E&OE...
Well, thank you very much Mr Smith. To you Perc, thank you very much for that very very warm welcome. To Warren Truss, to Paul Neville and Peter Slipper and Mrs Pratt the elected, the new Member for this district, any other Parliamentary colleagues who are here, ladies and gentlemen. I've come here tonight to talk to you and also to listen to you, to hear your questions, to hear your criticisms of me or my Government and also in the course of the evening, to tell you of some of the things that we have endeavoured to do as a Government over the last two-and-a-quarter years.
I don't intend to make a long speech, because on an occasion like this, I think it is a rare opportunity for me to interact directly with you. I know that a lot of people in rural Australia are hurting at the moment. I sympathise with that, I'll try and respond to your concerns, I'll be honest with you and say where I can't help, and indeed point out where no government can help and I'll try and indicate to you as best I can that as a Government we are trying to comprehend the magnitude of the difficulty that people in many regional communities feel.
It's one thing of course to read about it, it's one thing to get a briefing from a Department or an expert about it, it's entirely another thing to come face to face with people to talk with them, to hear their concerns and to hear the concerns of their families. Now, I know that many of you are unhappy at the way in which, and the speed with which things have changed. I also know that paradoxically, many of you are unhappy that things you wanted changed more quickly, have not been changed more quickly, and that is something of a contradiction and something of a paradox.
I also know that the economic changes that have taken place, not only in Australia, but around the world, have left many smaller communities feeling vulnerable and isolated and denied the sort of support that they believe they are entitled to. And many of them feel concerned about the support they believe is flowing from Government to other sections of the community. I understand all of those things. I don't pretend that everything that my Government has done has been perfect, nor will I as a self-respecting Prime Minister and self-respecting political leader, sell the achievements of my Government short either.
And I think tonight is a two-way process. It is an opportunity to say what you think to me, through your questions and the concerns and the advice you will both express and give, either during the meeting or over a cup of tea, and it is also an opportunity in the very frank Australian way, for me, to say a few things about what I believe we have done over the last two-and-a-quarter years.
Modern government is more challenging than ever. There is a greater level of disenchantment with governments around the world than at any stage of the history of the 20th Century. And part of that is due to the fact that our lives in so many ways are changing. Our lives have changed economically. Our family lives have changed, our social life has changed, and all of us deep down, want to hang on to and in some cases return to the stability that we had in the past. And I am a mixture of nostalgia and throwing forward to the future like every other person. There are many things about my past life that I think were terrific, and I think in Government, what you've got to try and do is to hang onto those things from the past that are worth preserving and at the same time have the courage and the foresight to change those things that need to be changed.
Now I think the greatest gift that Australia has had a nation is that for all the difficulties we have now and for all the divisions, particularly economic divisions, that may exist between different sections of society. We have been a very egalitarian community. That great Australian tradition of mateship has been one of the things that has bound us together across all of the other divides better than most other countries. And that's something of our past that I think all of us want to hang onto. But there are also some things that unavoidably do have to change and that's not easy. We do live in a world environment that inflicts change on us whether we like it or not, and there is no power on earth that can stop some of that change being inflicted on us. And with the advance of information technology that is even more compelling than it's been in the past.
Now all of this is creating within our communities, amongst some, a sense of insecurity and bewilderment which I understand. You may not always agree with the Government's responses to it and I understand that also. And like any other politician who participates in the democratic process I take notice of what people say not only to me directly but also through the political process. And like any other politician in Australia and any Party I am accountable to the Australian people. And I am here tonight as an exercise in that accountability.
I am here to listen to you, I am here to answer your questions. I am here to receive your criticisms, and if there are one or two of you around I am also here to hear anything complimentary that you might like to say. You know I am ever the optimist, ladies and gentlemen, let me say that to you. But can I, before I conclude these very brief introductory remarks, because I know there are a lot of people who want to ask me a lot of questions and I know you don't want the meeting to go on forever. Public meetings are great providing they end on time, and I don't want tonight to sort of violate that rule.
But before I answer your questions can I particularly thank my colleague and friend, Warren Truss, for organising this meeting. I confided to Warren when we discussed it, that despite the overwhelming sort of proprietorship of political reporting and political commentary these days by television, that I cut my teeth politically in public meetings in public halls. I am a great believer in the old-fashioned method of political contact. It's remained in a more vigorous form outside the big cities of Australia and tonight is no exception.
And I do think this is a marvellous opportunity to be able to talk in this way and to interact in this way and I think it is a marvellous demonstration of the open democracy of Australia. Now there are many people here tonight who disagree with many of the things I have done. Yes, I hear that. There are also people here tonight who would agree with things that I have done . I heard a couple! But ladies and gentlemen the most important thing is that we are able to do this and we are able to do it in an open and frank way. And I think that is something that all of us, whatever our political views, can take a great deal of pride in.
Now, that's all I want to say at this stage. I haven't come here to give you a long lecture, I have come here to answer your questions and to hear your comments and I might say one or two things at the end. But thank you very much for coming and to you Mr Mayor thank you very much for this very, very warm way in which you welcome me to your town and to your community. Thank you.
QUESTION:
Good evening, my name is Margaret Sloane. I am a pig producer and my question to Mr Howard is - I am sorry I have to read it - you quoted in the House of Representatives that between Australia and Canada there was an 8 to 1 in our favour in trade, and what you were really talking about was agricultural commodity and that the overall trade in 1997 was 1.3 million from Canada to 1.2 million from Australia. That's a hundred million in Canada's favour which is an awfully different sort of set of figures. We are told that we have got to behave ourselves and disappear because of the beef industry. Well Canada has a beefing quota and it's recently reduced it while the pork imports for us have trebled. What are you going to do about it?
PRIME MINISTER:
The 8 to 1 balance is in agriculture. It is true that we had a beef quota. Our beef quota now is 7,000 tonnes a year less than what it originally was and the reason that it is 7,000 tonnes a year less now than what it was is that the Canadians in response to a decision taken on advice from Australian quarantine services refused to act in a way that was detrimental to the Tasmanian salmon industry. Because on quarantine grounds that wasn't justified and despite the fact that the quarantine prohibition on Canadian imports was maintained in a perfectly ethical, correct fashion - despite that -Canada just reciprocated, retaliated by knocking off 7,000 tonnes of our beef quota.
Now the point I was seeking to make then, and the point I would make tonight, is that it is precisely in the area of agriculture where you have bilateral quota arrangements between countries that Australia is most vulnerable. Now the beef thing is a perfect demonstration of how we can be at the mercy of capricious retaliation by other countries. And it's one of the reasons why a number of the commodity groups around Australia have come out very strongly against the idea that the solution to some of our industry specific difficulties is to put arbitrary restrictions on imports. Now I know that's not a popular view. I understand that, but I do plead the cause of the export industries as well and I do ask you to consider that. I am not unsympathetic to the pork industry. I met a delegation from the industry earlier tonight and I met a delegation from the industry when I was in Toowoomba a few weeks ago. But I do ask you to remember that other countries can knock off our exports and put tens of thousands of Australians out of work overnight and that is the nature of things. And if you are a great commodity trading nation, if it's in your interests as a nation to build your agricultural exports, and if you have fought for years as we have to get better access to some of these markets and finally get them it can be heartbreaking also to those industries to have those quotas knocked off.
QUESTION:
Mr Howard, my name is Ken Sacresti, I am from Murgon. What I would like to put forward to you this evening is the idea of holding all Mabo claims concerning Government money spent and the fighting in court being also - the money provided being from the Government - and Australia's economy not being, it's probably the best financial time for Australia to be able to support such riff-raff in the courts which is not really achieving much except for the people who are representing the people in court. What do you think about, you know, like, if you have got a barrel of money and everybody just keeps on taking from it eventually ..
PRIME MINISTER:
...it runs out.
QUESTION:
Yeah, and everyone is going to have nothing. Like, I am sure the people, like, I am not against Aboriginal people, I have got some good Aboriginal friends. What I am looking to is Australia to be stable throughout everything without wasting money where it could probably be, you know, I am not saying no more Mabo claims, I am saying to halt the Mabo claims to put money in better places maybe for low percentage loans to farmers or something like that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well sir, I think that was a very, very strong speech in favour of our native title legislation with one or two exceptions. If you are saying to me that there is an enormous amount of confusion, if there are significant disincentives to investment in parts of Australia and there is concern about the present native title mess, you are absolutely right. I agree with you completely and we have been trying in the two-and- a-quarter years that we have been in power to remedy the native title mess. And I do remind you that the Liberal and National parties in 1993 voted against the present Native Title Act - we did. And the reason we voted against it is that we foresaw some of the difficulties that have eventuated and when the Wik decision was brought down I knew that that decision had to be responded to in a way that gave certainty and predictability to Australian farmers and miners but was also fair to the Aboriginal communities. And I tried very hard and I finally got a plan together which I presented, I suppose in its most open way, to a gathering of people at Longreach with Tim Fischer in May of last year.
Now that legislation has been rejected by the Senate. It is back under notice at the present time because I am carrying out very extensive discussions with Senator Harradine at the moment. Now I am absolutely determined that we fix the native title mess. I understand the frustration of people in the Australian community about it. We have a large majority in the House of Representatives but the Australian people did not give us a majority in the Senate. And I know that frustrates people but there is nothing I can do about that because I am bound by the law of Australia like any other Australian citizen. And I have to obey that law and that law says that I can't change the law. We can't change the law unless we get a Bill through both Houses of Parliament. Now there is no way around that. People get very angry and frustrated about that and a lot of the anger and frustration of people in rural Australia on this issue has been because they thought that the native title mess would have been fixed up a couple of years ago. But it hasn't been and it hasn't been because the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Democrats and the Greens and others have knocked it back in the Senate.
Now sir, I am trying to fix that and I can promise you that if we get our legislation through then I believe that many of the frustrations that you feel will disappear, will bring a great deal more certainty for the farmers and will have a great deal more certainty for the mining industry but it will also be something that does respect the rights of Indigenous people. And I know by your question that you would want the Government to achieve that particular balance.
QUESTION:
Mr Prime Minister, my name is Peter Macintosh, I am a grain grower from the Burnett. I have been a farmer for 40 years and I have never seen such hardship and frustrations amongst the people of this district. It is just absolutely through the roof. I think the most unpopular, detested man in Australia is your Minister for Primary Industries, John Anderson. He alone has changed the face of politics in country areas but it's the terms of trade of farmers. Have you ever seen a graph, and I saw one only a week ago, of the terms of trade of farmers? It just goes like that. Now there's 30 per cent of the farmers have got to go I have heard today because they are not viable. In another four years there will be another 30 per cent going. The frustrations, where are we going? We are working on a world market, we are working bloody hard, we are doing the job good. We've got a world market out there that is that corrupt and subsidised and distorted and just all upside down and we've got to compete in that thing. The level playing field, someone set the nail on the head. And we are sick of running up hill. We will not, as a community, we are going to go out the back door and all this infrastructure will just disappear. We just cannot keep going. We just cannot keep going and what can you do about it? You have got to do something about rural Australia and regional Australia because it's all going down the gurgler.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well sir, firstly, I heard what you said about my colleague. Let me say that I know John Anderson well. He is a very fine and committed Australian. He is a very fine and committed Australian and I very, very.....I find him a person of complete integrity and decency with which to deal. I do, I mean you can disagree with a man's politics or his policies but in terms of integrity and personal decency he is a person I hold in very high regard. Now, what you said about the world trading environment is absolutely right and I agree with that. And that, may I say, is one of the reasons why when you do get an export market, you hang onto it and you clutch hold of it and you never let it go. If you are living in a corrupted world environment, as the gentleman has just said, if you can bust through that corruption and grab an export market you are a mug if you behave in a way that throws it away. And that's why it is tremendously important whenever we get an export market that we hang onto it and we try and develop it. We have no alternative but to do that because we are a small nation, we rely very heavily on our farming exports, we are highly efficient farmers. There are no farmers in the world that are more efficient than Australian ones and we are battling all the time against the subsidised practices of the Europeans and the Americans. I know that. The second job I had in politics was the Minister for Special Trade Negotiations and I had many arguments in Brussels with the European Union about it and I agree with you completely. Now you say....
QUESTION:
[Inaudible] can't go on.
PRIME MINISTER:
If your livelihood is to export, I mean, if you are a primary producer in Australia and you're in a market, in a nation of 18.5 million people, to have any prospects you have to export. So that means that every sinew of our behaviour as a trading nation must be directed towards achieving export markets. Now I know it is very difficult, the costs are too high and one way you get the costs down is to reduce things like interest rates.
And can I say in defence of the Government that although interest rates are still in the eyes of anybody who pays them are still too high, they have come down over the last two-and-a-quarter years by a larger degree than at any time in the last 40 or 50 years. Now I know that hasn't been enough....
INTERJECTION:
[Inaudible]... 13%.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well sir, if you are paying that much I really would like to find out who is your financier because there has been a very, very significant reduction in interest rates. Now I know it's not enough and I know there are more things that could happen but let's be fair. If there has been an improvement in the cost structure of the rural sector, let it be acknowledged and also let it be acknowledged that a number of the other policies and programmes that have been introduced by the Government, particularly through the AAA package, have given assistance to the rural sector. But sir, you put your finger on the problem when you said that we are fighting corrupted world markets. Now, the only real alternative for this nation if it must export to survive is to keep fighting to achieve access in that corrupted market environment.
INTERJECTION:
[Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we have helped you fight. We have helped you fight by achieving over the last two-and-a-quarter years, achieving access for beef quota, getting beef quotas into some of the Asian and other countries.
INTERJECTION:
[Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, well, I mean you mention exceptional circumstances. Well over the last little while we have provided....
INTERJECTION:
[Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
Well sir, we have provided something in the order of $300 million in exceptional circumstances relief over the last two-and-a-quarter years. Now if you are saying to me that conditions are still very tough and very difficult, I agree with you, I understand that. If you are saying to me that there is some simple solution to achieving access to world markets that have so far not been utilised by my Government or any previous government then please tell me what that is. At the end of the day the farming sector of Australia will prosper to the degree that it can win further access on world markets. The sheer size of our market domestically dictates that that is the only solution.
Now you need help from the Government but you need a decent economic environment. You need low inflation, you need low interest rates and you don't need the burdens of excessive levels of protection that add to your input costs. Now they are three policies that we have followed and also may I say you need a taxation system that does not penalise exporters. You need a taxation system, I repeat, that does not penalise exporters. Now I'll raise the question of taxation reform. I dare say somebody else might raise it if I don't raise it. And one of the reasons why I support taxation reform is that I believe it will take a lot of the load off the backs of Australian exporters because under reformed taxation you don't pay any tax on the exports. And that is an enormous boost to our exporters.
QUESTION:
Mr Howard I would just like to respond to your sympathy that you have given us....oh sorry, I am Alan Woolford, I am a pork employee from Dalby. Some weeks ago at Toowoomba I asked you this question and I asked you what you are going to do for my family and the other families out there also. Your response was, I sympathise with your plight but your sympathy is not going to pay my bills and give my family the life that I want to give them. I am going to criticise you here because I truly feel that my family is going to go downhill while your family is still surviving and getting what you want your family to have. My family won't have that. Also what I would like to say, or like to ask you is, I would dearly love to get into the pork industry for myself. I am 33, I have a wife, I have two children. There is no provisions out there for myself to go to the bank and say, hey listen I want to borrow