Topics: Coalition’s $5 million commitment to Legana basketball facility; Federal Budget tests; Jim Chalmers blame game; Labor’s economic mismanagement; Labor’s cost of living crisis; Labor’s energy shambles; Revocation of dual citizenship of people who commit serious crimes

 

E&OE

 

BRIDGET ARCHER: It's fantastic to be here at this magnificent Legana Oval in the West Tamar with an important announcement today that an elected Coalition government will provide $5 million for basketball courts for a recreation hub here at Legana, for this growing precinct with the new school here and also residential development all the way around us and this rapidly growing area. Delighted to be joined by Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor, as well as we make this announcement today and Mayor Christina Holmdahl, who I'm sure has a few words to say about what this might mean for the West Tamar municipal area. Christina.

 

CHRISTINA HOLMDAHL: Thanks Bridget. First of all, thank you very much Bridget and especially, thank you to the Minister for coming down today for this announcement. What this announcement means is that the plans that the council has for providing the sports services that the municipality needs are now in a position where we're very hopeful that we will be able to start the program that we've set ourselves for this precinct behind us.

 

QUESTION: This is a really growing community. We're clearly at a school. There's lots of young families here. How important are facilities like this?

 

CHRISTINA HOLMDAHL: Extremely important. We know that there is a real shortage of sporting facilities in the northern part of the island, and this complex will go a long way to fixing that problem. We know that for the population that plays basketball, for example, in the north, we need 17 basketball courts, and we don't have that number. We're well short of that number. We know that there are school children on a Monday night practicing at nine o'clock on a Monday evening because they don't have the facilities that are enjoyed in other parts of the state. So it's extremely important, and it will not only serve as basketball, it's also going to serve as many other sporting groups once it's up and established.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Thank you, Christina, and great to be here with Bridget as well. As always, fighting for her electorate and the West Tamar, Bass in Launceston more generally. She has always been a champion for what really matters in this area. What really matters to her electorate. And one of the things that clearly matters a great deal in this area is the rapid growth it is seeing, and the need to have the supporting infrastructure for that rapid growth. If you want more housing supply, you've got to have the infrastructure being built alongside it. Transport infrastructure, community infrastructure, sporting infrastructure, like we're talking about here today. And Bridget has always been a champion of that very simple principle and one that really counts to people in fast growing areas.

 

We know that if we're going to see enough housing in this country to ensure that young Australians can hope for the real prospect of being able to buy a home, pay down their mortgage over time, there has to be housing supply, and housing supply only happens if you've got the infrastructure going into place. So this is an absolutely wonderful project. I know how important it is to local communities to have sporting facilities for younger people in this area, to have opportunities to play sport, to get involved in grassroots community sporting clubs and that's exactly what we want to see more of around Australia now.

 

Right now, Labor has been absolutely failing Australians when it comes to housing supply. Their plan of 1.2 million. We are not even going to get close. No one thinks we're within cooee of reaching that. A little bit like we're not within cooee of reaching their electricity price reductions, which have gone down from the website in the last day or two. This is a Labor Government that is failing Australians when it comes to housing, when it comes to cost of living, when it comes to ensuring that they have the standard of living that they had when Labor came to power. Now we have a budget coming up next week, and there's some very clear tests for this budget, as there have been for past budgets.

 

Past budgets have failed those tests, but we can only hope that the tests are met this time, and they are very clear, incredibly important for Australians. We've seen the biggest collapse in our standard of living in history, bigger than any of our peer countries. This budget needs to give us a pathway back to the standard of living Australians had when Labor took power. Right now, on their own plans, we're not going to get there until 2030, the Reserve Bank says 2031. This will be a lost decade for Australian families, working hard, trying to get ahead and losing hope. The second test is that we reestablish hope for Australian families. That they'll be able to buy a home and pay it down over time, that they'll be able to start a business and build that business over time, whether it's a small hospitality business or a farm, all of those opportunities create opportunities for all Australians by creating good jobs, pathways to prosperity, and not just for the business owner, but for everyone else in the local community. The third test is that they re-establish the fiscal guardrails that were in place when Labor came to power. That means spending every dollar of taxpayers’ money carefully, making sure the economy is growing faster than spending, making sure there's a cap on the tax to GDP, and making sure that we have structural budget balance over time. We know already that we're going to see red ink, as far as the eye can see because the Treasurer told us that over the last 24 hours. This Treasurer is giving a speech today. What we know already is that it will be a speech focused on excuses. This guy has a PhD in blame shifting. He has an excuse for everything and a plan for absolutely nothing, except for his own career. We need a Treasurer who is focused on the Australian people, on restoring our standard of living, not just making excuses. I mean, he's found excuses wherever he looks. In the past, it's been Vladimir Putin. It's been President Xi. Now it's Donald Trump, Cyclone Alfred. It doesn't matter. There's a long list of excuses he's found. He needs to take responsibility for the collapsing standard of living that we seen for Australians since they've been in power. We need a budget that restores that standard of living, restores hope, re-establishes those guard rails that really count for every single Australian. Happy to take questions.

 

QUESTION: This election promise that you've made today, has this been costed in your budget?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Yeah, absolutely has. And let's be clear here, we've opposed over $100 billion of Labor spending that is not appropriate at a time like this. Not essential services, not critical infrastructure that's necessary to get the housing supply into place. In fact, we've said we'll put in place a $5 billion housing infrastructure fund to support high growth areas. This is, we know, the fastest growing housing area or population area in Northern Tasmania, and one of the fastest in Tasmania. This infrastructure is incredibly important to make sure that Australians have a real chance of the great Australian dream, which is to own a home and pay it down over time.

 

QUESTION: How long do you anticipate that construction will take and that this facility will be up and running?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: I’ll let the Mayor answer that question.

 

QUESTION: When do you anticipate this will be all be ready to go?

 

CHRISTINA HOLMDAHL: This is an election promise. So we've got to wait for the outcome of the of the election. But what it does mean is that we are guaranteed funding for when we are ready to take on this project. And projects like this take a while. To give you an idea, from the beginning of the project to the official opening of this oval we're standing on, took 12 months. We're talking about quite complicating building structures on this new precinct of the sports area. So I can't give you an exact date at the moment, but I can assure you that council will be working at a great rate of knots to ensure that we get this up as quickly as we can, because it's really required. We're living in the fastest growing region in northern Tasmania, and the community and the greater Launceston area is actually crying out for facilities like this. So I can assure you, we won't be dragging our feet if the funding is forthcoming to get onto this project as quickly as we can.

 

QUESTION: Will the basketball facility be open to the public or will it mainly be for students in the primary school?

 

CHRISTINA HOLMDAHL: No, there will be in the proposed complex will have four indoor basketball courts. There will also be an indoor, at the moment, but we don't have a final plan. But the preliminary consultation that we've done, there will be an indoor sports area that could be used for training on a wet day for indoor cricket. There will also be other smaller sports facilities, as well as areas for community use, where other sporting groups may be able to come along and use those areas depending. But we think that there's about 14 or 15 sporting groups that will use the facility when it's finished.

 

QUESTION: Have you costed the referendum on deporting criminal dual citizens?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Let's be clear about this point. We're working up our policies on eligibility for citizenship, but the first duty of every single government is always to keep its citizens safe. So, a core principle in eligibility for citizenship is whether that person is going to be a threat to the Australian people, that will always be our position. Now, as Peter Dutton has already said this morning, all options are on the table, but we haven't announced that policy, and we'll say more in the coming weeks.

 

QUESTION: He has talked about it though, have you costed it or given that any thoughts on how much it would cost the taxpayer? You’ve been today talking about how much Labor is spending, surely this is a reasonable question?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: What is reasonable is to notice that Australians are suffering under a Labor Government.

 

QUESTION: I’ve asked you how much this referendum might cost.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: You made a point about Labor’s spending. So, I'll make a point about Labor’s spending.

 

QUESTION: You made a point about Labor’s spending. I’m just saying that if you’re going to make that point, you should surely be able to answer how much the referendum will cost?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, we haven’t announced the policy. As I say, all options are on the table.

 

QUESTION: Do you support holding a referendum into deporting dual citizens?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: I think I’ve already answered that question.

 

QUESTION: You don’t support it?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: As I've said, the first duty of any government is to keep citizens safe. You know it's the greatest gift. The greatest gift that someone can get is Australian citizenship, and it should go to people who are going to do the right thing as citizens. And so we'll have more to say about this, but what I will say is we'll do what it takes to keep Australians safe, and we're working on citizenship eligibility policies, and we'll have more to say about it in the coming weeks.

 

QUESTION: Do you support holding an investigation into abuse at childcare centres following allegations aired in a Four Corners program last night?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, I haven't seen I haven't seen that. So I'll have a look at that, and I'll make a comment.

 

QUESTION: Could you give us the specifics of where you would cut spending in the budget?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: We’ve already opposed over $100 billion of bad Labor spending. I mean, this is a government that exactly at the same time as households are struggling to pay their mortgage, struggling to pay their grocery bills, struggling to pay their personal income taxes. Up three and a half thousand dollar for the average Australian. $7,000 for dual income families on average. They're struggling to pay all of these things. We see a government that has added 36,000 to the Canberra-based public service, that has been spending like a drunken sailor and that's why we've opposed over $100 billion of Labor spending. That's inappropriate at this time. It's not essential services, it's not in health, it's not in the areas that Australians rely on. It's programs that are not appropriate at a time like this, and that kind of spending is not a responsible thing to do when we have not beaten inflation, when growth has been absolutely lackluster. Seven consecutive quarters of GDP per capita going backwards. You need a government that understands how to manage the economy. The one thing that's clear about this Treasurer is he does not understand how to manage the economy. He's out of his depth, he's out of touch, and so all he focuses on is making excuses and planning his own career.

 

QUESTION: Your party was fairly critical, not all members, of Labor's Voice to Parliament referendum a couple of years ago, saying it was just a massive use of money. Is there not some irony that you're now looking at doing the same thing on a different issue.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: We’ll do what is necessary to keep Australians safe. That's the first duty of any government. Let me tell you, though, that we have a weak Prime Minister who will not do that. We have seen that in this government's approach to detention of people who committed rape, who committed violent offenses against Australians. They have not taken the steps necessary to keep Australians safe. We always will. Thank you very much.

 

ENDS