Newspoll; GST; Labor’s Fair Share for WA fund

MADELEINE KING, MEMBER FOR BRAND: Thanks everyone, thanks very much for coming here today. I’m very pleased to be standing beside the Premier Mark McGowan, together we welcome Bill Shorten, the Leader of Australian Labor here to our magnificent electorate. We’re standing here at Rockingham Beach Foreshore by the Cruise and Yacht Club of Western Australia. This is, in my opinion perhaps the second most beautiful piece of coast line in the whole country, of course the most beautiful piece of coast line is just around the corner in Shoalwater Bay. So please feel free to take a drive and take some pictures around there later on.

 

As I said it’s great to have Bill here, he’s a fighter for our Labor cause, of course a semi-regular or very regular visitor to WA and also to Rockingham and Kwinana which is the heart of the Brand electorate. So I’m going to hand over to Bill now to say a few words.

 

BILL SHORTEN, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Thanks very much Madeleine, it’s great to be here in Rockingham with Mark McGowan, Premier of Western Australia and our local Federal Member for Brand, Madeleine King. I’m over here for six days. I think it is important that national leaders don’t just fly in and fly out, they spend time in communities. I’m looking forward to visiting 10 or 11 electorates this week in Western Australia. 
 
What I will be doing is I’ll be listening to people. I’m having a town hall meeting – anyone can come and tell me their ideas for the future of the state, and indeed the nation. Obviously I’ll be catching up socially with Mark and his family, and it’s school holidays so I’ve got my kids over here as well. So it’s nice to catch up with people socially. I’m actually looking forward to visiting Rottnest Island later today. The choice is be on the east coast and watch the Liberals’ soap opera, or go and have selfies with Quokkas. There is no doubt what most Australians want to do and in fact probably most Liberal MPs, they want to be at Rottnest Island having photos with Quokkas.

 

So this week we’ll be listening and talking with the West Australian Government about infrastructure, about the all-important issues about a fair deal, a fair share for Western Australia, but fundamentally I’m taking the opportunity to spend time in the West listening to the people of Western Australia about what they want to see out of Canberra, and what policies they would like to see. Because after all Western Australia is absolutely one of the standout areas of Australia, and most people when they visit West Australia always wonder why we can’t spend more time here. So happy to take any questions, I understand Mark has already done a press conference today.

 

JOURNALIST: Mr Shorten, how do you think you’ll be (inaudible) electorally, given we’re expecting the Coalition to have lost its thirtieth losing Newspoll tomorrow. Are you a shoe-in now?

 

SHORTEN: Well I’ve made it a practice of not commenting on polls, when the polls have been good, bad or indifferent. Unlike my opposite number, I don’t define my success by opinion polls. Mr Turnbull obsesses about polls, as does the Liberal and National Parties of Australia. What I define as success is can kids get a job; are they getting a quality education; when you’re sick can you afford to get quality medical care; when you’re old can you get a proper aged care package, if you need it to support you living at home. My success comes when the Australian people are successful; it’s not about opinion polls. And the one observation I make about the Government, in the time that they’ve amassed 30, or 29 or 31 negative opinion polls, what worries me is that is the symptom of the real problem in this country. This country is going in the wrong direction. We see a government hell bent on giving away corporate tax cuts to the top end of town, that’s the only plan Mr Turnbull has for Australia. To give away a lot of taxpayer money to millionaires and billionaires and to multinational companies. 
 
I have a different vision for Australia. One where the schools are properly funded, one where the early years of children’s childcare can be properly supported. One where working class kids can go to university, or they can get an apprenticeship if that’s what they want to do. My vision of Australia is about reducing the hospital waiting times for elective surgery. It’s about making sure that the pensioners and older Australians get a fair deal, that’s what matters to me, not opinion polls.

 

JOURNALIST: Mr Shorten, you’ve ruled out fixing the GST distribution system, instead offering WA a $1.6 billion compensation fund. Will that be delivered in the first year of a Shorten Government, and may I ask you what happens after that, do we get that sum every year? 

SHORTEN: Well, I don't quite agree with the assumption of what you said that we've ruled out fixing the problem. Because of Mark's particularly strong and effective advocacy, he has engineered a sea-change nationally. I now accept the proposition that West Australia hasn't been getting its fair share of national resources. During the mining boom Western Australia was contributing a lot to the nation, not just to its own state. So what we've proposed as a starting point is a de facto 70 cents floor.

Now Mark has got his propositions, he's going to keep advocating, and I keep listening carefully to the projects that are important to him and also to the propositions. But what I want to see is an end to the hunger games between the east coast and the west coast. I don't think it suits Australia to rob Peter to pay Paul, to rob one area and look after another. And the reason why we can create a fair share for Western Australia fund, which would be expended in the first couple of years by the way - first couple of years. What we will do is that we have already said that we would work on the Metronet, the Ellenbrook line. That's hundreds of millions of dollars. Mark tells me that’s a very important priority. He's also made it clear to me that we need to put more resources into the Joondalup Hospital, so Labor has proposed that we would use, again, nearly $200 million to support creating a 75 bed mental health unit, which everyone knows is critically needed. And that's not going to be the end of what we do. 
 
 So we've got a plan, and because we listen to West Australians, we listen to Mark McGowan, he's been putting forward, I think a very strong case in terms of other things which require funding support from the national government, and what I hope after this week is that when Mr Turnbull hears what we announce, that he'll just get on and match it. Mr Turnbull should worry less about the polls and the civil war and the hatred, the poison and the toxicity in the Liberal Party and just focus on looking after people.

JOURNALIST: Do you believe that if you become PM you'll inherit what looks like a national distrust in institutions like politics, parliament, the media and how would you combat that?

SHORTEN: Well, it's up to you how you fix the media. For me, in terms of politics, this is what we will do. We'll keep our promises. We won't promise things that we can't deliver, but what people will get from a Shorten Labor Government is we will work every day in the interests of working and middle class people. If you are a large multinational, if you are someone who has hundreds of millions of dollars in Australia, you're probably going to vote Liberal. But if you're someone who wants to make sure that you can get a properly funded hospital, that you want the schools properly funded, if you're a pensioner on the breadline trying make ends meet, when you're sick of the rising energy costs and health care costs, then Labor's your proposition. I will restore trust in Australian politics because I'll look after everyday families and working people.

JOURNALIST: Mr Shorten you mentioned that your compensation fund and infrastructure fund $1.6 billion would be expended over a couple of years, which makes it $800 million a year, is that actually enough to bump up the GST floor to about 70 cents in the dollar for WA annually?

SHORTEN: Well, what we have to do is as we get closer to budgets, and as we get closer to the years that Labor could potentially be in government, we'll have to keep making sure that our 70 cents de facto floor is actually what we promise it to be. So of course Mark's inherited a shocking set of books from his predecessors. I mean really, what were the Barnett Government doing? Really. And the Federal Government keeps underestimating Western Australia, I mean, it's one thing for a few LNP politicians to chuck up a sign over an overpass on a freeway, that's not a policy to get West Australia going. But I'm committed to the view that West Australia should never again experience the sort of trough that they're in now, in terms of Federal support.

JOURNALIST: So is that a pledge for 70 cents in the dollar GST floor annually under a Shorten Government?

SHORTEN: This is where we want to get to but what we also foresee is what the budget numbers are. But that's where I believe we should be headed, absolutely. Alright, we're going to have lunch. Thanks guys.