E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
MELBOURNE
FRIDAY, 5 OCTOBER 2018

SUBJECTS: Labor’s National Preschool and Kindy Program; Labor's plan for TAFE; Stuart Robert’s $2000 a month taxpayer funded internet bill

JENNIFER YANG, CANDIDATE FOR CHISHOLM: Good morning everyone. My name is Jennifer Yang, Labor's candidate for Chisholm. Today, I am very pleased to welcome Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition and Amanda Rishworth, the Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Development, to visit Deakin and Community Childcare here in Chisholm. Yesterday, Bill Shorten announced the biggest ever investment in early childhood education in Australia. Today, I am very excited to welcome them to visit childcare in Chisholm. For many families in Chisholm, early childhood education and education is very dear to their heart. So now I would like to pass on to Bill to talk more about this important policy.
 
BILL SHORTEN, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Thanks, Jennifer. That was Jennifer Yang, Labor's candidate for Chisholm and for the record, the only candidate so far for Chisholm. 
 
It's great to be here with Amanda Rishworth following up our exciting announcement from yesterday where we've promised Australian families that if Labor is elected, we will provide universal access to preschool for all three and four year olds in Australia. This is a game changer in early childhood education, it's a vision which says that if we invest in our children, then we will see the benefits for the next generation. It's one of the reasons why I want to be Prime Minister, to make sure that we hand on a better deal to the next generation than the one we received. 
 
Now today, we are following up that important announcement with a complementary proposition which will say, we will provide and pay for the upfront fees for 10,000 early childhood educators at TAFE.
 
Now this is important because as more children go through the early childhood education system, we're going to need more people trained and qualified to do the work. Our existing early childhood educators aren't paid as well as they should be and we'll have more to say about that in the future. They're qualified, they're skilled, and they look after the most precious things in our lives, our kids.
 
And today, we're outlining new career paths and new financial support for people who want to join this important and growing industry, early childhood education. Up the road here at Box Hill TAFE, a diploma in early childhood education, the upfront fees are about $5,300. So the effect of our policy today is that someone can look at doing a diploma in early childhood at TAFE and we will pay the first $5,300, the upfront fees, of that important qualification. We're doing this because we want to make sure that as provide universal access to all three and four year olds to preschool that we've got the skilled workforce ready to do this important work. 
 
I'm pleased to say that as part of these 10,000 places, we'll be providing for 200 specific positions for Indigenous students. We think it's really important that our First Australians get the chance to get the qualifications to care for other First Australian kids and indeed all kids. 
 
This is also complementary to our policy of uncapping university places. In the next ten years, if we are elected and given the privilege to govern in Australia, we have said, Tanya Plibersek in particular, my deputy, has spelled out that we will uncap university places which will mean in the next ten years, 200,000 extra students. Some of those will clearly be early childhood educators.
 
Labor has got a plan for the next generation of Australians. We've got a plan to help with the cost of preschool; as Premier Daniel Andrews said yesterday, the effect of our preschool policy will mean that for parents choosing to send their children to three year old preschool, it's going to save them about $3,500. And today, we are investing in the education and qualification of our workforce.
 
Now I did say in Budget Reply that we would provide 100,000 places so what today effectively means is that we're placing 10,000 of those and quarantining them for early childhood education.
 
I'm really pleased that we are able to do this and I'd like my spokesperson on early childhood education, Amanda Rishworth, to talk a little bit more about yesterday's announcement and of course today's.
 
AMANDA RISHWORTH, SHADOW MINISTER FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: Thank you, Bill. It's great to be here today. Just before, we got to see some early learning in action. We visited the kindy room where we saw young people getting the opportunity to learn and highly skilled educators teaching them. We want to make this opportunity available to more children and that is why our game changing policy yesterday announced that we would lock in permanent funding for four year olds so that every child across Australia gets the opportunity for a four year old preschool education. But we want to go further, and that is why we have locked in three year old preschool as well. 
 
The first two years before school, so much learning can take place. Children that get that investment do better when it comes to school, when it comes to NAPLAN testing and even graduating year 12. This is about investing in our young people and that is what Labor's plan is all about. Of course it has so many benefits, as Bill described, the benefits are for parents; affordability and access for parents. And of course it's good to for the economy as well; a conservative estimate suggests for every dollar invested, you get a two dollar return and that is conservative estimates. But most importantly, it's good for our children, our children getting the best start to life is a good investment. 
 
Now of course the policy here today is saying that if we are going to invest in our children, we also need to invest in the workforce that supports them and that is why this announcement is so important. What we're announcing is ensuring that those that want to pursue a career in early education won't have fees as a barrier. Passion is the key ingredient and then the knowledge and the skills for making sure that early educators are right for the job. We don't want costs to be a barrier for them and so that is why this announcement is so critical today, that we are preparing a workforce that will take on this important role of educating our young ones. 
 
Now our policy has been widely welcomed. I have been heartened that parents across this country, educators across this country, peak bodies when it comes to childcare and early education, have welcomed this announcement. In fact it's hard to find anyone that hasn't welcomed this announcement. But there is one, there is one group of people that have not welcomed this announcement and that is Scott Morrison and the Liberal Party. They have naysayed this policy because they have no vision for this country. They do not see the benefit of investing in young people and that is why, as we move towards an election, you could not get a starker difference. You have Bill Shorten and Labor that are providing a vision for this country, thinking about the future and thinking about where this country will be, not just in the short-term but in ten and twenty years’ time. 
 
And then you've got the Liberal Party are navel gazing. They have no vision, no plans and no idea about where they want to take this country. So this contrast could not be starker and that is why I'm so proud to be standing here with Bill and with Jennifer, saying that we believe that young people are worth investing in, we believe young people are worth ensuring they get a good opportunity in life, every opportunity in life, and that's why we are so proud of yesterday's announcement but today's announcement is critical to complementing that.
 
SHORTEN: Thanks, Amanda. Any questions? 
 
JOURNALIST: Is 10,000 free TAFE courses enough for early education?
 
SHORTEN: I think we are going to need more workers than just 10,000 places but what Labor is doing, is we're being prudential. In other words we said back in May that we would pay the upfront fees in our first term for 100,000 TAFE students. What we said, and because we'd already had that policy and having announced yesterday universal access for all three and four year olds to preschool, is that we're now able because of the homework we did back in May, to allocate 10,000 of these places. I think it's a good start but I would also make the point that it's not just TAFE which is involved in early childhood educators’ development, it is also university. And Labor has already announced that by uncapping places to go to university, there will be an extra 200,000 places for all sorts of degrees in the next 10 years. That will obviously provide greater opportunity for people to do early childhood education qualifications at university. For us, it all fits together; let's invest in our kids, let's make sure that we are training the workforce of tomorrow. 
 
JOURNALIST: How much will it cost to pay these fees for the students?
 
SHORTEN: We've already budgeted it in May in our Budget Reply as part of the 100,000 so this is not a new cost. 
 
JOURNALIST: Does Labor have any evidence that decreasing or paying students’ contributions will increase the demand for this particular course?
 
SHORTEN: We think the demand is there and what we want to do is to help encourage people with the cost of going to TAFE. TAFE is a marvellous institution. TAFE is, I think one of the engine rooms of the jobs of the future. TAFE is quite good at educating people quite quickly, the beauty of TAFE also is that it gives people an opportunity to retrain from one career into another, for mums for returning after maternity leave to try a new career. So we think TAFE is very important, that is why we have said that we will put two in every three dollars of vocational education money back into TAFE.
 
We think the privatisation of TAFE has gone too far, the pendulum of privatisation hasn't worked, it's swung too far to privatisation and a Labor Government will reverse that and put public TAFE at the centre of all of our economic policies. 
 
JOURNALIST: Labor had a similar policy when it was last in government to pay some of the student contribution fees for statistics, maths and science but it was scrapped because it wasn't having a great increase in the student demand in these courses. Is there a reason that would be different for early childcare education?
 
SHORTEN: Well the demand for early childcare educators is going to grow and it's in part going to grow because a Labor Government will invest in the education of our kids. I've noticed a few negative comments from the Liberals. I say to the parents of Australia, the Liberals see your child's education as a cost, I see your child's education as an investment. 
 
JOURNALIST: Obviously with more childhood educators you try and get it, pay would be an issue for them. Does this funding package actually factor in pay increases for early childhood staff?
 
SHORTEN: So far we've announced that we would put - make it available, universal access to preschool for all three and four year olds, that's best practice around the world, it's what all the experts have said and families will welcome the assistance with the cost of sending their kids to preschool. Today, next step in the program, we've said that we'll allocate 10,000 places in TAFE from 100,000 TAFE places that we've already said that we want to commit to in our first term, specially for childhood education. 
 
We're also reminding people that because of Labor's pro university policy, pro giving students a chance to go to university and TAFE, there'll be 200,000 places across the next ten years.
 
We will have more to say though on the important issue which you raise which is the equal pay for early childhood educators. 
 
Now, we're working on that right now, the fact of the matter is though that early childhood educator are the first adults that families trust with their kids outside of the family unit. They're qualified, they're compassionate, they're empathetic but it also happens to be an industry where they're predominately female - it's a feminised workforce. 
 
I really believe in Australia that in feminised workforces wages are lower than they otherwise would be if there were a lot more men working in that industry, I don't think it's fair. So I make no apology for being a champion for the equal pay of women in this country, so we will have more to say about a better pay deal for early childhood educators. 

I mean the reality is that under the Liberals, they have no wages policy and they seem to have a women problem as well in terms of picking women candidates for example. What I will do is make sure that we have a wages policy which respects and values the work of our early childhood educators.
 
JOURNALIST: When will this policy actually be announced though?
 
SHORTEN: We'll do it soon enough, I mean let's be fair Mr Morrison has been in the job five weeks as Prime Minister but he was Treasurer for three years. He's the one who has authorised all of the cuts to education and to hospitals. I mean Labor is leading on the policy front. We've got a vision - not just for the next opinion poll - we've got a vision for the next generation. It's why Labor wants to form a government, we want to hand on a better deal to our Australians than the one we inherited. 
 
So we've outlined a plan which the benefits of will be seen in twelve and fifteen and twenty years’ time when our kids get the universal access, they get the preschool at three and four, what that will make the benefit of is when they're adults, so this is a long-term plan. Where ever I go in Australia a lot of Australians say, ‘Bill politics is just too negative where is the vision?’ Well you'll be hearing a lot more about our vision, our fair go for Australia but certainly, we think that our preschoolers deserve courage from the Government just as their parents do.
 
We want to invest in the children of Australia and the families of Australia, I invite Mr Morrison to take up our ideas. 
 
JOURNALIST: Did you consult with any of the states in regards to the preschool plan?
 
SHORTEN: We've had discussions with lots of people including states, we've had lots of discussions with the experts. For me, the way I approach an issue is I say, what's in the long term national interest of the nation? What's in the best interest of families and kids?
 
I always ask myself, what is the best deal we can hand on to the future? I think that giving our kids 15 years of education and learning is a very good deal. I mean I put this reform something similar to the debates when the leaving age of school was increased, I believe the more chance that kids have, especially little kids, have to have to be in a learning environment I think that they just do better at school, all the science proves that. 
 
Did you know that a child's brain is 90 per cent formed by the time they're five, so three and four is a very important age to start acquiring some of those base skills which will then help you when you go to formal schooling.
 
JOURNALIST: Which schools and territories did you actually consult with though?
 
SHORTEN: Oh we consulted with plenty of people and do you know what's been really good? Has been the reaction, I might get Amanda to talk a bit further about this.
 
RISHWORTH: Well firstly, of course yesterday we saw Queensland welcome this announcement, Victoria welcome this announcement, the ACT is already moving to three year olds. For the Government to pretend that three year old preschool was a new idea, well it just shows how out of touch they actually are. But when it comes to the wide endorsement for our policy, I can't find a peak early education organisation that has not come out and endorsed our policy.
 
Whether it is childcare centres, whether it is early learning centres, whether it's stand alone kindergartens, whether it's states and territories, whether it's parents organisations, whether it's unions, we have broad support. This is not a new concept, we've seen it come out from time to time, it's been discussed at COAG, indeed Victoria led the way with commissioning the 'Lifting our Game' report. It's disappointing that the Government hasn't looked at that report and taken those ideas on board. So this is an important concept, it’s been discussed for a long time but it's only Labor that has decided to take charge and lead the way on three year old preschool and that is what we're discussing today.
 
JOURNALIST: On a separate topic Mr Shorten, in regards to - how much money do you spend on your own home internet?
 
SHORTEN: When I checked my most recent reports it's about a hundred dollars a month. 
 
JOURNALIST: What are your thoughts on Stuart Robert spending around $2000 a month?
 
SHORTEN: Well, listen I'll leave it to others to analyse if that's within the realms of reasonableness, but there's no doubt that Stuart Robert is a very controversial figure and that controversy seems to follow him. I understand that he was Scott Morrison's numbers man, helping Scott Morrison get the top job, so I think this is one for the Liberals to talk about and again, I can't help wondering if there's a bit of Liberal infighting with some of these reports emerging and you know, I just want the Liberals to get on with their day job which is governing Australia. 
 
Going back to that earlier question you asked about early childhood education, why do we want to give our kids the second best outcome? Why do we want to give their parents the second best outcome? Why do the Government want to give a second best outcome to Australia? All around the world nations are moving to making universal access for three and four year olds in preschool. I just want the best for Australia, this is the best policy, that's why we're doing it.
 
JOURNALIST: And I've got a question for Ms Yang, if I could please. Ms Yang in 2016 you were contesting the seat among the party and at that point you lost to Stephanie Perri to contest. You had found $500,000 towards your own campaign though, this time around can we see any money from you towards your own campaign?
 
YANG: Back then I think that was a commitment for the preselection contest. So I mean, unfortunately I lost to my colleague Stephanie Perri but she is a very formidable candidate for the Labor Party, she's a great friend of mine and this is a democracy contest within the Party and I of course, I accept the outcome because I didn't get preselected so I didn't need to go ahead with such funding.
 
JOURNALIST: Yes that is correct but will you consider - 
 
SHORTEN: If I could just assist here, questions on fundraising are best addressed to party officials. What I will say about Jennifer Yang though, is she's been successfully elected as a Mayor of a local council here, she ran in the recent Melbourne City Council elections at relatively short notice and she got 47 per cent of the two party vote in terms of running for the Mayor of Melbourne. She's very qualified, she is an immigrant success story, came here, studied here, qualified here, raising a family here. 

I'm really pleased that that Labor Party at the next election, if we're successful, will probably have about 50 per cent of our MPs, if we form a government, will be women and I would just, you know encourage the Liberal Party - maybe you want to have a look at some quotas as well because currently, when you look at the Government they - I can't believe if they preselect on merit why they think that 80 per cent of the merit belongs to blokes. 
 
Any last question? Great, thanks very much, cheers. 

ENDS