: My name is Zaneta Mascarenhas, I’m the Federal Member for Swan. It is wonderful to be here at Cannington Station with the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, WA Premier Roger Cook, the Minister for Infrastructure, Rita Saffioti, and the fabulous candidate for Cannington, Ron Sao. This is an exciting moment. This is an amazing project that will unite communities. I was speaking to engineers earlier today, and they describe this as one of the top projects in their working career, because of quality, safety and also how important this project will be to the community. I will now hand over to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, thanks very much Zaneta. This is indeed a transformational infrastructure project. It will improve reliability and performance through the rail network here in Perth. It will improve times to travel by road, and it will unite communities as well, as well as opening up possibilities for urban redevelopment. This is such an exciting, visionary project. At the same time, we’re seeing 4300 jobs being created in construction, but in terms of productivity benefits, this will have a flow on effect for decades to come. I pay tribute to the WA Labor Government led by Roger Cook, for Rita Saffioti for her long term vision when it comes to infrastructure for this city. I can’t think of a project that will make such an enormous difference for economic productivity, for liveability, as well as, of course, for sustainability, for this great city of Perth. It is a fantastic project. We’re very pleased to be contributing over $700 million for this project out of the $1.6 billion that this project will cost. But when we speak about costs, this is truly about an investment. It’s an investment that will produce such a positive return going forward. And I’m very pleased to be here and to hand now to the Premier Roger Cook.
ROGER COOK, PREMIER OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Thank you, Prime Minister. It’s with immense pride that we’re here to celebrate another major milestone for the construction of METRONET, where work is now complete on the elevated rail section to the Armadale line transformation. The elevated structure that we’re standing on today runs four kilometres in this part of the rail line itself. It’s an amazing development. This is about transforming the communities in this area. It’s about transforming public transport, and it’s changing lives. It’s transforming lives for the better. We are immensely proud of this particular project, in particular the fact that 500 locally manufactured concrete L-beams are supporting these viaducts, which run the length and breadth of this particular line. It means, in total, we’ve laid around seven kilometres of track along this corridor, and this is going to be huge for the southeastern suburbs of Perth. For instance, through METRONET and alongside our Byford line extension, we’re delivering seven new train stations, including five elevated stations at Carlisle, Oats Street, Queens Park, Cannington and Beckenham. Thirteen level crossings have been taken out as a result of this construction, uniting communities which have been divided for literally a century as part of this heritage line work. And around six hectares of public open space, car parking and pedestrian connections in the space under the elevated rail. This is about changing Perth for good, and it’s changing communities for good, and we are so proud. Here in the southeastern suburbs where I’m replacing 130-year-old heritage line with a new modern line, which will see thousands of communities taking advantage of the connection that it will provide into the city and beyond. It’s delivering 4300 jobs on this particular line alone, in addition to the other great METRONET jobs which have been part of this overall build. We’re immensely proud of the work that WA Labor Governments have done over the years. First of all, reopening the Fremantle line after it was closed by the Liberal Government. The electrification of our Heritage line, the Joondalup line, the creation of the Mandurah line, and of course, now METRONET. Which is not just about retrofitting old rail lines, it’s about extending to new communities, creating that connection. I was born and raised in this town, and one thing we always used to joke about was how dreadful Perth’s public transport system was. Now we’re bragging about it. We’re immensely proud of this work, and we’re immensely proud of the team, everyone who’s been involved in the METRONET construction. As you can see, this project is flying along, and that’s down to the ingenuity, tenacity and the determination of everyone on the worksite, workers, supervisors and engineers and designers. It’s a great piece of public transport infrastructure. And speaking of great transport infrastructure, I hand you over to a great Transport Minister, Rita Saffioti.
RITA SAFFIOTI, WESTERN AUSTRALIAN TRANSPORT MINISTER: Thank you Prime Minister and thank you Premier. Just a few years back, we stood at Carlisle station committing to transform the Armadale train line. And of course, as part of the election commitments of the then Federal Opposition, they committed to contributing to this program, in particular with the new Beckenham station too, and we combine that into our Cannington Victoria Park Level Crossing Removal Project. As you can see, we have made incredible progress from shutting from the line last November. We demolished the existing stations, we demolished the existing rail line, and of course, the structure is now in place. Concrete structure is now 100 per cent complete. We are now laying the track, and of course, building five new stations. This project will transform the south east corridor. As the Premier outlined not only the four and a half kilometres of elevated track, but we’ve replaced the whole track through this through this area, and of course, between Beckenham and down to Kelmscott too, we’re replacing track and upgrading that track too to make sure it’s fit for purpose. This train line will no longer to divide communities. What this will do is create new places for activity and homes. We’re in the final stages of consultation in relation to what happens underneath this elevated rail, of course, not only incredible brand new stations, but also a lot of activity, basketball courts, skate parks, community gardens, places for young people and older people to recreate and creating a living breathing space beneath this elevated rail. And of course, the Cannington district centre, with of course the Carousel at it’s heart and office buildings, will be seeing new homes and new places for people to live just here connected to the Cannington station. The old Cannington station wasn’t fit for purpose. It wasn’t even disability compliant. This is a brand new station that will service the community for decades to come. Can I thank all the workers, they’ve done an incredible job. There was some scepticism about the rate of progress once we shut that line. We will all remember we shut the line, and the next morning, we were tearing up the tracks and we’re pulling down the boom gates. They’ve made incredible progress. We’ve seen over 1000 concrete elements being installed. And of course, we’ve pre-prepared most of that off site, and of course, using latest technology in relation to crane technology, across the entire area, they have made incredible progress. We again, thank all the passengers of the Armadale rail line for their patience. Of course, their rail line has been shut as we’ve been delivering their brand new rail line. We thank you for your patience, and of course, they’ve had free public transport during this period, and we’ve seen incredible patronage on our rail lines and across our network. So a big thanks to all the workers involved. This has been an exceptional product, one that we’re very proud of, and one that I constantly get feedback from about how sensational it’s looking.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much. We’re happy to take some questions. I’ll take questions first and then hand over to the Premier and Minister for any state questions. Could I make this point as well, though before questions, this is consistent with our Future Made in Australia agenda as well. Every bit of steel that will go into the tracks here is Australia steel fabricated right here in WA.
JOURNALIST: Should the CEOs of major supermarket companies, Woolworth and Coles, resign if the ACCC lawsuit is upheld?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that of course, is a matter for their companies. But I make this point, Australians are rightly outraged at what has been going on in these major supermarkets. You have between them, almost 500 incidents have been prosecuted now, will be prosecuted through the court by the ACCC. When shoppers go to their checkout, they expect in the supermarket, where they see the sign of ‘specials’ for it to actually be cheaper. But what is alleged here is that supermarkets have increased their price by a dollar for example, then decreased by 50 cents, so it’s 50 cents more expensive than it was just a short period earlier. And yet they’re pretending that somehow customers are getting a bargain. Now that’s not the Australian way. It’s not honest, it’s not fair dinkum. And that’s why the ACCC are taking this strong action. It’s also why we are changing the voluntary code of conduct, which existed under the former Government into a mandated code of conduct after the recommendations by Craig Emerson. We have released for exposure draft that mandatory code of conduct, as well as the amendments we plan to make for legislation to introduce by the end of the year to make sure that there are serious issues dealt with in an appropriate way by our national government.
JOURNALIST: On the ABC and the Heston Russell matter, are you concerned (Inaudible).
PRIME MINISTER: The ABC is an independent body. If I was to answer questions about standards of media organisations, I’d be here for some time.
JOURNALIST: Just on interest rates. The Greens want the Government to intervene, that the Government does have that power. Do you see any scenario where that might happen?
PRIME MINISTER: No, because we have an independent Reserve Bank, and the Greens policy, quite frankly, would have a negative impact on economic growth and the way that we conduct economic policy. Central banks are independent of government. That occurs in just about every major economy in the world. What the Greens do is engage in populism, often in conjunction with their partners in the No-alition, the Liberal Party and the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Party, to just say no to everything, or to put up popular policies like breaking up supermarkets without having any plan for who would purchase those supermarkets like Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan, which yesterday he gave a speech on, and which has no costings, no detail. Peter Dutton will be here in the west, I understand later this week. I wonder if he visits Collie to have a look at the site there at Collie, where you have a battery being built that will store enough energy to power 850,000 homes. What we need in this country is serious policies that take us forward, not just populist rhetoric, which is what we see from the Greens and from the Coalition.
JOURNALIST: This trip to WA, does it show you are concerned about losing seats here at the next election?
PRIME MINISTER: No, it shows I’m committed to WA. And I have been coming to WA for a long period of time. I spoke to Roger about this project, and he encouraged me to come. And it’s an exciting project. Before I was the Infrastructure Minister, trivia question, really easy figure to remember, there wasn’t a single dollar, not $1 put into public transport in the 12 years of the Howard Government. I’ve worked with Rita Saffioti for a long period. We both have a passion about urban development and a passion about public transport. And that’s why I’m here. Because this is a significant Commonwealth investment in partnership with the leadership of the State Government to transform this city, just like the first City Link project when I was last in government and Infrastructure Minister, transformed the connection between the CBD and Northbridge. A visionary project that made a difference. This is of much greater scale and will transform this great city of Perth.
JOURNALIST: Penny Wong has said Australia doesn’t have capacity to help all Aussies in Lebanon get home. Does that mean some could be stuck in a war zone?
PRIME MINISTER: What it means is that people who are in Lebanon should listen to the warnings that we have been saying for months. They should come home while commercial flights are available. We have been saying that for many months. And we again reiterate the fact that we need for that to occur. The fact that some people have continued to go from Australia to Lebanon in recent months is not a common sense thing to do. The Government issues these warnings for a reason. And the advice is that people should take the opportunity to come home on a commercial aircraft while it is available.
JOURNALIST: The United States is proposing a ban on the use of Chinese software and hardware in smart vehicles due to concerns that technology could be disabled remotely from Beijing. Is Australia considering following suit?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the United States makes their decisions. We make our own decisions based upon our own advice, is what we do. I make this point as well that people in the Coalition, James Paterson and others, were calling for us to ban Tiktok a while ago. Peter Dutton recently got himself an account on Tiktok. So, they’re a bit all over the shop when it comes to that. I was somewhat bemused at the contradiction between a political party saying something should be banned while their Leader is out there opening up an account.
JOURNALIST: Your Department has said it is monitoring that situation, though, and there’s obviously some significant concerns that data could be kind of collated and shared with Beijing or technology even switched off remotely. Are you not concerned by that?
PRIME MINISTER: We monitor all these things, as my Department said. We monitor, along with our security agencies, and we make in our decisions in the national interest.
JOURNALIST: On the code of conduct. Are the concerns valid that it could raise prices, grocery prices? What will you do as part of that process to prevent that? What’s your Government done until this point to reduce grocery prices?
PRIME MINISTER: No, it’s the opposite. What we’ve done is what you can see happening with the announcement yesterday, which was to give the ACCC every encouragement to get in there and use powers at its disposal. They’re taking Woolworths and Coles to court. There are significant fines for every single breach of every product will be available. And the ACCC made it clear that they’ll be asking for significant penalties to be imposed if the court case is successful. The other thing that we’re doing, the mandated code of conduct is about putting downward pressure on prices by making sure that the game is up when it comes to the supermarkets, these big players saying, ‘Oh, just trust us, we’ll have a voluntary code and we’ll do the right thing’. Quite clearly, it hasn’t delivered, which is why we’re mandating the code of conduct, which is why we are also introducing changes to the consumer protection legislation to make sure that customers are looked after. Make no mistake about this Government’s commitment to making sure that we look after customers, because that is what we are obligated to do. But I make this point as well, that Coles and Woolworths are obligated to do that as well. They have an obligation to people who go into their stores, who show that loyalty, to do the right thing. But we will make sure, by mandating the code of conduct, that occurs.
JOURNALIST: How frustrated are you at the leaders of those companies?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, this should never have happened. And we’ve called it out. Australians are rightly outraged at this abuse of power which has had an impact on the amount of money that they put across the checkout for their weekly grocery bills.
JOURNALIST: Do you have a message for them?
PRIME MINISTER: It is not good enough. Get your act together and behave as you would expect anyone to behave. In this country, people expect honesty, and they expect that old-fashioned Australian notion of people being fair dinkum and giving people a fair go. When people are under cost of living pressures, we expect businesses to do the right thing. Now, we’ve managed to halve inflation whilst we’ve been helping with that gap that cost of living relief, whether it be in partnership, the $700 between the Commonwealth and the State for energy bill relief, the fee-free TAFE here in WA and around the country, the cheaper child care and the tax cut for every Australian taxpayer. We’ve done that while we’ve been producing two budget surpluses to put that downward pressure on inflation. And yesterday, we released figures that shows the significant impact that we have had in reducing the debt that was headed towards a trillion dollars under the former Government, and we’ve reduced that debt by 10 per cent as a share of GDP, almost $150 billion dollars less, really making a substantial difference to the debt as a result of my Government’s responsible economic policy.
JOURNALIST: What message do you have for voters regarding interest rate cuts?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the Reserve Bank are independent. The message I have is that my Government is doing everything we can to put downward pressure on inflation. We’ve seen it halved down to 3.5 per cent. What we want to see is more moderation of inflation going forward. But at the same time, we’re looking after people where we can on cost of living pressures, whilst making sure that any action is consistent with putting that downward pressure on inflation, which is why we’re producing budget surpluses.
JOURNALIST: When can WA sheep farmers expect to see revised compensation from the Federal Government?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we have, of course, $107 million on the table for compensation. We want to make sure that there’s a transformation in an orderly way. I know that the live sheep exports are worth about $80 million. This is an industry, when it comes to sheep meat exports, that’s valued at over $4 billion in the same year. And I note that the deal that we’ve done with the UAE will be potentially worth more than the entire worth of the live export industry.
JOURNALIST: Is that 107 firm?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, 107 is firm, but if people have got proposals, we’ve said, and I note the WA Government’s been keen on this as well, we’re prepared to engage constructively. I’ve met with sheep farmers in Canberra and met with families in Kalgoorlie. I do want to make this point as well, that the campaign being called ‘Keep the sheep’ is, in my view, an admission that it’s not ‘Keep live sheep exports’, it is ‘Keep the sheep’. So, that shows, I think, a lack of confidence, because people are concerned about the impact of this industry. What we want is for the industry, when it comes to farming of sheep, to be more prosperous, for jobs to be value added here by producing the sheep meat for export as well as for domestic consumption. And I note the hypocrisy of Sussan Ley in coming to Perth and pretending that she wasn’t the person who moved a private members’ bill to ban this industry, along with other frontbench members of Peter Dutton’s Opposition in Jason Wood and others. They were busy campaigning for this live export industry to end. She’s the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible).
PRIME MINISTER: As you know, I was in Philadelphia and on a plane.
JOURNALIST: Can I just ask on the Federal EPA legislation, obviously didn’t get up last week. Are you still intent on trying to get that through in the last few sitting weeks of the year? And also the third tranche of the nature positive reforms, are you going to come out before the election and kind of say publicly what they will entail?
PRIME MINISTER: We’re focused on nature positive legislation that helps to protect the environment and also makes a difference, that also speed up the environmental approvals. I note that environmental approval for resources project have been shortened during our time in government compare with the former Government. I have made it very clear as well that when it comes to climate change issues being considered, as I said last time I was here in Perth, very clearly but I say the same thing in Perth that I say in Canberra, unlike Peter Dutton. I have one message, which is that climate issues are dealt with through our safeguard mechanisms that went through the Parliament with the support of the business community. And that is the mechanism that we have. And we’re not interested in negotiating with the Greens political party over things that are just about gesture politics. We support the resources sector here in WA. That’s why, as well, we’re having production tax credits for critical minerals, for hydrogen, something that Peter Dutton has a different message when he’s on the East Coast compared with on the West Coast. This is a sensible reform that will pay on delivery, on success. You only get the production tax credits, that incentive, if you are successful. That’s the point. And that is why it is something that we support and something that the Coalition have made it clear as part of their $315 billion of cuts that they are planning, as well as cuts to housing through abolishing the Housing Australia Future Fund, cuts to the whole of the manufacturing sector through abolishing the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Reconstruction Fund, the cuts, one would assume, to the indexing of pensions and other measures. My Government is prepared to invest appropriately to encourage the sector. And WA will be big winners from that. And that’s why it’s very important that the production tax credits receive support. But at the moment, the Coalition and the Greens, just like opposing Future Made in Australia, opposing Build to Rent incentives for private rentals in housing, opposing the Help to Buy scheme that has operated successfully here in WA for a long period of time. This No-alition don’t have a plan for the future. My Government does. And thank you very much.
