21 October 1996 TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP
ADDRESS TO METAL TRADES INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION
ANNUAL NATIONAL DINNER CANBERRA
E& OE
Thank you very much Mr Thomas, the national president of the Metal Trades Industry
Association; to Bert and Pauline Evans; to Kim Beazley the leader of the Opposition;
Peter Reith, the Minister for Industrial Relations; other Parliamentary colleagues,
ladies and gentlemen.
It is true, as the national president said that I have been to many Metal Trades Industry
Association occasions over the years. I've spoken at gatherings both here in Canberra
and around Australia. I've attended annual meetings and annual dinners and heard
addresses by Prime Ministers and Treasurers and industry Ministers and I have to
confess there is a certain novelty about addressing this gathering for the first time as
Prime Minister and I look forward to opportunity later in the evening of participating
in what for me will be a very pleasant exercise in saying a few words about Bert Evans,
a person with whom I've had a very long association.
But tonight I wanted to address a few remarks to you about the priorities of the
Government so far as they effect not only your industry but the Australian economy. I
start by paying a very warm tribute to the MTIA. All of us have had to live with
change, innovation, globalisation, greater competition, the demolition of distance, and
the removal of things that previously provided comfort and protection.
I think it is fair to say that the Metal Trades Industry Association and its members has
responded very powerfully and very effectively to the changed world economic
environment that the past 15 20 years has delivered. Bert Evans summed it up very
nicely to me once. He said :" John I can't get a quorum at National executive
meetings anymore. I've got to go to Kuala Lumpur airport to get the necessary
number." I think what he was saying very effectively and very powerfully was that for
an industry that for a long time was the leading protagonist for import replacement, the
leading protagonist of resisting changes to levels of protection, for reasons that I'm
sure people on both sides of politics understood only too well.
The industry realised the changed environment in which Australia found herself and set
about doing something in relation to that environment. And I do believe that the
members of your association have responded quite magnificently to the export
challenge that has been ahead of Australia for a long time and still remains very much
ahead of us. And you have been a very good example to the rest of industry about the
need to adapt and change. In his remarks the national president talked quite properly
of the challenges that are thrown up by globalisation, of the complete lack of
sentimentality in world markets. He properly remarked that Australia has been better
than most or faster than most in reducing levels of industry protection. I think it's fair
to say that in the 1980s tariff protection in Australia was reduced at a very fast rate.
And it was reduced as a result of I think bipartisan support.
I've often said that I found a number of the economic measures taken by the former
Government to be ones that we could support and support very warmly. We of course
live in hope for reciprocation, but I won't dwell on that tonight. It would be churlish
in the extreme for me to do that.
But the tariff reduction measures announced in the late 1980s and the early 1990s did
mean that Australia was in the forefront of tariff reduction and we can go to the
international fora with very clean hands so far as the pace of adjustment is concerned.
But I think industry is entitled to say well, we have done our part, we have borne the
brunt of reduced protection, but have we seen sufficient matching of that reduced
protection in the area of reduced business costs and in the area of reciprocation from
our trading partners. I think most people would have to acknowledge that the answer
is probably no to both of those questions. That is not to deny the inherent advantage
to an economy of shifting resources into those industries that are more likely to attract
them because of their naturally competitive edge. But I can understand the desire of
Australian industry to say to Government, I can understand the feeling of Australian
industry to say to Government :" Well, we have engaged in a lot of give-ups, we'd like
a few give-ups in return". And I want to say to all of you tonight that I do understand
that. And I also want to say to you tonight that, I suppose, the driving force behind
many of the changes that my Government has advocated since it was elected in March
and many of us advocated over a long period of time, particularly in the area of
industrial relations, are designed to address the fact that the pace of reduction in levels
of industry protection have not been entirely matched by the pace of reduction in the
level of business costs.
Our focus, since being elected, has really been economically in two areas. We have
focused very heavily on fiscal consolidation. And I'm very proud of the fact that we
were able to deliver a budget that was seen broadly by the Australian community and
I know there were criticisms, I know there were criticisms from industry and I know
there were criticisms from sections of the community but broadly the Budget was
seen as both strong and fair. It was seen as addressing the fiscal challenge, the need to
reduce the deficit, and if we can get the Budget through the Senate then in year three
of my Government's term in office we will have a budget that is in underlying balance.
And given where it has recently been and where, I suppose, it is at the moment, that
will be no mean achievement. And the contribution that that will make to the national
savings effort, the contribution that that will make to underlying business confidence,
the contribution that that will make to the attractiveness of Australia as a place for
overseas investment, is quite incalculable.
The other area, of course, has been a focus on micro-economic reform, and what I
prefer to call reform designed to reduce the cost of doing business in Australia. And
the forefront of that, of course, has been our commitment to bring about industrial
relations reform. This has been a commitment of my Party and my side of politics for a
long period of time. It's been something that has occupied a great deal of my own
intellectual and political effort over the last ten years. I know that there are some in
the MTIA who haven't always agreed with what I and my Party have argued for, and
that could well still be the case. And I've always respected the candour and frankness
and vigour with which we have been able to exchange views. Our commitment to
industrial relations reform is not and never has been an exercise in union bashing. I
have my views about the role of and the behaviour of areas of the union movement.
I'm also prepared, as I have been in the past, to acknowledge the role of the trade
union movement as part of the fabric of Australia's history and of Australia's life. My
view is that trade unions in Australian society like so many other entities, as we go into
the next century, will perish or survive according to their capacity to efficiently deliver
services to their members and their supporters. There are no guaranteed market shares
for you as businessmen and women. There are no guaranteed market shares for us,
whatever our side of politics as political practitioners. And equally the philosophy that
has underlayed our approach to industrial relations is that there should be no
guaranteed market shares to any section of organised labour, or indeed, the organised
employer associations.
We are reaching the moment of decision so far as the industrial relations reforms of the
Coalition are concerned. The Workplace Relations Bill has passed the second reading
in the Senate. The committee stage debate will commence, I hope, in the next couple
of weeks.
I want to record publicly my warm thanks to my colleague, Peter Reith, for the patient,
careful, painstaking and thoroughly professional way in which he has gone about his
responsibilities. We take seriously the process of discussion and negotiation with the minor parties in
the Senate. I deal in political realities, I don't deal in political ' what might have beens.'
And I hope at the end of the day we can secure, through the Senate, the passage of the
Workplace Relations Bill in a form that essentially keeps faith with the principles that
have been laid down over quite a period of time. It will be a bill that will focus far
more heavily on individual agreement between employers and employees. It will
elevate the consummation of those agreements far more than does the present
legislation. It will sweep away the ridiculous unfair dismissal laws that we have at the
present time. It will change the conveniently belong rule so that if it is desired,
enterprise unions can emerge. It will, I hope, give expression to the desire to give
people an effective choice between a workplace arrangement or continuation under the
current award system. It represents a very important element of the new
Government's reform agenda, as indeed does our commitment to revitalise the
circumstances in which small business operates in Australia.
Small businesses operate in every section of the Australian economy. And I know that
within the membership of the MTIA the small and medium sized businesses bulk very
large. And I hope to have in my hands within ten days a report from the taskforce I
established under the chairmanship of Charlie Bell, the Managing Director of
McDonalds, to advise the Government of ways and means of reducing by 50 per cent,
the paperwork burden on small business during our first three years of office. It's an
ambitious task, but a very important one. And in that context, if I can borrow from
Bert Evans' anecdotes again I've never forgotten an interview he gave on PM one
night, when somebody was complaining of about how not enough small firms had
responded to a circular about award superannuation. And Bert said, ' well, I think the
person who's complaining...' who I think had come from the Government '... ought
to understand that most small shows, particularly the one-man, one-woman shows,
operate on the basis that you get into the office, you open the mail, you grab the
cheques and you throw the rest into the wastepaper basket and get on with trying to
make a living.' And I thought it encapsulated the reality of how many small businesses
are forced to operate, and the sheer absurdity of imposing upon the very small firms of
Australia the compliance obligations that can be easily discharged by large companies
that have a personnel or human resources department. I thought it made the point very
eloquently and in a very cut-through fashion.
Ladies and gentlemen, we talk a lot about micro-economic reform. We talk a lot about
economic theory. But at the end of the day the goal of economic policy and the goal
of economic decision making is not to satisfy some kind of ideology, it is not to satisfy
some kind of theory. The objective of good policy in the economic area is to generate
greater economic growth and through that, to generate more jobs for Australians. And
that is a solemn responsibility of all governments. It's a solemn responsibility of
governments, it's a solemn responsibility of oppositions, to pursue policies which
generate greater growth, and through that, generate more jobs. And as a small earnest
of my view about that chain of cause and affect, and of my commitment to the
importance of job generation, I've announced tonight that we're establishing for the
first time an employment committee of the Federal Cabinet. I had announced at the
time of the election and the formation of the Cabinet that we would have an economic
committee that would have as its prime goal the pursuit of micro-economic reform.
I've decided not to pursue that. I've decided rather to establish an Employment
Committee of Cabinet whose prime goal will be to oversee the implementation of
policies that are designed to boost employment. The doesn't signal any departure from
previously stated policies. But what it does signal is a very direct commitment to pull
together the various activities of government and the various policies of government
and point them in the direction of job generation.
A competitive economy or a more efficient economy from a micro-economic point of
view is not an end in itself It is only a tool to provide greater growth, and through
that, more jobs for Australians, particularly for young Australians. None of us,
whatever our politics or whatever our vantage point in industry or the trade union
movement, should ever lose sight of the human and social responsibility that goes hand
in glove with economic policy. And the creation of jobs and the provision of
opportunities and hope, particularly for young Australians, does remain very much at
the core of what government is all about. We had a lot to say about that during the
election campaign, we had a lot to say about the role and the place and the
contribution of the small business community towards it, and it remains very much in
the forefront of our thinking.
Ladies and gentlemen, the MTIA has made an enormous contribution to Australian
industry and to the Australian economy over a long period of time. Your members
have witnessed the enormous changes in the Australian economy of the last 20 years.
You have become active participants in the new globalised world economy. You are
at the cutting edge of change and competition. I have enjoyed in the past a very close
association, on occasions an association that has brought forth very vigorous debate
and from time to time disagreement, but always on the basis of a well intentioned
desire to serve the long term interests of Australia. And I want to say, at this the first
dinner I have addressed of the MTIA as Prime Minister of Australia, I want to say that
drawing upon that past association I commit my Government to close consultation, a
very close dialogue with your members and with your association. I regard the free
exchange of ideas and information and advice, and on occasions where appropriate,
criticism and rebuttal, between governments and the business community, as being very
important. I've often said that the Party I lead can proudly say it's not owned by any
one section of the Australian community, and that certainly is a very emphatic
declaration that I make. But it does not alter the fact that we are a Party that has
always sought to have a keen eye to the legitimate concerns of the business community
of this country the wealth generators, the job providers, the export providers, and the
providers of the economic future of Australia. And I'd always want it to be seen that
even if on occasions we might disagree, my Government and its various members listen
very closely and carefully with what you have to say.
Can 1, on behalf of my wife and myself and on behalf of my other colleagues who are
here tonight and who won't be contributing to the proceedings, thank you most
warmly for having us as guests. I wish the MTIA well. I look forward to the very
closest possible consultation and cooperation between the MTIA and my Government
in what I hope to be many years of a close partnership.
Thank you.