E&OE...
Thank you very much Michael, Senator John Watson, Mr Will Hodgman the Leader of the Opposition, the Mayor of the City of Launceston, pupils of the Christian School, ladies and gentlemen. It's great to be back in Launceston.I hope you will forgive me. I left Launceston last night in order to amongst other things welcome back Tasmania's most famous son, Ricky Ponting along with all of the members of the Australia Cricket Team in Sydney this morning and to convey the admiration of the people of Australia for the wonderful job they'd done in winning for a third time the cricket World Cup.
But I am delighted to stop for a moment to listen to that wonderful sound of rain falling on the roof and I hope it's a sound that is heard all around the parched areas of Australia. It is a tentative sign that the drought may be breaking, but we have a long way to go and the truth is that if we don't get drenching rain in the Murray-Darling Basin over the next few weeks the irrigators in what is still the food bowl or our nation are going to face a very, very difficult task. I'm here today to continue a pattern that I have followed in the 11 years that I have been Prime Minister, and that is going around the country and meeting a cross section of the local community in every part of Australia that I visit. Every community is different, every community has its own challenges, every community has its own needs and before I go to some general comments about national issues can I say that one of the needs that the city of Launceston has and I know you might find it hard to believe because we've been going through a very severe drought, but one of the very big needs that the city of Launceston has is to have adequate flood protection levies and the existing flood protection levies are badly in need of repair or replacement and detailed assessments have revealed that the levies would almost certainly fail in the event of a major flood.
I mean, it's seems a bit ridiculous to be talking about a major flood when in the same breath we're praying for rain to break the worst drought in 100 years but that is the extraordinary thing about the weather in our country, it can change very dramatically. But it's estimated that if we did have a major flood it would inflict up to a $110 million of damages in creating a flood scenario not unlike that experienced in New Orleans. So what I'm announcing today is that the Commonwealth Government will contribute $13 million towards the Launceston flood protection levy. The State Government and the Launceston City Council will contribute like amounts bringing the total to $39 million and this will protect 640 homes and almost 80 commercial properties as well as other vital infrastructure and services so the scheme will more than pay for itself in the estimated savings to be made and by funding this work the Australian Government will provide Invermay residents with security and peace of mind, but will also safeguard Launceston's major infrastructure, cultural institutions and several vital transport arteries. It is a partnership between the Commonwealth Government, the State Government and the local council and that is what is should happen with projects of this kind and I am delighted to join the Tasmanian Government and to join the Launceston City Council in this project.
My friends, in coming here today the first and most important thing I want to say to you is to commend Michael Ferguson as a wonderful and energetic member for the electorate of Bass in the national parliament. Michael has only been one of us in federal parliament for a little over two years but he's made an impression. He's sincere, he works hard, he's thoughtful, he argues doggedly for the interests of his constituents but he's also a loyal member of the team and from my perspective and from the Government's perspective, you can't ask for anything more than that and from your perspective as local constituents and gathered here today is a cross section of the community and I don't expect all of you to agree with everything that I say or that everything I've done over the last 11 years, that would be an absolute miracle if that were to be the case. But what I think, I hope you might agree with me is that you need increasingly to have in your parliaments people who identify with local communities and see their role as arguing for the cause and the interests of their local community while also recognising that the electorate of Bass, like any other electorate, is part of the nation. And the nation's strength is reflected in the strength of the local community and it is true that Australia is going through very, very prosperous economic times. The good thing, as Michael said, is that we are witnessing a wonderful human dividend out of those strong economic times. It's important when we think about such things as economic growth and budgets and economies and surpluses, not to think of them as ends in themselves. It's not much good having a strong economy unless it translates into improved lives for individuals.
And one of the great things about the last few years is that we have seen the dignity of work returned to record numbers of Australians. We have a 32 year low in unemployment. I had a look at some figures from my Department yesterday and they showed that over the last year there has been a reduction of 22 per cent in the number of people who are classified as long term unemployed. And a long term unemployed person is someone who has been out of work for more than a year. And this is the lowest level right now of long term unemployed that Australia has had since we began to separately keep statistics for the long term unemployed. Now that is, to me, a heart warming human dividend, because we all know and those who have lived through more difficult employment times than we experience at the present moment will know that there is nothing more demoralising than to be out of work. There is nothing more unsettling to face the prospect of unemployment.
And I am very happy as I look around this gathering and I see a sea of very young faces. I am very pleased to know that the labour market the young of Australia will move into when they leave school now is infinitely more buoyant and stronger and more beckoning than it was in the 1970s, 1980s and the early 1990s. Now that is a wonderful thing. That is a human dividend for the young. And we belong all of us to different generations, and as we move into the older generations we not only reflect on our own contribution to Australia but we also worry about the kind of Australia the young will inherit, and we have an obligation to make sure they inherit an Australia that gives them the opportunity of work. We need them to inherit an Australia that is stable and secure domestically. We need them to inherit an Australia that achieves a proper balance between care for the environment and the preservation and improvement of our economy.
And that of course is something that always resonates here in Tasmania where the debate which has gone on over long years about the forest industry and about what is the right balance I thought had been resolved a couple of years ago. I mean I felt we struck a deal which got the right balance between preserving the environment on the one hand, but also protecting the jobs, particularly of isolated timber communities scattered throughout this island state and indeed scattered around other parts of Australia.
And it is important just as we have balance in our personal lives between work and family life we have balance between; if we're a student at school balance between studying hard and playing sport, or otherwise entertaining yourself. We also need to have balance in public policy. We need to have a balance between looking after old growth forests and preserving the jobs of people in timber communities. And if you don't have that balance then a lot of people will suffer. And if you belong to a community that depends very heavily on a particular activity, and that activity is curtailed or destroyed and you have no immediate prospect of getting another job in another industry its pretty grim. And you don't like being told by people in another part of Australia, who don't experience some of those challenges, how you should organise your affairs and how you should lead your life.
Right at the moment we are having an ongoing debate and it will go on for years about climate change. There is no doubt in my mind that the climate is changing. There is little doubt that greenhouse gas emissions are making a contribution and we all have a responsibility here in Australia, and around the world, to make our contribution to it. But we have to make certain that we make a balanced contribution. We must make certain that in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Australia we do so in a manner that doesn't inflict disproportionate damage on our economy or destroy our jobs. And we should remember that Australia is different from most countries, very different from Europe, where a lot of the talk about climate change comes from. We are a country which is large in area, small in population, very rich in fossil fuel resources, almost unique around the world in that composition. And therefore solutions that appeal to countries that have a vastly different structure from what Australia has do not necessarily appeal to, or do not necessarily work in Australia. And we need as a community, as we move to deal with that problem, to do it in a methodical way that balances the need to make our contribution with the need to preserve a...the natural advantages that this country has. And we must be open minded enough, as we examine an issue like climate change, to look at all of the possibilities. We must be open minded enough to examine the contribution that nuclear power might make to solving our problems years into the future. We have to acknowledge the contribution that solar and wind power can make, but recognise that you can't run power stations on solar and wind power, you can't, you can only run them on fossil fuels or ultimately perhaps on nuclear power. So it's a very big, it's a very important debate, it's a debate that I would like to see the entire Australian community involved in, but we have to be involved in it in a balanced and mature fashion. And if we're going to commit ourselves to targets, we've got to make sure what those targets mean, we've got to make sure that if you are moving towards a target, what the cost will be, what the implication for jobs will be, what the outcome is going to be. But it is a debate that this community and communities around the world are going to be engaged in for years and years into the future.
The last thing I want to say to you ladies and gentlemen is that next Tuesday night Peter Costello will bring down his 12th Budget. I'll disappoint you and say I can't tell you what is in it. We've had close to our final discussions about what might go in it. But I can say this, that it'll be a budget that will be looking forward, it'll be looking forward years into the future, it'll be a budget that will reflect our determination to keep interest rates in this country as low as possible, to reflect our determination to maintain a strong surplus and to build for the future. The strength of today's economy is a product of yesterday's reforms and the strength of tomorrow's economy will be a product of the reforms that we have the courage to undertake today.
My friends thank you very much for coming along this afternoon. I thank the choir of the school for its wonderful musical contributions, and that terrific band as well, and finally can I return to what I said at the beginning, you have in Michael Ferguson a first class federal member, a bloke who's worth supporting, a fellow who's worked very hard for your local community and a man I hope you'll think of towards the end of this year when you have an opportunity to give practical effect to the view that you might have of Michael Ferguson, your wonderful local member. Thank you.
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