JODIE BELYEA, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR DUNKLEY: Well good morning everyone and welcome to Dunkley. I'm Jodie Belyea and I am the Labor candidate for the Dunkley by-election. I'm really excited to be here today speaking to you all with the Prime Minister. So, Frankston Urgent Care Clinic is a new initiative in this area, that's about bringing nurses and doctors together to provide urgent care for families and people in the community to have their medical needs met. It is also a service that is supporting the Frankston Hospital emergency department by releasing some of the clients to this absolutely great clinic. I'm a mum and I have a son and Frankston and Dunkley are incredibly great sporting communities. So I'm aware that on the weekends, we've got a lot of young people and teenagers out there playing sports, so clinics like this are really important for dealing with the emergencies that come out of our great sporting community. This clinic is open from 8am to 10pm, Monday through to Sunday. And I'm aware from the team that there's been about 13,000 people that have already come through the clinic, looking for services to treat their issues. The doctors and nurses are very friendly and welcoming and this is a great community asset that is building on the initiatives of the Albanese Government. We have $1.1 billion going into the redevelopment of the Frankston Hospital which is absolutely fabulous and much needed. We have 19 more GPs in this community to support families and its members. So this is ensuring that Frankston and Dunkley in particular is a great place to live, work, study and bring up a family. So thank you for coming here today. And I just really wanted to shout out to all the staff that have brought this incredible clinic to life and are working with our residents.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much. Well, thanks very much, Jodie. And it's fantastic to be back in Dunkley, back in Frankston with yourself and with Paul Edbrooke, the local state MP here. I've been a regular visitor to Frankston for a number of years now and it's been fantastic to have my first visit to the Urgent Care Clinic just a few doors down here. The Urgent Care Clinic is making an enormous difference. It's a central component of our strengthening Medicare plan. We promised 58 Urgent Care clinics around Australia by the end of last year and we have 58 Urgent Care Clinics up and running. They've been so successful that we've now determined, through the National Cabinet, to have an additional rollout this year. And we'll go through that budget process in the lead up to May, because what we know is that clinics such as the one here in Frankston has seen, this one alone, as Jodie said, more than 13,000 visits. More than one in three of the clients who've come through Urgent Care Clinics doors seeking support have been under 15. Kids who fall off the bike, people who have accidents, families rather than waiting in emergency departments, adding pressure to the hospital systems around the country, they're going to Urgent Care Clinics, getting stitched up, getting a broken arm or leg fixed making sure that they get the care they need when they need it. And the important thing is all they need is their Medicare card, not their credit card. Getting that support is a vital component as well of our plan by strengthening Medicare, to put that downward pressure on cost of living. As we were leaving the visit to the clinic, a local chef was coming in who'd cut his arm, an accident at work, rather than going to an emergency department to get stitched up. He right now, as we speak, is getting the care that he needs without having to wait, just needing his Medicare card, making an enormous difference. And that's why these clinics are so important. Jodie Belyea is a candidate who will stand up for the interests of the people of Dunkley. Jodie will stand up to strengthen Medicare rather than undermine it. We had a tripling of the Bulk Billing Incentive in our budget. At National Cabinet we've agreed on health and hospital agreements right up to 2035. We're working with state and territory governments right around the country to strengthen Medicare. It's an important part of our commitments that we took to the last election and we've delivered on every one of those healthcare commitments that we made happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: Can you confirm, just regarding tax cuts, can you confirm tax cuts as legislated will come into effect on July 1st?
PRIME MINISTER: I can confirm that we haven't changed our position.
JOURNALIST: Unemployment figures, it seems, will inevitably show a slow as the economy does. What is the government doing to prepare for this?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what we've been doing is to make sure that, previously there's various curves that people, economists, will put out there that suggest that while inflation is going down, there'll be an increase in unemployment. But what we've seen in many parts of the world, and we're seeing here as well, is that inflation has gone down, it's gone down to 4.3 per cent, but unemployment still has a three in front of it. I know there are new figures due to come out. Having a three in front of the unemployment figure is very unusual, it's got to be said, and almost every time that it's occurred in the last long period has been under my Government. So, we are working on ways in which we can put that downward pressure on inflation whilst, as well supporting employment to the best of our capacity, putting in place the mechanisms that drive that. So, yesterday, for example, I was at a TAFE in Adelaide, there talking with young people, in this case, who've got skills in construction, in electrical, who are going on to employment, filling those skill shortages that have been there for some period of time. We are a party that are founded upon the need to provide secure work and that's a commitment that we make. But we are engaged as well of course, in the fight against inflation. And that's why all of the measures that were put in place have been designed to assist cost of living whilst also putting downward pressure on inflation.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, as I'm sure you're well aware, health inflation has been a particularly strong component of the consumer price index. Health costs are rising rapidly. Bulk billing rates have been falling as well. These sort of measures that you've spoken about today are obviously great if you can access them. But for the vast bulk of families that have to see a GP, what sort of policies is the Government looking at to try to address falling bulk billing rates and rising health costs?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we tripled the Bulk Billing Incentive in the Budget. The largest injection of funding to assist Medicare that has happened since Medicare was founded. In addition to that, Urgent Care Clinics like the one here, people all they need is their Medicare card. That's a new form of health service delivery. It's based upon models that have been successful overseas and the ones here has been successful. Those more than 13,000 people who've walked through the doors of the Frankston Medicare Urgent Care Clinic have walked in, got care and walked out without it costing them a single cent.
JOURNALIST: Just on the Ukraine war effort, why won't Australia donate its Taipan helicopters instead of dismantling them and then putting them in landfill? And if the concern is safety, the Ukraine has set up a taskforce to work through those issues and they're still saying that they would be of great assistance.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I answered this yesterday and it's the same answer today that we take advice from the Department of Defence on these matters. And secondly, to make the point that we've been substantial contributors to support for Ukraine. And indeed, just this week there'll be further Australian Defence Force personnel leaving for the United Kingdom, providing support for that training effort in Ukraine.
JOURNALIST: And what's your reaction to the Chinese Ambassador claiming that China wasn't responsible for the sonar incident that injured Australian personnel and suggesting that it was actually Japan?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I stand by the comments that we made. I'm not swayed by the comments. The navy made reports, I think it's very clear what occurred. I stand by the comments that I made at the time, that it was wrong. It shouldn't have occurred.
JOURNALIST: Tony Burke is meeting with DP World today. What is the Government hoping to achieve with this meeting?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, having discussions are always a good idea and Tony Burke will be having discussions with the employers and the union. We want to see this issue resolved in mutual interests. We think there are mutual interests between workers and their employers and we'd urge the parties to bargain in good faith and to have a resolution that is in their interest, but also in the interests of our national economy.
JOURNALIST: On IR, what's your response to the Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas opposing amendments to your Government's IR reforms that are going to be debated next month? And will you reconsider backing the Greens amendment, in light of the concern that the Allan Government has raised?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, you haven't said what those amendments are. You haven't said what Tim Pallas' comments are. So, it's very difficult on a theoretical basis.
JOURNALIST: He wrote a letter that was published in the Guardian this morning, I think.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I've been in Tasmania this morning and I'm not up to date on the Guardian. I know that correspondents from the Australian keep up to date on the Guardian website, but that's something I haven't had the opportunity up to this point to do. So I suggest that those comments will be responded to, if appropriate, by Tony Burke. But what we do is, we have put forward industrial relations legislation. I must say that our legislation on industrial relations and on working people, when we talk about the cost of living, we've seen two quarters of wages growth in real terms under my Government. That's something that stands in stark contrast to the former Government's approach, which was a deliberate strategy of lowering real wages as part of their economic policy. That's not ours.
JOURNALIST: I believe he's particularly concerned about a clause where there'd have to be no worse off test for every clause in an agreement rather than the whole agreement itself. Do you have similar concerns?
PRIME MINISTER: Tony Burke will respond to the specifics of comments that I haven't seen, but you're telling me what they are, but I always prefer to see a primary source, to be frank, with respect.
JOURNALIST: It’s quite unusual for a Labor Treasurer and employer groups, to be on the same page.
PRIME MINISTER: There’s nothing unusual at all, as you're aware about, from time to time, a state Minister expressing views, they're entitled to do so. I encourage people to express views. We're a democratic country, but we're getting on with the business of reform in the interests of working people and in the interests of employers as well. I note that when it comes to our industrial relations legislation, if you look at days lost, for example, due to industrial disputes, there's been a significant improvement from my Government compared with the Coalition Government, quite contradictory compared with what was said and what was predicted before legislation went through.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the online gambling inquiry chaired by our MP here, Peta Murphy, handed down the report a few months ago. Does the Federal Government commit to actioning all of the recommendations of that report, and when can we start to see some of those recommendations being actioned?
PRIME MINISTER: The Federal Government commits to considering all of the recommendations that are in the report, which is what we do. We give consideration to that. We know that gambling has a real impact on people in this area and right around Australia. And we need to make sure, we need to make sure that governments are cognisant of that. But I do pay tribute to the work that Peta Murphy did as chair of that committee. It is consistent with the work that Peta Murphy did over a long period of time as both a candidate and then as the Member. It is a real tragedy for the country that Peta Murphy passed away at age just 50. It is a real tragedy. I feel the loss personally. I was with Paul at her electorate office opening here after her election. She was concerned about the law, about health, about education, about gambling, about cost of living issues in this community. It is a real human tragedy. Jodie is someone who was recruited by Peta Murphy to the Labor Party. Because what Peta Murphy saw in Jodie is what I've seen in the time in which I've interacted with her in the lead up to her pre-selection as a candidate, someone who's compassionate, someone who's smart, someone who's articulate, someone who's committed to representing this electorate and carrying enormous good work that Peta Murphy is doing. Thanks very much.