Well thank you very much Gary, to the mayor's of the Snowy of Cooma and Bombala, to all of the other distinguished guests that are here, I'm delighted to be back in Cooma. This is a city which is, I suppose over the long years, best known to me as a place I visited and travelled through on the way to the snow fields, at a time when I did something more than just walk everyday. But it's great to be back and it's especially good to be here in the electorate of Eden-Monaro with my friend and colleague Gary Nairn. Gary is a wonderful local member. This is an extraordinarily diverse electorate. It stretches, of course, from the outskirts of Canberra right down to the border. It includes the famous, large parts of the famous Snowy area and if the redistribution plan goes through, it will include all of it and it includes some coastal areas and of course a lot of other very diverse areas. And Gary brings to it a great energy and a great enthusiasm. And Gary is as, you know, somebody who travels around his electorate on a regular basis, and he does listen and he does communicate.
He did mention in his introductory remarks the events leading up to the Commonwealth Government's decision to reverse its position on the privatisation of the Snowy. I acknowledge that that was something on which the Federal Government made a mistake. When the New South Wales and Victorian Governments decided to privatise we decided to go along with it because our stake was only 13 per cent and I'm not going to turn around and say it was their decision and it was their fault. Of course they took a decision ahead of us, but we went along with it; when you go along with something and you decide that that decision was a wrong decision there's no point in trying to blame somebody else and I don't. We made a mistake but we did listen to what people had to say, we changed our decision and I gather most people in this area are very happy that we did change our decision.
The point of mentioning that, my friends, is that nobody, in a more persistent, effective way, have pointed out to me the mistake of the original decision more effectively than did your local member Gary Nairn. He didn't headline hunt, he didn't grandstand, he didn't break ranks, he is part of the Government and he knows that that carries with it certain responsibilities, but he put his case, and he put it very effectively and in the end he put it very decisively. So that decision, a mistake originally, a mistake repaired, is now behind us. And I want to say to all of you how committed I am to the prosperity and the success of regional areas of Australia, such as this part of New South Wales. I was looking at some employment figures on the way down in the plane and I noticed that this area of Australia now has an unemployment rate which averages about three per cent. And that is a remarkable improvement on what it was 10, 15 or even 20 years ago, and it's an indication of the general prosperity of the area.
But I'm also very conscious that drought affects large parts of Australia. And once again I was looking at some figures on the plane coming down here and over the last five years the Commonwealth Government has laid out about a billion dollars in drought assistance to the various areas of Australia that have been affected by drought and more than half of that has been allocated to areas in the State of New South Wales. And I want to announce this morning that we are extending, extending until the end of year, and that will take us through the winter and spring, to see what happens with the weather, extending the Exceptional Circumstances arrangements that have been available to people affected in this part of New South Wales.
What that will do is it will enable those people who continue to be affected by drought to get the assistance, the income support assistance and the other assistance that is available under the Exceptional Circumstances arrangements, be able to get through the rest of the winter and the spring and then we'll make another assessment of the situation as we get towards the end of the year. It is a difficult time and it's always hard when there's a broad level of national prosperity, it's always that much harder for people, who through no fault of their own, not because they're not trying, not because they're not working hard, but through no fault of their own are missing out. And drought has been an enormous problem for this country now for many years. And Gary mentioned a moment ago that the speech I made in Sydney on Monday about energy and water, and I was talking particularly about the challenges of water restrictions in urban areas but of course it's a problem that has a different and even more menacing dimension in rural areas of Australia where it affects very directly on a daily basis the livelihood of so many hundreds of thousands of our fellow Australians.
So I can promise people in drought affected areas of the Monaro, I can promise people in drought affected areas all over Australia, that this Government is very conscious of and will continue to respond in a generous and effective fashion to the impact that drought is having on our nation. And in the process we must as a community think in a more imaginative way than we have in the past, and we do need a revolution in our thinking about the water challenge. We need major projects cooperatively entered into by the Commonwealth and the state governments to tackle water problems. We need to change our thinking in relation to the run-off of storm water in our cities. We need to change our thinking about recycling of water and we need of course to push ahead very strongly with the water trading system that the states and the Commonwealth agreed on some two or three years ago, a scheme pioneered by the former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, that recognises that water is the precious asset, it's a valuable commodity and it needs to be treated as such. We need to conserve it and nurture it a lot more than we do and we need to understand that over the longer term an effective nationwide trading system in relation to water is an imperative to solving our problems and our challenges.
I just want to say two other things to you this morning and that is that I've made some remarks about issues that are very important and immediate local concern to all of you but I can't address any gathering of Australians without mentioning the very challenging and difficult international circumstances in which the world finds itself. The conflict in the Middle East, the immediate cause of which was the totally provocative action of Hezbollah in crossing the Israeli border and capturing Israeli soldiers and going into Israel's territory, it's a conflict that has caught up many thousands of citizens of other countries, not least some citizens of Australia. And my Government, along with other Governments, is doing everything it can to help people escape the conflict, people who have been caught there, either visiting relatives, in some cases of course people have chosen to live in that country rather that in Australia, but we're doing everything we can in cooperation with other countries in order to assist those people to leave Lebanon and to comeback to Australia.
But looking to the longer term, we are never going to have a solution to that problem until everybody who has an influence or a stake in the Middle East, unconditionally accepts two things. Firstly there must be an unconditional acceptance of the right of Israel to exist and have secure defensible borders and be free from constant attack and constant attacks by terrorists. That's the first condition, and the second condition, there has to be an unconditional acceptance of the creation of an independent Palestinian state which gives to the Palestinians the homeland that they have sought for so many years. And until, on all sides and all around the world, there's an unconditional acceptance of those two principles, we're never going to have a solution to the problem. And the sad thing is that there is not an unconditional acceptance of those things in the Middle East; why else would we have the, year after year, the terrorist attacks into Israel? Why else would we have until fairly recently a reluctance on many in that part of the world to accept a need for the creation of an independent Palestinian state? But they are the two conditions. We often hear in these things that you've got to talk about the long term and not the short term. The long term solution can only be reached and achieved on that particular basis.
And also can I say that yesterday I had the opportunity of briefly visiting East Timor to meet the newly installed Prime Minister and also the President, and very importantly to say thank you to the 2500 Australian Defence Force personnel and police who've collectively done an absolutely fantastic job in restoring order to the streets of Dili and restoring a sense of calm and a greater level of security to the people of East Timor. And I think we should give them a great deal of applause because nobody does this work better than Australians because our forces have that rare gift of combining military authority with human understanding; that people have got to get on with each other. And to see the Australian troops and the Australian police interacting with the children on the streets of Dili and to see them interacting with the local people, not pushing them around, asserting their authority which they must, but doing it in a way that makes every Australian feel very proud. That country that has a particular place in the hearts of many Australians especially of World War II generation, the generation who remember the risks that the people of East Timor took during some of the more difficult times during World War II to help Australian soldiers. That country is one that we do have a particular responsibility for.
But like any nation, like any individual, it's got to learn to stand on its own feet. And I said to the Prime Minister that whilst we're there for the long haul, we're there to help in the long run, East Timor has got to grab her own destiny. And she has by dint of the revenues from the Timor Straight oil and gas field, she has greater endowments and greater opportunities than many other people, many other countries of that size have.
Very finally my friends could I take the opportunity because this is a great community gathering, to pay tribute to the volunteer spirit of the Australian community. We are a great volunteer people. The number of volunteers in this country continues to rise. The level of philanthropy in Australia continues to increase. Don't believe the stories that as we become wealthier we've become meaner; the figures actually disprove that. But the reality is that as Australians have become wealthier, we have become more philanthropic. And there is a spirit in this country, a willingness to reach out and a willingness to help people and a greater intention on the part of the Australian community all around our country for groups to come together to assist and to challenge community problems and to provide community solutions. And this part of Australia, of course, which perhaps more than any other part of Australia trail blazed the nation building through migration that occurred in Australia after World War II, has been an example of building a community through different groups coming together, behind a common goal, and that is to build a united cohesive and tolerant Australian nation.
So I'm very happy to be here in Cooma, the centre of the Snowy. I'm delighted to again commend to you Gary Nairn, whose been a wonderful member, a great friend, a great colleague, a fine Minister, but most importantly to you, somebody who understands you, listens to you, speaks up for you and tells me what you think.
Thank you.
[ends]