Well thank you very much. Mr Leon Davis, Chairman of Westpac, Dr David Morgan, the Chief Executive Officer, the directors of the bank, ladies and gentlemen. As a modest, but nonetheless faithful and long-standing customer of the bank, I am delighted to be given the privilege of opening this magnificent new building that will concentrate so many of the administrative and other activities of the bank in one place. It will bring a modern congenial environment to the employees of the bank and it is a further demonstration of the extraordinary success of this financial institution in the contemporary, deregulated, prosperous environment of the early years of the 21st Century.
This bank, of course, is Australia's oldest in so many ways. It's been a witness to some famous events in Australian history. Its Jerilderie branch was, of course, held up by the Kelly Gang, and importantly in a political financial context, the Old Bank of New South Wales played an historic role in the fight against bank nationalisation in the late 1940s. And it was written, and I'm sure it must be roughly correct, that when that case was finally battled out before the judicial committee of the Privy Council, council for the private banks, I think led by the late Sir Garfield Barwick, addressed the board as it was called for some days, only exceeded by Dr Evatt, who appeared for the Commonwealth and who addressed them for an even longer period of time.
But that was a seminal moment in the history of banking in this country because if nationalisation had proceeded, the course of financial regulation and experience would have been altered forever. On a personal note again, I recall as Treasurer being informed by Bob White, who was then the Managing Director of the old Bank of New South Wales, of the new name. I'd rather foolishly romanced in the idea that maybe you could call it The Wales or maybe you could somehow or rather preserve a connection as a lot of customers at that time did. And this Westpac seemed to me at first a strange break from the past, but look how extraordinarily successful it's been.
And it encapsulated, of course, in its broader iteration, the notion of the Western-Pacific economic area, and of course that's so much where our future has been. We think of, well the future as looked at from the vantage point of 1982, we think of the enormous involvement this country now has in the whole Asia Pacific region. So the people who devised that name showed great foresight and great wisdom in choosing something that was not only new and different, but also distinctive and very perspicacious.
I want to take the opportunity of applauding the contribution that Westpac makes to the acceptance by major corporations of social responsibility and a commitment to partnerships in providing assistance to the less fortunate in our community. Hand in hand with greater wealth over the last 10 or 15 years has come a greater sense of social obligation by a growing number of corporations. It is not true that as we have got wealthier we have become meaner. The critics say that but the reality defies it. The level of philanthropy has expanded, the level of personal giving has expanded and although the rich have got richer, which always happens in a competitive capitalist society that we all believe in, it is not true that they have got richer at the expense of the poor getter poorer because living standards for different cohorts have risen. Not always proportionately, but they have risen.
So it is important to pay tribute to Westpac's contribution. It's not realistic for me, opening a bank in this thriving financial centre of Australia, without of course saying one or two words about economic conditions. They've been in the news a bit this week, and I don't know how many learned writers have said in various forms that we must always keep a sense of perspective about events. And I think it is important that we keep a sense of perspective about the economic strength and the economic health of our nation in 2006.
It is true, as I saw a very esteemed columnist write this week, and I have to be very careful in referring to esteemed columnists because some people have got into trouble doing that in recent days, but one esteemed columnist did write that we should not romance the idea that at a time of economic prosperity we should expect all news to be good news. And that is true, we can't. Nobody pretends, certainly least of all the Prime Minister, that increases in interest rates, particularly affecting home borrowers, represent good news as broadly defined, they certainly don't. But they do represent in this particular case the reality of a situation and a decision made by a central bank which I believe, and led by a governor who I think has done an outstanding job over the last decade, a central bank that has brought great continuity and great stability to economic development over the past decade.
We do have a very strong economy. Some have described it as a miracle economy, however exuberant that expression maybe, certainly measured by comparison with other nations, it clearly is a very strongly performing economy, and the wealth and the strength is very broadly based. And that I might remind you has been endorsed this week by two statements. One by the Reserve Bank statement accompanying the interest rate announcement, which certified to the ongoing strength, indeed even attributed much of the explanation for the decision to that strength, and also the frequent country report issued by the OECD, which pointed to the very considerable strengths of the Australian economy.
I think it's important for those who analyse monetary policy in Australia at the present time to remember something that is occasionally forgotten, and that is in these days of very strong fiscal surpluses, and very strong fiscal policy where there is no net debt, a remarkable achievement, monetary policy is carrying far less of the burden of economic adjustment and economic management than used to be the case. There was a time I think when the conduct of monetary policy was described as a swing instrument, in other words suggesting that it played a far more dominant role than perhaps it ought. And the fact that we do have very strong fiscal surpluses, and the fact that those surpluses are more transparent than use to be the case, then I think that points to a greater equilibrium between the different aspects of economic policy and means that less weight must necessarily be carried by monetary policy.
And what matters and what gives people confidence in economic management is consistent predicable management over a period of time. That is what the Government has tried to do, it's what the Government will continue to do, it is what the Reserve Bank in my view has done over the past decade. And it's a decade in which we have all enjoyed enormous prosperity, it's a decade that has seen the full follow through, if you like, of the benefits of financial deregulation.
When Westpac was formed we had still a very heavily regulated economy. We still had controlled interest rates, we still had a crawling peg arrangement for fixing the exchange rate and we still had heavy exchange controls. And all of that has gone, and as I have frequently said, credit is due to both sides of politics in Australia for those changes having been made.
So ladies and gentlemen this is an important occasion for the bank, it's an important reaffirmation of the contribution that this great institution has made to the common wealth, and I like that expression, of the Australian people. And can I say to Leon and to David, that the leadership that they give to this institution has been fully repaid in the confidence and respect in which it is held, and the quiet satisfaction of one of its more modest and occasionally conspicuous depositors. I have very great pleasure in declaring Westpac House open.
Thank you.
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