ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: It’s fantastic to be back in Western Australia yet again, for what I think is my eighth visit to Western Australia this year, to be here in the beautiful city of Albany and to be a part of the rollout of a fibre-based National Broadband Network services. This upgrade that will be funded in the budget is $2.4 billion to make sure that an additional 1.5 million premises can be connected up to fibre based NBN services. It's about high-speed broadband, it's about bringing Australia into the 21st century. You need fibre-based broadband in order to deliver the high speeds that are required in order for people to work from home. In order for businesses to flourish and be connected up with their customers and clients around Australia and around the world. It's particularly important for our regions and that's why 660,000 premises will benefit in regional Australia from this upgrade. We committed to it in the election campaign, and we're delivering it in next week's Budget.
Broadband is so important for businesses to flourish, for services to be provided such as health and education services. They are important for students to be able to study, they’re important for decentralisation in overcoming the tyranny of distance in our vast island continent in which we live. This is an exciting project and the Budget next week will confirm that we are a government that are delivering on the commitments that we made during the election campaign. We also will be, in the Budget, having a whole range of other measures fulfilling all of the commitments that we've made across health, across education, communications, infrastructure. This is a government that is determined to restore faith and confidence that when you elect a government you get one that governs properly. There have been no surprises from our government. We’ve been going through the commitments through the Budget process, making sure that we are delivering and I might ask a local business owner here if you want to make some comments.
MARK WELLER, LOCAL BUSINESS OWNER: Thank you very much Mr Prime Minister. As a local community member and business owner, this is a very exciting opportunity. I think we are really proud of our city, a community and being able to operate a business around the state from your own home town is extremely exciting and having a Prime Minister and a government being right behind it is amazing. So, you are always welcomed at Albany and thanks for coming.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, for those who already experience unreliable internet and mobile coverage, mostly being regional areas, can they now be guaranteed satisfactory Internet coverage? What else will be in the Budget for them?
PRIME MINISTER: What we are guaranteeing is that a Labor Government will deliver 21st-century services and will do better. You can't fix nine years of neglect overnight. When government changed in 2013 I was the Communications Minister. Fibre was being rolled out around the country and the incoming government said that they would produce a cheaper NBN, costed around $27 - $28 billion. We know that it cost double that for an inferior product. And you don't need to be an engineer or an expert to know that copper is not as good as fibre in carrying information across distances. We know that that is the case and there were real flaws. NBN is working very hard to make sure that customers get better service, it’s not just about the delivery of a fibre to the home, I don't know if you want to talk about some of the initiatives that you've got as well?
KATHERINE DYER, NBN CO: We are also from a regional perspective, we are upgrading the fixed wireless networks so approximately 120,000 other customers in satellite areas will be able to move on to the fixed wireless network. We'll be using the latest 5G technology and that will significantly increase the services in those regional areas and so another commitment in regional areas.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, cyber criminals are threatening to release Medibank data of 1,000 high profile Australians if their demands aren’t met. What is the government doing to stop this from happening?
PRIME MINISTER: Clare O'Neil will be giving a press conference, perhaps at the same time I am or straight afterwards, as the Minister who has oversight here. We have now had a couple of examples with Medibank, a company which many Australians have health insurance through them, and Optus which is a real reminder that we live in a world in which cybercrime and cyber security issues are front and centre. Businesses have to be very conscious of it. The Australian Government, through the Australian Signals Directorate, is working with Medibank as are other security agencies as appropriate to ensure that the disruption that potentially will occur here is absolutely minimised. But Clare O'Neil will be asking for the specifics and answering the specific questions this afternoon.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible) What support is the government providing to people right now who have just had really sensitive data compromised?
PRIME MINISTER: Clare O'Neil, the Minister will be responding in detail, we have responded publicly, already as soon as we were notified of the breach. The Government stepped in and is working with the company through our agencies to ensure that any disruption here is minimised
JOURNALIST: The forecast cost of the Stage Three stage is now up to $254 billion over ten years. How is it justifiable to keep these when you’re saying you’re going to need to make tough decisions and cuts to the budget?
PRIME MINISTER: We have not changed our position on that. The Budget, of course, will have an update next Tuesday but the Government has not changed its position.
JOURNALIST: Lidia Thorpe has confirmed to the ABC she was in an undisclosed relationship with an ex- bikie boss while on a parliamentary law enforcement committee. What should Adam Bandt do given she didn’t disclose it at the time?
PRIME MINISTER: My understanding is that Senator Thorpe has been dismissed as the Deputy Leader of the Green's political party in the Senate. I think that these are concerning revelations. Australians are entitled to believe that the oversight processes that are there in the Parliament over our legal system will be maintained in a way that that ensures integrity and ensures that any information which is given there is kept in a confidential basis. I note also that Senator Thorpe has said that this is an error of judgement, that is the least description that I would put to it. And Mr Bandt has to explain what his office knew and what he knew and if he wasn't informed about these issues given his office was informed, why that is the case.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible) Disadvantaged and vulnerable people bore the brunt of Australia’s Covid-19 pandemic response according to a new independent report. What is your reaction to this? And what lessons will you take from it going forward?
PRIME MINISTER: This is a serious report that has been undertaken by private philanthropy organisations. And I note Doctor Shergold of course, very well known to me, as a former head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and for the important role he has played at the University of Western Sydney. This report does raise concerns. I have said clearly that my government will undertake, at some future time, a proper inquiry into the impact of the pandemic, the actions of governments. We need to learn the lessons from the pandemic. It is quite clear some of the lessons we have learnt and have indicated that we are responding to. Our economy needs to be made more resilient, we need to make more things here. One of the things I will be doing here in Western Australia is talking about that over the coming four days, while I'm here in Western Australia, about the need to value-add to our resources sector. The need to make sure that we make more things here and we have a future made in Australia. That is one of the lessons from the pandemic. But there are others as well. I haven’t had the opportunity to read all of the report, but I certainly intend to. This is clearly a serious piece of work that will feed into any national inquiry which we undertake.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister just on the resources sector, WA's $6 billion surplus shows how good mining can be for a government budget. Can we expect your government to try again to bring in something like a mining tax?
PRIME MINISTER: No.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, a lot of people are waiting on passports to be delivered to them, DFAT obviously has a lot of demand at the moment. Do you foresee extra resources being put into that department to try and get people these passports before they have planned trips?
PRIME MINISTER: We have put in additional resources but we inherited a system that almost 1 million people who had applied for visas hadn’t been processed. We inherited a system whereby the public service had been undermined. It was almost as if the former government didn’t want to engage on these issues and to deliver outcomes. We are working through it. We have already allocated many hundreds of people additional to work through the backlog that was across the whole system, whether it be the issuing of passports, whether it be the processing of visas for the whole range of services. be it in employment, be it for family members to visit as well. It’s disgraceful that so many people have waited, in some cases, for years, not just months, in order to have basic processing occur. It is part of the former government's undermining of the public service. We are, in next week's Budget, you will see the turnaround which is occurring, but like other measures you cannot undo a decade of neglect in just what is now under five months.
JOURNALIST: Your home state has been going through a similar battle to WA’s nurse to patient ratios. Are you glad to see the WA Government commit to implementing ratios?
PRIME MINISTER: I think Mark McGowan's government is doing an outstanding job. We have the local member for Albany here. She might want to comment on this, but I think across the board quite clearly, Mark McGowan at the last state election was rewarded for standing up for WA. Whether it be delivering services in education and health, whether it being delivering on job creation and the success of the economy, or whether it be standing up against Clive Palmer. I have always chosen to support Mark McGowan. I think one of the reasons we were successful here in WA at the last election was I was supporting Mark McGowan when Scott Morrison was supporting Clive Palmer.
REBECCA SUE STEPHENS, MEMBER FOR ALBANY: Thank you Prime Minister for being here at Albany today and again thank you for a Labor government federally who is now recognising regional WA as well as providing these amazing infrastructure projects that will come to WA. Obviously, the comments around the nurses is still in negotiations with the minister and was in Parliament yesterday. You will be able to get some of those comments from there. We live in one of the best regional centres in Australia and this announcement today will only make it even more liveable than what it has been so far. So thank you again for visiting Prime Minister Albanese.
JOURNALIST: Just on the nurses, are you concerned WA nurses are taking industrial action?
MEMBER FOR ALBANY: I can't comment any further on that. The Minister for Health is in negotiations with the unions and she is the best person to comment on those.
JOURNALIST: You’re not concerned?
PRIME MINISTER: I refer to the member's answer to that question.
JOURNALIST: So, you’re not concerned then?
PRIME MINISTER: I am not aware of and I'm not about to come into a state, any state, and comment on the details of these actions. I think that Mark McGowan's government, if you ask about federal policy, Mark McGowan's government is working very closely with us to deliver on health infrastructure and you will see that in those commitments that we made during the election campaign. I visited some hospitals here in WA and we were successful and therefore that funding and the commitments we made will be there in the Budget. As will the additional funding for 20,000 university places that of course will lead to extra nurses being trained.
JOURNALIST: How about funding for the cancer centre? Is that affected in the budget?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, you only have a few days to wait for but we will, a federal Labor government will always be better for services and particularly always be better for health and education than the government, if you can call it that, that we replaced.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, will you be heading to Telethon this weekend?
PRIME MINISTER: I will be heading to Telethon this weekend and I'm really looking forward to it. I got to meet young Ari and Emily on my last visit to WA just a couple of weeks ago. Fantastic young Australians doing it tough but doing it with such a sense of optimism and I'm really looking forward to that. I will also of course be hosting the Japanese Prime Minister, Prime Minister Kishida, here in Perth on Saturday and we will be hosting, as well, a luncheon with Mark McGowan, the Premier. And I really look forward to that. It says something about my attitude as the Australian Prime Minister that I'm holding a bilateral meeting with one of our major partners, not in Canberra, not on the East Coast, but right here in Western Australia. I want to make sure that Western Australia gets the proper recognition that it deserves because Western Australia has been absolutely critical in the economy over this difficult period and will continue to be into the future.
Thanks very much and I thank the random Souths guy who has turned up here as well.