SUBJECTS: Business community partnerships; corporate philanthropy
E&OE..................................
That's a hard act to follow. Matthew thank you very much for your warm introduction. To Dr David Morgan, the managing director of Westpac. To Greg, to Elaine Henry. To my parliamentary colleagues, Michael Ronaldson and David Hawker and other supporters and friends of The Smith Family.
I am very privileged to be part of this occasion because what I am seeing today and what you are witnessing is a real live example of something that I have held very dear in the time that I have been Prime Minister and that is the notion of a social coalition. The belief that the problems that we have in our society today can't be solved by one part of the community acting alone. They can only be solved by the different elements of society, the Government, the business community, the great welfare organisations like the Smith Family and well motivated philanthropic individuals working together, pooling their resources, doing what each of them does best and producing the best results.
And as we go through the wonderful story that Matthew told us, we get an idea of how that works. And I want to congratulate Westpac on its generosity and its thoughtful contribution in giving people an opportunity in education is a very thoughtful as well as a very sensitive and compassionate way of helping somebody.
As the oldest company and the oldest bank and also my bank, can I say to Westpac, I am well satisfied with the way in which you have decided to give this support. But of course you can have the resources but you need the vehicle and the Smith Family has been looking after, not only the underprivileged in our society but people who whilst it would not be right to describe them as underprivileged, people who through a combination of circumstances have been denied the opportunity of realising what others have been able to realise.
I treasure the value of a university education that fortunately I was able to have when I left school in the late 1950s. And I know how important it was to me and how important it was to my mother that I go to University after I left school. Now she was able to afford to pay my fees the first year I lived in Sydney and I was able to pick up a Commonwealth Scholarship in the subsequent years, so I can therefore feel for somebody who wanted to do the same thing. I also became a lawyer, I then went on to do one or two other things and your eloquence suggests that one day you may end up at the dispatch box and I hope you don't get put in the sin bin, but I think you displayed a ready facility with the language and the communications part of your law degree is obviously something that you very, very keenly relish.
But having an opportunity for education is tremendously important. The other thing that impresses me greatly about the ?Learning for Life' program is the mentoring aspect of it. That's something else that I think is very important in social provision to give somebody the opportunity of one to one advice. It's extremely valuable and I think that particular element of the program is almost as valuable as the financial support.
Now the ?Learning for Life' program I know something of. Indeed I discovered that one of the members of my staff that he and his wife had been contributing to it over a period of time and he even showed me a report that anonymous expect for the christian name of the person concerned, the report of the young man that my staff member and his wife had been helping and the simple expressions of gratitude and I was particularly attracted by the bit down the bottom that said what would you do if you were Prime Minister for a day. The young man had written - I'd choose the Australian cricket team. Now I thought that he had extremely good values and it had a certain resonance with me.
But David Morgan referred to the Government's promotion of the notion of community partnerships. I have talked a lot in the time I have been Prime Minister about the notion of a social coalition and I have also talked a lot about the notion of mutual obligation. The sense that in a caring community we owe as a Government, as the representatives of the Australian people, as the trustees for the taxes they pay, we owe an obligation to help those who need assistance, who genuinely need help to provide them with a safety net. But it's not unreasonable having done that to ask that something be given in return.
The same applies of course with the business community. If business prospers from a stable society and a well run economy, dare I say it, then there's some obligation to put something back and increasingly businesses are doing that. And my mantra is not that businesses should give more but rather that more businesses should give because there have been some wonderful examples over the years of the generosity of individual business men and women and corporations. And we are seeing a great example of it here today with Westpac.
The Government itself of course is putting its money where its mouth is in encouraging a greater sense of philanthropy in the community and we've put through some tax changes recently that provide incentives worth $50 million - $60 million a year to make it easier and more attractive and more affordable tax wise for companies to make contributions. And only a few weeks ago I announced the Government contribution of $15 million as supplementary funding for the Centenary Foundation for Young Australians which is an amalgamation of the Old Queen's Trust in other body which will provide scholarships for young Australians in all walks of life.
So there is a spirit abroad in the Australian community of people working in greater harmony now to tackle our social problems. I have often thought that we've passed through two phases. We went through a phase I think 30 years ago when we thought that every single problem could be solved by the government intervening and throwing money at it and really ignoring everybody else and creating a large bureaucracy. Then we had a bit of retreat from that in the 1980s when people rather foolishly thought that you could solve every problem by the unrestrained operation of market economics and it would all trickle down and every poor person would be relieved of poverty and every unemployed person would be given a job. I think that we have learnt that neither of those approaches is quite right and what you need perhaps is a slightly new paradigm and we are starting to find that in a greater level of co-operation, a recognition that a government has got a limited but a very strategic role to play. We've got to provide a social security safety net but there is a greater role for organisations like the Smith Family not only in providing help for people who need help but also given advise to the Government on how to mould its social policy and I am very happy to say that the person who is chairing the enquiry for the future of social welfare policy in Australia is somebody from the welfare sector, Patrick McClure of Mission Australia.
And I have sought the advice of bodies like the Smith Family and the Salvation Army and the Society of St Vincent de Paul and all of those organisations because they have more to offer than just the compassion of looking after people who need help, they also have an experience of working at the coal face. They know what policies work and they know what policies don't work and governments should listen to them a lot more and not just see them as the vehicles for looking after the really tough cases in our community but also people who have the capacity to give some decent policy advice as well.
So all of those things are part of the picture that we are hoping to paint in this very important area. But the partnership between business organisations and welfare organisations is a key component and I've been quite inspired and enthused by Matthew's story. It's a wonderful story, articulate and it's a great credit to the wisdom of the scheme that it should produce somebody who's been able to do that so very well.
I wish you well and you never know, I think you might one day pop up somewhere or other in the political vortex and I think you will do it very, very well.
But to you Dr Morgan, thank you for the generosity that you have displayed to the Smith Family. My warm appreciation again of the tremendous contribution you make towards building a happier and more caring, more compassionate and fairer Australian community. It's a wonderful goal and I am delighted indeed to endorse today's events and to congratulate Westpac and the Smith Family for their magnificent partnership.
Thank you.
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