MACQUARIE~ NETWORK WTEEKLY BROADCASTS
BY THE PRI-T MINISTER, TIF RT. HON. WILLIAM
McMATION, CH. 12 ARIL, 1.972
Good Evening: Maccuarie Network has made available one night each
week so that I can speak to the A11ustralian people on matters of
great national interest. I welcome the opportunity they have
given to me to speak to you.
Naturally enough on an occasion like this, I think it
would be desirable if I spokr about the mini-Budget we introduced
into the House of Rex~ resentatives last night.
You will probably remember that when we introduced
the last Budget in the middle of last year, we made the statement
that if we felt the economy needed an additional stimulus, or that
a change in policy was necessary, w~ e would do so immediately.
Since then, we have confirmed the view that it is
better to make our policy decisions known as scon as we could, rather
than to wait for another Budget or to wait until an election
policy speech was made.
So throughout the year in accordaince with this
decision, we have gradually given increased stimuli to the economy.
We started off with monetary Do] Lcy early in the year. We then
had the Premiers' Conference %,, here we made large sums of money
available for works and housing and for other purposes.
We made sumns of money available for education,
particularly at the independent schools, and for buildings in
the public schools. And now we have made several very important
decisions that intimately affect you.
The first of these decisions relates to income tax.
During the Budget last year we increased income tax by 2 per
cent. We have now decided that this part of the tax will be
takpn off, and it will mean that you will have an extra $ 117 million
over the year in your own pockets rather than paving to the
Income Tax Commissioner. We have also decided to increase Pensions and
repatriation benefits. In the case of pensions, the base rate
will be ipcreased by $ 1 per week, -and in the case of married
couples, by 75 cents per week. And we have also decided that in
the case of people with incomes of their own, that we will
liberalise the tapered means test so that they can still receive
a part pension and have a total income, in the case of a single
individual of $ 6.50, and in the case of a married couple. of_ 4& l
per week. Now there were three reasons why we carried out these
changes.
= 2-
The first onc3 was so that we could increase
purchasing power in the corrnunity and give people a greater
opportunity to purchase in the retail stores.
The second was undoubtedly humanitarian,
in order to provide assistance to those whom we felt were in the
greatest need, and to whom we could give the greatest benefit.
Third, we wanted to increase confidence in the
community, because with increased confidence we feel that demand
would increase, and as demand increases, the economy will grow,
unemployment will reduce and we will have the kind of society and
the kind of economy that we want and I know that you people want
too. There is one other change that we will make.
We have decided to carry out a review of the total taxation
structure of the Cormmonwealth. This will cover not only your
personal taxation, but will also cover indirect and corporation
taxation as well. Uip till the moment we have been carrying out an
enquiry witkin Treasury itself. But we ca~ me to the conclusion
that the people of this country would not be satisfied if we relied
wholly upon Treasury advice. We thought it-would be much better,
therefore, if we had an open enquiry by a judge, or by a group of
individuals who could carry out a public examination and then could
make their recommendations to the Government. This course we will
follow. we hope it will be for your benefit.
So I want to sum up in this way. We have made
these changes because we wanted demand to increase, and particularly
consumption expenditure to improve, and wffe wanted retail sales
to improve as well. We had the humanitarian purpose of helping
those people in the greatest need, and we also wanted to assist the
growing confidence in the community because we wanted to improve
and to help in the obiectives the Government has set of full
employment and a continually growing economy.
I am confident that what we are doing is right,
and if you will join me in this confidence, I can assure you
that we will have the kind of economy the ' Government wants and
the kind of economy I am sure you want as vell.