DR GORDON REID, MEMBER FOR ROBERTSON: I want to start by acknowledging the people behind me. I want to thank the Prime Minister for coming to the Central Coast to make a very important announcement. We know that domestic violence is a scourge on our society. It's something that is in quite high numbers, in quite high rates here on the Central Coast. And we absolutely need more frontline services and more infrastructure in order to cope with this serious issue that is here on the Central Coast. I know in my work as a doctor in the emergency department, this is something that I have seen frequently, frequently. And we're talking children as young as three months all the way to people in their 90s. It needs to end, it needs to stop. And with that, I will hand over to Emma McBride to make a few comments on this important announcement.
 
EMMA MCBRIDE, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND SUICIDE PREVENTION, AND RURAL AND REGIONAL HEALTH: Thank you, Dr Gordon Reid. And to the Prime Minister, to Ministers Butler and Rishworth, and to Senator O'Neill. This is a really significant day for the Central Coast, for our community, and to the women and children and families who will now have more support. As a former mental health worker who spent nearly ten years working in acute adult inpatient units, I've seen the direct impact firsthand and know that providing the right kind of support in the community where people need it will make such a big difference. So, I want to thank Dr Gordon Reed for his advocacy, to Pacific Link, to the Women's Health Centre and everyone in our community who has worked so closely together for a day like today. And I'm going to hand over to the Prime Minister.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, thanks very much. And to, firstly a shout out to the Women's Health Centre and Pacific Link. This is a really well thought out proposal that is very advanced. They have guarantees of the housing, for example, and this is an absolute no brainer to provide support for at this time. We must end the scourge of violence against women. It is too many tragedies. One death is too many. But we see time and time again violence against women having an impact. And one of the issues we have to deal with is making sure that there are safe places and homes for people to go. My Government has made combating domestic violence a national priority. I’ve had two discussions at the National Cabinet level, because some of these issues go to State and Territory Governments. We've provided $4 billion of funding. We have a range of programs there, the 480 community workers that are now in place out of the 500, the ten days paid domestic and family violence leave, making the Leaving Violence Payments permanent, making sure that we made the changes in our first Budget to single parenting payment as well. That's so important and something very close to me. The national plan to end violence against women and children is central to my Government's plans. And I am proud to say that if we are re-elected, we'll build on the investments that we've already made. $1.2 billion in emergency and transitional accommodation for women and children escaping domestic violence. Some of that is through the Housing Australia Future Fund, which we know was inexplicably held up by the Noalition, the Liberals, the Nationals and the Greens in the Senate holding up that investment that should have been rolling out. But now we've seen this morning from the housing organisation here, they're benefiting from the Housing Australia Future Fund. Something that is dismissed still by the Coalition and that they would abolish if they're successful on Saturday. This is just one of the issues that are at stake here on Saturday. It actually makes a difference to the way that the country runs, how the country votes on Saturday. And my Government absolutely is committed to making a difference. The $20 million will establish the Coast Women's and Children's Trauma Recovery Centre in East Gosford. It will make an enormous difference. It is something that the community have been asking for and it's something that Gordon and Emma have campaigned so strongly for, so strongly for because they know that this is needed in this community and so many other communities. I said before I was in my local ‘hood last week at the Leichhardt Women's Health Centre, looking at the work that they do as well, and I look forward to seeing this project be realised. The funding is available, be available over the next couple of years because it is literally ready to go. I'll hand to Minister Rishworth and Minister Butler, then we'll hear from the local community organisations before we take some questions. Thank you.
 
AMANDA RISHWORTH, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES, MINISTER FOR THE NATIONAL DISABILITY INSURANCE SCHEME: Well, thank you. And I just wanted to say that our Government has made tackling family and domestic violence a key priority and I would like to particularly acknowledge the Prime Minister for his personal commitment and his leadership on this national problem. Of course, our Government went to work to put together with victim survivors our National Plan, which is a roadmap to end violence towards women in this country. We've backed that up with a $4 billion investment which has gone right across the board in areas of prevention, early intervention, response and healing and recovery. This project today is really key, not only providing women and children on the Central Coast somewhere to go, but also to help them get their life back on track, to be able to get the support and the healing that they need to go and actually go and live their lives again. And I would just like to acknowledge the partnership between both the community housing provider and the women's health provider. Both doing what they really do well, coming together to put this project together. This will make a real life difference to women and children escaping family and domestic violence and is a very important project for the Central Coast.
 
SARAH FOSTER, CEO CENTRAL COAST COMMUNITY WOMEN’S HEALTH CENTRE: Hi, everyone. I'm the CEO of Central Coast Women's Health. This is an extraordinary announcement today. Today, my team and I represent frontline services. And what we see day in and day out is women who can't get the support that they need to walk through, post trauma. The thing that's really special about this site is it's actually not just for women, it's for children, because prevention is starting with the kids, acknowledging the kids as victims within their own rights and getting them the support that they need so that we can break this intergenerational cycle. I'm really proud of this collaboration. I think as a sector, we are more powerful when we come together, we all bring strengths and I think this is an example of that. So, thank you. Thank you, Prime Minister and Ministers here today, and for Gordon, for his local advocacy for this much needed facility on the Coast. Thank you.
 
IAN LYNCH, CEO PACIFIC LINK HOUSING: Hi, everyone. I'm Ian Lynch. I'm the CEO of Pacific Link Housing. We're a tier one community housing provider based here on the Central Coast. And I’d just really like to thank the Government and again local member Gordon Reid for putting our proposal up in this election. It is a one off and at the end of the day it's acknowledging the fact that the Central Coast as a region has missed out on some significant funding, particularly in relation to family and domestic violence funding. I'd also really like to acknowledge and thank the Central Coast Domestic Violence Committee for their strident advocacy for this issue and to see a facility of this nature created in the local community. Thank you.
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE: Thank you, Prime Minister, and everyone else here for this terrific announcement. I want to make a couple of remarks about the debate last night. Over the course of this campaign, I've been asked a number of times why we should not give Peter Dutton the benefit of the doubt around his record on Medicare, a record that earned him the vote of Australia's doctors as the worst health Minister in the history of our most important social program. Last week, Malcolm Turnbull was asked the same question and he said this. He said, ‘the problem Dutton faces is he has a track record that he must wear.’ And last night, Peter Dutton, in his own words, explained why he can't be trusted with Medicare. When it was put to him why he tried to abolish bulk billing altogether. He said he did it to ‘make Medicare more sustainable.’ Well, that's simply not right. What he wanted to do was make Medicare more American. And he explained in the final week of this campaign why he cannot be trusted with the health of Australians and with our most important social program, Medicare.
 
JOURNALIST: So far this year, 24 women have been killed and five children have been killed by domestic and family violence. You want to end this violence in a generation. Clearly, the status quo isn’t working. Is that goal still achievable?
 
PRIME MINISTER: It isn't working. That's the truth. You know, we are not doing well enough as a society. This is a whole of society problem. Governments can take action, but it's a whole of society problem. We need men as well to have conversations with each other, to call it out when they see unacceptable behaviour, to address it and have those conversations. One of the things that we need to address is the issue of perpetrators, we need to deal with that.
 
The other thing that we need to do, and this is something that I'm proud of and has bipartisan support. One of the reasons why the social media ban is important is that young people at a very young age, when they're developing, are exposed to some pretty hateful stuff out there, the rise of misogyny, connecting us. I don't know if you've seen Adolescence. I encourage anyone to have a look at it. It's scary. It's scary. These parents depicted not knowing what their young son, who they love, has engaged in. And there's a scene towards the end there, where the father, who's brilliant, helped write the show, says, ‘we thought he was safe. He was in his bedroom. We thought he was safe.’ Well, it's had tragic impact for him, but a worse impact for his victim. And so this is something we need to have conversations about. It's something that Government needs to be determined, front and centre, and we just need to do better right across the board. But we know as well the practical support, practical difference that these two organisations here are making in the lives of women and children on the Coast here deserves applause. This isn't a day for, with respect, not a day for congratulating the Government, this is a day for congratulating these people who work on the frontline, the people downstairs who, you know, it's a tough job dealing in this sector. I admire, they're largely women, but not exclusively, who work in this sector as well.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, do younger Australians have a reason to be resentful given the cost of housing and both sides of politics refusing to move on tax breaks like negative gearing. And secondly, because you raised Adolescence and it is a very powerful bit of television, Keir Starmer suggested that all British school students watch that. In fact, I think he's funding it. Would you want every, would you fund every Australian student to watch Adolescence?
 
PRIME MINISTER: I'm not sure it needs funding, more funding for Netflix, to be frank, but I would encourage schools to show it. Absolutely I would, so important, and young people aren't getting a fair crack. That's why we're going to give a 20 per cent cut in student debt. It's one of the things that's at stake this Saturday. Labor giving three million Australians, largely young Australians, $5,500 off their debt. And a Coalition saying, ‘no, we're not going to give that.’
 
JOURNALIST: On housing though, on housing, negative gearing. The reasons for young Australians being resentful.
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, supply is the key. The Housing Australia Future Fund is the key. The sort of support that we’re having here that this organisation does in increasing social housing but also affordable housing for rentals is important. We need real solutions. That's what my Government is working on. And I'll tell you what, the holding up of housing programs, whether it be to buy, whether it be to rent through our Build to Rent program or whether it be social housing that occurred in the Senate last time around. I make this point. We've talked downstairs with the housing provider here about the Housing Australia Future Fund. That was a clear commitment that we gave at the last election, like I gave when Opposition Leaders gave fully costed funding announcements and went to National Press Clubs and addressed them. I gave that in my second Budget Reply. It was two years before the election, costed, a clear plan, including money for emergency housing for women and children escaping domestic violence, and the Senate held it up. I make this point. They need to get out of the way in the next Parliament if they're serious about housing.
 
JOURNALIST: You're obviously here to announce funding for a vulnerable cohort, another vulnerable cohort are those that are on the JobSeeker payment, your Government has been provided with report after report that shows the rate is inadequate and leading to poor health outcomes, among other things. What will it take for your Government, if you are re-elected, to increase the rate to the level that advocates have been calling for?
 
PRIME MINISTER: We did increase the –
 
JOURNALIST: To the level that they've been calling.
 
PRIME MINISTER: We did increase the rate. I make this point as well, that one of the things that we have done is to provide opportunities for career paths into jobs. Free TAFE is making an enormous difference in opening up those opportunities. We've created over 1 million jobs in our first term, more than any Government in history. We have, in addition to that, have the lowest unemployment rate of any Government in 50 years.
 
JOURNALIST: So is the message to those on JobSeeker, just get a job?
 
PRIME MINISTER: No, you know that, frankly, that deserves a bit better than that. A bit better than that. And I deserve better in treating you with respect without being verballed. So, very clearly, I have concern about people, but I do want people to get into employment. Yes, I do. I don't want people to have a lifetime of unemployment. But I understand as well that people need to be looked after. My Government is a compassionate Government that has provided support. We do so within the fiscal parameters as well, of budgetary policy. So I reject the characterisation that you put forward. I don't think that's fair, and I don't think it relates to the answer that I gave.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, as we head into this last week of the campaign. Last night's debate showed that 25 per cent of voters, or the people that were in the audience last night, were still undecided. Do you think that minority government is now inevitable?
 
PRIME MINISTER: No. Last night, there were – I note, Peter Dutton this morning has said that somehow the audience was stacked. The truth is that, out of every person who chose Peter Dutton, two chose myself. So, 60 people in the room, 30 for me, 15 for Peter Dutton. What that indicates is a clear outcome. Every time people have had the opportunity to have a say, in the previous people's forum, they did, certainly a significant, clear majority. Bigger than the majority that occurred with Scott Morrison in the debate. The truth is, if you look historically, it's hard for Prime Ministers to win debates. The natural advantage is there for Opposition Leaders. But I chose scrutiny. Transparency. I agreed to four debates. No Prime Minister, No Prime Minister in Australia's history has had four debates, as far as I'm aware. Might be wrong. Could be something in the 30s, perhaps, but they wouldn't have been televised live and they wouldn't have had devices. I chose to do that, quite frankly. Some people said, including some people here said, ‘why are you doing that?’ I did that because I think the more people see of Peter Dutton, the more they know that this is an opposition that were in Government less than three years ago. This is the leftovers from the Morrison Government. They are just not ready for Government. There are two key issues, I think last night, that showed that. One was on Medicare, where he made the extraordinary comment on Medicare about the reason why he wanted to abolish bulk billing was because he wanted to make primary health care sustainable. What that shows is that they haven't changed their view. That's their view. And people will go back to their view. He also, of course, similar to what they've said about working from home, it's now just not the right time to abolish working from home. And when it comes to nuclear power, Peter Dutton is putting all his eggs in one basket and he has no idea what the cost is. That's very clear.
 
JOURNALIST: So, yesterday there was, just a few minutes away there was a protest in support of Audrey Griffin. It’s also been almost exactly a year since you last attended a domestic violence rally in Canberra, to mixed results. What has tangibly changed for women in that year since you last attended a rally? And I also wanted to ask one of the local providers what the sentiment has been in the aftermath of the Audrey Griffin revelations.
 
PRIME MINISTER: This is a tragic and horrific death, and my heart goes out to the family and the friends and loved ones of Audrey Griffin. This announcement, of course, wouldn't have impacted on that. One death from violence against women is one too many. And this is just an enormous tragedy. And we continue to work through these issues. As I said before, this needs a whole of society response.
 
FOSTER: It's just devastating. And it's actually really hard to find the words because, how is it that we're still in a time where a young woman can't walk home safely? And for those in the room who have a daughter or a young woman in their life, just sit and think about if that was that young woman in your life, because it is just tragic and it's not okay. It is absolutely not okay. And something needs to be done. This trauma recovery centre is fantastic, but let's stop the trauma in the first place.
 
REID: I'll also add to that. It's absolutely devastating. And it is a tragedy what happened to Audrey Griffin. I attended quite a large vigil at Terrigal recently. There would have been, I reckon, 2,000 plus people attend that vigil. This is a life that was taken far too soon. And you're absolutely right, it needs to stop. It needs to end. But I'd also ask to respect the family in this time of grieving as well.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, last night you waved off a question on Donald Trump's mobile phone. With regard to the phone, hasn't it been the case that in recent weeks you haven't been able to get on that phone? Whilst we mightn't expect you to have it on speed dial, isn't your failure to be able to ring up Donald Trump and say, wait on a minute, a failure of government?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Not at all. And I don't have Donald Trump's number. I didn't have Joe Biden's number. It's not the way it works between the Australian Prime Minister and the US President. There are formal processes take place. I've had two very warm conversations with President Trump.
 
JOURNALIST: Question for Canberra. ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr says the Coalition's plan to cut 41,000 public servants from Canberra would mean a prolonged depression for the area and surrounding suburbs. Do you agree with that assessment, or do you think it's a bit overblown?
 
PRIME MINISTER: No. You bet it would. It would have more. I won't say, more importantly, it would have a devastating impact on Canberra. But I tell you what I'm more worried about, the impact it would have on Australians. The impact it would have on Australian veterans who would go back to waiting and in some cases, the men and women in uniform who've served our country, not getting their entitlements. I'll tell you the impact it would have on our defence and national security, because there are around 68,000 public servants in Canberra. 41,000, you get rid of them, where does he think Services Australia runs its central offices from to provide support for Australians in emergency funding, after there has been a natural disaster? Where does he think the people who run our pension system work? Where does he think on national security, ASIO, ASIS, the Australian Security Intelligence Service, the Department of Defence, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Australian Signals Directorate that work on cyber security issues. Where does he think these people are? I'll give him the hint, when he goes from Parliament House to go off to the airport, where he wants to be able to fly to his home in Kirribilli House, the building that's in front of him in Russell is full of Canberra public servants. The buildings to the left, not breaking secrets here, ASIO. I've been to all of them. I would suspect that he's been perhaps to some of them. I'm not sure where he thinks Operation Sovereign Borders runs from, but it doesn't run from Gosford, with respect to Gosford, it runs from Canberra. This would have a devastating impact on gutting the capacity of the Australian Government to serve the Australian people. And it's just one example of how they are just unfit. He has had three years to prepare for an election. What I did as Opposition Leader for three years, was during the first Budget Reply, child care fully costed, we've now implemented that. The Housing Australia Future Fund, announced in a Budget Reply, funded, a plan to go forward. This mob changed their minds on a day to day basis. I'll make this point. We do live in an uncertain world, in an uncertain world where there is volatility. The last thing you need is a volatile government that can't agree on its own positions on a day to day basis, that thinks that getting angry and muscling up is the way that you engage in diplomacy, that is prepared to verbal Leaders of other countries or the Head of the Reserve Bank. You know, this mob are just not ready for Government. And I hope that is seen by Australians in the lead up to Saturday's election.
 
BUTLER: Can I add a health perspective on this? Because it's quite clear when we model the impact of those 41,000 jobs that would be cut by a Dutton Government, you will see entire agencies disappear. There is a risk of the entire Department of Health disappearing. And it is no coincidence, I don't think, that these ideas are being floated by Peter Dutton within weeks of swathes being cut through the US Department of Health, within a fortnight of one in five jobs being cut in the US Center for Disease Control, the Coalition announced that they would abolish the Australian Centre for Disease Control, and they then pretend that this is not going to have an impact on the health of Australians. This will have an impact on the health of Australians. Just as his determination to Americanise Medicare will.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, if I could ask, when and what in March were you told about the Russian request for airbase access in Indonesia?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, look, I don't go through, again I refer to my previous answer. What adults do on intelligence is receive them and not do it, conduct it through the media.
 
JOURNALIST: But you’ve also spoken about the importance of transparency.
 
PRIME MINISTER: What we know is, I'm sorry, but adults, adults, when it comes to intelligence, act like adults. They don't engage in seeing every international issue as a domestic political opportunity. What we don't do, the key issue here is that Peter Dutton verballed the Indonesian President. That's the issue here.
 
JOURNALIST: Were you told about it in March?
 
PRIME MINISTER: He verballed the Indonesian President.
 
JOURNALIST: On domestic violence and this view that not enough has been done. You commissioned a Rapid Review last year to learn what Governments could do quickly in the levers they could pull. Some of those recommendations were that you should restrict access to alcohol and to gambling. What is your view on that recommendation and are you committed to doing those two things to take quick action as a Government in your next term?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Look, we're committed to making a difference. We do have a $4 billion National Plan. We're working through a range of issues with State and Territory Governments as well. One of the issues, for example, that again, a commitment that we made before the election was for 500 community service workers, of those, we stepped up, we were unhappy with how slow that was to being implemented. We have to find the staff to do so. 480 of those are in place today.
 
JOURNALIST: On gambling and alcohol specifically?
 
PRIME MINISTER: We will work through all of the issues. There's not a single issue that you can say ‘if you do this, you will solve, these problems.’ In some cases we need to work through changing attitudes of young Australians as well. The education, the thing that we were speaking about before of changing attitudes.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you referred earlier to the story of Jamie Miller in Adolescence and how he was, the content he was viewing on his phone in his bedroom. You've obviously implemented the age social media ban, but you've left a giant loophole there by leaving YouTube available. Why have you left that open? I mean, if we were to refer to Adolescence, Jamie would have still had access to YouTube. And have you or your office directly engaged with YouTube on this issue, or Google more broadly?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Which is it?
 
JOURNALIST: Well, YouTube's owned by Google.
 
PRIME MINISTER: Hard to answer a question when you're, when there's multiple elements to it. Look, one of the things that we did last December was when we passed the legislation, we said we will have 12 months of implementation. We want to make sure that this is world leading. We want to make sure that we get it right. So one of the things we have done is put out there what the proposal is. We have a 12 month consultation process. We do want to make sure as well, that people don't get excluded from access to things that they should have access to in terms of their education. We know that with education in 2025, a lot of it is online. So this is a matter of getting it right. That's why we've given ourselves time to make sure that we get it right.
 
JOURNALIST: You're leaving open YouTube being put back in there?
 
PRIME MINISTER: That's why, no, that's why we get it right.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, how important is it that you have early intervention? Not you specifically, but there is early intervention for children when it does come to domestic and sexual family violence so that it doesn't follow on into the next generation?
 
PRIME MINISTER: It's absolutely essential. The figures show that so many perpetrators have been themselves victims. And so it is tragic that you have that intergenerational issue. And that's why it is such a challenge. That's why there isn't a simple fix here. That's why we need to work as a whole of society to address this.
 
JOURNALIST: When did you get time to watch Adolescence on the campaign trail? And, my second more serious –
 
PRIME MINISTER: It took me quite a while I've got to say.
 
JOURNALIST: So when did you watch it?
 
PRIME MINISTER: It was in bits. But I've got to say it, for people who, just to give an ad here again, it is captivating. And I was, I was looking forward, looking forward probably the wrong word, but I was very keen to see the next episode each time that I saw one. It's pretty short, I've got to say. I think it's five or six episodes.
 
JOURNALIST: And so my question for you today is I want to ask you about your scare campaign tactics. Don't you want to be a little bit better than the scare campaign? You're just frightening the living daylights out of everybody about Peter Dutton. He's matched most of your health spending commitments, including on Medicare. So why do you run around with this scare campaign when you should be prouder about your actual achievements?
 
PRIME MINISTER: I'm absolutely proud of our achievements. And part of our achievements are strengthening Medicare, not just what we've done, but what we will do. We promised 50 Urgent Care Clinics. We've delivered 87. We're going to deliver another 50, just for example. The 1800 MEDICARE promise that we made yesterday stands in stark contrast. There were two rallies yesterday, or three, if you count one in Mackellar. Ours in Parramatta had a key policy component at its heart that will make a difference to people's lives, enabling people to have 24 hour access to health advice, which would then be connected up, potentially with a doctor, or if it's the case that people should then go to hospital, then that would occur. Making a difference for families, if a young child overnight has a fever, they're not sure how to respond. Knowing that there's a phone that they can pick up, ring that number and get advice, or people with an elderly relative who goes, ‘no, I'm okay’, because that's what a lot of people do who are resilient –
 
JOURNALIST: But PM, totally, so why –
 
PRIME MINISTER: Make a difference
 
JOURNALIST: Why not stick there? Why do you do this scare campaign? Which is actually it's very insulting to Australians, isn't it?
 
PRIME MINISTER: No, let's be clear. There's a choice. There’s a choice between our positive agenda, Peter Dutton yesterday, his rally, there were no policy announcements, nothing positive going forward. And then he went to Channel 7 last night and belled the cat. He went there and said that he needed to abolish bulk billing in order to make primary care sustainable. He belled the cat last night. He can't say where his $600 billion for the nuclear plant is coming from. There will be cuts. We know that that's what happened last time, he was voted the worst Health Minister in history by doctors. He did try to introduce an abolition of bulk billing. He did try to introduce a payment every time people visited an emergency department. He did freeze the Medicare rebate for six years. He has said, repeatedly, that people don't value Medicare if it's free, that things that are free, that's why they're against Free TAFE and against all these measures. There is a real choice. And Australians, when they vote, whether it's today, tomorrow or right up to Saturday, know that they put a number one next to their Labor candidate, their candidate will defend and strengthen Medicare, not the least of which is the doctor and pharmacist behind me. And they know that, they also said they opposed the 60 day dispensing. To give Emma a crack here as well. They said that would be disastrous and pharmacies would close. Where are the pharmacies that closed as a result of that reform? That has made a difference to people's lives. So there is a choice. And it's important that not only have I put forward a positive, coherent agenda, we have also put forward legitimately a critique of the other side.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, I think for all of us in the media, when we ask our viewers and our readers about the cost of living, some of them will say, ‘have you seen the price of eggs recently?’ It's the great topic in kitchens and in the shopping aisles of Australia. What does it say about your opponent do you think, that he doesn't know the price of eggs?
 
PRIME MINISTER: I think importantly, he doesn't know the price of Australian values, right across the board. Those sort of things can happen. That's the truth. They can happen. So I'm not going to, he had an explanation, I guess, for that. The thing about eggs, I know, because I hear it, is that people are struggling to find eggs on the supermarket shelf, and we know that inflation is a real issue. The cost of living. The difference in this election is that Peter Dutton has spent three years identifying problems and saying somehow that the Government is responsible, as if global inflation has not occurred, as if we haven't had the biggest energy crisis since the 1970s, as if the High Court don't make decisions independent of Government. But the truth is that this election campaign has exposed that he has no solutions. Dare I say it, he's delulu with no solulu. And that has come through during this campaign.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, sorry, you've told the Fin Review recently that you wanted to, if you win this election, to take a promise of universal child care to a subsequent election. Just wondering what universal child care looks like to you. Is it no fee? Is it a flat fee? And will parents have to wait until a third term for that to be a reality?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Watch this space. But one of the things that we've done is sometimes you can't go from A to D, you've got to go A, B, C, D. So the first reforms that we did was to make child care cheaper. That's benefited families by $2,700. In December last year, as part of, once again, fully funded coherent policies in the Budget, we went to a rally in December, I announced getting rid of the activity test because that disadvantages women in particular, including single parents. So we introduced a three day guarantee for child care, but also $1 billion for infrastructure in remote and regional communities as well, because we recognise that there's a shortage there. So what we're doing is working through those issues. We're working with the civil sector, with the child care sector, groups like The Parenthood as well, working through. So that I want, my vision is that just as everyone who has a child knows, that they can send their young one to, where did you go?
 
REID: Umina Beach.
 
PRIME MINISTER: Umina Beach Public School. Great school. I know one of the former teachers there. And they can do that, it's just as natural to think that you have access to child care.
 
JOURNALIST: Just on grocery prices. One of the biggest input costs is energy. At the moment, Australian households and small businesses after December, if you're re-elected, will have their bills go up because the temporary rebate ends. What assurances or guarantees are you willing to give on what is going to happen to those power prices at a retail level after December, if you won't say what's happening to the rebate?
 
PRIME MINISTER: The Coalition opposed our energy rebates. They opposed our cap on gas and coal prices. They called it ‘communism’ when we intervened in the market as a result of what was the worst energy crisis since the 1970s. You can't just wish it away. If you look at what's happening with energy inflation with the OECD, I'll invite you to go and look at those figures. What you will see, though, is that we have a plan that's thought through –
 
JOURNALIST: But what will that do for prices?
 
PRIME MINISTER: That's thought through, that has proper policies in place, not only that has been done. This is something that did pass the Senate quickly, is our plan for a 43 per cent reduction in emissions. Our plan for a capacity investment scheme, our plan for dealing with the Safeguard Mechanism as well. We have a plan for energy, which is renewables backed by gas, which has gone from $34 down to $13. $34 on the day of the last election, down to $13 today. You've been around a while, you will remember the Coalition standing up, Josh Frydenberg day after day and speaking about a gas led recovery. Do we remember that? And now nothing happened. Nothing happened. I'll tell you what happened. 24 out of 28 coal fired power stations announced their closure on their watch, and they did nothing about it. They had 23 energy policies, didn't deliver any, and as a result, there were issues with supply.
 
JOURNALIST: Why has the focus on domestic violence come so late in the campaign, why not front load your campaign trail with the announcements and what you would actually –
 
PRIME MINISTER: Were you here last week?
 
JOURNALIST: After, before early voting actually started. Why have you waited until after early voting to announce some of your commitments?
 
PRIME MINISTER: We've been working on this for three years. We've had announcements in every single Budget. Our Housing Australia Future Fund, we announced, now I think probably five years ago or at least four years ago. We haven't waited on this. We haven't waited on this. I announced the 500 community service workers to deal with the issues of violence against women and children. I announced that in Queanbeyan, you can look up your files, with Linda Burney. I'm sure it was, at least in 2021, four years ago. Thanks very much.
 
ENDS