8 October 1998
E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
Well thank you very much Phillip Holt and ladies and gentleman for those very warm greetings. Believe you me it’s a great delight to be here again as Prime Minister. Like any other grand final a Federal election is always unpredictable and this last one was no exception. But I think it’s always important when you’ve been through something like that, or rather the nation has been through something like that, it’s very important, particularly bobbing around in the sea of cynicism that seems to be our lot from time to time, to reflect upon the extraordinary privilege that we have with Australian democracy. We debate each other. We don’t gaol our political opponents in this country. What we do is we argue it out and we submit ourselves to the will of the people. And whatever may be the shortcomings of Australian politics, and there are undoubtedly many shortcomings of Australian politics, we should always celebrate the joy that we are a thoroughly democratic country where ultimately the will of the Australian people really counts.
I’ve been through 11 election campaigns as a Member of Parliament and as somebody who’s followed politics for not only all of his adult life but before I was an adult, and who first voted in the closest Federal election in post-war Australian history, that was the Federal election of 1961. If Bob Menzies were alive now he would think that my majority was positively delirious after his majority of only two in 1961. I think in many ways this election was conducted with more civility and more respect for opposing points of view than has been the case for a long time and I think the whole political process is the beneficiary as a consequence of that.
I want to pay tribute tonight to the contribution that Australian business, capital ‘A’, capital ‘B’, and also Australian businesses, the contribution that you have made to the quality of political and economic debate in this country particularly over the last two-and-a-half years. I can’t recall an occasion, an issue in which there has been more direct and more deep involvement by the Australian business community, not only but most particularly your own organisation, but more generally the business of Australia than there has been over recent months on the issue of taxation reform. Now all of you have heard a great deal about taxation reform over the last seven weeks. That’s the good news because you’re going to hear a lot more about it over the months ahead because until we’ve implemented what we took to the Australian people we’re not going to let go of that bone. And I want to make it very clear to you that having emerged from an election campaign that was heavily centered on the issue of taxation reform, the Government, as soon as the constitutional processes permit it, will forge ahead to present our program to the newly elected Australian Parliament. But in saying that I do so in the knowledge that the contribution that the business community made to the propagation of our proposals for taxation reform were quite immense. Without the support and the understanding of the business community I don’t believe that we would have received such support and such understanding for our program. Now I know there is a, and was and continues to be, a conjunction of interest. But I can think of other issues in the past where there’s been a conjunction of interest between the business community and the Government of the day where there hasn’t been such a combined pursuit of certain economic and policy goals.
In all the years that I’ve been in politics, and it now numbers almost 25, there have stood out four or five major issues of economic reform that have been essential for the strength and the welfare of the Australian community. We needed to turn our backs on the old attitudes we used to have towards tariff protection in this country. We needed to turn our backs on the old regulated financial system. We needed to adopt a new and different and more modern approach to industrial relations. And both sides of politics have played a role in breaking down old attitudes in those three areas. I think of the contribution of the former Labor Government with our support to the cause of financial deregulation. I also think of the contribution of that Government to tariff reform, once again with our support. I think of the efforts of many in my own party with the support of many in the business community to bring about changes in industrial relations policy so that now I don’t believe there is any likelihood, no matter what political outcomes there may be in the years ahead, that we can ever go back to the highly regulated industrial relations system that we once had in this country. And I believe that there are many representatives of the trade union movement who will be here tonight who would share the views that I have just expressed on that particular subject. But the one great stand out, the one area which I regarded as the greatest area of unfinished economic business in the Australian experience of the last quarter of the twentieth century was the cause of reforming our taxation system.
There have been many attempts over the last quarter of a century to reform our taxation system. Several attempts were made during the lifetime of the Fraser Government. There was one attempt made by my old sparring partner, Paul Keating, when he was Treasurer in the mid 1980s and he made that attempt on that occasion with my support as Opposition Treasury spokesman. And there was another courageous attempt made, which failed, by John Hewson in 1992. And in the lead up to the last election there was no shortage of people who argued that we shouldn’t attempt to do it again. There were no shortage of people who argued that what we really had to do if we wanted to get taxation reform was to find some other way of winning the election and then after we’d won the election then announce to the Australian people that we’d suddenly discovered that taxation reform was in the long term interest of the Australian community. Now that was a course of action that we rejected because I came to the very strong belief, that I’m sure many Australians support, that the nature of political combat in this country now is that the only way that you can really win any kind of political or moral authority to bring about a major reform is to actually make that major reform a central element of your re-election campaign. If we had tried any other course of action then I don’t believe we would have had the remotest possibility of winning Parliamentary or indeed public sympathy or support for the plans that we had in mind.
There has been a lot of debate about mandates. There’s been a lot of debate about what we are now entitled to do. Can I simply say to you again and through you to the Australian people, we made taxation reform a central issue of this election campaign. We were up front, we were unashamed, we were forthright, we were open, we were honest, and we didn’t hide anything about it. And having won that election it is our intention to press ahead with all of the resources at our disposal to implement the program on which we were elected. And can I say that just before I left home to come here tonight I saw the Premier of New South Wales on television saying that he supported our right to implement the taxation program on which we were elected. And can I say that I welcome the remarks that Mr Carr made. I welcome the fact that he acknowledges that any government commanding support in the Lower House of an Australian Parliament has the right to implement the program on which that government has been elected. And I will look forward to Mr Carr’s support and I will look forward to the support of other Premiers at the specially convened meeting of Premiers with the Treasurer and myself that will take place in the first half of November because I promised in the course of putting together the taxation plan to take to the last election that before the legislation was introduced there would be a process of consultation and a central element of that consultation will be a special Premiers’ conference. Can I say to the States of Australia that you have a lot at stake in the implementation of this taxation plan because it represents the first serious endeavor by any Federal government in Australia since World War II to set right the Commonwealth-State financial relations of our nation.
Over a decade of time from the implementation of the plan it will deliver to the Australian States in aggregate $25 to $30 billion more than the States would receive through a continuation of the existing financial arrangements. It represents the wherewithal to deliver to the States of Australia the financial muscle to underwrite the cost of those essential services in areas such as police, health, housing and education which are such important responsibilities of all the States of Australia. It is a very important reform. It’s a reform that I’ve campaigned long and hard for. It’s a reform that will further strengthen the Australian economy and it’s a reform that is essential as Australia faces the international economic environment. And I want to say one or two words about the international economic environment. The attitude that the Government has towards it and the role that I believe Australia can play particularly in our own region. It is important at the present time that we recognise the difficulties that exist in the international economic outlook. But it’s also important that we not be overcome by any sense of undue pessimism or any sense of panic. The world is not lurching towards recession. The world still remains a very beckoning and a very strong place economically in many respects. The most powerful economy in the world, the United States, is still experiencing very strong growth and very low levels of unemployment. The second most powerful economy in the world, Japan, for the first time in years appears to be addressing some of the fundamental structural changes that are needed so that that country can renew its contribution to growth particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. The major economies of Europe are still strong. We have relatively, indeed historically low inflation levels in the western world and we are enjoying very low levels of interest rates. There has not been a lurch towards protectionism. There has been in the face of great economic difficulty a continued pursuit of policies of trade liberalisation.
And all of this means my friends that it’s very important that the difficulties that undoubtedly exist internationally be kept in perspective. It's very important that we don’t embrace the language of pessimism and the language of recession. It’s important that we understand the difficulties of those in our immediate region and it’s important that we draw lessons from their experience. And it’s also important, in no selfish sense, that we take advantage as Australians of the immense economic, political and social assets that this country has. Now is a time, particularly as we move towards the centenary of the federation of Australia, now is the time for us to share fully the opportunities that lie our way, particularly in our region, because of the immense assets that we have.
I’ve spoken often of the unique intersection that I believe Australia occupies in the world. We are, in this part of the world, a projection of western civilisation with all of the advantages that that has but without the disadvantages of such things that we have not thankfully inherited from Europe of class division and class structures.
We enjoy very close relations with the nations of North America, particularly the United States. But here we are in the Asian Pacific region with a very strong and vital and vigorous and forward-looking Asian component of our own Australian population. We have a strong economy. We have a liberal democracy with strong social values. We have a sound legal system. We have stable, prudential and well-regulated banks. We speak the English language. We have, in other words, a combination of assets that can make this country a hub, a centre, of economic and social activity for our own particular region.
I’ve frequently said that one of the opportunities we have, one of the great opportunities we have, as we move into the 21st Century, and it’s been made all the more obvious and likely because of the benefits of our taxation reforms, we have every opportunity to make one of the major cities of Australia the financial centre of the Asia-Pacific region as we move into the 21st Century. There is no reason why the Wall Street of the Asia-Pacific region should not go through the centre of an Australian city in the 21st Century.
The message that I would bring to you tonight, domestically, is that the Australian people have re-elected a government that is determined to get on with the business of further economic reform. It has re-elected a government that believes that continued economic reform is still necessary. It has re-elected a government that understands that if you are to be successful with economic reform you must satisfy two criteria. You must first of all persuade the people that it is in the long-term benefit and interests of the nation. And, secondly, you must satisfy the people that the reform details are fair and properly treat all sections of the Australian community.
I know there is much talk in our community and, indeed, in other like communities of the possibility that we have entered a stage of reform fatigue. I know that many on the political horizon and one party in particular that didn’t do so well last weekend, has sought to take advantage of the inevitable personal dislocation and social discontent that flows from economic and social reform and change. Change and reform is unavoidable in a modern society.
The art of good leadership and the art of good government in a modern society is to hang on to and to defend and to stand by those things from our past, and those values from our past, that continue to serve us well and continue to be relevant as we move into the future, while at the same time turning against and putting aside those practices and attitudes that no longer make a positive contribution to our future. And it falls to modern government and it certainly falls to the re-elected Australian government to hang on to those great Australian values of fairness and tolerance and equality and mateship that are still relevant as we move into the 21st Century because they are enduring Australian values that are important today and will continue to be important into the future.
And it’s also important that we recognise that as we go into the future there are some things that must change. And if we don’t change them, then we’re not going to properly fulfil our destiny as a nation and properly realise opportunities for our people. And that is why we have argued for economic and other reforms. It is why we took a risk in arguing for taxation reform. It is why we said that whatever the difficulties and the challenges that that involved, it was a journey that had to be taken because it was in the long-term interests of the Australian community.
I said on Saturday night, when I spoke at the Wentworth Hotel, that it was an immense and an almost unbelievable privilege to have been twice elected as Prime Minister of Australia. There couldn’t be a more exciting and a more challenging time to be in government in Australia than as we come towards the centenary of the federation of our nation.
We do occupy a special place in the world. We do have assets, we have talents, we have something to offer the world that no other country can offer. We combine things in our history, our geography, our culture, our economic circumstances, our way of life and our national values, that no other country has and we have opportunities. And we therefore have in front of us an opportunity to use that unique conjunction of assets and circumstances not only to the positive benefit of our own nation and our own people, but also to the positive benefit of the rest of the world, particularly of our own region. Of course we face international economic challenges. But it is important that we keep our sense of perspective, we keep our sense of balance, we reject pessimism, we decry talk of international recession and we remain positive and optimistic about the future.
Can I conclude, once again, by congratulating your organisation on the tremendous contribution that it has made to the economic life of Australia. I want to thank it for the cooperation that it has extended to the Government. I want to compliment it on the co-operative relationship that it continues to maintain with the trade union movement in Australia, and I think that level of co-operation is a mark of the goodwill of the Australian community, the great bulk of the Australian community, to reach decisions and to have attitudes which are for the long-term benefit of our nation.
Thank you very much for inviting me here tonight. It has been a marvellous occasion for me to express my gratitude to many in the business community for the help and the understanding it has extended to me and to my Government over the last two-and-a-half years and I look forward, over the next three years, to continued close friendship and close co-operation for the benefit of the whole of the Australian community.
Thank you.