E&OE..................
Thank you very much Michael; to Andrew MacCallum the newly elected chairman of ACOSS; the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Denis Napthine the leader of the opposition in Victoria; Mr Geoff Clark the chairman of ATSIC, ladies and gentlemen.
I was not only delighted but indeed determined to keep my commitment to address this annual conference of ACOSS because I have valued the contact I';ve had with your organisation in the time that I have been Prime Minister. And this is a marvellous opportunity for me, and I hope you derive some benefit from it as well to report on the social policy approach of the government over the last three years and it is also an opportunity for me to canvass some of the detail of the Government';s third term agenda of welfare reform. And I do so during a day here in Melbourne in which I';ll not only be canvassing the Government';s third term agenda in relation to social policy, but also in the important area of health policy.
Our plans for welfare reform will provide for further strengthening of the social security safety net and dramatically improve the incentives for Australians in welfare to achieve the transition which we all support to employment that is both paid and satisfying.
Our contact with ACOSS is valuable in the formation of policy. We don';t always agree, we often disagree very strongly and if we continue to be the government after the 10th of November, I am sure that there will continue to be areas of agreement and disagreement. But what we have always done is to maintain a dialogue and you will remember that I addressed this congress just under three years ago shortly after the return of the Government in which I outlined our approach to the social coalition. It is because we don';t always agree that the opportunities for dialogue are important.
As the Lord Mayor has said our world has changed, tragically for the worst, since the 11th of September and that tragedy underlines the need and indeed encourages all to seek out each other just that little bit more and to build on those common values and common bonds that bring our community together.
Whatever our political beliefs and however we vote on the 10th of November we all want an Australian society that is cohesive and prosperous and cohesive, that offers opportunity and choice, that draws strength from its diversity, that is generous to its vulnerable, that assists the disadvantaged, and encourages people to aspire and achieve.
My government';s social policy record is built on a set of shared Australian values of :
- opportunity and choice; - a fair go for all; - increasing self-reliance; - working in partnership; and- mutual obligation.
In advancing these values, we realise that governments cannot do it all and cannot do it alone.
We need to draw on the strengths that businesses, that communities, that families and individuals bring to our shared society.
That is why in my address to the ACOSS nearly three years ago I committed the government to working more closely with all of the partners in what I called then and still call the social coalition.
This is a coalition of governments, community, businesses, families and individuals, working together to address the challenges we face and to build opportunities for us all.
It draws on the perspectives, the experience, the expertise of the organisations and individuals all represented here today who every day are exposed to the causes and consequences of the problems we face as a society, and who have an important role in helping to find the solutions.
The government has a critical role to play in the social coalition, ensuring that the Australian economy is strong enough to generate opportunities and choices for all Australians.
We are very proud of our record of economic management. It has delivered strong economic growth, even in times of marked regional economic downturn.
More than 830,000 new jobs have been created since March 1996. The unemployment rate, although I would like it to be lower, has significantly fallen.
Real wages have grown strongly, by more than 9% under my government, compared with growth of just 2.3% between 1983 and 1996.
Inflation has been more than halved under this government. And yesterday';s CPI figure, right in line with the government';s predictions at the time the new tax system was introduced. We have now passed through the transitional phase of the new taxation system. The one-off price effects have been washed right out of the system and that augurs well for the future climate in relation to interest rates.
It also confirms the real value of the tax cuts that were delivered at the time GST was introduced and it also confirms the government';s argument about real gains in the value of the pension and other benefits. In our view the economy has benefited greatly from the introduction of the new tax system. It hasn';t been easy, it hasn';t always been popular and it remains in the eyes of many something they wish to criticise. But there is mounting evidence of the acceptance of it and the value it is adding to the strength of the Australian economy. Because it has increased the capacity of industry to grow. It';s also enhanced through the removal of the old wholesale sales tax and other hidden, indirect taxes our export capacity.
The ability of businesses to claim input tax credits has reduced the retail price of many items.
Income tax cuts worth around $12 billion are boosting spending, with flow through effects for every industry. Indeed part of the underpinning of the strengths of the Australian economy particularly on the retail side has in fact been the size and the value and the placement of those personal income tax.
Strong economic growth is the foundation of any government';s capacity to fund social initiatives. Strong economic growth also in the Australian context under the new tax system will produce strong growth in the GST and its revenues, and that of course has become, because all of the revenue from the GST is given to the states. It has become a major underpinning of the future capacity of states to provide more money for government schools, the public hospitals and for all the other public services which it is their duty under our constitutional arrangements to provide.
Australia';s strong economy has already enabled us to strengthen the social safety net that ensures that Australians get a fair go.
Tax reform has enabled us to improve the assistance we provide to Australian families.
Over 2.2 million families, and more than 4 million children, have benefited from increased entitlements under the new family payments system.
This is more than 90% of all Australian families with dependent children. And as I';ll explain in a moment, there is considerable evidence that the greater benefits out of the new arrangements have in fact flowed to lower income families which was the intention of the government when we introduced the new system.
The new system promotes choice, allowing families to decide how they receive their benefits. Lower income families in particular have experienced substantial gains as a result of the New Tax System and family assistance policies.
A single income family with two children and on minimum wage has seen a boost in its real disposable income of 15.5% between 1995 and 2001.
Almost a third of this increase was due to the New Tax System, with the balance stemming from real increases in wages and family assistance.
For families using child care, the increase can be even greater, rising to 22% or more.
I am aware that the ACOSS Congress this year has a focus on the issue of income inequality and that is a subject deserving of ongoing debate and attention and advocacy within the Australian community.
And I do wish to make the point that contrary to media and other claims, recent ABS figures show that there has been no significant change in income inequality since 1994-95. That is not to say that the present disposition is perfect but simply to make the observation that the frequently repeated mantra that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer is not borne out by the most recent ABS figures. They show that the proportions of income going to richer and poorer households have not changed in that period.
In fact, families with children have made significant advances under our policies.
Recent NATSEM research, commissioned not by the Government but by a media organisation, comparing the disposable incomes of a range of families with children between March 1996 and March 2001 indicated that these families had increased their disposable incomes, with gains of between 7 and 19%.
This was primarily due to changes in government benefits for low income families, including increases of up to 75% in some cases.
Sole parents relying totally on government assistance have been greatly assisted and indeed the research showed that they were the single group that were the greatest beneficiaries.
I am proud of these facts, I';m not complacent about them but I am proud of the gains that have been made in these areas and I do derive some satisfaction from the knowledge that it is the children of low income families that have proved the key beneficiaries of the Government';s policies.
We also legislated to make sure that the single pension rate never falls below never falls below 25% of Male Total Average Weekly Earnings.
Good economic management and labour market reforms have allowed sustained growth in average weekly earnings, and this legislation ensured that pensioners also benefit from this growth.
The result is real pension rates are now 4.5% higher, real pension rates than they were in 1996.
The government has further strengthened the social net by restoring balance to Australia';s health system and ensuring its longterm viability and I will have something further to say about the health system later today when I release the government';s health policy for the next three years..
We have introduced the 30% rebate, lifetime health cover and range of other support measures.
Private health insurance has increased by around 3 million since the rebate was introduced. I don';t think it is a shame when you introduce a measure that takes the load off the public hospital system and I also don';t think it is a shame, I don';t think it is a shame to point out to you Sir that under the current health care agreements the money flowing directly from the Federal Government to the state governments to augment their ongoing responsibility for public hospitals will rise by 28 per cent after inflation over the period of the agreement compared with the agreement of the previous government.
If we';re going to have a debate about health policy in this country let us have a debate based on the facts. Let us have a debate which is based upon the reality that we need in the Australian community, we need in the Australian community ladies and gentlemen to have no stunts conducted about health policy but a very very sensible debate conducted about health policy.
Mr Chairman public health insurance membership, public health insurance membership has increased by around three million since the rebate was introduced and private hospitals have experienced increased growth in utilisation and in the benefits paid. And we';re also moving to fix the gap and as I said in answer to that question that public hospital funding to states will increase 28 per cent in real terms over the five years of the current Australian Health Care Agreements.
Mr Chairman, the social coalition, early intervention and increasing self-reliance have also been central to our approach to welfare reform. Our welfare reform agenda was informed by the recommendations of the Reference Group on Welfare Reform chaired by Mission Australia';s Patrick McClure. It affirms the principle that every Australian of working age should be encouraged and supported to participate socially and economically wherever possible. This is because economic participation promotes independence, the ability to make choices and to take up opportunities. It builds self-esteem and it builds confidence.
In contrast, unemployment can have a devastating effect on self-esteem, leaving people dispirited and socially alienated.
The $1.7 billion Australians Working Together package, announced in the 2001-2002 Budget, initiates the process of welfare reform recommended by the McClure Report.
And implementation of the Australians Working Together package will be a major social welfare priority, indeed a major policy priority for a third term Coalition Government.
Most of the measures under Australians Working Together begin to take effect in the early months of the next financial year and it will be progressively implemented over subsequent years.
The package represents a careful balance between requiring participation and providing the assistance and the incentives needed for people to help themselves.
We believe that it is not only necessary, but it is also fair in proper circumstances, to require people to participate.
And once they have begun, most people recognise the benefits of participation.
Australians Working Together expands the support and assistance available to encourage participation:
$324 million for unemployed people, including16,500 extra Work for the Dole places and 30,000 Job Search Training places. $251 for parents returning to work, including more after-school child care places and a new Transition to Work Programme. $177 million for people with disabilities, including 28,300 new employment assistance and rehabilitation places. $83 million for Indigenous Australians, including help for 10,000 CDEP participants to get a job through Indigenous Employment Centres.
It will also take an important step towards fixing financial disincentives to taking up paid work through the creation of the $506 million Working Credit initiative.
All of these spending initiatives are committed to by the government and they apparently represent some of the spending priorities of the coalition which have been roundly criticised as profligate and unnecessary by the Labor Party during the course of this election campaign.
Social participation is also important because builds self-esteem and self-reliance. It promotes mental and physical health and well-being, it builds social cohesion and a sense of community.
A large number of people receiving income support already make a significant social contribution through parenting and caring, voluntary work and community work. Our approach greatly values and respects these contributions.
Community participation also facilitates the transition to paid work by building and maintaining skills, self-esteem and social networks.
Our welfare reform agenda recognises that some people may find participation difficult, because of a lack of opportunity or skills, or because of difficult personal circumstances.
To ensure people can participate as fully as possible, Australians Working Together provides significant support for those people facing barriers to participation.
For example, we are spending $140 million over four years on Centrelink Personal Advisers, and $154 million on the Personal Support Program which will help people facing severe or multiple personal problems such as homelessness, drug or alcohol addiction, mental illness or domestic violence.
We want to build people';s self esteem, both to improve their personal circumstances and to build capacity in our community.
Building self-reliance is an increasingly important aspect of our approach to practical reconciliation.
We want to help Indigenous Australians with practical measures that build the capacity for self-reliance.
The 2001-02 Budget includes new spending of more than $327 million over the next four years to build on the Government';s approach to reducing Indigenous disadvantage through practical reconciliation.
Our programs are helping indigenous Australians break the welfare dependency cycle by providing effective training, creating jobs and encouraging sustainable economic development in indigenous communities.
We remain through the course of all of the policy implementation I';m outlining during this election campaign, utterly committed to the principle of sound economic management given that jobs can only be created and lived helped in a strong economic environment.
In another forum recently, I emphasised the Government';s commitment to:
Involving all partners in the social coalition in the policy formulation process.
Enabling community organisations to deliver services relevant to local needs.
Focusing on early intervention and prevention; and
Encouraging participation rather than passive dependence.
Participation will remain the underlying principle of our welfare reform agenda.
Implementation of the $1.7 billion Australians Working Together Package will be a major priority for a third term Coalition Government.
As I have said previously, our medium to long-term agenda for welfare reform is also to move Australia';s excessively complex income support system towards the McClure ideal of a single benefits system.
The McClure Report recommended we develop a system involving a base payment, with supplements to assist with participation costs and provide participation rewards, such as the training supplement announced in the recent Budget.
We also want to remove disincentives to people moving from welfare dependence to paid work.
The Working Credit initiative is a valuable step in this direction. Advances were also made through reductions in marginal tax rates and reduced withdrawal rates for family benefits which were a principal feature of the Tax Reform package.
I know the welfare sector is particularly anxious about the effect of welfare reform on the most vulnerable in our community. In response to that very natural concern, I want to re-state the assurances I have previously given:
The government is committed to working in consultation with the community, through the Consultative Forum we have established to aid and advise us on the implementation of the welfare reform measures; We are committed to making upfront investments that deliver future returns to taxpayers, as people move from welfare dependence to economic and social participation; and Nobody';s benefit will be cut as a result of changes to the social security system.
The problem of regional unemployment continues to warrant ongoing attention.
In a third term we will work to integrate the government';s $240 million Stronger Families and Communities Strategy with the participation focus of Australians Working Together. This will build capacity and generate opportunities in regional communities.
Welfare reform is about strengthening our society by supporting and encouraging people to identify and make the most of opportunities.
We are committed to helping all Australians share in this country';s prosperity and future. No one should be left behind, least of all because they lack the skills, the support or the opportunities to participate in our community';s social and economic life.
As I think we all know, children and young people are best guided and nurtured in their transition to adulthood by strong families supported by strong communities.
Balancing the demands of family and the workplace in modern Australian society is an increasingly important and challenging issue.
We need, amongst other things, to cater for the realities of an environment where around 50% of school aged children have two working parents or a sole custodial parent who works.
The Government';s approach has not only been to improve the value of benefits as such but also to support and expand the choices that are available for families to make.
The Family Tax Benefit gives families more choices about how they balance their work and their caring for their family responsibilities.
Child care arrangements are obviously central to that challenge. We are building more flexible child care arrangements. Through Australians Working Together, the government has provided $16 million to expand the childcare available through the Jobs Education and Training Program and to fund outside school hours childcare places for some 5,300 more children each year.
To make child care more affordable for all Australian families, and especially low and middle income families, we have allocated a massive $6 billion for child care over the four years to 2004-05, that';s in addition to spending more than $4.3 billion over the last 4 years.
The introduction of the Child Care Benefit last year as part of the new tax system has significantly improved affordability, particularly for low and middle income families.
As a result of the assistance provided through the Child Care Benefit, child care costs have fallen by 8.7% since 1 July 2000.
And the enhanced flexibility of Australian workplaces is fundamental to greater balance in the lives of working Australians. I remain strongly committed to the maintenance of a flexible workplace relations system. I do not believe that the balance of work and family will be enhanced and facilitated by a return to a rigid and award dominated industrial relations system. I believe that it will be best facilitated by an industrial relations climate that encourages employers and employees to come to agreements which best accommodate the balance between the family and meeting your workplace responsibilities that working men and women of Australia want.
I';ve stressed over the past few years the important role that business has to play in helping identify and generate participation opportunities for all Australians. I';ve frequently said, and many of you would have heard me use the expression, but my plea is not so much that business gives more but rather that more businesses give. There are many outstanding examples of generosity on the part of Australian businessmen and women but we need a lot more of them to further enhance the social coalition.
The Prime Minister';s Community Business Partnership has been asked to work with business to identify opportunities for mature age workers, for parents of people with disabilities and for Indigenous Australians.
I established the Partnership in 1999 to advise on ways to promote philanthropy and partnerships across all sectors of the Australian community.
The Partnership has dramatically raised the profile of corporate social involvement and it';s helped to put a number of important issues on the agenda.
It';s helped make business involvement more part of the norm and therefore more to be expected of more businesses.
And our efforts are producing results: A report by the Centre for Corporate Public Affairs and the Business Council of Australia published in 2000 showed 52% of a sample of Australia';s large companies are engaged with the community in some way. And that';s a significant improvement on the participation rates of earlier years.
A prime example of the effectiveness of the social coalition approach is the growing number of strategic and mutually beneficial partnerships between businesses and non-profit organisations. The government itself has played a significant financial role in encouraging this process. We';ve changed the taxation system to encourage philanthropy in a number of ways and the cost of revenue of between $50-$100 million.
Amongst the many things that we';ve asked the Community Business Partnership to consider are ways of promoting the benefits to our economy and to individual businesses of mature age workers.
Mature age workers have skills and experience that will be lost to our society and our economy and society if we do not make a greater effort to develop and to maintain and to value them.
Perhaps the most challenging issue facing any Australian government in the future is our ageing population. A shift from a youthful and growing population to one that is ageing and potentially declining is being experienced by most developed countries.
In my National Press Club speech last July, I observed that in just over a decade, the rate of growth in Australia in the over 65 age group will reach 4%, in contrast to an overall population growth rate of well under 1%.
This transition has profound implications for our society, particularly for our social and economic structures. Government and policy makers must respond to these challenges.
The government';s taxation reform programme, specifically the introduction of the broad based GST, is a step in this direction. The GST will provide a sound and more sustainable revenue base from which governments in the future can fund the services needed by an ageing population and it remains to me a grievous contradiction for people to express a concern about the impact on the capacity of this economy to afford services for an increasingly aging population, yet at the same time criticise the adoption of a revenue base that over the years ahead will provide a growth in taxation in order to fund those very services that we will so clearly need.
In previous forums, I have stated that we do have to make better use of the skills and experiences offered by the growing number of Australians aged over 55 years.
One way of doing this is to enhance the flexibility of labour markets, and the government has promoted this flexibility in the past through its workplace relations reforms and in the Australians Working Together package we will take that process further. But we need to do more. I have asked the Minister for Family and Community Services and the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business to work together to build on this package and develop a strategy for mature age workers.
And the implementation of that will be a high priority for a third term Coalition Government. Because not only must we, as a matter of good economic and social policy draw on the skills and experience of older workers that we must recognise that as a matter of respect for human capacity and human dignity that opportunity and choice shouldn';t cease to apply at the age of 65 or indeed at any age at all.
And in that context, you';ll be aware that on the 11th of October, I announced a new initiative to increase access to community care.
This initiative included an additional 6,000 Community Aged Care Packages, at a cost of $68 million over four years. This will bring the total number of packages to over 34,000 by the end of 2005-06, compared with just over 4,000 when we took office.
I also announced a pilot Partners in Care program, at a cost of $14 million over four years, to provide personal care to residents of retirement villages.
Retirement village living reduces or delays the need for other services, such as residential care.
These initiatives signal the priority we will give in a third term to providing greater access to quality community and home-based care for older Australians.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are many other things that I would wish to canvass in the course of giving you a broad sweep of the government';s social policy approach and our commitments for the next three years. In particular in the area of young Australians we are very proud of the fact that recognising that 70% of young Australians who leave school do not go on to university but we have presided over more than a doubling of a number of apprenticeships and traineeships within the Australian community. And that doubling has embraced a dramatic increase in the number of women involved in apprenticeships and traineeships and has also seen a significant increase in the number of indigenous Australians who are taking advantage and being provided with choice and opportunity in that area.
Ladies and gentlemen, as I said at the commencement of my address, I value the contact I have with this organisation. I hope that over the last five and a half years we have had a constructive, respectful and if at times vigorous debate and an acceptance of the need to agree to disagree.
But we have endeavoured and I think succeeded in that endeavour in maintaining a dialogue. I would like in finishing my remarks to record my appreciation to Michael Raper for the work that he has done as chairman of ACOSS. Michael has been, I think he would agree, a frequent visitor to my office. We have always been ready to talk and listen, both myself personally, and members of my staff. We have not always agreed, in fact we have frequently and vigorously disagreed. But that is in the nature of a participatory democracy. It is in the nature of a civilised democratic society which values dialogue and differences of view.
The other thing I said at the beginning of my speech is that all of us want a cohesive society. We all want prosperity. We all want to encourage people to aspire. We all to care for the vulnerable and disadvantaged. We don';t have a difference of goals. We don';t have a difference in the emotional commitment we have to helping the needy. We disagree from time to time how best one achieves that goal.
I';ve tried today give an account to you and through you to the Australian people of what we have tried to do in this very important area. And can I conclude by reminding those of you who were present when I delivered a speech to the ACOSS congress in October of 1995 when I was still the leader of the opposition and I gave a number of commitments on behalf of my party which would be binding on it if it were to win the election of March of 1996 and the central commitment that we made was that we would preserve and protect the social security safety net and I believe with all my heart that we have done that. We';ve not always done everything you';ve wanted. We';ve often done some things that you haven';t wanted and you haven';t agreed with but we have preserved and protected the social security safety net. We have added to it, we have broadened it and we have introduced a number of improvements and a number of initiatives. And can I say that has been made possible because we believe in social justice, we believe in a fair Australian society. We also believe in an Australian society where people can aspire to achieve and to better themselves. But we also believe that you can only deliver a fair and just society if you have a strongly growing economy and the foundation of the capacity of any government whether it is Liberal or Labor to deliver better social welfare benefits in the years ahead, more funding for health, more funding for education is a sound and growing economy with well constructed taxation and industrial policies. And unless you have that, you do not have the capacity to aspire to deliver the kind of decent balanced society that I know all of us, whatever our politics or our backgrounds, really believe in.
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you well in the work you do for the less privileged in the Australian community. It is work that the government respects. It is work that your fellow Australians respect and I appreciate very much the opportunity you have provided to me this morning to outline some of the government';s plans for the next three years.
Th