Susie Bower: Look, it’s fantastic to have the Prime Minister back here in Tasmania, and especially in Lyons this morning. We’ve just had a visit here with John and Stuart from Nutrien Ag Solutions and we know in Tasmania and particularly in Lyons, the long and proud history we had of wool, producing some of the best wool in the world. And what is critical when we’re looking at exporting that wool is around trade agreements. And so what the Prime Minister is about to announce will be fantastic here for the wool industry, but for agriculture in general. Because Tasmania, and particularly again in Lyons, one of the biggest economic drivers in Lyons is agriculture. And being able to have had that opportunity for farmers to diversify is just a fantastic thing. So without further ado, I’ll introduce the Prime Minister of Australia, the Honourable Scott Morrison, to talk about the trade deal.
Prime Minister: Thanks very much, Susie. It’s great to be back here in Tassie again today. I’m particularly pleased to be here with Susie Bower, our Liberal candidate here for Lyons who is doing a terrific job. Can I also welcome John Tusken and Stuart Raine who are here with us. And we’re standing in the middle, they tell me of about $20 million worth of Tasmanian wool, which is very exciting. To be standing at a place, which is going to see these bales of wool get on a ship, go across to the mainland and find its way to markets all around the world. Because, you know, unless we’re producing in our regions, unless our regions are able to realise the opportunities that exist for them, whether it’s wool or whether it’s crayfish, or whether it’s our big resource industries around the country. Unless they’re doing that, then the Australian economy isn’t achieving everything it can. In order to ensure that Australia continues to have a strong and prosperous future, that our economy is strong, because a strong economy means a stronger future, then we need to be shearing sheep. We need to be harvesting the pastures. We need to be mining the resources. And all of this is occurring in our regions. That is where the wealth of the nation resides. That’s why in this year’s budget, we invested $21 billion in the health and in the strength and in the prosperity of our regions to unlock that wealth that is there to fuel and to supercharge Australia’s continuing economic growth as we come out of this pandemic.
Today, I’m here to announce something incredibly important for Australia. Today we open one of the biggest economic doors there is to open in the world today. We’ve been working on this for many years, the last three and a half years in particular. We are opening the biggest door of one of the biggest economies in the world in, in India. Now the Indian economy is worth billions and billions and billions all around the world. And there are many countries who want to do more business with India. But it’s actually Australia that has been able to secure in the agreement that we’ve been able to reach, which I’ll be, which will be signed today by our trade ministers and witnessed by Prime Minister Modi and I later today. This agreement is an agreement that ensures that whether you’re producing wool or whether you’re producing crayfish or whether you’re mining resources, critical minerals and rare earths, whether you’re growing berries or avocados or cherries or beans, producing alumina, all of these are part of this important trade agreement that we’ve been able to reach with India. I particularly want to thank Dan Tehan, the Minister for Trade, who’s done an extraordinary job working together with his counterpart, Minister Goyal, to ensure that we could get to ‘yes’ as part of this agreement. I also obviously want to thank my dear friend, Prime Minister Modi, who we have become very close to over these years as prime ministers, as we’ve been dealing with the many challenges that we face in our region and in our world. Whether it’s dealing with COVID, whether it’s dealing with the security issues in the Indo-Pacific or indeed dealing with the economic partnership that we’ve both been so keen to forge. I also want to pay a special thanks to former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who I appointed as a special envoy on this task, working with Dan Tehan. And because of COVID, when there were restrictions on where I could travel as a Prime Minister, Tony was able to go and do some of that work as well. So I want to thank him for his continuing contribution and a willingness to always wanting to be working for Australia and supporting Australia. So thanks very much, Tony. And to Barry O’Farrell, our High Commissioner in India, who has done a terrific job in working as our High Commissioner there to ensure that we could bring this deal to fruition.
What it’s all about at the end of the day is jobs. It’s all about jobs. And Australia’s unemployment rate has fallen from 5.7 per cent down to 4 per cent, and it’s no accident. It’s the result of a strong economic plan that has taken Australia through the most challenging economic times since we’ve seen since the Great Depression itself. You know, over the course of this pandemic, we have faced an economic challenge 30 times greater than what the country experienced during the global financial crisis, when Labor were in power. But there’s a big difference on the outcomes. In our case, we have got jobs outcomes that are 50 per cent better than Labor were able to achieve. When Labor was in office they took unemployment from 4.2 per cent, where John Howard left them, and they put it up to 5.7 per cent under Kevin Rudd. Under our government, we’ve got it from 5.7 per cent down to 4 per cent. And we’ve done that in the middle of the worst recession this country has seen and frankly, the world has seen since the Great Depression itself. Now that’s what a strong economic plan delivers, and you cannot deliver that plan unless you have the foresight to be working on the trade agreements, the export agreements that means that we can get our product, the best in the world, and get it out to the rest of the world. And to do that, you’ve got to open doors. In the last three years in particular we’ve opened the doors of the UK trade agreement. We’ve opened the doors of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which represents about 68 per cent or 65 per cent of the world’s trade. All of this means jobs. It means jobs in the regions. And when the regions is successful, like here in Tasmania, then all of Australia is successful. And in the cities, they benefit from the great success of our regions and opening up. When we came to government 27 per cent of our trade was covered by these export agreements. Today it’s 78 per cent. And what we’re doing is we’re unlocking the markets around the world for Australians so they can unlock the wealth that is in our regions and they can unlock the jobs. And that’s why Australia’s economy is so strong. Because of our economic plan to get Australia on the front foot. Whether it’s access to markets. Whether it’s lower taxes. Whether it’s reliable, affordable energy. Whether it’s moving us in to the new age of data or digital technologies, which make our businesses even more competitive. Whether it’s making sure we make things here in Australia, manufacturing, making important things, seeing the expansion of our resource industries in particular. So all of that combines together to produce a strong economy. Because if you can’t manage a strong economy, you can’t pay for anything else. You can make whatever promises you like about what you might want to do. But if you can’t manage money, if you can’t manage a strong economy, then you cannot deliver the stronger future that Australians need. And our government has demonstrated that. And today’s agreement with India is further proof, further proof of the success of Australia’s economic plan as we’ve reached out and sought to diversify the markets that Australia is looking to access and they don’t come any bigger than India. This is the biggest door we’ve thrown open in a very long time.
Journalist: The agreement that you’re unveiling is more wide ranging than many people expected. But the gains for most sectors are modest, according to experts. Should we see it as an economic document or a strategic one?
Prime Minister: I’d see it as both. I mean, it unlocks significant opportunities for Australia and particularly here in Tasmania. Whether it’s in berries or whether it’s in wool, ultimately, whether it’s in wine, crayfish, all of these, they’re all real benefits and they happen straight away. But in addition to that, you rightly say, that it sets out the roadmap to further and further economic cooperation into the future. You know, when we were negotiating the RCEP through ASEAN, India did not come into that agreement, but it was very clear to me afterwards in my discussions with Narendra, with Prime Minister Modi, that there is a real willingness to see Australia and India go forward with a trade relationship. Now this began, I mean, there have been many prime ministers that have sought to bring this to a conclusion. This goes back to 2011, and that’s why I particularly wanted to highlight the work of Tony Abbott. And this is why I brought Tony Abbott back into the team to help us actually conclude this arrangement. And so, yes, the door is open now and so we can start walking through it. And here in, we’ve got 6 per cent of the exports that have come out of this very wool store here, currently go to India. And that figure is going to be able to rise and rise and rise and rise. And it enables our producers to diversify and to be more resilient to the obvious shocks and the obvious issues that are happening in global trade as a result of global security issues.
Journalist: Prime Minister, did you sacrifice chickpeas to get this deal through before the election?
Prime Minister: We were very keen to see this agreement come to a conclusion because we’ve been working for so many years to achieve it. And once you get the door open, then all of the other opportunities come. And I think that’s one of the things that you learn when you’ve done as many agreements on this as our government has, it’s never the end of the discussion. You’re always going to have more discussions, but you have to be able to realise the gains that you’ve made. And you know, these are never all or nothing deals as far as we’re concerned. We see all of these as the next step and the next step and the next step. And so it would have been foolish of a government not to have realised the gains and the progress that have been made. And particularly with Prime Minister Modi and I, there’s something that we’ve been working to for many years. Plenty of countries have tried to achieve exactly what’s in this document, and they’ve all failed. And I believe one of the key reasons we’ve been able to secure this agreement is because we worked on ensuring that the like minded partnership we have on so many issues, on security issues, on regional humanitarian issues, on things that are very important to both countries. This arrangement, this deal, is not just about economics. It’s an expression of the deep partnership that Prime Minister Modi and I have already established. Particularly on issues of security, the work we do through the Quad, the work we’re particularly doing on critical minerals and rare earths, which is such a big part of Australia’s engagement with like-minded countries around the world to secure supply chains. So this is the product of a relationship we’ve worked very hard on.
Journalist: So if you’re doing big business with India when they’re been neutral on the Russian invasion, is letting them off the hook when we should be pushing them to be more outspoken?
Prime Minister: This is a sensible and great deal in Australia’s interests and in India’s interests. I don’t think anyone can question Australia’s commitment to supporting the people of Ukraine. As I announced yesterday, we’ll be going forward with the further support of ensuring that we get the armoured vehicles to Ukraine. And I want to thank the Ukrainian Australians for their response to Australia’s efforts. When I was speaking to Stephan Ramallah on the day that President Zelensky addressed the parliament, which I invited him to do, he said he’d been in Ukraine. And he said that Ukrainians were just so encouraged that a country half a world away was there for them. And they had no expectations of a country living as far away as Australia, turning up to support the people of Ukraine. But that’s what Australia has done. We have discussions with India and many other countries about those issues. And the relationship that I have with Prime Minister Modi, the relationship Australia has with India, enables us to pursue those issues within that relationship respectfully.
Journalist: Prime Minister, the big issue with agricultural commodities at the moment isn’t selling them, it’s actually getting them on the ship and getting them where they need to go.
Prime Minister: True.
Journalist: Is there anything in this agreement that’s going to address that?
Prime Minister: Well, no, but there’s plenty in our economic plan to address that. This agreement is about providing the market access into India. But the freight subsidies that come out of Tasmania to get things from here onto the mainland where they can be exported and we’ve been supporting those for many, many years, as Tasmanians know. But in addition to that, the world’s supply chains and the logistics chains are opening up again, and we’ve kept them going as a government. I mean, through the IFAM Initiative, which kept planes in the air, supporting and ensuring that we get freight out of the country during a time where the world is effectively closed, has been incredibly important. That’s why right now, we are experiencing the greatest economic rebound that we’ve seen in 70 years. I mean, this is a V-shaped recovery with a kick. We haven’t seen something as strong as this in our recovery, and it goes to the points that you’re making. You have to realise the opportunities when you come out the other side and the Treasurer and I have always had our eye on that. It hasn’t just been about getting us through this pandemic. And our economy, both on growth and on jobs, is stronger than all of the advanced economies in the world. The G7 economies, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Japan. Australia has outpaced all of those economies on jobs and on the important issues of growth of our economy. Now that has happened because we have preserved our economy through the pandemic and we’ve set it up for the opportunities that are there now. But you cannot take that for granted. You cannot take agreements like this for granted, that anyone can just turn up and secure these. Plenty have tried before, and they have failed. Plenty have tried before on many other issues. Plenty were trying during the course of the pandemic. But only Australia can say, amongst only a handful of countries, we saved 40,000 lives. We created 375,000 jobs on top of what we had before the pandemic began. And we have the most strong resilience of pandemic preparedness, other than one other country of the world, based on the global surveys.
Journalist: You’ve denied India’s request to waive labour market testing, but have you made other concessions on migration or labour mobility?
Prime Minister: What we’ve done in those areas, I think, take a very practical approach. I mean, particularly in the area of students and tourists and others. This is an important part of the arrangement. The working holiday visa arrangements, we’ve put in place up to 1000 there. And we will continue to see those issues develop over time, particularly when it comes to skills. We need more and more skills in this country. We need more people with those skills in this country to support the economy that we aspire to. But our government has always taken a very balanced approach to migration and we’ve also always been very careful about these issues when concluding these agreements.
Journalist: Prime Minister, in 2007, did you warn Liberal members the party could lose Cook because people thought Michael Towke was a Muslim?
Prime Minister: No.
Journalist: You didn’t say those words?
Prime Minister: No.
Journalist: You never said he couldn’t be trusted because of his left Lebanese background?
Prime Minister: No.
Journalist: So why are these stories coming out?
Prime Minister : You’ll have to ask them.
Journalist: Prime Minister, there’s a 7 per cent unemployment rate in northern Tasmania. Wages are not outstripping inflation at the moment and people are struggling to find affordable rentals, struggling to find housing. How does your economic plan square that circle? It’s not really affecting people up here so much.
Prime Minister: Well, I’d say a couple things. First of all, let’s start with housing. On housing, and of course, the arrangement with the government here to support many of the social housing projects, and we’ve supported them in those projects. Secondly, we had the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Housing Finance Investment Corporation, which is there providing incredibly low cost finance to housing associations around the country, including here in Tasmania, to develop more affordable housing. There’s the Commonwealth rental assistance, which is provided to I think 1.4 million Australians, to the tune of $5.1 billion dollars every year. The fact that petrol prices are coming down because of the actions that we’ve taken to ensure that there is cost of living relief now, because Australians need that cost of living relief right now. And we can do that because of a $100 billion turnaround in the Budget in the last 12 months, as a consequence of the economic plan that we’ve been putting in place. There is the additional tax relief that comes on the 1st of July, when people put their tax return in. Important tax relief and them being able to keep more of what they earn. And the ongoing tax relief, that has been providing in our lower taxes plan, that we’ve been delivering for many years. There’s the additional $250 that will go to pensioners right here in Tasmania within the next few weeks to help them with cost of living pressures. And when it comes to those Australians seeking to buy their own home, we are expanding the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Guarantee Scheme, saying yes to up to 50,000 a year, every year, and 10,000 of those places are reserved for regional areas like exactly where we’re standing today to ensure that they can get access to buying that first home. And what that means is, that scheme means that instead of having to save for 20 per cent deposit, you can save for a 5 per cent deposit. And if you’re a single parent, you only have to save for 2 per cent deposit. Now you go to the bank. The bank makes their decision about extending to you the loan. But in the last three years alone, between that and ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾Builder, the agency I established as Treasurer, the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Guarantee, we’ve got 300,000 Australians into their own home in just the last three years, including right here in Tasmania. And so we’re getting more people into homes that they own in a tough housing market. We’re providing more income support through the many measures that we’ve had to get Australia through this pandemic and now to set them up for the future and ensure that they have cost of living relief now, which includes cost of living relief for rents, through the supports that we’ve put in place.
Journalist: There’s been criticism over the lack of funding for the Tasmanian Battery of the Nation Project and Marinus Link. Will you commit to funding those projects if you are re-elected?
Prime Minister: We are passionate supporters of Marinus Link and Premier Gutwein and I have had numerous discussions over the course of the last three or four months to finalise those arrangements, and we’re very close to being able to make an announcement on all of those things. The Battery of the Nation Project, which started with Will Hodgman and when Peter was Treasurer, back when I was a Treasurer at a federal level, when I was talking to Peter about these projects. No two governments at a state and federal level in Tasmania have ever been more passionate about the future of energy production here in Tasmania to be able to light up, not only here in Tasmania, but the rest of the country and ensure we have lower electricity prices. So it’s a very important deal. It’s a very important infrastructure, not just for Tasmania, but for the whole country. And we’ll have a bit more to say about that not too long from now.
Journalist: Are you happy with the endorsements of candidates in New South Wales and will you be ready to call an election next week?
Prime Minister: I’m very pleased with the selections we’ve made. Two thirds of the selections that I have made together with the Premier of New South Wales and the former Federal President Christine McDiven are women. So I’m very pleased about that. I’ve always been very serious about that. And I’m particularly pleased that our candidate in Parramatta, Maria Kovacic, this is the former Western Sydney Business Woman of the Year, someone who started Western Sydney Business Women’s Initiative, sits on the Parramatta Women’s Eels Board. You know, she’s from Western Sydney and she’s about Western Sydney. She’s always been for Western Sydney. And I think she provides a real contrast to Anthony Albanese’s captain’s pick from the eastern suburbs of Sydney. Our pick is a very strong, effective woman with small business experience, with a background in community support through particularly the Parramatta Eels and encouraging other business women in Western Sydney just like herself. And that’s what Western Sydney needs. I’ve got a great team of Western Sydney women right across Sydney. Maria Kovacic of course joins Melissa out there in Lindsay and Sarah in the Hawkesbury in the seat of Macquarie. And, of course, Fiona in the seat of Reid. We’ve got a great team of Western Sydney women standing up, in this case, to a team of Labor blokes there in Parramatta. I note also that Anthony Albanese’s pick for Parramatta is to bring back the team of Kevin Rudd’s economic advisers. You know, we don’t need a revival of Rudd economics in Australia. What we need is the continuation of Australia’s economic plan. I mean, the greatest hits of that band that Anthony Albanese is seeking to get back together again, including mining tax, so West Australians should remember that. They should remember it means the failed programs when it came to overpriced school halls and they’re just horrific cash for clunkers. And of course, there were the terrible schemes that led to those tragedies in the homes of those where the insulation batts were put in place. We don’t need a rerun of Rudd economics in Australia. What we need is the economic plan that has ensured that Australia has come through the pandemic in the strongest way possible, outpacing the world’s most advanced economies. And one of the key reasons for that occurring has been because of the trade arrangements we have put in place as a government. That we have secured, taking the amount of trade covered by agreements from 27 per cent all the way up to 78 per cent. And that is an extraordinary turnaround. That’s what a strong economic plan looks like. That’s how the regions will continue to benefit. And Susie, that is particularly why people in the seat of Lyons, but also in Braddon and of course in Bass, these are the things that keeps people in jobs in Tasmania. Keeps Tasmanians exporting the best produce in the world, all over the country and all around the world. And these are the plans to help secure that future for Australia. Thanks very much everyone.
