Well thank you very much Colin for those very generous and undeserved remarks, Kim Keogh, Ian Warner, my federal and state parliamentary colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.
As somebody who';s conscious that we are now more than half way between the last federal election and the next, I';m very warmed by the evident support for the Liberal Party here in Perth by the turn out at today';s luncheon. It gives me an opportunity of saying very directly to all of you without any sense of equivocation that we need your help, we need your voting support, we need your financial support, we need your constant advocacy of our cause amongst your friends because one of the things that spending a lot of years in Australian politics that tells me is that you must always expect the unexpected. When somebody the other day was kind enough to say something complimentary to me in a radio studio, it wasn';t actually on air it was actually off air, but it was a very generous remark, I said well when I hear people say things like that I look over my shoulder trying to spot the exocet missile that is coming to disturb the equilibrium.
Politics in Australia is always unpredictable and in the 29 years that I';ve been in Federal Parliament I can only think of four elections in that 29 years when the result was something that you could call a landslide. And normally elections in Australia are pretty close and it comes down at a national level to no more than two or three percentage points on a two party preferred basis. So the message out of all of that is that you may believe we';re doing fairly well federally at the present time, the polls might say that, but can I assure you that can change, it can change rapidly, it can change almost overnight, and we will have a hard fight to win the next election because it gets that much harder the longer you';ve been in office, no matter how well you might govern, no matter how hard you try to address the issues that are of concern to the men and women of Australia it is the case that as time goes by people develop reasons for not liking you, and the longer it is between the time you first won office the more people are prone to forget the reasons why they voted you in and they voted the other crowd out. They';re prone to forget and we';ll try and not allow them to do so, the fact that under the former government you paid 17 or 18 or 19 or 20 per cent interest rates, and how anybody endured running a small business or a farm during that interest rate regime is still completely beyond me.
So we do have a hard fight ahead of us but in the 18 months or less between now and the next election I want to engage the Australian people in a dialogue about our goals under three broad headings. And our goals for Australia are to give this country nation security, economic strength and social stability. But they are goals that encapsulate all of the things for which the government stands, and they also encapsulate the things that Australians want for this country. All of us want this nation to be secure, we want it to be well defended, we want it to have well resourced intelligence services, we want to it play its part in the affairs of the world, and we want it to carry out a leadership role in our own region. And if you look at the international events of the last year you have seen the nation playing out all of those roles under the description of national security. We have necessarily put more resources into defence and to intelligence services as a result of us now living in the age of terrorism. After the 11 of September and closer to home the tragedy of Bali we';re all very conscious, we have to, as I said last night in Canberra, we have to keep a sense of perspective about the terrorist threat. We don';t want to lose our free and open way of life, but we must necessarily compromise some of the freedoms we might otherwise enjoy if we didn';t have any worry about terrorism in the broader national good. But we';ve also got to remember that this country is amongst the safer of the world societies. But that is not a guarantee that we won';t be the object of a terrorist attack. And if we are in the future it will be because of who we are and what we believe in rather than what we have done. Terrorists despise free countries, they despise nations that believe in the equality of men and women in a free and open society. And they particularly despise the open and liberal character of the kind of society that Australia represents.
Over the last year of course our position on the international stage is very much defined by the decision we took to join the coalition in removing the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. There has been a veritable cacophony of criticism in the media not only of Australia, but of also other western countries about that decision and about the intelligence basis on that decision was based. Let me say to you that I have never doubted the correctness of the decision that the Australian Government took, I have never doubted the accuracy of the intelligence assessments that were presented to us at the time and I remain an absolutely uncompromising supporter of the coalition of the willing that removed Saddam Hussein because not only was it necessary to remove a threat to the stability of the region, but it also removed a regime which on a conservative estimate was responsible for the deaths of more than 300,000 Iraqis and most importantly of all one of the great dividends that has come out of the war in Iraq has been to open up the opportunity of a lasting settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. And that would not have been possible if Saddam Hussein had not been removed. His removal has created the condition';s precedent for the pressure now being exerted by the American President and others on both the leadership in Israel and also the leadership of the Palestinians. And if we can a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians on terms and conditions that are fair and just to the people of Israel who have long faced assaults on their very existence, as well as the Palestinian people, we will have removed one of the festering sources of discontent exploited by terrorist organisations such as al-Qaeda and will have struck a very powerful blow for a world and for a Middle East that is less susceptible to terrorism. And finally and most recently of course we';ve taken action very much closer to home, in our own patch in response to a request from the people of the Solomon Islands. We cannot afford countries such as the Solomon Islands to become failed states, failed states become magnets for money launderers, international criminals and in some cases terrorists. And if Australia is not prepared to take a leadership role in situations such as this no one else will. And the welcome that has been extended to our police and to the military backup the police have is proof of the wisdom of the decision. I can';t say that it';s free of danger, I can';t predict that things will continue to go as smoothly as they have to date, but all of the signs are very encouraging.
So what you have ladies and gentlemen is you have a picture of a country which is doing the right thing internationally. We';re putting more resources into our own domestic security, but we';re playing our role in the world. We are a nation that has a powerful interest in a peaceful and stable region in which we live. But we';re also a nation that has long and honourable connections with other parts of the world, and we';re a country that has always through history done the right thing and been willing to stand up and stand beside long standing allies and long standing friends. And those attitudes will continue to dictate the foreign policy and defence decisions of the government. And I want to pay a particular tribute to the way in which Alexander Downer who over the last year has had particular responsibilities as Minister for Foreign Affairs for the way in which he';s carried out his duties in very very difficult circumstances.
The second of the great goals that I';ve talked about of course is something that';s very important to all of us in this room, and it';s very important to all Australians, and that is our economic strength. There is no doubt that Australia is one of the stellar economic performers of the developed world. Our growth rates have surpassed most of those of the OECD area over the last six or seven years. And whilst the drought, and the fairly hesitant character of international economies, particularly the American economy have taken some of the steam out of the Australian economy the underlying reality is one of reassurance and one of strength. And we have a strong economy because over a period of years reform decisions have been taken which have laid the groundwork for this country being more competitive internationally, and I';ve never been relucent to give credit to the former government for one or two of those decisions, decisions which when they implemented them we in Opposition supported and did not oppose. The decision of the former government to float the Australian dollar was supported by the Opposition, the decision of the former government to reduce tariff protection was supported by the then Opposition. By contrast just about every major economic change that this government has introduced since it came to power in 1996 has been opposed tooth and nail by the Labor Party in the Senate. Tax reform, industrial relations reform, balancing the Budget, many other reforms and changes that are necessary for the long term strength and stability of the Australian economy have been opposed. But we are performing well, we';re performing well because hard decisions were taken, we weathered the Asian economic downturn, we were able to shift our markets from the region to North America and to Europe, and we were able through a combination of economic capacity including a flexible exchange rate to work our way through the worst effects of that downturn. The decision of the Government to undertake taxation reform was not popular in 1998 when we went to the election, and we went through periods of severe criticism and I know there were implementation difficulties and I know at various stages sections of the business community had legitimate complaints which they bought to the government regarding the impact of the fine detail of the changes. But many of those, I hope most, have now been put behind us, those difficulties, and we';re now beginning to see the benefits of a reform difficult at the time but a reform that has delivered a better taxation system, has made us more competitive internationally, and very importantly has reassured us a country that you can change things, and you can change them for the better if you have a government which has the commitment and the willingness to go out and explain the value of and the necessity for those changes.
Of all of the changes that we';ve implemented in the time that we have been in government I don';t think any have been more important than the changes we have made to this country a more flexible industrial relations system. And I regret to say that here particularly in Western Australia changes that have been made since the election of the current state government have rather taken us backwards rather than forwards in the area of industrial relations. Long before I became Prime Minister I argued long and hard that reforming Australia';s industrial relations system, creating a climate where wage deals were made overwhelmingly at an enterprise level and not on an industry wide level or not accordingly to the dictates of the centralised wage fixation system that such an approach to industrial relations was necessary to boost the competitive edge and the competitive position of the Australian economy. And I think at a national level the changes that we have made and many of the changes made at a state level by former Coalition Governments have contributed to the greater competitiveness to the Australian economy. And one of the proudest boosts that I have particularly when we get embroiled in debate in Parliament about the relative performances of a government I lead and the government led by Mr Keating and Mr Hawke before me is that real wages, the take home pay, the week to week financial position of average Australian families is much better under my government than it was under the two former governments. And one of the reasons for that is we are a more productive society now, because of industrial relations reforms people can be paid higher wages because those higher wages are based on greater productivity. And all of you know as business men and women that you can pay higher wages to your employees if those higher wages are based on greater output and more efficient gains on the productivity front. And real wages have gone up under this government, it';s been one of our proud boosts, but those wage increases have not produced run away inflation, they have not produced interest rates, they';ve not produced recessions you had to have as was the case under former policies.
So there';s been many reforms that have been carried out, but the reform process is never over and if we are to maintain the forward momentum of the Australian economy we must continue to take bold reformists decisions, and one of the decisions that we have to be willing to embrace is if we can negotiate the right terms is a Free Trade Agreement with the United States. I believe that the importance of our association with the United States will grow stronger and greater as the years go by rather than lessen. Anybody who imagines that our association with the United States is somehow something that will recede into less and less importance misreads the future economic strength, the population growth, the relative economic clout and of course the overwhelming strategic importance of the United States as the one superpower of the world.
By the year 2050 the United States population and economic clout will be significantly greater than that of the nations of the European Union, even though the population of the United States and the expanded European Union will be approximately the same. If you go back over the last six or seven years the great bulk of the increase in the GDP of the developed world has been contributed by the United States. I don';t make these statements as some kind of peon of praise for the United States but rather to state the reality, and the reality is that if we can link ourselves to this enormous economic dynamo, if we can become part of the great expansion and growth of the most powerful economic unit the world has ever seen, that can only be of ongoing and growing importance and growing reinforcement of the economic strength, let alone the political and strategic stability of this country. That';s why I';m in favour of trying to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement with the United States, and those rather narrow minded theorititions on the other side who argue that in some way by negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with the United States we are turning out back on the major trading partners we have in Asia completely misunderstand the importance of our association with the United States and its impact on the countries of Asia. I throw back one specific argument to our critics on the issue of a Free Trade Agreement with the United States and that is the way in which we have developed our economic relationship with China over the last six or seven years, and no state of Australia would be more conscious of that than the state of Western Australia. No state would be more conscious of the long term economic value as well as the strategist and economic symbolism of the natural gas deal that was struck last year between the consortium at the North West Shelf and Guandang province from China, an agreement that is not only going to deliver revenue and income over a 25 year period, but is also a very powerful signal from the most populous country in the world and the country whose economic growth in relative terms will be greater than any other country over the next 50 years, considering from where China started. The symbolism of that and the signal it sends is that that country wants to do business with an Australia that is economic efficient, politically stable, a reliable supplier and a nation that is capable of having deep engagement, not only with the United States but also the major powers of the Asian region. So if we can negotiate a Free Trade Agreement which gives returns and gives benefits, particularly to our farm sector commensurate with the returns and benefits that must necessarily be given in any such agreement with our trading partners in the United States then it is overwhelmingly in the long term interests of this country.
And the final great goal that I have for this country is one that relates not to defence or not to economics, but relates to the kind of people we are and the values that we hold as a people. One of the great things about Australia is that we are cohesive and we are stable, we are united, we are tolerant and we are caring of one another. Sure we have our arguments, we have debates about things such as illegal immigration, we have debates about different welfare policies, but we remain one of the great egalitarian countries of the world and it';s the constant responsibility of the national government of this country to contribute policies and ideas that preserve that social stability. Next week I will have the opportunity of going to the Cape York area of Australia to witness attempts made by some Aboriginal communities to come to terms with the terrible impact of substance, of alcohol abuse, of domestic violence, of the thuggery of men against women, something which is to be found in every part of Australian society but sadly in a disproportionate way in many indigenous communities. I had in Canberra a couple of weeks ago a meeting which in many respects was the most encouraging meeting I';ve had with indigenous leaders in the time that I';ve been Prime Minister. We have in this country legitimate differences of view about what people call the symbolic elements of the debate about the relationship between the first Australians, and all other Australians. And we';ll continue to have our own views on that, my views on some of those things such as treaties and apologies are well known, they';re very strongly held views on my part and they won';t be changing. But putting all those things aside there are areas where agreement can be won, and importantly must be won for the long term future of those fellow Australians of ours because they are living in deplorable conditions, their communities are suffering the impact of years and years of social disintegration caused overwhelmingly by substance abuse. And I hope to have the opportunity when I';m in the Cape York area to hear more of the attempts that are being undertaken by the Cape York council and others to deal with those challenges. So that is but one of the many things that challenges a national government to add to the sense of social stability and social unity that this country enjoys.
Can I finally ladies and gentlemen say there';s one thing and I';m very conscious that this is a gathering of members and supporters of the Liberal Party, of people who I think it';s fair to say without any exaggeration wish the Liberal Party well and want to see the Liberal Party prosper at both a federal and a state level. Over the last seven and a half years when I';ve been Prime Minister I want to say that I';ve been very fortunate that I';ve enjoyed the support and the loyalty and the commitment of Liberals not only in my own Cabinet and members of the Federal Parliamentary Party and the Federal Cabinet here from Western Australia, but also from people all around this country. And I';ve particularly value the advice that I';ve received from the business community of Perth. Over the years I';ve received a lot of advice from the business community of Perth, some of it you know has not always been welcome but it';s always been I know strongly felt and I';ve appreciated it and its been of enormous value in shaping my views and particularly in many of the debates that we';ve had on issues such as native title and particularly things that effect the mining industry. And I can';t of course let the opportunity go by and mention this almost as a footnote, I hope no person in the mining industry here in Western Australia or indeed anywhere in Australia overlook the fact that the alternative Prime Minister of this country intends to fund his higher education policy by imposing a $570 million taxation increase on the mining industry of this country by reducing the value by 10 per cent of the diesel fuel rebate which is being paid to miners under the policies of the current government. Ladies and gentlemen that is a footnote, an important footnote, let me say in a gathering such as this.
But the final chapter of my speech that I added that footnote to is to say that whatever I have been able to achieve in the past seven and a half years I have achieved because of the tremendous loyalty and support and understanding and commitment of members of the parliamentary Liberal Party and members and supporters of the Liberal Party all around the country and I want to take the opportunity of recording my gratitude to all of you for that because it has been a team effort and we';ll continue to succeed and we';ll win again if we can maintain the momentum of that team effort over the next 18 months.
[ends]