E&OE..................
Well thank you very much Peter, to my state parliamentary colleague Andrew Tink the member for Epping, ladies and gentlemen. I would particularly like to thank all of my many friends and supporters in the electorate of Bennelong who have been so supportive of me over the last 27 years. 1974, it seems only yesterday that I stood for the first time and at that stage the geographical centre of my electorate was Lane Cove but over the years the vagaries of redistribution commission it';s moved into the wonderful area of Eastwood over the past few years. And I';m delighted to represent as part of my Bennelong electorate the people of Eastwood.
But this is first and foremost for me this morning an opportunity to thank the people of Bennelong for the help they';ve given me over the years, to ask them again to support me, to thank in anticipation you Peter and all the other wonderful people who are going to work for the Liberal Party cause here in Bennelong over the next five weeks.
This, contrary to what some people are saying, this will not be an easy election for the Liberal Party to win. A swing of less than one per cent, a loss of seven seats to the Australian Labor Party will elect Kim Beazley as Prime Minister and Simon Crean as Treasurer and it is therefore important that all of understand from the outset that this is going to be a tough election. Always when campaigns start polls begin to tighten, people return to some of their tribal allegiances of the past and this election is going to be no exception. We do have however a wonderful opportunity as a Liberal Party to win a third term. If we can over the next five weeks promote one single and very important notion and that is that at all stages over the last five and half years the Government I have led, the Liberal/National Party Government, has put Australia';s interests first. At every turn we have endeavoured to govern in the interests of the mainstream of the Australian community. We';ve been willing to undertake difficult, unpopular, tough decisions for the long term interests of Australia. We reformed the taxation system despite all the opposition of the Labor Party, we reformed the workplace relations system which has boosted the productivity this country. By the end of this financial year we will have repaid $58 billion of the $96 billion of government debt that Mr Beazley as finance minister left us in March of 1996. Interests rates are at a 30 year low, the budget is back into surplus, our current account deficit is the lowest it has been for almost 20 years. And so the list goes on. It is an impressive list of economic reform and economic achievement. And as we face the inevitability as a country of being affected by the world wide economic downturn aggravated by the awful terrorist attack in the United States, as we face the inevitability of being caught up with that world wide downturn we do so in the knowledge that what we have done over the last five and a half years has better prepared Australia for the impact of that downturn than just about any other country in the western world.
If we had not fixed the tax system, if we had not paid back debt, if we had not fixed industrial relations, if we had not delivered lower interest rates we would be far more vulnerable to the world economic downturn than will otherwise prove to be the case. But we will not be left unaffected by it and like every other country it will have some impact but that impact will be all the less as a result of the reforms that have been carried out by my government. And those reforms at every stage have been dedicated towards strengthening the Australian economy and governing in the overall interests of the Australian community.
Ladies and gentlemen this suburb of Eastwood is a wonderful microcosm of the capacity of the Australian people to absorb immigrants from all around the world. Eastwood has welcomed many people from many lands and it';s a demonstration of the decency and the openness and the tolerance of the Australian community and the willingness of Australians to embrace people from all parts of the world. So one of the great achievements of this country is the way in which we have embraced people. But it';s important in saying that for me to re-emphasise how determined this government is to maintain not only the integrity of our immigration programme but also the integrity of our border protection system.
We have had a clear consistent resolute single minded position on this issue. By contrast our political opponents have flipped and flopped and reflipped and if they happen to win the election they';ll flip again because when the bill was debated in the Senate many of their spokesman such as Senator Schacht who would be a minister in a Beazley Labor Government said we';re only passing this bill because it';s politically expedient to do so. If we';re elected to Government we';re going to make changes to it. Now that is the attitude of a person belonging to a party that has been totally irresolute and inconsistent on this issue. They';ve gone from one side of the road to the other under the pressure of political expediency, devoid of any principled response or principled position. And it';s important in the weeks ahead that the Australian people understand just how expedient the Labor Party has been on this particular issue.
Ladies and gentlemen I will be travelling around Australia very extensively over the next five weeks. In the middle of the election campaign I will unapologetically represent the interests of this country at the APEC meeting in Shanghai. I cannot understand why Mr Beazley should attack me for not passing up the opportunity of attending a meeting that is on my advice to be attended by the President of the United States, the President of Russia, the host will be the President of China, it will attended by the Prime Minister of Japan and by the President of Indonesia. And one of the issues that will be discussed is the issue of the world wide response to terrorism and that has been put on the agenda by the chairman, the President of China, as a direct result of a suggestion that I made to him shortly after the 11 September. And in the face of all of that Mr Beazley says I shouldn';t be going. Well can I say to Mr Beazley it is in Australia';s national interest that I go and by going I am putting Australia';s interests first and Mr Beazley should understand that.
Finally ladies and gentlemen we will over the next five weeks be unveiling a series of policies which will deal with many of the domestic challenges for Australia in the years ahead. I hear a lot from my political opponents about health and education. I';ve heard those words over the last five and a half years but I haven';t heard any policies to indicate just exactly how they would do things differently. And I know that people will look forward with very great interest to hearing how things might be different and how they are going to improve conditions because the reality is that we have brought back the private health insurance system of Australia. We have rebalanced our health system. We support very proudly the provision of educational choice, we support the right of Australian parents to choose the education that they best believe will suit the interest of their children. Parental choices are very important issue for Australian parents. As somebody who is very proud of the education he received in the Government school system of New South Wales, let me say we support both systems and importantly we support the rights of Australian parents to choose the school they think is best for their son or their daughter.
My friends thank you for coming this morning, I look forward to seeing you again at regular intervals throughout the election campaign. I never take anything for granted, never. I';ve never taken an election for granted in my life and I can promise you I';m not about to start with this particular election. It will be a tough fight, a fight that I believe that I can win but I can only win with your help and I can only win if we consistently point out to the Australian people that the last thing that this country needs at the present time is to abandon a tried and tested team of men and women who have bought resolution, commitment, steadfast determination and a steadiness of purpose and replace them with a leader and a group of men and women who after five and a half years of opposition have still not communicated to the Australian people what they stand for or what they believe in. It is not a time to replace steadiness and commitment with obscurity and irresolution and I ask all of you to campaign on that ceaselessly and tirelessly over the next five weeks.
Thank you very much.
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