Press conference - Admiralty House
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. Today is an exciting day for an extraordinary Australian. A familiar face to just about every Australian I think, no matter where they live. For several decades, Melissa Doyle AM has beamed in the living rooms right around the country through a distinguished career as a television presenter, an author, and a journalist. But her footprint through our great community spans well beyond that. She is a champion for Australian children, for Australian sport, and importantly for Australian charities as well. In the 2016 Australia Day Honours List, Ms. Doyle was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia, recognising her significant service to the community. Melissa currently serves as the national patron and ambassador for the Make-A-Wish Foundation Australia, ambassador for the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, for Children's Hospital of Westmead, and also for World Vision. Melissa is also a director of the Greater Western Sydney Giants Football Club and former chairperson and director of the Giants Foundation. Adding to this long list of achievements, today I'm proud to announce that the government will appoint Melissa Doyle as the Chair of the Australia Day Council Board for a three-year term. This is an important role for our nation. For decades, Australians have trusted Mel to tell Australia’s stories. Now, she will take that to the next level in the national interest. Australia Day is an important day where we come together. We celebrate the appointment of Australian Citizens of the Year, the chief prize of Australian of the Year, but also the Senior Australian of the Year, Young Australian of the Year, and the Volunteer of the Year as well. Ceremonies are conducted on January 25th with the ceremony, but in the lead up to Australia Day as well. And on January 26th after the citizenship ceremony that takes place on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, we adjourn to across the road here, to the Sydney Opera House, an iconic site that demonstrates for everyone who sees it, whether it be here or overseas, that this is Australia. So, I want to thank as well John Foreman's AM for his work as Chair over the last three years, it’s been a delight to work with Mr. Foreman. He has done a fantastic job. But I'm very confident as well that Melissa Doyle will do a fantastic job, and I'd ask her to make some comments and then Patrick Gorman, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, who oversees the logistics of the Australia Day events, will say some words. Then we're happy to take questions about this, and then have a pause if people have questions about other matters as well. Melissa Doyle.
MELISSA DOYLE AM, INCOMING CHAIR OF THE NATIONAL AUSTRALIA DAY COUNCIL BOARD: Thank you, thank you Prime Minister, very much. Oh my gosh. I am honoured. I'm humbled. I'm daunted. I'm excited. I’m every single emotion. But above all, as a journalist, as a storyteller, I have spent my entire career telling the stories of people who inspire us, heroes. We all need to hear about extraordinary people doing extraordinary things in our community, advocating for us all in so many fields, be it science, be it sport, be it art, be it community leaders. I think we all need to hear those stories, and so to be able to play a role in the National Australia Day Council, to work with the Board, to work with the executives to continue to champion these extraordinary Australians and celebrate them and inspire all of us, look it’s truly an honour. And I'm really excited. So, they're the stories I love to share and to play a part in this is really, really special. So, thank you for the trust that you have placed in me, and I think for all of us, I'm, I'm really thrilled. I can't wait to share more stories with everybody of who the people are that make us feel incredibly proud. So it’s going to be an amazing, exciting time. So, thank you very much for trusting me with it.
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Thank you very much, Prime Minister, and thank you very much to Melissa Doyle AM for agreeing to take on this really important role. The work that the National Australia Day Council does is about celebrating the very best of Australia and about reminding Australians that we are all part of the story. We are all part of the Australian story, and we do that with the big piece of work that will be on Melissa's desk, where she starts of choosing the Australian of the Year, the Senior Australian of the Year, the Young Australian of the Year, and the Local Hero. Those Australians who embody the very best of us. And we also do it through supporting events across Australia, so that wherever you are in this great country, you can celebrate our national day. Now, people will be familiar with the event that's held at the Opera House when it comes to Australia Day Live, which is great if you’re there in person, but it’s also beamed into millions of homes every year. But we also support hundreds of events across Australia, from sandcastle building competitions in Tasmania, through to pool parties in Collie, and on the Hawkesbury River, some 10,000 people come together to celebrate this nation and to celebrate their fellow citizens. And I just want to take this opportunity to say that we had a record number of events sponsored by the government this year, some 824 events, and applications are currently open for local councils, community groups, and others who wanted to celebrate Australia to apply for those grants to support community events, whether they be in the capital cities, in our remote areas or in our regions. It's a great opportunity to remind ourselves of that fundamental fact that when it comes to Australia, we are all part of the story, and I can't think of a better person to oversee that work than someone who has told so many stories of so many Australians, and that's Melissa Doyle. So once again, thank you very much. Any questions on this?
PRIME MINISTER: Happy to take questions. Is there anything on this?
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible] playing an important role, I guess, in years coming forward, an important day [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER: It's a really important day. And one of the things that I've had the honour of, whether it be as a local member going to local citizenship ceremonies, whether it be the other events that take place, including the events on the Harbour here. This is a day where Australians come together. We have discussions about who we are, how we got here, but most importantly, where we're going in the future as well. And the Australia Day Awards, you know, is – I can't think of a more inspirational event that occurs in this country than those awards. You have the eight states and territories all nominating someone, and every one of them would be worthy of being chosen to be the Australian of the Year, or the Local Hero, or the Senior, or the Young Australian of the Year. Great stories, one and all. And that is why when we were thinking about, ‘okay, who's going to replace John Foreman, who's done a great job?’ Mel stood out as someone who has told stories about Australians. We want to replicate that. We should be proud. We are the best country on earth, and we have a bright future. And that future, we have great assets such as this beautiful Harbour, best harbour in the world, but the best asset we have is our people. And what Australia Day does is commemorate that.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, that's right. We, we think that this is an opportunity to celebrate, and all of our history – one of the things that takes place in Canberra is before the citizenship ceremony on the shores, there's a private ceremony with First Nations people, with the Traditional Owners. It's respectful, and that is one of the things that characterises the events that happen right around the country, as well. It is an opportunity to be proud of the fact that we're home to the oldest continuous culture on earth. We should celebrate that, but we also celebrate the other parts of our history, what we've done here since the arrival of Europeans, what we continue to do with post-war migration, in particular. We're the most successful multicultural nation on earth, and one of the things that happens with the celebrations that occur around Australia Day is that we elevate individuals, be they of course the wonderful late Neil Daniher, the wonderful late again Richard Scolyer. We've lost a couple of our recent appointments as Australian of the Year, but we've celebrated them as we've done that, and this is an opportunity to lift our nation up and to celebrate.
JOURNALIST: What do you think about local councils [inaudible]?
DOYLE: I would imagine that's an individual decision, isn't it, at this point in time. So, given I've been what four days in the role, I think they're conversations that I would happily have, but I think that those individual ones are up to them.
PRIME MINISTER: Okay, thank you. Do you have some other stuff? Okay, yeah. Well, thanks Melissa.
DOYLE: Thank you. Thank you very much.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks, Melissa.
DOYLE: I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much.
PRIME MINISTER: I think Her Excellency wants to see you in, she’s just inside there. So, Laura, can you?
GORMAN: I’ll just get this off your back, eight-legged friend.
PRIME MINISTER: Spider. Great. Okay, yeah?
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, Pauline Hanson personally attacked your late mother for living in public housing her whole life. Do you have a response to Senator Hanson?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I have seen Senator Hanson’s comments. I didn’t see them at the time. Firstly, she made comments about me complaining about the growing up in public housing. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I'm proud to be a houso, and I'm proud of the community in which I grew up. I'm also proud about my mother. She was someone who had a tough life. She didn't associate with billionaires. She was someone who, as has been documented, went overseas, came back to Australia, chose to make a courageous decision in 1963 to keep a child out of wedlock, who is now the Prime Minister of Australia. She was compassionate, not uncaring. She was generous, not mean. And she was kind, not nasty. She was a person of great character. She's someone, after I was born, worked cleaning offices overnight in the city in order to get an income, and then caring for me, her new baby during the day. She suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and was crippled up. She was unable for a long while to be able to use a knife and fork, to be able to – she used to come down the stairs at our house on her bum because she couldn’t stand up fully in the morning. She had a tough life, but you know what? She used to also have great sayings. One of them was there's always someone worse off than yourself. She never complained. She never denigrated anyone. She respected everyone, and I grew up in a community that looked after each other. That was the opposite of being elite. She was a battler, and for Pauline Hanson to attack someone and their character who died in 2002, some 24 years ago, at age just 65, because she did have such a tough life with her health from an early age. She had scarlet fever as a child, so it meant she couldn’t conclude her schooling. But she was generous and she was kind. I said to you in the last campaign, kindness isn’t a weakness. Tell you what's weakness – it's nastiness. Nastiness. And spitefulness. And I am stunned at these comments. But I will make this point – if Pauline Hanson wants to criticise me, then that’s fine. But my mother was way out of Pauline Hanson’s league. Way out of it.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER: I always look for as much support as possible for legislation across the Parliament, and we'll be doing so if legislation proceeds. We will be seeking broad support. That's what we try to do with every piece of legislation.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible] They made some criticism of [inaudible]. Shouldn’t you take those criticisms seriously, and why wouldn’t you [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER: Sure. Election commitments are made by political parties. And we made election commitments during the campaign. We have a program that has gone through a departmental approval process for that. The Coalition made promises worth more than three times what we did, with a thousand commitments worth $1.6 billion. And during election campaigns, people do make commitments for projects and campaigns. And in my electorate, there were three commitments, and all of them, all of them are worthy.
JOURNALIST: Should that, should that [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it’s election commitments. And we have had a very clear process, and the audit office draw a distinction between election commitments and other programs. We have programs, including an urban program and a regional program, of which grants are asked for and gone through that process. Thanks very much – last one. Sure, sure mate.
JOURNALIST: Productivity has never been as bad as under your government. You say there’s a priority for Labor, but you seem [inaudible] is it still your top economic priority?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we're driving for productivity benefits, and if you look at the speech that I gave on artificial intelligence, we see that, getting that scheme right has been really important as a driver of productivity. Productivity has been weak for the last couple of decades. That's the truth, and we need to do better on productivity, which is why we're driving it through that. Why we're driving it through programs like Free TAFE and the work that we're doing to get, upskill the workforce, and creation of jobs and skills Australia, which is why we're driving it through the range of programs as well to make sure that we do live productivity because we understand that that is when we do what we would like, and that's an important driver of the economy. Thanks very much.
PM&C acknowledges the traditional owners and custodians of country throughout Australia and acknowledges their continuing connection to land, water and community. We pay our respects to the people, the cultures and the elders past, present and emerging.
