Subjects: Aston by-election; Interest Rates
E&OE................................
Well thank you very much Mr John Kay, Chris Pearce who is the Liberal Party candidate for Aston in the by-election, ladies and gentlemen. I travel around Australia a great deal and this is not the first time that I've had the opportunity of calling in on a retirement village, saying a few words and then having a cup of tea and hopefully a friendly discussion. It's part of the great democratic tradition of this country that the Prime Minister, whoever he or she may be, what ever political party, travels around a lot all the time and has the opportunity in face to face exchanges to get a better understanding of what people are thinking, what their concerns are and what their aspirations and hopes for the future of the country are.
I of course pay this visit coincidently with the by-election which is being held on the 14th of July. People don't like by-elections, I understand that, but this was unfortunately brought about through the death of Peter Nugent who'd been the member of this area and a very hard working, very capable, very popular member of this area since 1990. And I'd like to very warmly commend Chris Pearce to all of you. You'd expect me to do that because he's the candidate of my party, he's a Liberal and I'm a Liberal, in case you haven't noticed and. but over and above that he really has a first class background in the area. He's associated, having been on the Knox Council, he's associated with many local community activities. And I think increasingly people want somebody to represent them who comes from the area, who's identified with the area, who's raising a family in the area, somebody of Chris's age and who's been involved in a lot of local community causes. In a very positive way I think he'll be a wonderful and very worthy replacement for Peter Nugent. And I know that if you vote for him, and this is going to be a very tough by-election for us, by-elections are always difficult. We only held the seat by 4%, 4.2% at the last election and some people think 'oh gee it's a by-election, we will give them a bit of a shove'. Can I say there's no reason to do that on this occasion. The by-election was very unavoidable, we have a very good candidate, he comes from the area, his family is from the area and he's going to work very hard on your behalf if you are kind enough to give him your support on the 14th of July.
More generally, can I just say one or two things about what the Government has tried to do for Australia since it was elected in March of 1996. I think the main responsibility of any Government is to provide the nation and the people of the nation with a sense of security. I often talk when I make speeches to different groups of the importance of securing our future. We set out when we became the Government to secure our nation's economic future by paying back a lot of the Government debt of about $96 billion that we inherited. We've set out to secure our defence and foreign relations future by investing a lot of money in the form of defence of our country. We've set out to secure our nation's environmental future by tackling some of the big environmental problems that the country has. We've set out to secure our nation's intellectual and scientific and educational future by investing though the announcement I made at the beginning of this year an additional $3 billion in doubling research grants for all kinds of research in Australia. And doubling our grants for health and medical research. And doesn't it make you proud as an Australian, for when I was a young fella if people wanted a miracle operation they often went to England or America to have the miracle operation. Now the young child comes from England to Melbourne for a miracle operation. Now doesn't that say something about the intellectual capacity, the scientific capacity and the brilliance and the skill and the capacity of Australian doctors and Australian medical scientists. And I think that is a metaphor for the way in which this country has changed so much and how good we have become and how we are seen around the world as being an absolutely outstanding country in areas like that.
And in all sorts of different ways we've set out to secure people's future. And we of course in many of the policy decisions we've taken we have not forgotten and we've tried to provide security for your future, to try to provide you with a sense of security. You belong to a generation that has gone through some of the most difficult periods in Australia's history, particularly World War II and the great post war World War II reconstruction years and some of you earlier through the years of the depression. Now they were very difficult years and you've given so much to our country and one of the things that we've sought to do is to provide for your security as well. Now I know that when you run around talking about low interest rates it's terrific if you're paying off a home and it's terrific if you're running a small business, but it's not so terrific if you are living off your investments. And I know a lot of people in your situation sort of look at me rather quizzically when I say how fantastic it is that we have lower interest rates. It is good for somebody, and this electorate has got a lot of people, many of you will have children and grandchildren who are buying homes and they'll be very happy that their mortgage bills are 3, 4, $500 less than what they were a month, that is what they were a few years ago. But, if you're running a business it is good to have lower interest rates, they used to be 17, 18, 19%, now they're less than half that, it's the lowest we've had them in 30 years. Now that is good if you're buying a home, it's not so good if you're living off your investments. And that's one of the reasons why we took a lot of decisions in the budget that we brought down recently to address the interests and the needs of retired people. We made a number .. we of course have the $300 payment, some of you would have been entitled to that, some of you wouldn't. A couple of years ago we dramatically expanded the eligibility for the Commonwealth Health Card, the Seniors Health Card, we've expanded it again in the last budget to single people and up to, I think, about $60,000 and couples up to about $80,000. But on top of that we've also began the process of giving to self-funded retirees the same entitlements in relation to concessions that are available to pensioners and part pensioners. So starting with the telephone concession and we're going to negotiate with the States to extend that to other concessions that are available to pensioners and part pensioners. And we've also made some very significant changes in relation to the taxation levy of self-funded retirees which will mean very very significantly lower levels of taxation for people in that category and on top of that these things of course must be added to the other changes that we've made particularly in relation to health services, the introduction of the 30% health rebate which has made it much easier for people of all ages to take out and retain private health insurance.
Now the purpose of a Government is to provide individual security for people and also to provide collective security. And as I look back over the last five and a half years I see a country that is economically a lot stronger. We've paid back 50 to $60 billion of the $96 billion of debt we inherited. We've got much lower interest rates, we've got much lower inflation rates, we've had very strong economic growth, we've undertaken some major reforms. Not all of it's been easy, not all of it's been popular but it's a pretty bad Government that always seeks to do things that are always without exception invariably popular. Because in the end if you govern for short term popularity you condemn the country to long term decline because you really do have to make changes on occasions that do incur a bit of short term flack but in the long run have very great long term benefits.
So ladies and gentlemen it's been for me a tremendous experience being Prime Minister of this country. I have had the opportunity when Parliament's sitting of having lots of school groups. They come to Canberra, they come around to the Prime Minister's courtyard, we gather around for a photograph and then I invite them into my office and they sit around the office and I explain to them, the desk that I work behind was the desk that was custom made for the Prime Minister S M Bruce, I think in 1927, it was the desk that was used by Joe Lyons in the 1930's, it was the desk that was used by John Curtin during World War II, the desk that was used by Ben Chifley, then the desk used by Bob Menzies and Harold Holt. And it was Mr Whitlam came in he got a slightly different arrangement and this desk was put into storage and I found it a couple of years ago in Old Parliament House and brought it back. And you tell this little story to the young people of Australia and the first question they ask me, almost without exception, they say, what is the best thing about being Prime Minister of Australia? I always answer, the best thing about being the Prime Minister of Australia is the opportunity it gives you to meet different groups of Australians in different parts of the country. You never tire of that. There's always an extra piece of interest and value and excitement in meeting different groups of people and it's an opportunity to engage in the great face to face democracy for which Australia is famous. In terms of people being able to talk directly to the people they try and represent there is no country in the world that's better than Australia. You can wander anywhere, you can talk to people, they have an opportunity, they can come up to you, they can tell you off, they can give you a bit of advice, they can pat you on the back, they can shake your the hand, they're not meant to punch you on the nose, but sometimes you know it can occur. I mean there's a fellow in England who sort of demonstrated what you did if any body tried that sort of caper. But it is a great thing about democracy in this country, and it's one of the things that I enjoy enormously and I find incredibly stimulating about the job.
Ladies and gentlemen thank you very much for having me into your home. I've learnt something of this retirement village from Chris and some others. It seems a lovely place, I've not been here before, I'm sure you're very happy here and please remember this man on the 14th of July, he's a really first class bloke. And I guarantee you he's terrific, give him your support and he won't let you down.