E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
Well thank you very much Teresa. Councillor Bolton, my many parliamentary colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. Particularly I acknowledge the presence of Senator Chris Ellison, the Minister for Customs and Justice.
Last Sunday I announced in the broad the program that the Government would implement if it were returned to office on the 10th of November. I necessarily focused on Sunday on issues that were important to Australian families of all ages, not only baby bonuses, but also proposals that were of relevance to people in older age cohorts of the Australian community. And we have presented a plan for the next three years that covers the whole spectrum of the responsibilities of the federal government.
Underpinning everything we hope to do if we are re-elected are two broad capacities. The first of those is the national security of this country and national security is made up of a number of things. It’s made up of the capability of our defence forces; it’s made up of the effectiveness of our international relations; it comprises the effectiveness of our border protection capability; and together all of those things deliver national security.
The other broad area which really underpins everything we hope to do is of course the quality of our economic management. You can promise the earth in areas such as health and education but unless you deliver a strong economy you can’t deliver the earth. And interestingly enough on Sunday I unveiled a comprehensive policy in the area of aged care, an issue that the Labor Party has talked about incessantly over the last three years, which was in every respect an infinitely more generous, comprehensive and better policy in that crucial area than that offered by the Australian Labor Party. And I know that policy will be very important to the people of Petrie and very important to people in many parts of Australia.
But today having visited the regional headquarters of the Australian Federal Police in Brisbane I’ve come here to Petrie to make a number of announcements which relate to the federal government’s responsibilities in the area of law enforcement. Having safe, secure communities is the first legitimate requirement of citizens in a free society. We all probably suspect with good reason that life isn’t quite as free and easy and quite as safe and quite as secure as it used to be. That old Australian dream that you could sleep with your door open at night is not quite the reality for many people that it once was. It seems to be the unavoidable way of many modern societies. But we should never adopt the attitude of surrender, we should never run up the white flag in relation to crime, and we certainly shouldn’t run up the white flag in relation to fighting the scourge of drug abuse within the Australian community.
One of the things I made very clear on Sunday was that unlike Mr Beazley, while ever I am Prime Minister of this country there will be no heroin trials and there’ll be no heroin injecting rooms with any assistance at all from the Commonwealth government.
But ladies and gentlemen ongoing campaigning against crime and ongoing policing is of course essentially the responsibility of state police services. In difficult circumstances they do an extraordinarily fine job and I want to as I did at the Federal Police headquarters in Brisbane I want to commend all of the men and women of the police services of Australia for the tremendous job that they do in very difficult circumstances. It’s a thankless job. It has many unpleasant aspects and sometimes unreasonable demands are made of our police and I’ve always respected very warmly the contribution that they make to our community.
There are many forms of crime within the Australian community. Increasingly we have to grapple in our local communities with sophisticated criminal syndicates which operate without regard to international borders let alone any regard at all to state borders within the Commonwealth of Australia. And the plan that I’m releasing today as part of our law and order policy if I can put it that way is to act both at the community level and also to attack the criminal syndicates and the potential crimes of terrorists, a new and very real threat to our community.
Before announcing some new initiatives can I remind you that we have delivered in full on the promises we made in 1998 in this area. We promised $50 million for Crimtrac which is an automated fingerprint identification system; a DNA database; national firearms licensing and registration system. I decided to commit that money to Crimtrac as a result of representations personally made to me by a number of the police commissioners of the various states of Australia. Now that is a Federal Government initiative which has given to the police services of Australia a hitherto unrivalled capacity to access fingerprint data and DNA databases.
We’ve also embarked upon a national crime prevention program involving early intervention and crime prevention initiatives, particularly at a local level and very importantly we’ve had a $50 million partnership program against the problem of domestic violence. An issue that no community should be unwilling to talk about, an issue that remains at the forefront of my concerns. Domestic violence is an unacceptable crime wherever it occurs and it’s something that a Coalition government should be very steadfast in opposing.
We have provided significant additional resources to the Australian Federal Police and under our stewardship over the last five and a half years, the role, the morale, the standing, the reach, the effectiveness of the Australian Federal Police has been dramatically expanded.
We have seen $315 million in additional funding going to the Australian Federal Police since we came to office and we are now starting to see the results. We have had greater drug seizures. That has had an impact. There are fewer heroin deaths in Australia now than there were two years ago. You don’t hear that talked about very much because it doesn’t suit the social and political agenda of many commentators in Australia to acknowledge that we might in fact be making progress on that front. Theirs is a counsel of surrender and despair on this issue, whereas ours is a steadfast belief that if you apply the resources and you make a commitment you can make a difference.
We’ve had magnificent results because we’ve enhanced cooperation with overseas governments. There’s been great cooperation between the Federal Police and the Customs Services and there’s been great cooperation between the Federal Police and the State Polices of the various states of Australia.
Now amongst the initiatives that I’m announcing today is a proposal that if I am re-elected as Prime Minister, and the Government is returned on the 10th of November, one of the very first things I will do is put in train the convening of a special conference of Premiers and Chief Ministers of the States to develop a new cooperative framework under which trans-national crime and terrorism can be dealt with by law enforcement at a national level. Whilst there is a high level of cooperation I am not satisfied it is working as effectively, as effectively, as it might and I’m not satisfied that all of the responsibilities of the Federal Government are sufficiently clearly defined and have sufficient amplitude to respond at a national level to crime and terrorism, which of course do not respect international borders, let alone State borders within Australia.
I believe that the structure of the National Crime Authority is too cumbersome for these challenging times and I hold open the possibility of that body being either restructured or absorbed into other arrangements.
I want to announce today that we are going to commit additional resources of $135 million over four years to fund comprehensive law enforcement initiatives. This will include $47 million of new funding to expand the successful law enforcement cooperation program and this importantly enhances Federal Police cooperation with overseas law enforcement agencies. In the fight against the drug menace nothing is more important than having a capacity overseas to identify a potential threat by drugs to this country. Far better to intercept it at its source in another country than to devote the resources when it actually arrives here. And the placement of Australian Federal Police and other agencies, personnel overseas, has played a major part in the improvement of this country’s capacity to fight the drug menace.
We’re going to provide a similar amount of $47 million of new funding over three years to double the Australian Federal Police’s mobile strike team capacity to 200. And they’ll be deployed around Australia to respond to serious crimes at short notice, including illicit drug trafficking, people smuggling, major fraud, terrorism and politically motivated violence.
We’re going to provide $21.5 million to expand the Australian Federal Police Axiom undercover policing program that will enable the AFP to conduct more effective targeted operations into serious and organised criminal activities. We’re also going to provide $7.2 million of new funding to boost the rapid response capabilities of the AFP. Two new AFP remote command centres, complete with fully operational telecommunications, computer and intelligence facilities and a mobile forensic laboratory capable of being deployed anywhere in Australia or overseas.
There’ll be $9.5 million of new funding to upgrade the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence Alert database and this will provide law enforcement with an intelligence forecast capacity to identify and then aggressively target existing and emerging criminal activities. And also $1.6 million to expand the research, forensic science and development capabilities of the Australian Federal Police. And finally as a recognition of the extraordinary good job done by the National Crime Stoppers Network, we’re also going to provide $1 million to support the highly successful National Crime Stoppers Network in consultation with each board of directors of that network around Australia.
We’re going to expand our Crimtrac initiative to implement very importantly a National Stolen Motor Vehicle Register as part of a comprehensive plan to tackle motor vehicle theft. And we’re going to implement legislation for the return of the proceeds of crime to ensure that the illgotten gains seized from criminals is invested in the fight against crime and into supporting drug treatment and diversion programs for drug addicts.
Ladies and gentlemen that represents a commitment as I said of an additional $135 million to support in the main the law enforcement activities of the Australian Federal Police, but many of the benefits of those commitments will flow through to the State Police Services of Australia. Cooperation between the State and Federal Police Services is always essential and I again say to all of you that I take the opportunity of recording my gratitude, I hope on behalf of all Australians, to the men and women of the police services of this country at a State or at a Federal level, they put their lives on the line, they go often through great danger.
There is from time to time a tragic loss of life in police work, all in the interest of providing us with a safer community. They don’t always get the expressions of gratitude they deserve and the quality of their work is not always as widely respected within the Australian community as it should be. And I want to take this opportunity as Prime Minister to make it very plain that I am a great admirer of the work of the police in this country. They are essential for the safety of the community in which we live and they are essential to provide all of us a greater sense of security and a greater sense of safety.
And having made that announcement could I just say one or two other things if I may. First of all Teresa can I say what a great pleasure it is to visit your electorate and could I say to all of you what a fantastic local member you have in this person. Can I say to you those of you who want to see her return on Saturday week keep working very hard. Don’t let up, don’t believe any newspaper headlines about what the result is likely to be, work very, very hard because this is one of those seats that’s always tough and if you want this magnificent local Federal Member return you work damn hard over the next ten days to ensure that it’s going to happen.
And the other thing I say ladies and gentlemen is it is important that all of us understand some of the changed circumstances in which our country now finds itself. We do need to strengthen all aspects of our national security, but we also need to have a sense that beyond some of the concern that we now have there are some fundamental strengths about Australian society that will see us through that. We have of course the great spirit of the Australian people. The willingness of Australians to work together against a common threat is absolutely unrivalled anywhere in the world and that spirit and that cooperative attitude will sustain us through any challenge and I think that the other thing that we can draw comfort from is that our economic circumstances are stronger and better than those of most other countries. And I ask the rhetorical question on many occasions, where would this country now be, facing the difficulties we do, if we hadn’t paid off about $58 billion of that $96 billion of debt we inherited five and a half years ago. Where would we now be if we hadn’t reformed the Australian Taxation system? Where would we now be if we had 17 or 20 per cent interest rates which were a common feature of life only a few years ago? How would people be able to pay off their mortgages, they’d be paying at least $350 a month more for their average mortgage than what they are paying now? How would you run a small business again in that kind of economic environment? How would you if you were a farmer and the rural community remains incredibly important to this country where would you be in relation to the bill rates that many of the Australian farmers had to pay?
So the message is yes we have new and different and unexpected challenges but we are better able, better prepared, in better shape and more protected in responding to those challenges. Now we can’t put that at risk. When the Labor Party was last in office they were appalling economic managers. I ask you again on the question of economic management, don’t listen to what they say, remember what they did. And it’s only five and a half years since they had a go and it was a pretty horrific go. We were left with all of those economic problems. We were left with an unreformed taxation system. We were left with a union dominated industrial relations system and if we lose on the 10th of November, if we lose, you’ll have a Federal Labor government and you’ll have Labor governments in every State of Australia except South Australia and they are circumstances to deliver to the bosses of the ACTU an unrivalled degree of power over the Industrials Relations Workplace Relations laws of this country and that would be bad news for small business, it’ll be bad news for the productivity of this country. So there are many reasons and I only touched on a few of them why if you want this lady back work very, very hard. I can’t be certain of being Prime Minister again after the 10th of November unless we win seats like Petrie. It is absolutely crucial. There’s no local option. You can’t say well I’ll have a bit here, and a bit there, it’s either one thing or the other. If you want a Howard Liberal Government and you want the magnificent four elected to the Senate and you want this lady elected to Petrie and the House of Representatives, you’ve got to get behind her. She’s done a great job for you and I’m delighted to be associated with her in her electorate. I wish her well and I think you’ll be delivering a good representative for your constituency if you return her again.
Thank you very much for coming.
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