Well, thank you very much. I also begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we're meeting today and pay my respect to elders past, present and emerging.
To the Premier of South Australia, my friend Mali, and members of his team who are here.
To my Ministers, Don Farrell and Ed Husic.
To Peter Dutton, the Leader of the Opposition, and other members of Parliament who are here.
The Governor of South Australia, Frances Adamson.
It's wonderful that you're able to be here.
And to Gemma Jones, a big shout out to you for your leadership in organising these forums, which I've been to now for three years, I think, in a row - and it's a fantastic thing.
Including, I got to meet the young students who went to the Youth Parliament just across the road here just last Friday. And it's always wonderful that we're engaging with the next generation of leaders here in South Australia.
This has certainly been a big week and I'm not sure that Annabel will appreciate Mali's analogy of the marriage proposal with the divorce from Mr Gupta at Whyalla.
But that wasn't my choice. Very brave, Mali. I'm not sure I'll follow in that way.
But it is indeed, it has been a courtship, I must say, between Mali and myself when it's come to Whyalla and the vision that the Premier of South Australia has for this great state.
Under Peter Malinauskas’ leadership South Australia doesn't and should never accept that it's a smaller state.
His vision is one that sees South Australia powering the nation and leading the nation in so many ways.
And I've got to say that the case that he made for us to partner in the adventure that played out over this week, and I've been asked a number of times, and to preempt Sam Maiden's questions, we won't be going through details of what happened when and who said what to whom.
Suffice to say that obviously something that complex does not happen between Wednesday and today.
We have made sure that it certainly went through all of our internal, appropriate cabinet processes as well.
But as the Premier has said, it was important not just the future of South Australia, but the future of our nation.
There was a national interest involved here and you've always got to look at the counterfactual.
The counterfactual here is, imagine if we were here saying that the facility that produces 75 per cent of Australia's structural steel was gone.
One of the lessons of the pandemic that we absolutely have to not just talk about but put into practice is that Australia can't just be a nation that's at the end of supply chains, that's vulnerable to shocks.
Which might be another pandemic.
It might be trade issues - there's one or two you might have noticed around the world at the moment.
Or it could be an issue of conflict.
We have to not just be a quarry that digs up, the quality that it is there, the magnetite.
Exports it overseas, waits for value to be added, waits for jobs to be created, and then imports it back.
That is not Australia's future.
Australia's future is punching way above our weight. Is making sure that wherever possible we back our resources industry.
And yes, those exports are important, but wherever possible we value add.
We see the jobs created and the value added here. The economic growth that comes from that.
And without the steel that's produced at Whyalla, that goes into our railways, goes into the building where we're in right now. Goes into all of our major infrastructure projects right around the country - everything from the new Western Sydney Airport to railway projects right around this great vast continent of ours.
Without that we become dependent on someone else.
And that is why this was an issue not just for South Australia, this was an issue that demanded national leadership as well.
And I'm very proud of what we achieved together this week.
There's more work to do, but the structure that we established of ensuring that those workers at Whyalla, those small businesses and contractors who depend upon that steelworks.
Yesterday I have never felt such warmth and sheer bloody joy from a group of workers and people as when we arrived at the steelworks at Whyalla yesterday.
You could just feel a weight being lifted off their shoulders because they now had the certainty that their jobs will be maintained and that there's a future there for that regional town of Whyalla, in which the steelorks are the heart of that town, but the arteries pump economic activity right around this land.
And so it was a difficult decision on one level, but on another level it's the easiest decision that we could possibly have ever made to agree to the $2.4 billion package.
Not a bailout, importantly.
Gupta gets nothing from this.
The people who benefit from this are the workers, the small businesses, the contractors, not just in Whyalla, but everyone who relies upon the steel produced there.
And together with the other great steel producing town in Australia there at Port Kembla where I was last Friday at Bluescope. Together those two facilities are essential national assets, not just add-ons, not likes to have.
And that is why what we did yesterday was so important.
And when you look at Whyalla as well, and Ed Husic can tell you this, he's very passionate about these issues. You have the high quality magnetite at least as good, or perhaps the best in the world.
You have a port infrastructure which is critical there as well.
You have a renewable energy sector that's big now, but has enormous promise to be even bigger in the future.
But importantly as well, like everything else in this nation where we have the best solar resources in the world in the sky, and some of the best resources in the world under the ground.
Whether it be our coal and gas that have been so important historically and will continue to play a role.
But our copper, our cobalt, our lithium, all of our vanadium, all of the things that will power the global economy as we shift to net zero around the globe in this century.
Our greatest asset isn't either of those.
Our greatest asset is our people. Is our human resources, our human capital with the connections as well that they have to everywhere in the world.
And that is so important.
So yesterday I was really, really proud of what we were able to achieve.
And today we signed the documentation here at the Premier's office.
Whyalla though is just one component of a Bigger, Better South Australia.
When it comes to the role of South Australia in the Commonwealth, I can say this is my 21st visit to South Australia as Prime Minister in under three years.
I understand that this state has such an important role going forward, and one of the great satisfactions of my job is seeing the positive difference that my government is making to your great state in partnership with the Malinauskas Government here.
We of course, have had as an absolute priority getting inflation down. And of course now it's at 2.4 per cent, the headline figure.
And this week on Tuesday, it's been a very big week on a range of levels. Of course we had interest rates falling, so inflation going down, interest rates now coming down.
We also had wages rising this week with new figures five quarters in a row.
When we came to government inflation had a 6 in front of it and was rising.
Now it's got a 2 in front of it, 2.4 and is falling.
Wages had gone down in real terms for five quarters in a row.
Now wages are going up for five quarters in a row.
Interest rates began rising before the election.
Now they've begun falling with the decision by the RBA on Tuesday.
And in addition to that of course, the figures that came out just yesterday while we were at Whyalla show that now 1.15 million jobs have been created since we were elected two and ten months ago.
That is more jobs being created than under any government in Australia's history since Federation.
And we understand that there's more to do.
We understand people are under cost of living pressures.
But progress is being made.
The indicators are heading in the right direction.
And if you don't keep people in work then that's when people really, really do it tough.
We know that that's the case.
And there are some economists who would say the way that you get inflation down is to get unemployment up. Well we've taken a different path as a Labor government.
I said that we wouldn't leave people behind and we haven't.
We have got that inflation down, provided cost of living relief, whilst employment has been maintained.
The unemployment rate dipped up a bit to 4.1 but it is still relatively low - and that is so important.
And we've done all that whilst we've created support.
The Energy Bill Relief we've delivered in partnership with the South Australian Government.
The work that we've done in health care here, be it at Flinders doing research or through the hospital system here.
The creation of six Medicare Urgent Care Clinics that have seen more than 75,000 South Australians get the care that they need when they needed it and all they've needed is their Medicare card, not their credit card.
The cheaper medicines that have saved South Australians $85 million.
$2 billion additional into South Australia's health and hospital system in the coming financial year with the announcements that we made just a short while ago.
We're increasing funding to South Australia's hospitals by 15 per cent next year with a one off funding boost and an extra $300 million to help address ramping and bring down waiting lists.
The four year investment into the Flinders Medical Centre, as well as a three year investment into Comprehensive Cancer System Centres.
Just as we build in health, we've built on education. The South Australian Premier was one of the first to sign up to our new schools funding agreement. People remember, we used to speak about Gonski reforms 14 years ago.
Nothing happened for a while. It's now back on track.
The work that David Gonski did independently to identify what are the resources that a child needs to be able to take up the best opportunity in life were sat dormant for a while, that report.
We're going to deliver it so that every child, whether they're in a public or private school, no matter what the circumstances of their birth, gets the best opportunity in life as well - and that is absolutely critical as well.
This is the biggest Federal Government investment ever made into South Australian schools.
No child held back, no child left behind.
We're also making it easier for young South Australians to deal with the inter-generational issue of debt arising from the HECs debt.
We cut $3 billion of debt already through legislation. If we're reelected, we'll chop a further 20 per cent off. A commitment that I made here in Adelaide towards the end of last year.
And 18,000 South Australians have taken up Free TAFE.
Something that they do value.
Some would argue if something's free, you don't value it.
That has no understanding, and I suggest that they should talk to people who are doing carpentry, the ones that I've met here with the South Australian Education Minister, who are doing child care, aged care, who are doing electrical work.
Who are training either for their first job or importantly as well, retraining as the economy changes as we go through.
Free TAFE gives young South Australians a better chance to make more of themselves and at the same time develop the skills that South Australia needs because they're available for areas of skill shortage and that's important.
My government is also committed to giving apprentice tradies a $10,000 bonus if they take up the training in the building industry.
Now Peter also mentioned, of course, AUKUS and the role that South Australia plays there, and that is certainly critical.
The work being undertaken at the Osborne shipyards here and beyond will make a huge contribution to our national security.
And this is an issue that certainly won't be a contest at the next election.
There is absolute bipartisan commitment here in Australia towards AUKUS, as I might say there is also in the United States and the United Kingdom, and that's important as we go forward.
We want to continue to look to do more for cost of living, but we think that in terms of the work that's been done - inflation down, wages up, employment steady and continuing to grow, interest rates beginning to fall - they are all indicators, on top of the fact that we gave tax cuts to every single Australian taxpayer.
All of those things which, if you had have asked me last year or the year before when I spoke at these forums, I would have said, I'll take that.
I'll take that, because these have been difficult economic times.
But you don't get through difficult economic times by cowering in the corner.
You roll up your sleeves, you get the right policies in place and it makes a difference.
At the same time as we've done that, it's a hard thing to do to deliver a Budget surplus.
That perhaps explains the fact that no government for 20 years has delivered two Budget surpluses in a row, which we have done.
So I look forward to the coming campaign, but I also look forward to ongoing work each and every day.
And I was really pleased with the title here, ‘Bigger, Better South Australia’ because one of the things I hope that defines my leadership is I am a natural optimist.
I'm someone who wants to think big, not think small or myopic.
Enlarge Australia and our vision.
I do believe this is the greatest country on earth, but I think our best days are ahead of us.
We have such an opportunity to seize, located where we are, in the fastest growing region of the world in human history.
With the resources that we have at our disposal, both physical and natural, but also human resources.
There is no reason at all why Bigger, Better South Australia can't be Bigger, Better Australia as we go forward.
So I congratulate the Tiser and Gemma on the leadership that this paper is doing in advocating for this great state of South Australia.
And I look forward to being a part of creating that Bigger, Better South Australia for many years ahead.
Thanks very much.