E&OE................................................................................................
Well thank you very much gentlemen. To the Mayor of Ryde, to all the
other distinguished guests, ladies and gentleman. In May of this year
I will have represented North Ryde in the Federal Parliament for 25
years. And North Ryde is known for a lot of things. It's known
along with other parts of Ryde for having produced some of the most
celebrated Australian sportsmen. It's known for another thing
that's tremendously important today, and that is that from the
very early years that I was representing North Ryde in the Federal
Parliament, as you heard a moment ago, it was the location of pharmaceutical,
technology and other leading-edge manufacturing and supplying companies
in Australia. And over the years it has grown into an area of Sydney,
and an area of Australia, which is really renowned for providing a
very welcoming and appropriate environment for the establishment of
businesses of that kind. And over the years it's become quite
correctly known as very much a pharmaceutical, medical and high-tech
location area, not only in Sydney but throughout Australia. And a
lot of the credit for that is due to the very beckoning environment
provided by the local council and provided by the community generally.
And I want to say to both Johnson & Johnson Medical, and to Jannsen-Cilag,
how delighted I am as the local member, as well as the Prime Minister
of Australia, at the very large investment that both companies are
making in this joint headquarters that I'll have the privilege
in a few moments of opening.
Could I say to both companies, and to all of you, that you couldn't
be opening a new building, establishing a new asset, and embarking
upon either a new business venture or an expansion of an existing
venture at a better time economically in Australia. I've got
to say to you that the general economic conditions in Australia at
the present time are better than at any time in the 25 years that
I've been in Federal Parliament. There's never any point
in public life when you have an unassailable fact to assert, there's
never any point in public life in being reluctant to assert that unassailable
fact. Because strange as it is I found in public life that your commentators
and your reviewers and your critics are always marked in their reluctance
to assert those unassailable facts. So we are living in very good
economic times.
We are living in times of very low inflation, we are living in times
of very low interest rates, we are living in a time when the Australian
economy has really been able to see off the worst of the Asian economic
downturn. That doesn't mean to say that we should be complacent,
but it does mean to say that we should recognise the measure of the
strength of those economic conditions. And now is a very good time
for Australia to tell the rest of the world how attractive it is for
companies to establish their regional headquarters in Australia. How
attractive it is for Australia to be increasingly seen around the
world as a financial centre in this part of the world. And one of
the goals that I set the Government at the time of the last election
was to see somewhere in Australia, and a Prime Minister of a Federation
I never try and choose between competing locations, somewhere in Australia
become the alternative financial centre to Tokyo in the Asian-Pacific
region. And when you look at the low inflation we have, you look at
the low interest rates, you look at the stable legal system we have,
the stable political system we have, rambunctious though it may be
on occasions it is nonetheless stable. When you look at the fact that
we have a very very prudentially well supervised and well regulated
banking system, where we have a corporate governance code which is
second to none around the world; you have a lifestyle that is second
to none around the world; you have a cross structure for living in
the major cities of Australia which is now increasingly competitive
with the cross structures of cities like Singapore and Hong Kong,
indeed far more competitive; all of that adds up to a situation where
Australia is a prime location, not only as a regional financial centre,
but it is a prime location as a business financial centre generally.
And with the passage of the Government's taxation reforms which
will make trading and securities in this country and financial operations
even less burdened by taxation than they are at the present time,
we will be adding yet another element to the attractiveness of Australia
and the attractiveness of Sydney, of Melbourne, of all the cities
of Australia as a financial and business location.
The other thing that I want to say about both of the companies, who
I'm very pleased to honour today and their contribution to Australia
of course, is that both of them are very much involved in an activity
and in an industry which goes to the heart of the quality of life,
indeed the existence of life, and the contribution that both of those
companies are making to medical science, the contribution that they
are making to the relief of human suffering, and the contribution
that those who work for them are making to the health care industry
in Australia generally.
There's a lot of criticism of health care in this country and
that is to be expected in a democratic society. One observation I
would make about Australia's health care system today is simply
this: there may be flaws in it and undoubtedly there are, but I don't
know of any nation on Earth that has a perfect health care system.
And I don't know of any country on Earth where a person of average
means is better cared for if that person becomes unexpectedly ill
than in Australia. I have to say very bluntly, I'd rather see
a person of average means have a health problem in this country than
in just about any other country in the world. And I think with all
of the criticism that is sometimes made about the health care system
in this country we ought to remember that. We ought to remember the
quality of the doctors that we have in this country. We ought to remember
the quality of the medical scientists we have in this country. We
ought to remember the quality and the dedication of the nurses and
the other health care professionals that we have in this country.
So all of these things need to be kept in proper perspective.
But I thank Johnson & Johnson medical. I thank Jannsen-Cilag for
the contribution that they are making to the local community, for
the contribution that they are making to Australian society and to
the role that they are playing in providing in their own particular
way for a first quality health care for Australian citizens.
I thank them for their investment in Australia's future. I welcome
them in their new headquarters to the electorate of Bennelong. To
the district of North Ryde, you remain very, very welcome and very,
very popular corporate citizens in this part of Australia.
Thank you very much.
[ends]