Julia Gillard: Joint Press Conference
PM: I’m here with Ministers Crean and Conroy and can I start by apologising for the delay in starting today’s press conference, I was delayed and then we’ve been a bit chatting too about the announcement today.
We are working to build Australia’s new economy. It’s got to be an economy that is based on new skills, new innovation and diversity for the future.
Our economy is facing a number of challenges. It is very strong in the world, indeed our economy is the envy of a lot of the world, but times are changing. We’re seeing global economic weight shift to our region, we’re seeing the challenges of keeping up with new technology, we’re seeing the challenges of keeping up with higher and higher skill levels. Of course we’re getting ready for a clean energy future.
All of that means that we are seeing structural changes in our economy and we’ve got to be meeting those structural changes with a plan to have an economy for the future that will offer people the benefits of jobs and opportunity.
So this morning I’m here to talk about two things. First the role of manufacturing and the car industry in that future economy. Today I’ve met with car workers from around the country, they’re understandably concerned about their jobs. They represent 46,000 Australians who work in car manufacturing, with another 200,000 Australians reliant on car manufacturing being an industry in Australia.
Can manufacturing needs to be part of our future and part of our new economy, because it does have, at its forefront, design and innovation skills which are important not only to car manufacturing, but to the rest of manufacturing.
I received today from those workers a petition signed by more than 5,000 who are concerned about the future of car manufacturing. We are going to be working with them to make sure that we are a nation that continues to be home to car manufacturing.
Now there will be continued change and the workers I’ve met with this morning have already lived through many rounds of change in the car industry. There will be changes in the future, not every job can be guaranteed, but we will be working hard to make sure that we are manufacturing cars in this country.
And, given the lead times on which investment decisions are made, given the need for certainty, it was understandable that the workers that visited here today are bitterly disappointed by the attitude of Mr Abbott and the Opposition who do not have a commitment to manufacturing cars in this country and are determined to slash half a billion dollars of industry assistance and to give the industry no certainty for the future.
Well unlike Mr Abbott we believe that the economy should be run in the interest of working people, that we should have a diverse economy for the future, that manufacturing should take its part and that the car industry needs to be part of that.
As we’re building the new economy for the future we’ve got to make sure we’ve got the best of technology. There’s no point asking our businesses and industries to compete if they’re using yesterday’s tools. Everybody, I think, would very intuitively understand that if we were a nation with no mobile phones, then that would be dragging our businesses behind, because the rest of the world has the benefits of that technology.
Well we need to make sure we’re not behind the standards of the world and that’s what rolling out the National Broadband Network is about — other nations will have this technology. We cannot ask the 100 year old copper wire network to keep our place in the future. It won’t help us keep up with the standards of the world, we need the NBN.
Today we are making an announcement about how the NBN will benefit those who live in the remotest parts of our nation. Of course Australians are looking forward to fibre coming to their homes, but for those Australians who live in our remotest parts, we need another solution, which is why I’m pleased to be here today with my ministerial colleagues and with representatives of NBN to announce that NBN Co has reached agreement to have two satellites which will provide broadband services to those who live in the remotest parts of the country.
It will enable them to get information, get it at speeds that are faster now than many parts of our cities in Australia. It will give them access to technology in the way that other Australians are getting better access to technology. A different approach, but better access to the way that the world will work in the future.
That means that as we move to building the new economy of the future, creating the services that people need, we won’t be leaving those Australians who live in the remotest parts of the nation behind.
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