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TONY JONES: Good evening and welcome to Q&A. I am Tony Jones. Answering your questions tonight: the Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Please welcome our guest. Thank you. And we have had Prime Ministers on Q&A before, of course, but tonight, for the first time, a very special audience: 280 high school students from 42 different schools have come together to ask the questions. You can please give yourselves a huge round of applause just for being here.
As usual, we are being simulcast on ABC News 24 and news radio and you can join the Twitter conversation with the #qanda hashtag. Well, experience has shown us that young Q&A audiences ask questions just as incisive and difficult as any adult. Tonight, we have been overwhelmed with an enormous number of wonderful questions. The Prime Minister has agreed to keep her answers concise and to the point to get through as many of them as possible. Let's go straight to our first question from Jay Dent from Scots College in Sydney.
FIRST INDIGENOUS PM00:01:34
JAY DENT: As Australia's first female Prime Minister, you have inspired many but as an Aboriginal young man, what advice can you give me so I can follow in your groundbreaking footsteps and become Australia's first indigenous Prime Minister?
JULIA GILLARD: Great question. Great question. I think the best advice I could give to anyone is don't believe in any stereotypes that limit yourself and what you can do and, two, if you aspire to go into politics, find the thing that you're really passionate about because it’s a fairly difficult life. It has got its ups and downs but if there is that, you know, big thing that you want to achieve that keeps you going - for me it was about education and opportunity - if you can find that then that will sustain you through. But I am really glad to hear that you have got that aspiration for your life. That’s fantastic.
TONY JONES: The conservatives beat you to the punch here with Adam Giles being Australia’s first indigenous head of Government. Labor's record on this hasn't been great has it?
JULIA GILLARD: No, it hasn't to be absolutely frank and I have sought to change that for the Federal Parliament by preselecting Nova Peris for the Northern Territory for the forthcoming election. So that’s still up to the people of the Northern Territory to go and vote for the Senate but if they vote in the way they have in the past they’re likely to return one Labor Senator, one CLP Senator and so that will be the first indigenous woman to sit in the Federal Parliament, which I think is a very exciting thing.
TONY JONES: Okay. The next question comes from Ruby O’Loughlin of Glenunga International High School in South Australia.
SEXISM AT SCHOOL/IN POLITICS00:03:04
RUBY O’LOUGHLIN: Hello. I’m here with the prefects of Glenunga International, most of whom are female. Being young female leaders in a high school environment, we feel we haven’t been treated differently based on our gender, but from what we see in the media it seems inevitable that if we were to pursue a leadership career, especially in politics, sexism is something that we would face. How have you dealt with your representation in the media in the past? And do you believe you have had to compromise yourself as a woman, even emasculate yourself, to keep ahead in a male dominated system? And how do we encourage the next generations women into politics, where women are faced with sexism every day in every way?
JULIA GILLARD: That’s a great question too. I am actually a real optimist about women's roles and women’s leadership and though I think I have had to face a few things as Prime Minister, what I have had to face has been less than the women who have gone before, the women who were the first Premiers, for example. And for women that come after me whatever, you know, burden comes with being the first, in terms of changing peoples' attitudes, that burden will be well and truly gone. So by the time you are aspiring to have this job or be a cabinet minister or whatever other sort of leadership role you want, I actually think we will live in an age where it is very routine for women to lead and the more routine it becomes, the less focus there will be on some of the sillier stuff and the more focus there will be on the real stuff. For me, I do get frustrated by the kind of endless discussions of what you're wearing and whether you have stepped out of your shoe today and whether or not people like how your hair is now and all of that kind of stuff. I think all of that will fall away the more women who do it and I am incredibly confident that I will live to see a time when it is just so routine for a woman to be Prime Minister, then a man, then a woman, that people don't even comment anymore, they don't keep count of how many women there have been. It is just, you know, ordinary and I want to see that time. I want it to be ordinary. I want it to be routine.
TONY JONES: Is Ruby right at all that you have had to behave more like a man to get ahead in a man's world?
JULIA GILLARD: I wouldn’t say...
TONY JONES: I’m not saying it is a man's world but in a world dominated by men largely, politics?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, “a man’s world”, “a world dominated by men.” I wouldn't say that. But what I would say is I came to the parliament, which is a very adversarial forum, you know, as someone who enjoyed that contest. You know, I like Question Time. I am, you know, the sort of person who likes to have a feisty go. I don't mind having an argument. I did school debating. Yes, I know, nerdy but I did do school debating and so I came to what was an adversarial chamber thinking what I want to do here as a woman is show that a woman can dominate in an adversarial place. I didn't set myself the goal of making it a less adversarial place.
TONY JONES: Dominate?
JULIA GILLARD: Maybe other women would have but, you know, for me it’s about it’s a hard clash of ideas and you have got to be as hard as the clash demands.
TONY JONES: Dominate?
JULIA GILLARD: Dominate.
TONY JONES: Tough word.
JULIA GILLARD: What do you mean?
TONY JONES: Well, I mean, you felt you had to dominate when you arrived there. Is that right?
JULIA GILLARD: No. I mean the theatre of parliament, I mean in Question Time, it is a performance and it is theatrical and you are trying to project ideas and values and things you believe in but there is a physicality to it. There’s a dominance of the space that you have got to engage in otherwise people like you on Lateline that night say, “Oh, pathetic performance by the PM in Question Time,” as opposed to, you know, “She fired up today and had a red hot go.” And I would rather that you said the second.
TONY JONES: That’s a fair cop, gov’. Next question is from Bethany Pankhurst of Georges River College in Oatley, New South Wales.
RAPE CULTURE & GIRLS00:06:50
BETHANY PANKHURST: Hello. Girls are taught that it is their job to prevent being sexually assaulted: don’t get drunk, don’t wear short skirts, don’t go out late at night by ourselves and if we do it’s our fault and we must internalise blame. Why have we not created awareness of what rape culture has actually become and taught the respect in school needed in the real world?
JULIA GILLARD: That’s a good question too and I profoundly believe that wherever you go, whatever you do, sexual assault is violence, it’s assault, it’s a great indignity against a woman and it is never a woman's fault. So any of the, you know, commonly held views that it is about behaviour or having had a drink or wearing a short skirt or whatever, none of that ever excuses violence against women and we can't let anything be a ‘get out of the responsibility card’ to say that it excuses violence against women. Now, that doesn't mean that, you know, when you don't take sensible precautions in the same way that, you know, you take sensible precautions against other things. So, you know, we want to try and keep ourselves safe. There is a reason that we don't necessarily going sauntering down streets in the middle of the night. I think that is true for boys and girls, for men and women. There are just some sensible things you can do. In terms of talking about violence against women and teaching about violence against women, if that is not discussed in your school at your age, then I think it should be. I think we should be very open about the unacceptable level of violence against women in our society and the unacceptable level of violence against women in so many societies around the world. I mean, we’ve still got problems and challenges but if we look at our near neighbours, you know, PNG, many of the islands of the Pacific, many of the countries in which we do aid and development work, the violence against women there is truly staggering and we’ll never make the next step forward to try and get rid of violence against women unless we're very vocal about it and that is both women and girls being vocal about it but men and boys being vocal about it too. And one of the great developments of the last few years, I think, has been things like White Ribbon Day, where men come forward and take a pledge and say in their own lives that they will actively discourage attitudes that say it is somehow all right to exhibit physical violence towards a woman.
TONY JONES: Okay. Let's move on. We’ve got quite a lot of questions to get to. Our next one is from Sali Miftari of Balwyn High School in Victoria.
POLITICS AND YOUTH00:09:32
SALI MIFTARI: Myself and my three friends here tonight are perhaps some of the few people in our age group who take an interest in politics and government. This is scary, as we're on the cusp of adulthood and will eventually leaders of this great country. With politicians and politics of today accused of being so uninspiring, do you worry about the quality of this country's future government?
JULIA GILLARD: No, I don't. I don’t worry about it in the broad because there will always be people of ideas who step up to contest in political life, in Federal Parliaments, in State Parliaments. I think sometimes there is romanticising about yesteryear. I mean people talk about the, you know, kind of push and shove that there is in politics today. This audience isn’t old enough to remember Paul Keating in his finest hours but he would make what looks in Question Time today look pretty mild in comparison to some of the behaviours that used to be routine in Federal Parliament.
TONY JONES: The funny thing is, though, in those days you didn't seem to get polls as you got this morning suggesting that an awful lot of voters are completely fed up with politics, disengaged with it, bored by it and are turning away, turning off?
JULIA GILLARD: Yeah. And that does concern me. I mean I am not saying that there are no issues to address am not saying that there are no issues to address but your question was: ‘Do I worry about, you know, the long term future leadership of the country? No. I get to go to a lot of schools. I get to meet a lot of you people and I am absolutely confident my future, the nation's future is safe in their hands. I think we are raising a tremendous generation in this country. So that is enough for me to be confident about the future. In terms of, you know, sort of what happens, the mechanics of politics, I think it’s harder with the quickness of the media cycle, the immediacy of it, to sustain some of the deeper debates that people want to see us have and I think that does frustrate people and I’d like to find some better ways of doing that. I think our whole nation would rather than some of the really quick turnarounds and the, you know, kind of conflict-driven media cycle and that’s a challenge for all of us as we adapt to this new information environment.
TONY JONES: A quick correction, Sali was from Balwyn High not Balwyn. Our next question is from Lachlan MacWilliam of Dickson College in the ACT.
THE VOTING AGE00:11:49
LACHLAN MACWILLIAM: Currently the voting age is 18 in Australia; however, many people under the age of 18 have part-time jobs or an apprenticeship in which they are being taxed. Do you think these taxpayers under the age of 18 should be given the opportunity to vote in Federal and State elections?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, I suppose I could judge at the end of tonight, couldn't I, as to whether it is a good idea to put the voting age down? I might have to take that question on notice. That’s what I’d say in my business.
TONY JONES: Don’t forget a lot of these guys will be voting in September.
JULIA GILLARD: Absolutely. And one of the things we do do is we get out there with the Australian Electoral Commission and make sure that people enrol to vote because too many kids just let the 18th birthday drift by and didn't enrol. So if you haven't enrolled, you can enrol beforehand and make sure that you're on the rolls and that is great thing to do. In terms of dropping the voting age, I mean to be frank I am not sure. I am not ruling the idea out. I think it would require a lot of discussion. I think if you are going to do it though, you have got to do it on the basis that it is compulsory, not an opt-in system if you're interested. I am a huge advocate of compulsory voting. I think it makes our politics about the mainstream and that is a good thing. And when you look at America, for example, and see them wrestling with things like gun laws, I actually think that’s - you know, voluntary voting, politics becomes about the views of motivated minorities instead of the mainstream and so something like the gun lobby has a really disproportionate say. So I would be open to it, open to the discussion but for me, if we change the age and put it down, then it would have to be for everyone. It would have to be a compulsory voting system.
TONY JONES: There you go, Lachlan. You have got the Prime Minister not ruling out lowering the voting age. That should make a headline if everything goes true to form. The next question is from Amber Kukas of Northmead Creative and Performing Arts High School in New South Wales.
WILL WE PAY YOUR DEBT?00:13:44
AMBER KUKAS: Hello. Before the Labor Government was elected, there was a major surplus of funding and after spending the money on numerous projects we are now in deficit for an ample amount of money. My question is: what affect will this have on our generation given that we will be facing higher taxes and levies to pay off this debt from the Government?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, my all up message will be you can relax a bit about that. To explain what has happened with the Federal Budget and unfortunately bits of it are complicated, Federal Budget, same as a household budget in some ways: money in, money out. The money that comes in comes through taxes, taxes that people who are working pay, taxes that companies pay, some taxes we get on things like capital gains and some other sources but they’re the big sources. As a result of the global financial crisis and what we have seen economically since, the amount particularly of company tax coming into the Federal Government is a lot less and so I think whilst that has got a complicated economic explanation about the high dollar and the GFC, I think people kind of intuitively know that it’s been a pretty tough period for business and if it has been a tough period for business, that means they are making less money. If they are making less money they are paying less tax and that is less tax than we predicted. So overwhelmingly it’s less money coming in that has changed the Government's budget. Then, during the depths of the Global Financial Crisis we did spend money on stimulus projects to keep people in work, which was the right thing to do, otherwise we would have been in a recession with all of the consequences of that: people out of jobs, apprentices losing their apprenticeships and not having the skills for the future. Now, we have got to work our way back to a surplus and obviously pay off the debt but the scale of the debt is around 10% of GDP. What does that mean? It is the same as someone who earns $100,000 a year having a mortgage of $10,000. And I think most of you would know, you’re probably living in homes mum and dad are buying, that they have got mortgages well in excess of $10,000 and they’d happily change places with someone whose mortgage was just 10% of their income.
TONY JONES: I have just got to pull you up there. I mean your first message was relax. We had to break our promise on the surplus but relax. Is that what you're telling Wayne Swan?
JULIA GILLARD: No, I never say relax to Wayne Swan. Quite the reverse actually. No, poor old Swanny never gets to relax. No, my message was in terms of you worrying about this for your long term future, that is not something that you have to worry about for your long term future.
TONY JONES: We’ve got a hand up in the middle there. We’ll just take that.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: If less money is coming in, isn't that an even greater concern for us in the future?
JULIA GILLARD: No, because revenue, the amount of money coming into the Government, will return to something closer to historic norms. When we look at the amount of tax money that comes into the Government, there was a period in the early 2000s - 2002, 2003, 2004 - where the resources boom mark one was just, you know, washing money into the Government's coffers. We are not going to see that come back but we are going to see revenues from where they are now, which is very low by historic standards, return to historic standards.
TONY JONES: Okay. I’m sorry to cut you off but we have got another question on this topic and I’m going to go to it quickly. It’s from Katherine Spencer of Dickson College in the ACT.
ANOTHER LEVY?00:17:29
KATHERINE SPENCER: Prime Minister, a poll on the weekend showed that voters have strong support for the tax levy to pay for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and that voters are prepared to pay for a vision. Does this encourage you to raise taxes and other levies to pay for better services like education, health care and aged care?
JULIA GILLARD: We have always got to be very careful about how we put taxes on because tax brings money to the government but it also puts, you know, a burden somewhere else. Yes, I am asking people to pay an increased Medicare Levy so that we can have a better service for people with disabilities right around the country but I am really conscious that that is money that people otherwise would have had in their purses, their wallets, they would have spent on the things that they wanted, their family wanted. So you’ve got to be very cautious about these decisions.
TONY JONES: Okay. So the question is: are you prepared to do it again to fund some of your other big reforms, like Gonski and aged care reforms and so on?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, aged care we have already funded and we funded through savings. The school improvement school funding changes, the ones bearing David Gonski's name for leading our panel of experts, we have funded those through some of the savings measures we have announced, funded them over the Government's budget period. So we are not looking, for aged care or for the school funding reform work, at increasing a tax or putting a levy on. I am not here to announce, you know, the Federal Government's Budget and I’m really conscious...
TONY JONES: But you have already announced that you're prepared to look at all reasonable options. They are all on the table still are they? That means extra tax is still on the table or is that the only one you were prepared to do?
JULIA GILLARD: What it means is that people between now and budget night don't have to run around talking to each other about some of the nuttier things that have been floated since. We will be very prudent, very cautious with all of this, very responsible in the savings and very focused on making, you know, the big decisions that will really set our nation up for the future of which school funding, school improvement is one.
TONY JONES: Okay. There’s a young lady there with her hand up. I’ll just quickly go to you.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Australia is one of the few developed nations that didn't go into recession during the Global Financial Crisis and Labor's economic management has been renowned worldwide. Why do you think the message is so hard to get across inside the country?
JULIA GILLARD: I think that is a good question and I think people will all come up with their own analysis of it. One thing I don't think people, as they live their daily lives, really do a comparison: how am I living here compared with someone in the United States, compared with someone in Spain or the UK? Of course, our economy is doing a lot better than those economies. But I don't think that is how people live their lives. What they live their lives thinking about is the pressures on them and it, in many ways, hasn't been an easy period for families, even though we didn't have a recession and we didn't have hundreds of thousands of people out of work, people have still struggled with the anxiety of it. Many of them have seen their superannuation returns hit. Many of them had thought that their house price was just going to keep going up and up and up, only to find that that is not true and it is moderated in the amount that it’s worth. Many of them have felt real cost of living pressures, particularly as those big lumpy bills, things like electricity, have gone up a lot and so those things mean that day to day living does weigh on people and I think you see that in consumer confidence and a sense of anxiety about the future. What I can reassure people of though is global financial crisis we have come out of it strong and we have got a huge opportunity in front of us. You know, we are in the right part of the world as this region grows and your generation will be able to share the things that will come through that growth.
TONY JONES: The next question is from Maria Pham of Holy Spirit College in Wollongong New South Wales.
GONSKI DISADVANTAGES PRIVATE SCHOOL00:21:30
MARIA PHAM: Prime Minister, the Gonski report adopts a cultural left approach to school funding that discriminates against non-government schools instead of treating all students equally. The Gonski report is based on the assumption that Government schools need priority funding as supposedly they are the only schools open to all. What is ignored is the fact that Catholic and independent schools across Australia enrol about 36% of students and this figure rises to over more than 50% at years 11 and 12 in some areas. How do you justify a report that discriminates against those who parents choose Catholic and independent schools?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, I don't think, actually, the school funding work that we are doing in any way discriminates against any school, Catholic, independent or any other school. The essence of what David Gonski recommended and what we have picked up is that every school in the country, doesn't matter which school sector it is in, should have the resources in that school, a school resourcing standard, which means that that school has the resources it needs to teach the kids in the school and we know that if kids come to school from poorer backgrounds, then they need more resources devoted to their education to get a great result. If they come from non-English speaking backgrounds they need more. If they come to school with a disability they need more resources. Indigenous kids need more resources and then small and remote schools have greater fixed costs. So what David Gonski is saying and what we are now implementing is every school has available to it an amount per student and then there are loadings on top to recognise these factors. For Catholic and independent schools, there will still be a parental contribution and what the Government puts in is weighed against the parental contribution based on the socioeconomic status, the advantages of the parents whose kids go to that school. That is the same as the system is now. And for no school in the country - we have got 9,500 schools - no school in the country will be worse off than it would have been if the old system had continued and overwhelmingly schools will be better off.
TONY JONES: Okay. We’ve got another question from a different perspective. This one is from Jerelle Rizk of Leumeah High in New South Wales.
EDUCATION – GONSKI00:23:49
JERELLE RIZK: Good evening to both of you. Prime Minister, now that the Gonski reform has been approved, how can we guarantee that the reform will see public and private schools on the same playing field? We, as public schools, are lacking resources and we don't have computers that work. How can we compete against private schools that use iPads?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, that is a great question. It’s a great question but what I’d ask you to think about, and this is something I had to think about really deeply when I became Education Minister - 9,500 schools, you can't go and visit all of them. You would spend a lot of time doing that. So, as Education Minister, you want information about what schools have got what resources in them, what kinds of kids are they trying to teach, who is doing really well and who is doing badly teaching kids. You know, what are the outcomes in schools? No one in the nation had that information when I became Education Minister and I was told you that you’d bash your head against a brick wall and no one would ever have that information because States wouldn't give it to the Federal Government, independent schools and Catholic schools wouldn't give it to the Federal Government, it couldn't be done. But now, we did break through. We got all of that information, put it on My School and one things that really strikes you when you look at My School is you can't just stereotype schools and school systems. There is a lot of disadvantage in public schools. That’s absolutely true. There are also some public schools that have the resources that they need to teach the kids in those schools. There are independent and Catholic schools that teach a lot of disadvantaged kids. So out of that we don't put a label that says public or private. We say, actually, let's get the information. What does that school need? You know, let's put the label to one side. What does that school need.
TONY JONES: Can I just go back to Jerelle because what she seemed to be suggesting they need is working computers, among other things. Do you say your computers don't work?
JERELLE RiZK: Yes.
TONY JONES: Does that include the ones that were rolled out to you in the big national laptop roll out?
JERELLE RIZK: Yep.
TONY JONES: Why don’t they work?
JERELLE RIZK: Just some of them just get really broken easy and then when we have to put them into repairs it costs quite a lot of money for us and it also takes quite a while to get them back as well.
JULIA GILLARD: Well, I mean we certainly did turbo charge the number of computers that are out there. But, you know, the essence of your question is, you know, how can we guarantee people are being treated fairly? Well, that is actually what is driving this reform.
TONY JONES: Except there is a practical aspect of the question as well, which if they get rolled out computers and they don't have the money to repair them when they break down, that is fundamental flaw, isn't it?
JULIA GILLARD: Absolutely. Our school funding system is flawed. You won’t hear me defend the current school funding system. It is flawed. What we were able to do and what we have done is we’ve increased funding. We have had what call national partnership programs that have made big differences for some schools. More kids learning to read and write than used to, for example. But to cement that in so that it’s not just there when you're at school but when your children are at school, we have got to change the whole system for all time for generations and that’s the mission we are on now. Not here is four years of funding for the computers but how can we resource your school so that we know for the next 10, 15, 20 years it has got the resources it needs to get the equipment and teach the kids in your school so that they get a great education.
TONY JONES: Okay. All right. There’s more questions on this subject. This one is from Matthew Newman of St Francis Xavier College in Hamilton, New South Wales.
EDUCATION – MORE MONEY, LESS RESULTS00:27:29
MATTHEW NEWMAN: Over the past decade, Australia's performance in education has slipped and a number of school systems, particularly in Asia, have overtaken us, despite education spending over the same time period increasing in real terms by 44%. Under the current Labor Government we are paying more yet receiving less. How will the Gonski reforms for school funding be any different and actually achieve elevated educational results?
JULIA GILLARD: Great question and one I am really happy to answer because I have spent a lot of time thinking about this and focused on this. First, in terms of our schools’, you know, performance against the world, we don't want to talk ourselves up but we don't want to talk ourselves down. It is not that we have been going backwards in absolute terms. That is not true. We have been improving education but around the world there is a race on and it is true in our region. There is a race on. People are looking to improve their schools. So if we are improving steadily and they are improving quickly, they get in front of us. Four of the top five schooling systems in the world are in our region and they're not our schooling system and that worries me because it means, you know, people like the people I am looking out on in this audience now, boys and girls, young men and young women, are being let down by our schooling system but it worries me too as Prime Minister because we can't have a really strong economy in the future if people aren't getting a great education today because those jobs will be high skill, high wage. So we want to put more money in but we also want to tie it with new ways of working. We have worked in these national partnership schools I talked about before where we have brought more money, new ways of working and we can demonstrate to you and to everyone we have got results. Those kids are getting a better education and having done that and shown that in some schools, I now want to do it in all schools so that kids right around the country are getting that better education.
TONY JONES: Okay. There is another aspect to this. It’s another question from Jordan Schneider of Elizabeth Macarthur High in New South Wales.
GONSKI VS UNIVERSITIES00:29:34
JORDAN SCHNEIDER: Recently the Federal Government has announced $2.8 billion worth of cuts to tertiary education and self education to free up funds for Gonski school reforms. $1.2 billion of this is being saved by making students pay the money back they get from scholarships once they hit a certain earning threshold. This is utterly astounding. How can you justify taking funding from tertiary education on the grounds of helping high school students in the future?
JULIA GILLARD: Good question. I am glad you asked it. And I am glad you asked it because I actually first got involved in politics in a campaign about university funding so I’m kind of well aware of how potent these issues are for young people and I think it’s good that everybody wants to have the argument with me and I am happy to have the argument.
TONY JONES: So you’d be expecting new campaigns, people out on the streets from the universities campaigning against these cuts?
JULIA GILLARD: There have been days of actions at university and all of that and, look, I think that’s a good thing because I think any day we’re having a debate about the quality of our education system is a good day. Even if it’s a day on which people are telling me I haven't got the judgement call right, I think it is a good thing. On this judgement call, the judgment call I made was against a backdrop where we have increased funding to universities by more than 50%, can we, to fund school education better, can we not take money so that universities go backwards but universities that have gone up by more than 50%, that are looking forward to more funds, can we moderate the rate of growth in that funding? So it still grows but it doesn't grow as sharply. Should I take that decision? Shouldn't I take that decision? You probably have got a different view than me but I thought it was right when university funding was still going up to take that decision and to free that up for school education. And I in part thought that because money for universities is fantastic but the other thing that university needs, they need kids coming out of school, going into those universities ready to learn and the quality of school education matters to them. On students, what we have done is our start-up scholarship, so a lump sum that people get to help them set themselves up at uni, that money is now the same as HECS. So you pay it off over time as you earn. But we are still putting more into student income support, the week by week payments, than have ever been paid to students at university before. So, once again, if I was a student I can understand, you know, complaining about that but overall, given the objective, getting every child a great education, I thought it was fair.
TONY JONES: Okay. Keep your hand up in the front row there but we’ve got another question. It’s from Alex McKenzie of Oxley High School in Tamworth, New South Wales.
EDUCATION – CITY AND COUNTRY00:32:24
ALEX MCKENZIE: Thank you. Prime Minister, currently rural students have a - rural school leavers have a 50% lower chance of making it to university than their city counterparts, reducing access to life-changing tertiary education. This is partly because the cost of relocating to a city to undertake this tertiary education are so high. Does the Government plan to implement any policies to ensure equity between rural and city students?
JULIA GILLARD: Sure. I think that difference between rural kids and city kids, I think there are a few things that go into it. Quality of schooling, and that is not to criticise country schools, but often we have found that it’s difficult for country schools to hold work force, you know, teachers there over the longer term. Often they teach quite disadvantaged students, students from poorer families, many indigenous students and they haven't been getting the resources they need. So we have got to get schooling right, which is where this school funding, school improvement work comes in. Then when someone has then gone through school and they say “ I want to get to uni. How can someone help me get to uni?”, we have changed the system so that there is a relocation scholarship. That is not subject to the new HECS arrangements. That is just money to help with the cost of relocating and we have made more generous the student income support so more students from country areas are qualifying for student income support than ever before.
ALEX MCKENZIE: That relocation scholarship is tied to Youth Allowance, which therefore means if a lot of people don't get Youth Allowance they therefore won't get any relocation scholarship and therefore they have to take funds from other means. They might have to borrow a lot from their parents or they have to take a gap year where they work a lot throughout the year to fund this, whereas a lot of city students can still live at home and continue to go to university whereas a lot of rural students don't have that and, as I said...
TONY JONES: It’s effective sort of means testing of rural kids, isn't it?
JULIA GILLARD: Yeah.
TONY JONES: I mean, is that fair because there are a lot of kids who don't get the advantages, as he says, of city kids?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, it’s true it’s tied to Youth Allowance and Youth Allowance it is means tested. That is absolutely right. Though what we have done is we have brought down the age at which students are treated as independent and start getting means tested against their own income, which tends to be low; part-time jobs and the like, rather than their parents' income. But it is means tested. The balancing factor to get students from rural areas more money is the relocation scholarships and the fact that the means test and the amount is more generous than it has been in the past.
ALEX MCKENZIE: My question though was specifically do you want to implement any - does the Government plan to implement any new policies: yes or no?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, we’re not changing student income support. We have already changed it.
ALEX MCKENZIE: Yep.
JULIA GILLARD: So I mean, just look, you know, people - I can understand people saying, well, even more should be done and that is a really legitimate debate. What has been done is when we came to Government the percentage of kids from regional and rural areas going to university was going down. We are correcting that trend by putting more money in. That’s the new arrangements. There is a legitimate case for people to say, well, even more should be done but I am confident that these new arrangements are making a difference and that trend down is being corrected and we are seeing more students from the country go to university than before.
TONY JONES: Okay. Sorry about that. You got your cross-examination which is good. We have to move on. You're watching Q&A. Tonight the Prime Minister faces questions and cross-examination from high school students. Our next question comes from Dalia Qasem of Northmead Creative and Performing Arts High in New South Wales.
ISRAEL BIAS?00:36:20
DARIA QASEM: Australia has always pushed for a just peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people, although the attitude by the Government has seemed to be biased towards Israel. For example, why are you ready to impose sanctions on Iran due to their nuclear weapon program although nothing has been mentioned about Israel's existing nuclear weapons or their violation of the past in peoples' rights?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, thank you for that questions. In terms of Iran, I take the view and I think it is being taken broadly by nations like Australia around the world, that the regime in Iran should not have access to nuclear weapons, given the war-like statements that come from that regime, including statements that Israel should be, you know, sort of bombed into oblivion, that the Israeli state should be brought to an end by violent means. So I don't think people who preach war should have the most destructive weapons the world knows. I don't believe that. Nuclear weapons are around the world in the hands of democracies. Would we be a better world if no-one ever invented nuclear weapons? Well, yes, we probably would be a better world and if there was...
TONY JONES: So a brief question there. I mean are you saying that Australia is actually just comfortable with the idea that Israel has nuclear weapons?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, I think it would be a better world if no-one had nuclear weapons but...
TONY JONES: But in the case of Israel?
JULIA GILLARD: But at least when nuclear weapons are in the hands of democracies that are not preaching violence, that is aggression, they are not looking to go to war, that is more reassuring than what we have heard from Iran and its aim to get a nuclear weapon and the war-like rhetoric that we heard.
TONY JONES: A few hands have gone up. We’ll take the hand just in front of our questioner.
JULIA GILLARD: Okay. Sure.
TONY JONES: Go ahead.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Does Australia have much to say with nuclear warfare considering we don't have nukes of our own?
JULIA GILLARD: Yes, we do get a say. We have actually had a proud tradition of being leaders around the world on addressing nuclear non-proliferation and bringing countries together to work on nuclear non-proliferation. Now, you might well say, well, how can we even get a seat at the table when we don't have nuclear weapons? But given the interests of countries around the world in not seeing nuclear warfare is broader than those who have got the nuclear weapons we do lead on many of these issues in international forums.
TONY JONES: Okay. I’m going to keep these answers brief because quite a few people have got their hands up.
JULIA GILLARD: Sure.
TONY JONES: There’s a young guy there. Go ahead.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: You were saying Iran is the aggressor. For almost a decade now Israel has been murdering thousands, tens of thousands of Palestinians. Now, let me ask you a question, is Israel the murderer and the aggressor or is Iran the aggressor because Iran is feeding the Palestinian people. Today the Palestinians have food in their bellies because of Iran and not Israel.
TONY JONES: Okay. All right. It is turning into a comment but we’ll take the question.
JULIA GILLARD: Well, in part, Palestinians have humanitarian supplies because of what Australia provides. We do a lot of aid work with the Palestinian people and I am proud that we do. We should. It is the right thing to do. But I don't think you can, you know, stack these things up and say therefore it is right for Iran to get nuclear weapons. What I would like to see in the Middle East is I would like to see a two-state solution where Israel and the Palestinian people have their own countries with defined and secure borders and they live in peace. I actually think...
TONY JONES: Okay. All right.
JULIA GILLARD: ...the prospect of that is not in any way advanced by Iran getting a nuclear weapon. In fact, I think the reverse is true.
TONY JONES: All right. We’ll just take one more hand. Sorry, we’ve got so many of you have got your hands up but that young lady down in the corner there.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Surely it is important to acknowledge the fact that the only country to have dropped nuclear bombs on another country has been America, who prides itself as one of the leading democracies in the world? So surely it’s important to consider that fact that it is not necessarily a good indicator that democracy is right to hold nuclear weapons or that they will use them wisely. It’s a subjective opinion but something to consider.
JULIA GILLARD: Yeah. I think this could be a whole Q&A in itself.
TONY JONES: And we can't let it be. So a very brief answer and we’ll move on.
JULIA GILLARD: No, a very brief answer. The United States of America was not the aggressor in that war. That is my point. So, you know, history of World War II, the US has not the aggressor in that war. People will, until the end of time, theorise the circumstances in which a nuclear weapon should or shouldn't be used. My point though is that I don't want to see nuclear weapons in the hands of people who are speaking violently and aggressively towards other countries in the region in which they live.
TONY JONES: Okay. Our next question is from Joshua Kirsh of Moriah College in Sydney.
YOM KIPPUR ELECTION DAY00:41:14
JOSHUA KIRSH: Yom Kippur is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. The vast majority of the Jewish community will be in synagogue fasting and praying for repentance for the coming year. The rest of the Australian population will be at the polling booths deciding who takes either your position or whether you retain it. How can you consider that voting between each citizen is equal if the election date itself discriminates against one group of people?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, I can assure you that I understood this would be an issue when we set the election date, I most certainly did and, you know, I speak to Jewish community representatives very frequently, in fact today we had an event to honour a man called Raoul Wallenberg who is one of the absolute heroes of World War II helping Jewish people escape from terror and certain death. And when we set the election date, what we knew is particularly with such a long lead time that through the Australian Electoral Commission we would be able to make all of the appropriate arrangements so that people who can't vote on that Saturday can vote beforehand and know where in their local community to go and vote beforehand. So there is no reason why anyone should miss out on their vote. There will be plenty of opportunities, very well publicised opportunities, as to how people can vote before that Saturday.
TONY JONES: Okay. Let's move along. Our next question comes from Kellen Budilay of Bass Hill High in South West Sydney.
UNEQUAL OPPORTUNITY00:42:50
KELLEN BUDILAY: Hi, Julia. You say that through hard work and education we can deliver a strong economy and opportunity for all. But I find that hypocritical, however, because despite how hard I work at at school in school, the opinions of students like me in south-west Sydney find it hard to make a contribution as we're simply overlooked. These opportunities that you claim to be pouring out are pouring out on everyone but we're merely getting sprinkles of it. What are your plans for the students of south-west Sydney?
JULIA GILLARD: I don't want to create the impression that in an individual's life, that in every individual's life in Australia today, there is equal access to opportunity. Unfortunately, I don't believe that. I don't think that is true. That is one of the things that motivates me to do what I do because I know that there are children in this country at schools who aren’t getting an equal chance with other kids. They are not getting the same standard of education. They’re not getting the same support and as a consequence they're not getting the same opportunity to go on. And, you know, if you strip it all back and say, you know, what’s the one thing that is really at the centre of what I am trying to achieve it would be that we could honestly say to each other, wherever kids go to school, whichever family they were born in, however, you know, they came to this country, whatever their ethnicity, whoever they are, they have got that opportunity, that real opportunity, that they can partner with their own hard work and be able to really create their own lives for themselves. We can't say that now. That is why we have got to change it. Of the things I want to see done for students in south-west Sydney, I want to see them able to go to better schools. I want to make sure that they have got more of an opportunity to go to university and even though we have had a conversation about funding reductions at university, we have seen, under our policies, more students from poorer backgrounds get into university than ever before, many of them, the first in their family to ever get the opportunity. The statistics are startling and heart warming. And at the same time we have been expanding the apprenticeship system so people can also get that opportunity if that is what they choose. Have we fixed everything? No, absolutely not and so there are still places where it’s really tough and there are still people missing out and that is why we have got more to do. I have got more to do.
TONY JONES: While you were talking a hand shot up, up in the back row there. We’ll just quickly get a microphone to you. There, go ahead.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Given these disadvantages that you acknowledge, wouldn't it make sense to redirect funding from some of the most privileged and wealthy private schools?
JULIA GILLARD: For me this is about all of our schools being able to offer a great education and that is why we don't look and say, you know, that school there is going to pay for this school here. What we look and say is every school should have the school resource standard, the right amount of money to teach the kids in that school, available to them. There are some schools that are above the school resource standard, a limited number, but there are some and for those schools, they will get the same funding deal as if the old system continued, a 3% indexation rate. For the schools below the school resource standard, and that is the vast majority of schools, they will get more money and they will get a higher indexation rate to drive them to that school resource standard. So I don't want schools that are above the school resource standard now to somehow feel a shock in those children's education. I want them to be able to plan but I do want these schools that are below the school resource standard to be lifted up to the standard and that is what the big argument is about. That is what the big argument about the 14.5 billion dollars is about.. It’s what the argument about indexation is about. It is an argument I have resolved here in New South Wales because Barry O'Farrell signed on but it is an argument I have got to have right around the country so that we are doing that for all schools.
TONY JONES: Okay. Let's keep moving on. We have got a lot of questions. This one is from Gizem Sivrioglu of Northmead Creative and Performing Arts High in Sydney.
EXPENSIVE CITIES00:47:19
GIZEM SIVRIOGLU: As a young person living in the western suburbs with aspirations of one day starting a family and having a profession, it concerns me that Sydney is ranked third most expensive city to live in worldwide. Other cities, such as Melbourne, are also expensive. At this rate the youth in Australia will struggle with affording homes and having the high standard of living which our parents have enjoyed. Do you think the Government has a role to play in reducing the cost of living for our generation?
JULIA GILLARD: Certainly. Certainly the Government has got a role to play in making sure that by the time you're at that stage of your life that you want to buy a home, you want to have children, that we are living in cities where housing can still be afforded, where the infrastructure works, where there are job opportunities for you, where there is the opportunity to start your own small business if that is your dream, particularly combining raising kids at home. That might be exactly what you want to do. What do we need to do to get there? Well, we need to make sure we have got all of the things happening today which will help us get that strong economy tomorrow. We have talked a lot about education and that is one of the big building blocks. High skill, high wage jobs, because we ever a great education system today. Infrastructure is another piece of it, including the National Broadband Network. Clean energy is another piece of it because they’re going to be the energy sources of tomorrow and we have got to get a jump start on making sure we have got those energy sources. Making sure that we seize all of the opportunities of growth in our region is part of it, as China grows, as India grows and the list goes on. All of that can then combine in cities that are still liveable, where people can still buy a home, still have a great life and have the best of opportunities in that life. None of it is easy and the future is - you know, your future, the nation's future, the future is never assured. You have got to make smart decisions every day to get there and that is what I am conscious of and they are not easy decisions sometimes. Sometimes they are very controversial.
TONY JONES: So you wouldn't consider addressing this generational inequity question through taxation would you?
JULIA GILLARD: In what way?
TONY JONES: Well, I mean, tax peoples' homes, death duties, the sort of things Joe Hockey is talking about?
JULIA GILLARD: Oh, well, I don't understand Joe Hockey to be talking about those things other than asides.
TONY JONES: Well, no, he talked about what when he said you put everything on the table?
JULIA GILLARD: Oh, yeah. Yeah. But that was, you know, sort of political argy-bargy. I didn't worry about it much.
TONY JONES: Anyway. So briefly the answer is no?
JULIA GILLARD: No. No. The big things we can do for inter-generational equity are big investments in human capital in schools in education; getting the superannuation system right so it is sustainable and we are certainly doing that and so the burden of the ageing population is more from superannuation, more met from superannuation than from tax money through pensions; making sure we get health expenditure right, which we have taken a lot of steps to doing, more still to do there; and making sure that things like disability are resourced but resourced in a sustainable way, which is what the Medicare levy is about.
TONY JONES: Okay. The next question is from Gemma Curcio of Holy Spirit High School in Wollongong in New South Wales.
MANUFACTURING CRISIS00:50:51
GEMMA CURCIO: Good evening. I come from a region which has been a powerhouse for many manufacturing in the steel and mining industries in the last 150 years. And our city’s biggest employer is now the highly reputable University of Wollongong. But what of the future of manufacturing and innovation in our country? We have lost our manufacturing industry and are now relying on imports. What will you do to prevent me from having to leave my city to seek future employment in a remote mining town far from my family and friends?
JULIA GILLARD: Wollongong is a fantastic region and I think it will be one full of opportunities in the future. So when we look at the economy there, manufacturing is part of it. The university is a big part of it. We are rolling out the NBN there and there are other opportunities that are coming on stream in Wollongong and part of what we're trying to do is get the transport infrastructure right to make a difference to that part of the world. What’s the issue with manufacturing at the moment? Well, it’s not that we’re not good at making things. We are good at making things. The issue with manufacturing is how high the Australian dollar is. So it’s gone up by 50% in the last few years. That means something that we manufacture that we used to sell to a European for €100, we are now asking that European to pay €150 for, a 50% price increase. Now, if you're going to do that and still have people buy your products, you have got to be extraordinarily good with the quality or be making unique products and manufacturing is trying to adjust to that and we are working with them through policies on innovation and investment.
TONY JONES: Okay. What about a policy on the high Australian dollar? Japan has actually moved to bring down the Yen.
JULIA GILLARD: They have.
TONY JONES: They are doing quantitative easing, they call it. They are printing money basically to bring down and countries all around the world are doing this. Australia is not. Should Australia move to bring down the dollar?
JULIA GILLARD: No, I don't think we should move through artificial measures, like quantitative easing, to bring down the dollar. I do think though that we can have policies to work with manufacturing to help it adjust and then, of course, there are other issues with the dollar, including where interest rates go in our country, which is why one of the reasons why we have low interest rates now and the Reserve Bank tomorrow will make its next decision and I don’t know what it is.
TONY JONES: Okay. Very briefly though why can Japan do it but Australia can't?
JULIA GILLARD: Look, Japan is in a different situation where it has been dealing with effectively deflation where it’s got an economy that has kind of been collapsing in on itself. So it is a big measure to take but they are in very different economic circumstances than us.
TONY JONES: All right. Our next question is from Kristen Sattler from Elizabeth Macarthur High in Narellan, New South Wales.
SPORTS AND BETTING00:53:38
KRISTEN SATTLER: Australians spend about $20 billion every year gambling. Currently live betting odds are shown during broadcasts of almost every major sport in Australia. Children today are being exposed to gambling at very young ages that through time could lead into a long-term gambling addiction. Tony Abbott has said that he will impose the live betting black-out if he becomes Prime Minister. Why haven't you taken action against this and if you intend to, how would you implement a plan?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, I can understand your concern and I would have to say as someone who watches sport it drives me absolutely nuts, so just as a sports watcher it drives me nuts before we get to any question about what long term damage it is doing that now too many of our kids actually view sport through the prism of the odds and the betting instead of viewing sport as to, you know, what is happening on the field and who is doing what and who is exhibiting great skill and who is falling behind. So it drives me nuts and I am very concerned about it. We have already acted on a code to stop what we used to see, which is, you know, sporting commentators - you know, so they’re actually in the box doing the commentating of the play and turn from commentating the play to each other and talk about the odds and then go back to the play. We have actually got a code to stop that. We are working on that code again with industry to clear that kind of conduct out, to stop those discussions of betting 30 minutes before the game, 30 minutes after the game, to confine any references to betting when play is not in progress and I’m not going to use any names but to end the confusion of who is a commentator and who is a betting personality.
TONY JONES: Is that name you're not mentioning Waterhouse?
JULIA GILLARD: It could be. So to end that confusion, which I think is part of what is - you know, so I don't want to make it about an individual but I think it is part of what is annoying people.
TONY JONES: It is funny though, as an individual almost seems to have started it?
JULIA GILLARD: Look, Tom Waterhouse obviously has got a big and successful betting business and is a very visible face to this. But I can summon to mind, you know, Bruce McAvaney and other commentators who were literally calling the play one minute and turning to their fellow commentator for a chat about the odds the next minute. So it’s a broader problem than one individual though I think in public discourse one individual has become the face of it.
TONY JONES: All right. The next question is from Naish Gawen of Glenunga International High School in Adelaide.
ASYLUM SEEKERS00:56:24
NAISH GAWEN: The recent Four Corners report on the conditions on Manus Island gave us an insight into the horrific psychological conditions of detention centres, showing footage of asylum seekers having sewn their lips shut and attempting to commit suicide. When last year Four Corners presented a report on the live export trade there was a justified national uproar over the horrible decisions that the cattle were being exposed to. In your opinion, why is there not the same nationwide response to the maltreatment of human beings and does this knowledge of the treatment that they have to undergo, combined with the fact that boat arrivals are not showing signs of decreasing, have implications for your use of detention centres as a deterrent for asylum seekers?
JULIA GILLARD: I agree with you. Much of the footage we saw then was very disturbing and I think many people would have looked at that and thought again about what we do with refugee and asylum seeker policies. But in part you asked me why wasn't there a national outcry and I think one of the reasons is people recognise that whilst they don't like seeing things like that, they also remember how they felt when they got the news that an asylum seeker boat had dashed up against Christmas Island with all of that loss of life, including the loss of life of children; how they felt when news came through about other boats that had sunk trying to get to Australia with large scale loss of life and people - I think our whole nation has been trying to wrestle with how do you get this right so that there is no incentive for people getting on boats and taking those risks which end in tragedy? That is what we have tried to do and we have tried, in the course of that, to take the best of expert advice.
TONY JONES: From Paris Aristotle, among others, who is now advising you to shut down these offshore detention centres and particularly to take children out of them. So why not take his advice on that?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, certainly Paris was one, Angus Houston was one, a foreign policy expert was one, Michael L'Estrange. We got their report and are implementing that report. This is a difficult problem. A really - you know, it’s not something susceptible to short...
TONY JONES: My point is, the Paris Aristotle question was about him changing his mind once he saw the facts on the ground.
JULIA GILLARD: Yep. Look, and...
TONY JONES: Should you change your mind once you see the facts on the ground?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, I am always open to receiving new facts and thinking about them but I get the facts about what is happening at Manus and on Nauru and my judgement continues to be we should have offshore processing, we should be doing everything we can to deter people from getting on boats and potentially losing their lives.
TONY JONES: Okay. I’m sorry to the people who have got hands up but we have got quite a few questions that we have to get through still. This one is from Belinda Ramsay of Gosford High School in the Central Coast, New South Wales.
MENTAL ILLNESS00:59:28
BELINDA RAMSAY: Mental illness is a serious health issue that affects thousands of young Australians, with suicide being the leading cause of death for people under the age of 25. Having personally seen members of my family and close friends been affected by mental illness, the prejudiced attitudes they have faced are reflective of a wider social stigma associated with mental illness in Australia. How will the Government aim to promote awareness of and promote solutions to the myriad of mental illnesses affecting thousands of young Australians?
JULIA GILLARD: Really, really good question. On the stigma, I think there are some things that Government can do but there is lots of things that community members can do and that, you know, we can all change attitudes here. I mean in the Australian debate, I have got a pretty loud voice and so I am happy to use my voice to say that we shouldn't treat mental illness any differently to how we treat physical illness and we shouldn't have a prejudice against people with mental illness. I am more than happy to do that but that is more powerful when those messages get repeated in the community, in schools, wherever people go and we have now got some great organisations leading that work. I think things like Beyond Blue have made a real difference to the nature of public discourse about mental illness and peoples' preparedness to acknowledge that they have a mental illness or a family member has a mental illness and be prepared to talk about it. Even things like men's sheds have helped with that, people coming forward and talking about mental illness. The other thing we can do as Government is assist with service provision and we have put more money into mental illness, and particularly some of the models of care for young people that have been recommended by Pat McGorry, Head Space for example, because of the most profound mental illnesses that will cause a disability for a lifetime, many of them have an onset in adolescence or early adulthood. So there is a particular model of care there which can help people through and help them with what will be something that they will have to manage for the rest of their lives and so it’s less debilitating.
TONY JONES: I’m just going to quickly - a hand popped up immediately in front. I’ll just quickly go to you. Hopefully it’s just a comment.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah. No, I was just going to say with the sort of mental illness thing that you were talking about, the whole idea of the diagnosis of mental illness is completely unknown to a lot of young Australians in both rural and urban areas. How do you propose to raise awareness, especially in the rural areas, within school counselling sessions or et cetera?
TONY JONES: Yeah, very briefly.
JULIA GILLARD: Very briefly, we have resourced some online ways of learning about things, because people might be prepared to get online even before they are prepared to talk to someone about it. Some ways of resourcing teachers so that they can start the conversation. You know, it’s not all perfect. It is not all done but I do think that there is more resources out there than there used to be and, consequently, more preparedness in the community to talk about it than there used to be.
TONY JONES: And sorry, we’ve just got time for one last question. This one is fro Madeleine Tehan of Loreto, Toorak in Victoria.
SELF-DOUBT00:62:50
MADELEINE TEHAN: Good evening, Prime Minister. Everyone has moments of self-doubt in their lives. As an individual and a leader who faces constant media scrutiny and occasional criticism, how do you deal with moments of self-doubt in your life?
JULIA GILLARD: You mean like the one immediately before coming on Q&A, that moment of self-doubt? For me - look everybody has moments of self-doubt. I mean, you know, to not feel that wouldn't be human and so I feel that too. And sometimes, you know, you see some pretty unkind critiques about yourself in the newspaper and other places. I get treated to that a bit. The main thing, I think, is to be very clear in your own mind about who you are and what you are trying to achieve. If you spend your life valuing yourself dependant on how others see you, then you will live a life buffeted by a lot of extreme emotions, even if you don't try and become Prime Minister. The best way of having some resilience in times of stress is to be very clear about who you are, what you're trying to do, why you are trying to do it and then the other thing is to have some really good mates that you can turn to in times of difficulty and I am blessed with some fantastic friends and a wonderful and very supportive family.
TONY JONES: Very briefly, what issues ever you had self-doubt about?
JULIA GILLARD: Now.
TONY JONES: I mean, self-doubt over big policy issues, any of the big decisions you’ve had to make?
JULIA GILLARD: Tony, you would know that that is possibly the most dangerous question for me to answer in my political career because...
TONY JONES: So go ahead. You're on Q&A now. Walk on the wild side.
JULIA GILLARD: Walk on the wild side on Q&A. And the reason it is dangerous for me to answer is we have this kind of cultural image of leadership that self-doubt equals weakness and we don't like to sense weakness and so we don't exhibit weakness and I don't exhibit weakness.
TONY JONES: So you have to pretend?
JULIA GILLARD: You’ve got to turn it on, absolutely. You know, I could not afford to wander around - you know this because you understand the media - I could not afford to wander around saying I don't know, I am really worried, I have to have a think about that, let me reflect, oh, I’m a bit anxious now. I couldn't wander around doing that and, in truth, that wouldn't be me either because that isn’t who I am. I am not someone who is - you know, everybody has moments of self-doubt but I am not someone given to self-doubt. I am someone - I’m a determined person. I am a pretty stoic person, I think, I think I show that publicly and that is who I am. I think I am on a pretty even emotional keel so I don't have to fake that. That is me. But there are times when, you know, you do go home at night and you are really focused and anxious as to whether a decision you're making is the right one.
TONY JONES: So you can't tell us what any of those were?
JULIA GILLARD: No, I can't.
TONY JONES: Until your memoirs?
JULIA GILLARD: I am not sure I am worrying with any of that.
TONY JONES: All right. Okay. Well, we had an extended edition of Q&A tonight but we still have run out of time. Please thank our special guest the PM Julia Gillard and this wonderful audience of potential leaders, please give yourselves a round of applause. Okay. Next week Q&A will be in Brisbane with mining magnate Clive Palmer, who now aspires to take the PM's job; seasoned politician Bob Katter, who is leading his new party into the Federal election; the QLD Treasurer Tim Nicholls who has overseen the Newman Government's spending cuts; the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions Ged Kearney; and Brisbane commentator Katherine Feeney, who is well-known for her journalism on her urban affairs and her sex and relationships blog. So buckle up for a bumpy ride. Until next week's Q&A, good night.
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