CARINA GARLAND, MEMBER FOR CHISHOLM: Good morning everybody and welcome to Chisholm. It’s always wonderful to welcome the Prime Minister here, and ours is a multicultural, diverse electorate. So very exciting to talk about community language schools here today. I myself, when I was growing up spent my Saturday mornings at community language schools learning Italian, I’m sure these students are much better than I ever was. And community language schools of course are all about connection to community and intergenerational cultural ties. It’s great to be joined here by the Prime Minister, as I mentioned, as well as my neighbouring candidate Gabriel Ng, and Julian Hill and Minister Tony Burke. Gabe, do you want to say a few words?
 
GABRIEL NG, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR MENZIES: Thank you. Good morning everyone, it’s great to be here. My name’s Gabriel Ng, I’m the Labor Candidate for Menzies. I’m really excited about this announcement because I know how many members of the Menzies community use community language schools, my daughter included, she should be off to community language school this morning. I know how important it is to maintain that connection with culture, to be able to provide opportunities in the future, and also the opportunities that it brings to Australia, to have young Australians learning languages that will let us better connect with our region. So I’ll hand over to the Prime Minister now.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, and it’s wonderful to be back in this great region of Melbourne, which is such a multicultural haven. Where people have come from all over the world to make Australia their home, so as to benefit not just themselves, but their children and grandchildren. And these young Australians next to me here, they’re our bridge to our region. They are so important, that we not only learn good English skills, but that we pass on the language of our region, whether it be Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, or whether it be indeed languages such as Italian and Greek and Arabic. These languages make an enormous difference.
 
And our multiculturalism is a strength of our national economy, but also a strength of our society. I regard Australia as being a microcosm for the world. We're one, where overwhelmingly, Australians live side by side with different backgrounds, different faiths, different origins, different cultures, and enrich our entire nation and lift us up. It also presents an enormous opportunity. We live in the fastest-growing region of the world in human history. People learning languages and having those skills enables that economic interaction as well. There's a real tangible benefit for our jobs as well as, of course, for our cultural enrichment.
 
And I want to give a shout out to many of the teachers and the people who run these community language schools. I know many of them in my own electorate in Sydney, but here in Melbourne, right around Australia, they're people who essentially are a lot of volunteers, as well as paid staff who make sure that their cultures are passed on to the generations coming. The truth is that we need to invest in them, because investing in them is investing in our future. My Government will support some 90,000 students to learn and maintain 84 different languages, with a special focus on our neighbours in Asia. This support here is about our economic engagement, but also that social interaction as well. And the young students who we met this morning are really enjoying the experience as well, which is why it is so important, being able to engage with their parents and grandparents as well.
 
One of the things that I found in my local community, as a former Shadow Minister for Aged Care as well, and this is a bonus of it, a lot of communities will lose their second languages when they get older, so their children and grandchildren learning those languages as well enables them to be treated with dignity and respect and to engage. And the children and grandchildren of our migrants make an enormous difference for the lives of their parents and grandparents, and indeed great grandparents in some cases, as they age, and that can enable them to age in place as well. So, there's so many benefits of this, and that's why this $25 million program and boost is so important today. I'm going to hand to Julian Hill and then we're happy to take some questions.
 
JULIAN HILL, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: Thanks, Prime Minister. I'm super excited to be here for this announcement. I grew up in Burwood, just up the road, and went to high school in Glen Waverley, right nearby. And as a proud, lifelong Melbournian, the experience that Carina described for herself, that Gabriel described for your kids, it's been part of the Melbourne experience and now across Australia, for a very long time. It's just part of growing up that you knew you couldn't play with your Greek friends on Saturdays because they'd be off at Greek school or Italian school. And these days it's dozens and dozens of languages. Mandarin here. In my part of the community as well Punjabi, Gujarati, Urdu, Dari and literally dozens of languages.
 
It's part of the ecosystem of our country now and of course English is our common language. You need good English to succeed in so many parts of society. But we are a proudly multilingual country. If you look across high schools, language teaching is under pressure and for many languages that aren't very large, the only way you can actually get kids through, both for cultural fluency with their grandparents, but also to take them through to actual fluency for business and commerce, is to invest in community language schools.
 
So, I'm really proud of this policy. It continues a base level of support for all registered community language schools as well as adding some incentive funds to support those schools to take kids through to fluency through Year 11 and 12 in languages where frankly, you just couldn't get a critical mass in the normal high school setting. So, it's really important for the culture of our country, for multicultural policy, but also for our economic future. So, thanks, Prime Minister, for being here.
 
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks, Julian. Happy to take questions.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, last year Bill Shorten talked about foundational supports rolling out, beginning to roll out from July 1. Is that still the plan?
 
PRIME MINISTER: That's certainly the engagement that we have with state and territory governments.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you've spoken a lot about Labor needing to be the party of aspiration. I'm wondering if you would consider changes to housing tax breaks to be anti-aspiration and do you rule out changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax in the next three years?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I've been asked a lot about that and I give the same answer, which is in 2022, as I’ve said today, there was a campaign run suggesting we were going to make changes. The proof's in the pudding. Proof is in what you do, not what you say you will do. The proof is we haven't made any changes. I think that the key when it comes to housing policy is supply, supply, more supply and even more supply. And that's why we have a plan to do just that.
 
JOURNALIST: And do you rule out future changes Prime Minister?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I've done that multiple times. Multiple times. And if you ask me tomorrow we'll get the same answer. And as I said, the proof is in what we have done. What we've done is make sure that we have a comprehensive Homes for Australia plan. It's now $43 billion and stands in stark contrast to our opponents who are all over the shop, frankly, on every bit of policy but who we know will have less supply because they'll abolish the Housing Australia Future Fund.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you have the Minister for Home Affairs here as well. When the opportunity allows, would you like to take more people fleeing Gaza to come to Australia? And is there any merit to the Opposition's idea of doing re-screening of security for those who are already here?
 
PRIME MINISTER: They've had proper, everyone who's here has been through screening, not just by our country but also, of course, because of the nature of people getting out of Gaza, they had to go through security checks of Israel as well.
 
JOURNALIST: Do you want to bring more?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Look, we have our policy, they can't at the moment and haven't been able to for a long period of time. Let's be clear about that. Let's also be clear about the suggestions that have been made on a range of occasions aimed at promoting division in Australian society and in Australian debate that have been made by the Coalition. They simply just don't stack up.
 
JOURNALIST: Peter Dutton has accused you of prioritising affluent voters and that you don't see that there's the anger in suburbs. You’re here in a Melbourne suburb. Do you think that there is anger here over cost of living pressures?
 
PRIME MINISTER: People have been under cost of living pressure. The difference between myself and Peter Dutton is that we have had cost of living measures, whether it be the income tax cuts which we have introduced and which we’ll have another two. Peter Dutton will have higher income taxes including by getting rid of those changes that cut in at that first rate of $18,200 to $45,000. We are targeting deliberately people who are the lowest income workers in that. We will put in a submission to the Fair Work Commission to increase the minimum wage and we want that to be increased in real terms. Peter Dutton has opposed every increase in the minimum wage. We have introduced energy bill relief for everyone, that was opposed by Peter Dutton. We've introduced cheaper child care for everyone, that was opposed by Peter Dutton. We've introduced 60 day dispensing and cheaper medicines. They were opposed by Peter Dutton.
 
If Peter Dutton had his way, Australian families would be $7,200 worse off this term and will be worse off next term. The difference at this election is we are offering permanent income tax reductions. He's offering permanent income tax increases. And in addition, any short-term measures are just that. They last for as long as the election campaign and then they disappear on his watch. Just like the Scott Morrison playbook that they've been taken from.
 
JOURNALIST: On cost of living, one of the rising pressures for a lot of families is paying for insurance. Things like insuring your home. It's just simply too much for a lot of people to actually fork out for it. Is there anything if you're re-elected, you can do to drive down the cost of insurance?
 
PRIME MINISTER: We'll continue to do what we can there. But I mean one of the things that obviously is having an impact is the increased number of extreme weather events. That's why climate change needs to be considered to be an economic issue, not just an environmental one, because there are economic costs to it. Something that Peter Dutton seems to be oblivious to.
 
JOURNALIST: In the 2024 Budget, you froze deeming rates to 30 June this year, but your latest Budget was silent on the issue. Talking of measures that potentially will expire after the election, can you give the one million welfare recipients who have deemed income some certainty about whether they will lose some of their payments, because that will rise after the election?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Deeming rates are set by the Minister and under Labor versus the Coalition this is another area of big difference. Under the Coalition, historically deeming rates were higher than the cash rate. What we have done is make sure that they're lower than the cash rate. Indeed, the deeming rate is currently 0.25 for amounts up to $103,000 and the top figure is just 2.25. So, one of the things that we have done is make sure that people who rely upon these measures have benefited from what we have done. So, again, look at our record of what we have done. Compare it with the former Coalition government that consistently had deeming rates higher than the cash rate. We have consistently had deeming rates that benefit those people.
 
JOURNALIST: The Pope is being laid to rest today. I know we've sent representatives to the Vatican. Do you have a special message? And also do you hope that the next Pope, when appointed, continues the reform legacy of Pope Francis?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, this will be an important day for people of the Catholic faith, but for many others as well, because of the respect that the Holy Father was held throughout the world. Pope Francis’s funeral will be attended by world leaders and including from Australia, a representative of the Government and the Opposition as well as Her Excellency, our Governor-General and our Ambassador-Designate. But I think the thing about Pope Francis that resonates with people, isn't that as much as his funeral will be attended by leaders of the world. He's someone who stood for compassion and stood for the underprivileged and the marginalised. He's someone who really reached out and touched people with his faith, his compassion, his dignity and his determination to not leave people behind and to speak up for the powerless is something that he did. So, I've spoken about Australia assisting his visit to Papua New Guinea, where he was determined as much as he was not well, to visit a highlands community there in PNG. And that says everything about the character of Pope Francis, and that is why he'll be dearly missed.
 
JOURNALIST: Just on the events that unfolded at the Anzac Day ceremony in Melbourne yesterday, obviously you've come out and condemned the actions of the hecklers and allegedly a Nazi that was involved. Some veterans have also expressed concern at the sort of Welcome to Country ceremonies at Anzac Day. They say that they risk their lives for the country and they shouldn't have to be welcomed to their own country. Can I get your thoughts on that, please?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Look, people are entitled to, of course, their view. What occurred yesterday, though, and what has got universal condemnation, is the inappropriate actions of people disrupting an Anzac Day service. That is completely unacceptable. The silence that occurs, the solemn nature of those events is one that needs to be respected. The men and women who wear our uniform deserve our respect, deserve our dignity. It's one of the reasons why my government has continued to do so much to deal with what we inherited, with veterans waiting for a long period of time to get the entitlements that they deserved. But, yesterday’s disruption has no place.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, The Australian says this morning that you've now acknowledged that there was a Russian request to base military aircraft in eastern Indonesia. We well know from you and others that Indonesia has quickly turned that down. But could you tell us, could you confirm for us that there was a request? What form was it in? Doesn't it ring security alarms notwithstanding, what Indonesia has done, that Russia wants to move into our neck of the woods. And what's it say about claims that we need to spend tens of billions of dollars more on our defence than you were telling us?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks, Tim. No, I can't. What I can do confirm is that there have been reports of that, and that the reports of that are not surprising, that Russia seeks, I've said before, refer to previous comments. It's not surprising that people like the Russian Ambassador to Indonesia wants to talk up Russian influence in the region. That's what they do. That's what they do. What's very clear –
 
JOURNALIST: That's all this was? That’s all this was, Prime Minister, this was a Russian Ambassador talking his book?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I'm not commenting on that. I'm saying there are reports and those reports are not surprising that Russia talks itself up. Now, Russia has done that for a long period of time and I see nothing surprising in that at all. What I do see as not being surprising, but frankly shocking, is the verballing of the President of Indonesia by the alternative Prime Minister of Australia. The Indonesian relationship is critical for Australia and it's up to Mr Dutton to explain, still he hasn't, how he came up with that very direct and explicit assertion that the President of Indonesia had made a statement. Other people have said the Foreign Minister has made a statement, the Defence Minister has made a statement. You had Bridget McKenzie speak about the Chinese President. You know, you can't go around when you're the alternative Government of Australia, might be in a position of authority in eight days’ time, and just think it's okay to shoot from the hip and say whatever you like about our international partners. That is what the Coalition have done during this campaign. This campaign has exposed the Coalition as not being ready for government.
 
It's been less than three years since they held the Treasury benches, and in that time they haven't done the policy work. They’re a shambles when it comes to policy decisions and they change their mind, on some policies three times in four days, their EV policy changed. Their defence policy, if you can keep up with it and let me know what they're doing. They've got a defence policy where they can't say where the money's coming from and they can't say what it will be spent on. It's like one of those mystery tours that the airlines used to do in the 1980s where you turn up at the airport, you buy a ticket, but you don't know where you're going. Well, I say to Australians on May 3, make sure you know where the destination is, because it is destination chaos and destination shambles and destination cuts from Peter Dutton if he's successful next Saturday.
 
JOURNALIST: You also gave again the undertaking that there'd be no new taxes in your next term if elected. We already know your opinion on cuts. So, if there's no new taxes and you're not going to be making cuts, how will you reduce the budget deficit in your next term if elected?
 
PRIME MINISTER: The cut we're making is the cut to income taxes. That's what we're making and we're putting forward, we're the only political party putting forward at this election campaign, a coherent economic policy. A coherent economic policy that seizes the opportunities that are before us and, as well, looks after people through their living standards by cutting their income taxes and increasing their wages. We want people to earn more and we want people to keep more of what they earn. And our fiscal record stands at two budget surpluses and halving this year's deficit.
 
JOURNALIST: With respect, Prime Minister, there's three deficits that are forecast if you are re-elected. In the Budget you just released, is there anything that you are willing to say that you would do next term to try and bring those down?
 
PRIME MINISTER: We've halved the deficit.
 
JOURNALIST: If both major parties have ruled out changes to negative gearing, at the very least, Mr Dutton's mortgage deductibility scheme at least tries to put first home buyers on a level playing field with investors. Why are you not at least trying to level the playing field in terms of tax settings for first home buyers?
 
PRIME MINISTER: It doesn't level the playing field. It's a shocker. What it does is increase demand and does nothing for supply. It is a disastrous policy. They're going to cut and abolish the Housing Australia Future Fund. Our plan for first home buyers is for 100,000 of them to be going to bid at auctions at places like the place we visited, I think before you were on the magical tour that we're on at the moment, in Adelaide. A practical example. Real concrete, real townhouses, 110 of them being built with people being reserved, a number of them being reserved for first home buyers only. That's the scheme that we've based it on.
 
In addition to that, they'll just need a five per cent deposit, first home buyers. That's already benefited 150,000 Australians. They've had a default rate of just three people out of those 150,000. That will enable them to get into home ownership. A big difference in this election campaign is my government – determined to boost supply. The opposition boosting prices, but not supply, because they're just doing demand measures. There are no supply measures that they have. And in there, they talk about occasionally, then they'll come up with this magical figure to do with housing infrastructure that they've got, their program. We have a program. It is rolling out. We rolled out the second round of that program for water and energy infrastructure in January when Catherine King and myself went to places like Kununurra and we went to Queensland. We made those announcements through local government to assist that.
 
They have nothing positive to offer. What they do have to offer is cuts. We know there will be cuts to income tax cuts, by putting them up. We know there'll be cuts to the Housing Australia Future Fund. And most extraordinarily as well, we've learned, or had confirmed this week, they will actually cut what we have said we will do as our first piece of legislation, benefiting 3 million Australians by cutting their HECS debt by an average of $5,500. They are literally saying to 3 million Australians, if you vote Liberal or National, we will increase your debt by more than $5,500. Now, for some, that might mean $10,000 or $12,000. I've met students who that will benefit them by. How's that going to help them get into home ownership? Those are precisely those people who are looking to buy a first home, who are going to be saddled with more debt from the Coalition, who also won't have anything to boost supply.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, earlier this week you defended your candidate in Dickson over past social media posts. But earlier in this campaign, you've had a go at a few Liberal candidates over their social media posts, including the candidate up in Leichhardt you described, along with others, as a shocker. The Opposition Leader this morning suggested that was hypocritical. Do you agree?
 
PRIME MINISTER: The Opposition – I'm amazed he's visited Leichhardt and I congratulate him on meeting his candidate for what's a marginal seat. He's a candidate that was opposed by Warren Entsch in the preselection because Warren Entsch thought he was a pretty rotten candidate. There's one thing that's in common when Peter Dutton goes around to marginal seats. When he meets his candidates, that is, they'll be blokes right around the country. That is what he can recognise him on. I've said that was inappropriate. Quite clearly it was inappropriate. Just as it was inappropriate for a daily newspaper to put me in a uniform on the front page of their paper when I was Deputy Prime Minister, entirely inappropriate. Things happened in the past that was inappropriate. And, you know, I await the, I've been waiting 12 years for the apology. But you know, it'll come, I'm sure.
 
JOURNALIST: Having spoken to young members of the diaspora community, while their parents can send them to language schools like this, often they won't pick up the language or they'll reject it if they don't feel safe. So, a lot of far-right figures in recent days have said some pretty racist things. What are you doing to address those far-right figures and helping those kids out there feel safe?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what I'm doing is not encouraging them for a start. I'm not encouraging those far-right figures who stand condemned and I condemn them at every opportunity. I condemned what happened yesterday with someone associated with neo-Nazis. I have had some of those figures confront me, as you might be aware, here in Melbourne during this campaign. You know, we're a tolerant, multicultural nation and I'm still shocked by the figures of the depiction of far-right figures on the steps of the Victorian Parliament, the March through gardens in Adelaide. You know, I speak out constantly against the far right. I consistently as well, promote multiculturalism and respect for people, whether it be First Nations people or whether it be any part of our community. One of the good things, great things, about community language schools and the announcement we're making today is they’re places like this that on the weekend people gather, people feel comfortable sending their children along and that's a good thing. And I think it's good that across the board, the political spectrum condemned what occurred yesterday, was condemned by Mr Dutton as well. That's a good thing.
 
Mainstream politics needs to speak out against far-right figures and the rise, because we know from the ASIO Director-General, we know from Mr Burgess very clearly. He has said publicly, obviously now a bit more privately, but he said publicly spoken about the threat as well, that some of these elements bring, and tragically we've seen with some of the tragedies that have occurred, including the murder of the police officers in Queensland, where I attended the memorial service a short time ago, whilst I'd been Prime Minister. We know the consequences of this. You know, we need to take this seriously, these threats, because they are real and people with these devices, you know, they get the algorithms, they encourage people to go to more extreme views, whether it be more extreme views of the far right or the far left.
 
Can I – and I'll end on this, because it's a positive note. The fact that media organisations have come together to speak out against hate is fantastic. And I've spoken to media organisations about convening them after the election, if I'm successful, and what way the Government can play a role in supporting the campaign that's supported by News, Nine, Seven. All of the media organisations have joined in. That is really important that that occur. I'd want the ABC to be a part of that as well. Obviously at the moment that would be difficult during an election campaign, but I just think we as a society have got to come together. I had a chat with Peter Cosgrove a couple of weeks ago about these issues as well. It was more than a couple of weeks ago. He's been one of the people who's promoted this as well. You know, we, we live in a multicultural community. We have a great society, Australia. We need to cherish it, nurture it, not take it for granted. And today's announcement is just a part of that. Nurturing. Thank you very much.
 
JOURNALIST: And I just want to know, the audience want to know. The safety and security of all Australians is a priority. What matters are being taken or will be taken to address concern about the crime and safety within multicultural communities, especially the Chinese community?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, thank you. Look, you know, we need to make sure that communities feel safe and that they are safe. One of the ways that we do that is by engaging in a positive message about engaging with communities, acknowledging that we're all enriched and we're privileged too. I mean these kids who are here are just delightful. And I have a community language school next to me, operates as part of Marrickville West Public School, just attached there, the community languages in NSW and often visit there. It's so important that we reach out, that we continue to engage with communities, that we celebrate who we are, whether it is the oldest continuous culture on earth, that we have the privilege of sharing this continent with, all those people who've come to make Australia their home and enrich us because of that. Thank you very much.
 
ENDS