TRANSCRIPT

THE HON PETER COSTELLO MP
Treasurer

Doorstop Interview
Telstra Dome, Melbourne

Monday, July 19, 2004
12.00 noon

SUBJECT: BounceBack, sports, exercise, university, apprenticeships

JOURNALIST:

Treasurer, do you encourage bodies like this to look after the welfare of children of this age?

TREASURER:

Look, I think this is a fabulous initiative and I congratulate BounceBack and James Hird for launching it. It is an opportunity to use elite sportsmen as role models for teenage kids, to teach them the life skills, to get them involved in sport, that will be good for their physical fitness obviously, but it will also be good in terms of passing on values like responsibility, team work, commitment, discipline, hard work, and if sportsmen and women become role models through foundations like this, I think it will mean a lot to young people in our society.

JOURNALIST:

Do you think Governments and schools aren’t doing enough, that if they are doing enough why do we need these sort of bodies as well?

TREASURER:

Well, we have recently launched a program for schools to teach values and we want to try and use the schools to teach values, respect for government, respect for our flag, commitment to fellow students, and the Federal Government has also recently announced a program to deal with exercise in part of the national campaign against obesity, so, there is a lot more that can be done but let’s welcome an initiative like this which will contribute.

JOURNALIST:

Treasurer, should obesity be declared an epidemic?

TREASURER:

Well, I am not medically qualified to declare epidemics, but I will declare it a problem and I will declare it something that we ought to work at educating young people to tackle, yes, we should, and exercise is a big part of that.

JOURNALIST:

How do you exercise? What do you do?

TREASURER:

Well, I walk where I can and sometimes I…

JOURNALIST:

(inaudible)?

TREASURER:

…no, no, I don’t have a tracksuit, well not a fashionable tracksuit, and when I can I do a lot of swimming as well.

JOURNALIST:

(inaudible) Goldstein?

TREASURER:

Well, I imagine that nominations will be called and when they are called publicly it will be up to candidates, whether or not they wish to nominate, it is a matter for the candidates.

JOURNALIST:

Treasurer, just on another issue, the numbers of students going from secondary school to university or TAFE seems to be dropping, is that a concern for you?

TREASURER:

Well, look I think it is important to encourage students who have the opportunity to learn at TAFE to do so, but I would also recommend to a lot of students the opportunity for apprenticeships, what the Government is trying to push at the moment, particularly for kids that maybe don’t want to go to university, is apprenticeship opportunities, there is a shortage at the moment in many of the skilled trades, there are good job opportunities here, good income opportunities, and for those that university is the appropriate thing, university, for TAFE, TAFE and apprenticeships as well and I would encourage kids who are coming up to the end of their schooling to look at all of them.

JOURNALIST:

(inaudible)?

TREASURER:

I am going to now go and kick a football.