It’s great to be here in Devonport: What Tony said

6 August 2010

DEVONPORT

Subjects: The Coalition’s plan to boost local health services; a Linear Accelerator for Burnie Hospital; Kevin Rudd; the Orgill Report; Labor waste; paid parental leave.

TONY ABBOTT:

It’s great to be here in Devonport. I’m very pleased to have with me our candidate for the seat of Braddon Garry Carpenter. It’s good to be in the presence of our Tasmanian Senate team led by the Senate Leader Eric Abetz, Stephen Parry, Guy Barnett, David Bushby and Richard Colbeck is somewhere in the room. I want to thank Devonport City Council for the use of this facility. I also want to thank Jill Almond for hosting me and Richard and Gary to a lovely morning tea at her home just a few moments ago and for sharing with us some of her personal story and the campaign that she and so many other people have been waging to get better cancer services here in northwest Tasmania.

Today I am announcing an $85 million health infrastructure fund that the Coalition will establish if we come to government on the 21st August. The health infrastructure fund is the kind of fund that I always wished I had had when I was the Health Minister in government. Often as a Health Minister you find gaps in local health services, usually health services that have been inadequately provided by state Labor Governments and this fund will enable at least some of those gaps to be met.

I announce that the first commitment from this fund will be $7 million towards a Linear Accelerator at Burnie Hospital. This is a necessary part of a proper cancer treatment service in north-western Tasmania. A Linear Accelerator was promised by the current Member for Braddon and the then Opposition now the Government in the 2007 election campaign. As is so often the case the Government has failed to deliver. We have seen much evidence here in the northwest of failures to deliver. There is a GP super clinic, if that’s the right term, here in the city of Devonport. It isn’t bulk billing, it isn’t open extended hours, even though that plainly was promised by the Government as part of the super clinic programme. All it is is just another GP clinic in competition with established practices and as Dr Michael Aizen, the head of the local AMA has recently said, this whole super clinic issue has been a giant con by the Labor Party.

I’m going to make a few general political observations in a moment, but let me just ask if I can Garry Carpenter to say a few words about the announcement that I’ve just made of a Linear Accelerator for Burnie Hospital. This is an extremely pressing local issue. Every year some 700 local people are travelling to Launceston for cancer treatment. Some 40 per cent of the cancer treatment load at Launceston is people from the northwest. It’s estimated that the average cancer patient from the northwest going to Launceston will travel some 9,000km in the course of his or her treatment. People deserve better than this and they will get better than this under a Coalition government and I’m very happy to ask Garry just to say a few words. I have to say that Garry is an excellent local candidate, he’s a local farmer, he’s been very active in the local community. He’s typical of the grassroots candidates that the Coalition is picking right around Australia.

GARRY CARPENTER:

Thanks Tony. Welcome everybody to the coast and today’s announcement of this $7 million plan for the Linear Accelerator the northwest in Burnie is an unbelievable announcement that people on this Braddon electorate have been waiting for for a long, long time. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel the electorate in last eight weeks and the word cancer comes from basically 99 out of 100 people. What we are seeing today in time when the plan goes ahead that will take the impediments out of not allowing it to happen, which will ease the pressure on families that have to travel or can’t travel. They are so disappointed in the Labor promises through Mr Sidebottom here at the moment that they’ve given up hope and they don’t sort of believe much in politicians anymore. We’ll restore that and we’ll get this built and make it work in conjunction with the Holman Clinic in Launceston and that’s what we’ll do. Thanks Tony.

TONY ABBOTT:

Thanks so much Garry. Ok, look, I just want to make a few observations if I may about the general political scene and I’ve got to say that it’s hard to know just who is currently in charge of the Federal Government. Is it Real Julia, is it Fake Julia, is it Comeback Kev? You just can’t tell looking at the soap opera which is the current Federal Labor Government. What we do see, though, is that state Labor, state Labor style has come to Canberra with all the personal hatreds, with all the political thuggery and with all the constant change of leader. For my part I think this campaign is too important to be derailed by the soap opera that’s going on inside the ranks of the Labor Party. What people will get from me is quite clear and quite certain. Under a Coalition government we’ll end the waste, we’ll repay the debt, we’ll stop the big new taxes and we’ll stop the boats. No one knows what they will get from Labor. Will it be real Julia? Will it be fake Julia? Will it be comeback Kev? We just don’t know what we will get from this deeply dysfunctional Government.

Look, I also understand that the Orgill Report has just been released in Canberra. I understand that the Orgill Report vindicates the criticisms that the Coalition has been making of the extraordinary waste and mismanagement that has taken place in the school hall programme. The Orgill Report seems to demonstrate that Julia Gillard is not fit to be a minister, let alone the Prime Minister of this country. If you can’t be trusted to manage a $16 billion programme properly, you certainly can’t be trusted to manage the $350 billion a year budget of the Commonwealth properly. If you can’t manage a school hall programme properly, you can’t be trusted to manage a $1.1 trillion economy properly.

QUESTION:

[inaudible] very high success rate.

TONY ABBOTT:

Waste is never justified. Waste is never justified. Now, sure, not all schools have complained about their project but that doesn’t mean that value for money has been achieved in all projects or even in most projects. Certainly, everywhere you look there is example after example of absolutely scandalous rip-off.

QUESTION:

So are you disagreeing with Brad Orgill then when he says that overall this is delivering quality infrastructure within the timeline and did provide the economic benefits that it set out to do?

TONY ABBOTT:

You can never justify waste. Waste is never justified. The Prime Minister likes to say that the Government’s stimulus programme saved 200,000 jobs. Well, do the maths. That’s something like $250,000 each. Now, all of us want to save jobs but you’ve got to ask yourself the big question: did it really need $250,000 per job, especially given the fact that, as far as the Reserve Bank Governor is concerned, this was more a North Atlantic crisis than a global financial crisis, except for the six to eight weeks of late 2008 when the banking system was under serious strain.

The interesting thing about the second stimulus package is that it’s basically lasted, or it’s basically slated to last, longer than the First World War to deal with a crisis that lasted six to eight weeks.

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott, if you’re Prime Minister in two weeks time, what will you do with most of the projects, what will you do with the schools that have major problems?

TONY ABBOTT:

I’ve made it very clear that on day one, an incoming Coalition government will suspend all payments that are being directed through the state education departments because, plainly, the state education departments in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria have not got value for money. Instead, we will give that money to the school parents and citizens bodies because parents and principals have demonstrated that they are capable of getting value for money for their schools and for the taxpayer.

QUESTION:

Do you accept that if you’d been in government, if the Coalition had been in government, and it made the decisions that it wanted to make on stimulus spending, do you accept that unemployment would have risen higher that it did, that jobs would have been lost under the Coalition?

TONY ABBOTT:

I don’t accept that and there is a wealth of economic expertise to say that the stimulus was not well-managed. A wealth of economic expertise. Professor Tony Makin, for instance, just the other day said that the real benefit to the Australian economy came from exchange rate changes and from interest rate changes. Professor Warwick McKibbin, on the Reserve Bank Board, has described the stimulus package, the second stimulus package as a panicky move. Professor Sinclair Davidson has described the whole stimulus policy as a shambles. Look, we supported the first modest package which did come at the height of the crisis. We opposed the $42 billion stimulus package because we knew back then that it was too much, too soon. We could see back then that it was inevitably going to lead to the kind of waste and mismanagement that we have seen so abundantly in the pink batts program and the school halls program.

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott, will you offer sweeteners for some of the Nationals and other members of your Party who aren’t that enamoured with your paid parental leave scheme, such as support for stay at home mothers or child care centres in regional areas?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, this is visionary social change and important economic reform and it’s sometimes hard for people to accept visionary social change and I know that this was a difficult issue for some of the people in the Coalition party room, I accept that, I understand that. I share their concerns for stay at home mums. I want to do the right thing by stay at home mums, as well and will do, when the Budget is in a stronger position, but the fact is this is our policy. It’s a very important policy and I am very much looking forward to implementing it, should we win the election on the 21st of August.

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott, are you ruling out extra help for stay at home mums?

TONY ABBOTT:

I am not promising additional help now. Although I note that the education tax rebate that we announced in the first week of the campaign will produce significant benefits for families with children because every family with children faces significant educational costs, I think, from memory, educational costs have gone up 17 per cent over the last three years.

QUESTION:

You promised money now for a linear accelerator in the northwest. You could promise five, but the State Government does not, and says it’s not ready to put them in yet. How are you going to get around the State Government?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, according to the state cancer plan, one is needed and I think that given that the state cancer plan says that one is needed, one is needed from 2013, which is when we are proposing to put it in, it would be a pretty foolish state government that didn’t want to cooperate with us.

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott, just on schools, would you support free condoms in schools for children as young as 12, as proposed by Family Planning Victoria.

TONY ABBOTT:

I have no plans to go down that path.

QUESTION:

Can you guarantee that you will not water down any Coalition paid parental leave scheme [inaudible].

TONY ABBOTT:

It is Coalition policy. It is clear Coalition policy and yes, we had a very vigorous discussion in the Shadow Cabinet and in the Party Room. The policy was settled, the policy is clear, it will be implemented exactly as we outlined earlier this week.

QUESTION:

Do you think Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd should make clear whether they have a united position on issues such as asylum seekers and other things where Julia Gillard has changed and things have lurched to the right?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, the interesting this is that six weeks ago, Kevin Rudd was so toxic to the Labor Party, so fatal to the Labor Party’s electoral prospects that he had to be politically assassinated. Now, it seems Julia Gillard is so toxic to the Labor Party’s political prospects that she has to be assisted by the man who she assassinated just six weeks ago. It just shows what a shambles this Government is. It just shows that you can’t trust this Government to deliver for the Australian people. By contrast, I have a clear plan which I’ve been putting forward to people every day of this campaign. We’ll end the waste, we’ll pay back the debt, we’ll stop the big new taxes and we’ll stop the boats.

QUESTION:

How can Australians believe you are fit to govern [inaudible]?

TONY ABBOTT:

My argument is with Julia Gillard, I used to think, but now I see it’s with Kevin Rudd as well. Look, my argument is with the Labor Party and that’s who I intend to prosecute.

QUESTION:

What do you say to Malcolm Fraser when he says you are not fit to govern?

TONY ABBOTT:

As I said, my argument is with Julia Gillard and if she were to be supplanted at some point in the election campaign by Kevin Rudd, my argument would be with him.

QUESTION:

You’ve had a frog in your throat the last couple of days, have you got any ailments or is the campaign starting to take a toll on you?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, I’ve been riding my bike every morning and I think I’m fit for office in every way.

QUESTION:

Do you know who the petrol commissioner is?

TONY ABBOTT:

Someone called Des? Look, the thing is if the Prime Minister, it’s the Prime Minister’s policy to have a petrol commissioner and she doesn’t know the petrol commissioners name, which just goes to prove that her policies aren’t working. Thank you.

6 August 2010

TRANSCRIPT OF THE HON. TONY ABBOTT MHR

Subjects: The Coalition’s Labor Waste Report.

TONY ABBOTT:

It’s great to be here in Launceston with Steve Titmus, the candidate, the really excellent, outstanding candidate that we’ve got for this seat, it’s great to be with Guy Barnett who obviously represents the whole of Tasmania, but lives here in Launceston and has been I think often enough the defacto member for Bass over the last couple of years, given the pretty inadequate representation that it’s had by the retiring member, but look, I’m here to formally launch Guy’s Waste Report for 2010. It is a litany of failure from the Labor Government, but in particular from Prime Minister Gillard, who as the Minister for Education has been responsible for one of the all time great wastes of public money and the point I make about the so-called Building the Education Revolution programme is that if you can’t trust the Minister to exercise stewardship successfully, over $16 billion worth of spending, how could you trust her as Prime Minister to successfully supervise the $350 billion a year in the Commonwealth Budget? So, on that note, I might just throw to Guy and ask Guy to say a few words about his report.

GUY BARNETT:

Thanks very much, Tony. As Tony said this report confirms that the Government is responsible for bungles, blow-outs and broken promises to the extent of $10 billion over the last three years under the Rudd-Gillard Government. This Government, it seems, based on this report, it confirms that it is the most wasteful government in Australian history and in particular the Minister responsible for the most wasteful initiative, the Building the Education Revolution, of course is the now Prime Minister Julia Gillard. So, it has a Top 20 list and you’ll see in the report that it confirms that the top of the list is the Building the Education Revolution with the $1.7 billion blow-out and up to $8 billion wasted. The home insulation programme, the pink batts programme fiasco, $2.45 billion waste and mismanagement and a call for a Royal Commission. This is very serious indeed and the litany continues with laptops in schools, solar homes, green loans, stimulus advertising, climate change advertising, the ETS – 150 public servants you’ll remember, at a cost of $82 million to the public service. The UN Security Council bid and so on, the 2020 Summit. So it’s all there in the report, there’s a litany of waste and mismanagement, it is shocking in the extreme and the report confirms that this has all been happening at the same time that we’ve been racking up $90 billion of debt. Of course, the Government is now borrowing $100 million a day to continue its reckless spending. So, the report says that enough is enough and the report is quite conclusive that this is the most wasteful government in Australian history.

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok, are there any questions?

QUESTION:

I’m asking about Linear Accelerators. This morning you’ve promised one to the North West Hospital at Burnie. Will that be at the expense of the third Linear Accelerator that the Labor Government’s put into Launceston, due for commissioning in October?

TONY ABBOTT:

No. As I made very clear this morning up in Devonport, the Linear Accelerator at Burnie will be installed in the closest possible cooperation with the people running the Linear Accelerator here at Launceston.

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott, you said that you’ll axe the NBN. What internet speeds will you offer Australians, how much will it cost and when will it be in place?

TONY ABBOTT:

We’ll be announcing our telecommunications policy later in the campaign. I want to make it clear that I am every bit in favour as anyone of fast, affordable broadband. I want fast, affordable broadband. But I think that competition is more likely to deliver fast, affordable broadband than a return to government telecommunications monopoly and I just don’t trust a government which could not successfully deliver school halls and pink batts to deliver a far more sophisticated, far more complex, and ultimately far more expensive infrastructure rollout.

QUESTION:

With regards to the Linear Accelerator, isn’t that an example of waste because the AMA came out last year saying the population was too small in Burnie?

TONY ABBOTT:

The interesting thing is that almost 700 of the patients using the Launceston Linear Accelerator are actually from the North West. Over 40 per cent of patients using the Launceston Linear Accelerator are from the North West. A patient from the North West coming down to Launceston will typically clock up 9,000 kilometres during the course of his or her cancer treatment. And let’s not forget that the state cancer management plan says that Burnie should have its own cancer treatment centre, so we are simply facilitating the rollout of the cancer treatment plan for the state of Tasmania and as time goes by, as our population ages, we will well and truly need this facility.

QUESTION:

You’ve guaranteed three Linear Accelerators in Launceston into the future?

TONY ABBOTT:

I guarantee that Launceston’s plans will not be disturbed but that Burnie will get a Linear Accelerator.

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott, in forestry, Tasmanian forestry contractors have put out a call for $100 million worth of assistance, short-term assistance. Is that something that you’d back?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, I know there has been a round table process going on. It’s not a process which has involved the Opposition so I really can’t comment on a proposal that the Opposition just hasn’t been part of formulating. But I do support the forest industry and don’t just look at my words, look at the consistent actions of the Coalition. But for the Howard Government, I think it’s pretty clear that the forest industry would have died in Tasmania and one of the real fears that I have is that the Labor-Green alliance here in Tasmania, coupled with a re-elected Gillard Government, should that happen, working with a Green balance of power in the Senate, this would be a disaster for the Tasmanian forest industry and if you want the Tasmanian forest industry to survive the last thing you need is a defacto Labor-Green alliance in Canberra as well as in Hobart.

QUESTION:

How many in allocated hospital networks for Tasmania?

TONY ABBOTT:

I certainly think that it would be quite wrong to have all of the decisions about hospitals in the north of Tasmania being made in the south. I mean, I’m quite familiar with the health and medical situation here in Tasmania from my time as Minister and I know that there has for far too long been too much decision making in Hobart for the people of the north and northwest and that should end.

QUESTION:

Can I just confirm on that, Peter Dutton yesterday confirmed on radio that he supported three area health networks, and that’s been confirmed by Peter Dutton our Shadow Minister.

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott, the High Court today has overruled the Howard Government’s amendments to the Electoral Act to force the closure of the roll on the day the writs are issued. Was that a mistake that the Howard Government made in moving those amendments forward in the first place, given it means another 100,000 Australians or so will now be able to vote?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, I’m not really in a position to comment because I simply haven’t seen the judgment. So, look, I just can’t comment. But I am confident that the Australian Electoral Commission is its own inimitable way will cope with this decision. Thank you.

06 August 2010

TRANSCRIPT OF THE HON. TONY ABBOTT MHR

REMARKS AT THE LAUNCH OF LABOR WASTE REPORT
LAUNCESTON

TONY ABBOTT:

Ladies and gentlemen I just want to say how thrilled I am to be here in the great city of Launceston. It’s great to be here with Steve Titmus. Steve is a really outstanding candidate and I think he will be the next Member for Bass. It’s also great to be here with Eric, because we have a very good team running for the Lower House seats here in Tasmania, but I am particularly pleased to be here today because I am officially launching the 2010 Waste Watch Report from Senator Guy Barnett. Senator Guy Barnett, just give me a copy of that, please. I think we should show that to the world. This report is a compilation of the waste that we have seen so much of from the current Labor Government in Canberra. This is a government which claims to be good at economic management. It is not good economic management to waste money and what we have seen from this government is rip off after rip off, waste after waste. Extravagance after extravagance and Guy Barnett has been a marvellous chronicler of the waste and extravagance, the rip-offs that we have seen from this Government which demonstrates that it is not fit to govern our country. Not fit to govern our country.

The one thing that a decent government must always do is respect the taxpayers dollar. We all know in the real world how hard it is to make a dollar, particularly if you’re in business, trying to make a dollar. If you’re managing a family budget, trying to make a dollar or to keep a dollar from wages which are never high enough, battling expenses which are higher this week than last week. So, the last thing that we should have from Government is disrespect for the efforts of the Australian people to make a dollar, government holds every dollar on trust from the Australian people and it should never ever be wasted and a Government which wastes money has forfeited the trust of the people and has forfeited its right for re-election.

So, ladies and gentlemen, Guy has done an extraordinary job, as I said, of chronicling the examples of waste and the interesting thing is that the three top examples of waste, Building the Education Revolution, $1.7 billion blow out and up to $8 billion wasted by taking prices and tenders that were too high. Which Minister was responsible for the Building the Education Revolution programme? That’s right and having been so successful in that programme, she wants to be promoted! Well, I think you if are incapable of managing the $16 billion school hall programme, you are certainly incapable of managing $350 billion a year, which is the Federal Budget. Then of course, we have the laptops in schools programme. Who was responsible for that I wonder? Guy, can you remind me?

GUY BARNETT:

I’ve forgotten. No, I remember. It was Julia Gillard.

TONY ABBOTT:

The point is that she promised a million computers. Less than 300,000 of them have been delivered and what was supposed to be a $1 billion programme has blow out to over $2 billion. Well, it’s just not good enough. A minister who is incapable of delivering school halls on time and on budget should not be the Prime Minister of this country. A minister who was not capable of getting computers into schools on time and on budget, should not be the Prime Minister of this country.

Ladies and gentlemen, they know, this Federal Government knows it is in trouble. They have effectively conceded that they are in terrible trouble because three times in six weeks we have seen extraordinary panic from this Government. First, they executed their own leader. A Prime Minister elected by the people, executed by the faceless men of the factions. Just last week we had the remarkable admission from the Prime Minister, that all this time it hasn’t been the real Julia. It’s been someone else. And just yesterday, the call for help from Julia to Kevin: ‘please rescue me’. This was someone who was so toxic to the Labor brand six weeks ago that he had to be executed politically. Now his successor is so toxic to the Labor brand that she needs to be rescued by the person she politically assassinated. Well, look, the thing is that, what’s their slogan? Something about moving forward? Well, now it seems they’re moving forward to Kevin Rudd and if you go from Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, back to Kevin Rudd, what that seems to me is that you’re moving around in ever decreasing circles. That’s what’s really happening with this Government.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I’m delighted to be here with Guy who, as I said, has been an outstanding member of our team in Canberra and has been very, very important in exposing the truth about this Government. He needs to go back to Canberra as a senior member of the Coalition team, and Steve Titmus needs to go to Canberra as a member of the Coalition team and the thing about these great community candidates is that if Steve Titmus goes to Canberra he will be Bass’s man in Canberra, he won’t be Canberra’s man in Bass. We don’t need a faceless flunky in a seat like this. We need someone who knows the community, is respected by the community and who can stand up for the community and that’s what we’ve got in Steve Titmus, so Steve it’s nice to be with you today.

STEVE TITMUS:

Look, thank you very much Tony. I think it’s terrific that Tony once again has come back to Bass. He was here only a few weeks ago when he opened my campaign office and also we spent some time meeting with various community officials and Tony, the great thing about him is that what you see with Tony is what you get. Without a doubt and the good thing about Tony is that he’s enabled me to have a direct line to him, so the issues that occur here in Bass including the rise in cost of living, job security, we’re obviously talking to Tony about those and also about the silt, the build of the silt in the Tamar River, also talking to Tony about other important council matters, such as the flood protection for Invermay. These are issues that we’re talking to Tony about, talking directly to him and he’s listening.

Look, the important part is that I’m listening to the community of Bass, and Tony’s listening to me. That is what’s important for the people of Bass because in the past three years we’ve had a situation of poor representation. It’s time that we changed that, it’s time that we have some strong representation. My guarantee to the people of Bass and my commitment to Tony is that if I’m elected to the seat of Bass as the Member of the House of Representatives that I guarantee that I will be a fulltime and strong representative for the people of Bass. That’s my commitment to you people, that’s my commitment to the electorate and Tony, that’s my commitment to you to go forward towards August 21st, and we look forward to the election day and please, I would very much appreciate your vote on August 21st so that we can put the Liberal Party back into government here in Australia. Tony, thank you very much indeed for coming to Launceston, it’s great to see you.

TONY ABBOTT:

Can I just say to you all in conclusion that Steve has been a stalwart advocate for the particular needs of this electorate and I am listening to him and to my other candidates as they talk about the particular needs of their electorate. These cauliflower ears are not just the result of packing down in too many scrums, they are the result of his teeth chewing my ear about the needs of this electorate. But, you know, it would be so much easier to meet the legitimate needs of areas right around Australia if we weren’t spending five times the price on overpriced school halls and if we weren’t wasting $2.4 billion putting dodgy insulation into roofs where it catches fire and then having to rip it out again. So that’s what we need to do first of all. We need to end the waste, end the rip-off and then we are in a position once again to start investing in the productive infrastructure that our country needs. Thank you so much, it’s a pleasure to be here.