E&OE..................
Thank you very much Ita. To Dr John Keniery, Mr Charles Jamieson, to John
Olsen the Premier of South Australia, my Ministerial colleagues, Larry Anthony,
Judith Troeth, my Parliamentary Secretary colleague, other very distinguished
guests, ladies and gentlemen.
It's a great delight, I think for the first time as Prime Minister to attend
this very important event. And it's an occasion not only to say a couple
of things, as Prime Ministers are want to do on occasions like this with
captive audiences, about the superb economic performance of the Government,
but it's also an opportunity to honour the real heroes of the Australian
economic performance over the last couple of years and that is the exporters
of Australia.
If I had addressed you one year or two years ago I probably wouldn't have
been able to report as robustly as I can tonight on the general health of
the Australian economy. A year ago even we'd have looked forward with some
foreboding about the potential impact of the Asian economic downturn on
our economy. That we have been able to stare down that economic collapse
and have come out of it in a sense stronger and better than ever is due
to a lot of things. But one of the things it is really due to was the capacity
of the exporters of Australia to switch their export focus away from the
disappearing markets in the collapsing Asian economies towards new and expanding
markets in other parts of the world.
They were aided and abetted by a very flexibly and sensibly administered
exchange rate policy. But without a great deal of Australian grit and determination
and application it simply wouldn't have been possible. So on behalf of the
Government I express my and the gratitude of my colleagues for the tremendous
effort put in by the exporters of Australia particularly over the last couple
of years.
The last 12 months of course has been a very important policy year for the
exporters of Australia because they are amongst the biggest winners from
the Government's major overhaul of the Australian taxation system. There's
always a danger with something like tax reform that we tend to get preoccupied
with and bogged down by the minutiae, and the micro aspects of its implementation.
And we think too much about the detailed application of it in this or that
sector. And we lose sight of the enormous generic national economic benefits
that taxation reform brings. And one of the great, and it can't be overstated,
benefits of the introduction of a goods and services tax and the removal
of the old indirect tax system which will occur on the 1st of
July next year, is the tremendous boost that it will give to exports from
this country. All exports will be free of the GST. It will make us more
competitive in world markets. It will give us a chance to punch even more
effectively against those competitors who've had the advantage of a more
modern taxation system up until now. So amongst the many beneficiaries of
taxation reform are the exporters of Australia. And it's been calculated
that the benefit to them of the new taxation system is in the order of $7
billion to $8 billion a year. And that is another $7 billion or $8 billion
of competitive edge and advantage that Australian exporters will have available
to them from the first of July next year.
I'm very conscious ladies and gentlemen as I speak that over in Seattle
a World Trade Organisation meeting is taking place. The publicity so far
coming out of the meeting is about some organised demonstrations in the
streets of Seattle. I can't imagine less well directed, less intelligent
demonstrations than those that are taking place in Seattle because if you
really want to cripple the future growth prospects of the poor nations of
the world, if you really want to leave in the hands of a number of relatively
rich and highly protective trade policy nations of the world, then you will
condemn the current World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle to failure.
Because in the long run developing countries have more to gain from opening
up world trading opportunities than many, not all, but many of the developed
countries.
It is only through building market access that many of the least developed
countries in the world can have a show of lifting their standards of living.
And if you look at those countries that were once poorly developed, that
have grown dramatically over the last thirty years, it is those countries
that have aggressively pursued export opportunities and have aggressively
utilised market openings that have been made available to them. So not only
do I want that meeting to succeed for Australia's sake and it's very important
that it does because it can't be said too frequently that the world trading
system is still weighted against efficient agricultural producers in particular
such as Australia.
But I also want that world trade round to succeed in the name and in the
interests of the least developed countries of the world. And this is a message
that was not lost on some of the poorest nations that were represented at
the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Durban in South Africa which
I attended a few weeks ago on behalf of Australia. They were intelligent
enough and sensible enough to see that in the long run they had an enormous
amount to gain from the prizing open of the large and growing markets of
the more developed part of the world.
We live forever in a globalised world. We can't stop it, we can't change
it, we can't get off it. And those who pretend that we can are deluding
themselves. There is no refuge in going back to protectionism and the erection
of old barriers but there is a responsibility on governments to explain
better the benefits of more open trade. To use the right language, to talk
about freer trade and more open trade rather than free trade because no
nation practices perfect free trade. Australia doesn't and nor does any
other country. And we have an obligation to explain to our population better
the benefits of more open trade. To translate into hard concrete examples
the benefits of a more open trading environment. And one of the ways we
do that is to hail and applaud those who are achievers and performers on
the export markets of Australia.
We are deservedly as a nation intensely proud of our sporting achievers.
And I can't think in all the years I have been following sport in Australia,
and that's been most of my life, I can't think of a year when Australia
both on an individual basis and in team sport has had a greater year of
achievement in sport than this current year. But not only should we laud
and magnify them for what they have done but we should equally hail and
acclaim those people who are great successes in business, great successes
in the arts and particularly great successes in export performance. Because
the future economic strength of Australia will ultimately come down, with
a nation of fewer than 20 million people, to our capacity to aggressively
and competitively trade in every area of economic activity around the world.
And that is why tonight is very important to me, it's very important to
the Government. We have at the moment probably, in generic terms, the strongest
economy Australia has had for the last 30 years perhaps since the end of
World War II. The fundamentals are better now than they were in the late
1960s because then we had a far more closed, cloistered and protected economy.
We now have an economy that's torn down many of those old protective barriers
and an economy which is expanding into new areas undreamt of only a few
years ago.
So we have great opportunities but that puts a special obligation on all
of us who are involved in any position of leadership be it in government
or in business to better explain and communicate to the people of our own
nation the benefits of opening things up and liberalising things. Because
unless we do that we run the risk of losing the argument to populist clamour.
And we must also remember, ladies and gentlemen, that when the entire nation
is doing well those within our midst who are not doing well feel the difference
even more keenly. All disadvantage within a society does tend to be relative.
And it is true although the national strength of the Australian economy
is greater than it's been for many decades there are regions of Australia,
particularly outside the metropolitan areas, which are doing it tough.
And I was reminded of this when I read the other day the disaggregated figures
of the Australian Bureau of Statistics on unemployment levels which disclosed,
for example, that in the Northern Beach area of Sydney the unemployment
rate is about 1.8 per cent, the lower North Shore, 1.7 per cent, the Eastern
Suburbs of Sydney about 2 per cent and even in the central western suburbs
of Sydney only about 4 per cent. Yet when you get out into the regions and
you get into the Wide Bay, Burnett district of rural Queensland, for example,
the level is 12 to 13 per cent. And that is an illustration that where there
are sections of the Australian community that are not sharing the boom times,
they are not sharing the generic national prosperity that we acknowledge
tonight. And that puts a great obligation on all of us to keep that in mind.
It puts an obligation on us to always explain and communicate in language
that people can clearly understand the benefit of more open trade, the benefits
of exports, the jobs that are created by export performance and export achievement.
And I want to congratulate all of Australia's exporters tonight. I particularly
acknowledge the contribution of those who will be announced as award winners.
You have done great things for our country. You have played a major role
in the economic resurgence of Australia. You played a crucial role in piloting
Australia through what could have been an enormous economic challenge but,
in fact, has turned out to be a great economic triumph. And that is our
capacity and our strength as a nation to stare down the worst economic downturn
our region has seen and in that the exporters of Australia have played an
absolutely indispensable role. Thank you.
[ends]