E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
Well thank you very much Bob who as you all know is the Liberal Party candidate for the seat of Paterson. I’d also like to welcome Ian Shaw who is the National Party candidate for the seat of Paterson. And on all of the issues that are important for this electorate the Liberal and the National Parties are as one.
I know this area very well. I’ve felt as though I was driving up to my annual holiday as I came up the freeway and I’m sorely tempted to keep going and spend the rest of the week of the campaign on Hawks Nest Beach, but I’ve got news for Mr Beazley – I don’t intend to do so. I intend to keep campaigning until 6:00 on Saturday evening because this is going to be a very close election and one of the reasons it’s going to be very close is because the Labor Party has sold out many people in many regional areas and many working people of this country in order to buy Green preferences. The undertakings Labor has entered into in relation to the unconditional ratification of the Kyoto agreement will do great damage to industry, it will do damage to industry in the Hunter, it will do damage to the forest industry. For example, it will lift the cost of power. Generators have to implement costly measures to cut emissions, it will undermine the cost competitiveness of industries like aluminium smelting in the Tomago area. Modelling by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture Resource Economics has estimated that the output of the aluminium industry will be reduced by over 10%. Tomago smelter alone employs more than 1000 people. Likewise it’s estimated that petrol prices will rise by 3.2 cents a litre and after making such a big deal about petrol prices he’s now following policies that he knows will lift petrol prices.
The other area of great concern out of Labor policies for the people of Paterson is road funding. Now we have allocated, and I know just how important road funding is to this part of New South Wales. And we have allocated $8.8 million to the Paterson electorate for local roads under the Roads to Recovery Programme. The Labor Party has said that they will review the priorities of this programme and they need to say before the election, they need to tell the people of the Hunter, they need to tell the people of Paterson how much money they’ll take off this seat in order to fund the $410 million of extra road funding commitments that have been made. So you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say you are going to have the same amount of money, you’re going to draw from the same pot of money, say what you are going to additionally spend it on without at the same time being honest enough to say what you’re going to take it off. And I want to know and Bob wants to know and all of the people, Ian wants to know – Bob and Ian both want to know what projects in Paterson are going to lose out as a result of this re-prioritisation. And I think it’s very important in this campaign and it’s very very important for local people.
See one of the things that the Labor Party gets caught out on is they try to be all things to all men. They want to be, they want to court the Green vote but they say they’re in favour of looking after the interests of working men and women. The reality is that on some of these issues you’ve got to decide which you’re going to support and it’s very clear that the Labor Party has decided that in order to placate the Greens they’ve decided to sell out the interests of many Australian industries and to sell out the interests of many working men and women around Australia.
But ladies and gentleman, one of the things I additionally and specifically want to announce today is a very very important commitment by the Federal Coalition of $20 million towards the costs of upgrading the Bucketts Way. Now the Bucketts Way, and I’m sure the locals will know this, it’s a 158 kilometre road that connects Raymond Terrace, north of Newcastle with Gloucester, Wingham and Taree. The remaining cost of course, as is appropriate, will need to be contributed by the NSW Government. Bucketts Way is the principle transport route from Gloucester and its surrounding districts. It provides access to the Barrington Tops National Park and it’s used by tourists as an alternative to the Pacific Highway. The upgrade of the Bucketts Way is part of the Coalition’s future action plan for transport in this region. And only the Coalition has an integrated plan to improve our regional roads. And can I just, on this point of road funding make the observation that throughout the whole of this campaign, every time he has a news conference the Leader of the Opposition complains that we have spent too much money. Fancy him, Mr - $96 billion of national debt – Beazley complaining that we have spent too much money and he apparently thinks that you know we shouldn’t have spent money on certain things so he could have spent it on the things that he wanted to spend it on.
But one of the things that we spent money on and he criticises is local roads. And I’d like him to come to Paterson and tell the people of this electorate, I’d like him to go to the other electorates in the Hunter, whether they’re held by his party or not, and most of them are held by the Labor Party. I’d like him to go to all of those electorates and say well, not only am I against that road funding that Howard committed himself to, but I’m going to take it away so I can spend it on something else. The reality is that once again he wants it both ways, he wants to be able to criticise us for having spent money but he doesn’t want to be associated with any opposition to the projects on which we’ve spent the money. Because every single project that we’ve spent money on over the last year has been totally justified. Australia needed more local road funding, it was desperately needed particularly in the country areas.
We needed to do something about getting rid of the half yearly indexation of petrol excise. I mean the price of petrol is very low at the present time, which is very good, but can I remind you that last August is the first August in 18 years that the price of petrol has not gone up due to an automatic increase in the excise. And that is a result of our decision to abolish it.
We spent a lot of extra money on defence and we’re very proud of that. Clearly Mr Beazley’s not saying any of that should be wound back. So once again he has this inherent contradiction, he complains that there should be more money there for him to spend but he doesn’t have the courage to indicate the areas that he reckons money should not be spent on, and roads is a very good example of that.
Ladies and Gentlemen this election is going to be very close and the Liberal Party, the Coalition needs Paterson, it really does. And in the end the election will be decided by one issue more than anything else. People will make all sorts of judgements but in the end the issue that more than anything else will decide the minds of undecided voters is who they believe and what team do they believe is better able to govern this country over the next three years in the very difficult and challenging circumstances that this country now finds itself in. Do they really believe that with their record of high deficits, of high interest rates, of high debt, do they really believe that the Australian Labor Party under Mr Beazley can better manage the Australian economy over the next three years than the Coalition can under my leadership and with Peter Costello as the Treasurer and John Anderson as Deputy Prime Minister. Now that’s the first question that people have got to ask and that’s the question of economic competence and economic management. And all of the capacity of a Government to fund the promises it makes flows from the strength of an economy. You can promise to spend a billion dollars on education but if your economy is going backwards you can’t. You can promise to spend a billion dollars on health but if your economy is going backwards you can’t do that either. So all of the capacity of anybody to deliver flows from economic confidence so that’s the first question.
And the second question that people have to ask themselves is who is better able to guarantee in an effective fashion all of the elements of Australia’s national security and that means an intelligent defence policy, a strong foreign policy that is based on Australia’s national interests, because in the end a foreign policy exists to promote the interests of this nation and the values for which it stands. And also which person and which party and which Coalition is better able to guarantee the security of Australia’s borders. This has been an issue in the election campaign because it goes to the very heart of one of the responsibilities of government. And that is that any sovereign government has the right to decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come. We are a marvellously diverse society and we are a better and stronger and richer and a more respected nation because of our ethnic diversity and because of the way in which we have welcomed people from 140 nations around the world, particularly over the last thirty years. And that will continue to be the philosophy that we adopt into the future. We will never abandon a non-discriminatory immigration policy and it was the Coalition that broke down many of the areas of discrimination. It was the Coalition that finally ended the White Australia policy, it was the Coalition that was responsible for building so much of the wonderful heritage of post-War immigration, along, I acknowledge, with the contribution originally made by Arthur Calwell as Minister for Immigration in the Chifley government.
But ladies and gentlemen this issue of border protection and this issue of illegal immigration is a separate issue that goes to the heart of the right of this country to decide who is coming here. And can you really believe with all of the pressures on it with all of the fraying at the edges that is now occurring that if Mr Beazley were to become Prime Minister on Saturday, he would maintain the policy that I have adopted over the past few months. I think the answer to that most resoundingly would be no he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t be strong enough because he has changed his position several times already. He started off opposing, he started off supporting then he opposed and then he came back again. And during the course of the Senate debate so many of this colleagues went around saying once we get into office we are going to review the operation of the border protection legislation. Now I would say to the Australian people who regard this as an important issue, Mr Beazley cannot be trusted to maintain the line that I and my colleagues have adopted on this issue if he were to become Prime Minister.
The very last thing that I want to say my friends is that this is an area, the electorate of Paterson and indeed many communities in the Hunter which is well known as an area that has a very strong and thriving small business sector. Small business is very much the heart of so many of the communities here. Small business is really the heart and soul of so much of regional and country Australia and can I say to any small business men and women who are here today, just remember when Labor was last in office what interest rates were like. Just remember that they went to 18 and 19 and 20 per cent, that if you were a farmer you often had to pay a bill rate of 21 or 22%. Remember the stultifying effect of many of the industrial relations laws of the former Labor government and every single one of those bad industrial relations laws plus more will come back if Labor is to win. Because although Mr Beazley’s roll back of the GST is a real damp squib because he is really keeping about 96 or 97 per cent of the GST, I mean he really believes in it but he just can’t bring himself to say so. I mean it has been the greatest political fraud of this campaign, he is meant to be against the GST and as Peter Costello said he hates it so much he is going to keep it. And that is the reality ladies and gentlemen, he hates it so much he is going to keep it but it’s different on industrial relations.
If he wins you will have a Labor government in New South Wales, a Labor government in Queensland, a Labor government in Western Australia, a Labor government in Tasmania, a Labor government in Victoria, a Labor government in the ACT, a Labor government in the Northern Territory and a Labor government in Canberra. Now that will have the conditions precedent for the greatest return to providence of organised trade union bosses that this country has had for a generation. And that will mean a total roll back of all of the industrial relations changes we have made and that is not political rhetoric it is there in their policy. They will abolish the secondary boycott provision of the Trade Practices Act. They will abolish AWAs. They will give unions the right of entry whether they are wanted in small business or not. They will allow unions to in effect impose monetary contributions on non-unionists on account of changes in working conditions. They will restore a lot of the inflexibility and if anybody imagined that by doing so they would bridge some kind of economic Nirvana for the working people of Australia they seem to have forgotten that under us with our industrial relations regime real wages have risen at a much faster rate. Working people are better off under this government, their wages have gone up, their interest rates have come down, their taxes have come down, their jobs have gone up, apprenticeships have more than doubled. So ladies and gentlemen, there is no Nirvana around the corner for either small business or for people in middle income or low income areas. They have had a far better deal under a Coalition government then they would get under Mr Beazley so get behind our two wonderful candidates according to your Coalition choice. Get behind, they are working together, they are working for a common cause to get rid of the Labor member for Paterson, to add Paterson to the Coalition list on Saturday night, don’t mind what time in the evening it comes, just as long as it gets on the list.
But my message to both of you is work until you drop. And work until you drop and that means you work until six o’clock on Saturday evening because it is going to be very tough. Those preference deals have given Labor an enormous leg up but there is a price being paid for that and the price will be paid by many of the working people of areas like the Hunter Valley area of Australia.
Thank you very much.
Any questions?
JOURNALIST:
Labor has promised to fund a stadium [inaudible] …?
PRIME MINISTER:
We don’t have a proposal on that.
JOURNALIST:
Michael Barns says that…
PRIME MINISTER:
Michael who?
JOURNALIST:
Sorry, I mean Greg Barns.
PRIME MINISTER:
I thought you said Michael Baume. Golly what’s he doing?
JOURNALIST:
Greg Barns says there is a case for increasing the refugee intake…
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t believe there is any case for increasing the intake. Of course the refugee intake is quite separate from the question of illegal entry. We have a refugee programme and one of the things that we are arguing is that the people who are trying to come here illegally should be assessed like the refugees by the United Nations in accordance with the consistent procedure and not try and come here illegally and not to try and come here by courtesy of the people smugglers. So it’s a quite…. but anyway I am not, so it’s clear they are two separate issues but we are not advocating an increase in the intake.
JOURNALIST:
What do you say to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry who say it would be better for business and better for Australia over time if the total immigration [inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, our view is that the intakes in both areas at present are appropriate.
JOURNALIST:
The figures out from the department of immigration [inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
Where are you? Where are you, I’m sorry? I didn’t see you.
JOURNALIST:
Do the leaked figures from the department of immigration showing that the number of illegal arrivals has risen quite sharply in the last few months mean that the Coalition’s attitude towards this issue has failed?
PRIME MINISTER:
No it doesn’t. It probably means almost the complete opposite. There are a number of reasons why there has been an increase in the number of boats coming. You’ve got to remember that there has been a build up in Indonesia, the people have seen the need, particularly with the onset of the wet season which makes travel extremely difficult and even more hazardous than tragically we found out a couple of weeks ago, the need to get in ahead of that.
One of the reasons that we took the action we did some weeks ago, was a concern based on a large number of reports of the great build up of people in Indonesia who were wanting to come to this country, and I believe that what we have done already will act as a very powerful deterrent to people entering the pipeline.
But could I rhetorically propose the alternative. If you abandon what we are doing, which is what Laurie Brereton said last Friday in effect we should do, the only alternative you have is to process these people on the Australian mainland. I mean, that is the real Labor alternative, courtesy of Laurie Brereton, is apparently to process on the Australian mainland. Now of course we’ll continue to discuss the matter with the Indonesians, but in the absence of an agreement in that area, what you have to do is to behave in a way that sends a clear message that this country is not going to allow a situation where people can present themselves at our borders and in effect demand entry. I mean, we’re just not going to continue with that situation, and that is the message we’ll continue to send around the world.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, Kim Beazley says it would be very easy under the Coalition to either increase the rate of the GST or extend it into other areas. Is he running a scare campaign or is that true?
PRIME MINISTER:
Mr Beazley is getting a bit desperate. I mean, I heard him on the radio coming up, and he was carrying on about the GST. I mean, to get a change in the rate of the GST you need the support of federal and state governments. Now isn’t it more likely if you had a federal Labor government and you had Labor governments in five out of the six states, isn’t that far more likely to produce the conditions precedent, for an increase in the GST. And the other problem of course you’ve got is the more you roll back, the greater the upward pressure there is on the rate. You know that old doctrine, the broader the base the lower the rate, the narrower the base the higher the rate. End of story.
But just for the record Tom, there will be no increase in the GST under a coalition government.
JOURNALIST:
[Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I’m not going to start going into the details of some intelligence advice. I believe that the policy is working, there is evidence available to us suggesting that the number of people entering the pipeline is lower than it would otherwise have been if we had not adopted that policy, yes. …… we’ll have two more.
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible] people that high immigration is good for the economy and boost economic growth and that increasing the intake could be a good thing and will … on the boil in the years ahead.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Paul, I’ve been asked this question sort of every month for the last five and a half years, and we make an assessment each year of the migrant intake and the refugee program and we assess that the current program is appropriate. Now, we make an assessment each year of that, and we’ll continue to do that and we’ll take account of views that are expressed by people when we make that assessment.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Beazley was asked if he stood by Bob Horne his local member after his …. And then it emerged that your candidate was being investigated by the federal police… (inaudible)…?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I understand that’s a pretty old furphy and I’m informed that there’s been a complete clearance, and I stand by my Liberal Party candidate, and I respect my National Party candidate. Applause. They’ve done well, thank you. I want to mingle.
JOURNALIST:
In May this year you defended the Superannuation measure as a fair measure. Why have you gone soft on the top end of town and why are you making these changes?
PRIME MINISTER:
There are a lot of people who wouldn’t be regarded as the top end of town, who pay the superannuation surcharge. I mean, with respect, I think that’s not quite the right expression to use. It is paid by middle and higher income earners. What we are proposing is not an abolition. We are proposing a small reduction in it, and we think that is entirely appropriate.
But you’ve got to look at the totality of the super package. I mean, the reduction in the surcharge rate is one element of it, but the most visionary, forward-looking element of that superannuation package is that for the first time we are decoupling paid employment and superannuation entitlements. From now you will be able to establish the superannuation entitlement for a person from the time of that person’s birth. Now I think that is a tremendous message to send to a community that you want to save for, and the combination of that and the first child tax refund and also the ability that people will have in the future of couples to split their superannuation contributions and thus establish two superannuation identities if I can put it that way, I think that represents a very significant reform. It is quite openly appealing to the family savings instinct that I think is deep inside most Australians. The idea that if you have the capacity to do so you make some provisions for a child’s future from a very early age.
I mean, one of the things we have got to do in this country is encourage people to acquire the instinct for saving, and making provisions for the future from a very early age. I mean, that was the philosophy behind lifetime health cover, where the problem with private health insurance was it was haemorrhaging because it was top heavy age wise, and you had to get more young people into it. And you’ve got to start adopting the same philosophy in many of these other areas.
I mean, we’re talking about the future in this election campaign. I think of all the policies that have been put down, none speaks more of the future savings capacity of this country than that particular policy. But it does say an enormous amount about the future.
Many of you will remember I made a speech at the National Press Club in July and at that National Press Club I talked about three issues. I talked about the aging of the population, I talked about the balance between work and family, and I talked about the environmental challenge of water quality and salinity, which is far more important long term to the environment than some of the more faddish issues that the Labor Party and the greens wrap themselves around, and you will note in this election campaign, and I’ll have more to say about this later in the week, that we have within the limits of the available resources, we have targeted policies in those three areas very directly and very openly and they are areas that are very important to our future.
I think that’s enough. Thanks.
[ends]