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Well thank you very much Kay, to your husband David, to Bob Carroll,
the State President of the Queensland Liberal Party. To the other
distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
It is always challenging to come to Kay Elson's electorate,
to be reminded of a really energetic community-based, publicly spirited,
really dedicated local Member of Parliament is all about. I've
seen a lot of members of Parliament in the 24 years that I've
been in the house but I don't think I've seen anybody
so instinctively take to the responsibility of representing her
constituents in a short period of time as has Kay Elson. Not only
is she an indefatigable worker for the local community, she also
produces in my view the best newsletters of any Federal Member of
Parliament. She's really got them down to an art form, and
she's put together this crowd in a short period of five days
and I said to her that I wouldn't give her the luxury ever
of longer notice but she really is an ornament to the concept of
local, effective, local parliamentary representation, and she is
somebody who is ideally suited to represent an electorate as diverse
as the electorate of Forde, ideally suited to represent an electorate
that has some of the more difficult areas of social challenge in
our society as well as people who are in more comfortable circumstances.
So Kay, in every way I am delighted to be with you and I would like
very much to congratulate you on the job that you have done for
the Liberal Party and the job that you have done for the electorate
of Forde.
Ladies and Gentlemen, there are many things that I could talk to
you about today, but I want to focus on the task that is ahead of
us in Australia and also the task that is ahead of us as the Liberal
Party, as the government of Australia. We have over the last two-and-a-quarter
years set about putting Australia in a stronger economic position
and also endeavoured to respond to some of the non-economic challenges
that the Government faced when it came into power in March 1996.
And I'm delighted to say that one of the non-economic challenges
we faced was to resolve the difficult issue of Native Title. We
didn't like the Native Title Act of 1993, and we voted
against it, but the Government of the day insisted on putting it
through and we were told by Mr Keating that it would be in order.
We quickly found that that was not the case. And when we came to
power we promised that we would make the Native Title Act
more workable.
And two-and-a-quarter years later, at long last, and through the
cooperation of Senator Brian Harradine, it became possible to reach
a solution to that problem which is fair to all sections affected
by Native Title but was also one that was going to get through the
Federal Parliament. And I am very pleased that that issue is behind
us, because whatever our views were it was bound to cause continuing
division in the community. And the reason why we held out for a
solution that we finally got, was that the solution originally offered
by Mr Keating and the solution originally offered by the Senate
before Senator Harradine changed his position was a solution that
was based on the argument that one section of the Australian community
should be treated in a way that other sections of the Australian
community were not. And the principle that I held out for, and the
principle I am happy to say to you today has been met in full in
the Native Title compromise is the principle that all Australians
should be treated equally before the law.
And it was the desire of our opponents, the Labor Party, the Democrats,
the Greens in the Senate. It was their desire to say that one group
of Australians should have privileges and rights denied to other
Australians in a similar position. It was that desire that we were
not prepared to succumb to, and ultimately I was able to negotiate
an understanding with Senator Harradine and I give him full credit
for the courage that he displayed and the way in which he's
held up against the abuse and the criticism that has unfairly come
his way since he made his decision. And I am delighted to say to
you that that issue is now behind us.
And I'm absolutely certain that the new Queensland Government
will end up very quickly becoming part of a national scheme. I don't
think there will be much delay or much obstruction in relation to
that. And we can put that issue behind us. We can say to the farming
community of Australia, well you can now get on with your businesses
without the worry of vexatious Native Title claims. We can say to
the mining industry, particularly in Queensland and Western Australia,
you are now free to go ahead with the investments that will be installed,
and with the new measures in the Native Title amendment act, you'll
be able to get rid of all the vexatious claims that have been made.
And we'll also be able to say to the indigenous community if
you have genuine Native Title claims, you now have a machinery to
have them recognised and to have them dealt with because it has
never been our desire to deny to the indigenous people of Australia
access to a machinery which allows them to prove a genuine Native
Title claim. So it is a win for the farmers, it is a win for the
miners, and it is a win for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander
communities of Australia.
But more importantly than that, it is a win for a commonsense solution
to a difficult problem. A problem that I never believed when I became
Prime Minister would prove to be so challenging and so intractable.
So what we've done over the last two-and-a-quarter years is
to deal with non-economic issues such as Native Title, but we've
also set about giving Australia stronger economic foundations. And
I am so glad that we have. And I ask you to contemplate for a moment
where Australia would be now, given what's happened in Asia
if we had not reduced Mr Beazley's deficit of $10.5 billion
a year and produced a surplus of $2.5 billion a year. I ask you
where we would have been if we had not delivered the lowest interest
rates in the last 30 years. I ask you where we might be if we had
not reduced Australia's inflation rate. I ask you where we
might be if we had not set about reforming Australia's industrial
relations system. In other words, if we had not embraced economic
reform, we would now be weaker, more vulnerable and more at risk
in the light of what has happened in the Asian-Pacific region. Believe
me, the economic melt down in the region is the worst economic circumstance
to affect those countries since World War II and it is a triumph
of Australian economic strength that we have not been more affected
by what has happened in our region. We can't hope to be unaffected
because we send more than 50% of our trade in goods and services
into that region. But I am able to say to you that we are in better
shape, we have better withstood the downturn, than would otherwise
have been the case if we had not taken the measures we took from
the time we came to power.
Now, I know that some of those measures have been criticised, and
I know there will be people in this room who've disagreed with
the decisions the Government has taken in this or that area. But
if you put it all together and if you take the view that no Government
can ever get an economy in order, can ever put a stronger protective
layer around an economy in difficult circumstances, unless it takes
some unpopular decisions. I hope you will see those decisions in
that light. If we had simply sat there and done nothing and we had
said well, we'll let the deficit stay where it is, we won't
do anything that offends anybody, the pressure on our exchange rate,
the pressure on our economy would have been much greater. And instead
of us being able to say, well, we've had some impact there
and a bit of impact over there, the entire Australian economy would
have been exposed to greater pressure. And if anybody thinks that
is imagination, I just ask you to look at what has happened to some
of the economies, including some of the very strong economies in
the Asian-Pacific region.
And I'm very pleased that Australia has been able to play
her part in helping countries in the region. Once again, I know
people are critical of the fact that we extended economic assistance
to Indonesia and Thailand and to Korea. Some people run around making
political points out of that and say why are we giving money away
to foreigners when we should be spending it at home. Well, to start
with, we are not giving it away. We are lending it. And the second
thing is that it is in our interests to do so, because these countries
buy from us, they invest in Australia, and if you ask me what is
better for Australia, a weak Korea, a weak Thailand, a weak Indonesia
that buys nothing from Australia or a strong Thailand, a strong
Indonesia, a strong Korea that buys a lot from Australia, I'll
say a strong Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia, that buys a lot from
Australia.
It is in our own national self-interest to make sure that there
is an economic recovery in the Asian-Pacific region. 34% of Australia's
exports go to two countries alone Korea and Japan. And that
is more combined than goes to any other two countries in the world,
and anybody who thinks we can close our eyes and say we don't
want anything to do with these countries, that we can put up some
kind of barrier and say, go away leave me alone, doesn't understand
what is good for Australia. And I think it is very important in
these difficult times, these challenging times that we understand
the interdependence and we don't listen to false nostrums which
say that you can cure Australia's problems by keeping out imports.
I know that there are a lot of people who are affected by imports.
I also know that this country exports a lot of good and services,
and we say to the rest of the world, we don't want your goods,
the rest of the world will say to us they don't want our goods.
And I can think of two great Queensland industries, the sugar industry
and the beef industry which provide a lot of wealth for Queenslanders
and a lot of investment and a lot of jobs in Queensland. And if
we do something that puts those export industries at risk, we will
be doing a great disservice, not only to the State of Queensland
but to the Australian economy.
Now, I am very strong in my belief that we took the right economic
decisions, unpopular though some of them may have been, disliked
by some, though some of them may have been, if we had not taken
them, I would now be, I believe, culpable in the eyes of the Australian
people as Prime Minister for not having taken the measures that
were necessary.
And of course the job is not done. There are still further areas
of economic reform that are needed, and the next great challenge
of economic reform is in the area of taxation. The Australian taxation
system is unfair, it is increasingly discredited and it is becoming
in the eyes of many unworkable. We have needed taxation reform for
many years. I came into Parliament in 1974, and two years before
I came into Parliament there had been commissioned by the then Liberal
Treasurer, the late Billy Snedden, an inquiry into Australia's
taxation system that became known as the Asprey Inquiry, and that
inquiry recommended, believe it or not, the introduction of a broad
based indirect tax or goods and services tax to replace existing
indirect taxes or certain ones of them, and accompanied by reductions
in personal income tax.
And that report came down in 1975, 23 years ago. And reforming
the tax system was looked at in the late 1970s, in the early 1980s,
in the mid-1980s and then again as you all remember in early 1990s
via John Hewson's Fightback! Package. And on each occasion,
people have either lost the nerve or they've been defeated
at the ballot box. And many of you might say, well, you shouldn't
be trying again. And some people have said to me since the Queensland
election "John, what you've got to do is nothing
that's the solution, do nothing. Go over there, sit down quietly,
go around Australia, smile at everybody, say you like everybody
and offer everybody something but please don't embrace any
of this reform because it will be bad for you". Now, that's
, I suggest in the eyes of some, an understandable reaction. Can
I say to you that I think it is a reaction that would be treated
with the contempt it would deserve from the Australian people. Because
the solution for Australia at the present time is not to do nothing,
because we need in Australia's interests to continue reform
in a number of areas.
I'm not arguing for tax reform because it is good for my health.
I'm not arguing for tax reform because I have some kind of
narrow, blinkered, ideological commitment to tax reform. I'm
arguing for it because I believe it will be good for Australia.
I'm arguing for it because I believe that it is the next step
in order to make the Australian economy stronger and even less vulnerable
to the rest of the world. And we are not proposing a revolutionary
change. Sure, we are proposing a substantial change. We are proposing
to produce a system that is fairer and better than the present one,
and it is a system that when all the details come out very soon,
then you will see that it is a fair and balanced approach. It is
not revolutionary, but it is a constructive, huge improvement on
the present system. And I think when people see the details, they
will see it is fair. We are not going to put a Goods and Services
tax on top of the existing indirect tax structure. We are not going
to bring it in without having personal tax reductions. The rural
community will find it a very user-friendly package. And Australian
exporters who are so important to our future will also find it very
important. And can I say to retired Australians who are here today
in significant numbers that the package will be structured in a
way that will not adversely affect your interests. And indeed it
will be seen by that section of the Australian population as a very
fair and balanced package.
Now it is very easy at the moment for our political opponents to
make hay because the detail is not there. They can run around saying
"Howard wants to do this and Howard wants to do that and he
is a terrible fellow and don't listen to anything he says".
But once it is on the table and all the details are there the scare
campaign can be seen for what it is. A scare campaign. And I am
committed to it. I am very strongly committed to it because it is
good for Australia, not for any other reason. If it weren't
good for Australia, if I didn't believe it was good for Australia,
I wouldn't be advocating it. And it is my responsibility as
Prime Minister to advocate things that are good for the country.
Once I stop doing that I am of no use to the Party I have the privilege
of leading or no use to the great office that I occupy. Because
one is elected to Government to do good things for the people who
elect you according to your own conscientious beliefs and that's
what I am doing and that is why I remain very strongly committed
to taxation reform.
And right at the moment we're having a debate about the sale
of the remaining two -thirds of Telstra into the hands of the men
and women of Australia. And I know there are some people who disagree
with that. There'd be people in this room who would say "Well
I don't know that I agree with that either. Why is he doing
that?". Well we are doing that, once again, because we believe
it will benefit Australia. One of the things that I inherited from
Mr Beazley was an annual deficit of $10.5 billion and an accumulated
Federal Government debt of between $95 and $100 billion. In other
words in March of 1996 when I became Prime Minister, the aggregate
debts of the Federal Government were about $95 to $100 billion.
And that was because the previous government had run up a whole
series of annual deficits. So it was accumulating at an annual rate
of about $10.5 billion. And it had all added up to about $95 to
$100 billion. Now we couldn't go on with that any more than
any of you running a business in proportionate terms could go on
with that. We had to do something about it. And we set about getting
it down and we set about repaying debt. And one of the reasons why
I am committed to the privatisation of the rest of Telstra, is that
the proceeds of that privatisation, which some people put it around
$40 billion, will be used to pay off the debts of the Federal Government
run up by previous governments. And it is very important we do that.
Because if we can do that we can essentially get what I call the
"debt monkey" off the backs off the future generations
of Australians. And all of think about the legacy we might leave
to our children or grandchildren or both. And one of the legacies
that I would like the members of the present Government to leave
the future generations of Australians is an essentially debt free
21st century. If I am able to say as Prime Minister to
the young Australians who will inherent in the full the 21st
century, that we have at least got rid of the huge burden of Federal
Government debt, then I think that is a fine legacy.
Now that is the first reason why I support the privatisation of
Telstra, the final privatisation of it. The second reason is if
you are able to sell it and get that amount of money you can afford
to take a small percentage of those proceeds and turn them into
what I call a social bonus. And that is you can spend it on identifiable
things that the public wants. I am happy to announce today, for
example, that one of the things that will be spending it on, that
social bonus up to $150 million, is to give to Australians who live
in remote areas of the country access to untimed local calls. In
other words just as if you live on the Gold Coast you can ring your
neighbour on the Gold Coast on an untimed basis or if you live in
a suburb of Sydney or a suburb of Brisbane, you shouldn't,
because of the tyranny of distance, be denied the opportunity of
doing that in a remote part of Australia. And neigbourliness',
having a good neighbour policy and communications, means giving
to people who live in the very remote parts of the country exactly
the same opportunity for those untimed local calls. And it has been
one of those things that has represented a symbol of the communications
divide between the city and the country in Australia for a long
period of time. And that will be possible that change, only if,
of course, the full privatisation of Telstra is supported by the
Senate.
And Mr Fischer, the Deputy Prime Minister, announced yesterday
a decision by the company which is a real breakthrough in relation
to the replacement of the analogue telephone services in remote
parts of Australia in the introduction of a new digital technology
that will, once again, improve the communications endowment of remote
and regional areas of Australia. What is being announced today by
Mr Fischer and Senator Alston, is untimed local calls for the outback
areas of Australia and the abolition of what is currently called
the pastoral rate, and the replacement of the pastoral rate with
a new preferential rate which will enable remote areas at a preferential
rate to have telephone access to major population centres most adjacent
to them.
Ladies and gentlemen, all of these things should be seen in the
context of the national interest. Not in the context of a narrow
political ideology. Not in the context of pretending there are easy
simple solutions to difficult problems. Can I assure you, and I
have been in politics a few years, that if there were simple, easy
solutions to Australia's problems I'd have implemented
them long before now. And I think my predecessors would have implemented
them long before now. And I do, particularly in the context of current
political debate here in Queensland, caution anybody against the
belief that there is a simplistic solution that nobody previously
has thought of. Of course everybody is fallible and I don't
claim any monopoly of wisdom and my Government, the Government like
any other government, has made its mistakes. But I do recognise
that a commonsense understanding of political challenges and economic
challenges is very important.
There are just two other things that I do want to say to you. And
one of those is that I have endeavoured in the time that we have
been in Government to place a particular emphasis on the role of
small business within our deliberations. The reductions we've
achieved in interest rates, the changes we've made for industrial
relations, the liberalisation we have already achieved in relation
to unfair dismissal laws, and the attempts that we have also made
to liberalise them even further. The changes we have made to the
provisional tax structure, the changes we have made to give much
greater capital gains, rollover relief to small businesses, the
changes we've made in relation to retirement benefits concerning
capital gains tax, the changes we've made to fringe benefits
tax. All of those things have been designed to make life better
for small business. Now, there are many other things that I know
people would have like done and nothing is ever enough when it comes
to change and reform by government.
But we have placed a very high premium and a very high priority
on improving the climate and improving the outlook for small business
within the Australian community.
And the last thing I want to say is the most important, the most
precious role of government in modern society, is not its statistical
achievements, important though they may be, it's not the economic
theory, but it's rather how it relates to people and how it
responds to the concerns of the Australian community. I understand
as an Australian who grew up with a great belief in the cohesion
and the stability and the fairness and the strength of this country,
I know there are people in Australian society who feel vulnerable
to change. Change is all around us. There is economic change, there
is social change. There is change in the way in which family members
relate to each other. The social habits of people have altered radically
over a generation. And many people find that change bewildering
and I understand that. And one of the roles of government is to
help people through change, but by the same token not to dishonestly
pretend that some changes can be avoided. Because they can't.
The art of good government situation is to hang on to those things
that we can preserve and we can identify as a continuity of our
national life, but at the same time explain the need for change
and reform in other areas. I believe in hanging on to the good things
from our past, but also recognising that there are some things from
our past that do have to change. We do live in global economy. Whether
we like it or not we are effected by economic decisions in other
parts of the world and we can't close our eyes to that and
if we do so we will be trampled under foot.
But I also do know there are some great Australian traditions that
are as valuable and timeless and as enduring now as they were before
I was born. And those traditions of mateship, those egalitarian
traditions and those things that all of us identify instinctively
as being true Australian traditions. And they're ones that
I will fight hard and very strongly to preserve.
Behind me hangs the flag of which I am very proud and the flag
that I have ensured can never be altered without a vote of all of
the Australian people. I mention that because it is an example of
the continuity of things that I think is important. But I am also
conscious of the fact that we are a nation that is now uniquely
placed to make a contribution