NATIONAL PRESS CLUB ADDRESS Q&A

QUESTION:Sorry. Thanks for the address, Minister. Could I just ask you firstly to elaborate on your vision for the AIS? It's been variously described occasionally as a ghost town in recent years; it was yesterday described as dead by the former director Rob de Castella. What is your vision for the future of the AIS? Do those descriptions disappoint you? And more specifically, would you consider selling some of the facilities to the ACT Government?

 

Yeah, I think it's a great question. You know, I came of age in the late 80s and the AIS was the pinnacle of what made our athletes just so successful during that era and period. We had competitive advantage. The reality is, the rest of the world has caught up and cottoned on to what we were doing within the AIS. We’ve got 100 acres out there and we have facilities that are in need of repair and revitalisation. I think the Australian Sports Commission, the AIS themselves, appreciate that and so do national sporting organisations.

 

What I’ve announced today is that we will consider a business case that will be developed by the AIS and put to Government and I think that when you look at how the landscape of the provision of high-performance sport in this country has changed, we now have Centres of Excellence for certain sports around the country, we have a network of incredible states’ Institutes of Sport, which are doing great work in that pathway to international competition. So we need to think: do we need to be doing everything here the way we’ve always done it? The way we train athletes has significantly changed from the late 80s. You can now, you know, with a watch, an iPhone and some decent gear, your coach can track you from anywhere in the world, if you’ve been doing the right thing eating, sleeping and heart rate wise, et cetera.

 

So, I think we need to understand that we need an AIS that is globally focused, that is cutting edge, that is in partnership with leading researchers across this country. But at the end of the day, the Government will be considering a business case that will be put forward by those having the expertise, being the AIS and Sport Australia.

 

The West Australian.

 

Thank you, Minister. Nick Evans from The West Australian newspaper. Minister, you described the Wood Review as the most comprehensive of its type ever undertaken in Australia. You’ve had it now I think for about four months. Why is the Government's response to set up another review or a task force to review its recommendations? Why after four months are you not able to stand here and at least commit in principle to supporting its major recommendations?

 

Well, Nick, I think that's a really good question. I think once you get a chance - having publicly released it today - once you have a chance to read the report and carefully consider the 52 recommendations, you will understand why, you know, 12 to 14 weeks of it being in the Government's hands is barely enough time to really consider the level and depth of change that we're going to have to make as a federation.

 

The recommendations don't just touch on matters in my own portfolio space. As I said earlier, given the infiltration of sport and wagering markets by organised crime, Home Affairs has a significant role to play in how we address these particular recommendations. Sports and territories in this country are actually responsible for wagering and gambling. So, when we're- Justice Wood has recognised the importance of actually- the wagering system in itself and how it's being abused by organised crime to match-fix and to corrupt particularly younger athletes that we need to have a federated response as well.

 

So, I think it's timely that we’ve set up the task force, we’ve got the key players on board, and that we're working diligently and carefully and methodically through the report. Now it's time to actually go out and engage with stakeholders. Sports have a lot of feedback for us; we'll be changing it with the Sports Tribunal, interacting with our professional sports, who already have those sort of mechanisms set up within their internal structures. So, we need to have that external consultation now with stakeholders.

 

I would envisage a whole of government response to be finished by the end of this year, but this is not easy work. It's highly complex, very interrelated and needs to be seen as a whole rather than coming here today and saying: well, I like recommendation X, Y and Z, A, B, C, but we're going to think more about the others, because they're all interrelated.

 

Australian Associated Press.

 

Thanks, Minister. Matt Coughlin from Australian Associated Press. I just wanted to take you to a point you were saying about who the National Party is representing. The Liberals have come in for a lot of criticism over their female representation in their ranks. You're one of two women of 22 members in the National party room. What are you doing to address that and do you think the Nationals do have a problem with women?

 

Well, no, I don't, because, you know, 20 guys elected a woman to be their Deputy Leader. But, you know, I think for me, I come from the most conservative division of the National Party in the country. Prior to my pre-selection - we turned 100 years old last year - there'd only ever been one female parliamentarian in the party, state or federal. But since that time seven years ago, we now have four new female members of our state parliamentary team, two out of our three candidates going forward at the state election in Victoria are females. And I think if you look at the party more broadly at the state level, we’ve got the leader of the party in WA is a woman, we’ve got Deb Frecklington heading up the LNP; so I think things are changing and I think it's important that they do change. But I think at the end of the day, we want the best representatives possible for the regions, irrespective of their gender.

 

 

Paul Karp from Guardian Australia. Thanks very much for your speech. Your leader, Michael McCormack, has noted that Barnaby Joyce will have to be pre-selected to recontest New England for the Nationals. In your opinion, who else would make a good Nationals MP for New England or is it Barnaby or bust for you? And is the Barnaby era over or could he return to the leadership?

 

[Laughs] Oh, Paul.

 

Always my favourite topic. Look, I spent two days with Barnaby in the New England in recent weeks and his passion for his community and his desire to deliver real change for the people living in those communities is unabated and as strong as ever. And I think when you see his public commentary on drought, when you see his public commentary on live sheep exports, Barnaby Joyce is a significant contributor, always has been. You know, he delivered a great amount not just to regional Australia in his time in the leadership, but indeed to our party room. So I think, you know, he's going on with that behaviour, he's back in the saddle and his contributions are compelling, as always, and useful.

 

I’m going to ask an associated question on that. The Labor Party went very hard on Barnaby Joyce and when they did they said it wasn’t personal, they said it was because of whether or not there had been any misuse of public funds. There's a problem in the Labor Party at the moment with Emma Husar; it's been reported to the Labor Party but not to the people that actually employ those staffers, the Department of Finance. Now, do you think that the Emma Husar case needs more public transparency from the Labor Party?

 

Well, I think the Labor Party's going through their own internal mechanisms. I think those affected parties have options available to them through their enterprise bargaining arrangements and their workplace relation arrangements that they could take any complaints further, should they choose to do so. But that would be up to them as party to the complaint.

 

OK, ABC Grandstand. And on calling this, I must say that anyone who's involved in sport in Canberra for the last 30 years would know the name of Tim Gavel, who's about to hang up his boots at the ABC. So Tim, it's great to have you here.

 

[Applause]

 

I'll still be around.

[Laughter]

 

Minister, given the size and urgency of the problem with corruption in sport in Australia, when do you hope of the Integrity Commission up and running? And do you have an idea of which body will run the commission once you get it up and running?

 

Oh Tim, I think you need to join the task force. No, we’ve set up the whole of government task force to respond to these particular recommendations. I think when you’ve sat and read the report, it is incredibly complex. It is urgent - I believe - when you see the evidence that there's a problem, and it's not just a problem for us. It's transnational; it's an international issue of how organised crime is manipulating, you know, wagering markets and sport as a result.

 

So, I would like to see this resolved as quickly as possible and that's what we'll be working to do. I think given the complexity, having to have the discussions with state ministers of sport and wagering and gambling, premiers, as I said Attorneys-General, and Home Affairs, because there is a lot in this issue. I think as the first instance we really need to look at ASADA's role and the Sport Betting Integrity Unit that's already embedded in ACIC and what role they can play while we work through these arrangements.

 

The Australian Financial Review.

 

Senator, Tom McIlrory from The Fin; thank you for your speech. Do you agree with some of your Coalition colleagues that it's time to drop the company tax policy after the results in the by-elections; isn't it true that the National's party room and the LNP in Queensland will be significantly smaller after the next election if you stick to what is a contentious or very unpopular policy?

 

Yeah, well thanks, Tom. I think if you look at my speech, I made it really, really clear that the two biggest employers and economic contributors not just to regional economies but to the national economy are mining and agriculture. They're export focused, they're completing globally. When you look at what's happening with company tax cuts across, you know, the landscape internationally - you’ve got what the UK has done, what the USA has done. So, if we want our, you know, national economy driving industries to succeed internationally, then we have to have an internationally competitive company tax rate.

 

So I think we have got the policy settings right. I do appreciate we are taking that policy in its entirety back to the Senate as soon as we can in the spring sittings and I think that's the appropriate thing to do.

 

QUESTION: 

And if it fails in the Senate will you carry it to an election?

 

BRIDGET MCKENZIE:     

Well, I think- you know, I’ve been in the Senate a while now and it’s a great beast and anything can happen. As we see, people change their mind very, very quickly, often. So, I'm not even counting that it will fail. I'm assuming it will pass because it's good policy.

 

Canberra IQ.

 

QUESTION: 

Simon Grose from Canberra IQ.

 

Minister, thanks for your speech. You generated a riff of laughter down here in the jaded hack section when you said that your party doesn't promote regional interests, and I just thought I should test you on this in the sugar issue. There’s a lot of growing lobbying in the health sector, especially the National Rural Health Alliance – your constituency in many ways – arguing for a sugar tax, the AMA. You and Minister Littleproud have come out saying it wouldn't make any difference to obesity levels in Australia.

 

BRIDGET MCKENZIE:     

Well, that's what the evidence actually shows.

 

QUESTION: 

Okay, but what’s your pitch on a sugar tax, and how otherwise would you approach the obesity issue?

 

BRIDGET MCKENZIE:     

Yeah, I think you raise a really strong issue and I hope you caught my references to it through my speech, that the obesity issue in this country is concerning and when you marry up the obesity stats with the activity stats, it's pretty clear that there's a relationship. What's less clear when you look at the evidence internationally is that a sugar tax will actually decrease obesity because at the end of the day, that's about putting a tax on something that should be at the discretion of a person to actually participate. I’ve written numerous opinion pieces on my view on a sugar tax. The reality is, we export a lot of our sugar so putting a sugar tax here – you’ve tried to sort of infer that there was a relationship between the Nats and regional interests and backing the sugar lobby. That's not the case, because we don't put a great amount of domestic sugar into domestic soft drinks.

 

But I will never back a sugar tax in this country. I think we need to be looking at personal responsibility, looking at reformulation - which has been quite successful in reducing over time. If I look at the Nutri-Grain that I might have bought my own family on their birthdays once a year 30 years ago as a treat, and the Nutri-Grain today, they taste very different because we’ve reformulated that particular product to have less sugar over time and I think that a successful way to do it, rather than actually taxing a product. At the end of the day we’ve all got to take personal responsibility for things as well. And obesity is an incredibly complex condition. It's not one thing that makes you obese, right, and we need to treat the whole condition, not just one aspect of it.

 

The Canberra Times.

 

QUESTION: 

G’day, Nic Stuart, Canberra Times. Thanks very much for your speech. I'm going to pass over completely the claim that Black Jack McEwen wasn't devoted to sectional interests. I think that people-

 

BRIDGET MCKENZIE:     

[Interrupts] But you must admit, his relationship with Japan has paid dividends over time.

 

Absolutely, but sectional. What I'm more concerned about is the ABC. A, athletics: terrific reputation, terrific people, competitors, we're doing really well there. B, basketball: there are issues about whether or not Australia is a genuine competitor in this field or whether or not we play dirty. C, cricket: same thing. I mean, you can just go on and on. What are you doing about restoring the integrity of the way our athletes are perceived generally?

 

BRIDGET MCKENZIE:     

Yeah, I think it’s a great question, Nic, and nothing brought that more home than the issues, particularly around cricket, earlier this year and I think the shock that everybody felt – it wasn't just cricket fans – it was right throughout our community that our athletes, who we love and adore and are so proud of, could behave in such a way.

 

Ultimately, within the Australian construct that is not a role for government, it is a role for Australian sports. But I think that's where we can show leadership, define expectations, make it very clear, I think to not just the athletes but the coaches who train these young athletes over time - I mean, people don't just wake up one day and decide to behave in a certain way. It's a cultural phenomena that usually pervades an organisation. So, Sport Australia will have a key role in educating and driving that cultural change through the NSOs, but I think also Justice Woods, in some of the recommendations he speaks around not just the anti-doping section of a sports tribunal but a general division which handles matters around arbitration within sport that actually could also serve to further strengthen community expectation about appropriate behaviour within sport.

 

And what about what we’ve seen recently with Cricket Australia and someone's private life being dragged into – well, you know – whether or not someone should be sacked from an organisation because they hold strong personal opinions?

 

BRIDGET MCKENZIE:     

Yeah well, I think that is, you know, an incredibly interesting phenomena and I think that – given that it's before the court – I'm not going to comment on that case, but it is definitely a workplace relations issue and I look forward to the findings, actually.

 

Keating Media.

 

QUESTION: 

Michael Keating from Keating Media, Minister.

 

I’d like to touch on rural health and one of the issues in rural communities is, of course, the retention of regional doctors. It seems that in rural communities doctors are staying for a short time but not a long time and this is something you’ve touched on in your speech. What incentives do you think you can offer doctors to stay beyond their internships and to integrate into the rural community and not return to the city?

 

BRIDGET MCKENZIE:     

Yeah, I think it was one of the standout – for those of us that live out in the regions and have been concerned about this issue for a long, long period of time – one of the standout announcements out of the Budget was the $550 million investment by the Turnbull Government in a stronger rural health workforce strategy, which is a suite of arrangements that go to exactly the heart of the issue you speak about. About over time, gradually decreasing the amount of overseas trained doctors and increasing with domestically trained doctors of high quality. And that means getting the settings right. Right now, prior to our announcement, you could actually get rural incentives if you're working in places like the Gold Coast where there were a lot of doctors. So, getting those sort of settings right, getting our mapping right so that we knew where the areas of need are and where they aren't. Making sure that we incentivise those junior doctors, as you speak about, to actually be able to charge back to the MBS and sort of build those flexible working models whilst they're out in the regions.

 

And crucially, what all the research says – there’s two reasons you will practice in the regions, whether you're an accountant, a doctor, a politician – were you born in the regions? Or did you spend a significant period of your time training in the regions? And we're not talking about dipping in for a couple of weeks of a six-year degree or six months; significant amount of time. We’ve seen the stats that if you spend a couple of years out in the regions during those formative years that you will actually have a 70 per cent chance of returning to the regions. Not where you were trained, but you don’t actually approach it from a deficit model. You know that growing up in regional Australia is a great place to run a business and to raise a family.

 

And so I think we’ve made that change by now, having the Murray-Darling Basin medical network – medical schools network, to have a suite of end to end training for medical practitioners, that they’re out in the regions, they may dip back into Sydney or Melbourne for a small portion of their training, rather than the other way around. And we believe that’s a really successful model and all the evidence and data would suggest so.

 

And our conservative modelling suggests we’ll have an additional 3000 domestically trained doctors practicing in regional Australia over 10 years and 3000 additional nurses. So, I’m incredibly excited about how that will transform high quality healthcare out in the regions. So, that’s being done and now we’ve got to move onto specialists.

 

You were talking about the city and regional divide too, and when it comes to immigration there’s a very different worldview about sort of, congestion in the cities but also that we do need people in the regions; since the Second World War we’ve had a heap of programs trying to get people to go into the regions and stay in the regions. What sort of thinking’s been done around that?

 

BRIDGET MCKENZIE:     

Well that’s exactly – I got a lit review done through the Page Research Centre last year on exactly that key point. What are the key policy drivers you can use at a federal level to actually not just decentralise government departments from Canberra, don't panic, not announcing any of that today, but it is a key platform of the Nats's stance, but to encourage more internal migration from people from Melbourne and Sydney.

 

And the more we get the digital connectivity right, the more we get regional jobs [indistinct] that you can be having a high powered globally focused career in Koorang as much as you can in Kingston, then we're going to actually want to see people want to move out. You’ve seen the phenomena of tree-changes, of sea changes in this hyper-connected digital world, people are still craving the intimacy of going to the supermarket and being able to say g'day to everybody or knowing that your kids can ride their bike to school because everybody else is going to be looking out for them.

 

So, there's some real benefits there, but without local jobs and flourishing industry and key infrastructure like digital connectivity, it's not going to happen. The Deloitte report-  just did a report into the Karen people who 70 EFTs with a company called Luv-a-Duck, in a very small country town in the Wimmera called Nhill and what a hyper-successful migration of a distinct group of people that’s been for that community. I think it's added $40.5 million economically. Socially integrated because there's a shared sense of value and contribution.

 

So, when you read what were the reasons, they weren't because government spent a lot of money shifting these people out, it was because the local community said: we need you, what do we need to get you? And the local Karen community said: we want to be with you, what do we need to do to be with you? And it's really simple local solutions and local leadership. So I probably don't buy the stereotype that the regions don't like immigrants, I don't buy that at all. I think our regions have been built on strong, you know, drivers from our migrant communities over decades and we’ve just got to get the settings right and I think strategic regional immigration policies are the way to go.

 

2CC.

 

QUESTION: 

Minister, Tim Shaw from Radio 2CC. Thank you so much for your address today and it was great to be with you when you went to your debut rugby league game this year and it was at Bruce Stadium with the Canberra Raiders.

 

BRIDGET MCKENZIE:     

[Laughs] My away team.

 

QUESTION: 

Our listeners and viewers are excited about that - so many sports stars right around Australia have come from rural and regional Australia, you know Yvonne [Indistinct], her birthday this week, Heather McKay.

 

Kids are skipping school at the moment; the drought is hitting hard. Mums are under enormous pressure; farmers are doing it seriously tough. With your rural sports initiative, is that time to really get the skates on that and get that out into rural communities to be able to assist? And I’d like your thoughts on that because governments don’t run farming businesses, but you can move now with rural health to maybe start with the kids.

 

Secondly, community club funding: it’s a big one right around Australia; the ACT Labor-Greens Government is attacking community clubs and the method in which they distribute funding to local sporting teams. You’ve said today, governments should get out of the way and let local community clubs and organisations do that. I’d like a comment on that because those community clubs in Canberra are under threat from the ACT Greens government and they want to take away their right to distribute to which sporting team they so choose. So, I’d be interested in your thoughts on that too.

 

BRIDGET MCKENZIE:     

 

Well, thanks Tim, there’s a few in that and yes, before I became Sporting Minister I thought there was only one code of football in this country. But I am now on the NRL train and what a fabulous game that was; one point in the last 20 seconds, it was the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen. So, I think that’s a real problem, right. Unless we want to become a country where there’s only five types of sports you can play, that is a real problem. One of our great strengths as a nation is the diversity of Olympic offerings that we offer, the diversity of sports so that every single person can find something that they love and want to do. And they need to- they might not be aspiring to be an Olympic athlete in it, but they need to find it available in their own communities and then it needs to be affordable for mum and dad for them to be able to participate in it. And I know Sport Australia is very keen at working with the national sporting organisations to look at how that interface between family budget and participating in sport works and to make sure it's as accessible as possible. I think it's disgusting that government thinks it can tell its citizens what it should and shouldn't do. We're not North Korea. I just want more people more active and that requires a diversity of offerings.

 

On the drought issue, I was with the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister on the first day of their drought tour and sat around those tables speaking to drought-affected farmers and their families and it's biting hard and I think we've got a suite of initiatives to ensure that they’ve got money on the table, that they’ve got their farm manage deposits. I think the NAB’s done a great job in actually looking at how they deal with farmer debt. I think Westpac, I think there's other banks here today that might actually look at how they, too, deal with farmers affected by drought. And we've got money on the table, so people can get through until it rains. And I pray it does quickly.

 

The thing we’ve been able to do from the Rural Health perspective, is address the fact that you’re on farm day in, day out, you’re listening to hungry cattle, you’re listening to hungry sheep all day, all night. You’re wondering how you’re going to survive until the rain comes in or how you’re going to buy that next tractor – trailer of fodder. We’ve put some real money into mental health initiatives on the ground and into rural financial counsellors. So, I guess it’s farm businesses’ decisions about when they do stock when they don’t. But we’re all praying for rain and for our regional communities.

 

And sometimes, heading off to footy or netball on a Saturday might be the best thing that happens in that family’s life this week and so the community infrastructure grants, rolling out tomorrow - contact my office for the guidelines and get your application in, I want you building something very, very soon for your local communities and getting more people more active on the ground.

 

Please thank the Minister.

 

(ENDS)