Thank you very much Stuart, to your wife and two daughters, to my parliamentary colleagues and to Danielle Blain, the President of the Western Australian division of the Liberal Party, ladies and gentlemen.
It's a real pleasure for me to be here this morning to participate in the opening of this campaign office and to say how tremendously impressed I am and delighted I am that the Liberal Party has a candidate of Stuart's quality in the seat of Hasluck.
Without in any way reflecting on the varied backgrounds on people who offer themselves as candidates to the party and get elected to parliament, let me say that it's enormously important that we have candidates and Members of Parliament who've had some real life experience before they enter Parliament. We want people who understand what it's like to run a small business, we want people who understand the challenges of family life, the successes and the joys as well as the challenges. We want people who have a variety of sporting faiths and backgrounds, (inaudible) could have been a Wallaby, should have been a Wallaby. And I think it is in Stuart's case a wonderful metaphor for the cross-section of experience and life's challenges that we need in the Federal Parliament so that when they are required to take decisions on things that are important to the future of the country, we know that people bring a blended and not a sectional perspective because at the end of the day we want people who understand what it's like to work hard, to run business, to try and make a profit, to raise a family, to be involved in the community, to understand the interaction of business with the rest of the community and the rest of society.
One of the things that divides the Liberal Party profoundly from the Labor Party, and the division is now deeper and more obvious than ever before, is its understanding of small business. So I want to say a couple of things about that today because it's very important in this seat, it's very important in Western Australia. The Labor Party has no understanding of what it's like to run a small business, if they had any understands what it's like to run a small business they wouldn't have adopted that absurd industrial relations policy at their national last weekend. An industrial relations policy that is going to abolish Australian Workplace Agreements, an industrial relations policy that is going to compel any company that has a contract with the Federal Government to disclose the identity of its subcontractors, so presumably the unions can bully those subcontractors into complying with their requirements and their demands. They're going to burgle small business with a compulsory requirement that they make available part-time work to their employees in certain circumstances. Now you wonder what the (inaudible) of somebody who understands small business to know how absurd it is, you might be able to do able to that if you were Westpac, or the Commonwealth Bank or the ABC, or the State Government, a large organisation. But if you've only got two or three employees, to be told by the government you've got to make part time work available for one of them in certain circumstances is to completely misunderstand what is involved in running a small business. So I make welcome somebody who will be very much a standard bearer of the concerns and interests of small business, not only in this electorate but throughout Perth and indeed as a future member of the federal parliamentary party.
So Stuart comes to this challenge with the right skills, the right background, the right identification, the right commitment and I'm sure the right values in relation to the things that count so far as our party is concerned. This is not going to be an easy election, we'll be asking the Australian people for the fourth time to elect us. We'll be saying to the Australian people that we have a record, a very strong record of achievement. We'll be reminding the Australian people that at the moment we have for the first time in 35 years ago inflation below three per cent and unemployment below six per cent. We have generated, as Stuart said, something in the order of 1.2 million new jobs. Our Government debt is 4.9 per cent of GDP, the OECD average is 47. It's about 50 per cent in America and it's 130 per cent in Japan. We have got rid of the Beazley deficits, we have reduced that debt, we have secured Australia's economy. We've created a situation where the average homebuyer is paid $540 a month less on his or her mortgage than was the case when the Government was elected in 1996.
So all of that represents solid achievement and we'll be asking the Australian people not to put that at risk when the election comes around. But I don't take any political opponent for granted and I know it will be a challenge and we'll be reminding the Australian people not only of what we have achieved, but also of the fact that we are able to meet many of the challenges of the future. That we understand that as our population ages we need to find policies that encourage people, amongst other things, to remain in the workforce longer. That we need policies that maintain the sustainability of programmes such as the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme and our health system, which will face increasing demands and the years go by. And the only way that this country can keep a sustainable health system is to have a mixed of both public and private contributions to that system.
I don't believe in a health system that is totally private, nor do I believe in a health system that is totally public. I believe in a health system where each reinforces the other. The introduction of the private health insurance rebate some five years ago has taken a big load off public hospitals. It may not be perfect and there may be weaknesses but they would be in a more difficult position if we had not introduced that rebate and we had not seen a significant increase in the number of people taking out private health insurance. And just as I believe in a health system in which both the public and private sectors make a contribution, I also believe in an education system where parents and not the Government have the right to choose where their children will be educated. And I believe in an education system that respects the aspirations of low income people to exercise that choice. There is no choice if the cost of that choice is out of the reach of the average citizen. And those in the Labor Party and the teachers' union that would take funding away from certain private schools are really advocating the creation of an even more elite school system than the very thing that they condemn because there will always be some people in the community who can afford what ever fees might be charged, but the real choice is when you make the option affordable and within the reach of the average citizen. And it is the truth and the reality that over the last few years the great growth in independent schools has not been in the high fee area, but it has been in the low fee community based schools where people are exercising a choice. And none of this said in denigration of government schools. What we want in this community is a reinforcement of the principle of choice. We already have a needs based funding system for independent schools, not all of them are funded at the same level, some are funded at the minimal level. But it has to be understood that every time a parent decides to take his or her children out of the government sector and put it into the private sector, it saves the taxpayer a large amount of money. And it's therefore wrong in my view to adopt the view that the person who exercises that choice is entitled to no recompense at all from the community and from the taxpayer. So what we need in these areas - in health and in education, we need contributions from both the public and the private sector.
So ladies and gentlemen, there will be many issues where we will have a very strong and a very good story to tell. We'll have the opportunity to tell the story of how we have balanced Australia's international relations, where we have further deepened the important links we have with the United States, while at the same time built remarkably strong links with China. And the symbolism you'll recall last year of, on successive days, the President of the United States and the President of China addressing the Federal Parliament and this is under the Government of a person who is described by predecessor as having no capacity at all to speak to the leaders of Asia. The reality is that you can have good relations with the United States and also have very good relations with the countries of Asia, you just need a capacity and a willingness to call the Australian national interest where it falls. I've had one principle guiding me in foreign policy and that is what is good for Australia. I said when I was elected on March the 2nd 1996 that I would defend the interests of Australia at both home and abroad and that is the philosophy I've carried into effect.
But ladies and gentlemen, it is a warm morning and the welcome is warm. My enthusiasm is warm, my excitement about the quality of the candidates as has been shown in this electorate is even warmer than all of the other things. I think you have a cracker candidate in the seat of Hasluck. And I just look forward very much coming back to this electorate to helping his campaign. It'll be tough, he knows that, he's a realist, the small margin and it's going to be very tough. But he'll make it, he's got the skills, he's got the personal skills, he's got the background, he's got real life experience and that is going to communicate itself to the people of Hasluck. I wish you well. Good luck and I hope to have you as a colleague after the next election.
Thank you.
[ends]