ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: I think the sermon that we've heard today – hope in an uncertain world – was appropriate. We do need hope, and we need optimism, and as we begin the parliamentary year, that's precisely what I have. Optimism for the year ahead, and optimism that we can create a better future for Australia if we seize the opportunities that are before us. We begin the parliamentary year with inflation falling, wages rising, and with unemployment low. The key indicators of the living standards of Australians, but we know that there's more work to do. And in this sitting period, we'll continue to push forward with cost of living relief. We have legislation before the parliament that will make a difference in the short term, but also in these turbulent seas, we have our eye on the horizon. So measures such as making Free TAFE permanent will not only assist with cost of living, but it helps to give Australians the skills and the training that they need, and the employers, the skilled workforce that they need for the jobs of the future. The abolition of the activity test when it comes to childcare. I saw a clip of The Parenthood talking about how it's a barrier to women seeking employment in the workforce, particularly the most disadvantaged women, entering the workforce and being able to contribute for their families and indeed for their country. Now this legislation will be important, the three day childcare guarantee that we'll introduce to the Parliament this week as well. So I look forward to continuing to have debate in the great democracy that is Australia. But this morning was a great way to begin the parliamentary year, following on from the very important ceremonies that took place yesterday at the Australian War Memorial, including of course, the opening of new parts of that war memorial, which is such an important site, indeed a sacred site for Australians to visit as well.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, will your Government support the Opposition's amendments to the hate speech legislation around specific protections for threats against places of worship?
PRIME MINISTER: Well certainly. Forget about the Opposition, I've been talking about the need to protect places of worship very clearly. I've made the Government's position on that very clear.
JOURNALIST: The Greens say that they'll, like they're compromising, and will support a partial ban on gambling advertising. Is that something you'll pass within this fortnight?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we haven't seen those, well, I haven't seen those proposals. Look we've taken more action on gambling than any Government since Federation. We have banned the use of credit cards. We've introduced BetStop. We've changed the benign advertising slogans that were there as well.
JOURNALIST: The Opposition will attempt to derail your moves on cost of living by talking about what you knew, when, about the Dural caravan plot. Will you put those questions to bed? What were you told? And when was it?
PRIME MINISTER: Well I'll do two things. One is my priority is keeping Australians safe. The second is to engage constructively and to support our police and security agencies. The Opposition know what they're doing. And I note on Sunday when Peter Dutton was asked, had he requested any briefings, of course, the answer that was no. And when asked, he then responded by saying that he had text messages with the ASIO Director-General. When asked what was in them, he quite rightly said that that was something that he wouldn't disclose, nor should he have. We need to engage with our security agencies in a way that takes national security seriously, not in a way that seeks to play politics with it. I will always treat national security seriously, and quite frankly, that should be something which occurs across the Parliament. Now the Opposition, you're quite right in identifying they want to talk about anything other than cost of living. That's because for three years. They have opposed every cost of living measure. They opposed tax cuts for all Australians. They opposed Free TAFE and say no one values it. They opposed Cheaper Child Care. They opposed Cheaper Medicines. They opposed all of the measures that we have put forward, including energy price relief for Australians. If Peter Dutton had his way, Australians would be more than $7,000 worse off on average, and if Peter Dutton gets his way, they'll be worse off at the end of the next term because Peter Dutton is promising cuts. And unlike Tony Abbott, who actually said he wouldn't cut health and education and other essential services, Peter Dutton won't tell you what he will cut. He will say that there's been over $350 billion of expenditure that he regards as waste. He regards ending the queuing where 60,000 veterans were waiting for entitlements that they had earned by serving our country in uniform, some of whom were dying, waiting for getting that support. These are things that they were owed because instead of having public servants do that work, he had at a cost of billions and billions of dollars the big four accounting firms contracting out. And that's before you get to the $600 billion, $600 billion that his nuclear fantasy will cost. The money has to come from somewhere, because the private sector won't touch it with a barge pole. And we know from his own record that the first thing that he would cut is health because last time when he had the chance coming into government, he tried to introduce a Medicare tax every time people would visit the doctor. Tried to visit a tax on every time people would visit an emergency department and ripped $50 billion out of public hospitals.
JOURNALIST: Angus Taylor has described the costing of the free lunches policy, as a politicisation of the public service. He says he's going to write to Steven Kennedy today, what's your response to that?
PRIME MINISTER: What's Angus Taylor had to say about how much it'll cost? There are around about 4 million registered small businesses or sole traders in Australia. If I say to you, think about this, if I say to you, you can have $20,000 for someone to spend on lunch or entertainment, going out at night, perhaps a weekend away, for anyone who is a client of yours or a potential client of yours, someone you might choose to interview sometime down the track. Do you reckon you'll spend that? I reckon you will. And that's what we know, why tax reform done by the Hawke and Keating Government abolished this. That's why they did it. And they need to come clean about what they're costing is because we know it's red hot. This is the worst, sloppiest policy put forward by any Opposition that I've seen in my entire time since I've been in parliament, and that was a while ago. This shows they are simply not fit as an alternative government. They have opposed every cost of living measure, and this is all they've come up with. And the thing is that every Australian will pay for this policy. So they don't want every Australian to get a tax cut, all those people who got a tax cut because of our intervention that Peter Dutton said there should be an election on, he wants those people to use that tax cut to pay for some others to have lunch with their mates.
JOURNALIST: There's been a number of measures to address the antisemitism crisis, but Jewish leaders have said that you were too slow to react. Do you accept that? And what more can you do to stem the tides of antisemitism?
PRIME MINISTER: We acted. On Insiders at 9am I condemned the October 7 terrorist attack. On October 8, I called for the demonstration that was being scheduled and announced would occur in the Opera House, I called for that to not go ahead. And I've responded to every one of the requests that has been made.
JOURNALIST: When it comes to the Bible verse that you said today, you talked about, you know, people shouldn't see any evil in people that do good. Do you expect that this will be a more kind campaign in the year ahead, and will you hold yourself to that measure that you said today?
PRIME MINISTER: Kindness is a strength. Compassion is a strength. It's a strength of our country. And it's something that I don't shy away from, the fact that I care about vulnerable people. You judge a society not just by how it looks after the most wealthy, how it looks after the Gina Rineharts of this world, but how it looks after the vulnerable. I'm really proud that my Government has had our eye on two things, two philosophies, the whole way through, and it is a philosophy that comes from my upbringing. It's one that I hold dear. No one left behind. So measures like the single parenting payment changes that we brought in, the 45 per cent increase in rental assistance, the changing the tax cuts so that everyone got a tax cut, not just politicians and people at the high end. But also no one held back. Labor is the party of opportunity. That's what Free TAFE is about. That's why our education policy making sure that every Australian whether they go to a public school or a private school, gets access to the school resourcing standard that was identified by David Gonski 14 years ago. That's what early childhood education is about as well, making sure that every young kid, if their parents choose to do so, can have that access to create a better life for themselves. That's my ambition for this country. And one of the big divides in Australian politics is between my leadership, which is optimistic, which is one of hope for a better future, which has a practical plan to create that better future, which doesn't just exercise platitudes. So we have our target on climate change, but we have a mechanism to get there, through the safeguard mechanism, the capacity investment scheme. That's my objective. As opposed to a campaign of fear, a campaign of setting Australian against Australian. It's not the way that I operate, and it's not my view. Thanks very much.