Press conference, Warrawong
E&OE
MINISTER MORRISON:
It is great to be here at the Hope Centre here in Warrawong, in the Illawarra here with Lizzie and Jeff and a team of recent graduates of this tremendously inspiring programme which is changing the course for young people here in the Illawarra and has the potential to show a new way forward for young people right across the country. The Commonwealth Government is very pleased to have supported the establishment of this facility and we are working closely with Hope to ensure the longer term viability of this very important programme. We have young people in this country who are out of work, we have got young people in this country who aren’t in study and we have got young people in this country who are at risk of being written off as a generation. We cannot abide that, we cannot allow that to happen.
What I have seen here through the dedication through the experience and through the professionalism of those involved in this centre here but importantly the dedication of the young people who have decided to give it an absolute red hot go is something that is truly transformational. It has been very pleasing to be with you here today Lizzie and we look forward to working together over the weeks and months ahead to ensure that this can remain an established presence here in the Illawarra and more importantly a guiding light through the work of the University of Wollongong who I know you are working closely with to see how the lessons from what is clearly working here can be applied to so many other communities around the country. But why don’t you explain a little bit more about what is happening here, I know, I am excited by it, I am sure others will be here too.
LIZZIE MILLAR:
Ok, the Hope Centre started here nine years ago with Jeff and Gally Dakers as a food distribution outlet to those who just couldn’t access healthy food, didn’t have the funds. It has grown dramatically in the nine years and now it is a rather larger facility that does still deliver food with nine tonnes of food coming through this facility just in fresh food alone every week being redistributed. We do a myriad of services around welfare, around homelessness, around addictive lifestyle stuff but on top of that we have realised there are some amazing young people in our community and those young people were getting a bum deal, those young people weren’t being heard, those young people had a lot to offer their society and we were missing out on that bit of gold. So we created with the support of Kevin Andrews and his team last year a training programme called True Steel and that True Steel has given them eight-weeks intensive training on site with us where we have looked at all sorts of areas of job readiness and job skills but we have looked at who they are and where they have come from and their identities and their dreams and their hopes and where they are going to go. That has been such a privilege to be part of, they have also done some work experience and 80 per cent of them have gained employment and future educational pathways including three of them going to Wollongong University next year all being well.
This is an outcome we couldn’t have predicted a year ago and to be part of that story has been a privilege. The young people behind these wonderful cameras here have taught us so much even though we were the trainers. In some ways we became the trainees on many of the days. I am so grateful to them and to their families. Many of those young people have faced some awful situations in their lives nobody should have to face including four or five generations of unemployment in a country like Australia. Families that can’t afford to feed themselves, families that face mental health issues, families that face suicide, families that have faced every trauma you can think of. They are all represented in these young people and those young people have chosen to make a difference. Now they are going to go on and make a difference in the employment space. We are really excited to be part of that and just hoping we can sort it out.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Thanks Lizzie, thanks very much. The government is obviously working towards our jobs and small business package in this year’s budget and last week I gave a presentation to the Sydney Institute where I outlined youth unemployment being a key area where the government was looking to focus through our jobs and small business package and that is certainly true from the Social Services point of view as well as the employment point of view and the work that is being done here by Hope I think provides a real guidance to the sort of focus there needs to be. We need to be innovative; we need to be as flexible as we can. The same lessons we have learned in Indigenous communities show real promise in terms of how we can provide support to young people around the country in other areas of disadvantage. So it is tremendous to have that opportunity here today.
Questions?
QUESTION:
The Victorian Premier has cancelled the East West link and will incur $420 million, what is your reaction to that?
MINISTER MORRISON:
I think this is an obscene payment by the Victorian government. Today is Youth Homelessness Matters Day and it wasn’t more than a few weeks ago that the Victorian state government was railing against the federal government about the need to continue the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. We have committed to that, $230 million additional funding that wasn’t provided by the previous government, in fact it was cut. We have kept that programme going to focus on youth homelessness as well as homelessness issues relating to domestic violence and they have been our top priorities. For the Victorian government to spend $420 million to pay a company not to build a road is an obscenity. Bill Shorten is linked up with that obscenity in his support for Daniel Andrews’ decision on this and I think taxpayers in Victoria and right around the country where there are so many more worthy needs around the country, will just be shaking their heads.
QUESTION:
On another issue, the PM says today the delivery of child care initiatives will be contingent on the delivery of savings. Are they savings already before the Senate or new savings measures?
MINISTER MORRISON:
There are savings existing before the Senate. I have made that very clear and those savings will be taken forward and they need to be supported in order to ensure that we can invest in this critical area of early childhood learning and child care. We are keen to invest more in this area but we are keen to invest more in a targeted way. We want to do more but we also want to expect more. We want particularly children in disadvantaged families to be able to continue to get support through early childhood learning but we also want their parents where they can to be activated into learning and into earning. That is where the early learning sector, the child care sector can provide great assistance to the government in not only working with the young children in these facilities but also working with the families to encourage them into activation which can see them not only getting the child care support and early learning that their children need but to change their own future for their own families. We have some 14 per cent of children under the age of 12 growing up in families that have no jobs. That is not a future that I want to see for those children and we need to get them education support but we need to get their families into jobs.
QUESTION:
Is that not an ultimatum to the Senate then to pass on the savings or families will miss out?
MINISTER MORRISON:
We are in a fiscal situation which requires us to invest more to be able to redeploy the funds the government has. We need to spend the money that we have available for these initiatives wisely and in a targeted way. That is just being responsible, any household, any family, any business, any charity needs to make those decisions and similarly governments in Parliaments need to make the same decisions and that is what we will be seeking support from, from the Parliament. We want to do more in child care and early childhood learning so we can ensure that families can get in a job and stay in a job which means their children can be brought up in a family with a job and we think that is something worth investing in and we think it is something worth achieving the necessary savings in the budget to be able to pay for it.
QUESTION:
How much money could families see?
MINISTER MORRISON:
The announcement on the child care package is not too far away, we will be making that announcement before the budget. There are existing savings already before the Senate on a whole range of measures and if those measures are passed then we will be able to make those investments.
QUESTION:
On the subject of pensions, are you closer to reaching consensus with crossbenchers on changes to the pension?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well again, they are matters for the budget but I continue to work through those issues with cross benchers as I have been doing this week and will do next week and will continue to do into the future. What’s clear though is there is a consensus across those engaging in the important conversation whether its groups like ACOSS or National Seniors, Council On The Ageing (COTA) indeed crossbenchers like Nick Xenophon, David Leyonhjelm that’s there is a consensus on the need to have a sustainable and fair pension for the future and you don’t achieve that by doing absolutely nothing which is what the opposition’s view is. I would welcome them in engaging in that process in the same way that I have welcomed their participation so far in our discussion about child care but it is important that we have a pension that is fair and sustainable for the long term. ACOSS has put forward I think some very interesting suggestions. We want to make sure that anyone, if we were to go down that path that they have suggested, who is on a full pension it would have no impact on their arrangements whatsoever and I am confident we can achieve that.
QUESTION:
Minster on the vaccinations you didn’t want to reveal which groups were exempt but on your Department’s own website it lists the Christian Scientists.
MINISTER MORRISON:
That’s right. Look I have no interest in promoting that exemption. That’s why I wasn’t going to get into that and that’s why I am not going to get into it today. This information is on the website for people that want to go and look at it but I am not in the business of promoting the exemptions, particularly other than medical that would enable people to avoid taking the responsibility of having their children immunised. I think it is incredibly important. I thought it was important for my own family, I think it is important for every family in the country and we have abolished – it will be through the legislation – the conscientious exemption which is where we have seen the considerable growth in people seeking those exemptions. We are closing that door and if I believe that there are other exemptions whether it be religious or another which are being abused I will shut it down.
QUESTION:
Minister Morrison one further question on pensions. Bill Shorten says he wants to talk about tapers rates and asset tests. Will you take him up on that offer?
MINISTER MORRISON:
He is welcome to talk about them all he likes. I mean he is aware of what the arrangements have been. He can pick up the phone any day he likes. I would be happy to take Bill’s call. But to date what he has been running around the country doing is scaring pensioners, that’s his policy on pensions, to scare pensioners. I think that’s an appalling thing to do. We want to ensure there is a fair and sustainable pension. If he supports the changes that ACOSS are putting forward – only last week he was saying that ACOSS’s proposal was a thought bubble. Look if he wants to play catch up on it then fine, I would be welcoming him to the conversation and welcoming the Labor party’s support for changes for a fair and sustainable pension but up until now they have been one big locked door.
QUESTION:
On youth homelessness what is the government doing to address the issue in regional areas?
MINISTER MORRISON:
The program I mentioned before, the $230 million for the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness that continues the funding that has been there this year. Those programs are delivered through the states, so here in the Illawarra through the New South Wales Government and across regional New South Wales through the New South Wales Government. This is an area where we think the top priorities are homelessness issues that relate to the victims of domestic violence which can also involve the youngest of young people but also on youth homelessness. It’s an issue that affects not just regional New South Wales but metropolitan New South Wales as well in areas right around the country. So the funding support is there, what we’re looking for is innovative, effective and results driven programs. Not unlike what we are seeing here at Hope in a very different area but I have got to say the issues of getting young people into work, trained, the skills to stay in a job, that helps to address the issue of homelessness as much, because it gives people the ability to have choices and to be able to support themselves. Welfare traps people for life in too many cases, particularly for young people. So whether it is what we see here with Hope which is releasing people from that future or whether it’s providing that immediate support for people who need support because they’re at risk of homelessness or indeed homeless themselves right now, then that is what that funding is there for and we will be working hard with the states to ensure that they put the priorities on those two key areas and on Youth Homelessness Matters Day I am pleased that the government is doing its bit to ensure that that happens.
QUESTION:
[inaudible] any sort of sign of rolling it out across the state? Or is it something other areas can look at?
MINISTER MORRISON:
It is something particularly areas like the Illawarra should be liaising directly with the New South Wales state government because they run the programs and they provide the direct interface with the providers. We support them to ensure that the funds are there to make those programs tick. Working closely with Brad Hazzard here in New South Wales, who is the Minister responsible, formally Gabrielle Upton I think you know they will be right on it and I look forward to seeing those programs continue.
QUESTION:
Have you got a target that you want to get the number down for youth unemployment to? Have you set yourself a benchmark?
MINISTER MORRISON:
I am much more focused on trying to ensure we have programs in place that work and what I see here at Hope and I want to commend the University of Wollongong for partnering with Hope here, because we need to be identifying more and more successful programs because the results will then speak for themselves. The fact that we have got 80 per cent of people not just getting into a job, but sticking into a job, I think is an extraordinary achievement. Now I’ve seen similar programs now, whether it’s with the Brotherhood of Saint Lawrence or other organisations achieving similar results but they’re not following a time trodden path, they are being innovative, thinking about different ways, connecting up with other partners, they are engaging with business, which is very important, and the solutions to these issues very much sit at the ground level. What we see here today is a broad partnership here at Hope in the Illawarra and I would love to see, and I have seen, these types of things replicated in other parts of the country. Ok, thanks for coming.