Distinguished businesswomen and psychologist Lucy Brogden will be the next Chair of the Australian Government’s National Mental Health Commission.

Mrs Brogden has been a highly-skilled Commissioner for the Government’s peak mental health body for three years and her energy, passion and contribution to the mental health sector has been immense.

We look forward to Mrs Brogden continuing this leadership in her new role and advising the Government on tangible ways to improve the lives of people living with mental health issues.

To ensure strengthened accountability the Commission will now report directly to the Health Minister and will provide six-monthly updates to the Prime Minister on the Government’s mental health reform agenda. The Commission will also include additional members on the new board to provide broad expertise and experience from across our health system.

The commissioners will oversee the Government’s mental health reforms and the implementation of the Fifth National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan following final agreement by the Council of Australian Governments Health Council on Friday. 

We look forward to working with the new Commissioners to deliver better support and care to those facing the challenge of a mental health disorder. 

Dr Peggy Brown, the Commission’s CEO, has been appointed a Commissioner, along with the following new appointees:

• Professor Harvey Whiteford
• Professor Ngiare Brown
• Professor Wendy Cross
• Professor Helen Milroy
• Mr Samuel Hockey.

Current members Professor Allan Fels AO, Professor Ian Hickie AM and Ms Jackie Crowe have been reappointed.

Mrs Brogden will work as Co-Chair of the advisory board alongside current Chair, Professor Allan Fels AO, for six months until he steps down from the role. Mrs Brodgen will then continue as sole Chair.

These new and returning members bring their diverse expertise and stakeholder perspectives that will help the Commission further advance mental health policy and practice.

An additional $2 million in funding has been allocated to the Commission for this financial year to ensure it has the staffing and skills needed to support a stronger mental health sector. The first task of the new Commission will be to develop a revised work plan that encapsulates the strengthened and clarified role of the agency.

We extend our thanks to the outgoing board members – the Hon Rob Knowles AO, Professor Pat Dudgeon and Ms Nicole Gibson – for their insights, passion and hard work. Their work advising Government has helped to elevate the importance of mental health and suicide prevention.

We want to especially thank Professor Allan Fels for his unwavering commitment to this vitally important issue.

The Turnbull Government is committed to delivering important mental health reforms that provide better support to those living with a mental illness, and has backed this commitment by investing an additional $365 million for mental health support, treatment and research in the past 12 months.

STEVE IRONS MP – MEMBER FOR SWAN:

Good morning everyone. It is great to have the Prime Minister of Australia back in Swan again and also with my good friend Minister for Employment Michaelia Cash. And also Bradley Woods from AHA and Stephen Morahan and the team here from the Aloft Hotel. It is great to be at the Aloft Hotel. It has been open two months and it is hitting its straps and I hear it is going very well.

So, welcome all along today and to you Prime Minister, back in Swan again, and it is great to see this view of the city and the river which my electorate is named after but please feel free to say a few words.

PRIME MINISTER:

Thank you Steve, thank you and it is great to be hear with you and Cheryle, and again Bradley Woods from the AHA, thank you for your initiative which we’re going to describe in a moment. And Steve Morahan and all of the team here at the Aloft Hotel – thank you for welcoming us.

Our commitment is to drive economic growth.

We know that what Australians need is to be assured that their government is focusing on the issues that matter most to them and above all, that is ensuring that they have a good job, can get a job, their kids can get jobs, they can get better jobs, their businesses will thrive.

So everything we are doing is encouraging investment and employment. We are backing small business with tax cuts. We are backing small business and medium-sized businesses with tax cuts and infrastructure. Everything we are doing is backing employment and investment.

The PaTH program that Michaelia Cash has pioneered here and is delivering is one that is bringing young people who are on welfare into employment. It gets them an internship and then they get used to being at work, they get into the habit of work, they get to understand what the workplace is about and that enables them to transition on to full-time employment. It is a critically important initiative. And what it is doing, it is innovative, but what it does is it breaks that welfare cycle and we have already seen real success.

The AHA has made a commitment to take on an additional 10,000 entrants, interns, from the PaTH program over the next four years.

We have got funding for up to 120,000. We have seen real support. You would have seen just a little while ago from the retail traders have made a similar commitment. This is a great initiative.

Bradley, I want to thank you and all your members for the support that you are showing.

This is going to change lives.

Steve Morahan there, the chief executive was talking about how he got started in the hospitality industry and you were saying, Steve, that you started off as a young trainee and here you are now running a big magnificent new hotel. That shows the great opportunities that are available in this industry.

This is a great initiative and it is all part of a set of policies that are focused on investment and employment.

Now, on the other side of the Parliament, you have the Labor Party and Bill Shorten’s war on jobs, war on investment, war on small business.

Everything he is standing for is designed to crush business, discourage investment, discourage employment.

He does not have one policy which would encourage a business to invest or to employ.

And when he was pressed on this the other day on the radio, he thought for a minute and he said: ‘We’re in favour of public transport’.

Well, we are all in favour of investing in public transport – that’s terrific – but you have to do a lot more than that to create jobs, to create investment.

We have seen strong growth in jobs. It is vitally important, particularly here in Western Australia as it transitions from the decline in the mining and investment boom – mining and resources are stronger than ever but, of course, the construction phase was always going to come to an end – so getting new investment, new projects like this, new investment, new jobs, are vitally important in this state and, of course, right around Australia.

Michaela, congratulations on this great initiative which you’re going to describe to us in more detail.

Bradley, thank you so much for the leadership of the AHA.

And Steve, again, thank you for welcoming us to your brand new hotel and your very enthusiastic young team that you are leading.

SENATOR THE HON. MICHAELIA CASH – MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT:

Thank you Prime Minister.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is always fantastic to be in the electorate of Swan with my very good friend Steve Irons, of course, with the Prime Minister and a big thank you to Bradley Woods of the Australian Hotels Association and obviously to the fantastic Aloft Hotel for hosting us here today.

I am delighted to confirm the announcement by the Prime Minister that the Australian Hotels Association over the next four years have committed to increasing their commitment to the PaTH internship program to delivering 10,000 internships.

That is just absolutely sensational news and certainly builds on the work that the PaTH program is already doing.

You will be aware that this government fundamentally believes that the best form of welfare is a job. But we don’t just say that. What we do is put in place practical policies to ensure that, in particular, our youth who are on welfare have that opportunity to undertake an internship and translate that into a job.

Over the next three years, the hospitality industry is expected to grow by at least 100,000 positions. That’s good news for all Australians but, in particular, for the 10,000 young people who will get an opportunity to showcase their skills and then translate that to work in this area.

As you know, this is a significant investment by the Turnbull Government. It was announced at last year’s budget. A total package of $850 million over four years.

The signature part of that package is our youth PaTH program. A three-step program and it’s all about getting our youth ready, giving them a go and getting them a job.

I’m delighted to say that, in the short time that the program has been running – it commenced on the 1st of April – we have now had approximately 6,500 of our young people who are on welfare, they are in the middle of their employability skills training. We have had over 1,500 commence internships and again, in the short time that the program has been under way, we have now seen 200 young people get off welfare and into a job.

We certainly look forward to seeing the numbers grow from here.

Again, fantastic to be with you, Prime Minister, and Steve but, in particular, to Bradley Woods and the Australian Hotels Association, it is fantastic to work with you to commit to up to 10,000 internships for our young people and jobs for them.

BRADLEY WOODS – CEO, AUSTRALIAN HOTELS ASSOCIATION WA:

Thank you very much Prime Minister and Minister Cash and Steve Irons.

The AHA nationally is committed to the PaTH program.

Last year we announced around 5,000 positions that we would aim for and that was our target. Within the short time the program has been operating, we have already identified that there is a huge amount of interest – the uptake in the employability skills training, the internships – and we have been able to revise our figures at a national level to commit to the target of 10,000 internships and positions through the PaTH program.

This means people taking up opportunities in hotels, in pubs, in restaurants, bars, all types of hospitality businesses across the country. And they are real jobs.

The nature of our industry is service. The more people that we can employ, the better the service.

The fact that this program provides at the third part of the program the subsidy for us to engage more staff means better service and it means better delivery of service to consumers and to the customers but also more jobs for young people coming off unemployment benefits and coming off welfare.

We see this as a true initiative to convert people’s hopes and aspirations into real jobs and careers in hospitality, hotels and tourism.

As the Prime Minister mentioned, the general manager here at the Aloft started out as an intern in his original traineeship, moved through the years and there is many examples of people in our industry who have come through in very basic positions and have moved through to senior management positions and sometimes international careers because of the opportunities that were first established.

The AHA is very pleased to support this program. We are doing it a number of ways by encouraging our members and other businesses in the hospitality sector to support the PaTH program, establishing the links between the employability skills trainees, the job network and everyone else involved in the program to create those links so that there is opportunities here. But more importantly, educating and working with employers about how they can access the support, access the funding support, to create those new jobs for these young people.

And certainly over the next four years, we are looking forward to seeing many, many thousands of young people in new jobs that have been created as a result of the Turnbull Government initiative.

Thank you.

SENATOR THE HON. MICHAELIA CASH – MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT:

Thanks, Bradley.

PRIME MINISTER:

Do we some questions on the PaTH program and employment issues?

JOURNALIST:

Prime Minister, your MPs are basically at war over the issue of same-sex marriage. Do you accept that this is being seen as a test of your authority over the party room and what do you intend to do about it?

PRIME MINISTER:

Thank you for your question.

Our government’s policy position on this issue is very, very clear and it has not changed.

We went to the last election promising that the Australian people would have their direct say on this issue.

The only reason that plebiscite or vote has not been held, the only reason every Australian has not been given the opportunity to vote on this is because of Bill Shorten’s opposition.

The plebiscite would have been held long ago by now had it not been for Labor’s totally political opposition.

They have no interest in marriage equality or same-sex marriage at all. Their only interest is in the politics.

We made a commitment to give every Australian a say on this issue and that is our policy. It has not changed.

JOURNALIST:

There are reports that your leadership could be terminal and the right faction is lining up a ticket with Peter Dutton and Greg Hunt – will there be a spill?

PRIME MINISTER:

I know you are interested in this. Can I tell you – I’ve been in WA now for a couple of days, I have met with hundreds of people from the Mindarie pub to community meetings to schools to the train down to Mandurah – only one person has raised this issue with me.

So this is an issue of enormous interest to journalists.

I think Western Australians and Australians generally are focused on jobs, on employment, on economic growth and investment. They are focused on the issues my government is focused on, which is ensuring that we deliver the strong economic growth and the opportunities for young people to get ahead and get a job and, for example, with this PaTH program.

I think there are a lot of parents watching us today who will be really wondering why it is that not one of the journalists here has got any interest in a program that is going to give up to 120,000 young people on welfare an internship and a job. They’ll be really wondering, really wondering what the priorities are of our friends in the media here versus the government.

We are focused on delivering economic growth and jobs.

JOURNALIST:

Liberal MPs braced for preselection if they cross the floor to allow a free vote on same-sex marriage. Would you like to endorse them?

PRIME MINISTER:

I have dealt with this issue. Our policy is very clear. The traditions of the Liberal Party are very well understood.

I’ve got nothing to add on either of those points.

JOURNALIST:

If there is a debate on changing your party’s position on same-sex marriage, would you follow Tony Abbott’s lead in letting the National’s in on the debate?

PRIME MINISTER:

Again, again, your interest in this matter, I understand it but it is not our priority to be focused on and to be discussing internal Liberal Party or Coalition matters here.

Our policy is very, very clear. We have established processes through our party room which everyone is very familiar with. Our policy is very clear.

We have committed that every Australian will have a vote and the question you should be asking, if you care to take the time, is of Bill Shorten and say to him why has he gone back on his commitment that every Australian should have a vote?

He gave a commitment to the Australian Christian Lobby only a few years ago, 2013 as I recall, in which he said he favoured every Australian having a say on this issue.

Well, we took that position to the election, we gave that commitment and that remains our policy.

Now, if there are no other questions on any other issues?

JOURNALIST:

Prime Minister – can I just ask – have you got across the issue with the population change here in West Australia, the Census figures and do you hear the concerns of the Premier about the $2 billion black hole potentially in the state budget?

PRIME MINISTER:

I’m aware of the issue. I have seen some correspondence. I will be looking forward to discussing it with the Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison later today. We have a Cabinet meeting here in Perth, of course.

I imagine I will be discussing it, I’m sure I will be discussing it with the Premier but we will have more to say about that following that.

JOURNALIST:

Can you let us know when you are meeting with the Premier? His office is still saying there is no meeting scheduled so there seems to be confusion.

PRIME MINISTER:

I understand a meeting has been scheduled, but look, can I say to you I have a perfectly good, cordial relationship with Mark McGowan. We talk on the telephone – quite contemporary means of communication are employed – and look forward to catching up with him while I’m here.

Obviously, I’ve met him a number of times since he won the election. There are no problems. Always happy to have a chat with him and I look forward, as you know, I look forward to working constructively with him.

I mean, the City Deal that we have offered for Perth, for example, is a good example of the practical, constructive way we want to work with state governments and local governments regardless of their political complexion.

My job as Prime Minister of Australia is to deliver stronger economic growth, more job opportunities, more opportunities for young Australians to realise their dreams and do so in an environment which is secure.

One of the things that we should not forget is that just over the last few days we have seen the disruption of a terrorist plot to bring down an aeroplane. You can imagine the amount of time and attention that I and my ministers have been devoting to that.

So we have very serious issues to attend with.

And as I have been travelling around Western Australia, if I exclude the members of the journalistic community, the issues that people are raising with me are investment, infrastructure, national security, jobs, health, schools funding. All of those issues – that’s what young people, older people, everyone, is raising with me. They are the real issues that Australians are focused on. That is what we are focused on. That’s what my government is leading on – delivering at every level the security, which is the foundation of it all, and then the economic opportunity that enables Australians to get ahead, to realise their dreams, to ensure their kids get a job. Maybe an internship here at this hotel that leads on to great opportunities.

JOURNALIST:

I was just going to ask, how the raising the issue of GST, there has been a lot said.

PRIME MINISTER:

Yes.

JOURNALIST:

So is that being raised with you as you go about in the community?

PRIME MINISTER:

Yes, it has been, it has been – in fact, as I was saying in the Mindarie pub on Sunday night that Western Australia’s very low share, currently running at about 34 per cent of what would be its per capita share of the GST doesn’t pass the pub test and it certainly didn’t pass the pub test in that pub.

Look, we are on the case there. I am the first Prime Minister to recognise there is an unfairness here, first Prime Minister to acknowledge that. First Prime Minister to describe a pathway to dealing with it.

We are working through the discussions at COAG. Obviously, you’ve got to seek to bring the other jurisdictions along, the other states along. And we have got the Productivity Commission analysing the GST allocation formula to ask whether it is any longer fit for purpose.

But, again, I want to make a very important point and it is a point about Premier McGowan and Bill Shorten and the Labor Party – the greatest opponents, the strongest opponents to any change to the GST formula that would result in Western Australia getting a fairer share are in the Labor Party.

It is the Labor states, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, in particular, that have been most vocal about it and, of course, it is the Federal Labor Party led by Bill Shorten.

So what Mr McGowan needs to do – and I’m saying no more, I’m not talking to him through the megaphone media, I have said this to Mark directly – what he needs to do is use his considerable influence in the Labor Party to get support from the other states, from Labor states, to do that.

Clearly, what we need to do is come to a landing where we have a GST allocation formula that is fair and is seen as being fair across the country. In other words, that it passes the pub test not just in Western Australia but in Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales and so forth.

New South Wales, by the way, is supporting a change to the GST formula – that’s led by Liberal Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

On that note, I thank you all very much.

See you soon.

[ENDS]

PRIME MINISTER:

Peter – I’m in great shape and looking forward to getting down to Mandurah and catching up with Andrew Hastie. We’ve got a community meeting, an afternoon tea with principals and students from local schools in the electorate of Canning, so that is going to be a very good opportunity to meet and listen to the young people who we are working so hard to deliver better opportunities for in the future and more security and enabling them to realise their dreams. That is what it is all about.

PETER ROWE:

You visited a Perth School this morning Prime Minister and made a substantial announcement there.

PRIME MINISTER:

That’s right. We were out at Swan View Senior High School with Ken Hasluck, sorry Ken Wyatt, and we were out there and it was a good opportunity for me and Simon Birmingham and Ken to talk about the additional, the really substantial additional funding that Western Australia is going to get from our schools reforms because frankly under the Labor Government Western Australia had gotten a very poor deal. So you’ll see a school like Swan View Senior High would be getting its per student funding from the Federal Government, will be doubling over the next ten years and of course we’ve also noted the substantial increase in additional funding for Indigenous students which there are a number of course at Swan View and you can imagine what a phenomenal role model Ken Wyatt is. He’s the first Aboriginal person to be elected to the House of Representatives. He’s now been joined by Linda Burney, the first Aboriginal woman on the Labor side. Ken is the first Aboriginal Australian to be appointed a Minister in a Federal Government, so he’s a phenomenal role model for the whole community but you can imagine what an inspiration he is to those young Indigenous kids we met today.

PETER ROWE:

Prime Minister I was wondering if Andrew Hastie put you up to catching the train down so you can have a look at where he would like to have a station at Lakelands.

(Laughter)

PRIME MINISTER:

Yes well the train doesn’t go that far yet but I know he is very keen on it. I’m a very enthusiastic catcher of trains. I’ve caught the train down to Mandurah a number of times. It’s a great service I might say. I know he’s keen to go for two more stations, isn’t he, to Lakelands and then onto Byford –  I know he’s been making a strong case for that. You know, there is an opportunity for us to partner with the state government in more rail infrastructure. We’ve got a $10 billion rail fund that we’ve committed to which will be obviously allocated competitively so I’m looking forward to taking Andrew’s great ideas and advocacy and discussing them with Mark McGowan as to how we can work together to do more with rail. We’ve already got about $800 million of federal money going into MetroNet-

PETER ROWE:

Yes

PRIME MINISTER:

Into the existing system at the moment.

PETER ROWE:

Prime Minister no doubt you’ll be chewing the fat with Premier Mark McGowan over the GST and figures today of course on the back of the Census that we did recently suggesting that our population for the future is going to drop off and the possibility of losing another $2 billion in GST.

PRIME MINISTER:

Yeah, look, Peter I saw that report. I haven’t had the opportunity to go through it obviously with the state government let alone with my own Treasurer, Scott Morrison.

So I recognise and I’m frankly the first Prime Minister to publicly acknowledge that Western Australia gets a very raw deal out of the GST. I am setting out to address that. It’s obviously a very challenging political issue because of course other states don’t want to lose any money themselves.

So we’ve got the Productivity Commission working on it, examining the way in which the formula works and I’ve also canvassed the plan I set out, the proposal that when the share of GST for WA readjusts back up to 70 per cent or more which it is forecast to do in 2019, that would be a good opportunity to set a floor because, below which shares would not drop, because at that point nobody would actually lose any money.

But look it is a challenging one and one of the points I’m going to make to Mark again as I’ve made to him before is that he’s got to put, bring some influence to bear on the Labor Party. You know, we’ve had, I’ve had nothing but criticism from the Labor Party when I’ve made the case for Western Australia and Mark really needs to deliver, as the most recent Labor Party success electorally, he’s really got to deliver and some of his support from within his own party because it is a challenge, as you can imagine, it’s a challenging political one dealing with all the different competing interests.

PETER ROWE:

Well certainly from your perspective you’re fully aware as a Prime Minister for the Liberal Government- a Liberal Coalition coming into a government that has had a fairly substantial financial debt and that is the card that he is playing of course, at the moment, is that he has done the same thing. How much credence do you put on that being true?

PRIME MINISTER:

Which being true, Peter?

PETER ROWE:

Well the fact that McGowan is blaming the Barnett Government for being in such debt, and he wasn’t aware of how much debt there was when he took over.

PRIME MINISTER:

Well, look, I don’t know. I haven’t been through the books. I mean every incoming government makes criticisms of that kind. You know Colin Barnett was a great Premier of Western Australia, obviously he was Premier for a long time and you know particularly nowadays after a period it gets harder and harder for governments to get re-elected. But you know Western Australians have every reason to be very proud of the achievements of their state under Colin’s leadership. You know he led the state through some very tough times, and managed both the height of the commodity boom and through the global financial crisis transitioned very well. But you know the election result is what it is, the people are never wrong and I’m now going to work hard with Mark McGowan to ensure that rather than playing a blame game we can cooperate to deliver the best for Western Australians.

PETER ROWE:

A lot of people in the Canning area are concerned of course, about the latest Galaxy poll, and none more than I guess the member for Canning, Andrew Hastie who – look he has done a lot of work down here Prime Minister as you are aware.

PRIME MINISTER:

He is a fantastic local member and a great Australian.

PETER ROWE:

Yeah look we have him on the show regularly and he certainly has implemented a lot of change and been responsible for a lot of other change as well, but he could be sitting on a knife edge according to this latest galaxy poll.

PRIME MINISTER:

Well you know all of us have to remember that we’ve got a three year contract with our electorates and it’s up for renewal and we’ve got to re-win the confidence of our voters and Andrew doesn’t take the support of the people for Canning for granted at all. You know he like me is determined to deliver for the people of his electorate and the people of Australia and Western Australia, so that we can earn their trust once again at the next election which is to be fair about two years away so, you know I’m not saying that people should ignore polls but the next election will be in the middle of 2019.

PETER ROWE:

Just quickly what do you think about the suggestion by Bill Shorten to extend it to a four year period for the government?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well it’s an idea that’s been around for a long time, it has been rejected before – you know that. It is a long way from being a priority. The arguments in favour of it are fairly obvious but also the arguments against. I mean we had a terrible Labor Government in the last term of the Labor Government of New South Wales. I can tell you those four years felt like forty years. So I think in these times it’s obviously a discussion to be had, but I think frankly it’s a distraction from the major issues that we are facing today, particularly here in Western Australia.

Are Western Australians interested in giving politicians another year in parliament or are they more focused on the infrastructure, the investment, the opportunities for employment – the jobs?

You know the real extraordinary thing about Bill Shorten is that he seems to be declaring war on small business. He wants to raise their company tax, he’s now after trusts. He’s got not one policy which would provide any incentive to any business – large or small for that matter – to invest a dollar or employ anybody. Now everything we’re doing, and he criticizes us all the time, the handouts for business, he hates business but where are the jobs going to come from Peter? Who is actually going to provide the opportunities for the young men and women I was seeing today at Swan View and the ones I’ll be meeting with Andrew Hastie, who is going to provide the opportunities for them other than enterprise and businesses? And that’s who we’re supporting. They’re the ones Bill Shorten wants to keep on slugging.

PETER ROWE:

How much of your trip down to Mandurah is about shoring up the liberal voters who have perhaps lost a little faith?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well the visit is all about doing what I do all the time, which is meeting Australians and looking forward to meeting many of Andrew’s constituents. I have had the pleasure of doing that on several occasions in the past, not so long ago I met with health professionals talking about some of the challenges that are being faced there. I mean I am very focused on ensuring that we connect and listen because while politicians talk a lot we learn most from when we listen. I’ve just been having a good chat to people on the train actually,  which has been very interesting too.

PETER ROWE:

Let’s finish up with what is probably – almost done it in reverse order – but we are talking from a local perspective you coming down to Mandurah, it is a big thing from a national perspective. Prime Minister, terrorism continues to be your biggest headache, I can well imagine, what’s the latest intelligence we’ve learnt about the – well that tragedy which had been one of the worst of its kind being foiled involving the bringing down of a domestic flight?

PRIME MINISTER:

Yeah well I can’t add anymore to the operational detail that’s been discussed before. As you can imagine the police are completing their investigation with the view obviously to laying charges. So I can’t provide any more information that we haven’t already. But the fact is as you know, a joint counterterrorism team – ASIO, the Australian Federal Police and in this case New South Wales Police – were successful in disrupting a major terrorist plot to bring down an aeroplane. There are four men that have been arrested and obviously investigations are continuing. But it is a reminder that we can never set and forget, never be complacent, we have to be relentless in ensuring that our fine intelligence and security services are working together, cooperating with agents in other countries as well, and of course with the Australian Defence Force – of which Andrew is such a distinguished member – and it’s one of the reasons I’m establishing a department of Home Affairs so that we will have ASIO, the Australian Federal Police and Border Force all in the one department. Because the one thing Peter that every, that we’re reminded all the time, we’re living in a completely connected world, nowhere is far away from anywhere else. Events are happening rapidly, communications are happening instantly, and so you have to be connected and working together, you can’t afford to have anything fall through the cracks.

Now we’ve got a great intelligence, security, police, defence forces and everyday I am working hard to enable them to do their job even better. So as I say there is no room for set and forget or complacency, so we’ve disrupted 13 terrorist plots since 2014, I want to make sure that we keep doing that.

PETER ROWE:

Yeah we do put a lot of trust and faith in them and they’re a good team of people and doing a wonderful job of making us feel just that little bit safer. And just finishing up with what I’d like to say that this recent foil sounds terrifying Prime Minister, but a lot better than the alternative if it had’ve gone ahead.

PRIME MINISTER:

Well that’s absolutely right, and you know there is no, you’ve got to learn from every incident, from every foiled plot. You’ve got to learn whether it’s here or overseas. Our enemies, the terrorists are very very innovative, they use technology very skillfully, and we have to be as fast and responsive and concerted in response – and we are, we are. But I am determined to make sure everyday that everything I do is keeping Australians safe.

PETER ROWE:

Prime Minister thank you so much for your time this afternoon.

PRIME MINISTER:

Thanks a lot Peter.

PETER ROWE:

You will enjoy your time, I’m sure with the youth leaders, they are quite an amazing bunch of young people down here and they are our leaders of tomorrow – so thank you again and enjoy the rest of your trip.

PRIME MINISTER:

I will indeed, thanks Peter.

[ENDS]

THE HON. KEN WYATT MP – MEMBER FOR HASLUCK:

Can I welcome the Prime Minister to the seat of Hasluck, but in particular to Swan View Senior High School. It is great having my other colleague Simon Birmingham here, the Minister for Education. Spending the time with students this morning has been tremendous and the opportunity for them to hear personally about the life of the Prime Minister and hear from my colleague about issues on leadership.

Welcome Prime Minister and welcome Simon.

PRIME MINISTER:

Thank you Ken and thank you for the leadership you show in the Parliament and here in your local electorate. You can see the enormous esteem in which you’re held by this community and by the students and what a great role model you are in every way of leadership.

It is wonderful to be here at Swan View Senior High School.

The Western Australian schools, and this school in particular, schools like this in particular got a very raw deal out of the 27 inconsistent secret deals that the previous Labor government stitched up on school funding.

As you know, Simon Birmingham, Education Minister has piloted through the Parliament our historic school funding reforms. For the first time in the history of the Commonwealth school funding at the federal level is consistent, transparent, needs-based, national, fair right across the country.

Western Australia had a really unfair deal from the Labor Party on school funding and we’ve addressed that.

Schools like this will see school funding per student double over the next ten years.

But it is great to be here and see above all the enthusiasm of the students – their optimism, their energy, the great work the teachers are doing, supported by families and a community which Ken is such a great leader, that is getting behind these kids and ensuring that they can realise their dreams. They are going to follow and they are going to excel their dreams because of the great foundations they have here at Swan View Senior High and I am proud to be leading a government that for the first time is ensuring that all students in Western Australia get fair, consistent, needs-based funding on the same basis as students everywhere else in Australia. It is a first. Fairness for WA has been one of the outcomes of these very big school funding reforms that Simon is going to say a bit more about now.

Birmo – over to you.

SENATOR THE HON. SIMON BIRMINGHAM – MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING:

Well thanks PM, thanks Ken.

I am thrilled to be back in the West for the second time in two months visiting again a range of exemplary schools doing incredible things.

And members of the media, while it’s great to have you all here, it is particularly good to have the media team from the Swan View Senior High School here as well participating in this, highlighting the range of different educational skills, opportunities and abilities that schools like this are equipping young Australians with.

Our school funding reforms are about ensuring fairness – fairness for all states, all school systems. And as the PM said for the first time ever giving the West a fair deal where federal school funding dollars could flow into WA on the same terms as the rest of Australia. Surely that’s only fair. And of course we’re thrilled to be delivering it as a government but also ensuring they’re targeted to need.

As a result of it being needs-based funding, we’ll see an extra $47 million flow particularly into support Indigenous student loadings here in WA schools over the next decade. That’s extra support to help students who often start with many challenges and educational disadvantages and to help bring them up to scale because what’s most important is not the amount of money that a school gets but how it’s used. Ensuring that the record investment we are making is invested in early interventions, in speech pathology, in one-on-one teacher time, in fantastic programs the likes of which we heard about at this school today. Investing in helping students to follow their dreams, to build their dreams, to acquire the skills, the confidence that is necessary to be able to succeed and that’s precisely what our reforms will help people do in future. 

JOURNALIST:

Prime Minister, there are reports today that WA will be $2 billion worse off as a result of the ABS population forecasts for the state. Ben Wyatt wants a year’s grace to be able to deal with this issue and to deal with the budget black hole. Is that something you’re prepared to consider?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well we’re certainly closely reviewing the GST allocation.

I mean, as I’ve said, I’m the first Prime Minister to acknowledge that Western Australia is not getting a fair deal out of the GST. As I was saying last night in Mindarie at the ‘Politics in the Pub’, Western Australia’s deal doesn’t pass the pub test either generally or, it certainly didn’t pass the pub test in that pub.

34 cents in the dollar is not fair.

I’m the first Prime Minister to acknowledge that and to set out a plan to address it.

We’re going to be assisted by the Productivity Commission inquiry into the way in which GST is allocated and that’s ongoing.

And of course, I look forward to speaking with the Premier in the course of the day and he knows very well I have made the case for GST reform around the COAG table.

It’s a very, very keen issue and it’s one we have provided support for. As you know, we’ve provided over $1 billion of additional funding to Western Australia to make up for the low GST allocation. We’ve done that already over the last few years.

And, of course, as Senator Birmingham was observing, in terms of school funding, Western Australia got a bad deal, an unfair deal out of the previous Labor Government’s school funding package, which, by the way, every Western Australian Labor Member of the Parliament voted to retain.

So Western Australia got a raw deal, an unfair deal out of Labor’s school funding model. All of their MPs and Senators voted to keep it. They voted to keep short changing Western Australian schools.

We voted and managed to get enough of the crossbench to deliver a change, a massive reform, that has given the fair result and very substantially improved result for WA schools.

JOURNALIST:

Recent polling is continuing to show that your Government is deeply unpopular in WA, perhaps based on this GST issue. Are you concerned about a wipeout in WA at the next election?

PRIME MINISTER:

I’m concerned about delivering good government for all Australians and delivering a good government for Western Australia.

I’m here in Western Australia for the week. We had a very good reception last week. A very good and frank discussion. I’m going to be getting around the state, getting out of Perth and down to Busselton and Albany and up to Broome. I’ll be meeting lots of Western Australians.

I can assure you with great representatives like Ken Wyatt and the rest of our WA team who are such an important voice in the party room, in the ministry, around the Cabinet table – Cabinet is meeting here in Perth tomorrow – we are focused on doing the very best job to ensure that the huge ability of Western Australians – you know, you Western Australians, you’re the best asset of the state. As I was saying to the kids, it is not the mineral resources and the hydrocarbons, it’s the men and women of Western Australia – they’re this state’s greatest asset and their enterprise is what we’re supporting.

Our Labor opponent, by the way, what’s he got? He wants to run a politics of envy campaign. He wants to tear down anyone who is trying to have a go. He’s obviously got a determination to do everything he can to kick small business in the guts. What does he think is going to drive economic growth other than entrepreneurship and enterprise and small business? Every way you look at it, from raising taxes on small and medium businesses and family businesses, that’s not the way to go.

We’re providing tax relief because we know that will encourage people to invest and employ and get ahead.

JOURNALIST:

Ben Wyatt said last week that you’d be run out of town if you came to Perth without offering a big bag of money to try and address that unfairness over the GST – do you accept that?

PRIME MINISTER:

Ben should have been in the pub last night. It was a very warm welcome I can assure you. I’ve never had a warmer welcome anywhere. It was a good night.

JOURNALIST:

Just with the security changes, there have been disruptions at airports, particularly in Sydney this morning.

PRIME MINISTER:

Yes.

JOURNALIST:

Clearly – well they’re saying that there’s not enough resources. Why were we not prepared for this?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well, let me say firstly, I want to thank the Australian public, the Australian travelling public in particular, for their forbearance.

The heightened security measures that have been undertaken at our airports have been done on the advice of our security agencies which are the best in the world.

We are unrelenting in our efforts to keep Australians safe and as you know and as you heard over the last 24 hours or so, we have succeeded in disrupting a major terrorist plot to bring down an aeroplane. A very serious terrorist plot. Good intelligence, great police work, great investigation, great coordination has enabled us to disrupt that plot and we’ll continue in our efforts as the police complete the investigation, as Commissioner Colvin was saying a little while ago, to complete that investigation, and of course, the heightened security measures at the airport, as everywhere, are under constant review.

JOURNALIST:

Should we be looking at something like a terror tax to pay?

PRIME MINISTER:

No. No.

JOURNALIST:

To pay for extra resources?

PRIME MINISTER:

No.

JOURNALIST:

Can you confirm the initial tip off about that plot came from an overseas intelligence agency?

PRIME MINISTER:

I’m not going to confirm or add any detail to the source of our intelligence. And you’ll understand why I don’t do that.

But I just want to say this to you – in 2017, in the age of the internet, nowhere is far away from anywhere else. So information, plans, ideas travel at the speed of light. So our cooperation with other intelligence services, with other governments, with business, with intelligence and police services within our own country, has to be seamless, and that is why I am not prepared to set and forget.

We have great police services, great intelligence services, as we’ve seen again and again but I’m always going to seek to make things more effective, more efficient, more connected. We need to be more joined up and that’s why I’m setting up the Department of Home Affairs to bring together in the one portfolio and the one department, those vital domestic security agencies – AFP, ASIO and of course, the Border Force.

JOURNALIST:

Is that going to be sped up then?

PRIME MINISTER:

It’s on track. It’s very important to ensure that the transition occurs in a way that does not interfere with any existing operations. So this has been a plan long in the making. We’ve got a very well set out road map for completing that transition, I can assure you.

JOURNALIST:

Prime Minister, just back on the GST, separate obviously to the relativity issue which you’ve talked about, is this additional problem with the $2 billion that WA is expected to lose because of population forecasts – should the state and the State Treasury just cop that?

PRIME MINISTER:

I’ve seen the report, Sarah, but I can’t comment on it. I haven’t had any confirmation of that in any official way. Obviously I’ve seen the report and no doubt I’ll learn more about it.

I look forward to discussing it with my colleagues, both my Western Australian colleagues and, of course, the Treasurer, and of course, I look forward to discussing it with the Premier.

JOURNALIST:

The WA Government’s view is that you could act to change it right now. There’s no necessity for other state governments to agree to a change in the GST. What is stopping yourself and the Treasurer from changing the GST distribution?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well, it’s very important that any changes to the GST are done in a way that are seen as being fair and fair to all Australians. I think you’d understand that.

As I said earlier today it has got to pass the pub test not just in Mindarie and everywhere else in Western Australia but around the rest of the country too.

So I’ve taken this cause up on Western Australia’s behalf and I set out a way in which we could do that last year.

The West Australian share will adjust, or at least it has been forecast to do so by the West Australian Treasury no less to come back up over 70 per cent. And I flagged, well I set out a plan whereby when it gets to that point that would be an occasion where we could secure the agreement of the other states and territories to set a floor below which state shares and territory shares would not fall because at that point in time nobody would actually lose out – you see?

So, look, it’s a political challenge.

But I want to just remind Western Australians of a very fundamental political point – I am the Prime Minister of a Coalition Government, a Liberal-National Government. I’m a Liberal Prime Minister. I’m the first Prime Minister to take this issue on and recognise that Western Australia is not getting a fair deal. The first Prime Minister, the first Government to take action to address it, setting out the plan that I did last year, making the case at COAG, getting the Productivity Commission on the case.

What has the Labor Party done? The Labor Party has criticised us at every turn. The Labor Party Members and Senators from Western Australia sent in a couple of pages of gobbledygook to the Productivity Commission that did not propose taking the action you describe at all. And in the Parliament, they’ve taken no action.

So the question I have for Mark McGowan – and I’m not in the habit of delivering messages to Premiers through the media because I have a very cordial relationship with him and I want to have a good and constructive relationship with him – but what Mark should be doing is going to Shorten and saying: ‘Okay – what are you going to do to help us? What is your plan?’

Because at this stage, the reality is that the strongest political opposition to a fairer deal for Western Australian comes from the Australian Labor Party.

It is the Coalition that is taking on this very difficult political problem to seek to get a fairer deal for Western Australia. That’s the fact.

JOURNALIST:

Just on same-sex marriage, Trevor Evans has indicated that he would be prepared to exercise his right to a conscience vote and cross the floor. Can you prevent backbenchers crossing the floor on this issue?

PRIME MINISTER:

In our party, backbenchers have always had the right to cross the floor.

In the Labor Party, you get expelled for doing that.

It’s always been a fundamental principle in the Liberal Party and indeed the National Party. So it’s a very different political culture to the very authoritarian and centrally controlled culture of the Labor Party.

Thank you all very much.

[ENDS]

DEAN CLAIRS:

We have the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull joining us for the very first time on our show ever. Great to see you in the West, Mr PM.

PRIME MINISTER:

Great to be here.

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

Oh thank you so much for coming in Prime Minister. Now I have to be open, I didn’t vote for you but I have great respect for the office of Prime Minister and had I known you were coming in I would have worn shoes. I simply did not know.

KYMBA CAHILL:

And socks and thongs are the standard.

PRIME MINISTER:

I’ve got to tell you, the socks are very attractive.

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

They’re nice and thick and wintry. So we love those.

(Laughter)

PRIME MINISTER:

They appear to be – what do you think, have they been washed recently? There’s no evidence that they haven’t been.

KYMBA CAHILL:

He’s quite a clean man is our Matthew. That’s the only reason he gets away with the socks and thongs combo.

PRIME MINISTER:

Well that’s fantastic, well done.

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

Thank you, now before we get to the serious political analysis –

PRIME MINISTER:

I’m glad you washed your socks.

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

Oh, I always wash my socks.

DEAN CLAIRS:

Yes.

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

It’s a metaphor for life really. Now we should check, are you an Australian citizen? Because we don’t want to waste any time here.

(Laughter)

DEAN CLAIRS:

True.

PRIME MINISTER:

No question about that – absolutely.

KYMBA CAHILL:

Okay.

PRIME MINISTER:

Very Australian.

KYMBA CAHILL:

Good start, now Prime Minister, there were Sydney terror raids on the weekend.

PRIME MINISTER:

Yes.

KYMBA CAHILL:

And now of course we’re expecting updated security at our airports, and it’s easy to say: ‘Don’t let the terrorists win – get on with your lives, get out there.’ But there is genuine fear out there. Is this indicative now of how our lives are going to be? Are we getting any closer, do you think, to an attack on our shores?

PRIME MINISTER:

We are constantly vigilant Kymba. We’ve disrupted 13 terrorist plots since 2014 – this one being the latest. We have the best security, police, intelligence services in the world. They work very closely together. They work very closely with international partners.

You see, in the age of the internet, as we all know, borders have been overcome in terms of information so places that we used to think were a long way away – and still are in terms of kilometers – are very close in real time.

KYMBA CAHILL:

Yeah.

PRIME MINISTER:

So we have to be swift, we have to be seamless, we have to constantly upgrading and improving our security services and our whole operation.

See that’s why I always say we don’t ‘set and forget’. We are never complacent. Yes, we’ve got great people but we want them to do even better work.

So the government, I’ve been working very closely on this operation with our security services over the last several days, since last week. This has been a very successful operation so far. It’s not yet completed.

The increased security measures at the airports are a response to that. They’re in response to an increase in the threat level as assessed by ASIO for aviation.

What we will do obviously, is our agencies will review that as the operation is completed, as the investigation is complete.

DEAN CLAIRS:

Malcolm, I know you’re here in the west and you’re going out to the regions, you’re seeing lots of people. Wherever you go, you’ll get asked the question, but what about the cutting up, the dividing of the GST pie? We’re getting hungry we want more in the West.

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

We want more!

(Laughter)

PRIME MINISTER:

Well I can understand that, I do.

Look, it is past a joke. As I said last night with Christian Porter in the pub in Mindarie, it doesn’t pass the pub test and it certainly doesn’t pass the test in that pub.

Look, 34 cents in the dollar, 30 cents in the dollar as it was the year before, is just not good enough. It isn’t fair. The formula is not delivering a fair and defensible outcome.

Now I’m the first Prime Minister that has actually recognised that and set out to do something about it.

So the commitment that I made was to get the other states and territories around the table – and I’ve already done this, I have taken up West Australia’s cause at COAG in a way that no other Prime Minister has done before.

DEAN CLAIRS:

True.

PRIME MINISTER:

We’ve got the Productivity Commission looking at this grants formula that, you know, the black box that allocates, determines who gets what, to see whether it’s fit for purpose any longer. What I also said was, – I made this commitment last year – was that when the WA share rose back up naturally to a more defensible level –

DEAN CLAIRS:

Yep.

PRIME MINISTER:

I think the figure we had in mind at that time was coming up to about 75 cents in the dollar by 2019, that would be a good time to set a floor below which no states allocation would fall. The argument for that of course – and this was something that I originally came up in discussions with Colin Barnett when he was the Premier and my other federal colleagues here, Mathias Cormann, Julie and the others – was because you’ve got to try to achieve a political settlement so that the other states don’t feel that they’re losing. You’ve got to try to get to a point where you can set the floor at a point in time when nobody is going to be out of pocket. Because otherwise you’ve got states fighting with each other.

Now I’m not suggesting the politics is straightforward but it’s really important to remember this, and for your listeners to recognise this, I am the first Prime Minister to seek to tackle this. It is very difficult politically.

The Labor Party did nothing about this during all the time they were in government as WA’s share slid, they did nothing about it.

Bill Shorten has attacked me for endeavouring to take this on. The West Australian Members of the Federal Parliament made a submission to the Productivity Commission and it was just waffle. There was no proposal, no actionable proposal in it at all. Because the fact of the matter is the Labor Party is not going to put its prospects on the east coast at risk by trying to strike a fairer deal for Western Australia.

Now what I’m trying to do as Prime Minister of Australia, of all of Australia is make sure that we get a fair deal for the West and persuade the other jurisdictions, the other states and territories that the GST has to be seen to be fair everywhere. It has got to pass the pub test everywhere.

DEAN CLAIRS:

Everywhere – nationwide. 

PRIME MINISTER:

It has got to pass the pub test in Hobart, in Sydney, in Brisbane, in Perth, in Mandurah, in Broome. It has got to pass the pub test everywhere and at the moment, as you know, I believe it does not.

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

Prime Minister will you be meeting with Premier Mark McGowan?

PRIME MINISTER:

Yes – I will be seeing him later in the week.

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

And chatting MetroNet stuff?

PRIME MINISTER:

Yes, yes, I certainly will be. And we are putting a lot of money into MetroNet already, just under $800 million already and I am open to more investment here.

The point that I have raised with Mark and with the other premiers is that if we can find opportunities for us to co-invest as opposed to simply making grants so that we can have an ownership interest, an investment interest in economic infrastructure then we can do a lot more. 

See some of the big projects we’ve got underway elsewhere in Australia – Snowy Hydro 2.0, the Western Sydney Airport, the Inland Rail – are examples of projects where we are investing.

DEAN CLAIRS:

Yeah.

PRIME MINISTER:

So in other words, yes we spend the money but I can put an asset on the other side of the balance sheet and that enables us to do a lot more.

I want us to invest more in infrastructure in Western Australia and so what I’m saying to Mark is: ‘You’ve got to come up with some great ideas. Let’s work as partners. Yes, you’re Labor, I’m Liberal – all that stuff. We’ve got all that off our chest. Let’s focus on getting a great outcome for Western Australia.’

If he, I heard he or maybe it was Ben Wyatt was trying to channel Jerry Maguire and was saying –

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

Show me the money!

(Laughter)

PRIME MINISTER:

Well, you know, but I mean that doesn’t really help.

DEAN CLAIRS:

No.

PRIME MINISTER:

That’s a one-liner. What we need, what Australians want their leaders to do, is to work together.

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

Oh desperate for it.

PRIME MINISTER:

Correct. Now, I’m doing that.

You know, we’ve got a new concept, completely new concept in cities. And when I say cities this can apply to regions as well. We’ve called it City Deals. And for the first time we’re setting up agreements with state and local governments where we work together on a particular city, part of a city, and we say: ‘Right we are going to coordinate our investment. We’re going to agree on what we want to achieve – greater accessibility to recreation, to schools, to jobs, to housing affordability. Agree on your objectives and then coordinate your investment.’

So we’ve already got a City Deal in Townsville, in Launceston and in Western Sydney and what I’ve offered to Mark McGowan is to do one in Perth. What we would aim to do then is work as a team – instead of the attitude being from the state side how much money can we get out of the Feds?

DEAN CLAIRS:

Right.

PRIME MINISTER:

You know in a sort of zero sum approach, to work to say: ‘Let’s look as partners how we’re going to maximise the amenity for the people of Perth’, because at the end of the day your listeners don’t care whether a particular piece of economic infrastructure is owned by the state government, the federal government – they want it to be built. Isn’t that right?

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

Yes, it is.

PRIME MINISTER:

They want it to be built and delivered.

DEAN CLAIRS:

True.

PRIME MINISTER:

And that’s my commitment. We’ve got to be more creative in these tough fiscal times, you know where dollars are scarce. We’ve got to be more creative and more imaginative in the way we invest our money.

DEAN CLAIRS:

Mr Prime Minister, before you go – are you aware of a friend of ours by the name of Lawrence Mooney? He loves walking around the country talking about my Lucy, Sangiovese and Christopher Pyne!

(Laughter)

PRIME MINISTER:

I have heard of this fellow. He sounds very entertaining.

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

He’s pretty good.

DEAN CLAIRS:

We call him ‘Big Mal’.

PRIME MINISTER:

‘Big Mal’? Is he ‘Big Mal’?

DEAN CLAIRS:

We had to start calling him that because we were calling him Prime Minister and people were getting very confused.

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

They were!

DEAN CLAIRS:

Some of the satire was –

PRIME MINISTER:

They used to call Malcolm Fraser ‘Big Mal’ – gee he was a big guy.

DEAN CLAIRS:

He was a big man.

PRIME MINISTER:

He was a ‘Big Mal’.

KYMBA CAHILL:

We had to explain today that you were completely legitimate and not Lawrence Mooney.

(Laughter)

PRIME MINISTER:

If he’s saying warm and affectionate things about Lucy, that’s good. 

KYMBA CAHILL:

He’s always warm! He’s always warm about Lucy.

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

He’s on message.

KYMBA CAHILL:

Last week he solved your housing affordability crisis by just telling everybody to stop complaining and go out and buy a house.

(LAUGHTER)

DEAN CLAIRS:

In Point Piper I should mention.

PRIME MINISTER:

Well I can tell you it is interesting how important of course transport is to housing affordability. That is absolutely critical. That is one of the points I raised in the letter I’ve sent Mark McGowan about this. It is vitally important to make sure that as you expand your urban transport net that you also increase density around railway stations and near transport hubs because that way you can get a better mix of housing at different levels of affordability for families at different stages.

DEAN CLAIRS:

Yeah.

PRIME MINISTER:

You know from singles through to couples with lots of kids to people who retire. 

DEAN CLAIRS:

You’re off to Mandurah today and I know you’re doing Busselton and Broome over the next few days – enjoy our wonderful weather.

(LAUGHTER)

PRIME MINISTER:

Yes, it’s looking a bit dark in the skies there – anyway, it’s good to be with you.

DEAN CLAIRS:

Good to see you.

MATT DYKTYNSKI:

Thank you for coming in.

KYMBA CAHILL:

Thank you. 

PRIME MINISTER:

Thanks very much.

[ENDS]