RUDD: This year I put forward a plan for Australia’s long-term future and today I announce the team that I propose to implement that plan for Australia’s future, a fresh team, a team with fresh ideas, fresh ideas for our country’s future.

Early today I telephoned His Excellency the Governor-General to discuss with him and to propose members of the Executive of the Government which I would propose to lead. And I have requested that the Governor-General make arrangements for the swearing in of this Executive next Monday.

Australia’s faces significant challenges in the future and these challenges extend across the whole of government and beyond. How do we build long-term prosperity for our country, how do we create a world-class education system, how do we deal with the long-term funding problems of our hospital system, how do we act appropriately on climate change and water, how do we build the infrastructure which our country needs for the 21st century, how do we restore and build and advance flexibility and fairness in the workplace laws of our nation and how do we assist working families already under financial pressure.

These are significant challenges, significant future challenges and these are challenges which the team I have put together will now address and deal with in their agenda for work for the three years ahead.

The core of my future plan is building an education system which would be world-class. In fact, I want Australia to have the world’s best education system. That’s our vision for the nation. I can think of no better way to underline the importance which I attach to education as a core part of our future agenda than by having the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, as Minister for Education. Julia will continue also as Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. What we will do, therefore, within that portfolio is bring together the core elements of Labor’s productivity and participation agenda for the future from early childhood education through childcare, through schools, through trades training, through wider vocational education, through to our universities, as well as the participation agenda itself. We therefore will have within this portfolio preparation for work, participation in work, and of course the laws governing the workplace. We believe this is an important indication of where we want to take the country for the future.

As Deputy Prime Minister, Julia will have charge of delivering this agenda. It is a significant agenda for the nation. Julia Gillard is a first-class human being with a first-class mind and will be a first-class Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and I look forward to working with her on this important agenda for the future.

Core of my economic team will be made up of the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, and the Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner. Wayne and Lindsay have already got down to work with the Treasury and Finance Department briefing papers and will be meeting with officials from those Departments next week to begin the early work in framing the Budget for the year 2008. I can think of no better individuals to occupy these two most significant portfolios of State and I look forward to working with them in the period ahead as well.

I’ve already indicated that I want to see a wider role for the Treasury in driving the policy agenda, policy reform agenda, of the Government which I will lead further into the future. I’m serious about that statement. Treasury has been an underutilised resource in the past. I want it seen to be brought to the centre stage of what this Government does in the future. We cannot afford to fall behind when it comes to national economic reform and I intend to harness the full resources and capabilities the Treasury in so doing.

In addition, I have assigned to Lindsay Tanner, the Minister for Finance, responsibility for Business Deregulation. I’ve said before to the business community that we need a voice around the Cabinet table which is explicitly charged with the deregulation agenda. Lindsay Tanner will be that voice. He’ll be supported by another Minister outside the Cabinet, and I’ll come to those detailed arrangements in a minute.

A core part of Labor’s agenda for the future is climate change, water and the environment. This is core business for the incoming Government of Australia. Peter Garrett will be a Cabinet Minister and Minister responsible for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts.

Penny Wong will be the Minister for Climate Change and Water.

When I attend Bali in just over a couple of week’s time, I’ll be attending that conference with both Peter and with Penny. Penny will have responsibility for our international negotiations on Kyoto and Kyoto plus. She’ll have responsibility for the negotiation of our domestic emissions trading regime and that work will unfold during the course of 2008. She will also have responsibility for the harmonisation of the existing State-based mandatory renewable energy targets and regimes with an integrated national mandatory renewable target regime, as we outlined during the election period.

Peter will continue to have, apart from the wider responsibilities in the Environment portfolio and in the Heritage portfolio and the Arts portfolio, also responsibility for delivering key climate change programs within Australia - solar programs, water efficiency programs, and general energy efficiency programs as well. I am proud of the first-class credentials of my Environment and Climate Change and Water team. Peter Garrett and Penny Wong will be a formidable duo in dealing with the challenges which this nation faces in the future.

The wider economic team that I put forward to the nation is also first-class. Anthony Albanese will be the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. We have said repeatedly that a core part of the nation’s future productivity challenge is to advance skills and to advance infrastructure. With the skills agenda, we have dealt with and will deal with through the portfolio which will be under the Deputy Prime Minister’s charge. The infrastructure agenda will be under Anthony’s charge. Infrastructure Australia, the body we propose to establish to audit and to plan for the nation’s future infrastructure needs will answer in to this portfolio. It is the first time the nation has or will have a Department of Infrastructure.

We will have also a Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research headed by Kim Carr. This will be the first time we’ll have a Department of Innovation in this country. I’m proud of the work which Kim has done, and this will bring to the centre stage the crucial importance which innovation will have in the economy of the future.

Martin Ferguson will be in Cabinet, as are the two previous ministers that I’ve mentioned. He will be the Minster for Resources and Energy and Tourism. The tourism industry has long requested that tourism should be represented at the Cabinet table. It now will be represented at the Cabinet table by Martin Ferguson.

Tony Burke, also one of Labor’s rising stars, will be given a significant new responsibility. I take rural Australia very seriously. I take regional Australia very seriously. I take the challenge of our primary industries, particularly at a time of climate change, very seriously. And that’s why Tony Burke will be appointed as the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. He will have a wide and extensive brief in dealing with the needs of the bush, dealing with the needs of rural Australia, dealing with the needs of rural industry and for me this will be a central and critical portfolio in the Government. And that is a Cabinet Ministry as well.

Also in Cabinet is Simon Crean who will be Minster for Trade. I’ve said before on many occasions it’s time for Australia to resume its proper place of leadership in the negotiation of a global free trade round and that leadership position has become diminished during the period of the current Government. Therefore Simon Crean is well credentialed to occupy that position. We also have a range of complex, difficult bilateral free trade negotiations which will confront Australia and Simon Crean is well experienced and well qualified to deal with those negotiations and I look forward to working with Simon in these critically important areas.

These Cabinet Ministers will be supported in the outer Ministry by Senator Nick Sherry who will be the Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law; by Craig Emerson in the House of Representatives who will retain his portfolio of Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy.

He will have the additional responsibility of being the Minister assisting Lindsay Tanner, the Finance Minister, on Business Deregulation. Business Deregulation is critical for small business, it’s critical for the business community in general and it, itself, the overburden of business regulation, represents an impediment on long term productivity growth.

I also, as part of our wider economic team, welcome a new Minister to the table in Brendan O’Connor. Brendan O’Connor would be the Minister for Workforce Participation and Brendan is a person of considerable ability and talent and I look forward to his contribution to the team as he will work as part of Julia Gillard’s wider portfolio.

I’m also putting forward a strong Social Policy team. Nicola Roxon will be Minister for Health and Ageing and she will be responsible as a Minister in the Cabinet for overseeing the overall reform agenda we’re proposing for health and hospitals. This is a most significant area of work. It’s an area of work which affects every family in the country. The long term funding challenges faced by our hospitals is real. This reform agenda has to be prosecuted with the States and Territories. We intend to do that. And Nicola Roxon is well qualified to undertake that task and Nicola has acquitted herself formidably not just during the year but also during the election campaign.

In our Social Policy team, Jenny Macklin has a critical and critical role. Jenny will be Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. This will be a most crucial year ahead when it comes to Indigenous Affairs policy and Jenny Macklin has acquitted herself well in the year to date and I’m confident, given her experience and her wide ranging policy experience and depth, that she is well qualified to deal with the great challenges we face in the Indigenous Affairs area in the period ahead.

Tanya Plibersek, outside of Cabinet, will be the Minister for Housing and the Minister for the Status of Women. You will be familiar with the fact that during the course of 2007 we’ve outlined a large number of housing initiatives - housing initiative which go to first home buyers, housing initiatives which go to the core challenge of affordable rental accommodation, housing initiatives which seek to draw down the cost of new housing developments in outer suburban areas by proper partnerships with local government, housing initiatives which also go to the deep needs faced by those who are now homeless and Tanya Plibersek is not only well qualified but is passionately engaged with the housing agenda. And having worked with her on so many of these initiatives during the course of the year, and in dealing with many of the constituencies affected by Australia’s housing crisis, I can think of no better person qualified to take on this function than Tanya Plibersek.

Finally within the Social Policy team, we have Joseph Ludwig. Joseph Ludwig will be the Minster for Human Services. This is a major area of reform. If you look at the quantum of payments made through the Human Services portfolio and the crying needs for the reform of those payment systems in terms of savings to the taxpayer and savings which can in turn be delivered to those who need them most, namely the recipients of those payments, this is a major area of reform which is yet to be addressed and Joseph Ludwig, as his previous experience would demonstrate and his attention to key elements of detailed reform in his own background, I think is well equipped for that task. Joseph of course will also be Manager of Government business in the Senate which I anticipate will be a pretty busy job. So Joseph, I look forward to his contribution to our overall period in government.

Our National Security team. This is a fundamental responsibility for any nation-state and this is one to which I attach, and have always attached, the first priority in my own approach to the task of government.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs will be Stephen Smith. Stephen, I believe, will bring great talent and ability to this task. It’s critical for Australia as we again seek to assert an independent voice of Australia in the affairs of the world. I look forward to Stephen’s contribution. I think also Stephen, as a senior Minister from Western Australia, will pay particular attention to the integration of Western Australia into the foreign policy dealings of the nation. This nation doesn’t just look east, it looks north and it looks west and with no particular reference to Tasmania, that’s part of Australia but I think having a foreign minister from Western Australia is a very good initiative for the nation.

Joel Fitzgibbon will be the Minister for Defence. Joel has acquitted himself very well during the year in the Defence Portfolio. He’s visited practically every defence base in the country. He’s familiarised himself with the services and the particular requirements of the Defence portfolio and I look forward very much to working with him in that area.

Robert McClelland will be the Attorney-General. And Robert is a person of considerable experience in the law, a person who brings great dignity to that office and a person whose sobriety and judgment when it comes to matters pertaining to the Attorney-General’s portfolio is I think commendations sufficient for him to become Attorney-General and I look forward to working with him in that role as well.

Bob Debus will become Minister for Home Affairs. Home Affairs as a portfolio will aggregate within it the range of domestic law enforcement agencies which are currently in the property of the Commonwealth. And I believe Bob, given his extensive experience as Attorney-General of New South Wales, his extensive experience as a Cabinet Minister in that Government, is well qualified to bring the skills necessary to that task.

Chris Evans, Labor’s Leader in the Senate, will be Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. This is critical when it comes to the future of border security, it is critical given Australia’s long term immigration requirements and needs and it is a critical interface in terms of Australia’s economic needs, social settlement needs as well as our national security and border security requirements and Chris Evans will be well qualified for that task.

Bob Debus will be in the outer ministry. Chris Evans, of course, will be in Cabinet - also in the outer ministry supporting this team we will have Alan Griffin who will be Minister for Veterans’ Affairs. Alan is well regarded in my experience in the veterans’ community and will be well qualified for that task.

A new Minister in the Government will be Warren Snowdon who will be Minister for Defence, Science and Personnel. Given Warren’s long engagement with the Defence community in the Northern Territory, I think he will do exceptionally well in that task and I am very much looking forward to having a Minister in the Government from the Northern Territory.

The team that I’m putting forward is also a team of rejuvenation. We have six year members of the Ministry and we have about of the Parliamentary Secretaries I’ll run through soon, about half of them are newly elected to Parliament.

In terms of other new members to the Ministry, I would announce today Justine Elliot who will become Minister for Ageing. Justine has been enormously successful in her electorate in her dealings with the ageing community. She’s a former policewoman, a person with great experience and I believe will be well equipped to deal with the challenges of the Ageing portfolio.

Another new face to the Ministry altogether will be Kate Ellis from South Australia. Kate will be Minister for Youth and Sport. Her youthfulness speaks for itself, but she is a person with I think enormous talent to bring to the tasks ahead in those portfolio areas and a person also with a great career ahead of her.

As for Parliamentary Secretaries, Maxine McKew will be Parliamentary Secretary to myself as Prime Minister. She’ll be responsible for Early Childhood Education and Childcare and in that connection will have a working level responsibility with Julia Gillard as Deputy Prime Minister. Maxine has done stunningly well, not just at an electorate level, but in dealing at the electorate level with her schools, her preschools and the key focus of education within her community has obviously qualified herself for inclusion as a Parliamentary Secretary and in this area she has a deep and abiding passion and we look forward to her contribution, particularly as she’ll be working closely with both Julia and myself.

Greg Combet will be Parliamentary Secretary for Defence. He will have particular responsibilities for Defence procurement. Greg Combet has a firs-class mind. Defence procurement is a first-class minefield in my experience. Therefore, we need someone who has the intelligence, the commitment, the drive, the energy to take with both hands the challenges which that represents. This is an area of Government which represents billions and billions and billions of taxpayers’ dollars and frankly, very few, if any previous governments have got this right. Greg Combet as Parliamentary Secretary will of course be working to the Minister of Defence on this but it will be a substantial slice of work.

Mike Kelly will also be a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence and Mike’s detailed responsibilities within that portfolio there will be the subject of a later statement.

Gary Gray will become Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Infrastructure and Gary Gray will have particular responsibilities for northern and regional Australia. Gary Gray, obviously, understands the resources industry and the energy sector in this country well. Gary Gray has excellent relations with the business community. He’s well entrenched in Western Australia, however his national experience is formidable, including his time in the Northern Territory. I can think of no one better qualified to begin their career in the Executive of this Government than in that portfolio.

Bill Shorten is a person of enormous ability and I will look forward to Bill joining our team of Parliamentary Secretaries, as well Bill will be Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Bill will have particular responsibility for Disabilities and Childrens’ Services. This is a very important area for Government. The disabilities sector has presented us as the alternative Government of Australia with many, many submissions over the course of the last year. It’s a critical area in need of work and reform and I look forward to Bill’s contribution in that area.

Bob McMullan will be Parliamentary Secretary responsible for International Development Assistance. This is a matter near and dear to my own heart. I believe that Australia needs to lift its contribution to the region and the world in how we assist with the great tasks of poverty and underdevelopment. If we fail to do that in our own region we’re writing long term problems for the nation. Bob McMullan is enormously experienced in this area and I look forward to his key contribution in this department.

Duncan Kerr will be Parliamentary Secretary for the Pacific. If you notice anything about our relations with the South Pacific in recent years, they’ve gone through one rocky patch after another. It’s not the time for an extensive policy discussion as to why that’s been the case. I would suggest having a dedicated Parliamentary Secretary and someone with such extensive experience as Duncan charged with that responsibility will help rebuild the fabric of personal and political relationships with the governments of the South Pacific. Duncan has previous experience of course in Papua New Guinea. Duncan also was responsible for early advice way back in the early part of the decade about emerging problems in the Solomon Islands which I’m sure some of you here would recall for its prescience.

Laurie Ferguson will be Shadow [sic] Minister for Multicultural Affairs and for Settlement Programs. Settlement shadow programs are of critical importance in terms of the effective integration of the new migrants to this country. Laurie is intimately familiar with how these operate and need to operate in the future and he’ll bring great skills to that task.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible)

RUDD: These are all Parliamentary Secretaries. Ursula Stephens will be Parliamentary Secretary responsible for Social Inclusion and that will include the voluntary sector. This country would not function were it not for the voluntary sector and I believe Ursula Stephens is perfectly equipped and committed to engage with the voluntary sector on how government can best help the non-government sector to discharge critical responsibilities in the community. And Ursula’s connections with the churches and church and community and charitable organisations places her in good stead to discharge those responsibilities well.

Anthony Byrne will be Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and responsible to the Prime Minister’s portfolio for a range of administrative functions and I acknowledge my longstanding friendship and support for Anthony. He’s equipped himself enormously well in various Parliamentary committees which he’s been engaged in, not least of which has been the security and intelligence committee in recent times.

And finally on the Parliamentary Secretary front, John Murphy will be the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade, Simon Crean. John Murphy will discharge those responsibilities well. He has a particular background with a whole range of countries. He has travelled extensively in east Asia and I believe he’d discharge that responsibility well.

Couple of final remarks and then I’m happy to take questions. There’s often been a debate about the adequacy of the representation of women in the Ministries and Shadow Ministries of the country. I’m proud of the fact that we have a woman as Deputy Prime Minister of Australia. I’m proud of the fact that we will have four women in the Cabinet of this country. I’m proud of the fact that we will have seven women in the Ministry of this country. I’m proud of the fact that these women are in these positions because they have worked their guts out. They are strong, talented individuals and very much represent Australia’s step into the future.

Safe hands, John Faulkner. I think these things go together. John Faulkner will be Cabinet Secretary Special Minister of State as well as having the responsibility for the integrity functions within Government. There’s been much discussion as you know with various branches of the media about the whole debate on press freedom. One subset of that of course has been the future of Freedom of Information. We’ve proposed some changes there which you’d be familiar with in the submission we put to your various news organisations during the election campaign. Freedom of Information and associated measures will form part of John Faulkner’s responsibility and I think he will discharge that well.

John will be in the Cabinet as Cabinet Secretary and his responsibility also will go to the core question of not just ensuring the quality of Cabinet documents as they are prepared but critically be responsible for the Cabinet implementation unit to make sure that decisions, when taken by Cabinet, are properly implemented and the effects and impact of that implementation measured over time.

John Faulkner is an extraordinary individual with extraordinary talents and a capacity for thoroughness rivalled by few and therefore I think this is an ideal place for John to work within Government. I value his experience, I value his safe hands and I value his commitment, deep commitment, to the integrity functions of government.

Overall, that leads to a Cabinet of 20, a Ministry of 10 and the same number of Parliamentary Secretaries at 12. That’s a total combined Executive of the same numbers as occurred with the previous Government. In terms of Cabinet Ministers, the two additions are of course John Faulkner as Cabinet Secretary and in addition to that, the new Cabinet portfolio of Climate Change and the Climate Change portfolio will be served by a Department of Climate Change which will be located within the wider Prime Minister’s portfolio.

I conclude with this. This is a team for the future. It’s a team which I’ve selected. It’s a team which I believe is best equipped to implement the plan we put before the Australian people. It’s a team of which I am immensely proud and I look forward to the great honour of serving with that team, once sworn in by His Excellency the Governor-General next Monday.

Happy to take your questions.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) Parliamentary Secretaries and you’ve said you’d like people to have experience before they go into actual Ministry. Can we assume that this Ministry will be subject to change before the next election?

RUDD: Well I think you simply deal with these matters as they arise. I think what you can deal with is the current reality and the current I’ve got to say array of talented individuals that we have. I believe those Parliamentary Secretaryships are substantive roles. They are good training grounds and I have not lightly nominated people into those positions the day they entered Parliament. So everyone, including yours truly, is notice in terms of performance and I’m pleased to have that group in the Parliamentary Secretary position.

JOURNALIST: What’s happened to the Communications area and Stephen Conroy?

RUDD: I skipped through that by mistake, I’m sorry. So Stephen Conroy is in the Cabinet and Stephen Conroy - he’ll kill me for this - Stephen Conroy is the Cabinet Minister responsible for Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy and as such as a critical role in outlining the nation’s future economic infrastructure. He simply formed part of the page which got stuck to the back of the previous page. But he won’t be in terms of the critical functions of government. Thank you for picking me up on that, Michelle.

JOURNALIST: Can you just take us through the procedure and method by which you’ve selected this, with particular reference to the fact that factions weren’t involved? I mean how did you do it, who did you liaise with and when did you start telling people about it?

RUDD: Let me take the last part first. I started talking to people yesterday about the allocation of portfolios and I concluded that this morning. I spent a lot of time myself working on this in the last few days and I’ve bounced a few ideas off various people including Julia as my Deputy and including some of the wise old owls of the establishment but this is my list and I’ve certainly not consulted with any representatives of any groups in our show.

I think it’s part of modernising the Labor Party. I’ve been elected as Prime Minister of the country. My job is to put forward the best team for governing the country and I’ve done that. And when I stood up in the Parliamentary Party meeting this morning and thanked the Parliamentary Party for their prospective support for the team which I had put together over the previous few days, I think that’s the pathway to the future. And I think that’s really important and I’m very pleased with the team I’ve been able to put together.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) given away the idea of setting up a Department of Homeland Security and what will you be doing about the proposal for the National Security Advisor?

RUDD: On the question of the office of the National Security Advisor, the office of National Security Advisor or headed by the National Security Advisor that will be located within the Prime Minister’s portfolio. I’m already in discussions with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet about how that will be physically structured. That’s proceeding.

On the Department of Homeland Security, I spent a long time discussing this with Dr Shergold, the head of Prime Minister’s. What we’re going to do is, over the first six months of next year, have a policy commission within government on how the Homeland Security proposal could be advanced. That means, in terms of all the potential participating agencies, of which there are a large number, we would take their submissions. This policy commission would be headed by an external but someone with government experience. It would report by the middle of ’08. We would then implement the recommendations.

I believe this is the right way to go. It’s a cautious way to go, it’s a prudent way to go. Because I do not want, with a new Government being sworn in, for our security agencies to suddenly be confronted with a new administrative arrangement which would cause them to become preoccupied with the administrative rearranging rather than the operations which they currently have on foot.

Secondly, on the implementation of any Homeland Security Department proposal, we would need to go through a detailed process of ensuring agency buy in to the ultimate structure of such an agency. That’s why we believe this is the prudent and proper way to go. I don’t want to be Prime Minister of a country where we’ve got a number of, for example, significant operations on foot through those security agencies now and for those agencies to be distracted unnecessarily by large scale immediate structural, administrative bureaucratic changes. Dennis?

JOURNALIST: At a quick glance there, there seems to be a reasonable balance between Left and Right, geographic spread but this is your list. You’ve talked about the future. Would you like to see perhaps a lessening role for the factions and factional meetings as you go through over the next few years.

RUDD: Well, I think since Julia and I first became Leader and Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party, I don’t think either of us have been anywhere near such a meeting. And secondly, in putting together this team, not even been faintly relevant to my considerations. I look forward to the best team possible and if you looked at the folk who are coming up as Parliamentary Secretaries, frankly, I wouldn’t know where any of them, sort of, a number of them lie on those particular questions because I’ve just not engaged. Look, part of modernising the Labor Party is putting all that stuff behind us and this is a significant step in that modernisation process and it will be continued.

JOURNALIST: How often will Cabinet meet? What sort of chair of Cabinet will you be? I think you’ve talked about Bob Hawke. So in the end will it be consensus style or will you have the ultimate say in Cabinet.

RUDD: The question is about how often Cabinet would meet. We would follow the normal conventions, which is normally a weekly meeting and subject to any variation. I believe very much in leading Cabinet but leading Cabinet means making sure that the information on the table is comprehensive, well sourced in terms of advice from within the bureaucracy and beyond. That the Cabinet consideration of it is collegiate and that the best contributions are made around that table, as those who around the Hawke Cabinet tables remind us and, and, but you know at the end of the day, decisions have to be made and I would hope that those decisions would be made on a consensual basis. That’s the right way forward. But you’ve got to make sure that you’re constantly providing leadership direction and I’ll, I’m determined to do that.

JOURNALIST: Given the absolute central importance you’ve put on education, clearly in what your Government does and the obvious importance of industrial relations, did you have any concerns about placing both ultimately at the responsibility of one of your Cabinet Ministers?

RUDD: I think appointing the Deputy Prime Minister as responsible for the implementation of our education blueprint and for the implementation of our future flexibility and fairness system for workplace relations is exactly the right way to go. Julia Gillard is a formidable individual with formidable talents, formidable abilities and as Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, what we’re also saying is, here is a core part of our future agenda and I can think of no better way of underlining that when it comes to education, then placing that into Julia’s hands as Education Minister and if you’re looking at the overall productivity and participation agenda for the economy having a seamless approach to the preparation for work, workforce participation and the laws governing workplaces, is I think a critical step forward.

JOURNALIST: Big job.

RUDD: Big job but for a very talented individual and if I did not have that confidence, then I wouldn’t have done it but can I say I have absolute confidence in Julia’s ability to discharge these responsibilities.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) coastguard?

RUDD: Well, as part of the review that I’ve just pointed to, which is the policy commission, which is a key part of all that. That will be subsumed within that operation.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) and why did you give climate change to Penny Wong?

RUDD: Well if you look at the totality of the brief on climate change, water and environment, it’s massive. There are a series of domestic responsibilities. There are a series of national responsibilities. There are a series of responsibilities which traverse the economic and environment space classically. And so therefore, if you look at the credible workload here. It’s massive and therefore the three areas I nominated before, international negotiations, establishing a National Emissions Trading Scheme, the identification of a carbon target post the Garnaut Review, harmonisation of mandatory renewable energy targets plus water policy. Both in terms of urban and rural water. That is a huge slice of activity. Then you’ve got the rest of environment and heritage, in terms of all of the statutory obligations there which pertain to the Minister and the domestic climate change mitigation policies, our solar policies, our water efficiency policies, our demand side management policies when it comes to energy. And I think therefore, it is very good arrangement in terms of the two of them. I have the highest respect for both of these individuals, having worked with them closely. And as I said, when I go to Bali, it will be me, plus Penny, plus Peter.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) look at the Northern Territory intervention, specifically on the twelve month review that you’ve promised, bringing that forward and also looking at the five year acquisition of land and some of the welfare elements and also how quickly you’ll start, the you know, looking at the permit system again and all of those elements that you’ve said you’ll review already. Do you have sympathy for those people, within your own backbench who are pushing for that and also the Northern Territory Government themselves?

RUDD: No, my position will be there will be a 12 month review and it won’t be earlier. As I said repeatedly before the election, this has to be given an opportunity to work. I was serious about that. I am serious about it now. Our positions in relation to CDEP and on the operations of the permit system as you’ve already indicated are well known. But in relation to the overall intervention, it’s got to be given time to work. I’m acutely conscious of the sensitivities attached to it but the review will be held at the time when I indicated prior to the election. I don’t say one thing before an election and another thing after.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) slide away though, as soon as now Jenny Macklin starts her work, will she tell her Department to get on…?

RUDD: We want a reformed CDEP and Jenny’s already indicated that and I’d rather you put that question to her in terms of the question of the timetabling of it. But it will be a reformed CDEP.

JOURNALIST: Mr Rudd, when will you start discussions with the Americans and others about Iraq and our deployment there?

RUDD: Well, we’re not sworn in. That happens next Monday and we’ve been pretty busy since last Saturday. It’s Thursday. The key thing is to make sure we’ve got our team in place and that’s what I’ve been working on since Sunday morning at 9am and now it’s Thursday. So, in terms of our engagement with the Americans. Look, I’ve already had a conversation with President Bush. He kindly telephoned me to congratulate me. We touched on no policy matters on that. It was a congratulatory personal call. Not a policy related call. But very soon we’ll sit down with the United States Ambassador to start working out, other levels of contact between ourselves and the Americans and I say again. I look forward very much to working with the US Administration.

JOURNALIST: Just about federal state relations, you used to have a Shadow Minister, what’s happened to that?

RUDD: The driving agenda for Commonwealth-State relations is located within both the Prime Minister’s portfolio and the Treasury portfolio and I’ve indicated in my statements, I think the last couple of days about the central role for Treasury. I believe Treasury has been too much marginalised to be blunt, when it comes to the Commonwealth-State agenda and frankly I think that’s one of the reasons why it never worked well. Therefore, that’s where the core action must occur. Remember, the existing national reform agenda under COAG is a half reasonable agenda. It’s just it died. It didn’t go anywhere. My challenge is to energise that agenda, by deploying central agency staff in order to make that work properly into the future and that means a dedicated team from Treasury. A dedicated team from PM&C, in order to deliver the outcomes and remember, a core element of the Commonwealth-State agenda as it unfolds will be in relation to health and hospitals and Nicola Roxon already has her skates on, on that. Another core element is business deregulation, which has languished on the Commonwealth-State agenda, on the national reform agenda for a long, long time and if I’ve got two talented individuals like Lindsay Tanner and Craig Emerson working conjointly on this, then I believe we are going to make some progress, but the core driving agency of this will be with Treasury and the PM&C and my experience of Commonwealth-State negotiations in times past as a bureaucratic practitioner, is that these things work when they are driven by central agencies. And let me tell you, I’ll be driving it.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible)

RUDD: Absolutely, I met with Ken yesterday I think in Brisbane and yesterday morning from memory. And had a very good conversation with him about the Commonwealth State agenda.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) indicated to you that he would like to move on after his current contract finishes or sooner?

RUDD: Dr Shergold indicated to me that, in probably one of the first conversations he had that he had indicated to the Prime Minister back in March that he wanted to complete his term in Government at the end of this year or toward the end of his contract and he’s confirmed that again. So, I’m very regretful for that because I think he’s a very good Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Department but he and others would I’m sure confirm the accuracy of the conversation he says he had with Mr Howard in March. I’ve got no reasons to doubt that at all and that’s therefore…

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) What do you make of him, what’s your opinion of him?

RUDD: Brendan I understand is from the Liberal Party. The, look, I congratulate Dr Nelson on his election and Ms Bishop on her election and it’s no easy thing being elected to lead a political party and I understand that and those civilities having been discharged, I’m sure the gloves are now off. So there you go.

JOURNALIST: Does Senator Faulkner have a brief to guarantee or expand the Senate Estimates process under your Government?

RUDD: As part of the integrity process, I have indicated in the past that we have views in terms of accountability, viz-a-viz Senate Committees or Parliamentary Committees in general, and that goes, for example, to the role of Ministerial staff. If they get into a position of actually taking executive decisions. I would envisage given the Integrity Group which has been formed within the Special Minister, with in the Department of Special Minister of State. That would also form part of the, policy considerations of Senator Faulkner, for whom I have the highest regard.

JOURNALIST: When the Howard’s do vacate the official residences, will you and your family be living there at The Lodge permanently?

RUDD: As I said the official policy of the Labor Party for a long time has been that for whoever the Prime Minister of the day is the official residence is in Canberra and when they visit Sydney, they use Kirribilli. We have no intention to depart from that overall arrangement and I think we’re catching up with the Howard’s later on in the day to chat about those things but to emphasis again, the question of the official residences and taking up occupancy, frankly has not been a large part or any real part of my thinking. When that’s likely to occur I couldn’t tell you but it’s quite some weeks away.

JOURNALIST: On industrial relations, do you expect to be able to have legislation to put to the Senate early next year? And what do you regard as the, as far as mandate is concerned?

RUDD: Well the positions in relation to the election what we put to the electorate I think is clear cut and I’ve answered those questions many times. And what I think is less than clear cut is what the Liberal Party’s position is today. It seems to be about 13 of them. On the timetable for legislation, our program as released prior to the election indicated that we’d have legislation ready in ’08, that is the transitional bill. Nothing has changed in terms of that, I’m sure Julia Gillard will have something further to say on it. Couple more questions from people who haven’t had them, then I should go.

JOURNALIST: You said you wanted Western Australia factored more into foreign policy of the country. Can you elaborate on what you had in mind there?

RUDD: Well, I mean, WA is a growth State. It’s a huge part of the Commonwealth. It generates, I think, more than a third of our exports. This is a huge part of Australia’s future and in part of my consideration as to who would be appropriate to be Foreign Minister of the country, I think it’s very important that people think west and not just east. And secondly, if you look at time zone advantages in Western Australia, it’s pretty interesting. Most of the capitals of East Asia fall within the Perth time zone and if you’re in Perth, the number of informal weekend visits undertaken by various Ministers and regional governments and Heads of Government to Perth, I think it’s significant. I think it’s an important way in which we can start to widen the informal and formal network of Australia’s engagements with the region. But I’m a big fan and supporter of WA, huge contributor to the national economy and I think this will be an important step for the future. Last question.

JOURNALIST: When do you envisage that your new Cabinet will first meet, how often do you envisage that the full Ministry will meet and will any of them get any time off over Christmas?

RUDD: I’ll take the easy question first. Yes, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. We’ll be meeting as a Cabinet twice before Christmas because there’s a large agenda of work and I want to see detailed work plans on the plan we took to the last election from each of the Ministers. Secondly, we have also, to ensure that all the administrative arrangements underpinning the Cabinet processes are put firmly in place. That will probably be the focus of the first Cabinet meeting, which will probably become a wider Ministry meeting as well. But subsequent to that, Lenore, in answer to your question, we anticipate two Cabinet meetings before Christmas because there is a lot to do. And I’d much rather have the public service hard at work over the
summer, rather than down at Bateman’s Bay with you folks. Sorry, Alan you’re at Moruya aren’t you? Sorry about that, doing, getting our implementation plans underway. Next year is going to be exceptionally busy. The plan for the future is there. I intend to implement it, which means you’ve got to have the machinery of Government harnessed to do that. You’ll recall before the election I said I didn’t want to engage in large scale administrative restructuring because I want the public service to be able to hit the ground running viz-a-viz the program for the future.

JOURNALIST: (inaudible)

RUDD: I haven’t even begun to think about that Michelle and that’s my focus right up until now has been on making sure that we have a team for the future. And I really need to go and because two of your tape recorders have already gone off, I would suggest that’s been a pretty long discussion we’ve all had this morning.