Well thank you very much Peter, Greg and Don and their families, Senator Brandis, the Mayor, ladies and gentlemen.
It is true that when Peter raised with me the possibility of visiting his electorate and being associated with the celebrations of 20 years of a successful small business enterprise, that I did react very favourably to that because I have a very strong attachment to the importance and the role and the strength of small businesses in the Australian economy and in the Australian community. And when I think back to 1983 when this company was formed, and I think of the rather difficult times, especially at very high interest rates, through which your company passed, and I survey the progress that it has made, the way in which it has built its business from nothing to now employing some 70 people and injecting some millions of dollars annually into the local economy, having won for itself a very strong client base and having built a reputation for hard work and integrity and honouring one's business commitments, it is the kind of success story that any Prime Minister, particularly one of a free enterprise party and of a small business background himself, would want to be associated with.
I was at a gathering in Brisbane last night before returning to Sydney for the purpose of saying farewell to the men and women of HMAS Sydney that sailed for the Gulf this morning, I was at a gathering in Brisbane last night and I was talking to a person who is in building and construction in Brisbane, and he said to me - if you're not doing well in building and construction right now, you're not trying - and I thought, well you know, I was happy to say well that's because of the strong economy, isn't it, and all the other wonderful conditions that the Government has created. But I thought to myself - circumstances now might be pretty favourable, we do have very low interest rates, we have very low inflation, we have a strong economy. Although there is inevitably some subsidence as the first homeowner's grant returns to the level that it was prior to the first half of 2001 when we decided to sharply increase it for new dwellings, although things are quite strong at the moment, that hasn't always been the case over the last 20 years.
The truth is that for the first half of that 20-year period, economic conditions in Australia were very up and down. There were some periods of great strength and there were also some periods of horrendously high interest rates. I think anybody running a small business who managed to survive the era of 18 or 19 or 20 per cent interest rates deserves, to borrow Don's reference, an Oscar for that achievement alone because how you run a small business and survive and pay interest rates of that order is very hard to fathom. Fortunately those days are behind us and whilst I will not be so foolish, even in the exuberance of an occasion such as this, to make any promises about the future level of interest rates, I can say that we are going through a period of great tranquility, let me put it that way, tranquility in the circumstances that normally affect the level of interest rates. And it is a great indicator of economic activity and it's a great indicator of calm economic conditions.
The truth is that the Australian economy is now experiencing the longest, uninterrupted period of economic growth that it has had since the 1960s. In many ways, it's better than the 1960s because our economy is now less protected than it was in the 1960s. We don't now have high tariff walls. We have a floating exchange rate which has made our export industries very competitive and it has helped us trade through the worst of the Asian economic downturn. We have made some very major changes to our industrial relations system which has produced more flexibility at the workplace level. It's now five years since we undertook the very difficult process of reforming Australia's waterfront and as a result our waterfront now is a lot more efficient than it used to be, and therefore our exporters are able to get their product out of the country without unfair delay and undue interruption. We have made major changes to our tax system. I know that the process of that was difficult and perplexing for some people in small business, and I want to thank them for the understanding that they demonstrated towards it, but we do as a result have a better taxation system and that has added to our economic strength and our economic performance.
It's no exaggeration to say that the Australian economy has been a better performer amongst the developed economies of the world than just about any other country over the last five years, and that looks to be the case into the future. In the last seven years we have generated a million and a quarter new jobs, and if we could only get those wretched changes to the unfair dismissal laws through the Senate, we would have permanently in my view - well not permanently, but semi-permanently - have a five in front of our unemployment rate rather than it just being over six. So the message out of all of that is that yes, conditions are quite good for small business at the present time. They're not perfect. They could be made better if we could get a few more changes to our industrial relations laws through the Senate, and they always need to be subjected to the process of ongoing economic reform and change.
Your own business has been successful because it has been built on the sound principles which endure through all periods of economic change, and that is that if you base it on hard work, a personal loyalty, valuing your staff as your best asset - no small business can be successful unless it has good staff, you can't have good staff unless you treat them well, and clearly this company has been exemplary in that regard, and that is the foundation for so much of the company's success.
If I look back over the last 20 years of the Australian economy and somebody said to me - what is the single most important reason why the Australian economy is now doing so much better than it was 20 years ago? And I would say the single most important reason is that Australia and Australians have proved themselves to be very adaptable. Australians have many great characteristics, and one of our great characteristics is that we are immensely adaptable people. We are not people who refuse to change just because we've always done things in a particular way for a generation. We are more adaptable than the people of other countries. We demonstrate that in so many ways and not least in the area of economic activity and economic management. And the way in which we, as a community, have been able to adapt and the way in which the Australian business community has been able to adapt to all of the changes of the last 20 years - a floating exchange rate, workplace relations reform, taxation reform, the reduction of tariffs, the globalisation of the Australian economy, the alteration of our social structures in many areas - all of these things represent tremendous change. And the great thing is that Australians have adapted and that is the reason, more than anything else, why we're able to look the rest of the world in the face and say well, throw the worst of economic competition and the toughest at us, and we will be able to succeed and we will be able to do well. Because five years ago when that Asian economic downturn hit our region, a lot of people said Australia was going to be dragged under the water with all of those other countries. It didn't happen. And a lot of the markets we lost in Asia, we were able to find in North America and Europe, because we found we had a more flexible economy and we found that we were able to diversify and alter where our product went. And that betoken to me a very strong, adaptable people. And everybody is entitled to share in the credit for that. The investors, the employees, and indeed everybody responsible.
So can I say to Don and to Greg and to their families, and very particularly to their workforce and to the loyal customers of this company, congratulations on a 20-year achievement. Congratulations on living out part of the Australian dream, and that is that you can start a business with nothing, and if you work hard and you provide a good service and you look after your customers and you look after your staff, you can build something pretty impressive, something that the community respects and something that you can be very proud of after a life's work. That's always been part of the Australian dream and I hope it always will be, and it's our job to make certain that it always will be.
Thank you.
[ends]