TONY JONES: Good evening and welcome to Q&A. I'm Tony Jones and answering your questions tonight, the Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Please welcome our special guest. Right. Q&A is live from 9:35 Eastern Standard Time. It's simulcast on News 24 and News Radio so go to our website if you want to send a question in or join the Twitter conversation using the hashtag on your screen. Well, it's almost 12 months since the Prime Minister last faced the Q&A audience. Let's get straight into our very first question. It's in the audience. It's from Paul Nixon.

WHAT DOES LABOR STAND FOR?

PAUL NIXON: Thanks, Tony, and good evening, Prime Minister. So it's clear that the Liberal Party stands for the business community, the Nationals stand for the country people, the Greens stand for the environment. So with union membership at all-time lows and the Labor Party moving more to the right, who do you see as the core constituents for the Labor Party that gives themselves a sense of why they exist?

JULIA GILLARD: I think the sense of why we exist is the same as it's been throughout our entire history, which is for working people, for the vast mass of working people, of course, for older Australians, when they are trying to have a dignified retirement after work. It's always been Labor's historic mission to bring opportunity right across our society. So, if you like, we started off way back when saying we wanted to end freedom from want and spread opportunity. Now, in a much wealthier nation, more than 100 years later, it's more about spreading opportunity and we've got work to do to ensure we can spread opportunity. We can't sit here tonight and say every child gets an equal go at education, that, you know, poorer postcodes get to send kids to university at the same rate as richer postcodes. So we've got a lot of work to do and that's Labor work.

TONY JONES: Has the Labor heartland changed and does it change in Government?

JULIA GILLARD: The Labor heartland has certainly changed since, you know, the first days of shearers standing under the tree and it's changed since the days that I was a girl. I mean for my family, for me to go to university, was a tremendous privilege. Now, of course, because Labor has built such open access to university, to training, to getting skills after school, it's much more assumed that people will get those possibilities. But that doesn't mean that we've fixed everything we need to fix in order to spread opportunity.

TONY JONES: Let's go to another question about who the Labor Party might or might not support and we've got a question from Rebecca Broughton.

MIDDLE CLASS OPPRESSION

REBECCA BROUGHTON: Good evening, Julia Gillard. Sorry, very nervous. Why does the middle class of Australia, the back bone of the economy, always suffer under a Labor Government? Why does your Government penalise hard working middle class Australians with new carbon tax and taking away or even reducing the health care subsidies? Are big income tax increases for the middle class on the Government's next agenda?

JULIA GILLARD: Most certainly not and I want to benefit families who are hard working, who are out there in the suburbs and towns of our nation making a life for themselves and a life for their families, and we're trying to do that as a Government, first by making sure the economy is strong, because if people can't get a job, then nothing else in life works. We know that and during the global financial crisis and all of the periods since we've been really focused on generating jobs and we are also focused on generating opportunity for people and spreading benefits. So to, you know, go through a family and what they can look forward to - I mean, it depends, you know, on the terminology "Middle class" but if you...

TONY JONES: What is middle class? How would you identify the middle class?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I mean, Rebecca has obviously got a family in her mind but if we were talking about, you know, a dad who earns, say, $70,000 a year and mum who works part-time, maybe she's bringing in half of that, a family like that. I mean we're, you know, increasing family payments. We're making sure that both of those partners will get a tax cut from the 1st of July. The woman, if she's the part-time worker, will get the biggest tax cut. That happens because we're tripling the tax-free threshold. If they've got a couple of kids in school, they're going to get the school kids' bonus. If they've got a child who is a bit younger in childcare, then there's more support for childcare fees than there's ever been before. So we want to benefit families like that. We do, as a Government, have to pick means test points. The Government budget is always limited and you can't do everything you'd like for everyone so, yes, we do have to pick means test points and we do and we try and do that with a sense of fairness about who needs assistance the most and that's what we did with the private health insurance rebate where we basically decided that, you know, woman earning $35,000 a year shouldn't be subsidising the private health insurance of someone who earns four or five times what she does.

TONY JONES: Let me go back to the questioner. Do you, as you've identified as being from the middle class...

REBECCA BROUGHTON: Yes.

TONY JONES: ...do you feel the Prime Minister is talking to you now? I mean, do you...

REBECCA BROUGHTON: I don't know.

TONY JONES: Why not?

REBECCA BROUGHTON: We slide into the middle class band where we don't actually get any subsidies whatsoever. So it just feels like we're just constantly paying out and not getting any sort of gain from any sort of breaks that you're talking about at all.

JULIA GILLARD: Well, there are families who are obviously...

REBECCA BROUGHTON: Yeah, we're over the threshold.

JULIA GILLARD: ...beyond the family tax benefit system, which is the main way that we, you know, distribute things like the new school kids' bonus.

REBECCA BROUGHTON: Yeah.

JULIA GILLARD: So that's the, you know, extra money that people are going to get to help with the costs of getting the kids to school. Now, you can't just pick one means test point because it depends how many kids in the family. But a means test point we frequently use is around $150,000 in combined family income. Now, I know people who earn more than that can still struggle to make ends meet.

REBECCA BROUGHTON: Yeah. Yeah.

JULIA GILLARD: Particularly, you know, Sydney is an expensive city, I get that.

REBECCA BROUGHTON: That's right. Yep.

JULIA GILLARD: But we still have to make decisions about, you know, where to put government support. They're not easy decisions. You know, they're really thought about very deeply around the cabinet table but we do have to, at the end of the day, work out where Government assistance is going to do the most good, but a family above the $150,000 still getting childcare support, still desperately concerned about the quality of the local school and we've been on a big journey to improve schooling and we are going to continue on that. Still really concerned about what's happening at the local hospital and whether the emergency department would help you out if you needed help or someone in the family could get elective surgery and we've made a big difference to that and the next big thing that will make a difference is the National Disability Insurance Scheme because too many families have got a family member who needs that extra assistance and care.

TONY JONES: Okay, let's go to the other end of the income spectrum if you like. You're watching a special Q&A with the Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Our next question is a video. It's from Pamela Tarn in Toowoomba, Queensland.

CARBON TAX

PAMELA TARN: My question is to Julia Gillard. Nine out of ten families will be better off with the carbon tax. I am a single mother with a daughter attending university in the city. Youth allowance barely covers her rent, let alone anything else. I earn between $20 and $30,000 a year. I am on no government benefits. How am I better off with your carbon tax rebate?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, if Pamela earns between $20 and $30,000 a year, she is going to get a tax cut on the 1st of July. Everybody who earns less than $80,000 will get a tax cut. If you earnt around $20,000, the tax cut would be around $600. If you earnt closer to $80,000, most people are getting a tax cut of $300 so that's the way in which the system will assist her.

TONY JONES: But you're talking about income tax cuts. She's talking about the carbon tax compensation that she's not getting.

JULIA GILLARD: But we're tripling the tax free threshold to assist people with any of the flow through impacts of carbon pricing. That's why we are doing it.

TONY JONES: Right. So these changes are directly related to carbon tax, are they? I mean because there's been a lot of controversy about whether that's the case or not. It sounds like this is all designed with that in mind.

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I don't think there's anything controversial about that. We've got the biggest polluters paying the price for putting carbon pollution in our atmosphere. We're using that money to assist industries, particularly those that are trade-exposed, to cut their emissions and to remain competitive. But we're using more than half of that money to assist people with the flow through impacts of carbon pricing and people will say, well, what does that mean? So big polluters paying the price. The flow-through impacts will be less than a cent in a dollar and we know that the biggest component of it, electricity pricing, we anticipated there would be around about a 10% increase in electricity and as the regulators around the country have, you know, put out their new prices, we've been proved right, which means we've factored the assistance right so that, you know...

TONY JONES: So with this lady, just to come specifically to her question, she is not here to ask it herself...

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I think...

TONY JONES: ...will she get any compensation with the carbon tax?

JULIA GILLARD: I think Pamela is very likely to end up in front as a result of carbon pricing. The tax cuts she will get because of carbon pricing will be more by a long way than the impact she will feel from any flow-through. She said 20 to 30,000, so she's likely to see a tax cut of 600, $500. Then she said her daughter, I think it was, is at university. I actually went to a university today, to ANU in Canberra, to talk to students about a lump sum that's coming through from them to assist with carbon pricing, up to $190 a year, depending on how much student income support they get.

TONY JONES: So very specifically, she's told us she's gone to the website and can't find that she'll get any specific compensation for the carbon tax.

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I can't - you know, I don't know which part of the website she went to or anything like that but, yes, we are tripling the tax-free threshold. That means around $6,000 you didn't pay any tax. We are taking that up to $18,200. That means a million people won't have to file a tax return. It means more than half a million people will go from paying tax to paying no tax and we deliberately decided to do that as we worked our way through carbon pricing because we wanted people to see the benefits of going to work more directly, and that's really important for people who work part-time.

TONY JONES: So I'll confirm you are saying that the tax cuts are related specifically to the carbon pricing?

JULIA GILLARD: Absolutely. Absolutely, Tony, and that was transparent the first day we announced the carbon pricing package.

TONY JONES: We've got a question up the back and we'll get a microphone to you quickly, if we can. Just hold on till it gets there.

ASSISTANCE PACKAGES

AUDIENCE MEMBER: G'day. I just wanted to know the assistance packages that are coming through, how can you guarantee that those are actually going to go to electricity, for example, if they are not people get electricity every three months at different intervals of time, how can you guarantee that assistance is going to go towards what it is supposed to go to?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, we're putting more money into family budgets so, you know, nine out of ten households in Australia will get some assistance to assist with carbon pricing. There will be actually millions of lower income households who will come out in front. It's money that will go into their family budget. You know, if you're an older person on the pension, then you'll get a lump sum and then it will start to come with your pension. If you are a young person on youth allowance, you'll get a lump sum. If you're a working person under $80,000, you will get the tax cut. So, yes, people will have to manage their family budgets but the money will be there to assist them through.

TONY JONES: All right, let's keep going with questions. We've got another one from down here on the floor. It is from Sanjeev Mohan.

VOTERS STOPPED LISTENING

SANJEEV MOHAN: Good evening, Prime Minister. My question is that despite very good economic statistics, the opinion polls show that the Australian voters are not listening to the Government. Is it because the Government is not able to communicate its achievements effectively or is it the legacy of the dumping of Rudd or the carbon tax promise back-flip or it is the very messy - quite messy minority government?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I get any number of commentators who assist me with this kind of analysis so you can pick up your newspapers or listen to Tony who will do all of the political analysis. For me, for this period of Government, we've been driven to do some really big things. I mean, there is a reason that you go into politics. There's a reason you want to become Prime Minister. My reason is I've always been passionate about expanding opportunity, particularly through education. I mean it was, you know, access to education that made my life and made my life different from my father's life or my mother's life, so it has been a driving passion to say "How can we spread opportunity?" I, you know, as a person sitting in this chair as Prime Minister know you can only spread opportunity if you keep the economy strong and you can only keep doing that into the future if you actually seize the big problems, the big challenges, and address them and get them done. Climate change, carbon pricing is one of them. So we've have done a lot of really heavy lifting in the first two years of government and it's been controversial and it's still controversial and people asking what am I going to get and not understanding it. Pamela thinking that there was no assistance for her. It's hard but it is the right thing to do so that in our nation's future we can have a new source of strength, clean energy, we can be making our contribution to tackling climate change and we can be, I think, sharing some of the benefits from that as I have described in tax cuts and increased family payments and the like. But it is heavy lifting and it's, you know, been politically pretty difficult days.

TONY JONES: Well, yes, especially for Kevin Rudd and just to follow up on one of the things that the questioner just said, were you really comfortable with your colleagues taking the nuclear option on Kevin Rudd to destroy any possibility that he might come back as leader?

JULIA GILLARD: I don't really agree with the characterisation of your question, Tony. I mean...

TONY JONES: How would you characterise it then?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I would...

TONY JONES: I characterised it originally as putting two stakes in his heart so he never would rise again.

JULIA GILLARD: That's why you get paid for being a colourful commentator and I get, you know, paid for being Prime Minister with a...

TONY JONES: I get paid for telling the truth as well.

JULIA GILLARD: ...well, with a less colourful turn of phrase. Look we had a leadership contest. It was resolved at the start of this year. You know, colleagues told the truth from their perspective about how they believed it was the best way forward for Labor and Labor colleagues made up their mind.

TONY JONES: So you were comfortable with what they did to Kevin Rudd's reputation?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, the leadership contest was done. You know, it's done. It's finished. People made their contributions during it. It's not my intention to re-canvass those contributions. You know, we're looking...

TONY JONES: Well, it might not be done. Do you accept that in the coming months, trying to sell the carbon tax, are actually critical for your leadership?

JULIA GILLARD: Look, you know, every day as Prime Minister is a critical and important day. That's not about me thinking about my leadership. That's me thinking about the future of the country. I mean, you can't waste a day in this job, every day. You've got to think about what we can do to strengthen the economy. I mean, we've just lived through the most challenging economic event in our lifetimes, probably the most challenging economic event you and I will ever see in our lifetime.

TONY JONES: The global financial crisis.

JULIA GILLARD: Absolutely. The most challenging economic...

TONY JONES: Which I think you got through when Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister.

JULIA GILLARD: Well, and the aftershocks as you see now are still in Europe. I'll go to a G20 meeting next week which will be dealing with those aftershocks. Many people here probably still feel in their own lives the aftershocks from that, the sense that they're, you know, worried about their superannuation. They're not sure if their house is worth what it used to be worth or whether they'll see the continued kind of rapid growth in house prices people have become used to. So every day is a critical day. Strong economy, jobs, doing the right thing to spread opportunity, getting ready for the future. That's, you know, what I do each day and I know you...

TONY JONES: Very briefly on the subject...

JULIA GILLARD: ...I know you, you know, like to toy and play with the rest but it is too serious for that.

TONY JONES: Well, no. Yeah, it is pretty serious.

JULIA GILLARD: Yeah, it is.

TONY JONES: And your Labor colleagues are looking at the value of their vote in their individual seats. So there's a very simple question, really: will your colleagues begin to get desperate over time if...

JULIA GILLARD: What about, Tony, you and I...

TONY JONES: ...if they appear to be headed for a Queensland-style white wash?

JULIA GILLARD: What about you and I set a commitment now to do Q&A during the 2013 election campaign. You can have that job and I will have this job.

TONY JONES: Okay.

JULIA GILLARD: We have a question down the front here. We'll go...

JULIA GILLARD: They're not trying to get rid of you next year, are they? Sorry.

TONY JONES: Let's go to this question from the floor.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: If you go by the opinion polls when Kevin was challenging for the leadership, the majority of Australians would have preferred to have him as the leader of the Labor Party but the Labor Party sought different to have somebody else.

JULIA GILLARD: That's true. Well, and the way...

TONY JONES: It is a strange dichotomy, though, isn't it? The Labor Party wanted someone, the people wanted someone else is what he is saying.

JULIA GILLARD: Well, except our system of course is one where political parties pick their leaders, colleagues pick the person they think has the attributes and ability to lead them and, you know, in the Labor Party earlier this year we had that contest. You know, we get enough opinion polls that none of my Labor colleagues are ever short of an opinion poll if that's what they want to look at. People knew what opinion polls said and they still made a decision.

TONY JONES: All right, our next question is a video. It comes from Luke Miller in Geelong, Victoria.

AMBITION

LUKE MILLER: Hello, Prime Minister. Thank you for taking our questions. You have given several reasons why you challenged Kevin Rudd for the Prime Ministership in 2010, most famously that you did it to save a good government that had lost its way. As well as the altruistic reasons, how much of your decision at the time was based on personal ambition and is it harder for a woman politician to say "I wanted to be Prime Minister, I saw an opportunity and so I took it"? Thank you.

JULIA GILLARD: I don't think it's I don't think it's harder for a woman in modern Australia to express ambition, so I wouldn't agree with if the implication from Luke's question is that he thinks that's harder, I am not sure I agree with that. But the decision I made was in a set of very extraordinary circumstances and I explained it at the time. You know, I think people have then had the opportunity to, you know, see another leadership contest and some of the events of 2010 were canvassed again then. Now, you know, I'm not looking back at 2010 or even earlier this year. I'm looking to what happens tomorrow and the day after and the day after to keep, you know, making sure our country is strong and fair and getting stronger and fairer.

KNITTING

TONY JONES: We've got another hand up over there. We'll try and get to that. We've got an enormous variety of questions that have come in for the Prime Minister. Here's one we received from Nick Brody in Cessnock, New South Wales: "Prime Minister, I read that you knit and you were knitting for friends' babies. It was also mentioned your media adviser forbade photos of knitting. Why can't we see you doing ordinary things? Surely this will resonate with everyday Australians."

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I'm not sure it would make the most fascinating TV, me knitting. You know, there's one row. Oh, few minutes later there's another. So I don't think, Tony, that it's going to be a best seller. I did talk about knitting in a recent newspaper interview and there was a little discussion about whether or not a photo should be taken of the knitting but it wasn't.

TONY JONES: Is it because they don't want people to see you with dangerous weapons in your hand?

JULIA GILLARD: You're obviously not a man who wields knitting needles all that often because I don't think you'd really describe them as a dangerous weapon, certainly not the bamboo ones.

TONY JONES: Well, I wouldn't want one in my back. Let's move to politics. Our next question comes from Frank Hango Zada.

SELF SERVING POLITICS

FRANK HANGO-ZADA: Prime Minister, we have recently witnessed factional divisions and in fighting within the Government, the most ferocious character assassination of a senior minister, serious allegations against two MPs, mud-slinging and tit for tat behaviour by both sides of Parliament. My question is: have the political parties become more focused on self-preservation than serving their electorate?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, thank you for that question and I think that there has been a, you know, shrillness, if you like, to a lot of the current domestic political debate that puts people off and if people are put off politics, then I think that's a dreadful thing. I want, you know, the nation to feel a sense of engagement and connection with our democracy. Ultimately who they vote for is a question for them, but you want people to be able to look at, you know, the Parliament, at political parties and see the big issues being wrestled with. I think it's unfortunate that there's been this sort of real climate of fear about a big change, that is carbon pricing. There's been, you know, a lot of fear abroad but people will ultimately get to judge for themselves and that, I think, is the true democratic test that people can touch and feel something and work out what they think about it. In terms of, you know, the dialogue in our country, I think it is better if we're bringing people together for serious discussions about important things. So, for example, on Wednesday this week, I will be in Brisbane. We'll be bringing together business leaders and trade union leaders and civil society leaders, some of the State Premiers to talk about our economic future, knowing that we've, you know, got a strong economy and there'd be plenty of countries around the world who'd do anything to trade with our position but we've got to keep, every day, strengthening and building for the next stage and that's the kind of positive conversation I want to have coming out of Wednesday this week.

FRANK HANGO-ZADA: But why don't people feel encouraged by exactly what you said? There is a lot of noise within Parliament, there is a lot of arguing and toing and froing that people are losing faith in what Government is all about.

JULIA GILLARD: Look, I think there's that old kind of saying about, you know, what's the noise and what's the signal? I think there is plenty of noise. What's important is the signal about what government is trying to achieve and what's important for the nation now. I think what's important for the nation now is to congratulate ourselves on a big shared achievement and that is the current strength of our economy. We did it together during difficult days and everybody played their part and If I can just give you one statistic, because I think it tells the story, since the days of the global financial crisis to now our economy is 10.3% bigger. In the Eurozone they have gone back wards by 1.7%. In places like Spain, one in four people are unemployed, almost 25% of people. Here we've got an unemployment rate around about 5%. These are shared achievements. We built them together. But there are still stresses and strains in parts of our economy and still so many things we've got to do to realise our promise as a fair nation. That's what I think the political conversation should be about. I think there's been a lot of noise, a lot of fear about carbon pricing and I think that will die away after the 1st of July. Not instantaneously, not overnight, but people will get to judge for themselves and see that a lot of this noise was just that.

TONY JONES: The questioner also asked about the serious allegations against two MPs. Why did it take so long to come to the conclusion that Craig Thomson should be suspended and moved to the cross benches?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, obviously, you know, as leader I was weighing up some issues here. I mean we have the presumption of innocence and, you know, that's a principle we want to stand behind. There are proper processes that will weigh for Craig Thomson, all of these issues. But I did, you know, make a judgment call about respect for the Parliament. Some people agree with it. Some people don't. That's life. But Craig Thomson has moved to the cross bench and the proper processes instigated through Fair Work Australia and the like will go to the courts.

TONY JONES: But very specifically, when you made the decision on April the 29th, this is a long time after the allegations were made and there was a tremendous amount of controversy before that, you said a line had been crossed. "I believe a line has been crossed here. Because a line has been crossed, I have acted". What was the line?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, there were - there's someone's phone. It was an accumulation. Clearly there was the matter involving Mr Thomson and the questions involving Mr Slipper and given that I thought some steps needed to be taken and I took them.

TONY JONES: So, what, the line was the combination of having two problems?

JULIA GILLARD: It was a combination, yes, and I took a view about respect for the Parliament and the best way of securing that in what were a difficult set of issues. Both individuals strenuously deny the allegations against them and they are entitled to their day in court.

TONY JONES: So two was too many?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, look, it's not a metric. I said on the day it is not a, you know, sort of chemical formula where, you know, you work out molecules. It's not that kind of precision. It was a judgment call and I made it.

TONY JONES: All right. We've just got one more hand up here and then we'll move onto some policy questions down the front.

THANKS TO MINING?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Prime Minister, you talk about the 10.3% growth in the economy and it being a shared achievement. I think most Australians would agree it's probably fair to say that a large part of that shared agreement has come from mining and resources under the guidance and stewardship of people like Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer, who have been famously massive targets for your government. With that 10.3% growth that has been driven heavily by them, do you not think that rather than be a target you could, you know, say thank you or give them a little bit of credit because that wealth has had to be grown and I think certainly that would be something that your government would want to thank them for rather than make them a constant target.

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I'm very happy to talk about Gina and Clive and I'll address those issues but I do want to say the shared achievement I'm talking about is pulling through the global financial crisis and that required Government to play its part. We guaranteed banks, we provided stimulus payments but right around the nation, in factories, in shops, employers and employees came together. They worked out short time working arrangements rather than, you know, sacking you and sacking you and sacking you, keeping the work force together and maybe everybody working a day less. Big work places like Holden came up with cooperative arrangements to keep their workers all there and they pulled through. That is a shared achievement and every one of us should be proud of that. That is something we did together and, yes, the strength of mining has been a terrific attribute of our economy, built by some big mining companies and some big players, built too by thousands of people who go and work very hard in those mines each day. On, you know, Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer, they got involved in a political debate, they chose to do it, got involved in a political debate about how much tax they should pay. Where I was saying, the Government was saying and we continue to say that at this time in our nation's development, given the huge profitability of mining, and the fact that the strong Australian dollar is putting pressure on some industries, it's the right time to share, to share a bit more from mining with other people around the nation, businesses around the nation, families around the nation. They said they didn't want to pay any more tax. They entered a political conversation. In a political conversation, there is going to be, you know, politics going both ways and there has been.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Very briefly, the banks have also been very profitable, as I am sure everyone in this audience has contributed to the banks' profit in the last year in some way or another. Would you mind calling on the banks to share some of their what could be called their super profits (indistinct)?

JULIA GILLARD: Let me assure you, you would probably know after the interest rate reductions and we have seen interest rates coming down ...

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I don't count that as sharing.

JULIA GILLARD: No. No. No. Interest rate reductions you shouldn't see as sharing because the Reserve Bank makes the decision about interest rates. But when interest rates come down, you would have heard me and the Treasurer in particular prepared to offer very clear and free character assessments of bankers who weren't going to pass through all of that interest rate reduction to their customers. So let me assure you we're prepared to say to the banking sector, which we guaranteed during the days of the global financial crisis...

TONY JONES: What does it say about their characters? You mentioned character assessments. Is there something wrong with their character if they don't pass it on or is it about their profitability and where they got the money from?

JULIA GILLARD: It's the right thing to do when it is not necessary for them, for cost of funds reasons, to hold these interest rate reductions back. It's the right thing to do to pass them on and we're prepared to say that very clearly and if banker A doesn't give you the right deal, we've made it easier than it's ever been before to take your business down the street to banker B.

TONY JONES: All right. We've got another question on mining. It comes from Ana Claudia Diaz.

MINING JOBS

ANA CLAUDIA DIAZ: Good evening, Prime Minister. Sorry I'm a little bit nervous.

JULIA GILLARD: That's okay.

CLAUDIA DIAZ: You vow that no foreign worker will take a job that an Australian could do after Chris Bowen approved the hire of 1700 foreign labour. Most Anglo-Saxon Australians don't want to go to the remote areas but why don't developers use the immigrant workers already in Australia waiting for an opportunity to work? They cannot find a job because of lack of Australian experience and they are working as taxi drivers, cleaners or factory workers. Is your government doing enough to integrate them?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, thank you for your question. I would hope that I don't know if you have had a particular experience, but I would hope that people would say about this country that we do a good job as a nation. So I'm not really talking about the government here. I'm talking about all of us. We do a good job as a nation welcoming people to be part of our country. In a different time, in a different age, I was one of those migrants, a 4 year old girl getting off a boat with her mum and dad, who were 10 pound Poms, as the parlance was and, you know, we certainly got to make a life here. We got to make a wonderful life here. We didn't have the, you know, problems that can come from not being from an English-speaking background. We had an easier journey, obviously, being English-speaking migrants and I'm always just blown away by the courage of people who move around the world not even speaking the language but I think we're a good country for reaching out and bringing people into our Australian society.

TONY JONES: What about working out a plan to get them into mining jobs since there are apparently huge skills shortages and you've got this pool of Australian-based labour that are looking for jobs.

JULIA GILLARD: And I'm very happy to talk about that because whether it's people who have recently migrated here or whether it's, you know, people who have been born here and been here all of their lives, I think there are lots of people who do want those jobs in mining towns and mining communities and we've got to get the linkages right so people get those opportunities. That's one of the things we've created this jobs board for, because I hear stories all the time about people in, you know, country New South Wales, they've got trade qualifications, they've gone on, you know, seek.com or one of the sites, they've put their CVs into mining companies and they haven't heard back. We've got to do better than that and you're asking us to go even a step further and to help people to get the training to get those jobs and we have just financed and we're putting in place a huge new skills and training package which we hope will help people get skills for employment and skills for those jobs. So I think we're on the same page. I think you're absolutely right.

TONY JONES: Just a quick follow up. Is it true that you told a meeting of union leaders you were furious about the foreign workers decision?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I actually answered a number of those questions in Parliament, Tony, and I'm not going to talk about, you know, discussions I have in my office with individuals but I can tell you I'm very passionate about making sure Australians get these opportunities first.

TONY JONES: You'd be happy to deny that if it weren't true though, wouldn't you? I mean you're were either furious about the decision or you're not furious about the decision. What would you tell this audience?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, what I tell this audience is I can get furious about circumstances where I am in Western Australia and I'm meeting with mining industry executives and they've got huge projects in the north and they're saying to me, "We can't get skilled labour" and then I can drive out of Perth to Kwinana and go to places where apprentices are being put off. I get furious about that absolutely because those...

TONY JONES: And so were you then...

JULIA GILLARD: ...those kids should get...

TONY JONES: ...were you then equally furious about the decision...

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I'm explaining to you my motivations, Tony.

TONY JONES: Yeah.

JULIA GILLARD: I want those kids to get that chance and that's how we've got to structure our arrangements. What's less recognised about this - you know, it became the subject of public debate, the Roy Hill agreement, is 6,700 Australians will get an opportunity to work in that project. That's a great thing. That's a great thing. But as we build these super projects around the country, I want to make sure that we're getting, you know, the training right, the opportunities right so I don't hear stories about an apprentice losing his job and his opportunity in life whilst a mining executive is sitting at a table with me saying "I can't get the skilled workers I need".

TONY JONES: And in the meantime while that is happening, you're perfectly happy for them to bring in foreign workers from China or other places?

JULIA GILLARD: I will always want a circumstance that puts Australian workers first. We have got more than $500 billion of mining investment in the pipeline. So we are going to face skills shortages and there will be some foreign workers involved but I'll always want to have arrangements that get workers the skills they need and the opportunities they need, Australian workers from all parts of the country, because so much of this industry is going to be about flying in and flying out, as well as it being about people who move to some of these towns to get an opportunity, because it is not just, you know, in the mine. It's actually, you know, associated with the township near the mine doing all of the catering and other work that needs to be done.

TONY JONES: Okay, let's go to another subject, completely different. We've got a question from Geoff Thomas.

GAY MARRIAGE

GEOFF THOMAS: Prime Minister, my name is Geoff Thomas. I'm a Vietnam veteran, I'm a plumbing contractor and the proud father of a gay son. Almost two years ago I asked Tony Abbott whether he'd be prepared to treat gay and lesbian Australians with the dignity and respect that he would accord all other Australians. Now, over that period, he hasn't changed his view but I believe that you have. The country now knows you stand side by side and as one with Tony Abbott and the extremist group the Australian Christian Lobby on this issue. Could you please explain to me that in a country that prides itself on freedom, equality and tolerance, how it is that denying same-sex couples the right to marry is in any way, in any sense, fair, just or consistent with the way Australians think today?

JULIA GILLARD: Thank you for your question and I can hear the passion in your voice and the concern for your son and so, you know, to hear from you is an important part of this evening. I am going to take a different view from you though and I do want to explain my view. You know, I, of all people, and I think people in this room and beyond this room, know a bit about my personal life, I, of all people, would sit before you and say I think that you can have a relationship of love and commitment and trust and understanding that doesn't need a marriage certificate associated with it. I mean that's my life experience and so I'm speaking from that life experience. It then becomes a question - you know, if you believe, as I do, that people can have, you know, deep and committed relationships without a marriage certificate, it becomes an issue about, you know, how are we going to deal with this cultural institution of longstanding in Australian society and are we going to try and change it to fit circumstances where people are in love and deeply committed but don't fit the current Marriage Act or are we going to grow up new traditions and norms that embrace that? I have taken a particular view about it. You know, it is a, you know, view that some people might look at me and think, oh, it's an odd one for her to hold but it is a view I hold and I hold very deeply. So that's how I'll exercise my vote as an individual when these things come before the Australian Parliament. But I have certainly become persuaded that it's not for me to tell my Labor colleagues or anybody else what they should believe and how they should vote when that comes to the Parliament so I have ensured that, when it does, Labor people are able to vote any which way they choose in accordance with, you know, their heart, their conscience, their family, their community and I suspect large numbers of them won't vote the same way as me.

TONY JONES: Have you changed your view on this as Geoff Thomas suggested?

JULIA GILLARD: I haven't changed my view on the Marriage Act. I have ensured and this is, I think, a change from when I was last on Q&A, in the time in between I have ensured that there is a conscience vote for Labor members.

TONY JONES: Let's go back to our questioner. What makes you say the Prime Minister has changed her view?

GEOFF THOMAS: I've always believed you to be a compassionate person. You belong to a political party that tells us, and we believe, most people would believe, are the architects of all great social change in this country. To me you sit there as a Prime Minister that's abandoned that basic principle of treating every Australian equal under the law. My son deserves to be treated equally under the law. John Howard changed this law eight years ago. What he did is took a group of law abiding citizens and put them outside the law. What you're doing, Prime Minister, is keeping them there.

TONY JONES: Okay, we're going to take that as a comment. Now, you're watching a special Q&A. We've got quite a few other questions to go. It's with the Prime Minister Julia Gillard, as you can see. The next question is a video. It comes from Margit Alm in Eltham, Victoria.

REFUGEES TPVs

MARGIT ALM: With border control in shambles, there is now an open door entry for people smuggled asylum seekers. Would it not be time for the Government to start issuing refugees with restricted refugee protection visas rather than the current and very generous permanent resident visas? This would make Australia a less attractive destination for those who predominantly flee chaos and economic deprivation rather than their Government's persecution. Thank you.

TONY JONES: Julia Gillard.

JULIA GILLARD: I don't agree that these visas - what we would call temporary protection visas, the sort of technical term if you like - I don't agree these visas would make the kind of difference that your viewer thinks. We used to have temporary protection visas under the Howard Government and the evidence was that they didn't make a difference to arrival numbers and, even more disturbingly, the evidence was, because people were getting temporary protection visas and there were no family reunion rights, that you were starting to see more women and children on boats trying to join husbands and fathers who had already come here and I think we all know how dangerous those boat journeys are. We have seen too much evidence of the tragedy that it ends up in to ever want any part of our system to encourage women and kids to get onto boats and so I just don't agree with your viewer. We do have permanent protection visas. I, of course, would like to see changed arrangements for people smuggling but we haven't been able to get those through the Parliament.

CAPTAIN EMAD

TONY JONES: We've got a web question from Richard Faye. We've got a hand up the back there. We'll get a microphone up to that gentleman. Richard Faye in St Ives, New South Wales: "Why have illegal boat smugglers been allowed to set up operations within Australia, which can be located by news reporters but not by the Federal Police."

JULIA GILLARD: Well, to be fair to our Federal Police colleagues, as people would have seen from Commissioner Negus' public statements, the man who was the subject of the Four Corners report had been the subject of investigation and inquiry by the police.

TONY JONES: So why didn't they arrest him?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, as Commissioner Negus says, and these are operational decisions for the police, you know, the Government doesn't make them and we shouldn't make them. The operational decision that the police made was that they did not have enough evidence to issue an arrest warrant or to detain him at our border.

TONY JONES: Have they told you that they knew that he was living in Canberra, a very short distance away from their headquarters?

JULIA GILLARD: What they have told me is the same as what Commissioner Negus has said publicly, that they made some operational decisions about what evidence they had at their proposals and the standards of proof are obviously different between putting a TV show to air and I'm not trying to be dismissive of the TV show in saying that but I think it's just commonsense that there is different standards from putting a TV show to air to police getting together a body of evidence that they think will get a prosecution up in court beyond reasonable doubt. Our Federal Police have, you know, arrested a number of people smugglers and a number have been convicted. They're now behind bars and a number more will face the courts.

TONY JONES: Yet this man was allowed to carry on a people smuggling business in Australia, in Canberra, a short distance away from the Federal Police and I put it to you they didn't know he was there.

JULIA GILLARD: Well, that's not what Commissioner Negus has said publicly about the police's endeavours and investigations in relation to...

TONY JONES: So they did know he was there?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I'm just referring you to what Commissioner Negus said publicly.

TONY JONES: I know he hasn't said that he knew he was there.

JULIA GILLARD: Well, they've certainly - Commissioner Negus has spoken publicly about various inquiries that were made and activities by the Police and their ultimate conclusion that they didn't have a sufficient body of evidence to arrest him.

TONY JONES: Would you be surprised to hear that they had lost him and didn't know where he was?

JULIA GILLARD: Look, I don't really, at the end of the day, understand where the questioning takes you. I don't, as Prime Minister, sit in my office and say to the Federal Police "I am going to take into my head to direct you to, you know, arrest that person who I think is a drug smuggler or that person who I think has child pornography or that person who is a people smuggler". The police do these things as police, not under the political direction of government. They make operational decisions. In the same way, if violence erupted outside here tonight - the Q&A audience, I'm sure, wouldn't be engaged in that - you wouldn't expect Barry O'Farrell to be there conducting traffic. The local police would come and do it.

TONY JONES: We've got a questioner up the back.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Prime Minister, I would like to refer to that gentleman's question down the end there. Marriage equality is 50% one thing and 50% the other. 50% putting a ring on it and 50% realising that these are real issues affecting real people. It's about a transparency. It's about clarify. It's about a depth of understanding about these issues that are affecting these people. In 2009, the Australian Human Rights Commission recommended that the Marriage Act should be changed to accommodate same-sex marriage to promote both equality of the law and equality of society in general.

TONY JONES: Okay, I'm sorry, I'm going to take that as a comment because we have dealt with this subject and we've heard the Prime Minister's answer on this one.

JULIA GILLARD: Can I just say...

TONY JONES: Yes, you can. You can.

JULIA GILLARD: ...just one thing? Our government has amended federal laws from social security all the way through to equalise treatment of same-sex couples. Now, I know you would say "Well, that's, you know, that's okay but you should also do the Marriage Act" and I am going to have a different view from you about that. Many of my Labor colleagues would agree with you, but we have entered into that work to ensure equality in things like superannuation so that you don't miss out because you are a same-sex couple.

TONY JONES: Do you have any concerns at all some of that might be unravelled in Queensland?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I mean they can't unravel Federal law like superannuation and social security law and immigration law. That's not possible.

TONY JONES: Okay, let's move along. Our next question is a video. It's from Donna Jacobs Sife in Willoughby, New South Wales.

NAPLAN VERSUS THE ARTS

DONNA JACOBS SIFE: As a performing artist in the schools for more than 25 years and as school program director in a diversity education organisation, I am in a good place to see the decline of citizenship and the arts and other enrichment programs in the schools. The schools are becoming obsessed with teaching to the test of NAPLAN and the My School website. Numeracy and literacy is all they talk about and it is, in my opinion, a dark period in education. Ms Gillard, is there any plans to redress this imbalance and to find some response to this most unfortunate unintended consequence of NAPLAN and the My School website?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I'm sure Donna is a very passionate teacher. You could tell that from the video. But I'm, you know, very focused and very rigorous about literacy and numeracy because you can't get, you know, access to the wider world of learning if you can't read, you can't write, you can't count, you can't do maths and so to end up a great creative artist or a great actress, you need those foundation skills in the same way that you need them to end up a doctor or a plumber or a shop assistant in, you know, modern Australia. People need to be able to read, write, do maths and that's what NAPLAN is about and My School tells you as much about how schools are going as I know as Prime Minister and I think that's a wonderful thing. That's we've all got the same information...

TONY JONES: Let's go to our next question. I'm sorry. Sorry.

JULIA GILLARD: That's okay.

TONY JONES: I didn't mean to cut you off there. We are trying to get through as many questions as we can at this point.

JULIA GILLARD: Sure.

TONY JONES: Our next question is from Basil King. It's also on education.

GONSKI REVIEW

BASIL KING: Thank you. Prime Minister, when will your Government implement the Gonski Report to change at least the huge equality between public funding for rich private schools as opposed to struggling public schools and also the large inequality or disproportionate number of students with disabilities in the public system as opposed to the few token ones in the private system?

JULIA GILLARD: Thank you. I can absolutely assure you we are working on the Gonski Report and working on it hard. It requires cooperative work with our State and Territory colleagues. It requires cooperative work with the Catholic education system, with independent schools. We are working on that hard now and you should expect us to say something in response to Gonski in the months ahead. We are talking about a new funding system for school year 2014, so we've got some time to get it right and we are working through it to get it right. In the meantime, we've got all of our education reforms flowing, including almost doubling the amount of money going into school education with special arrangements to inject money into disadvantaged schools and special arrangements to inject money into the care and support of kids with disabilities.

TONY JONES: Have you got the extra $5 billion that Gonski identified as being necessary to implement his reforms?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I didn't bring $5 billion with me tonight. We're working on it. Yep, it's challenging in every way, including challenging on the money, but the challenge on the money, we should remember, wasn't just a challenge to the Federal Government. It was a challenge to State and Territory Governments and we need to work through and get this right and, you know, before we get too fixated on one figure, that was preliminary work from Gonski - David Gonski, and his review panel - around an older set of data and then...

TONY JONES: So what's your...

JULIA GILLARD: ...then he said...

TONY JONES: What's your current - we haven't got a lot of time but what's your current estimate...

JULIA GILLARD: Look, I'm not...

TONY JONES: ...as to what would be necessary to implement the reforms?

JULIA GILLARD: Look, when you've seen a Government prepared to almost double funding to schools, you've seen people with good bona fides in the area, and we didn't do any of that by plucking figures out of the air and I'm not going to start now.

TONY JONES: Okay, we've got a question on tax reform from Robyn Tracey.

TAX REFORM

ROBYN TRACEY: Prime Minister, has Australia lost the will to reform our taxation system and has a flat rate of tax been considered in place of our present complicated system? And one last question is: why has negative gearing been abolished despite recommendations by the Henry Tax Review and leading economists in the country.

JULIA GILLARD: All right. Well, just quickly in order. We are engaged in tax reform right now. Things like tripling the tax-free threshold, a very big change that will give people more of the benefits of going to work. Good for welfare to work, good for second income earners, you know, mums returning to work after the birth of a child, good for part-time workers around the country, good for everybody who earns less than $80,000 a year. We are adding to that tax reform with new arrangements for small business. We are continuing to work on company tax reductions, notwithstanding the problems we have had with the Parliament standing in the face of a company tax reduction and, you know, we're sort of very interested in engaging with business on all of these tax reform settings. We've got a special working group to do just that. For negative gearing, we didn't agree with the Henry Tax Review. We ruled that out. We think that, you know, an abolition of negative gearing would cause distortions to the property market that we didn't want to see but, you know, don't forget how big that tax reform is on the 1st of July, a million people no longer needing to file a tax return, half a million of them going from paying tax to no tax. It is a big thing.

TONY JONES: Just a quick question on that, can you have serious tax reform and can Henry have reviewed a serious tax reform process when you tied his hand behind his back by saying, "You can't even look at the GST"?

JULIA GILLARD: Of course and the Ken Henry tax reform process was a serious one and we've got a good count as to how many of the things we've actually done. We haven't done all of them. Let's remember the genesis of things like the Mineral Resources Rent Tax, another huge tax reform proposal, came out of the Ken Henry Tax Review that we better share the opportunities coming from this resources boom.

TONY JONES: But never ever on the GST for any reform, is it?

JULIA GILLARD: Look, not from me, no, because the GST, at the end of the day, is a regressive tax and so we are looking for tax reform in other areas.

ASSANGE

TONY JONES: We've got a last minute Tweet question from Julian Burnside in Melbourne, Victoria: "Has the PM asked the US if they intend to try to get Assange from Sweden?"

JULIA GILLARD: Whenever I come on here I end up answering questions about Julian Assange and so last time it was Mr Assange in person. To Julian Burnside watching in Melbourne: we've got no advice from the US Government about seeking extradition of Mr Assange and every step of the way that Mr Assange has faced court proceedings, we have provided him with full consular assistance. He's got exactly the same assistance that any other Australian faced with legal difficulties would get.

TONY JONES: Just a very quick question then to follow up what he was saying: would you demand to get that advice before they attempted to do anything like that?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, I mean, there's no information before us and, actually, things are at an earlier stage where Mr Assange is still legally contesting, as is his right, the question of his extradition from the UK to Sweden.

TONY JONES: All right, we've got another question. It's from David Lear.

DEMOCRACY DISENCHANTMENT

DAVID LEAR: Good evening, Prime Minister. It goes back to a comment that was made earlier. Given the very acrimonious personalisation of the political debate, what is the risk that a negative attitude towards politicians can be turned into a disenchantment with the whole democratic process, as is happening in some countries around the world at the moment?

JULIA GILLARD: Thank you. Ultimately in politics you've got to make a decision about, you know, whether you're trying to grapple with the big issues, even if that causes sometimes huge arguments, and I have done that. I have caused big debates in this country. Mineral Resources Rent Tax, a huge debate. Obviously carbon pricing, a huge, huge debate and, you know, it's not done yet as we move towards the 1st of July. I suspect you will see a lot more fear mongering and sloganeering before we get there on the 1st of July. You know, my approach is you've got to get these big things done and sometimes they do mean that the temper of our democratic conversation for a while looks a bit frayed. But I think when you look back in time- you know, I didn't get to watch it last night, I will watch it, but the film that was on the ABC about Eddie Mabo, remember the temper of that conversation? People were holding up maps of Australia, coloured in black. When people were being told that their back yard that they had freehold title for was somehow going to be subject to a native title claim? Huge, huge fear mongering in the community and here we are 20 years later and we're all patting each other on the back about what a great thing our nation did in responding to the Mabo decision. Well, you know, big things can fray democratic conversations but they're still important and you've got to get them done and I actually think in the months to come, people are going to look back on carbon pricing and some of the sillier claims that have been made and just shrug their shoulders and say "What on earth was that all about? Here we are, you know, it's all fine."

PM FUTURE

TONY JONES: Okay, we're actually out of time but we do have a web question. It's just come in from Jessie Trecco-Alexander in Ingham, Queensland: "What advice would you give someone who aspires to be the Prime Minister one day?"

JULIA GILLARD: Be really careful what jackets you buy. That's absolutely pivotal, apparently, to the question. And if you're not that concerned about what jackets you're wearing, then don't worry about the criticism that comes. But more importantly, I'd say find something you're really, really passionate about and you desperately want to change and that will carry you through the rest.

TONY JONES: Sadly, that really is all we have time for tonight. Please thank our special guest, the Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Thank you. And we should say again that we have invited the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, to join us for a one man Q&A session and so far he has declined. We'll keep you posted on that. Next week on Q&A, the panel will include British comedian Lenny Henry, Hawke cabinet minister now Age Discrimination Commissioner Susan Ryan and Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Brian Schmidt. Until next week's Q&A, goodnight.