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Thank you Bruce, to you and to my other Parliamentary colleagues,
to the Mayors of the local municipalities, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm here to do two things. Firstly and most importantly, to express
my support and my commendation for Bruce as your local federal member.
He has been a very energetic and active representative of the people
of Dunkley since he was elected in March of 1996. He's a real
local member, he takes up the cudgels on behalf of local organisations,
he drives Ministers to distraction until he gets satisfactory answers,
and that is exactly what a good local member should do and I commend
him to you in the warmest possible way.
The other thing I want to say to you very generally ladies and gentlemen,
is something that's an important message to Australians, wherever
they live at the present time, and that is that there is little doubt
as you read in the newspapers, as you see on television, that in some
parts of the world, and most particularly in the Asian-Pacific region,
there's a fair amount of economic turmoil and a number of countries
are going through an extremely difficult time. Now, whilst Australia
can't hope to be completely isolated from that, we can hope if
we do the right thing, to weather the storm of the economic turmoil
in Asia, without it doing us any lasting damage.
And that is the objective of my Government. And that is why over the
past two-and-a- quarter years we've set about creating a budget
surplus, we've set about putting our economic house in order.
I know that in the process of doing that we've taken a few decisions
that not everybody has liked, and there is probably some people in
this room who haven't liked some of the decisions that we've
taken. I understand that, I'm sympathetic to that, but the general
objective has been to protect Australia and to give Australia economic
stability, security and safety in a sea of economic turmoil. And we
have done that, and if we had not done that, can I say to you without
any fear of contradiction, that we would be a far more worried and
vulnerable and weakened nation now, than what in fact we are.
Instead of us being able to stare the Asia-Pacific region in the eye
and say "yes we'll be affected by it a little bit and we
can't remain immune" we would have been essentially engulfed
by it. And it's very important that we keep that in mind over
the weeks and the months ahead, because there is really no alternative
but to continuing policies which strengthen and protect us against
this turmoil from abroad. If we don't do that we will import
that turmoil very, very rapidly.
And that's why it's essential that my Government press ahead
with such things as reforming our taxation system.
And one of the great advantages of reforming a tax system is that
you can export more, because under a reformed taxation system exports
are cheaper and more competitive and that means you can generate some
more jobs in export industries.
So we do need, at this time, to remember that more than ever in the
history of our country we are part of the world. We can't shut
ourselves off. We can't say it in the words of that song many,
many years ago "Stop the world, I want to get off". You
can't do that. You can't get off the world, you're
part of it. People run around saying we don't want foreign investment
in this country. If we drive foreign investment away it will go somewhere
else, and it will take hundreds of thousands of Australian jobs with
it, because we live in a foot-loose global environment.
And if you're a foreign investor in "country A" and
you look at Australia and Australia says "no we don't want
your investment" you'll say "okay I won't ask
you a second time, I'll go somewhere else, and in the process
I'll generate a hundred thousand jobs in another country instead
of generating them in Australia".
Now these are important issues. And it's not a time to fiddle
around with economic experiments, and it's not time to go back
to failed policies of big deficit and big debt, which is represented
by the approach of our predecessors. So it is important that we bare
those things in mind.
I know that we've had to do some things that people don't
like over the last two-and-a-quarter years, but I'm also happy
to say that we've done a lot of things that people wanted us
to do. And we've made a number of decisions in the past six months
or so that have strengthened the position of retired people in our
community and I can assure the retired, not only of this area, but
of all areas of Australia that when you see the details of our taxation
policy, you won't be concerned. You will see it as a policy that
protects your position, and a policy that builds on the protections
that are already there and a policy that is designed to boost and
strengthen the Australian economy.
What governments have got to do in these times is to communicate to
people the need for changes that are necessary, but equally to hang
on to those institutions and those values which are very important
to our identity as Australians.
I have frequently said, and I repeat it today, that the art of good
state-craft is to hang on to those things from the past that continue
to serve us well. I don't believe in change for changes sake,
I never have. I'm very conservative about a lot of issues because
I believe in hanging on to those traditional Australian values that
are important to our country. And I don't believe in change just
for the sake of doing something new.
But equally, I've never been reluctant in public life to say
to people, and to say to Australians, we have to change in order to
better ourselves and to protect ourselves, And what I'm saying
to the Australian community now is that it is not a time to turn inward
and backward in relation to economic change, because if we do that
we'll get trampled underfoot. We'll lose a lot of investment
in this country. It will go somewhere else because other countries
will have it and in the process we'll lose a lot of jobs and
a lot of Australians will be a lot worse off. I think it is important
that those things be understood.
I am very proud of what my Government has done over the last two-and-a-quarter
years. I'm proud of the fact that we have the lowest interest
rates for thirty years, whether it's in small business or housing.
I'm proud of the fact that we have the lowest inflation rate
in the western world. I'm proud of the fact that having inherited
a budget deficit of $10.5 billion I've now got a budget surplus,
or we have, of $2.7 billion. I'm proud of the fact that we are
seen as an attractive place for foreign investment.
Now I want to keep it that way. I want to build on it. Because if
we keep it that way and we build on it we can generate more investment,
more jobs and higher living standards. But if we start fiddling around
with that situation, if we go back to the policies of big deficit
and debt that our Labor opponents offer us, or if we experiment with
the policies offered by One Nation, it will scare foreign investment
out of Australia and destroy Australian jobs. We'll all be worse
off.
Now that is the choice that we have to make as a community. I don't
mean a choice next week, or next month, I mean a choice in terms of
political debate and understanding of what things are all about at
the present time.
Governing a country is always challenging. It's very challenging
in a global economic environment and we must always remember that
if we're part of the world, people can pick and choose as to
whether they come here and invest their resources, and if we scare
them off they'll go somewhere else and we'll never get them
back and we'll all be poorer as a consequence.
So ladies and gentlemen thank you for having me. Thank you for supporting
Bruce. Thank you for the contribution that you're making to the
community life in this part of Melbourne, and in this part of Victoria.
I think these gatherings always bring out the best of Australia. I
look around the room I see the representatives of the local community
organisations. I see the RSL represented. I see the ethnic community's
well represented. I see people who are service providers. I see, of
course, that great army of people, members of the Liberal Party represented.
I see small business people and I see members of some of the great
sporting and recreational organisations. And, of course, looking out
over that water makes me feel a bit at home, I see a bit of that where
I spend some time in Sydney.
So, ladies and gentlemen thank you very much. It's very, very
nice to be amongst you and he's a terrific bloke, give him all
the support you can.
Thank you.