Doorstop - Longreach

JOURNALIST: So, in terms of these country university centres, what would you say success looks like in numbers, given that we do have a much smaller population?

ANTHONY CHISHOLM [ASSISTANT MINISTER]: What I’ve seen in centres like this across the country is some have as few as 20, some have up to 70, 80. But what we know is they’re an expanding opportunity for people from this part of the world to come and study and improve and get access to a higher education degree. So, we’re confident they’re going to make a significant contribution to this local community and that will be of benefit to everyone in future generations as well.

JOURNALIST: And what about the upkeep of these spaces with the technology and facilities that can be really expensive and time‑consuming to get people out from cities to fix them up?

CHISHOLM: What we know is that there is tremendous community support, and these centres only get up and operating when they do have councils and local community come together. This is a great example of that. Obviously, they get some federal government support which just helps get these things off the ground, but they wouldn’t happen if they didn’t have that great community support at the same time. So, I’m confident that this one will be well supported and it’s going to make a great contribution to the local community.

JOURNALIST: And when will you be – or someone come back to reassess whether these facilities are working or not?

CHISHOLM: The department does that on an ongoing basis. We want to ensure that when we are putting money into education that it makes a difference. From what I’ve seen of centres like this across the country, they are providing opportunity. I’ve met with a lot of students who are studying, and they wouldn’t have been studying if they didn’t have these facilities in their town. So, I see firsthand what a difference they’re making already.

JOURNALIST: And question for probably the Treasurer. In these more remote towns, connectivity is essential, and it can be patchy, especially the further west you get. How will the federal government address the digital divide?

JIM CHALMERS: We’re putting hundreds of millions of dollars and a lot of effort and commitment into making sure that we can connect up communities like this one.

We don’t want a lack of access to digital connectivity to be another thing which makes life harder for people in these wonderful communities in western Queensland or throughout regional Australia.

I might just say something broadly about what we’re doing here today.

We’re investing $67 million in 46 university study hubs and this one’s going to be an absolute ripper. It’s going to be an absolute beauty, and we know that because the communities and towns from the surrounding areas have come together at this wonderful well‑kept and well‑maintained site to provide more opportunities for people in western Queensland.

We know if we want our economy to generate lots of opportunities for people to grab, we can’t just generate those opportunities in the big cities, we’ve got to generate these opportunities in regional Queensland and regional Australia, and that’s what this is all about. We are so proud to be making these investments in university hubs, which make it easier for people to study closer to home so they can get those jobs, which are rewarding and well paid, increasingly which will require tertiary educations. So, fee‑free TAFE for people who want to go to TAFE, university hubs for people who want to go to university, but generating more jobs and more opportunities for more people in regional communities and regional industries.

JOURNALIST: A lot of these towns out in western Queensland, outback Queensland, have been losing their population over the past few decades. Is the federal government looking at investing in rural and remote communities like these ones?

CHALMERS: This is part of that effort, to make it easier for people to study closer to home. I know that it’s a concern for people in regional communities. They want to make sure that they have the people to have thriving local economies and industries and communities, and that’s one of the motivations for this investment we’re making in this university hub. It is to make it easier for people to study and get a qualification without having to go to Brisbane or somewhere else in Australia, because we know that that is a concern shared in these communities. We want to maintain healthy populations. We want to maintain strong communities and strong economies and that’s why the Albanese Labor government is investing in these things.

JOURNALIST: And the $67 million, when is that across?

CHALMERS: That is over the life of the last couple of budgets. My colleague, Jason Clare, I pay tribute to him and to Anthony Chisholm for the funding that they have secured as part of the Universities Accord, and Duncan Taylor, who has done an amazing work in this regard. I referenced earlier the work of the Universities Accord, making sure that we’re creating great opportunities for tertiary education, not just in the cities but in the regions as well, and that’s what that $67 million is partly about.

JOURNALIST: So, after the federal election, will these places still have the funding?

CHALMERS: Of course, they will. We’ve committed the funding. We want to make sure that Peter Dutton and our political opponents don’t cut that funding. They describe this kind of investment as overspending. We don’t see it as that. We see it as an investment in the regions and in opportunity. If we want this country to be a land of opportunity, we’ve got to create opportunities in every single part of Australia. The funding is secure under us. Our opponents describe it as overspending. They can come here and explain why think they this kind of investment is not necessary and not warranted.

JOURNALIST: And a large number of western Queensland infrastructure projects rely on the Growing Regions Program. That’s a cultural precinct in Blackwell and a museum in Charleville. When will the next round of funding for that program be announced?

CHALMERS: I think as Anthony Chisholm said earlier on radio, we’re very enthusiastic and very committed to those programs and we’re rolling out as much funding as we can. We’ve obviously got pressures on the pipeline, we’ve got to make sure we’ve got the people who can build the projects. And that we’re funding them in the most responsible way we can. But we’re very enthusiastic about the investment that rolls out via those programs and that kind of investment will continue.

JOURNALIST: Are the increasing costs of infrastructure projects something that you are hearing from local councils?

CHALMERS: We hear that all around Australia. The cost of building infrastructure is a bigger and bigger part of council budgets and, indeed, my own national budget and state budgets as well. We’ve seen blowouts in costs in projects. That means we need to be sensible about how we sequence those projects and how we make sure that we’ve got the workers and the workforce that we need to build them. But we can manage those pressures. We can manage them by working together, by sequencing projects in the most responsible way, that’s what we’ve been doing under Catherine King’s leadership and that’s what we will continue to do.

JOURNALIST: Questions from Canberra. Do you have any concerns that this resolution for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire doesn’t specifically exclude Hamas?

CHALMERS: The position that we took at the United Nations reflects a view that we have had for some time: that there has been too much loss of life in the Middle East and we need to see a ceasefire.

Australia, like most of the world, has voted for a ceasefire in Gaza. For too long now, too many innocent people have been dying. Too many families and too many kids, and so the position that we took at the UN reflects our belief that a ceasefire is the best next step when it comes to building a credible and realistic pathway out of this needless and horrific cycle of violence.

JOURNALIST: And one more. How will the government manage the rising cost of the NDIS with the annual financial sustainability report showing it will outstrip the age pension over the decade?

CHALMERS: The 5 big pressures on the Commonwealth Budget are aged care, the NDIS, healthcare, defence, and interest costs on debt. Katy Gallagher and I are working with terrific ministers like Bill Shorten and Anika Wells and Mark Butler and Richard Marles and others, who have been working to make the budget as sustainable as we can.

We’ve made really substantial progress on the budget. We’ve delivered 2 surpluses, but we haven’t ignored the structural pressures as well, which are intensifying rather than easing. Our work on the NDIS has been part of that. I pay tribute to Bill Shorten for that.

I think in the final year of the Coalition, the NDIS was growing at something like 23 per cent. What we’ve been able to demonstrate is a realistic and sustainable path to something more like 8 per cent. That means that funding for people who need the NDIS will continue and will continue to grow but in a more sustainable way. We have shown a real willingness to get on top of some of the structural issues that we inherited from our predecessors and that’s what our progress on the NDIS is all about.

I think we’ve been asked to say one more thing about nuclear and so let me just say this. What we’re hearing from Peter Dutton and the Coalition about nuclear energy is economic insanity. Peter Dutton has gone for the option which takes the longest, which costs the most to build, which pushes up power prices for households, and which, even if it’s built in 20 years’ time, will only provide something like 4 per cent of Australia’s energy needs.

Peter Dutton’s position on nuclear energy is economic insanity which turns Australia’s back on all of our natural advantages. Our combination of advantages, when it comes to our renewable future, are the envy of the world. We have everything we need from cleaner and cheaper energy and Peter Dutton instead wants to go for the most expensive option which takes the longest and which would only, at best, provide about 4 per cent of our power.

So, when Peter Dutton finally, after months and months and months of hiding from this and not coming clean on it, if he jumps up and provides the detail of the economic madness which sits behind his nuclear fantasy, he needs to provide all of the details: What do the off‑budget funds look like? How big will they be, what will they cost? How much of the energy needs will be supplied?

We heard from the CSIRO that nuclear energy costs way more than renewable energy. The future, the energy transition in this country is a transition to renewable energy firmed by gas, bolstered by storage. That’s the future for this country. If Peter Dutton wants to announce his policy, he needs to announce the whole policy.

We are at the end of the last full year before an election and these characters still don’t have any credible, costed, or coherent economic policies. Let’s see all of the details and one of the reasons why people think Peter Dutton is a risk to our economy and a risk to household budgets is because he hasn’t come clean on the real costs of the economic madness which is his position on nuclear power. Thanks very much.