7 October 1997
E&EO .........................................................................................................................
To Warwick for that very warm welcome. To Tony Rundle to Jocelyn Newman, a true citizen in every sense of the word of Launceston. To Tim Fischer and my other parliamentary colleagues both State and Federal. And also a very special welcome to the ABC Rural Woman of the Year, Jane Bennett who comes from Deloraine and is a magnificent example of the increasingly recognised contribution of women to the rural life of Australia.
Women have always through the decades a fundamental and important role in the life of rural Australia. I think in the last few years what is really welcome is the fact that their role has become more and more widely respected and more and more widely acknowledged. And it’s a real tribute to this part of Australia that Jane should have been named as the ABC Rural Woman of the year.
Now as Warwick said this is the first time in living memory that a Federal Cabinet has met in Launceston. And it’s part of a programme that we decided upon when we were elected to take the Cabinet around Australia, to tell the Australian people by our presence and by our decision making processes in different parts of Australia that the centre of the universe didn’t sort of revolve around Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. And it is very important because it is away of us meeting you, it’s a way of bring the government to all of the people of Australia and not just some of the people of Australia.
And I am particularly pleased to have had the opportunity a few moments ago of signing the environmental partnership agreement with your Premier, Tony Rundle. And this gives expression to the contribution out of the Natural Heritage Trust of $125 million to the State of Tasmania.
Tasmania has done better out of the Natural Heritage Trust than any of the Australian States. And I’m delighted and proud to have signed that agreement with Tony. And as I walked in and I heard a few voices talking about the environment I allowed my imagination to sort of drift a little and what they were really saying was "We want Warwick", well you’ve got him. And can I say on that subject that you’ve got him in even larger measure now because as a result of the changes that I’ve made to the Ministerial arrangement Warwick is now the Minister for Family Services. Now we all know what a strong supporter of the institution of the family he is. And he brings to this important new responsibility an understanding of some of the challenges facing families in the Australian community.
And it’s a real tribute to Warwick and it’s real tribute to the city of Launceston that you have in Jocelyn Newman one of the most senior members of my government and the Minister Social Security and you now have in Warwick Smith the Minister for Family Services. It must be the air, it must be the food, it must be something or other but you certainly breed them, in a political sense, extremely well. And I’m very proud and you ought to be proud of having both of them as such very senior and very important representatives.
Now ladies and gentlemen we were elected a bare 18 months ago and it seems much longer because so much has been achieved. And when I think back at those 18 months and I think of some of problems that we inherited and I also think of some of the opportunities that we were given. The great legacy of Mr Keating and Mr Beazley was to leave us with a budget deficit of $10.5 billion. And I’m very proud to say that as a result of our work and most particularly the work of Peter Costello and John Fahey as the Treasurer and Finance Minister within three short years we would have turned that $10.5 billion deficit into a surplus of $1.6 billion. And in the process presided over the lowest inflation rate Australia has had since 1972. We’ve had five reductions in interest rates.
We’re in the middle of the most ambitious and successful privatisation programme that any Federal Government Australia has ever undertaken. And the sale of one-third of Telstra is funding the Natural Heritage Trust. And the Natural Heritage Trust will fund in turn the greatest ever capital investment in the environmental renewal of Australia. And one of the things that I will be immensely proud to say to the Australian people at the next election is that my government has done more for the environment of Australia than any post World War II government of Australia. And that is something that people may not have thought it possible for a Coalition government to have said a few years ago. And instead of making a lot of noise about the environment we’ve committed ourselves to practical measures and the Natural Heritage Trust focuses on such things as soil degradation, land care, salinity and all of the ongoing challenges and the ongoing threats to Australia’s rare and very precious natural environment. And it is a very important part of the achievements of my government during the time that we have been in office.
And something else of which I’m particularly proud and I know it’s very important to the economy and to the citizens of Launceston and of Northern Tasmania is the importance that we have attached to small business. I’ve always regarded small business as being heart and soul and really the life of the economic future of Australia. And it’s through small business that we will see employment growth. It’s through small business that we see men and women taking risks and investing and employing people. And in the time that we’ve been in government we have delivered on every promise we made to small business and we’ve gone much further. We cut their provisional tax. We introduced a $600 million package of measures a few months ago. We promised before the election capital gains tax relief for small business but what we have delivered is more generous than what we promised. You often hear of government’s short changing on their promises, we have over delivered on our small business promises and we’re very proud of it.
And as from the 1st July this year any person in small business in Australia can sell their business and they can invest $5 million of the proceeds of the sale of that business, up to $5 million in the purchase of any other kind of business without incurring any kind of capital gains tax liability. And on top of that Peter Reith announced only last week a series of measures designed to strike a fair balance between big business and small business. I have never seen big and small
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