Thank you very much Peter. Andrew Stoner, the Leader of the National Party in New South Wales, my Ministerial and Parliamentary colleagues. Can I start by saying to you Peter that you have not only my good wishes but my strong support and the active participation and help of all of my Federal Parliamentary colleagues in New South Wales and around the country in achieving your goals on the 24th of March next year.
As Prime Minister I travel the country a great deal and I can say to this audience here in Sydney that of all the State Governments around Australia, none is more frequently criticised and none is regarded as more incompetent than the Government of New South Wales. And I do believe very strongly that a change of Government in this state is not only on the merits something that ought to occur, but something that would be of enormous long-term benefit to the people of this state.
It's not often in national politics that we get agreement between the Government and the Opposition on one of the central issues of political debate. But we do at the present time. There's common agreement between myself and Mr Beazley, between the Coalition Government and the Labor Opposition about one thing, and that is that this country, as a nation, is living in very prosperous times. I've noticed in recent months, whenever spokesmen for the Labor Party get talking about the economy, they start by acknowledging that we really are in very prosperous circumstances as a nation. And that is true, there's no debate about that. The difference of course is that they then go on to say well yes we're very prosperous but it was all due to the things that we did more than 10 years ago, and it's also due to the fact that we're living off the back of a mining boom.
Now it is true that we are enjoying the massive benefits of the mining industry, coming principally, but not only out of Western Australia and parts of Queensland. But overwhelmingly this country is enjoying at a national level, great prosperity. It does vary a little around the country and clearly Western Australia and Queensland are outperforming the other states. And plainly there are changes that can be made at a state level that can have an impact on levels of economic performance in individual states.
But overwhelmingly we are living in the best economic times as a nation that we've had since World War II. It's more broadly based and it's more soundly rooted in the fundamentals of the economy than at any time in my living memory. We did have strong growth in the late 1960s, but that strong growth was behind very high tariff walls. We had a highly centralised wage fixing system, we had a fixed exchange rate, we were a very protected and cloistered economy. We are now a much more open, competitive, globalised economy and we're an economy that understands that we must export and compete in order to survive. And the transformation in the last 10 years has been truly remarkable. We're all familiar with the fact that we have the lowest unemployment in more than 30 years, that we have strong levels of business investment, and we are very conscious of course of the fact that we have run successive Federal Budget surpluses now for many years.
But there are a number of, sort of, what I would call economic nuggets that we're not perhaps as aware of as we should be. For example, in the June quarter of this year there were only 3.1 working days lost per 1000 employees in this country, and that's the lowest quarterly level of industrial disputes ever recorded by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. And the change in the building and construction industry, which is very important to the economic strength of this country, has been even more remarkable. The number of working days lost per thousand employees in that industry declined from 32.8 in the June quarter last year to only 7.6 in the June quarter of this year. And that's a combination of the impact of the building and construction industry legislation as well as our workplace legislation more generally.
Another perhaps misunderstood, or not properly understood fact about the strength of the economy is that more people in Australia want to get a job now than ever before. Since the beginning of last year, what's called the participation rate, that's the percentage of the total labour market who want to get a job, has been above 64 per cent and it's never been like that over the past 30 years except on two previous occasions. And another nugget, another reminder of the depth of our economic strength is that the latest OECD survey of Australia reported that average incomes in this country per capita GDP is now greater than that in any of the G7 countries, that's the wealthiest and strongest economies, with the exception of the United States.
And that same organisation, the OECD records that our net debt as a nation fell from a peak of 26.5 per cent of our national wealth in the mid 1990s to zero in 2005. And if you think that that's a good performance, let me remind you that the average level of general government net debt in the OECD is 46.5 per cent. Ours is zero and the average is 46.5 per cent across the OECD. I mention these figures my friends to underline the scale of the economic change and the extent to which we are fire-proofing this economy against the inevitable challenges that will come, sometimes from overseas and sometimes from domestic sources. Now there might be some in the audience who think, well that's all very well but they're averages and there are people who have fallen behind as a result. The reassuring thing on that front is that if you look over the last 10 years, the ratio of incomes earned by the highest against those earned by the lowest has not expanded. In fact there has been a tiny contraction which indicates that the argument that the rich have got richer and the poor have got poorer is not valid in relation to Australia over the last 10 years.
Now I make these points to simply clear the decks for the more important and very simple issue I want to put to you and that is that I am invited to talk about securing our future, about building our future, and I will be saying a lot about our future over the next 12 months because at the end of that period, the Australian people will make a judgement about their political future. And they'll be asked whether or not the Government deserves to be returned or whether they think a change of government is desirable. And my opponent, the Leader of the Opposition says that he is a great believer in national building, well I don't argue with nation building, I think it's a very laudable goal. I would have thought the most valuable way in which we can build our nation, given where we are at the moment, and given that we all agree across the political divide, that we are a very prosperous country, I think the best way that we can build our nation is to keep and expand the prosperity we now have. And I will be saying to the Australian people again and again in different forums, albeit using slightly different language but nonetheless saying essentially the same thing, and that is you have to make a choice as to which side of politics you think is better able to maintain the prosperity we both agree exists.
And that is my central thesis to you and to the Australian people. Do you really think we are going to better maintain the prosperity we now have which is a product of 10 to 15 years of economic reform by turning your back on economic reform, or do you think we are likely to better maintain it by continuing a process of economic reform? It's a trite thing to say but it's nonetheless true, that today's prosperity is the product of yesterday's reforms, just as tomorrow's prosperity will be the product of today's reforms. And the metaphor for the difference between our two parties on this issue is of course the central issue of industrial relations and I don't walk away from industrial relations reform being central to Australia's economic prosperity. If anybody in the Labor Party imagines that I am going to walk away from this as an issue or water down my continuing commitment to the value that industrial relations reform brings to this country then they are sadly mistaken. We've now had six months of WorkChoices. We were told the sky was going to fall in, we were told that wages would be driven down, we were told that there would be mass sackings, we were told there would be endless industrial disputes. After six months, we have 175,000 more jobs in the Australian community, we have, as I have recorded, the lowest level of industrial disputes the country has seen since the statistics were recorded, and we have clear evidence that real wages in this country have continued to grow. And I have every reason to believe that there will be a broad maintenance of that trend over the next six to 12 months. Now I am not saying all of that is due to WorkChoices, but what I am saying is that the Armageddon that we were told would occur as a result of our industrial relations changes simply hasn't come about. And I think there is growing evidence that the greater flexibility for small business, particularly through the removal of the job-destroying unfair dismissal laws, has played a significant part in the job growth that's occurred over that six month period.
Now in the face of all of that, it is clearly inconsistent with the maintenance of our prosperity for either side of politics to promise to reverse those reforms. In the past few days there are has been signed and lodged with the relevant office the one millionth Australian Workplace Agreement signed in this country since they were introduced some years ago. And it is very likely that by the time of the next election there will be close to one million Australian Workplace Agreements in existence and it defies commonsense as well as economic logic, for Mr Beazley to promise that he will get rid of all those agreements.
Australian Workplace Agreements underpin the very sector of the economy which he says is largely responsible for our prosperity, and that is the mining industry. Take Australian Workplace Agreements away from the mining industry in Western Australia and you cripple much of the productivity and the flexibility that has given that industry such a golden opportunity to be utilised on behalf of all of the Australian people.
So you can see why I regard attitudes on this particular reform as being a metaphor for the capacity of our side of politics to maintain the prosperity that this country now has. We were told by the Opposition after the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax that it was going to roll it back. They predicted doom and gloom, they predicted that there would chaos and confusion when that was introduced, it is now a distant memory and has become part of the economic framework and it has made a contribution to the economic strength that this country is enjoying.
There are my friends many things that will feature in the national political debate over the next 12 months. But none will be more important than the answer to that very simple question, and that is which side of politics will better be equipped, will be better equipped rather, to maintain the prosperity that we undoubtedly have? We are fortunate but we have made our own luck. We've worked harder and better and more flexibly as a people over the last 10 or 20 years than we probably have at anytime in our history. Australia has changed. We have embraced new attitudes and new industries, and both the business community and the employees of this country deserve praise for working together to achieve it.
But we cannot take that prosperity for granted if we go idle on reform, if we imagined that we've solved all our problems and we don't maintain the momentum of reform then we're going to start going backwards. You've heard me say it before but I'll say it again, economic reform is a bit like competing in a never-ending race towards a receding finishing line, you never get there, but if you stop running hard the blokes beside you are going to past you and you're going to fall behind in the race. And that is the sort of situation we face in Australia at the moment. If we don't keep reforming and changing then we're going to start going backwards. And I'll be putting to the Australian people in clear and no uncertain terms over the next 12 months that that is choice that face. Who is better able to maintain the prosperity we undeniably have? There's no argument that we have that prosperity, the argument is who is better able to maintain it? And if you use the commitment of this Government over the last 10 years to the cause of economic reform then I think the answer is a very compelling one.
Can I simply conclude by thanking all of you for coming along today. Many of you have been loyal and consistent and generous supporters of the New South Wales Division of the Liberal Party over many years. You've been very generous to us federally and I ask you to be very generous to us state-wise because we do have a task ahead of us. I don't like this Government having....this country having eight state and territory Labor governments. And I would like to see that change, I'll do everything I can to help Peter bring about that change here in New South Wales and I commit myself and my federal colleagues to achieving that great goal. Thank you.
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