Doorstop Interview - 26th November 2007
RUDD: It’s great to be here today with Julia Gillard, the Deputy Leader of the Party, and Yvette D’Ath, our newly elected member for Petrie and she’s put in a sterling campaign here in the local area.
The reason we’re here today is to talk about our program for Government and you would’ve heard me say right around the country all year and throughout the duration of the election campaign that we want to build a world class education system in Australia and our plan for doing that is outlined progressively during the year and we now regard this as an absolute priority for our period in Government.
You will recall that our agenda for creating a world class education system in Australia extended to government and non-government schools. We are blind to these matters because we want the best government schools that we can have in the world and the best non-government schools. We want a world class education system while preserving parental choice.
A core part of what we put forward to the Australian people was for our plan for computer terminals to be available to every Australian secondary school student from year 9, 10, 11 and 12 and that is a core part of our education program. But today I instructed the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Dr Shergold, to prepare as the first submission for a Labor Cabinet, which we would hope would meet next week, to be on the implementation arrangements for this program.
It is important that we get to work on this straight away. Next year will a very extensive, consultative tendering process on behalf of the various school systems in Australia and therefore it’s quite critical that we get that planning work started straight away. And so that will be agenda item number one for the first meeting of the Cabinet which we anticipate will meet for the first time next week.
The second thing I’d like to indicate is that I have also today written to all members of the Parliamentary Party, both continuing members and newly elected members, to indicate to them that I want them in the next two days to visit both a government school and a non-government school in their electorates. I want them to take to those schools two core parts of our policy. One on computers, as I’ve just discussed, and the second our proposals to construct state of the art trades training centres in each one of Australia’s secondary schools.
I expect, therefore, that when our Parliamentary Party meets in Canberra on Thursday that we’ll also nominate on the agenda for that meeting a discussion and debate on the implementation of these two programs and I’ll be expecting members of the Party to report back on what they have found in their communities.
Now as I’ve been talking to representatives of this very good school here on the Peninsula today, it’s a very practical challenge which is faced here. This school has made enormous strides in the provision of computers for its kids and that’s good, but if you look at how many students there are here in year 9, 10, 11 and 12 – I think our briefing was there was about 400, maybe 450 students – currently the number of computer terminals available for those students is somewhere between 100 and 125. So currently we have a provisioning of about one to four.
Therefore our goal is quite plain. We want to close that gap so that it is one to one. That’s our goal in government. It’s going to take a number of years to roll out. That’s detailed already in our policy that we put to the Australian people. But as I’ve just been discussing with the teacher in charge of year 10 - the one whose classroom we visited before where they were going through business spreadsheets as part of their business accounting course - the importance of being able to provide a computer terminal for every student so that they can use computer terminals together with data projectors as part of the mainstreaming of IT platforms into the total curriculum, not just everyone going from time to time to an IT room or an IT centre within the schools, that’s the vision for the future, whether it’s in our technology and design, whether it’s in English, whether it’s in History, whether it’s in science, whether it’s in accounting or in art. That’s the vision. It’s part of preparing Australia for the global economy of the 21st century by creating a world class education system of the 21st century. Over to you for any questions.
JOURNALIST: When you were in Opposition you were very critical of the government for planning to use Treasury to model things like climate change, WorkChoices etc etc and also (inaudible). Do you want treasury to be a more activist, broader department than it has been to date? Can we be expecting them to be involved in much broader area of policy?
RUDD: Not only am I entirely relaxed about what Ken Henry has suggested in the past, I welcome it with open arms. I believe that the Treasury is staffed with high quality personnel. It has a strong tradition of independence in the provision of advice. I would therefore welcome a broader role for their advice across the whole of government in consultation with the central policy agency which would of course continue as Prime Minister and Cabinet.
JOURNALIST: Mr Rudd, George Brandis told local radio this morning he doesn’t buy the argument that you’ve got a mandate on industrial relations law. He says that an opposition should look at every law on its merit and that you guys shouldn’t imagine that you have (inaudible) passage of your legislation. What’s your reaction to that?
RUDD: I’ll say something and then I’ll ask Julia to add. Firstly, here we have therefore the Liberal Party on day one saying that they want to restore and retain Work Choices. So, the Liberal Party of the future has as its core mission the restoration of the Work Choices of the past. I thought the Australian people had a fairly clear message on that only a couple of days ago.
GILLARD: Australians on the weekend voted for fairness and balance in their workplaces and Labor’s legislation will deliver that. If Mr Brandis wants it to pass the merit test, it will because it has the merit that it will bring fairness and balance into the Australian workplaces which has been taken away by his Party’s extreme Work Choices laws.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) Mr Robertson this morning has been saying that these laws should be dismantled, retrospectively people who sign AWAs that they should be able to tear them up. Is that something you’d be considering? Have you spoken to Dr Shergold about that at all?
RUDD: Julia’s already spoke on this this morning and my response to the reported remarks of Mr Robertson is that he is wrong and we will adhere to the implementation arrangements of our industrial relations policy as outlined during the election.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible). Now, the government has an absolute majority until July next year. It seems fairly obvious they’re not going to approve it. What’s your backup plan then for Australian workers and Australian businesses (inaudible)?
GILLARD: We will present our legislation to the Parliament. We’ll ask Senators of all political parties to vote on it on the basis that the Australian people on Saturday voted for fairness and balance in workplaces. Delivering that transition then is an important step to making sure there’s fairness and balance. Let’s remember the purpose of that legislation is to make sure that in the future in this country there is nothing, no Australian Workplace Agreement, nothing that constricts the safety net away from Australian workers. The matter for the Liberal Party and its Senators, whether they publicly want to say to the Australian people they stand for stripping the safety net away.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)?
GILLARD: We will present our legislation, which will be our policy. Our policy is very detailed. It’s very clear. The choice for Senators will be to vote for that legislation or to vote against it.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) given that the Coalition does have a majority in the Senate til mid next year or will you proceed straight away?
GILLARD: We’ll proceed straight away. As soon as it is humanly possible, we will present our transition bill to the Australian Parliament.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) will Parliamentary experience be a prerequisite for those who end up on the front bench?
RUDD: What I’ve said before and many times during the campaign is that I believe that when it comes to selecting our frontbench team that Parliamentary experience is very, very important. My views on that have not changed.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) When and how will you apologise to Aboriginal Australians for past injustices? And will you consult with Indigenous leaders about the wording of that? And secondly, on your program of reform for health and hospital, can you just take us through some of the first steps in that? Will you be calling Premiers to an emergency meeting to talk about reforming and negotiating the next set of health care agreements?
RUDD: On the first question in relation to an apology. It will be early. Early in the Parliamentary term. Secondly, however we would frame it in a consultative fashion with communities and that may take some time.
On the question of the hospitals reform plan. The $2.5 billion plan, I have already indicated to a number of the Premiers that we will aim to meet within the first three months after appropriate preparatory work has been undertaken. This is an important priority for us. Another important priority is the one that I’ve been talking about today and I keep going back to this. For the future, you need a world class education system and when our Cabinet is sworn in, it’s first item of work will be one core element of bringing about a world class education system for the twenty first century.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) who would you prefer to see as Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull or Tony Abbott?
RUDD: A matter for the Liberal Party.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
RUDD: Matter for the Liberal Party.
JOURNALIST: Were you surprised by Clare Martin’s resignation and have you spoken to her this morning?
RUDD: No, I’ve only just been informed of it an hour or so ago and I haven’t had the opportunity to speak to Clare. I’ve regarded her as a good friend over the years and a person who has made a good contribution and the fact that we now have a non CLP Government in the Northern Territory is in large part due to her leadership of the Labor Party. Remember that the Labor Party had never been in Government in the Northern Territory prior to Clare becoming Leader. I look forward to working with the new Chief Minister and I’ll be speaking with both of them during the latter part of the day.
JOURNALIST: Mr Rudd, what advice have you had on the possible signing of the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol?
RUDD: We have just received that advice as I was driving out here and I have yet to read it is the honest answer to your question. And, so I will be reading it this afternoon.
JOURNALIST: Mr Rudd, you’ve built an unprecedented electoral power base in Queensland for Federal Labor and it could become very important for preserving your Government in the future. Do you intend to implement a specific Queensland strategy to preserve that base?
RUDD: My intention, Dennis, as I’ve said on election night, is to govern for all Australia and to govern in the national interest. What I’ve always been concerned about here in Queensland for a long, long period of time is the extent to which the Coalition regarded Queensland as their personal piece of political real estate. Remember prior to events of Saturday, the Labor Party held six out of twenty eight seats and the Coalition had the large, very large swag of seats in a long period of time and they took Queensland for granted. You saw that in terms of the Government’s performance in the provision of infrastructure. I do not intend to repeat their mistakes. I take this state’s future very seriously because it is so much part and parcel of the future of the national economy.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) Queensland members work as a team throughout the term?
RUDD: I believe that’s going to be very, very important. Of course their first and foremost responsibility will be to represent their constituency and to be properly informed about the needs of their constituencies as I’m sure they will all be by Thursday in relation to the state of their Government and non government schools. But having a wide view across the state about infrastructure needs is important. The needs of the South East. The needs of some of our major coastal and provincial cities and although we haven’t been successful on the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast at this election but can is say these are near and dear to my heart in terms of making sure that we deliver properly for these major growth centres in this state as well.
JOURNALIST: Mark Vaile (inaudible)?
RUDD: Look internal arrangements both within the National Party and Liberal Party are matters for them and I wouldn’t comment. I would say, however, in terms of Mark’s decision to retire or step down from the leadership of the National Party, to wish of course he and his wife all the very best for the future.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
RUDD: Look, on the day when Mark has decided to step down, I’ll reserve my comments in relation to aspects of his performance over the years to a later occasion. For those of you interested in what they were, I’m sure you can google them. They are there, in quadraphonic stereo.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
RUDD: Look, everyone makes their own decisions in life and in politics and Mr Howard made his. I think it’s just always important to have this core proposal. This core proposition in your mind: what is your plan for the nation’s future? And I am absolutely clear cut about what my plan for the nation’s future is and that is, and must always be, your compass point when it comes to why you’re in the business of politics. Last question. Has anyone not had one, yeah?
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
RUDD: I think the state of relationship with the business community is very good and Julia and I, we’ve probably trundled through more boardrooms than we can remember in the last twelve months and I don’t think there are any chief or senior executives with the major corporates whom we haven’t, you know, sat down and had a yak with over the course of the year. So I look forward to that relationship unfolding. You also asked a question about our Council of Business Advisors. I spoke yesterday morning to Rod Eddington and we’ll be putting in place soon the processes for the announcement of the members of Business Advisory Council and what I’ve said before on the record, I value very much Rod’s counsel. Rod has extensive international business experience, a person with experience across a number industry sectors and a person of high standing in Australia’s business community. Thank you for your time.