: Thank you, Prime Minister. Thank you, everyone, for being here. My name’s Charles with the Nine Network. It’s lovely to be here and we’re going to try and as much as possible get to your questions. So, if you have one from the floor, whack your hand up. Otherwise, use the QR codes you have on the table. If you’d like to double the chances, whack your hand up and use the QR code. And that’s the best way to do it. While that’s happening, I’m going to start. Prime Minister – big day today.
PRIME MINISTER, PRIME MINISTER: Very big day.
CHARLES CROUCHER: Got a bit going on. You’ve been really critical of The Greens in the last three years – and probably the last 30 years. It seems now with today’s deal and the pragmatism I guess, shown by Larissa Waters, it might be a different kind of Greens you’re dealing with. Does this give you hope that there could be more reform coming down the pathway in the next two years, given that it’s been a bruising six weeks but you’re going to get away with the win?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it will be a good outcome today. And I think one of the things that has happened and something that I’ve been very explicit on in meetings that I’ve had, you know, across the spectrum, we’ve got 94 seats in the House of Representatives. We’ve got 30 now out of 76 in the Senate. From some of the rhetoric that’s put out, like how dare you engage with more than your 30? Well, that’s ridiculous. My door is open to anyone who wants to have constructive discussions. I think in the last Parliament where the Liberals, the Nationals, The Greens and One Nation all combine to block public housing expenditure through the Housing Australia Future Fund is a good example where the Liberals and Nationals who built 373 social homes in the entire time that they were in government in that decade, although it’s just against it, the Green says not enough – it’s only $10 billion – why not 20? Why not 30? You know, why not 100 billion? Some of those people aren’t in Parliament anymore because they just said no to everything. And I think on this we’ve still got a different position, very different position from the Greens, we support grandfathering, it is really important for these reforms. They don’t, we don’t yield from our position. But I think they have been responsible in not just saying no, not allowing what they regard as the perfect to be the enemy of the good. This is important reform. This has been a long time coming. It’s not easy and we knew there would be political blowback from doing it. But when you confronted with the choice, which is a binary choice really no one and the context being firstly that no one is arguing the housing system was working at the moment, like that debate isn’t taking place, not even from the cheer squad, some of whom sit up in the gallery there for the right wing parties. No one’s argument is “it’s working at the moment.” So, you can either nagger about what the differences should be, what the change should be, the reform should be. But to me to say “the system isn’t working but I can’t do it. I’m not prepared to do anything about it because someone will be critical.” Well that to me isn’t acceptable. Like I’m in, you know, I’m in government to make a difference, not to just occupy the space. And that’s what we were elected to do and that’s what we’re doing.
CROUCHER: I wonder if it makes you more ambitious or gives you more appetite to change things in the future. Particularly one of the questions that’s come through. Spoke about what Premier Malinauskas said last night at the CEDA audience. We spoke about some of the benefits and even unintended benefits of capping donations for election campaigns. Is that something you thought of?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we’ve done that. We had significant reform through the parliament last time about capping donations. I think it’s rather a bit strange that that seems to be the motivation for people who are independent to form a political party is to somehow get it. Try to, South Australia is a different model. We have got I think the balance right in improving transparency and disclosure provisions, in putting caps on expenditure. You know those, those ads. I mean I fear for the actual newspapers when they don’t have those wrap rounds in yellow and black that we see. I don’t quite see the point but that is living evidence that some people have just too much money. Those Clive Palmer ads, you know that achieved precisely, I don’t think it got anyone elected at all last time round. But you know those double page spreads, I don’t know if anyone actually reads them.
CROUCHER: As long as the cheques keep clearing. So, that’s okay. You spoke about energy transition. The battery program has been a huge success. It’s expensive, but a huge success. What does success look like for you in this term alone when it comes to energy transition? Not long term, because we’ve all seen the speech about long term. What does the next three years look like?
PRIME MINISTER: What it looks like is essentially the renewables rollout going from the amount of investment which is there, the completion of projects that are underway is one thing. So, you lift up the amount of renewables that are in the system. In the December quarter last year was the largest energy use in Australian history, but also the first time in any quarter that more than half of our energy was produced by renewables. Now, I’ve been in this building a while and a long while ago I was the environment climate change spokesperson. I could recall when the mandatory renewable energy target was 2%. 2% not that long ago. Well, I’ve been in this building. It’s now providing more than half of Australia’s energy needs. And I think that what is what I really hope happens in a couple of years time is that we end the ridiculous debate & nature of some of it. I mean, people being opposed to the cheaper home batteries program, that actually obviously what it means is a whole lot of people are getting no bills at all. But it also is leading to cheaper bills for everyone because it takes pressure off the system, off the grid. And so the work that big business gets it, they’re investing and that we get that pipeline of investment flowing through quicker. I want to see faster approvals of many of the projects which are there. And I want us to be in a position where hopefully we move beyond some of the debate, which is. Which is there. You know, we know that renewables backed with firming capacity from gas, backed by storage is the way forward.
CROUCHER: There’s a question here about productivity. You’ve had a big focus, Jim Chalmers said it the day after the election , this was going to be the big focus. The question asks, with government funding for R&D either plateauing or in some cases going down, is it now up to the private sector to do the investment and research and development? Or is there still a role for the CSIRO? Is there still a place that governments can step in, can boost productivity through that investment?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it’s a huge role and we’ve provided increased funding for the CSIRO, but we’ve also change the R&D tax incentive as well as part of the pro business measures that we had in the budget. You know, we have three and a half billion dollars of support for before, the recent changes have added to that of support for small business and for boosting productivity, including through R&D. And so the private sector working, I mean, this institution sees as a great example of bringing universities and our intellectual capacity with the private sector. It’s one of the roles that CEDA plays that’s so important. One of the reasons why I’m a regular visitor here,
CROUCHER: On the private sector and innovation, often it comes from small tech and startups. What’s happening with the negotiations with startups? What do you see their role as being in the economy moving forward? Is it as it is now? Is it going to be more important? And if so, is there need to be more incentives to get young people or people with ideas and skills to take that risk?
PRIME MINISTER: It’s going to be at least as important as it is today. And one of the things that will occur is that some of the innovations that are around now, like AI, will explode. You know, there’s a debate about AI going on and my government’s looking at it and we’re looking at, you know, I’m looking at giving a major speech next month on AI and the government’s approach. The debate can’t be, is AI good or bad, a simple thing, and should we stop I, Because it’s happening, you know. You know you can’t stop progress, as a fictional mayor said in that fantastic movie on the north coast of NSW, you know, you can’t stop it. You’ve got to shape it or else it’ll shape us. And so that’s why we’re engaged with international partners as well. It’s one area where Australia can really punch way above our weight because the advantages of that we have here. So, I think when it comes to innovation startups, what we’ve been good at and what’s been ignored a bit in the current debate, Australia has always been good at innovation, Wi-fi, the black box, all these things, penicillin, the whole range of research breakthroughs. What we have never been good at historically is commercialisation. So, how do we get that there? How do we actually achieve? There’s not a solar panel in the world that does not have IP produced that. To give a word to our major, one of our sponsors here, UNSW and ANU. But what we did, as I said in the speech, we thought there was somewhere, someone else, somewhere else will do it for us and that’s okay. Well, it’s bullshit. We’ve got to stop it. We’re going to make things here. We should have been a mass manufacturer of solar panels here in Australia. We’re not. We’re building that up at capacity. But we should learn from that, learn from that so that in areas that we’ve been prepared to back in, that will grow in the future and it mightn’t grow tomorrow, but hydrogen is coming, these transformations are coming. How do we secure maximum value from those innovations?
CROUCHER: We’ll get to AI again shortly, but there’s a question at table six.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I’m glad you brought up AI. I had a question. I’m in my last semester of university and we’re already seeing less internships and grad roles, particularly in the commerce discipline. I just want to ask, where do your priorities lie when it comes to protecting the jobs of young people like us that did the right thing, went to university looking to go out and get an office job. How do you look to protect those jobs while also making sure we don’t miss out on the huge productivity that comes with AI?
PRIME MINISTER: One of the things to do is that when we look at how we shape the future, to acknowledge that with all previous technological breakthroughs as well, you will get some change in workplaces. Some jobs that exist today will not exist in 10 years time, but there’ll be new jobs and the history is more jobs, if we get it right, created. So, it’s not a matter of just protecting all of the jobs that were there. You know, my team, my mighty Bunnies play tonight. And it used to be when I grew up at the flats near me, because they didn’t get paid much, heaps of them worked as garbos. They did that to keep fit. They ran behind the trucks, they lifted up the garbage bins. Is it a good thing that now that’s automated? You bet it is. And you know, we need to acknowledge technology will keep going. And part of, I think the challenge of decision makers of today is to recognise that some of the uncertainty and the break away from traditional political support and all of that is happening is a response by people who are going to. You will probably have three or four careers in your working life. When I did my HSC on a Thursday was the last exam. I started working at the Commonwealth Bank on the Monday morning I sat for a test with paper to go through and I thought that was a job that was secure, that I could do for 20, 30 years, you know, and it’s a very different world now. And that uncertainty creates anxiousness and that makes easy answers and slogans perhaps more appealing to some, like it’s to stop the world. I want to get off. And in some cases it’s not stop the world. It’s let’s pretend there was a world, you know, of monoculture. That has never existed in this country. Has never existed. So, you know, it’s just a matter of, I think, making sure that government is brave enough to acknowledge change and to look after your interests, both in terms of work, how we deal with AI, how we deal with that change, in order to shape it so that you have a future which will change from the time when I did an economics degree. The world is changing. How do we deal with that and take advantage of it? There’s no country you’d rather be. I met with Anthropic this week. There is no country you’d rather be at the moment than Australia. We have everything under the ground, everything in the sky that the world needs. We have space, which is a big thing that countries to our north simply do not have. That provides us with an incredible opportunity, combined with our workforce, including the diaspora workforce, and the connections with everywhere in the world, like we are just set up for a really dynamic and positive future. I’m really optimistic about your future because I’m really optimistic and positive about Australia’s future.
CROUCHER: Time for a couple more questions. If you have one. Whack your hand up. I want to. I want to reach on something you mentioned there about a social compact. I think it’s part of Cedar’s philosophy that was mentioned in Linda’s speech. There’s something that Mike Burgess, the ASIO boss who gave his briefing last night to a few of us lucky enough to be there, he spoke about. Social media is sort of eroding that compact in Australia now. We always think of it as a security issue that you start getting in this defensive crouch and everyone’s a possible enemy economically. What does that do for a country?
PRIME MINISTER: It can really undermine, I think, the cohesiveness of a response. You know, when you can have people on social media who literally post budget, literally put things out that they said is not real and is not factual, but that’s how you get attention. I thought that was a terrific moment where people who were running a campaign said that it wasn’t based upon fact. Rather extraordinary, but. But at least honest. Even if the campaign was based upon just trying to press buttons with people, I worry about polarisation. The algorithms push people to more and more extremes. Don’t get into a debate about nine at the moment, but, you know, look at what’s happened. You go down that road and you get further and further out on the edges of what is mainstream political debate in this country. And, you know, I think that that can have, you know, an impact. I met with people from the arts sector yesterday, from the creative sector. Tim Minchin and a bunch of people. One of, I think they’re really powerful arguments is for more support for the theatre and live performance, is that, you know, and this is much better than us, you know, just putting out stuff online, having a real conversation with real people changes the dynamic and there’s not enough of that. It is really easy. The social media ban was a really historic. When we did that, it was a pretty gutsy call to do it because we thought the blowback from global powerful corporations would be bigger than it has been, perhaps because people have jumped on board. There’s 16 countries are on board across Europe, US states across the board. And that’s because people are really conscious about the impact that social media is having. You know, our educational leap up from schools across the country that have banned mobile phones. The difference that it has made to behaviour, to learning, to all of that as well. And, you know, this is an example maybe of technology going ahead before society was ready to debate what it meant. And we need to really engage in a way that builds that social cohesiveness and not consensus. But having civil debates as well is something that’s, you know, being. We’re losing some of that capacity because of algorithms. Encourage that to occur.
CROUCHER: That’s beneficial. The final question is right at the back.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, my name is Caitlin. As a young person working in a youth organisation, what would you say to young people who, despite all the achievements your government has done, in your terms, still feel disincentivised by politics, feeling like it’s made at them and not with them? How would you address those young people?
PRIME MINISTER: I say that you have more of an incentive to engage than us old people, because by definition, the decisions that are made will have an impact on your life. They have a decision on properly funding schools, the universities, of course, all of those measures that we’ve taken, cancelling 20% of student debt that helped 3 million Australians by an average of $5,500 each. The work that we’re doing on housing is about young people. It’s about saying, you know, that, you know, I was able to get into home ownership in my. In my 20s and talking and engaging with young people. That feedback must be said with the support of their parents and grandparents who just say, you know, my little Mary or little Ben has given up on getting into a home. We need to be really conscious about intergenerational equity for you and the sort of society that we want. And politics could sometimes be, you know, difficult for people, and people don’t want to pay attention, I get that, because they’re busy with their lives. But it has an impact, you know, if you get sick, whether the hospital is able to look after you, whether you can go into a Medicare urgent care clinic. The work that we’re doing on mental health, you know, the spike in youth mental health issues is, you know, huge, and we’re providing more resources for that, but also trying to tackle some of those debates about, you know, why is this happening? You know, what. What is it that that’s occurring in. But I. The young people I meet as well, and, you know, there’s a distortion because by definition, the people who are in this building or. Or who I engage with are really interested in the state of the world, and that’s a fantastic thing. So, we need to reach out. One of the things that we’ve done Is, you know, we’ve got a youth minister, we’ve set up an Office of Youth Affairs. That wasn’t there. It wasn’t there in the former government had been gotten rid of. You know, one of my first engagements in politics was I was president of Young Labor during International youth year of 1985. Just to give away my age. And I was really. I was a tiny little kid, you know, we. We made part of what I was able to achieve, practical change. Went along a national conference, Bob Hawke And people didn’t realise how much it was going to cost over the years. But I got what was Double J in Sydney, National Youth Network. Triple J came from grassroots in order to have that engaged. But they play an important role in promoting debate and giving young people access to those big national questions as well, and has been really important. So, how do we do that? How do we train young people as well for the jobs of the future? What we’re talking about, you know, we created Jobs and Skills Australia, that its job is to identify what are the jobs Australia needs in 5, 10, 20 years time to provide the training for that 750,000 free TAFE. Places, you know, are making an enormous difference, all of these things. Often young people have been, I think, not given enough consideration. I think there is, you know, some justifiable tension there about, you know, boomers and, you know, what they’ve had access to. You know, I have people say you got a free education, you got, thanks to Gough, you got all these things. You know, we’re struggling with the challenges before us, so continued engagement and, you know, one of the fantastic things that happened on May 3, 2025, was Charlotte Walker getting elected to the senate on her 21st birthday. And she’s nailing it over there. She is bringing energy and enthusiasm and that voice of young people directly to the heart of our government. And that’s a great thing.
CROUCHER: If they don’t give you a seat at the table, make sure you bring a folding chair, as Shirley Chisholm used to say. Prime Minister, that’s all you have time for. Thank you for this morning.
PRIME MINISTER: Thank you. Thanks very much.
