Doorstop – Muswellbrook | Prime Minister of Australia
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, that was a truly innovative opening, the best ribbon cutting I’ve ever seen.
JOURNALIST: What inside this building could you see this morning that you think will help help transition workers in Muswellbrook?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, from the very first step you take into this building what you see is innovation. You see a capacity to use 3D printing to design and manufacture, in one place, what’s needed whether it’s a part for a new for a piece of equipment or whether it be to design something completely new. In addition to that, with the STEM facilities or STEAM facilities as well, which are here, you see creativity, the capacity for a young person or a young person at heart to come in, have an idea and see it created and created on the spot in this building. There aren’t many places around Australia that can do that. And that gives me an enormous respect for the vision that has been realised here. This is about high quality, high wage, good jobs being created, right here. And the capacity to bring in schools means that for young people – there’s the saying, you can’t be what you can’t see. They can actually see the benefit of STEM and STEAM. That is jobs and future jobs in technology and science and engineering. And the creativity comes in a way that is exciting. The little robot was called Minny – it is a way as well of doing it in a fun way. Science is fun. It is exciting. And having that prospect for people is, I think, an enormous opportunity. And this is a great asset for the region.
JOURNALIST: The government sent out pamphlets on the Voice today. Do you think that everyday Australians are thinking about that when they’re struggling the cost of living?
PRIME MINISTER: Everyday Australians are quite rightly concentrating on the things that directly affect them. But they will, when the referendum is called, turn their minds to the opportunity that is there to embrace the history that Australia has. This morning we had a ceremony of welcome to country, dancing and then a welcome to country here. That show of respect didn’t take away from everything that is in this building. It added to it. And recognising First Nations people in our Constitution won’t take away anything from Australia. It will just add to it. There is no downside and all upside by recognising the privilege we have of sharing this continent with the oldest continuous culture on earth. And I sincerely hope that Australians vote Yes, I think the words that are in the pamphlet that will go out from people such as Yvonne Goolagong Cawley, from Johnathan Thurston, from Eddie Betts, from Aunty Pat Anderson, from these Indigenous Australians just asking to be recognised and asking to be listened to, not as the end in itself, but as a means to an end. If you listen to people about something that directly affects them, you’ll get better outcomes. And that is what this referendum is about. It’s not about anything else other than that, which is why I’m very hopeful that when Australians examine it they’ll vote Yes in the last quarter of this year.
JOURNALIST: Are you concerned that places like here in the Hunter Valley, we’ve left it too late to make that transition to renewables. A lot of locals I speak to everyday in my job are concerned that the lights will go out because we’ve had Liddell shut down we’ve got Bayswater coming up, etc, that all these renewables aren’t going to be here in enough time?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we need to make sure as well that we fix transmission. We had a decade wasted. Can I say in front of the State Member here as well, that the Perrottet Government was working very closely with the Federal Government and the current Minns Government is doing so as well to make sure that people are looked after. We have economics driving this change and therefore you need to respond proactively. My government is certainly doing that. And in the Net Zero Transition Authority that’s been established as well under Greg Combet’s leadership, with the presence of industry leaders, including people from the resources sector are working on it. I’m very confident. Newcastle, when BHP said that they were moving out there was talk about Newcastle’s demise. Newcastle is thriving today. This region has incredible opportunity and this building embodies that opportunity which is there.
JOURNALIST: Just on that, we’ve heard that Eraring is willing to close later than it initially announced. Do you think that will be needed?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that’s a matter for the company and also the state government to consider. These power stations have played a really important role. The mining sector plays a critical role here. I respect everyone. We’ve got a former person from the coal mining industry as our local member here, who does a fantastic job. They’ll continue to play a role. That is ongoing. But it is an area and a world which is in transition. This is something the whole world is dealing with: the United States to its Inflation Reduction Act, Australia through the measures that we are taking. But we need to see it as, yes there are challenges, but there are also enormous opportunities. And there is no country in the world that is better positioned than Australia to benefit from that transition. We have the best solar resources in the world. We have amongst the best wind resources in the world. We have incredible innovation. We have the fastest growing region in the world in human history, to our North, in the Indo-Pacific Asian region. We have enormous prospects and change happens quicker than people think. Industries like green hydrogen have enormous prospects in Australia. When I was Deputy Prime Minister ten years ago, no one was raising with me lithium, nickel, cobalt vanadium, the sort of resources that we have available in Australia. They were very much on the fringe. They’re certainly not now. And we are very fortunate to have both the physical and natural resources that we have, but also the human resources. And what this is about is maximising the potential of our human resources, the smarts of our people to drive that change.
JOURNALIST: Dan Andrews has confirmed that the Comm Games 2026 are off in Victoria. Is that an embarrassment for Australia?
PRIME MINISTER: That’s a decision made by the Victorian Government. I’ll leave the Victorian Government to go through those details. But I’m certainly focused on a sporting event that will happen in two days time with the Matildas. And I think that the whole of Australia will be cheering them on with the opportunity that we have of hosting a World Cup here. The World Cup is the third largest sporting event held in the world, only beaten by the Men’s Football World Cup and the Olympic Games. And we’re hosting it. We’re hosting the Olympics in South East Queensland in 2032. Australia has a fine record of hosting events.
JOURNALIST: The Opposition Leader has backed his mates from the Nats call to look at small scale nuclear energy for the site where Liddell was. Would your government consider that? And if not, why not?
PRIME MINISTER: No, because the market won’t consider it. So, what we actually need is real solutions, not things that don’t add up. And the truth is that nuclear energy is the slowest to put in place and it’s also the most expensive, which is why you won’t have any commercial backing for such a proposal. What we actually need to do is to get on with things that are real and that can happen. We had a decade of coming up with all sorts of ideas, but nothing happening from the Commonwealth Government. We’ve had in NSW, State Governments on both sides that have had practical plans, Renewable Energy Zones, policies that we have put in place to help fix transmission. We need real solutions. And I’m yet to see someone put up their hand and say, ‘yes, here’s where a nuclear power plant is going to go’. Step one. And then yet to see any financing of such a proposal because it simply doesn’t stack up.
JOURNALIST: ACM polling shows that the majority of regional Australians aren’t in support of it. Why do you think that’s so? And what do you need to do to turn it around?
PRIME MINISTER: I think people will focus on the question that is actually before the Australian people. It’s a simple proposition: do you support in recognition of Aboriginal and Torres State Islanders as Australia’s first peoples? The recognition bit. And then it’s about then listening through a voice on matters that directly affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. And we know that you get better outcomes when you listen. You can see that with justice reinvestment in places like Moree and Bourke that were put in place by the former Coalition Government. You see it in areas of community health. You see it in Indigenous Rangers program. It’s no different from anything else. The mayor here, if he wants a better result for the people of Muswellbrook, it’s probably a good idea if he goes out and talks to them and listens to what they have to say. And you’ll get better results if you listen, if you engage. And we’ve been doing things to and for, often with the best intentions, Indigenous Australians for 122 years since Federation. We have an eight year life expectancy gap. If you’re a young Indigenous male, you are more likely to go to jail than to go to university. We have worse infant mortality rates. We have worse health outcomes. We have worse housing outcomes. Four out of the 19 closing the gap targets are currently being met. We need to do better. If Australia votes No, that is saying that we’ll keep doing things the same way. If you keep doing things the same way, you should expect the same results. We need to do things differently and we need to do that by showing respect. We do that all the time. We did that this morning here. We’ll do that at the beginning of the World Cup Matilda’s game on Thursday night. We do it at my local church. We do it at schools. It’s a simple thing that just adds. What this referendum is about is just adding.