Last week, I attended the Austrade export awards. It was an honour to meet all of the finalists – who were all conquering overseas markets in fields as diverse as high-tech microphones, organic meat, and private sector ship certification.
RODE microphones, for instance, now has a network of 76 distributors and 2,000 retailers in 108 locations worldwide. Last year, it achieved export sales of $33 million – 10 per cent up on the previous year, despite the high dollar.
Unlike many in this room, it’s not a big company but it’s having a go and succeeding – and building a stronger Australia along the way.
Tasmanian Quality Meats has gone from nothing to $12 million a year in export sales to new markets in the Middle East. Along the way, it’s tripled its workforce, bringing prosperity and economic activity to a small town in Tasmania.
Then there was Rightship, originally a small joint venture between BHP and Rio, that now manages a quality assurance system for about 15 per cent of the world’s international shipping.
When businesses succeed, when they “have a go” as these businesses have done, more Australians enjoy that “fair go” that we pride ourselves on as a nation.
Australian business people developing an idea, having a go, and winning markets that no one had thought possible before – these success stories are a reminder that good people aren’t daunted by tough times.
Resources investment may have peaked, our GDP growth may be well below trend with terms of trade down 18 per cent in the past two years, and global growth does seem to be slowing.
Regardless of conditions, the challenge is always the same: to build the strongest possible economy with lower taxes and less red tape leading to higher productivity and stronger economic growth.
In the marrow of its bones, the new Government understands that you can’t have strong communities without strong economies to sustain them and you can’t have strong economies without profitable private businesses.
That’s why on election night, not quite three months ago, I declared that Australia is under new management and once more open for business. My business – the business of government – should be making it easier for you to do your business because government doesn’t create prosperity, business does.
Governments’ job is to make it easier for good businesses to do their best.
And when I look at a business audience, any business audience, I don’t see people who exploit workers, who rip off customers or who damage the environment.
I see people who have taken risks, often enough have put their own homes on the line, to give Australians jobs, to provide the goods and services that all of us need and to build the prosperity that makes our country such a great place to live.
As far as the new Government is concerned, profit is not a dirty word and success in business is something to be proud of.
That’s why almost everything we’ve done over the past three months has been to make it easier for Australians to do business.
On day one, we saved the car industry from Labor’s $1.8 billion FBT hit. We saved nurses, teachers and tradies from an attack on their self-education expenses.
Most of the former government’s nearly 100 announced-but-not-enacted tax changes won’t go ahead because that means lower taxes and less paperwork.
We’ve closed 21 non-statutory bodies as a down-payment on our commitment to reduce business red tape costs by $1 billion a year.
The carbon tax repeal legislation has passed the House of Representatives.
The mining tax repeal legislation has passed the House of Representatives.
There are bills before the Parliament to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission, a strong cop on the beat in a tough industry; and to impose the same penalties on dodgy union officials as on dishonest company directors.
The Commission of Audit, a once-in-generation review of the size, scope and efficiency of government is well under way, chaired by the BCA’s own Tony Shepherd, who originally called for this important measure some two years ago. He has promised me that he will make practical recommendations not simply present an aspirational wish list.
Another once-in-generation review, the “Son of Wallis” inquiry into financial services, is about to start, chaired by the former Commonwealth Bank and Future Fund head, David Murray.
Tonight, I can announce that the Commonwealth has provided to the states and territories draft terms of reference for the first big review of competition policy since the Hilmer review two decades back.
Handled properly, better competition policy is a big micro-economic reform with the Hilmer changes, for instance, adding an estimated 2.5 per cent to Australia’s overall GDP.
This new review is designed to ensure that businesses big and small are competing on a genuinely level playing field because fierce but fair competition will give every business the best chance to succeed and give every customer the best chance of a good price.
Also tonight I announce that the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council will be chaired by Maurice Newman and will include:
- Jac Nasser, the chairman of BHP and the former global head of Ford;
- Michael Chaney, the chairman of the National Australia Bank and a University Chancellor;
- Catherine Livingstone, the chairman of Telstra;
- Solly Lew, one of our foremost retailers;
- Peter Fox, who runs fleets of heavy trucks here and in much of Asia;
- Daniel Grollo, head of one of our most successful and innovative construction companies;
- Graham Kraehe, chairman of BlueScope and Brambles;
- Jane Wilson, a medical specialist and director of public companies;
- Gary Banks, former head of the Productivity Commission;
- Barry Irvin, head of Bega Cheese; and
- John Hart, who heads Catering Australia, and will bring a small business perspective to the Council’s deliberations.
I thank everyone who expressed interest in joining the Council. Along with the BCA, this Council should be more than capable of guiding, encouraging and, where necessary, warning the new Government, officials, as well as ministers, as we put in place the building blocks of the stronger economy that people voted for.
Big new infrastructure projects like WestConnex in Sydney, the East West Link in Melbourne, the Gateway upgrade in Brisbane, the Perth Gateway, the North South Rd in Adelaide, and the Pacific and Bruce Highway upgrades are being accelerated.
We’re dealing with debt that was spiralling way beyond $400 billion by not continuing payments like the schoolkids bonus that was just a cash splash with borrowed money.
We’re fixing the NBN which was billions over budget and years behind schedule.
We’re playing our part to improve schools which have gone backwards academically even though real Commonwealth spending increased 10 per cent between 2008 and last year.
This is not an occasion for making party political points but I do want to say to you very frankly that we are cleaning up the mess that we inherited and we are keeping our commitments.
Meanwhile, others in the Parliament remain focussed on what they think is smart politics rather than good government.
I think they have much to learn; I think the BCA has much to teach them.
The Coalition in opposition tried to stop a government from breaking its election commitments. The current Opposition is trying to stop a government from keeping its election commitments.
Yes, the Coalition has knocked back one – just one – foreign investment application, out of more than 130 received, but I do want to stress that foreign investment applications will always be considered on their merits and approved where it is in the national interest to do so.
If I may say so, only from the outside, does government mostly seem a matter of choosing right from wrong. On the inside, it much more often involves choosing the greater good or the lesser evil; getting the best possible outcome, not necessarily the perfect one.
Since the election, environmental approval has been given to new projects worth $160 billion and one stop shop approvals processes are already underway in Queensland and in New South Wales.
Free trade negotiations with South Korea, Japan and China, our three biggest trading partners, have been accelerated with the aim of concluding them within a year.
On the weekend, Australia assumed the presidency of the G20, the world’s most important economic body and will use it to promote freer trade, economic infrastructure and private-sector-led growth with less tax leakage through enshrining the principle that tax should be paid in the country where income is actually earned.
Much has been achieved in less than 100 days.
It’s happened because ministers have been immersed in the business of government rather than holding daily press conferences making announcements that turn out to mean much less than they seem.
Governments do have to lead opinion but should never confuse merely making an announcement with actually implementing a policy.
In government, actions speak louder than words and competent government rather than clever media management is what’s likely to earn voter respect in three years time.
Requiring Cabinet submissions to be lodged 10 days before consideration so they can be properly digested by departments and probed for unintended consequences is the tried and true Westminster way of running an effective government.
Normally, it’s better to get things right than to rush them through.
So, tax reform starts with abolishing the carbon tax and the mining tax but it doesn’t end there. The coming tax reform white paper will inform the mandate for lower, simpler, fairer taxes that the Government will seek at the next election.
Workplace relations reform starts with enforcing the rule of law but it doesn’t end there. The coming Productivity Commission review will inform the mandate for higher wages based on higher productivity that the Government will seek at the next election.
Reform of government starts with the Commission of Audit but it doesn’t end there. The coming white paper on the federation will inform the mandate for less overlap and duplication that the Government will seek at the next election.
Make no mistake, this Government is determined to be a reforming one, in the tradition of the Hawke and Howard governments, but we will be pragmatic reformers rather than ideological ones.
Good government does what it can today so that it can get what it wants tomorrow.
Out of all organisations, the Business Council of Australia should understand this.
Your members employ over a million people and pay $30 billion a year in company tax.
Each one of you makes a big contribution to our country and has too much at stake to make even the right decisions at the wrong time.
The careful, detailed analysis and proper consideration of consequences that’s required in the management of a large company is no less necessary in matters of state.
Australia will be quite different in a few years’ time because a Coalition, rather than a Labor government, has been calling the shots and calling them with a preference for freedom.
Still, in a stable, peaceful, pluralist democracy few things change dramatically overnight, nor should they.
The BCA’s blueprint for reform published earlier this year acknowledged this with its timetable of what could realistically be achieved in the first term of a new government.
Few organisations aspire more strongly than the BCA to lower taxes, to greater freedom and smaller government and that makes the BCA, if I may say so, a Coalition government’s natural partner in reform.
In the 1990s, the Howard government implemented the reforms that the BCA had championed in the 1980s and that helped to produce higher wages, more jobs and greater wealth.
In our own way and in our own time, we too will be a reforming government and our country will be much the better for it.
I am confident that the BCA will continue to tell the Government what it should do: to repeal the carbon tax, to repeal the mining tax, to cut red tape and to get the Budget back under control.
Even more importantly, I hope the BCA will tell others what to do particularly everyone who is trying to stop the Government from putting the BCA’s very good advice into practice.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a real honour to be here on this the BCA’s night of nights.
The BCA in a way which is rare amongst the lobby groups and organisations of our country understands that the business of running this country is not about any one of us it is about all of us. The BCA understands that the public good is the national interest not the sectional interest.
You have seen that, perceived it and pursued it in a way that very, very few other organisations in our society have.
There has been an intellectual rigour, may I say it, a practical idealism to the work of the BCA over the last 30 years.
And let’s face it at least 25 years of the last 30 have been very good hears for our country, very good years for public policy in this country thanks in no small measure to the work that you have done.
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