That's what we intend to do. That's what we're adhering to. But I go back to what we've done in two years alone. My predecessor ripped a billion dollars out of the public hospital system.
We have increased our funding to the public hospital system by 50 per cent in just two years. Can I just say, that's not a bad foundation, but there's a hang of a lot more to do. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Didn't you say when you were going to reform the health system that the buck would stop with you, yet you've made two references to the previous government's decisions, and I note you didn't reference the previous governments surplus they left you in terms of the economic crisis. But you said the buck would stop with you, so will it or are we going to keep hearing that the previous government did this, the previous government did that?
Life - it's a fair point to ask in terms of take your responsibility to the future, but equally acknowledging where you've come from in the past. You know there wasn't just a line drawn across reality at the end of You're dealing with a health system which, for a long period of time, had a whole lot of people in the previous government taking money out of it. That's just a reality. What we undertook to do was to take responsibility for the system and as far as the buck stops with me concern I don't back away from that one minute, but I go back to what I said in response to the earlier question and that is to make sure that you've got the detail right, therefore the plan we're putting for the long term reform of the system we are confident in.
If the states and territories reject it, we will seek from the people a mandate for the Commonwealth, the Australian Government, to take overall responsibility for the system and the buck, therefore, stops with me. That's entirely consistent with what I said prior to the election and, frankly, it's the responsible way to go but you've got to get it right.
Our next question comes from Fleur Cribb. My question is regarding P Plate drivers and increasing road toll. Given the inconsistent rules across the country, I was just wondering if there is potentially a role for the Federal Government in the next decade to implement a national road rules scheme?
What we've tried to do, by the way, at a national government level, is to improve road safety by some other specific regulations, one of which goes to some of the systems used in motor vehicles themselves. Nationally consistent regulations for the quality control of cars. That's just one thing. We've also invested in a new way of encouraging young people to learn how to drive in the first place.
I don't have the numbers on me, but we have. But on the question of nationally consistent approaches, can I say the transport ministers are pretty seized of how bad it is out there in terms of road safety, young people, but I've got to say there's a fair bit of booze involved in this as well, and that's a real problem. A P Plate driver dies in that state every six days.
Sixty-six per cent of deaths amongst 17 to 20 year olds are from car crashes. A case for a national intervention? That's the basic step involved in this, and there have been a few problems with car safety standards around the country. The second thing is new automatic systems to go into cars to help cars manoeuvre on the road better and more safely. That's the second thing we've done by regulation. You talk about nationally consistent rules though.
The means we do this through, which is the Australian Transport Ministers' Council is run by the Australian Government Transport Minister - in this case Anthony Albanese, and the key thing is to get agreement across the states to do it. Now, I can't tell you here and now how far that's got and when we're going to deliver that in terms of a final outcome, but that's our approach.
I feel about this personally. My son has just turned He's just got his learners here in Canberra. I think about this a lot. I think about it a hell of a lot and, I've got to say, if there's practical stuff still to be done we'll be in there. I looked it up to try and have some background research for asking the question and it seems that since Australia has been trying to implement a national road rule scheme and in the s the National Transport Commission - I think that's what it's called.
Yeah, they implemented one, but the states just sort of adapted it to their own rules and so if you get pulled over in New South Wales and you're an ACT driver, it's very confusing about what's going to happen to you.
Ever tried to drive in Melbourne recently with that funny turn left, turn right thing? I've never quite understood it but any Melburnians here will get offended. So there's some work to be done but getting motor vehicle standards right and the maximal installation of the technologies in new vehicles which help the stable management of cars, particularly in difficult situations, that's important too.
But there's still a whole lot of work to be done and I feel personally concerned about this, as any parent of young person would, when you've got a young fellow out there taking his first driving lessons.
It's from Linna Wei. The Australian Medical Association in Queensland has said that lives a year could be saved if we lifted the legal drinking age to 21, the same as it is in the US.
Teenagers start driving when they're Coincidentally, this is the same age as the legal drinking age in Australia. Mr Rudd, have you ever considered lifting the minimum legal drinking age in Australia? The key thing is to work out what actually works. One of the things that we've had a few problems with, and it won't be popular, probably in an audience like this, is the ready accessibility of sweet alcohol intensive drinks, like alcopops.
We took a pretty controversial decision, which is to increase the price of alcopops, which drove a whole lot of young people quite mad, because we're making it harder to get. But you know what happened?
Just in this category of drinks, huge impact in drinking rates of young teenagers going through the roof, because it was sweet, highly alcoholic and hugely affecting their ability to, frankly, manoeuvre a car, if they were at that age as well.
You know, you can't wave a magic wand and say, "Tomorrow everyone will drive responsibly. Tomorrow a whole bunch of people will stop drinking. Since we've taken this measure on alcopops, the consumption of alcopops, I think, has gone down by about 33 per cent. Then people say, "Oh, they just go and drink other stuff. Let's get an answer - a specific answer - to Linna Wei's question about raising the drinking age - the legal drinking age - to Would you consider it?
I'd just rather be straight up with you and say KEVIN RUDD: I believe in something called evidence-based policy, which is if the evidence is there and it's capable of being proven that it works, then we look at these things and make a decision.
But you're asking me for a personal impression. You don't run policy that way, Tony. You actually - if you're doing the serious thing, how many of you are in the category of 18 to 21 here? How many of you want the drinking age raised to Well, I'm just saying there's got to be a debate about this and it would be an informed debate if we had evidence in front of us which said you do this in State X of the United States and the overall car accident rate and mortality on roads goes down.
But I don't have that in front of me. That's - I actually haven't seen that done before. Point two, is it effective? So nice try, mate, but both are relevant. The next question comes from Georgia Lourandos. Do you think that it is a core part of western and, indeed, Australian values, that women should show their faces in public, just like men?
People have different cultural and religious traditions and I think broadly they should be accepted. Why the French Government is doing what it's doing, a matter for the French. But from our point of view, we don't see any reason for such measures to be brought in here.
This is a pretty diverse country that we've got and, look, there's always going to be problems at the extremes of any society. That's the truth. But we've got to be respectful of diversity. People have different religious traditions. They come from different ethnic backgrounds. You're not going to just enforce some sort of, you know, one size fits all approach to, you know, public behaviour and public dress, otherwise you're going to have people marching on parade grounds at 6 o'clock in the morning, because the state says so and I don't believe that's the right way to go.
KEVIN RUDD: Well, in the challenge of civil liberties on the one hand and your right to free choice, your right to express yourself in different ways and maintaining security, which is a common concern and a common right of everybody, you know something, there's no magical solution. If I were to say to you in terms of people's right to protest peacefully, as opposed to violently, where and when is that line crossed and when, therefore, do the authorities step in?
These are often difficult choices. So I wish there was a magical answer to that. But I'm giving you, in response to the earlier question, my overall preference, which is this is a free country. A lot of the folk who have participated in this parliament over a long period of time have taken big decisions to defend the freedom. John Curtin, back in the war, deciding to - the measures necessary to defend Australian liberty and democracy, and that was the freedom to choose.
The big debates here in the 50s about whether to ban the Communist Party, and Australians voted that people should have the right to choose what their political persuasion was. But you know at the end of the day it's very hard to draw the precise line because if I was standing here today and there had been a terrorist attack yesterday in a part of Australia, and given our security warnings that's always possible - if you look at the security ratings in this country - then the tonality of this debate would change and people would say, "Well, are we doing everything we could?
It's on a very different subject. It's from Jeff Shen. JEFF SHEN: Policies regarding to permanent residence for international students are constantly changing and consequently many of the international students are overloading courses so that future policy changes doesn't affect their intentions to stay in Australia. So could you please explain why international students are being singled out?
Why can't they be part of Australia's future or is international students studying here just a revenue raiser? But, you know, there's a responsibility we have to many governments and many countries who send folk here or have folk come here to study in the first place, which is having obtained a bunch of skills, a lot of those countries actually want them back home from the place where they've come from.
That's one thing you've got to bear in mind in setting your future immigration policy for students studying in Australia. The second thing is this: we are always going to make hard judgments in this country about what skills we need at a particular time in Australia. There's been a debate in the papers today about TONY JONES: Well, your immigration minister has come out today and listed a new set of rules for what is acceptable in terms of the courses you study to get permanent residency here.
I think that's partly being alluded to in that question. These are hard decisions. They're very practical decisions.
But the good thing is, frankly, basically since the war we have been a country which has encouraged people to come here from right across the world, including students, and it may be, to go back to the basis of your question, that having come here, picked up your qualification, the best thing that you decide to do and it may be in the interest of your country to spend a couple of years back home and then apply afresh to come here.
In terms of the skills that are relevant to Australia, that will always be made independently by people looking at where our economy needs people for the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years and that skills profile changes from year to year. I know that's a tough message for many folk who, having studied here, want to stay here but I've got to say it's a balance message if you're looking at our long-term immigration policy.
Let's take this young lady in the second row here first. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Despite the recent changes today made by Chris Evans regarding permanent residency, how can you ensure that Australian citizens such as myself, in their final year, can graduate knowing that there will be a job there for them, because it seems to be changing with your immigration law. You seem to be softening up than hardening up. How can you guarantee we will get a job in the Australian job market? I just wanted to be clear about the basis upon which that question was asked and you're asking about yourself.
I'd like to be guaranteed a job. KEVIN RUDD: That's why I asked the question back, which was the question of how the employment market in this country is unfolding or whether it was a more fundamental question about immigration policy. That's why I was seeking clarification. On the employment market, I just emphasis a point I made back here to the question asked by this fellow up the back here about pre-election commitments and the reality we had to face in the last 12 months. Unemployment here - it's still too high.
It's 5. It's also the second lowest of all the major advanced economies in the world. With youth unemployment, 16 to 24 year olds, which I think is the age bracket here. Is that right, Tony? The unemployment The youth unemployment rate in Australia is, I think, about Youth being defined as that bracket of people. In the United States and France at the moment, it's about 20 per cent.
Can I just say what we have done in the last year - not perfect, this is the national infrastructure stimulus strategy - it to try and make a difference - a real difference. If you look back to the recessions of the early nineties and the early eighties, what happened there, when our unemployment for the whole community was in double digits, you can shell out an entire generation of people without opportunity.
We didn't want that to happen again. So when people will criticise us, for example, how we went about funding the national infrastructure stimulus strategy by increasing the budget deficit and by temporary borrowings, we did it deliberately with the objective in mind of protecting jobs into the future. That, for us, has been so fundamental and I'd really encourage you to compare the unemployment and the employment data of this economy with any other advanced economy in the world.
We've managed to make it better - not perfect, better - in terms of entering the job market in the year ahead. That's never been the case.
It wasn't the graduated university either. We have another question from an international student. It's from Om Perkash Butra. I have been victim myself.
So what are your plans to overcome this issue? When I speak Because he just said, I think, that he had been a victim himself.
Could we just hear what you're talking about? Well, that's a really awful story and makes me sick. It really makes me sick that anyone would treat you, as a guest in our country, like that. It's wrong. It shouldn't happen.
In terms of what we're doing about it, the work that we are currently - have underway with the Victorian Government is to deal with each of the teaching institutions, where some of the students, for example, from India are coming, and to look at the practical questions concerning transport, work after hours and getting safely from where people are working off to where they are staying and then back to where they are studying.
Remember, in big cities there is, right across the world - there are violence rates. They're unacceptable. They're not good and they often apply to all people, whatever their ethnic background, but I'm really concerned that this has happened to you just up the road.
But, at a practical level, your question is, "What are we doing about it? We commissioned a guy called Bruce Baird, former member of parliament from actually the conservative side of politics, who is just completing a report to us - completed a report to us on what we do specifically about the concerns which Indian students have.
That's just indistinct. Do you fear there is an undercurrent of racism in this country? I'm really concerned when I hear these stories. My son-in-law is Chinese from Hong Kong. I hear stories from him from time to time, which make me really worried about what might be going on out there.
But his overall story is that he is completely accepted and part of the Australian family. But we've just got to keep a weather eye on any of this stuff every taking hold, because this country, Australia, is an shall be a tolerant country, and we have a combined responsibility - politicians of all sides, community leaders, young people, old people - to keep it that way.
But it's tough and other countries around the world have failed miserably on this score. Let's go to - there are two of you down there with your hands up. We'll hear from both of you, if that's okay. Start with the gentleman on the right. Like back in one of my friends is in US, so their school runs a program where they give them diverse knowledge about different cultures, so that they become acceptable. So would you ever consider that in school level? So I just want to put that point up to every international student, that Australia is not a racist country at all and I'm happy to be here and I would love to live over here.
It really is. That is the Australia I know and these are the stories I am from time to time hearing. Both of these are realities. So to go to your specific question, there is always room in our school curriculum for young people to understand more comprehensively the different cultures of the world.
One of my big passions in life has been the study of foreign languages - Asian languages in particular. In part because it simply provides young people - people generally - with a vehicle to understand vastly different cultures around the world; see how realities are seen differently and for me that's really important.
Whether it's Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Malay. Whether it's Hindi, whether it's Urdu, this is important stuff.
But here is one note of encouragement. Proportionally there are more Australian kids studying foreign languages in our schools - Asian languages - than you'll find in any other western country.
This is a good thing but its yield will not be had for a long, long time, because you may not turn out a whole generation of, you know, simultaneous interpreters but I'll tell you what you will do is cause people to understand reality from someone else's perspective and that builds respect. My question is: the United State of America has invested in its own black African Americans and President Barack Obama is a living example of real inclusion - real, practical reconciliation, real sorry to African Americans.
My question is: why is Australia more than happy to receive President Barack Obama, a black man, when Australia is ashamed of its own black, whether Indigenous or African Australians. KEVIN RUDD: I think my attitude with that would be a bit different and that is - you know something, here at the beginning of just up the road when we delivered the national apology to Indigenous Australians, this was one step towards achieving real reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
It's not perfect but, you know something, until we had crossed that bridge of mutual respect, given the centuries of abuse and exploitation of Indigenous Australians by non-Indigenous Australians, then you couldn't get to the next step, which is our policy of trying to close the gap between these two parts of the Australian family. That's why we're dead set serious about this.
I'll be delivering the second annual report on the closing the gap targets we set for ourselves with the apology. How do you narrow the gap in terms of infant mortality? We've committed to halving that over time. How do we narrow the gap in terms of year 12 equivalent achievement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians? How do you make sure that employment opportunities are the same?
These are the basic things. Closing the life expectancy gap, which is currently obscene. So engaging in a way which acknowledges huge past errors is the first step. That's what the apology was all about, but it counts for nothing unless you do the practical stuff on the ground with the hundreds of thousands of Indigenous Australians whose lives still don't have the same opportunities as non-Indigenous Australians.
That's our policy. It will take a long time to work through. We've made a start. As for African Australians or other residents from other parts of the world who are not Indigenous, I am always disturbed, as I said to our friend from India before, to hear of any stories of racial prejudice. Racial prejudice has no place in modern Australia.
Let us make sure that we all work together on that. I appreciate there are a few people still with their hands up, but we're going to move on again.
If you'd like to ask a question in person, go to our website and register to join the audience, just like these people have done. Our next question comes from Ceridwen Radcliffe. It's almost like the question before about civil liberties. What is intellectual copyright? What is the rights of artists to own their property and what are the laws which prevent the sort of free dissemination of that?
Look, I can't, you know, divine from or say from here, "Here is the dividing line up the middle. My son does this himself, I hope lawfully, and if not we're in deep trouble. Do we have any - I'm not aware that we have current changes to the laws in mind. I just wish to be frank about that. Iitnet sic , an internet service provider, won a case that the movie industry took against them. People were downloading pirated movies using their website - Iinet - and the Federal Court has effectively said you can't stop them doing that.
They won that case. You're going to be lobbied heavily by the movie industry. What will you tell them? KEVIN RUDD: Well, the first thing I'll say to them in the persistent - consistent with the tradition of evidence-based policy is I'll read the decision of the court and see what they actually had to say because it's usually not as black and white as is presented. But secondly, look, this is an open culture. It celebrates the fact that you can access different sources of culture and music from right around the world and from artists who you love and enjoy.
If the laws are, through the courts, being interpreted in a particular way, if I take what Tony Jones has said accurately - and being from the ABC I'm sure he wouldn't be inaccurate - then we'll have a look at the decision and see what we can do, but I don't want to, frankly, make any pronouncement on area of policy.
I just don't have the evidence in front of me. I'd just rather be careful about that. Let's change subjects again. The next question comes from Nicky Vreugdenhil. I'm from the UN Youth Association. President Obama appears to be abandoning his scheme to put a price on carbon in the United States, but you've committed to introducing an emissions trading scheme in Australia. When Obama comes to Australia in March, will you lobby him to fight for a similar cap and trade system in the United States?
You know what's great about America under President Obama is they've suddenly entered into action. The previous US administration said that it wasn't anything for them. Now we have America at the table and it makes such a huge difference. So when it comes to the targets that we have been discussing recently about bringing down greenhouse gas emissions, now you have America fully engaged in the global negotiations for the future.
That's the first thing. The second is how do you go about realising those targets? Our conclusion, as the government of Australia, is that the most effective way and the least costly way of doing it is through an emissions trading scheme. That's been our approach. We, in Australia, like the Americans, face something called a political constraint and - I can't quite see you now, mate.
There's someone in the road. There you go - and it's called the senate - the US Senate and the Australian Senate - and they have both put this huge roadblock in the way and so obviously President Obama is looking at the possibility of how you mix a response to the targets which America must realise as the second biggest polluting country in the world after China and how you mix that with the future possible introduction of an emissions trading scheme there.
So he's got political realities to deal with. When they can do it and when they can deliver it is a separate question. I look forward to talking to him about it. The key thing is real action. You say In fact, he says - he now says - he now says that his plan is more similar to what the Americans are going to do than your plan is.
That's what Tony Abbott says about his view on climate change. That's not Barack Obama's view and it's not my view. There's a big difference, because that's the foundation stone.
You either believe the science or you reject the science. We, the government, believe the science. The US government believes the science under President Obama. The next question is what you do and in terms of the different schemes.
What do we do? We say we charge the biggest polluters. Secondly, we use that money to compensate working families for any costs which flow through to them and, thirdly, that gives them the money also to invest in energy efficiency measures themselves.
That's what a cap and trade system is about, because you are ultimately also putting a cap on carbon pollution. His system doesn't do that. Before we come to some of those people with their hands up, we do have another question on this topic. You've alluded to it already to some degree.
Let's go to Blaise Joseph. The first thing I'd say is the IPCC - International Panel on Climate Change - scientists has essentially humourless scientists in white coats who go around and measure things and have been doing so for about 20 years.
They reached a conclusion about, first of all, climate change happening and, second, the high likelihood, defined as 90 per cent plus, of it being caused by human activity sometime ago. I'm saying that's actually what the IPCC has concluded. The second thing is this: here in Australia the government has been in receipt of advice from the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, the Chief Scientist, that that's what's happening here.
I'm not prepared to take that risk for your future in 20 years time, 40 years time, 60 years time. My view is this generation of political leaders has a responsibility to act - has a responsibility to act.
And you can play the easy game of retail politics, which is to say this is all too hard, go round and use loose language, like, you know, the climate change science is incapable of being trusted and take a massive risk with the future. The government I lead will not do that. PDF of article. Kevin Rudd, the apple-cheeked former prime minister of Australia, is not going gently into that good night.
Aged 60 and four years out of office, he has just embarked on a PhD at Oxford and seems exhilarated to be learning again.
Rudd was prime minister not once but twice. His first stint, as leader of the Labor Party, was in ; his second was in Although we talk under the silent stare of one of his minders, Rudd is evidently throwing himself into student life. Yet he is clearly still adjusting to the demands of academic work.
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