DANIEL MULINO, MEMBER FOR FRASER: Good morning everyone. It’s wonderful to have you here this morning in Sunshine. I’m Daniel Mulino the Member for Fraser, which includes Sunshine Station and most of the proposed route of the Melbourne Airport Rail Link. It's absolutely fantastic to be here this morning with the Prime Minister, the Premier and Minister Natalie Suleyman to talk about the Melbourne Airport Rail Link, a long overdue project for Melbourne and for Melbourne's west in particular. It will boost economic growth. It will allow the airport to boost its capacity and take pressure off already congested roads right across Melbourne's west. But if we're going to deliver this project, we have to invest properly in Sunshine Train Station. That's why it was so welcome to see the Prime Minister and the Premier announce significant funding for the Melbourne Airport Rail Link, including $7 billion of Commonwealth money. $5 billion for the Rail Link and $2 billion for this station and the surrounding precinct. And of course, additional money from the State Government also. It's very disappointing to see Peter Dutton say that he's going to cut funding from this. It's a negative cost cutting approach, as always. He said he doesn't want to gold plate this station. That's the wrong approach. It's really something I'm incredibly looking forward to, seeing works commence on this project and it's with great pleasure that I now hand over to the Prime Minister.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Daniel, and it's great to be back here at Sunshine Station. The last time I was here, we were doing the Regional Rail Link, the largest ever Commonwealth investment in rail before this one. Regional Rail Link opened up opportunities in Geelong, in Bendigo and in Ballarat. And what the Airport Rail Link, together with Sunshine Station’s upgrade, which is necessary for the Airport Rail Link to occur, will make sure, when connected up with the Melbourne Metro, connected up with regional rail services, will allow the electrification of the line to Melton. This is a critical piece of infrastructure, which is why we're making the announcement here today.
 
Unlike the Coalition who showed how out of touch they are on transport issues in Melbourne by having a press conference at a winery up tens of kilometres away, nowhere near the airport, nowhere near any rail station whatsoever. And they had a map out. And you'll recall that when one of the journalists travelling with the party asked where they were, it wasn't even on the map that was shown behind them. They are simply not up to delivering the infrastructure that Victorians need. Well, my Government will do that. My Government will partner with the Allan Government to deliver for Victorians. That's what this $7 billion commitment is about. Because unless you fix Sunshine rail, you can't do the Airport Rail Link. It's a necessary precondition.
 
Now, the last time the Coalition came to office, we know that what they did was rip $30 billion out of education, $50 billion out of health, but they also ripped the guts out of infrastructure investment. They ripped the guts out of the Cross River Rail project, the most important project in Brisbane, and Melbourne Metro project, the most important project in Melbourne. $3 billion was in the budget for that project. We actually had a joint board with a Commonwealth representative on that board to get that project done. Melbourne Metro would today be opened, would have opened years ago had the Abbott Government not ripped that funding out of that important project. As it is, the Andrews and then the Allan Government have had to proceed with that, 100 per cent funded from Victoria. I hope to get an invite to the opening, even though our funding didn't proceed there. And it just says it all about the Coalition who during this campaign have shown that they are just not fit for government.
 
Today, we have the extraordinary position of Peter Dutton, having defended his attack on working from home, is now pretending that that program won't proceed. He said very clearly that women should just go and job share, that they shouldn't worry about working full time. There were plenty of job sharing opportunities there in dismissing the Opposition to this plan. But of course, work from home was one of the changes that we made to industrial relations, along with Same Job, Same Pay, along with proper definition of casualisation, along with the right to disconnect. All of these changes have been opposed by Peter Dutton. He's campaigned against them each and every day. And today he's pretending, he's pretending that the policies that he announced, including in the Budget Reply that was two weeks ago, including the cuts to 41,000 public servants, just don't exist. And everyone will just forget about all that. This is a new Peter Dutton who's discovered work rights.
 
Well, if people want to protect their work rights, they need to vote Labor on May the 3rd, because it's only Labor that has a plan to look after working people. It's only Labor that will provide a tax cut for every taxpayer. It's only Labor that support real wage increases. It's only Labor that will put in a submission to the Fair Work Commission for the fourth consecutive increase in wages. We stand for working people. It's what we've been doing since 1891 and we’ll continue to do so.
 
Peter Dutton wants to undermine work rights and in particular doesn't understand modern families, doesn't understand the important role that women and men play in organising their families and organising appropriate work conditions wherever it is possible. We know that working from home can boost productivity. We know also it's an urban congestion issue because if you take everyone who is currently working from home and put them in a car and put them on a road, you're going to have more congestion. It is a productivity decreasing policy that the Coalition have had. And today he wants to pretend, after three years of not developing hardly any policies at all, that all he's got left now is the nuclear plan that'll cost $600 billion, some of the savings from the public servant cuts that have just disappeared as well, apparently, so therefore they'll have to be even more deeper cuts. And here at Sunshine Station we've got a half billion dollar cut that he's put forward.
 
Happy to hand over to the Premier of Victoria and then we're happy to take some questions.
 
JACINTA ALLAN, PREMIER OF VICTORIA: Thank you, Prime Minister. It's wonderful to have you join us here at Sunshine Station. As we can see in here, a very big and busy part of our train network and to be joined by our local Members of Parliament, Daniel Mulino and Natalie Suleyman. And I've mentioned Sunshine Station’s a very big and busy part of our network and it's only under Labor Governments that it's only going to get even busier and more important with the delivery of Airport Rail. And what we've seen, what we've seen previously under Peter Dutton, when he last sat at the Cabinet table in Canberra, was that we saw here in Victoria ten years of neglect, funding taken off projects like the Metro Tunnel. Projects ignored year after year from Peter Dutton when he sat at the Cabinet table.
 
Well, under Anthony Albanese, not only do Victorians have a partner in the projects we want and need, we're getting on and delivering those much needed projects. Now, of course, I'll acknowledge that Victorians have waited a number of decades to see a train line delivered to the airport, but what Peter Dutton is saying to Victorians is that you'll be waiting decades more with his cuts here at Sunshine Station that will quite literally leave passengers stranded at the station. And let me explain why that's the case.
 
Sunshine Station is the absolute heart of the Airport Rail project. You simply can't deliver a train line to the front door of the airport unless you untangle this very busy and complex part of our network. You also can't connect it in to the rest of the metropolitan network. Make sure that regional passengers on that Regional Rail Link, that the Prime Minister delivered with Victoria when he was Infrastructure Minister, you can't get passengers from Ballarat and Bendigo and Geelong connected into the airport project here through Sunshine. And we're doing this big and complex project. It's building new platforms, it's building bigger spaces for passengers, it's putting in new signalling and also too, really importantly, it's laying new track. It's laying new track. And that track also represents the opportunity and the next step to electrify the next part of Melbourne's train network out through Melton.
 
You simply can't deliver these city connections, these country connections, the connections out to the western suburbs without this transformation of Sunshine. It is such a vital part of our network today, but it will even be bigger and more important into the future. And Victorians know, under Labor Governments, Federal Labor, State Labor, we will do it once and we will get it right. Peter Dutton's saying to Victorians that he wants to cut into the heart of the Airport Rail project and cut into the heart of rail services, the city and country and the western suburbs.
 
But of course, for us here in Victoria, as I said before, we have seen all of this before, we have seen all of this before where year after year, Victorians were dudded. Victorians didn't get our fair share. And Peter Dutton and his Liberal Party have announced again that they will do it all over again to Victorians given the chance. And that's where Victorians have a choice. A Federal Prime Minister, a Prime Minister who knows where Melbourne is, who backs the projects Melbourne and Victoria need, and most importantly, invests properly in these critically important projects.
 
Not cutting, not cutting, like Peter Dutton has already signalled he'll do, but investing and building for a bigger Melbourne, a bigger future here, not just for rail, but for everyone in our community who needs these vital connections to get to where they need to go. And also, too, just to finish up on the reference, as the Prime Minister has, to working people. Cutting into this project is cutting thousands of jobs. That's cutting into the pay packets of those workers, cutting into the pay packets that go home week in, week out to those families who need a government to continue to invest in their future with projects like this one here at Sunshine.
 
So, PM, it's great to have you back here in Melbourne today, but more importantly, it's great to have your backing for the projects Victorians need, Victorians want and are a big part of Victoria's future.
 
JOURNALIST: Are you aware of the 7News Spotlight investigation into dirty nickel and are you worried about dirty nickel in the so-called green energy EV industry?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Sorry, I have not been informed about that show, so I'll answer it when I have a briefing. I can't comment on a show that I haven't seen.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, when it does come to rail, when will Victorians actually be riding a train to the airport?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what we want is to get it done as soon as possible. And one of the good things that we have done here is to get not just the Commonwealth and the State Government but get the airport to the party as well. And you would have seen the signing of the agreement. One of the issues that was holding up this project was the issue over whether the station at the airport be above ground or below ground. But we'll get it done. We provided from memory $4.225 billion for Regional Rail Link. I then as Minister, we got to open new stations at Tarneit and Wyndham Vale. I'm a Prime Minister who understands Victorian infrastructure and there's a Premier who certainly understands Victorian infrastructure as well. Peter Dutton is a Queenslander who wants to live in Sydney and wants to dud Victorians. Victorians had to put up with three Prime Ministers in a row who dudded Victoria when it came to infrastructure. They don't need another one living at Kirribilli House who wants to dud Victoria of infrastructure. And I won't do that.
 
JOURNALIST: The state of the federal and state budgets is deteriorating, deficits are growing and there's international trade shocks roiling the globe. Are you prepared to trim any infrastructure spending to get back in the black?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Let's be very clear about how you grow an economy. One way you grow an economy is by boosting productivity. And one way you boost productivity is by boosting infrastructure. So, this project here will enable people to get to the airport quicker. It will take cars off roads. It will make an enormous difference for productivity here in Melbourne, which is one way that you grow the economy. And I'll make this point. My Government has provided not one, but two budget surpluses and yes, a deficit this year but a half of what was predicted. We have been responsible economic managers. We turned a $78 billion deficit into a $22 billion Labor surplus. A more than $50 billion deficit into a surplus above $15 billion and then halved the deficit that was protected. And we know that the finances of Peter Dutton are going to be diabolical because he's got to find $600 billion for his nuclear reactors.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you’re standing alongside the Labor Premier behind you, are you concerned her plunging popularity could be a drag on Labor's federal chances here in Victoria?
 
PRIME MINISTER: One of the issues that Victoria has had to deal with has been dudded by successive Commonwealth Governments. That's why, when Victoria was investing in projects like Melbourne Metro, they lost their partners in the Commonwealth. We'll partner with state and territory governments right around the country. That's what we do. Whether it is the former Perrottet Government in NSW, or the largest investment ever done in the Bruce Highway. One of the things about my Government is we get things done. We're getting things done with the health agreements, we're getting things done with the schools agreements as well.
 
JOURNALIST: Peter Dutton [indistinct] work from home policy today. In Queensland last month, the Premier apologised for breaking a key election promise on the Olympics. Sorry is not a word heard much from politicians. Prime Minister, is there anything you'd like to apologise for, such as not delivering the $275 reduction in power bills?
 
PRIME MINISTER: The fact is that Peter Dutton is pretending. He says as late as last week, his Budget Reply had the 41,000 job cuts front and centre. He never said sorry to the 42,000 veterans who were owed collectively $13 billion. $13 billion. Men and women who had worn our uniform, some of whom passed away while they were waiting for their entitlements. He never said sorry about that. Peter Dutton is now pretending to try and get through an election. But guess what? Before the last time the Coalition were elected, they said there'd be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no cuts to infrastructure, no cuts to the ABC, and they ripped the guts out of them in the 2014 Budget. They didn't deliver a single surplus, when they promised a surplus the first year and every year thereafter.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, when Optus and Medibank lost customer data, there was real outrage from the Federal Government. Over the weekend superannuation account holders have learned that they've lost as much as $500,000. Is there a muted response from the Government? Do you blame the funds for this failure?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Cyber security is a real issue. There's a cyber attack in Australia every six minutes. What we've done, my Government has set up an Office of Cyber Security, we have provided additional funding for the Australian Signals Directorate, we've set up a roundtable, including with the private sector, to deal with these issues. Businesses need to do better. We need to work together on these issues because we know that there are criminal organisations but also state actors have been involved in this.
 
JOURNALIST: We’re seeing stock markets crash around the world, there's fears of a global recession. If you remain Prime Minister after the election, how would you navigate that?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what we're doing is preparing for further uncertain times. We do live in uncertain times, and part of that is the impact of global changes, including the tariffs decisions that was made by the US Administration last week. That's why you can't afford to have a government that is a shambles and doesn't know what it's doing from day to day. That is why you need considered, orderly government with competent Ministers that know what they're doing, that set up Australia as best as possible. You can't change global events, what you can do is prepare for them. And that is one of the reasons why we turned those Liberal deficits into Labor surpluses. That's why we have delivered real wage increases five quarters in a row. That's why we're assisting with tax cuts for every taxpayer. Peter Dutton wants to cut everything except for the income taxes of 14 million Australians. He wants to rip the heart out of fairness in our industrial relations system. Doesn't matter whether it's work from home, Same Job, Same Pay, casualisation, gender equity in the workforce. Peter Dutton does not stand for fairness. The Labor Party does. It's part of our core values that we try to implement with all of our programs.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, a question about the state of Victorian Government finances. Do you think the Allan Government is running a responsible Budget?
 
PRIME MINISTER: I'm responsible for my Budget. I'm happy to answer questions about my Budget. The Premier's right here if you want to ask her a question about Victoria, I'm happy for her to do that.
 
JOURNALIST: Many Liberals are eyeing, you know, half a dozen seats here in Melbourne's outer suburbs. Your Cabinet colleagues have privately conceded that Victoria is a real concern for Labor. Are you prepared to lose seats at the election here?
 
PRIME MINISTER: I want to not just hold all our members here in Victoria, I want to win seats like Menzies and Deakin. That's why I was in Deakin last week. I hope Michael Sukkar is door knocking. I really hope he is. And the more media appearances, the better and I'd encourage you to do interviews and to lift his profile with voters in Deakin, because I think that his whole way that he conducts himself is not what we need in 2025. What we need is effective local members who stand up for their communities. This guy here, Daniel Mulino, is standing up for this community here in Sunshine. But I'll tell you what he's also doing, he's standing up for Libby Coker in Corangamite, and Richard Marles in Corio, he’s standing up for Sam Rae in Hawke, who'll benefit from the Melton electrification, standing up for the members in Ballarat and Bendigo and all those communities, standing up for those people who want to get on the metro and then get seamlessly through to the airport right throughout Melbourne. That's what my Members are doing.
 
I mean, Peter Dutton lost another candidate overnight. I think the women of Australia will be asking themselves what is going on when Peter Dutton can endorse a bloke who has the views that he put forward over a long period of time, was a former candidate for the UAP. This is a part of the takeover of the Liberal Party by the hard right. When you look at Alex Antic being number one on the ticket, he's got his Shadow Health Minister at number two, a woman, Anne Ruston, who I would have some policy disagreements with on Medicare, but she's the Shadow Health Minister. She's been a Senior Minister in the Government, dumped for Alex Antic in South Australia. In Victoria, here, you have a rump taking over. I mean, Jacinta's opponent got hunted down by the right wing of the Victorian Liberal Party. You've got in WA all sorts of strange people with some very far right views who had to get dumped. There was a candidate every week going out. Roger Cook, it was hard for him to keep up during the State Election. Goodness knows who they're running in the Federal Election. They knocked off their sitting Members, Ian Goodenough knocked off, he's running as an Independent. Poor old Member for Monash, he'd represented his local community for decades, he's the Father of the House, I think, or maybe Bob Katter, but they've been there a long time. They knocked him off in preselection, just discarded, views weren't right wing enough. I'm pretty confident we'll be arguing not just to hold seats, but to win seats here in Victoria.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just on batteries. Under your home battery scheme, you'll still need almost ten grand to get a battery system. Does this widen the gap on how much people pay? By ensuring only the people that can afford these schemes have the ability to get their power bills down, and just to Madura’s -
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that's not right. And if you actually have a look at the comments that have been made very clearly by the Clean Energy Council and others who actually know something about renewables. You don't need, the batteries come in various forms, some of them are just over $4,000. You can have a range of batteries provided. This is good policy to make a difference.
 
JOURNALIST: If I can finish, sorry, I just wanted to end with – end to Madura's question.
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that’s Madura’s question. We're now up to here.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, question for you, and for the Premier, if that’s okay. When exactly did you make the decision, noting that you've opposed it, but when did you actually make the decision that you would acquire back the Port of Darwin? And when did you inform the Northern Territory Government about that? And Premier Allan, if I can ask you a question after the Prime Minister please?
 
PRIME MINISTER: The Northern Territory Government - well, you can do it at once if you like.
 
JOURNALIST: I was just going to ask you, Premier Allan, if the Prime Minister goes backward in the state of Victoria on election night, do you feel responsible? Will you feel guilty about being a drag on the Labor vote?
 
PRIME MINISTER: With the Northern Territory, I want to make a few points. In 2015, it was flogged off, flogged off by the CLP Government in the Northern Territory because of the asset recycling scheme incentive that was put in by the infamous 2014 Budget. $19.5 million was forwarded to the NT Government in April 2016 after the contracts were signed at the end of 2015. At that time, I was the Shadow Infrastructure Minister, we opposed it. And ever since then, whenever I've been asked, I want it to be in Australian hands. There have been discussions, including the NT Government Officials have had discussions with our Federal Departments. That has been underway. Luke Gosling has been appointed by me as my Special Envoy for Northern Australia. He's met and has visited the Port with Peter Dummett, who's the Acting Managing Director, but he's also met with Terry O'Connor, who's the Former Manager of the site and a Board Member with Landbridge. He's made our position clear. There have been discussions as well between private sector, including superannuation funds, with the company over a period of time.
 
PREMIER ALLAN: Thanks, Prime Minister. As to the commentary that's in the question, quite frankly, I'm going to leave the commentary to others. What Victorians should be focused on and what I know Victorians are focused on is a choice. A choice between a Prime Minister and a Labor Government that's backing Medicare, that's backing the infrastructure projects our city and state needs and wants, as opposed to a Dutton government and a Liberal offering that is all about cuts. And Victorians know this because we've seen all of this before. We've seen all of this before. Money ripped out of the Metro Tunnel, money ripped out of our hospital system, a primary health system, a GP system that was brought to its knees because of these cuts. That's what Victorians are focused on, and I can tell you quite clearly that's also what I'm focused on. And I'll be fighting for Victorians every single day.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what is the Government doing to get Oscar Jenkins home? Another video has surfaced, another interrogation, this time with questions over his sexuality.
 
PRIME MINISTER: Look, we stand with Oscar Jenkins. We're doing what we can through appropriate channels. We, of course, do not have a great relationship with Vladimir Putin and Russia because we stand with Ukraine. But we will continue to do everything we can to assist Mr Jenkins. We feel for his family and his friends at this difficult time. And we'll see you at the next stop. Thanks very much.

ENDS