E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

HONG KONG

FRIDAY, 27 OCTOBER 2017

SUBJECT/S: High Court decision; Labor’s plan for engagement in Asia.

BILL SHORTEN, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: We've got time for a couple of quick questions.

JOURNALIST: Yes, thank you very much for your time. Now that the Australian Deputy PM has been disqualified by the Australian court and since the Government lost a majority in the Parliament, what do you think about that?

SHORTEN: Australia now has a hung parliament with a minority government because Barnaby Joyce broke the law. It's not good enough. Turnbull should have acted on this long before now.

JOURNALIST: How does that affect Australian politics?

SHORTEN: Because Barnaby Joyce breached the Australian Constitution and Turnbull didn't have a problem with it, we've seen penalty rate cuts being pushed through parliament, we've seen a banking royal commission stopped and we haven’t seen export controls on gas supplies which has denied lower gas prices for Australian companies and families, all because Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce wouldn't admit what they had done wrong - which is he breached the Australian Constitution.

JOURNALIST: Yes, so could you please share a little bit of comment about the business ties between Australia and Hong Kong, and which industries (inaudible).

SHORTEN: It's a great privilege for me to be part of the celebrations of 30 years of AustCham. Hong Kong is the place in the world where we have more Australians doing business in Asia than anywhere else. 

My words tonight are saying that a future Labor Government if elected, will help ensure that we change the national mind-set about engagement with Asia. There's no doubt in my mind that Australia's economic future lies in the growth of the prosperity of Asia and Australia needs to be engaged. We've got to stop relying just on our minerals and our commodities, we've got to move up the value chain in terms of education, training, advanced manufacturing, architecture and engineering. 

There is a lot of good work which can be done by deepening our ties in Asia. For a future Labor Government, Asia is the main game.

Thanks very much you.

ENDS