E&OE..................
Thank you my fellow Australians for that very warm welcome and it is for me for quite a pleasure to come to Ocean Grove at the invitation of my very good friend Stewart MacArthur and to spend a few moments with you addressing some of the things that we've endeavoured to do to head Australia in the right direction and to strengthen our country over the last five and a half years. Over that five and half years we have done a lot of things, we haven't been perfect, like any other government we've made our share of mistakes and where we have made mistakes we've tried to acknowledge them and we've tried to be responsive to people's concerns. But what I think we can say is that looking back over that five and a half year period Australia is fundamentally stronger and better respected around the world than what it was in the early months of 1996.
Domestically we certainly have addressed the need to give Australia a strong and growing economy. When we came to office the Federal Government owed $96 billion. By the end of this financial year we will have repaid $58 of that $96 billion. I can't think of anything you can better do for the future generations of Australians than to give them a relatively debt free future because whether you inherit debt on a personal basis or whether you inherit it on a national basis it really represents an encumbrance on what you can do and what you can hope to achieve in the years ahead. And as a result of reducing that debt and many other things we've been able to see some of the lowest interest rates that this country has had for 30 or 40 years. Now low interest rates are fantastic if you're buying a home, they're fantastic if you are running a business, they're not quite so fantastic if you're living on fixed investments. I understand that, I do understand that let me assure you I'm very much alive to that little economic reality and that is one of the reasons why in a number of areas and indeed most recently in the last federal budget the Government introduced a number of special measures to give additional help to self funded retirees within the Australian community. That's why we introduced a number of additional tax concessions for self funded retirees. It is why we extended the seniors card very significantly to people in middle and higher income brackets, and it's why we have progressively over the past few years introduced a number of other very important measures.
Now it is true that as Stewart said that we have undertaken major reforms to give this country a capacity to compete far more effectively than would have been the case if we had left those things unattended. We don't live in an easy international economic environment, back in 1997 when an economic downturn hit the nations of Asia most people predicted that it was going to spill over into the Australian economy. People predicted that we were going to be sucked into the whirlpool, that we were going to be engulfed by the same economic downturn that affected the Asian economy. But we were able to sail through that relatively unscathed and the reason that we were able to sail through that relatively unscathed is that we had undertaken a lot of economic reforms. If we hadn't of cut the budget deficit in 1996, if we hadn't have set out to reform the industrial relations system than it wouldn't have been as easy for us to take that Asian economic downturn head on and achieve a situation where Australia was relatively unaffected by it. And the same thing applies at the present time. Internationally there are some clouds on the economic horizon. I'm not excessively gloomy, I have a rather more positive view about the American economy than many others, the American economy is very big, it's very flexible, it has a great capacity to bounce back and the fundamentals of the American economy remain very strong. But whenever there's a bit downturn in American and Europe inevitably that will have some wash over into other parts of the world. But so far this country is avoiding the impact of that. We are growing at a faster rate than America or Europe. We have very low interest rates, we have a low inflation rate and because we don't have a budget deficit and because we are seen by international financial markets as having undertaken very important economic reforms we're seen as a better risk by those financial markets than many other countries.
And the other thing that working I'm very happy to say in our favour at the present time and it is long overdue and that is the rural sector is now enjoying some of the best seasons that it's had for years. And isn't that welcome? It's been a long time between drinks for the farmers of Australia.
Right at the moment we're getting the best prices for beef and we had a great breakthrough with the American's on lamb and that ridiculous quota that President Clinton imposed on our lamb exports is going to disappear altogether in November of this year and that is a terrific outcome for Australia's lamb exporters.
If you're a farmer or a grazier or any type of primary producer in Australia you don't normally get many wins on the international trade front. But on this particular occasion we were very successful. But overall we are doing better in the farm sector. And one of the reasons that we're doing well is not because we have a low dollar, it's because we have a super competitive exchange rate. And that super competitive exchange rate is working very much to our advantage. Another thing that's working to our advantage is that we now have efficient waterfront and you may remember a few years ago we had a bit of a fight to get to an efficient waterfront and Peter Reith did an absolutely fantastic job on behalf of the Government in achieving that outcome.
And the other thing can I say and to people who may be a little sceptical about some aspects of the tax reform system that we now have as a result of tax reform we have taken $3.5 billion of embedded taxes out of the costs of exports from this country, because when you have a GST you don't have any tax on exports and by introducing a GST we've given a greater competitive advantage to Australia's exporters and that's one of the other reasons why we now are having a marvellous time and achieving great things on the export front.
So ladies and gentlemen those are some of the things that the government has been able to do, some of things that the Government has been able to achieve. And in the process of doing that we haven't neglected the more vulnerable sections of the Australian community. Some of you may have read a very detailed analysis in the Melbourne Age a few weeks ago of the impact of the new tax system on various groups of families within the Australian community. And contrary to all the propaganda that is hurled at us by our opponents, in the media and on the other side of politics, what that survey showed was that the people who got the most benefit were the people at the lower income ranges. And that is contrary to all of the propaganda that is hurled at us. They say 'Oh,Howard's only for the rich', 'the Liberal's are only lookinf after the well heeled'. The reality is that under our taxation system the family benefit part of it, the people who got the greatest benefit, and this is not me speaking, this is an independent economic research organisation based in the Australian National University. And they often produce stuff that's critical of us. So they're a very reliable witness on this issue and they said that surprisingly after they did all the analysis that the groups that fared best were the low income groups. I don't find that surprising because that's what we intended to do. We never intended taxation reform to be something that was going to penalise the more vulnerable and the poorer section of the Australian community.
So ladies and gentlemen, we do have a good story to tell, but we don't say it triumphantly and we recognise that we've got a few things wrong and we've made our share of errors. But I do believe that over the past few weeks in relation to the very challenging issue of people smuggling this Government has taken a very strong stance. I keep reading in the papers that 'Oh,he's done it for the polls'. What, I arranged for that to happen? I mean what a ridiculous proposition. Two weeks ago I had no idea that these events were going to unfold. We have been grappling with the problem of people smuggling and illegal immigration now for several years. And we are responding to that problem against a background of being the second most generous country in the world in taking refugees. We're the second most generous. And there is only a handful of countries in the world that will take refugees and Australia is one of them. And I get as mad as hornet, and I bet you do, when I read people lecturing us about our alleged hard heartedness and yet some of them come from countries that won't take any refugees like Australia does.
Now we are a humane country and we will always in relation to this issue, we will always act both legally and decently. We have sent a signal through what we did, in relation to the people on the Tampa, we have sent a signal that this country is no longer a country of easy destination or a soft touch for people smugglers. We have also by deciding to increase naval surveillance of international waters between the Indonesian Archipelago and Australia, we also hope to increase the deterrent for other vessels to come to this country. I can't guarantee you that more won't come. I make that clear. And we will behave in response to them both legally and decently as you would expect any Australian government to do.
Right at the moment Mr Ruddock who I think has done a magnificent job as an Immigration Minister on this issue, magnificent, right at the moment Philip Ruddock and Peter Reith and Alexander Downer are in Jakarta on a difficult mission. And the purpose of that visit is to try and persuade the Indonesian Government to enter an agreement with Australia that will discourage people from coming to Indonesia in the first place because it will no longer be possible for them to easily transit through Indonesia onto boats and come to Australia because that is the core of the problem. And we have been trying for months to persuade Indonesia to reach an agreement and we'll go on trying. And I don't want to condemn Indonesia because I understand that she has a lot of major problems - a population of more than 200 million, a weak economy, a lot of people in that country very poor - and on their scale of priority dealing with this issue is obviously not as high as many of the other issues.
But fundamentally a long term solution to this problem does involve an agreement with our neighbours and we have been endeavouring to achieve that agreement now for some time. When I was in Jakarta only a few weeks ago I raised this issue with the President of Indonesia and her senior ministers. And I offered on behalf of Australia through an international organisation to fund the construction of a processing centre for illegal immigrants in Indonesia which would be handled by the international migration organisation - the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. And our offer was we will fund it through that organisation, they will look after the processing of people to determine their refugee status and while that was going on the people would be held in the detention or processing centre in Indonesia. Now that represented a genuine fair offer to assume all of the financial costs made on behalf of Australia. Now that proposal, it wasn't rejected but it was not accepted either and that will be one of the proposals that will be put on the table again by my three ministerial colleagues when they are in Jakarta because my friends it is self evident that if we can create a situation that people coming to Indonesia know that in future they won't automatically be able to come to Australia then that will discourage them from going to Indonesia in the first place.
Now I don't for a moment play down the enormous problem the world has with refugees. There are over 20 million people who can be broadly classified as refugees around the world at the present time. And many of them are living in pitiful conditions in refugee camps and many of those people have a greater entitlement to come to this country as part of our refugee program than many of the people who are preyed upon by people smugglers and placed on boats to come to Australia. And that is one of the arguments that we have constantly advanced that the only way in which we can fairly deal with this problem is to have everybody assessed according to the same rules and in the same fashion so that the most necessitous cases are put at the front of the queue and the most necessitous cases are given the most immediate and the most compassionate response.
This will continue to be a difficult issue for our country but we have over the last several weeks by the actions that I have outlined we have presented to the world and to the people smugglers a clear message that we are not going to be a soft touch, we are going to continue to defend as every country has the right to defend the integrity of its borders, and we are also going to assert the right as every country has the right to assert and that is to decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.
The last thing I want to say on this issue is that I am very proud of the fact that we have a non-discriminatory immigration policy and that we have been able to welcome to Australia people from all around the world. And I think it has added to the richness of this country, it has strengthened this country. As I walked around this room, as I met people and I realised like all other communities I meet as I move around Australia, that we are made up of people from all around the world and that is a wonderful thing of which Australia can be very proud and we have achieved a degree of social cohesion in this country despite our ethnic diversity that few other countries have been able to achieve. And I think that is something that's very precious for this country and it is something that I know everybody in this room would want to hang onto.
So my friends there is just one other thing that I would like to talk about, and then I'd like to continue moving around and to meet as many of you as I possibly can, and that is to say something in commendation of my very good friend and colleague Stewart Macarthur who invited me to come here today. Stewart has been a representative in the national Parliament now since 1983. He's been a very good friend of mine, he's been a great advocate for this electorate. As I drove down the Geelong Road from Melbourne this morning I saw all of this work going on and I thought well this is going to make it easier to travel and I thought of that great decision the Government took last year to support the construction of the Geelong Road. And you know, roads are generally a state responsibility. I can assure you ,but there are categories of roads where there is a federal component as well as a state component and the Geelong Road is one of those and there's another one in Melbourne called I think the Scoresby Freeway that's had quite a lot of publicity recently. But I just want to say what a terrific, hard working, committed, dedicated local member you have in Stewart Macarthur.
Ladies and gentlemen thank you very much for receiving me this morning. I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible as I move around the room. Thank you very much.
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