Thank you very much, Phil, and to my other parliamentary colleague, Bob Charles, ladies and gentlemen. Can I also thank the children for that wonderful rendition of our national anthem. Well done.
This is an opportunity for me to share a few thoughts with this community. I also want to make an important announcement a little later on that is directly relevant to some very important work that is being carried on here. But I do want upfront to say what a hard working federal representative you have in Phil Barresi.
He';s very persistent, he gnaws away, he bothers, he hectors and eventually after twisting of arms, he extracts from my ministerial colleagues the sort of things that are important in a local way to this community.
To have good Government you need people in Government who are taking the right decisions that effect the whole country in our case. But you also need at a local level somebody whose got strong connections, whose got a strong personal commitment and brings a great deal of energy to the task and Phil Barresi is certainly somebody who';s done that in the almost eight years now that he';s been your Federal Member.
We do, as Phil said look at an Australia which in an economic sense is very strong. I';ve had in the time that I';ve been Prime Minister three broad goals for our country – I wanted to be a country that has national security, I want it well defended and particularly in the age of terrorism I want it properly protected against that modern scourge and modern threat.
I reflected on this about an hour or so ago when I had the great privilege of addressing the 1200 students at Ringwood Secondary College on the occasion today of the 50th anniversary of the founding of that school. And I thought back to what it was like in 1954 and some of the things and challenges that our country had and I reminded the students that then there were no computers or mobile phones or emails. But of course, we all thought we were going to be blown up if the Americans and Soviet Union threw nuclear bombs at each other. And we had a lot of other challenges. We didn';t think we had to grapple with the challenge of international terrorism striking indiscriminately and cruelly in different parts of the world. And it';s a reminder that in a passage of that period of time some things have gotten a lot better and some things have deteriorated, but that';s life.
But what hasn';t deteriorated of course is the tremendous optimism and hope of the Australian people. One of endearing and enduring things about Australia is that';s it';s a constantly optimistic nation and it';s part of my responsibility to further bring out and promote that optimism. Not in any sense of false boosterism but because I believe that this country has so many reasons to be optimistic. We do have a sense of national security. We';re also economically very strong and that';s really my second goal for Australia.
Phil mentioned the golden trifecta, this country really has at the moment its very best economic conditions since World War II. That';s not to say that there aren';t some people who are missing out and that';s not to say aren';t areas of our society where people feel neglected. That is not to say that there aren';t other things that Governments at all levels can do. But if you look at the overall health of our economy. If you look at our low levels of inflation, our very strong employment position for the first time in I can remember our unemployment rate has fallen below that of the United States and it';s the lowest that';s been for something like 22 years.
And that is reflected right across the country. There are parts of Australia I visit now that were always behind the rest of the country a few years ago but they';re now enjoying that. So there is a lot of reason why we should feel optimistic about the strengths of our economy. The third reason that we should feel optimistic and hopeful about the future is that we are socially a very stable country. Everybody wants to come and live in Australia. They want to come and live in Australia because this is a stable, peaceful, tolerant harmonious country.
And it';s something that we have and it';s very precious and it';s very important that we hang on to it. And it';s very important that everybody who comes to our country as an immigrant and comes in the appropriate way comes because they fit the criteria of our immigration or refugee policy that those people are treated decently. We';ve had an ongoing debate and quite probably in a democracy there are always echoes of it about the question of the circumstances in which people come to our country and I';ve stated the Government';s position very plainly on that, and I';ll go on stating it. And that is we welcome immigrants from all around the world without discrimination based on ethnicity or colour, or religion, or race, and we also take some 12,000 refugees from different parts of the world. We take people on the basis of proper orderly lawful selection and that is the only way that a nation such as Australia can continue to operate.
But we are seen as socially stable, we have our problems and there have been some difficult problems emerge in Sydney recently, but overall this is an incredibly stable country and one of the reasons why we';re stable is that we';re a very egalitarian society. We';re not based on class division. We treat people on their merits, according to their intrinsic worth. When I had the enormous privilege of addressing the American Congress the year before last, the joint sitting of Congress, I said that we had many things in common with the United States, we have a few things that aren';t uncommon with the United States. But naturally, being their guest, I stressed the things that we had in common. And one of them was that we believed the quality of a person should be determined by that person';s character and contribution to his or her community and not according to their race or their religion or their social background.
Now that';s always been the Australian way and it';s something very important and it';s something that we';ve got to hang on to. The part of the Australian way is also a very lively pride in what this country has achieved. One of the reasons that this country has reason to be optimistic is that we';ve had our blemishes, we';ve made our mistakes and there are things that we all wish this country hadn';t done in the past and if we had our time over again we would have done them differently. But overall, the ledger of Australian achievement is a very positive one and we should never lose sight of that fact and we should never feel apologetic about the contribution that this country has made in the time that it';s been in existence and the contribution that it';s made as a citizen of the world.
Putting all of that together, I am immensely optimistic about this country';s future. I can';t remember a time when it was treated with greater respect around the world. We';re treated with a lot of respect for a number of reasons. We';re treated with a lot of respect because of our economic strength. We';ve been able to demonstrate we';ve probably got the fastest growing and the strongest economy in the western world over the last decade or so. We';re treated with respect because we';re prepared to stand up for what we believe in, even though it may in the eyes of some be unpopular. When we went into East Timor, we stood up for the people of that oppressed little country, it was risky and some people doubted the wisdom of it. We took a controversial decision to be involved in Iraq, but I want to say that if I had my time over again, I would not have altered one iota what this country did on that occasion. We';re also respected because we';re pretty good at running things in this country, we';re very good at running international events. The people of Melbourne, particularly the older ones in this audience will remember the way in which our country was magnificently put on display in 1956 when we first hosted the Olympic Games and as the years have gone by, we haven';t lost the touch. And in 2000, the Olympic Games is a wonderful advertisement by the Australian people. And I notice in his introduction, quite naturally, Bruce touched upon the great day of the end of September here in Melbourne. But, of course, being a bloke who';s grown up following the game they play in heaven – Rugby Union – I can';t help but mention, of course, the magnificent Rugby World Cup. And can I say it was fantastic to see the way in which, just as Australian Rules has spread to New South Wales and Queensland, the joy I experienced of going to the Telstra Dome – I think that';s what they call it now – the Telstra Dome to watch Australia play Ireland in that great match. And once again, we were able to put on display to the rest of the world, not only our love of sport, but our capacity to organise things. So if you think I';m pretty impressed with what this country has achieved and where it stands in the world and the esteem with which it is held around the world, we';ll you';re right because we have a lot as Australians to be incredibly proud of.
But one of the things we have to be very proud of, of course, is our capacity at a local community level to address problems and to address challenges and one of the things that I';ve endeavoured to do as Prime Minister is to encourage the notion of what I call a social coalition. There are a lot of problems that can';t be solved by the Government alone. Governments are very bad at some things; they';re very good at other things. They';re very bad, in my view, at running businesses. I wouldn';t have governments run anybody';s business, quite honestly. When it comes to private enterprise, I think it';s a very very bad principle. I won';t go into some of the unhappy experiences that have occurred over the years at a state level and, indeed, sometimes in the past at a federal level as well. But there are other things governments are very good at and what we have to do is to build responses where you get the government doing the things it';s good at, you get the dedicated welfare organisation with government assistance doing the things that they are good at, you get dedicated individuals who have a sense of mission and philanthropy also involved and you marshal the business community. And I was delighted to read the other day the results of a survey carried out by the Queensland University of Technology, which showed that the (inaudible) changes that I';ve brought in over the last three or four years and (inaudible) encouraging charitable donations have begun to yield fruit and that the charitable donations have increased significantly as a result of those changes.
One of the welfare challenges of our society, one of the social challenges is the challenge of families that become at a very early stage dysfunctional. We';ve had a lot of debate about parental responsibility and parental performance. Let me state my philosophy very simply – I think the family is the most precious unit, the most precious thing we have in our community. There is nothing better than a loving, stable, united family and it provides the greatest measure of moral support, the greatest sense of fulfilment, the greatest reservoir that people can draw on in times of difficulty.
98 per cent of parents in Australia do the right thing and they don';t want any advice from any political figure about how to bring up their children, they know how to do it. What they want from the Government are a set of policies that enable them to exercise the choices that should reasonably be available. They want to decide whether one or both parents work while their children are young, or whether one of them works full-time and one of them works part-time. They want the right to decide what school they sent their children to. They want the right to make other choices. And the role of Government to facilitate that, to make that as far as we can afford to do so, to make that possible. But having done that, to get out of the way and let them raise their own children according to their priorities and their own sense of values and their sense, not the Government sense, of what is right and what is wrong.
But there are some families that don';t make it, and there are some kids that are born into such dysfunctional circumstances that they don';t have any hope at all, and we know that. And one of the things that we have tried to do under the Stronger Families and Communities programme that Jocelyn Newman and I launched here in Melbourne back in 2000, is to try and help intervene at an early stage, identify those families that are going to be at risk, that are going to be at risk, and provide them with some assistance. Now over the last few years it has been operating under the title of Connections, which is an agency of UnitingCare, which is part of the Uniting Church - an agency that does an absolutely magnificent job in helping the less privileged in our community. It has been operating a ‘working together'; programme which is designed to do exactly what I have described. It';s an early intervention service. It supports families, teachers and carers of pre school age children experiencing significant social and emotional difficulties which result in very challenging behaviour.
These are the families that governments should be particularly concerned about because they don';t really have a hope unless they are given some help. Not the families that are working well. We shouldn';t be interfering with them. We should be giving them choices, but let them… they';re better than we are at looking after their kids. But these others aren';t and they do need help. They need some intervention. So over the past couple of years this has been operating and I';m very happy to announce today that we';re going to provide another $800,000 in ongoing funding for the UnitingCare Connections.
Now in 2002/2003, this programme helped 125 families, and it works with parents and early childhood centre staff to provide children with necessary consistency. And the evaluation that I';m also releasing today, this blue document, shows how successful the programme has been to date. It';s making a real difference. For example, 82 per cent of the parents who use the service stated that they could manage their child';s behaviour better after attending the programme than they could before. And the latest funding will allow the programme to expand to address higher demands by providing for an extra two workers, enabling the programme to be delivered to the entire city of Bayside.
Now this is an excellent example in your community of how the Federal Government is working with community organisations in responding to those families that really are challenged and are finding it difficult. And we have a lot of other policies that provide the choices for the generality of families. But there are a small number and they';re all part of our community and they do need help. And the best way of helping them is for the Government to help the volunteer welfare organisations that have a sense of commitment and compassion. I mean I think the most wonderful welfare organisations you can possibly find are (inaudible) essentially that are attached to what we might call the traditional charities, the churches. I mean there is nothing better than to help organisations like the Salvation Army and Anglicare and St Vincent de Paul and the Smith Family and those organisations. They know what pain and hardship is all about and they do it out of a sense of Christian commitment, or commitment generally, mainly, but not exclusively Christian.
And my philosophy has always been if you want a problem of an acute social order solved, get beside those organisations, find out what they';re doing, preferably fund them rather than set up some new, complicated bureaucratic network which would probably involve a couple of years of argument between the Commonwealth, State and Local Government before it gets off the ground. That has been my experience. Some of you may think it';s a harsh judgement, but I';ve had a bit of experience with that. Because these organisations are there on the ground experiencing the problems and they often need more help and more resources.
Now that is very much my philosophy of how we all work together at a local level. I';m about those things working at a local level, but I';m also very much about the country working effectively at a national level. This country is strong, it';s united and it';s stable. Now I don';t claim a monopoly of wisdom in solving problems. I do my best. I get things wrong on occasions. I hope I get the majority of things right. But at the end of each three years, you will make a decision about that.
But can I say in this area you have a great local Member in Phillip Barresi. I mean he';s had a small business background, he';s identified with the community. He is Deakin in that sense, very much so. So I not only wish him well. I advocate him to you very passionately. He';s a great bloke. He';s worked very hard for you. Get behind him and send him back to Canberra on that day later on in the year, whenever it might be.
Thank you very much.
[ends]