Fax from F PRIME MINISTER
19 September 1996 TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON. JOHN HOWARD MP
LAUNCH OF AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS INTERNET SITE
TOKYO JAPAN
E& OE
Thank you very much for those words of introduction. Those of you who have
attended my earlier speech will know that this is the first occasion that I've visited
Japan as Prime Minister and I'm pai-Ecularly happy to be asked to inaugurate The web
site which will make yet another contribution, an importani one, to enhancing the
business and econoinic links between Australian and Japan.
I thought Australia had a well earned reputation for voraciously devouring new
technology but I do not think wve can possibly m'atch a rate of growth of 10 per cent a
month which was mentioned as the rate at which internet use is now occurring in
Japan, We clearly have; in common a rapid assimilation with the new technology and I think
the contribution that this site and the contribution that the internet generally will make
will be particularly apparent in the area of small and medium sized businesses. One of
the remarkable features of the communications revolution of recent times is the way in
which the tools of that revolution the personal computer, the facsimile machine an~ d
the mobile telephone have in a sense empowered small business and dismantled many
of the market barriers and the costs involved in world-wide information seeking and
the way in which this site in its own small but very important way will improve the
access to small and medium sized businesses to market opportunities, is in many
respects its most attractive feature.
understand that through the opening of this site Australia is taking a lead that no
other foreign agency has a site of this capacity, sophistication oi-breadth and in the
long term the site is a further means of developing Australia's commercial and national
image aniongst the Japanese people. FaIx r o~ 19/ 091/ 79: 646 Pg: 1
19/ 89/ 96 17: 46 Pg: 2
Fax from One of the features of a facility suoh as this is that it equalises the opportunity for
people wanting access in whether they comne from regional areas or large cities and the
Australians amongst us will understand that that will have a particular resonance in
relation to recent political debate. For example Japanese retailers looking for sources
for importing food will be guided directly to options of buying Atlantic salmon from
Tasmania and live abalone from Ulladulla and so on.
This internet, this site can help deliver good business results but at the end of the day
because it is all about working hard nd keeping one's competitiveness up to the mark,
a constant theme of the economic relationship between Australia and Japan.
Ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate those responsible for this site and I have very
great pleasure in declaring it officially open. Thank you.