Thank you very much Mal, Colin Barnett, the Leader of the Liberal Party in Western Australia, Sue Knowles, Mike Keenan, fellow Liberals and particularly the Liberal Party candidates for the northern suburbs of Perth in the forthcoming state election.
Can I start because this is the first public gathering that I have addressed in Western Australia since the 9th of October. Can I start by thanking the people of Western Australia for the wonderful level of support they gave to the Liberal Party on the 9th of October. It was greater than I thought we might get, it was wonderful, it delivered us two additional seats. It emphatically gave us more than three quotas in our own right in the Senate and it was part of a wonderful nationwide result.
But having said that and having expressed my gratitude to the people of Western Australia I'm really here today to ask the people of Western Australia to give that same measure of support to Colin Barnett and his team whenever the state election is called in Western Australia because it's pretty lonely, even when you've won four times, to have a Premiers Conference and you look around and you look at them all and they're all Labor. I mean it's very lonely. I mean I've been to a lot of Premiers Conference, I even remember one or two where the odd Liberal Premier would disagree with us too, but that's understandable, it's part of a vigorous federation. But we really do have a very important challenge in front of us here in Western Australia and my presence here today is to ask you to support Colin, to support these four wonderful candidates in areas that are so crucial to our chances of victory and also to recognise that it is in this state's interests to have a change of government.
Now it's pretty hard to get a change of government after only one term but it's been done before here in Western Australia, it was in fact done I think by Charlie Court when they tipped out the Tonkin Government after only one term in the early 1970s. And the reason why I would put the case for a change is like that every other part of Australia, Western Australia is benefiting from the national economic strength of Australia and I warn you now that all of the strength of the Western Australian economy over the next few weeks will be attributed by the Premier of Western Australia to his excellent economic management, rather than to the national economic management.
You see Labor Premiers tend to do this, if it goes bad of course it's all our fault, but if it goes good it's all due to their special selective economic policies. The truth is that most parts of Australia are performing very well at the present time but that is due to the very strong economic fundamentals that have been put in place by the Government and maintained federally for the last eight and a half years.
But Western Australia could be doing better. It could be doing better as far as investment, it could be doing better as far as industrial relations policy is concerned. And I said on radio this morning in Perth that as I move around Australia, businessmen do say to me that the climate for investment in this state would be better if the state government didn't have such a union dominated industrial relations policy. Now this state, more than any other state in Australia, needs the flexibility that has come with the industrial relations policy of the Federal Government and the industrial relations policy of the previous Liberal National Party Government here in Western Australia. And it's in that area in particular that I would make the case for the change very, very strongly because you need a complementarity between the federal law and the state law when it comes to industrial relations. Now we have benefited enormously as a nation from the flexibility of our industrial relations policy over the last eight and a half years and Western Australia at a state level has benefited as well. But over the last three to four years there has been a regression and I know from my experience of visiting the North West and the mining areas of Western Australia just how important the maintenance of individual contracts was to the productivity of the mining industry and how much they were apprehensive about a change of federal government before the 9th of October and equally how much they will welcome a change of government and a restoration of the greater flexibility at a state level that used to be the case here in Western Australia.
So my friends, I don't know precisely when the election is going to be, I don't suppose anybody does, but the natural political calendar tells me it's starting to get pretty close and you always seem to have state elections here in Western Australia in February, I mean you choose the hottest month on the calendar to have it, but I mean that's all part of the joy I suppose of campaigning. Don't lose any of your enthusiasm, I haven't. And I'm very happy to be here to support Colin, who I respect enormously, to advocate the cause of change, to ask the people of Western Australia to begin the process of restoring a bit of balance to the state governments of Australia.
It's not healthy to have them all one side of politics, it's not enough to say well you've got a federal Coalition Government. There are a lot of things the Federal Government can do but there are so many things that affect your daily lives that are exclusively the responsibility of state governments, the curriculum in the schools that your children attend, the public hospitals, the police services, three things that are absolutely vital to the quality of life that you have as you live here in Western Australia. And it's the same all over the country, there is nothing second rate or unimportant about the quality of state governments, it's not enough to have a good federal government, you've got to have a very good state government because there are so many things that are affected by those daily decisions that are taken by state governments. Now it's not easy, it's not easy to win after a party has been in power for only one term, there's a great tendency for people to say 'Oh give them a fair go', and there's nothing that has a greater resonance in Australia than saying 'Oh give the bloke a fair go'.
But when you've taken a state away from a sensible industrial order, when you have clearly given to particularly the building unions of this state a status above the law which is not enjoyed by those unions in other parts of the country you have a reason to say well you've had a fair go and you haven't treated us fairly and it's time that we gave somebody else a go.
So my friends, the enthusiasm that you so clearly displayed for the Coalition Government federally, the wonderful surge of support that put Michael Keenan in, that wonderful new Member for Stirling and it's great to see him here today. And made Stuart Henry the new Member for the seat of Hasluck, and of course gave Don Randall what we now regard as a safe seat, I mean Peter Costello and I want Don Randall to come and do fundraisers for us now in our electorate, he's done so well. That enthusiasm, I want you to bottle up, keep nourished over the Christmas period and then let it loose again when the state election battle is resumed after the Christmas break because it's going to be tough, it is very important and it will be decided in areas such as this, it will be decided by the fate of these three men for example in front of me. If they can win, Colin can win, if they can't win it gets very, very difficult indeed. So my friends, I'm here today... how are you Colin, good to see you. If these four blokes can win, I mean just wouldn't it be terrific? If the four of them could win then it really does make the prospect of regaining the treasury benches in Perth a reality.
So my friends, thank you again for your support on the 9th of October, for your energy, your enthusiasm, your commitment to the Liberal Party cause. Keep it going, give it to Colin, give it these four fellas and if you do so you can go to Easter with the double, you can then relax, for a while, I don't know any elections in mind next year, I can't assure you I've had enough for quite enough thank you and they come around all too often at a national level, after only three years. You can all have a break at Easter but between now and then you've got to work very hard to get Colin over the line and to get these four fellas elected as your new state members.
Thank you very much.
[ends]