and turn them on each other. He steered resolutely to the centre ground and put his faith in the good will, the common sense and the enterprise of his fellow Australians.

Menzies believed, as we his successors believe today, that the task of government is not as Labor would say, to tell Australians what is best but rather to enable them to do their best.

To increase their opportunities. Expand their horizons. So that they can pursue their dreams for themselves and for their children – like the Scottish ploughman and the Scottish farmer of whom we will hear in just a moment.

Menzies had not long lost the Prime Ministership. Politically this was his wilderness period, but there is no rancour or bitterness in his broadcasts. He is as calm as he is considered, as elegant as he is erudite.

His humour shines through. In one broadcast, asked whether so much war and destruction showed Christianity has failed, he suggests we should try practising it first.

He resisted populism when state premiers were condemned for challenging in the courts the federal takeover of income tax, he defended their constitutional right to do so and spoke up for the rule of law.

Security under the law, in Erskine’s phrase he said: “is not something precariously dependent upon the whim of a mob. It is that security to which a man may confidently and calmly appeal, even though every other’s hand may be against him. The law’s greatest benefits are for the minority man; the individual”.

And when he introduced as Prime Minister in the previous year, the national security bill that gave sweeping powers to the Government to control the economy, he did so with this sober warning;

“The greatest tragedy that could overcome a country, would be for it to fight a successful war in defence of liberty and lose its own liberty in the process.”

In April 1942 – before the Battle of the Coral Sea – Menzies in another broadcast spoke about hatred. He decried a government campaign that he felt was designed to encourage Australians to hate the Japanese. This is what he said;

“It is an offence to an honest citizen to imagine that the cold, evil and repulsive spirit of racial hatred must be substituted for honest and brave indignation, if his greatest effort is to be obtained.”

“Peace may be all sorts of things – a real end of war, a mere exhaustion, an armed interlude before the next struggle. But it will only be by a profound stirring in the hearts of men that we shall reach goodwill.”

“In short, when this war is over, we all hope to live in a better world in which both Germans and Japanese – violently purged of their lust for material power – will be able to live and move in amity with ourselves.”

What does it say about the character of a man that could write such generous words in such hard days? 

And as John Howard has described as one of his greatest achievement in government, the 1957 Commerce Treaty with Japan. An extraordinary act of reconciliation.

In another broadcast he talked reassuringly about our new American ally, a complement to our unbreakable bond with Britain, not a threat.

“Now, I am like you,” said Menzies, “dyed-in-the-wool British, and have a firm belief that the courage, humour, tenacity and resourcefulness of our own race never shone more brightly than now.”

“But it is a great thing for us to have such allies as these Americans.”

“We are together now for the urgent saving of the safety of the world.”

“When that task is over, I hope we shall remain together for the keeping of that safety for ever and ever.”

In anticipation, perhaps of what was to become the ANZUS Treaty and the bedrock of our security ever since.

The last of his broadcasts was in November 1942 and it was on the importance of good humour which he analysed as between the Irish, Scots, English and French. He also noted that the Germans lacked humour entirely, but his conclusion on the importance of humour generally and in politics, was entirely consistent with his liberal values of individualism.

“The real explanation,” Menzies said, “of the sovereign importance of humour is that it is an individual thing.”

“No Government department regulates or distributes it.”

“It is neither rationalised nor nationalised, nor socialised, nor organised, nor finalised.”

“No politics based upon gloomy fanaticism can succeed with us, for to our eternal salvation, we shall always laugh at the wrong time – which will probably turn out to be the right time.”

Thank you very much.

[ENDS]

PRIME MINISTER:

Andrew, Nicola and Grace Forrest – we are here on an extraordinary moment of love, of generosity and leadership. Your love, your generosity, your leadership.

We are here assembled, the leaders of your nation – Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, so many of my parliamentary colleagues – here to thank you for this extraordinary act.

Now, in this building, we dispense with billions of dollars. We spend, we raise it in taxes, by compulsion, it is not an optional matter and then we spend it on good causes, on health, on education, on national security, on social welfare.

And every dollar we spend, the government spends, will buy as much as a dollar that a philanthropist like Nicola and Andrew give – it buys the same amount. But what you give and what other philanthropists give and what other people whom you will inspire give, comes with their love.

This is not extracted from you by force of law, this is a matter of conviction, of your love and your commitment. Your recognition that, yes, you have achieved extraordinary things, to build your iron ore industry, your Fortescue Metals, to build that in such a short time, to be one of the greatest exporters in Australia, to do all of that is extraordinary enough. And it has created thousands of jobs for Australians and billions of dollars in exports.

But then to recognise that despite so much of your achievement having been the result of your hard work and your determination and thus your just reward for your efforts, you have nonetheless recognised that all good fortune comes with an element of fortune. And that all of us, no matter how successful, know that if life’s wheel had turned somewhat differently we could be much less well off, much less well situated.

All of us who have done well have been blessed by good fortune.

So the generous person, the loving person gives back.

We thank you for the leadership you have shown and the scale on which you have shown it.

But as Grace was saying earlier, obviously, those to who much is given are able to give more. But, all of us should seek to do as much as we can with what we have.

So, this is real leadership. This is leading by example.

Now, Andrew and Nicola Forrest are making a donation today of $400 million.

This is the biggest single philanthropic gift in our history and the largest donation by living Australians.

It is a game-changer in the Australian philanthropic community. And it will change the lives of thousands of people here in Australia and around the world.

The funds will be dispersed as follows; $75 million for coordinating world cancer institutes to make lethal cancer history for the coming generation, $50 million towards building stronger communities, $75 million for higher education and breakthrough research, $75 million towards giving every child their best chance, $50 million towards creating equality of opportunity amongst all Australians – and $75 million towards removing, once and for all, modern slavery from human history.

Now, your passion and commitment goes beyond this extraordinary generosity. You have not only been generous, you have been committed and you’ve shown your conviction in advocacy around the world.

It is one thing to have the moral fibre to speak out against slavery, but Andrew and Nicola don’t do things by halves. They’ve stood up to the people smuggling business models whose structures make modern slavery possible.

Your work has enabled more people to walk free. You have brought the abhorrent business practice of modern slavery out of the dark and into the light of board rooms across the word.

Your work through GenerationOne has enabled individuals and communities to try for employment, but more importantly, you have challenged the racism of low expectations that not only holds back Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, but which holds us back as a nation.

As Prime Minister, I have seen the depth of talent, the innovation, the resilience of our First Australians. There is not a single Indigenous experience in Australia and you’ve challenged businesses and governments to commit to practical ways to give our First Australians dignity through employment.

And you have led by example and you have inspired and we have adopted your vocational training and employment centre model.

Your support for Thrive to Five is changing the way we value parents as first teachers and the early childhood education and care sector, so that all children get the start in life they deserve.

All of this and so much more Andrew and Nicola seek to achieve with this $400 million gift to society.

Thank you Andrew, thank you Nicola, thank you Grace, thank you to your family.

And I want to thank Nicola as well for her work on my Community Business Partnership, as you encourage those who can give to give more and to give more strategically.

The power of philanthropy to change lives, to change society is perhaps even greater than that of government, because it comes with the love of the philanthropist, a love of mankind.

That is what the Greek means, the word philanthropy.

This is an act of love. It is an act of generosity and above all, it is an act of leadership that will inspire other Australians, now and in the years to come, to show their love by helping those who we can support and we can advance through that commitment of love for mankind.

Thank you, Andrew, Nicola and Grace and your family for this extraordinary act of generosity. Thank you.

[ENDS]

PRIME MINISTER:

I am delighted to be here with Tim Nicholls, the next premier of Queensland and his shadow cabinet, and also with the Mayor. I have a very keen appreciation, your worship, of the importance of local government. You’re on the front line, to all the mayors, I’m delighted to be here with you. My only achievement in local government I have to say, was to be the first man to be the lady mayoress of Sydney. I’ve learned from Lucy how important it is. You are the front line, that’s why we’re always ready to work with you and support you as the national government.

I’ll just say a little bit about the budget and I look forward to having a discussion with you all.

As you know, we have a determined commitment to regional Australia. We know that Australia does not end at the outskirts of the capital cities, just like Queensland doesn’t end at the outskirts of the south-east corner. This is a big state and a big nation and every part of Australia needs to succeed.

My commitment as your Prime Minister is to ensure that the great opportunities that we are securing for all Australians, particularly young ones like this, our children and grandchildren, will be available right across Australia.

That’s why we’re doing everything we can to invest in the infrastructure of the 21st century – whether it is road, rail, water, energy – setting it up for you young ones to achieve even greater things than your parents and grandparents could do.

Ken talked about the exports from this region. Can I say to you that we are determined to continue to open up export opportunities for our miners, for our farmers, for our professional services people, for all of the creativity and productivity of Australia. We want to open more doors into bigger markets around the world.

We’ve done that during our time in government. We’ve opened up big new trade deals, as you know, with Korea, with Japan, with China – the biggest of them all, and of course with Singapore, expanded that. We will continue to work on new opportunities because we have the best produce in the world. Australians can do anything and everything. We want to have the biggest, broadest field for our great products, our great people, our great ideas to run onto because that is the lifeblood of our economy – more opportunities and that is what we’re securing.

Now, in the budget, we have to do a lot of things in a budget. The first thing we have got to do is live within our means and balance the books. We don’t want you young people to be burdened with a mountain of debt, because your parents and grandparents couldn’t live within their means. So we are bringing the budget back into balance and in a few years’ time by 2020/21 we will have a $7.4 billion surplus.

Now we are having to raise some additional revenue to do that, because we couldn’t get the Senate to agree to all of savings we wanted. But in the end, we have to live with the Senate the people elected, we have to live with the Parliament that the people elected.

So while our senators – Matt Canavan, Senator, who is based in Rockhampton, as you know, and is Minister for Northern Australia and Resources – while Matt and our senate team have done an outstanding job in negotiating a lot through the senate, much more than anyone expected, we haven’t been able to achieve all of the savings.

That’s why we are imposing the levy on the major banks, and that’s why we’re asking Australians to contribute an extra 0.5 per cent on the Medicare levy to fully fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

And that’s the other big part of the budget, is security. National security, of course, is our primary duty and no government has put more resources into national security – whether it is the capabilities of the Australian Defence Force or whether it is national security in terms of counter-terrorism, in terms of intelligence, in terms of keeping us safe at home and abroad – no-one has put more money into that and more resources into that in peace-time than my government.

But we also need to secure for Australians those essential services. So we’ve guaranteed Medicare. We are guaranteeing Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme with the Medicare Guarantee Fund. We’re unfreezing progressively the indexation freeze that the Labor Party first imposed – so we are securing that, those vital health services, now and into the future.

And we’re reforming the way school education is funded. We are putting more resources into school education. So all the schools in this electorate, in this State, in this part of the state and indeed all but one school in all of Queensland will be receiving substantially more money over the next decade, but the funding is going to be needs-based, transparent, consistent, just as David Gonski recommended.

Of course, it’s not enough just to put more money in – while, it is a lot of money, $18 billion over the next decade – but we are also going to ensure that we get the right educational outcomes. And so we are doing a Gonski 2.0 review to ensure that we get support for the best teachers, great teachers. All of us have had great teachers, many of us have had our lives transformed by great teachers. Lucy and are parents of a great teacher. We have got a great commitment to teaching and to school education, so we are going to ensure that we do the best, the right thing by our kids and we look forward to working with Tim’s government after the next election here in Queensland to make it so.

I mentioned the National Disability Insurance Scheme – again, vital priority – that must be fully funded and we are going to do that.

But then, when we look at business and this is Small Business Week in Queensland, we are backing business and enterprise right up to the hilt.

We were just talking today with Jess and Rebecca from the Central Queensland News and we were talking about what we are doing for small business here, right here.

So we have brought down company tax on businesses with turnovers up to $50 million a year.

Again, people said we would never get that through the Senate – we have.

We want those small and medium businesses to be competitive, and to do that we’ve got to give them a competitive tax rate. When they have more left after tax, they have got more to invest, they’ll invest more, employ more, greater opportunities.

And also, of course, small business, when they are investing, buy new plant, we want to be able to give them that incentive to do so, and so we have the instant asset write-off – $20,000 – we are extending for another year. And I think, Ken, this electorate has had one of the highest take-ups of that instant asset write-off. That shows it is a very enterprising community, a lot of small businesses that are investing to get ahead.

So right across the board – whether it’s in the infrastructure, the $75 billion program of infrastructure across the decade, whether it is in business incentives, whether it is securing those vital services – we are ensuring and delivering a budget that is fair, that delivers opportunity and security, and above all, every element of it is focused on the futures of these young men and women sitting here in front of us here today. Because our duty is to ensure that you can realise your dreams and that you have even greater opportunities and greater chances to do what you want to do and realise the better days ahead for you and your ambitions than your parents and grandparents had.

So that’s what we’re doing – working hard to set the stage for you to do great things.

It is wonderful to be here in Emerald. Thank you very much and I look forward to having a chat to as many people as we can today.

Thank you all very much.

[ENDS]

BANKSY:

Malcolm Turnbull, our Prime Minister is in the area at the moment and is also I believe, on the phone. Good morning Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

PINKY:

You’ll just have to pop him through.

PRIME MINISTER:

Good to be with you.

PINKY:

Hello!

BANKSY:

Good to be with you indeed. Now we’ve got several questions here that we want to pose to you, see if you can shed some light on things. But It hasn’t just come from us, we’ve got it from our listeners as well.

PINKY:

Yeah, first things first Malcolm, how do we know you’re not Laurence Moonie, pretending to be Malcolm Turnbull.

PRIME MINISTER:

Well I’ll just have to be convincing.

BANKSY:

I’m still not sure, listening to that voice.

PINKY:

We’re really pleased you’ve joined us this morning. Of course, you’re on the front page of our paper, The Bulletin saying you want to give CQ region a fair go.

BANKSY:

What do you mean by a fair go Prime Minister, in what way?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well what we’re talking about is the City Deals, the greater collaborations between the Federal Government, state Government and local government. One of the big changes I made as Prime Minister was to say that we should work as partners rather than the Federal Government just being an ATM. So you’ve seen, we’ve done this in Townsville, we have a City Deal there, and we’re working closely with the State Government and Local Government. Ewan Jones of course was a big driver, the former Federal Member. We have, we’re supporting the stadium there, the Townsville Eastern Access Rail Corridor, taking the train line out of the center of the city. Really, promoting the development of that city.

But it’s a different quality of engagement you know. As I said, the states and the local governments to some extend have essentially treated Canberra as an ATM. We’ve got to be better than that, we’ve got to be smarter, we’ve got to be more involved.

BANKSY:

So what you’re saying is you’re trying to put more money into this area so that we get a fair go with tall the money that we seem to give to the Government 24/7?

PRIME MINISTER:

But to be real partners. Of course you need partnership. One of the challenges that we have here in Rockhampton in particular, Michelle Landry and I were talking about this last night with people in the Hedrick’s Lane pub, we had a very good ‘politics in the pub’ evening –

PINKY:

Cool.

PRIME MINISTER:

Which was very –

BANKSY:

Mid strength?

PRIME MINISTER:

(Laughter)

Mid strength yeah, plenty of talking from my part, not a lot of drinking but yeah. Plenty of listening.

BANKSY:

Good.

PRIME MINISTER:

A lot of enthusiasm for that Rookwood Weir, and as I was saying to the Premier yesterday, we really urge the Queensland Government to get behind that. We have $130 million dollars on the table. The business case is being completed, it will stack up very well, we’ve no doubt about that. We should get on with it, because for a big water storage enhancement, it is a relatively low environmental impact, because it’s not like building a dam and flooding a whole valley, it’s backing the river up

BANKSY:

Yeah.

PRIME MINISTER:

I think it’s really worth supporting. That will provide, you know, water is water –

BANKSY:

Is life.

PRIME MINISTER:

Its good soil, it’s life and also money and jobs.

BANKSY:

Well look speaking of money and jobs and environmental impact, can I ask you about Adani?

PRIME MINISTER:

Yes.

BANKSY:

We’ve had a question come through from one of our listeners.

PINKY:

Yeah, a groundsman, he wants to know why we need Adani in Rockhampton.

BANKSY:

Are we looking at an economic boost here, or protection of the environmental impact? What’s a bigger priority for you Malcolm Turnbull?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well you’ve got to do both and I think the environmental argument – there are a number of environmental arguments put against Adani. All of the environmental tests and criteria have been approved now. So the project should be able to go ahead, subject to Mr Adani and his company satisfying –

BANKSY:

Without environmental impact?

PRIME MINISTER:

Yes, but can I just make this point to you? A lot of the protesters about Adani seem to either want Indians to go without electricity, or Queenslanders to go without jobs. We’ve got to be very clear about this. India is a poor country, it is growing rapidly, they need to quadruple their electricity production between now and 2033. Yes, they are doing a lot on renewables. They’re building a lot of solar. Adani has got the biggest solar plant in India. They’re building windmills, windfarms, and hydro. They’re going to need to import a lot more coal in absolute terms for many years. Coal will be, in 20-30 years time in India, coal will be a smaller percentage of their electricity mix than it is today, but they’ll still be importing more of it in absolute terms. Now if they don’t buy it from Queensland, they’ll buy if form somewhere else. It won’t be as clean coal, as it is from Queensland, it will be lower quality coal but the relevant thing is they’ll still be burning coal.

BANKSY:

So they’re gonna get it from somewhere, you would prefer them get it from us to increase our economic fortune?

PRIME MINISTER:

Sure. Well why would we want – I mean again, the protestors have got to ask themselves these two questions – are they saying Indians should go without electricity? Because I’ve been there with the Prime Minister and the Energy Minister. They want to reduce their emissions, their greenhouse gas emissions –

BANKSY:

Look I can assume, sorry Prime Minister –

PRIME MINISTER:

But they feel they have to burn more coal.

BANKSY:

I can only assume that the protestors are saying: ‘We don’t want them to go without, we don’t want our economic situation to fail – we just don’t want it to impact the environment in a way that is going to not benefit generations to come.’

PRIME MINISTER:

Well there are two questions there – there is the global environment and the local environment. In terms of the global environment I think I’ve addressed that – that’s the question of greenhouse gas emissions, India will progress to lower emissions but they’ve got to give people access to electricity rapidly and they feel, their considered judgement is they’re going to need to import more coal for some time yet so we may as well export it to them.

As far as the local environment is concerned, the impact on water and the Reef and all of those factors – that’s all been taken into account very carefully by the federal and state government environmental approvals.

BANKSY:

Right. Look, I just want to shift gears for a moment. We’ve had some more questions come through from our listeners. Parents returning to work – there is a big push by the government at the moment to get parents back into the workplace. What we want to know is why aren’t we supporting parents staying at home to be parents? Why are we pushing them back into the workplace?

PRIME MINISTER:

I wouldn’t say they’re being pushed into the workplace.

BANKSY:

You want more parents to return to the workforce though.

PRIME MINISTER:

What we want is – you’re talking about the ParentsNext announcement that we made here in Rockhampton with Michelle Landry yesterday.

BANKSY:

Yes, that’s the one.

PRIME MINISTER:

That is really about parents, typically young parents, typically single mums with small children who have often not completed school or have been disconnected with the work force, have lost their confidence – there is a risk that unless they get the support and the training and the encouragement they need, they could end up being on welfare for the rest of their lives. Now the best form of welfare is a job and it is important for those young parents, and I say they’re mostly mums, to be getting young mums to be getting that support. I met with some of them with Michelle yesterday here in Rockhampton and some great stories.

BANKSY:

And they want to get back into the work place?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well, yes, they want to be in a position to either get back into the workplace or finish school, get the skills, the training they need so that when the kids are older they can get back into-

BANKSY:

They have the skills.

PRIME MINISTER:

Their goal is to be either employed or employable.

PINKY:

Yes.

BANKSY:

Okay.

PRIME MINISTER:

And I think both of those are important objectives.

PINKY:

Well, it’s breaking a cycle there too so yeah it’s not all about pushing people away from being parents. Being a parent is not easy!

Hey Malcolm, I was wondering – look, I think you’re in great nick – I want to know how you keep fit? Having the most demanding job that you do – I’d like to know your tips? You’re clearly fitting it all in.

BANKSY:

This comes from the fittest member of the show this morning.

(Laughter)

PRIME MINISTER:

You’re very kind. Well, look, I exercise for at least, I would say, at least half an hour and probably on average three quarters of an hour, or an hour most days.

PINKY:

Wow, and what do you do?

PRIME MINISTER:

It depends where I am. I’ll either walk, I’ll use a rowing machine. If I’m with Lucy, if I’m in Sydney or if Lucy is down in Canberra we’ll often go for a long walk. I swim in the summer.

PINKY:

Oh yep.

PRIME MINISTER:

I paddle a kayak. Ride a bike occasionally. So, you know, I do a variety of things – you’ve gotta mix it up but the important thing is to keep moving. Exercise every day and get your sleep. That’s two good tips to be prime minister.

PINKY:

Yeah, I agree. And have you tried CrossFit yet?

(Laughter)

PRIME MINISTER:

CrossFit? No, I’m not sure-

PINKY:

Put that in your diary.

BANKSY:

What is this cross fit you speak of? (Laughter)

PINKY:

You might like, Malcolm, just to mix things up!

PRIME MINISTER:

Is this like a ‘Netflix and chill’ thing? (Laughter)

PINKY:

No it’s not that. (Laughter)

That’s another thing if you haven’t tried out – you should! No CrossFit is weight bearing so lots of weight lifting activities. It’s really cool.

PRIME MINISTER:

Oh yeah, okay.

BANKSY:

He’s got the weight of the nation on him right now Pinky! (Laughter)

PRIME MINISTER:

You know actually that’s a good reminder because I think I probably don’t do enough weights.

PINKY:

Yeah weights!

PRIME MINISTER:

I do some Pilates occasionally. Lucy is very keen on Pilates.

PINKY:

Oh yeah.

BANKSY:

There you go!

PRIME MINISTER:

I do some of that with her.

PINKY:

Keep your core strength strong.

BANKSY:

And all these things are better than eating a raw onion for health purposes I’ve got to say. (Laughter)

PINKY:

Of course.

BANKSY:

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, we thank you for your time this morning. We know you’re very busy and heading around the regions and spreading the message of getting a fair go.

PRIME MINISTER:

Heading to Emerald yep. Okay, terrific, great to be with you.

BANKSY:

And we’d love to have a fair go here in Central Queensland as well. We appreciate your time, enjoy your visit.

PRIME MINISTER:

I will, thanks a lot.

[ENDS]