Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister
SAM LIM, MEMBER FOR TANGNEY: Good morning, everyone, and thanks for coming. Looks like the rain is not stopping anyone, good on you. My name is Sam Lim, I’m the Federal MP for Tangney. I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of this land paying my respect to the elders past, present and emerging. And I would like to introduce my good colleague, my mentor, the Member of Parliament for Perth and also Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Mr Patrick Gorman.
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Thank you very much, Sam. It is great to be here with my friend, the member for Tangney to make this important announcement. Sam is someone who has given so much to our community and to Australia before he entered into Parliament, and it’s so good to now join with him sitting in the Parliament of Australia so he can represent the good people of the electorate of Tangney. So fortunate to have you with us in the Parliament and so fortunate to have you here today in your electorate at the Aviation Heritage Museum. And I would like to start by also thanking the volunteers of the Aviation Heritage Museum for enabling us to do this important launch alongside the Army, Navy and Air Force cadets who have joined us and students from All Saints College. We’ve brought all of these people together today to launch the new package of Australian flags and symbols booklets, and the materials that are being sent to every school in Australia. This is about teaching parts of our national story to our youngest Australians. It’s about sharing the stories of Australia. What we know is that the stories of our flags and our national symbols tell so much about our history, but also about where we’re going. If you think of the Aboriginal flag and, a flag that’s now been in existence for 51 years, it’s a powerful reminder alongside the Torres Strait Islander flag of the unfinished business of constitutional recognition and voice for our First Nations people. If you think about the Australian flag, it has a powerful story about democracy and about people being how to engage in how we build this nation. Indeed, it was the flag chosen through a design competition which was in part won by a Western Australian, Annie Dorrington. And these materials are being sent to every school in Australia. Every Catholic school, every independent school and every government school, so that the teachers of Australia can access these resources available for students in years three through to eight, to help them share the story of Australia and help them to deliver on the national curriculum. We’ve sent that schools. We are also sending it to every member of Parliament so that constituents can access these resources from their federal member so that we can continue to share these stories. There is so much within this booklet, the Australian Flags booklet, about not just the Australian flag, which we celebrate today on Australian National Flag Day, but the Aboriginal flag, the Torres Strait Islander flag, the state flags, some of the interesting history about their design and also how that integrates with this unfinished nation building project of Australia. I’m proud to be part of a government that recognises that these flags remind us that we have more work to do. Some of that work is in delivering on the Uluru Statement from the Heart. That’s work that I’m excited about and it’s work that we can continue to do together by bringing people together, just like we saw at the Job Summit over the last two days. When governments bring people together we get really big nation building things done. That’s what’s important to me. That’s what’s important to Sam. Over to you.
REPORTER: Why have these new resources been released?
GORMAN: These have not been updated substantially since 2006. Since that time, we have had the Australian Government gain the copyrights of the Aboriginal flag. We have a range of other moments that are important in terms of noting the story of our flags. The old materials were beautiful and I commend how they served our country for a long time. But we saw that with the updated national curriculum. There was also an opportunity to share new resources to help teachers and help students to be able to fulfil the obligations and expectations of their students and parents around sharing the story of our national flags and national symbols. We’ve also seen over recent times people engage quite a bit in flag protocol. When we started flying the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags on the floor of Parliament and indeed behind the Prime Minister, people found that they had a lot of interest in the order in which flags fly, the height of which they fly, why they might fly together and in which order. This booklet answers all of those questions. So, I think there’s always that there’s never a bad time to be a proud Australian. That’s never a bad time to share our history. And this is just a great day on Australian National Flag Day, the 3rd of September, to share some of these stories and launch these games here that have been a long time in the making. And I commend the officers of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet for their work.
REPORTER: You touched on the Jobs Summit. There’s broad consensus at that summit for the Government to increase paid parental leave to 26 weeks. Why isn’t the Government considering that?
GORMAN: We hear the message from civil society, business groups and representatives around the importance of paid parental leave. We recognise that there are lots of good ideas that will help grow our economy and build a fairer society. Unfortunately, with $1,000,000,000,000 of debt left by the previous government, not every good idea can be actioned immediately. But I would note also that paid parental leave is a really proud achievement of a Labor Government. It’s something that happened under the Rudd and Gillard Government. It’s something that’s enabled families to not have to make really difficult financial decisions to support parents and have that time with their newborns. It’s a really great achievement. Paid parental leave is something that every Australian can now access if they’re working because of a previous Labor Government. But unfortunately, because of the trillion dollars of debt, it’s not something we can prioritise at this point in time.
REPORTER: The Summit also heard about the economic benefits of increasing paid parental leave. Isn’t that a good reason to give it some more consideration?
GORMAN: What’s been great about the summit, the Jobs and Skills Summit hosted by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, was that every idea was able to be on the table. We didn’t walk into that summit ruling out everything and having a narrow band of conversation. And I commend the Prime Minister and the Treasurer for that. I also commend the work that business, civil society and other organisations did in the lead up to that summit. But as worthy as some of these ideas are, we recognise that not every idea can be funded in the immediate term. We do also note though that for people who have seen the summit and might have other ideas or other places, they want to contribute to the employment and economic discussion, we’ll be soon opening submissions to the Employment White Paper. That Employment White Paper with give more businesses, civil society groups and community groups and unions the opportunity to put more ideas on the table and also to maybe give us their sense of priorities about where we should go next.
REPORTER: As a father, what would have been the benefits for your family if paid parental leave was extended?
GORMAN: Well, obviously the Australian Government has a paid parental leave policy that provides a baseline. Many employers provide on top of that. And that’s something that I always have encouraged and hopefully, as we say, new rounds of bargaining, more and more employers will add on top of that baseline government scheme. I took parental leave for my two children. When Leo was born, I took parental leave. When Ruby was born, I took parental leave. Parents being able to spend time with their children in those early weeks of their children’s life is really important, and every family deals with that differently. I think that’s the other thing that we’ve continued to acknowledge as we improve and amend the scheme so that parents can share those parenting responsibilities in those early weeks. But again, paid parental leave is a proud Labor achievement. It’s something that Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Jenny Macklin delivered. And indeed Anthony Albanese, when he was then Leader of the House, delivered for the people of Australia. It’s something we incredibly proud of. It’s a really valuable thing for parents and our immediate priority when it comes to helping working parents is of course getting our childcare changes implemented. That will make it easier for working families to do that next step, which is to get back into the workforce and ensure their children have access to high quality early childhood education in care. Thank you very much
