Press Conference, North Lakes, Brisbane
E&OE
LUKE HOWARTH:
First of all welcome to North Lakes, I am Luke Howarth the federal Member for Petrie. It is wonderful to have Scott Morrison, the Minister for Social Services here in North Lakes. I would like to particularly thank Sesame Lane, the Director here Tracey as well as the owners Hilton and Lynda Misso. Sesame Lane has just opened their fourth child care centre here in the North Lakes area and they have over ten in my electorate alone in the federal seat of Petrie. The significant thing of course is having four here in North Lakes just goes to show the growth of this suburb, North Lakes is an area that really will benefit from the $3.5 billion that the Minister and the Treasurer recently announced in the Budget on Tuesday last week. Most of the families here are mum and dads, dual income working hard to raise their families and to pay a mortgage. It is a fast growth area, just last week myself along with the local Mayor announced that IKEA will open up here in North Lakes, we have got Queensland’s first Costco store here in North Lakes. Last Friday I was at the opening of a specialist medical centre just down the road, a couple of streets away. Between IKEA and the specialist medical centre there is going to be 500 jobs alone created within the next 12 months, so it really is a high growth area. I was thrilled to see the $3.5 billion that will come in for the families package because it will support the families here in my electorate and it is great that you can see firsthand Scott what is happening in Petrie. I will hand over to you to say a few words.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Thank you Luke, it is great to be here in North Lakes and that is because this is an area where we are seeing tremendous growth as Luke has said. Child care centres and early childhood learning is now part of the absolutely necessary social and community infrastructure you need. What we are seeing here is Hilton and Lynda investing in providing these important services for the local community. To make those investments it has made worthwhile when they know the government is supporting the sector to ensure that child care is affordable for families, that it is accessible for families, that it is flexible for families, and that it is quality. You look around this centre here and what you see is a quality centre and a quality centre that has been built for growth.
This centre will grow in the years to come and it will grow with support of the increased subsidies that will be delivered through our Jobs for Families package. Families here will be around $1,500 a year better off as a result of the Jobs for Families package. In addition to that by removing the cap on what you can claim for your subsidies means that families who may be working two or three days now and want to work an extra day will be able to do that without being penalised under the scheme. That means centres like this will be full from Monday to Friday not just Tuesday to Thursday and that will be because parents will be able to exercise the choice that we know that they want to make and that is to be able to work and work more so they can have choices and provide for their families. So it is exciting to be here, Luke, and see what is happening here. I want to stress that our package the Jobs for Families is funded; it is paid for through the savings that we are putting through the Budget. That is the difference between the government’s plan to deliver stronger choices for families through our Jobs for Families package and what is being put forward by the Opposition.
The Opposition haven’t got any savings, they are not funding anything, they are just making promises without being able to back them up with the savings that are necessary to make things like Jobs for Families a reality. Bill Shorten has got a shop lifting approach to budgetary matters, that means he makes promises he can’t pay for and he walks out of the shop thinking he owns them. That is not how you can run a Budget and that is not how you can run support for families who need real policies and we have a plan to fund those policies unlike Bill Shorten. Any questions?
QUESTION:
Joe Hockey reckons that Mathias Cormann and Josh Frydenberg may not have known that their wives double dipped. Did either of them discuss it with you…
MINISTER MORRISON:
Before we get to those questions is there anything on the Jobs for Families package and being here today? Anything else? Ok, we will go to those.
QUESTION:
Did either of those men discuss that with you when the policy was first being discussed?
MINISTER MORRISON:
These are topics and issues of policy development that go through the Cabinet process and you wouldn’t expect me to go through the confidential Cabinet process in a public forum so I don’t propose to do that here.
QUESTION:
Did either of those men come over to you at some point and say hey by the way…
MINISTER MORRISON:
I have already answered your question, I don’t propose to go over the entrails of Cabinet processes and how Budgets are formed. What’s really relevant about Paid Parental Leave is it’s got to be fair and it’s got to be targeted. For those who run a small business they don’t get access to two lots of schemes, for those who work in small business they don’t get access to two lots of schemes. What the evaluation report of the current Paid Parental Leave Scheme, put together by Labor and the Unions, shows is that families weren’t staying longer out of work looking after their children after they gave birth to them and that’s – after 18 weeks. We’ve got a scheme now where people draw down two payments at the same time to spend the same amount of time at home with the child. That’s not a good system for taxpayers; it’s also not a fair system for those who don’t have access to those two schemes. Those who have access to those two schemes on average earn 50 per cent more than those who don’t. What we want is a fair system. Labor want to hold on to a system that they did with their mates in the Unions. We think it’s time that the taxpayers got a better deal. It’s going to save the taxpayer $1 billion over the next four years but deliver a fairer system. So whether you are working in a small business or you are working in a large business, or you’re working for the public sector then at least there is a lot more fairness then we have now.
QUESTION:
Minister, today Andrew Laming has labelled you Labor’s worst nightmare for the next decade are you playing the long game for the job of Prime Minister?
MINISTER MORRISON:
I’m doing my job every day. We are all doing our jobs every day and that’s what makes us such a strong team. Luke is doing his job here in Petrie and that’s all about trying to do the right thing by families who want to have choices, that’s what Jobs for Families is about. It’s about small businesses who want to invest in the future of their business. For people who got up to go to work early today – to go to work, this Budget is for you. Same for the small businesses who want to expand their businesses and employ more people in the future, that’s who this Budget is for – we see that in places like North Lakes.
QUESTION:
Sorry, he does say you are a future leader, would you like the job one day?
MINISTER MORRISON:
They are all generous statements from a colleague and it’s always nice to have people make generous comments but what drives me each day is just doing the things we are doing in this Budget which is giving families real choice just like we are seeing right here. I mean this Centre will be a focal point of this community, we are seeing this community expand all around us. The fact that we have people who want to invest in that, putting their own money into a Centre such as this to ensure that families can have that access and the Government that will work with them to ensure that it is affordable, these are good outcomes.
QUESTION:
Have you had discussions with backbenchers who are concerned about cuts to Family Tax Benefits?
MINISTER MORRISON:
We’ve been having discussions with some of the crossbenchers now for some time, they’ll continue. It will be some time before the measures come before the Senate, that’s because of the detail of the legislation, but I’ll continue to have those discussions and it’s disappointing that once again the crossbench Senators have been thrust into the middle of whether we can go forward with such an important investment for families to have choice throughout the child care package but the Labor Party as always, says no, doesn’t want to pay for anything. As a result it’s up to the Government and the Crossbenchers to do the responsible thing. Bill Shorten needs to learn from what happened to Ed Miliband in the UK where he was always saying no to everything and being dragged off an a reactionary. We’ve got real proposals, real policies that we can pay for, he should back them.
QUESTION:
And you’d be prepared to negotiate on changes then?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well I am engaged with discussions with the crossbenchers and that’s the way that the process works. They are very practical and very responsible discussions but there will be some time for those discussions to take place.
QUESTION:
Just back to Mathias Cormann and Josh Frydenberg was it fair that their families accessed – “double dipped” as you guys call it?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well the scheme is the issue, not those who are using the scheme. The scheme enables people to draw down payments from two schemes concurrently that’s what it does there is nothing illegal about that and people will use the scheme that is available to them just like people will claim the deductions that they can under the tax system and do that. The issue is the scheme not those who are using the scheme. The question is, does Bill Shorten think it’s fair that someone who runs a small business should basically – when they want to stay at home and spend time with their new child be getting a third of what those on the same wage would be getting when they work for a public sector organisation?
QUESTION:
So what you are saying…
MINISTER MORRISON:
If he thinks that’s fair that we should continue that system well he should say so. We think the fairer way is to have a more level playing field for those who don’t get access to two schemes. Just because they work for a small business or not a big company doesn’t mean that they should be penalised.
HOWARTH:
If the Labor Party were serious about looking after families and supporting a genuine Paid Parental Leave scheme they would have supported the scheme that we put forward and took to the last two elections last year. The fact is as the Courier Mail has exposed today all Labor is interested in is looking after their Union mates. This scheme is not about the women who accessed it, they of course were able to do so because that’s what’s in law at the moment, as a current Government in place, we are there to fix and make sure that this system goes forward with equity. That’s what we are doing. We have listened. I want to thank the Minister in particular and the Prime Minister in the lead up to this year’s Budget, for consulting with the backbenchers, asking us what marginal backbench MP’s like myself thought in relation to child care and the $3.5 billion package that you’ve put forward will be great for my area.
MINISTER MORRISON:
The issue is not who has been using it now, the issue is who will be using it in the future and what can they do and what’s a fair thing and Bill Shorten wants to support an unfair scheme because he basically wants to stick to a deal that the Labor party did with their Union mates.
JOURNALIST:
Minister, Tony Abbott said he wants to play with some incentives to take people off welfare and back into work, could that see partners of stay-at-home parents get a tax break in the future?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well there’s a White Paper on Taxation and those issues will be worked through in that White Paper but there are a large number of issues, whether it’s getting young people to the starting line of a job, whether it’s encouraging people as they age to stay in a job longer or through this package encouraging families to be able to stay in work and go back to work. That’s what this Budget is about, it’s about people who want to have a go and we’re going to give them a fair go and that’s to get into a job because we know the best form of welfare is a job. Bill Shorten thinks the best form of welfare is something you get from Centrelink. We don’t agree.
JOURNALIST:
You’ve ruled out changes to super, you’ve ruled out changes to GST; is there any point having this Tax White Paper when its potential reforms are off the table?
MINISTER MORRISON:
I think it’s important that we’re very clear about what our values are and our values and Tony Abbott’s values which are woven in the very fabric of this Budget are that if you save for your retirement and you put that effort in over your lifetime, and then you draw down on that in your retirement then we’re not going to slug you with tax the way the Labor party wants to. I think that’s a very clear difference. Bill Shorten thinks that you being able to keep your money is an entitlement which is the same as being entitled to a payment from Centrelink. We don’t think it is; one is your money, the other is money which is provided by the taxpayer, they’re not the same thing and Bill Shorten doesn’t understand that.
JOURNALIST:
Given your complete about face on the Paid Parental Leave scheme, can superannuants really take any comfort from your assurances about super?
MINISTER MORRISON:
We’ve always been consistent on super and on paid parental leave we’ve listened to what Australian families said they need and what they said they needed was more support for affordable child care and you look around North Lakes and you look at the growth in the housing that’s around here and the needs of families around in this community and they’re obviously right. I mean Luke set it out before, the Prime Minister and I and other ministers canvassed very widely with our own members in the team and those out in the community and they said they would rather have us focus on child care than the more generous Paid Parental Leave scheme and we agreed with them. We think that’s good policy. OK? Thanks very much.