Press conference - Huonville, Tasmania

JO PALMER, TASMANIAN EDUCATION MINISTER: Great, well thank you so much for joining us here today in Huonville. It is wonderful to be here with our local Mayor, Sally Doyle. Thank you so much for having us in your beautiful part of Tasmania. It's always fantastic when we can welcome our Federal Ministers here to Tasmania and it's wonderful to have Senator Jess Walsh with us and also joined by Julie Collins here today as well. This is a really exciting update to be able to provide to you. This is such a success story, where we can have all levels of government coming together with a common goal of supporting families in regional Tasmania, and indeed regional Australia. We are so grateful that the Australian Government has partnered with the Tasmanian Government in being able to bring together this early childhood education and care centre for Huonville. So the State Government has provided the land, which brilliantly is right next door to our primary school. So what's really exciting about where we're positioning this centre is the fact that families will be able to come and have their little ones in that amazing early childhood education and care centre, looking straight out onto our primary school, which then flows into our high school. So, we're basically going to see an education precinct for the Huon Valley from really little ones all the way through to Year 12, and they'll be able to look from each building to the next building to see what their educational journey will be like. So as Education Minister this is just an absolutely fantastic opportunity. So, the State Government has provided the land for this project plus $5 million dollars towards the construction. That's been matched by the Federal Government with another $5 million dollar contribution. And then the rest of it will sit with the local Council. So, we are really excited. This is a game changer for families in this area. We are going to see provision for up to 200 children to have that care, 130 long day care places when we've finished, and then of course the additional outside of school hours care. We know how important child care is to our families, and in particular we know how important it is to women who are wanting to be back in the workforce. And so we are really excited to be here today with all three levels of government. With that I'll hand over to the Federal Minister Jess Walsh.

JESS WALSH, MINISTER FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: Thanks very much, Jo, and great to be here. This is a really exciting milestone. Next year, construction will start on the Huonville Early Education and Care Centre, and the year after that it will open. It's all part of the Commonwealth Government's $1 billion Building Early Education Fund. Together with the Tasmanian Government, we are building six brand new child care centres co‑located with schools, and we're also investing in another two early learning services on top of that. For the Albanese Labor Government this is a $36 million dollar investment in the children and families of Tasmania. When this service is open it will be open for 130 children to enjoy quality early childhood education and care. The service will be operated by the Council. And that is great for children because quality early learning gives children a fantastic start in life, and it's great for families too because it helps them deal with that dreaded double drop off in the morning, and families will be able to enjoy a one-stop drop here at this school. This is part of our $1 billion Building Early Education Fund. We want to see more quality not‑for‑profit early learning in the places that need it most. I'm really pleased to be here with Minister Julie Collins. This is a project that she advocated for in her community because she knows the value of early learning to children and families here in the Huon Valley. It is really important to the Albanese Labor Government that we meet that commitment to Minister Collins and to her community, and we are doing that here today. It is wonderful to work with Minister Palmer, the State Government is a great partner for the Albanese Labor Government in building more quality early learning here, and fantastic to work with Mayor Doyle as well, who are doing a great job in the Council contribution because the Mayor knows exactly how important quality early learning will be to children and families in this location. We'll now hear from Minister Collins. 

JULIE COLLINS, MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY: Thanks, Jess. It's terrific to be here and to have the Federal Minister for Early Childhood and Child Care here in Tasmania with Jess Walsh. Great to be with the State Government partnering in this. But really importantly I also have my colleague Senator Richard Dowling and also the local Mayor. Mayor Doyle and I spoke about the need for more child care places in Huonville prior to the last Federal election. So it's really terrific to be delivering here on an election commitment that I stood up and made with the Mayor during that election campaign, understanding just how important child care and early childhood education is in the Huon and how many families are relying on it to be able to go to work every single day. What we know is that participation will increase in the area if more child care places become available, and we know that there's a need and there's a wait list here in the Huon Valley. So, we know these child care places will be taken up immediately for those families that are relying on them. And we know that this is not unique to the Huon. We've also since made a commitment on Bruny Island in terms of $3.5 million dollars for a child care centre there, and we've heard from the State and the Federal Minister in relation to other centres in Tasmania that our Government will be investing in. But I made a $5 million dollar commitment towards a child care centre here in the Huon Valley, and I'm really pleased to be delivering that for the families of the Huon Valley. I'm particularly pleased with the time frame that we're going to get on and get that done, and I do thank the State Government for working with the Federal Government, and particularly with Council and all the hard work that Council has done in the lead‑up to getting us to where we are here today. When the Council comes to me with a list of priorities, you know, prior to a Federal election, and this is the top of the list, and the biggest need in this Valley, it's really terrific to be able to deliver on that, and I know what a difference it will mean for those families. Those families that now can do the drop-off in the same location nearby the primary school and the high school there, but importantly they're able to participate more in their local community which is terrific. So, it's great to be here. Thank you, and I'll hand over to the Mayor. 

SALLY DOYLE, HUON VALLEY COUNCIL MAYOR: Good morning and thank you to the Ministers for coming out on this rainy day. Mind you it's probably sun out there now. This is really important to our community. We go all the way to Cockle Creek, so putting a centre into Huonville and expecting people to come just doesn't work. We just don't have the transport system to be able to do that. So being able to take that to the people is great and it's what is needed for them to be able to send services. But apart from that, we run the centre at Dover and Geeveston and Huonville, and as you could imagine Dover is a small town but it is really important to them, to the women that are there, that they deserve to be able to go to work. It is only a small centre, and I think running on its own it probably wouldn't be viable. So, to have the great one in Huonville and then to be able to have the Geeveston and Dover centre lead off that is really, really important. So, I just thank everybody for the money that they've given us, all the hard work that the Council has done because we are ready to roll. We're ready to put that shovel in the ground. We're so looking forward to it. So, thank you, guys, for all you've done. Thank you. 

JOURNALIST: Can I just ask Sally a couple about the operations of the Centre. So, it's going to be up and running in 2028 is your hope, is that correct? 

DOYLE: Yes, that's correct, yes. 

JOURNALIST: How are you going finding early childhood educators in this area? Is there generally enough to keep all three of these centres going in the future? 

DOYLE: Well, what we're doing is that we're encouraging the young ones to come in. We just noticed in our Council meeting this week how much training has been done with the staff, upgrading the staff ready to take on some new young ones to be able to train them as well. So, yeah, we are in the process of doing that to make sure we've got enough staff. 

JOURNALIST: How exciting is it for Huonville to have all of these extra services coming in – or the Huon Valley as a whole – to have these services? There's obviously the medical precinct as well that was promised at the last election. Are you excited to see more services coming? 

DOYLE: Oh, definitely. And with the Huonville ReImagined that we also received the Federal grant which the Minister helped us with as well. But yeah, with all the things that are happening it is really, really exciting to be in the Valley at the moment. 

JOURNALIST: In terms of the early learning facility here that will eventually come up online, how much demand is there for early learning? Is this something that you hear about regularly in the community? 

DOYLE: Oh definitely, yes. 

JOURNALIST: Is it something you hear about regularly from families in the community about just how much it's needed? 

DOYLE: Oh, definitely. And I think with the campaigning that's been happening at the moment I've seen a lot of the candidates talking about child care. So, they must be hearing it from the people that they're door knocking. 

JOURNALIST: How important was the land to unlock this project? Is there a lot of other free land that could have been used for it around Huonville or was this pretty key? 

DOYLE: This was the key spot. This is the one that has been spoken about, where it rolls on. So they can come here and the children can see where their next steps are going to be. And the more that we can help our local schools, the better. 

JOURNALIST: Do you have an update on bird flu? I realised I hadn't heard much about it lately. That might be me not paying attention, I'm sure it's filling your world. What have you seen recently in Tasmania in terms of its spread? Is it settling a bit or still kind of – 

COLLINS: Well, what we're seeing obviously with the H5 bird flu, and you can see the reports with the latest numbers at birdflu.gov.au, is that it is making its way across Tasmania, and indeed across the country. What we have seen is it’s still in bird species here in Tasmania, there hasn't been any reports of it yet moving into mammals, which is good news here in our state. But certainly we are seeing that more nationally, we are getting more dolphins, more fur seals and we have had a sea lion obviously. So we also have been working with the Tasmanian State Government in relation to what we might be able to do in terms of further vaccinations. We've obviously started vaccinating the orange-bellied parrots here in Tasmania and we are looking about what else we can do to work with the Tasmanian State Government. 

JOURNALIST: Does that spread any behaviour has to change? The Greens the other day were saying that events that could put bird habitat at risk need to be reconsidered because the threat is just so much higher now? 

COLLINS: Well, what we're doing is we're listening to the technical experts and the Advisory Group in relation to what is required, and we're working really closely with other tiers of Government, but importantly also with industry and wildlife experts about what is appropriate behaviour. The states are leading the response on the ground and they're taking that advice from the technical experts about what should or shouldn't occur in local communities. But certainly, what we would expect to see is, as we're seeing more localised transmission some of those activities will be curtailed on the advice of experts. 

JOURNALIST: What's the feedback been like to the Federal Government's bird flu know what to do campaign, is it cutting through? 

COLLINS: Well what we're hearing is that people appreciate knowing where to go, and the birdflu.gov.au is the source of all of that information, the practical information that people can do, whether it's in relation to pets and local transmission or whether it's in relation to backyard chickens, but importantly there's also the map of where it is tracking across Australia and the types of species that are currently being infected is listed there. So, people can get a really good idea about what is the transmission in their area, is it being transmitted in mammals, is it still in wild birds and what they might need to do. 

JOURNALIST: There's been a number of local businesses across the state that are raising the prices of their goods and services after the Federal Government's surcharge ban came into effect. Was this the wrong move in hindsight? 

COLLINS: Well, what we're doing here is about making sure that people know the value of the things that they're purchasing. I think we've all had experiences where we're being charged, you know, $5 dollars for a cup of tea and we go to pay and it's $5.07. What we actually want is people to know the prices that they're being charged. The other thing of course that we've done is we have put downward pressure in terms of those merchant and transaction fees, so this should actually bring costs down for many of those small businesses. We also know that 9 out of 10 small businesses were not having a surcharge for credit card transactions.