E&OE................................
Thank you very much Phil for those very kind words of introduction. To my other parliamentary colleagues and Remo, thank you very much for the wonderful hospitality of this very fine club.
I know as Phillip said that there are many people here today through who's volunteer efforts we have a more compassionate and a more caring society and a more caring community. And not only because it's the International Year of the Volunteer, but also because in an ongoing way volunteers have helped shape Australia and make the Australia of which we are so proud in the year 2001, that I would like on behalf of the Government and on behalf of your fellow Australians to express my thanks to all of you who in different ways have worked to make Australia a kinder, gentler place. And have worked to make the lives of people less fortunate than us more bearable. And who have worked to provide such a great sense of community and a great sense of cohesion. Because of all the things on which we pride ourselves, nothing is more important than our sense of cohesion and our sense of one-ness as an Australian community.
I want to say a couple of words in a moment about the issue that has preoccupied my attention and I guess the attention of the Australian people over the last ten days. But before I do that can I just remark upon the fact that as I moved around this great gathering and as I met people I was reminded very much of the modern face of Australia. It is a mixture of people. Many people born here. Many people whose parents and grant parents were born here. Many people who came to Australia after WWII, some of them speaking a slightly different accent of mother English than I speak, but none-the-less recognisable as coming form such places as Yorkshire and Scotland and so forth. Still other groups who were born in countries that didn't speak English, that came to this country after WWII not least of course the wonderful people from Italy who've made such a magnificent contribution to Australia. But from all around Europe there are people who've come to Australia and you've all become part of the Australian community and we all share in common a great Australian heritage. And then more recently people have come from Cambodia and from Laos and from other parts of Asia, some people from the Middle East, in other words people from all around the world.
No country in the world has more successfully achieved the bringing together of people from different parts of the world than has Australia. And everybody in this country, whatever their heritage, is entitled to an equal place under the Australian sun. Everybody is entitled to the same fair treatment irrespective of their ethnic background and irrespective of their religious belief or if they have no religious belief. That is a matter of free choice.
The other thing that I would say, and it naturally connects with the matter that has been in the news recently, this country has the second most generous record in accepting refugees on a per capita basis of any nation in the world. Australia has always been generous. There is only one country on a per capita basis that takes more refugees than Australia and that is Canada. We are up there with the most generous and the most welcoming. And it's really partly in that context that the Government has taken the stance that it has in relation to the people who were picked out of the international waters, in an Indonesian search and rescue area by that Norwegian vessel.
We took that stand because we wanted to say to others that this country continues to be welcoming. This country continues to be willing to take refugees provided they are assessed and determined to be refugees in accordance with normal international practice. That's why we took the stand we did. I can't represent to you that by taking that stand we will solve the problem. It's an ongoing problem. I can't say to you there won't be other boats that will arrive and that we will not take those people. We will not endanger the lives of people. We didn't endanger the lives of these people, in fact we went to great lengths to ensure their lives were not in danger. And it was because their lives were not in danger that we were able to take the action we did.
But we do hope that the combination of that and also the increased surveillance that I've requested be undertaken by the Royal Australian Navy and the other defence authorities in international waters, the combination of those things will increase the element of deterrence. I'm not saying it will stop. There will be other boats that will arrive and they will arrive in circumstances different than the circumstances covering the Tampa.
I think what we have done is to bring to the attention of international agencies and bring to the attention of other countries the urgent need to involve the international community in finding a better solution to this problem. It's not a solution where Australia puts up its hands and says no. Rather it is a solution where Australia says we will continue to take our fair share indeed more than our fair share of refugees provided it occurs in a proper fashion. And provided those who have superior refugee claims get first chance. Because there are millions of people living in pitiful conditions in refugee camps who don't have the money to buy a passage on a boat to Australia. They don't have the money. They don't have six or seven or eight thousand dollars. And yet according to the international agencies their need is greater than the need of others. And yet every time others are able to force their self-determined priorities ahead of those people whose need is greater, those people whose need is greater suffer. And that is the reason why, amongst others, we've taken the stance we have.
As I said a moment ago, it's not something that's going to be fixed overnight. And it will take quite a while. We will need to persuade some countries in our own region of the need to cooperate in a more effective way. And obviously Indonesia is one of those countries. But we have begun, I believe, the process of establishing a more effective response which over time will I believe reduce the number of people who come here illegally. It will increase the effectiveness of the international refugee response.
I do want to take the opportunity again of saying how much I appreciate as Prime Minister of Australia the assistance that I've received from our friends in New Zealand, in Papua New Guinea, and in Nauru. It is very much a Pacific solution. And the spontaneity of the response of those countries and the willingness of the New Zealand Prime Minister when I spoke to her on Friday afternoon, the willingness of our old ANZAC partner to provide a way of dealing with this problem is something that I'm very grateful for. And also of course the contribution of our other Pacific friends, Nauru and Papua New Guinea.
This has not been an easy issue for me or for the Government and it remains an issue that will continue to present challenges. There are court cases, I don't at this stage wish to say anything about them. It is not appropriate for me to do so. But in the end these are things that you have to take a stand on. These are things where you have to communicate your view as to the national interest. We took the stance we did in the unexpected circumstances that arose because we thought that stance best served Australia's long term interests.
Now there are people in the community who are critical, that is a democracy. That is what our society is about. It is about the right of people to express a view and to have complete freedom of speech. It's also about the right of the will of the people, ultimately, to determine these things. And it is also very much about the right of people to express their views without fear of intimidation, or without fear of threats of any kind of physical violence or physical harm. We have a long and honoured tradition of vigorous, robust, and rambunctious political debate in this country. But we do settle our disputes through debate and not through physical force. And that is the Australian way and the Australian tradition.
Can I say to all of you, echoing some of the remarks that Phillip made, that over the last 5 « years we have done a number of things as a Government that have been designed to build a stronger Australia and to have this country heading in the right direction over the longer term. Not everything we've done has been right. Not everything we've done has been executed perhaps as efficiently as it could have been. Not everything we have done has been popular. Like every other government in the end we are judged by the Australian people. That is the democratic way and the democratic process. But what we have tried to do in each of the areas we've tackled, we've tried to produce a stronger Australia than the one we inherited. And we do have a stronger economy now than we used to have. A vastly stronger economy. My colleague Peter Costello's mum is over there, he's done a magnificent job as Treasurer of this country in producing this much stronger economy. We are a more respected country despite what some of the doomsayers and some of the broadsheets have said over the past few days.
When I go around the world and I meet world leaders they talk in admiration of a number of things about Australia. They talk about the strength of our economy. I mean our economy is growing stronger, more strongly now, than the economy of just about any other western country. They talk about that, they talk about the leadership and strength we displayed over East Timor and they of course talk about the magnificent projection of Australia to the world at the Olympic Games last year. Just a year ago. And what was the most special thing of all about the Olympic Games, even above all of the medals that our magnificent athletes won, the really crŠme de la crŠme of the specialty of the Olympic Games was those wonderful volunteers. I mean some of the world leaders I met at the APEC meeting in Brunei just a few weeks after the Olympic Games asked me about those volunteers. I explained that it was no accident that we were able to project such a wonderful volunteer face to the rest of the world because we have such a long tradition. I suppose it was because this country started in circumstances where we had a small number of people living in a very large and essentially empty country in very remote circumstances that they really had no alternative but to get on with each other and to make the show work. And therefore out of that grew this great volunteer tradition.
The other thing that makes volunteerism work in Australia better than any country in the world is that we are not a class driven society. We are an egalitarian society. Every person is as equal or as good as the next. And if you have that kind of spirit you can work together in times when national unity is needed. You can work together in harmony when you need to achieve a common objective. And the way in which everybody worked together to make those Olympic Games such a wonderful success and people volunteered, I've never forgotten a lady from Caringbah, which is a suburb south of Sydney, and she was, the lady was in her early eighties and she said, John she said, the only thing wrong with this job is they will only work, let me work eight hours at a time. And she was really disturbed about that fact that she couldn't go on as long as she was able to do so. But it did remind me and it warmed me no end to think that you had that tremendous spirit. And that really was the rest of the world being told what we know to be a day to day reality in our community. That sort of thing happens all the time. Every day of every week in Australia right here in your local community, here in Melbourne as it does around our nation. I think it's a wonderful thing about Australia and it is an opportunity for me to say thank you again for what you have done.
The last thing that I do want to say to you is to endorse everything that Ron said about Phillip Barresi. Phillip has been your representative since 1996. It's one of those areas as you know that is a bit like this politically. Some areas are always over there. Some are always over there. And there are some that go like this. And look after him, he's a terrific bloke. Now you would expect me to say that. But I say it with some feeling because he is a very conscientious member. He agonises over things that effect his community and when something that we do he doesn't think is the right thing for Deakin he really lets you know. He lets me know, he lets Peter Costello know, he lets a whole lot of people know and in the end you give in and you fix it. And that is what a good local member should do.
Ladies and gentlemen thank you very much for coming along, it's been great to be amongst you and I hope to have the opportunity as I move around to meet a few more of you. Thank you very much.