Thank you very much Michael for those warm words of introduction. To you my fellow Australians and fellow Liberals, it is a great delight to be back again in Queensland. I'm growing fonder of the place every year. This is the third visit in the last three weeks. But why wouldn't you after the magnificent result was delivered here a year ago at the last election by the Liberal and National Parties. And in congratulating my good friend and former flatmate, Warwick Parer and I shared a flat together for a long time, so he better not get out of line, there are few things I know about him that nobody else does, and vice versa, I might say.
I'm delighted to congratulate Warwick and thank him for again undertaking to do good things for the Liberal Party, good things for Queensland and good things for Australia in public service. And I'm also very delighted to have my friend and colleague Bruce Scott, the President of the Queensland Division of the National Party with us today. I am as you know a devoted Coalitionist. The Liberal and National Parties when they work together, win together.
The years of greatest success for the Liberal and National Parties in Australia have been the years when they have worked together. And we must never forget that we have but one common political enemy, and that is the Australian Labor Party and all of those who might fellow travel with the Australian Labor Party.
But I do want at this convention to record my immense gratitude to the Queensland Division for the wonderful result you delivered just over a year ago. To particularly congratulate three of your number who joined us for the first time. To congratulate Andrew Laming in Bowman, Ross Vasta in Bonner and Russell Trood who was elected to the Senate. And it will never be forgotten that the victory of Russell Trood and Barnaby Joyce together gave us, along with the two re-elected members, senators, gave us four out of six seats, and it gave real substance to that immortal advertising slogan of 'Queensland beautiful one day, perfect the next'.
We won the last election not only here in Queensland but throughout Australia for two reasons. We won because the people of Australia trusted us to properly manage the Australian economy and they also trusted us on national security. They were the dominate issues of that election campaign. And a year on, they remain the dominate issues in national political life. Management of the Australian economy, ensuring that the economic strength that's given us a 30-year low in unemployment, that's given us a 15 per cent increase in real wages, the lowest interest rates in more than 30 years, taxation relief, the repayment of the $96 billion of Labor debt that we inherited in 1996, management of the Australian economy still lies at the key of the future prosperity of this country.
Right at the moment the Parliament is debating major changes to our workplace relations reforms. Those changes are big but they are fair. These changes are needed to guarantee the continuation of the economic strength that we have enjoyed over the last nine-and-a-half years. There's always a temptation when you are doing well to sit back and oh we've done enough. Let's not risk doing anymore, it's going well, everybody's got a job, taxes are coming down, interest rates are low, wages are strong, the country's paid off its debt, just quietly sit down and do nothing more. That's very tempting and it's in essence what we are being urged to do by our political opponents and some others. But it would be a recipe for future decline.
If this Government were to do that it would be righteously condemned. In five or ten years time when the relatively strong position that Australia now has in the world will have fallen down, when the gains that we have made over the last decade would have dissipated. And rightly the Liberal Party convention of five or ten years time, both here in Queensland and around Australia would be entitled to say, why on earth didn't the Howard Government keep going with economic reform? I've used the metaphor before and I use it again, that economic reform is a bit like participating in a race towards an ever receding finishing line. You never quite get there, you never get to a point when you say I've crossed the finishing line. But you've got to keep going because if you don't, the other blokes in the race are going to run past you. And those other blokes in the race are our competitors around the world. We live in a globalised world economy, we can't go back on that, whether we like aspects of it or not, it is with us for all time. And what we have to do is out-compete the world. And that means that we must continue with the process of economic reform.
People have attacked our workplace relations reforms. They say they are not fair. Let me quote you a Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, a successful Labour leader, he might be having one or two domestic problems at the moment but he's been the Prime Minister of Great Britain since 1997 and I have my differences with him of course, because he's a Labour Prime Minister, but I respect some of the courage that he's displayed on international issues. And when he spoke to the Trade Union Congress in 1997 - just after being elected, he said that he was going to keep the labour market reforms of the Thatcher years. And he said that fairness in the workplace starts with a chance of a job. And he spoke a truth. And he spoke a truth that the unemployed of Australia understand. And one of the great philosophical weaknesses of the union and Labor Party attack on our workplace relations reforms is that they never factor in the interest of the unemployed. They never talk about an industrial relations system that is directed towards maintaining and even improving our current low level of unemployment.
In reality the only guarantee of job security and high real wages in this country is a strong economy. Not the industrial relations system. The language of an industrial relations system will not guarantee somebody job security or higher wages if the economy goes into decline. In the early 1990s when we had Mr Keating's recession that we had to have, when a million Australians were out of work, when real wages were in freefall in many parts of the economy, we had a more regulated labour market than we have now. We had massive theoretical protections for workers. But theoretical protections are no good if the economy is in decline. If a firm is not making profits it can't employ people. You can have all the laws in the world protecting the people you are meant to employ when you're doing well, but if you're not doing well you can't employ people, you have to let them go. And no industrial relations system can stop that happening.
And therefore you have to ask yourself a simple question when you look at our industrial relations reforms, will they strengthen the economy? Will they make the economy more productive? Will they encourage the making of more bargains at a workplace level? Because that is the foundation of greater productivity. And that is the real test if our industrial relations reforms. Will they or will they not strengthen the economy? If they will strengthen the economy they'll be good for jobs and they'll be good for high wages. And overwhelmingly these reforms will lift productivity and strengthen the economy. And particularly will they strengthen the small business sector of the Australian economy. And I don't think there is a state in Australia which is more critically dependent on small and medium size businesses than the State of Queensland.
The very structure of the Queensland economy, the decentralised nature of the State means that overwhelmingly the driver of economic activity, the creator of jobs in Queensland is the small and medium size sector. And these reforms very particularly will aid small and medium business. At long last we will get the monkey of the unfair absurd, unfair dismissal laws off the back of small business. Those laws were meant to protect jobs, they have in fact destroyed jobs. They have intimidated small businessmen and women from taking on more staff because of the complexities involved when you have to let somebody go for the sake of your business and for the sake of the their fellow employees.
They are not some God given right from Magna Carta, as the Labor Party and the unions would have you believe. They were in fact only introduced in 1994 as a result of a secret deal made between the trade union movement and the then Prime Minister, Mr Keating. And in the 11 years that they have been in existence they have in fact retarded job growth in the small business sector, and their removal will not hurt workers, their removal will aid workers and create job opportunities.
My friends, the events of the past two weeks, indeed of the past few days have underlined the need for continued vigilance on issues of national security and terrorism. The fight against terrorism around the world, and very particularly here in Australia, will be long and hard. I can't stand before you today and say that in such and such a time we can say that the fight against terrorism has been successfully concluded. What I can say to you is that it is a new challenge to our society. It's a new challenge to liberal societies embracing traditional western values. It is not a conventional enemy. When you think of terrorism you don't think of armies rolling across boarders. You don't think of formal declarations of war or of ambassadors being recalled, you don't think of any of that. You are dealing with an unpredictable, shadowy, totally indecent, obscene enemy, an enemy that in the last few years has claimed the lives of more Muslims around the world than any other identifiable religious group.
I mention that very deliberately because we do need to understand the juxtaposition of Islam to the terrorist threat. Terrorism is repugnant to the values of Islam, as it is repugnant to the values of Christianity and Judaism, indeed to the values of all the other great religions of the word. And anything that I say or anything that is said about the need to resist and fight terrorism should not be seen as, in any way, an attack upon people of the Muslim faith or of Islamic identification.
Islamic Australians are as much a part of our community as any other section of Australian society. We should say that, we should practice that and we should mean that. But equally we must understand that the common thread that runs through terrorism, be the potential of it here in Australia, be it in Indonesia, be it in Iraq, be it in Jordan, be it in Britain, be it in America, be it anywhere, the common thread that runs through it is a perverted, fanatical form of Islam - which cannot deride justification from the proper tenets of that religion, but nonetheless is the common cement or justification used by those who seek to recruit people to the terrorist cause.
Now that puts obligations on us. It puts obligations on us as a community to reach out to our fellow Australians who are law abiding Muslims and say to them, you are our friends, you are part of this fight, terrorism is much an enemy of yours as it is of ours, that's our obligation. It is also an obligation on the Islamic community to understand the perverted attempts of some within its ranks to recruit people to the terrorist cause. So there's, as in so many other aspects of society, there are rights and there are also responsibilities. And as I've said before over the past few days, I say again to my fellow Australians who are Muslims, there is nothing in the new laws that we have introduced, there is nothing in the activities of the Australian law enforcement authorities over the past few days that represent in anyway a generalised attack on the Islamic community. There is no singling out. There is no scapegoating, what they are doing is simply dealing with alleged breaches of Australian law. And all Australians are equal before the law. We all have the same rights and we also have the same responsibilities. And it is our responsibility to see that that is practiced. It is the responsibilities particularly of the leaders of the Islamic community to ensure as best they can, with our cooperation, that those within their midst who might seek to pervert the minds particularly of the young, to a distorted obscene form of Islam are identified and dealt with as best they can.
But the events of the past two weeks, and I don't for reasons I am sure you will understand, want to dwell on them because we believe very, very much in this nation in that age old presumption of innocence. People are entitled to their day in court and these matters in the end will be decided in the time honoured Australian tradition before properly constituted courts of law.
But I want to assure you and I want to assure my fellow Australians that this Government will never shrink from taking those actions that are needed to defend the Australian community, that the actions that we have taken over the past few weeks to change the laws of the country to provide additional protection for the Australian community are totally justified. We are living in a different era. I wish the era did not require us to change the laws in the way that we have but we were living at a time when those laws were not necessary. But the reality is that we are dealing with a different and a new challenge and it is one that I know the Australian people will respond to and respond to in a strong but fair fashion because the characteristic of the Australian people on these issues is always to identify legitimately the national interest but equally to see that that national interest is pursued firmly, but in a way that is fair and just to all of our citizens.
My friends next week I will go to Korea to attend the annual meeting of the APEC countries. A gathering of the leaders of the Asian Pacific nations, that part of the world where increasingly our economic, as well as a large part of our political, focus is to be found. This morning I had the opportunity of a lengthy discussion with President Bush to talk about a number of the issues amongst other things that are going to be discussed at that APEC meeting. And high on that list was our joint concern to try and win some progress in the current World Trade Organisation negotiations. The outlook at present is not bright. The Americans have made, I think, a significantly more generous offer in relation to agriculture than had previously been the case. But disappointingly the European response to date has not matched the initiative of the United States and it remains Australia's very strong view, not only because of our legitimate national interest in freer and more open access for our agricultural exports, but also because we believe a more open trading system in agriculture will be of enormous benefit to the least developed countries in the world.
An open trading system, a removal of the restrictive barriers of the European Union and the other countries that impose restrictive agricultural policies and that includes Japan and the United States, the removal of those barriers would do far more by a factor of perhaps three or four than the current levels of aid to those countries.
Trade is more valuable to the poor countries of the world than aid because trade opens up economic opportunities. Trade generates jobs, it encourages business investment, it allows the developing countries of the world to participate more fully in the benefits of a globalised world economy. We also agreed that as much joint action to meet any future challenge of avian flu in our region would also be something high on our agenda and just the week before last Australia hosted here in Brisbane a meeting of all the senior medical officials of the APEC countries. And in many ways Australia has already provided a significant lead in this area and it will continue to do so.
Both of us have also looked forward to the first meeting of the Asian Pacific Partnership for Clean Energy and Development that will meet in Australia early in January and this body brings together some of the major economies of the world. It recognises, in a way that the Kyoto Protocol does not recognise, the legitimate interests of countries like Australia who are developed countries and net exporters of energy and who would be greatly harmed if this country were to accede to the Kyoto Protocol, which is the policy of the Australian Labor Party. But I don't think it is the policy of the Queensland Labor Government for the most obvious of reasons, because this is a great exporting State, this is a State that derides enormous wealth and also sees the generation of a large number of jobs in the energy sector.
We are completely committed to the goals of Kyoto, the goals that see a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. We are never going to assent to a protocol that would see Australian jobs exported to other countries that were not bound by the same Kyoto rules that this country would be bound by if we were to accede. And I might make the point again that this country will on present trends meet the greenhouse gas emission target that was laid out in the Kyoto discussions of some years ago.
The energy partnership that involves Australia, the United States, Japan, China, Indonesia and a number of other countries, India as well, that represents a pragmatic achievable approach to the issue of greenhouse gas emissions without the liabilities of signing the Kyoto Protocol.
My friends I want to conclude on a personal note. On a personal note that expresses my gratitude firstly to all of my parliamentary colleagues here in the State of Queensland that expresses my admiration for the contribution they make as ministers, as parliamentary secretaries and as senators and members. Queensland has never had a stronger Liberal Party contingent in the national parliament. Not only stronger in numbers which is undoubtedly the case but also stronger in quality and it is always a source of immense pride to me when I think back over the last nine-and-a-half years to think of the tremendous resurgence of Liberal support here in Queensland in 1996 and the way in which in one way or another we seem to keep, apart from a few setbacks in 1998, we seem to keep adding to it as the years went by.
We added to it in 2001, we reclaimed Dickson and of course we reclaimed Ryan and we added to it again in 2004 when we won Bowman and we magnificently won Bonner and of course we won a majority in the Senate courtesy of that magnificent result. So it is always a source of tremendous pride and can I say to Michael Caltabiano, the retiring State President, that I congratulate him and his colleagues on the wonderful victory under the leadership of Bob Quinn that was won in those two by-elections.
I believe there has been a change in the atmosphere of Queensland State politics. I believe that there is new hope and heart for the Coalition parties here in Queensland. You have worked out in your particular Queensland style, of which I am not unfamiliar, you have worked out a partnership, an alliance and a way of handling things and I think it is on the money. It really is and I think there is a change. Those two by-election results which recorded wonderful swings and to you Michael you gave up a position in the Council, you took on a big challenge and I think it was great result and a great credit to you and to Bob and to all of your friends in the now State Parliamentary Party in Queensland, that you were able to achieve the results. One of the things that warmed me when I watched the television pictures the night of the by-election before the results were known, I spotted Ron Boswell and Bruce Scott handing out how-to-vote cards and that is how it should be, that we should work together. We only have one enemy politically and that is the Australian Labor Party and we should never forget it. Although Bob Brown and the Australian Democrats try fairly hard to get into the picture on occasions.
But the last year has seen the Government continue to do the things that it was elected to do, seen the Government continue to manage the economy, seen the Government preside over an extraordinary growth in jobs, something like 1.6 to 1.7 million jobs now created since we were elected and we have seen interest rates remain low. We were able to afford significant tax cuts in the last Budget which were opposed by Mr Beazley, I mean he sort of had his explanations and he had his charts and he had his convoluted language but at the end of the day he voted against the tax cuts and they ultimately went through because they realised in the end after 30 June with our majority of one in the Senate there was really no alternative.
Of course, we have continued to provide the leadership that is necessary to be provided in the face of the new and difficult terrorist challenge that we face. My friends I want to thank you again for the tremendous loyalty and support that you have extended to me and to the Federal government. I want to renew my commitment to governing for all Australians, particularly in relation to economic management and issues of national security. We may have been in office for nine-and-a-half years but we have not tired of the challenge. We have not got lazy on the job. We have not begun to suffer reform fatigue. We still have very big and determined and energetic plans for the future prosperity of this great nation of ours.
Thank you.
[ends]
**Note: Indonesia is not a member of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate.