PRIME MINISTER
FOR MEDIA FRIDAY 24 AUGUST.. V979:
ADDRESS TO NSW STATE CONVENTION
Thank you very much f or that welcome. I believe that the
Liberal Party over recent months has been too much on the
defensive and it's time we put that behind us because there
is no need for it.
We only have to look at what has been achieved over the
last three and a half years, the damage that had been done to
Australia much greater and more serious I think than anyone
understood at the time, and see where this country has come.
With a record held high in the international arena, with an
economy which is the envy of most developed nations, despite
the problems we still have, the Australian economy and what
we have achieved is the envy of North America and the envy
of many countries in Europe. If they can note that, I think
it is time that Australians began to have some pride in their
own country and where Australia is going.
We need to look at what we've done. The Budget has strengthened
the economic health of this country. It will encourage growth
and development and it meets the Liberal Party's commitment
to continuing social reform.
Our economic strategy has been vindicated, because there has
been a great deal of international praise for Australia' s
steadfastness and success.
The OECD compliments Australia's economic policy. They recognise
the competitiveness of Australian industry which is going out
and getting markets right around the world. A few years ago
that just wasn't possible.
The GATT report, in its last annual document, noted that
Australia is the only country to succeed in achieving improvement
in international competitive positions over the last few
years. That, I believe, is high praise indeed.
It is worth noting that private foreign inv estment last year
was the best since 1971-72 and in the June Quarter alone, there
was $ 1,400 million of prospective new investment approved by
the Foreign Investment Review Board: 285 proposals approved
in less than 20 days of proposals and only 2 proposals rejected.
That again is a vote of overseas confidence in this country.
I think it is time that Australians themselves showed more
confidence in Australia, more confidence in themselves and
where we are going. / 2
-2
Inflation is much less than it was, despite renewed pressures
within this country. 17 per cent to about 9 per cent at the
present time. We need to understand that our competitive
position is improving because Australia's inflation is under.
most of our trading partners, under North America, under most
countries in Europe, and the margin in Australia's favour is
increasing. There are things that are worth noting; that when
Labor took office inflation was about 5 per cent that is in
1972, the end of it, and that then was below the OECD average,
it was under the Liberal/ National Country Party Government. We
had performed better than most countries overseas. But during
their term they took Australia to an inflation of 17 per cent,
points above the OECD average. Now, up to the last six
months, Australia's inflation of about 9 per cent is nearly
3 points below the OECD average. So whatever the world
inflationary pressures are, Australia has coped with those
pressures better than most countries.
I think it is worth noting, or asking ourselves, has the Labor
Party really changed. Is the quiet Bill Hayden different from
Whitlam's flamboyancy. It is not the people but the pol4ics
we need to look at. The policies which were revealed at the
Labor Conference in Adelaide show that it is Mr. Whitlam all
over again.
If we can remember back to 1972 we will remember what pains
Mr. Whitlam went to to show moderation, to show reason, to show
commonsense in the development and explanation of policies.
But once an election was won, where was reason, where was
moderation, where was commonsense. It was madness unleashed
on the Aust%-ralian community. And what has happened in the
years since? They then had a policy of destroying the Senate.
They still have a policy of destroying the Senate. Reducing
the Senate's powers so that it could never protect the States,
and the small States in particular. They will have a policy
of making it a simple majority to alter the Australian
constitution, again, denying any protection to the smaller
States, establishing the circumstance where N. S. W. and Victoria
alone could the constitutional face of Australia. That is
Whitlam, all over again.
The Labor Party say they can work with the union movement.
Mr. Whitlam of course did and what happened? They lost six
billion man days in one year alone. Two and a half or three
times the average time lost, despite the discontent and the
industrial trouble of the last few months, under Tony Street's
administration. I think they can work with the unions just
about as well as Mr. Hayden can work with Bob Hawke. And you
know how well that is.
The first time Mr. Hayden the first opportunity he had to
show how well he could work with Mr. Hawke, he dumped
Mr. Hawke with the Socialist Left. Why we don't know. But
if he is going to put himself captive to the Socialist Left over
one weekend in Adelaide, then what would he ever do in Government?
It would be a risk that Australians would never dare take. / 3
-3
They have made it quite plain they are going abolish every
law that would place any restraint on any trade union.
Trade unions, often bad enough as it is, but they would have
no legal restraint upon them and would be able to do anything
in the name of industrial action. We only have to read the
resolutions they passed, the policies they confirmed, to know
that policy is binding on every member of the Australian
Labor Party.
They would take unions above the law. I suspect that there are
one or two of you who wouldn't really approve of doing that.
If we look at the economy an interventionist role again.
Planning allocations of resources by Government and not by
private enterprise. Maximisation of Government intervention%
There was
no recognition that too much Government expenditure adds to
inflation. There were literally dozens of proposals costing
money, costing your taxpayer's funds.
They did it in 1972. 1 think we need to understand when they
say are they going to spend your taxpayer's dollars they
really mean it. That is one Labor promise you can take for
granted that they wouldn't break.
They are going to an Australian Hydrocarbon Corporation to go
looking for oil, investing your dollars. They wouldn't even
know where to look. They want to establish a national
investment fund, with your taxpayer's dollars. And a national
superannuation scheme that we couldn't afford. A no-fault
compensation scheme that we couldn't afford. And a national
newspaper because sometimes the daily papers don't print what
they like to see. I must admit they don't always print what
I would like to see either. But I don't want to have my own
newspaper to make up for the balance. I would sooner taken my
risks with free enterprise newspapers.
They have so little faith at being able to raise money from
proper sources for their political campaigns, even though some
of their supporters the communist unions like AMSWU, have
an annual income of $ 8 million or $ 10 million a year, but they
want to use your taxpayer's funds to pay for election expenses.
I don't think that is reasonable.
They want to abolish staff ceilings on the Commonwealth Public
Service and unleash the massive growth of the bureacracy once
again. That is Whitlam all over again.
What do they want to do about taxes? There was promise that
Mr. Whitlam kept explicitly and absolutely: he said he wouldpay
for the rest of his programs through inflation. Nobody really
believed him. I can remember trying to make something-of that
in 1972. You might think that is a long while ago, but is only about
a third of the time I have been in the Parliament. But they did
pay for their promises through inflation, and inflation which
wreaked great havoc on the Australian people. If they say they
are going to do that again, I think we ought to believe them. / 4
-4
It is worth noting that taxes grew in three years of Labor
by 125 per cent as a result of that. They proposed a capital
gains tax. They found that too difficult. Mr. Hayden says
it is not too difficult for him and he is going to do it.
But he also says he wants a wealth tax on the wealth of the
whole nation. Think of farmers who have an average profitability
sometimes of about 2 per cent, and from the nature of things
with drought and sometimes low prices, no profitability at all,
but they still have to pay that wealth tax, profits or not.
Again, that is Mr. Whitlam all over again.
One of the great achievements of this Government over the
last two to three years has been to negotiate a painstaking
agreement_ with all States National Party, Liberal and
Labor to resolve finally and forever the argument that came
after the Seas and Submerged Lands Act and the High Court
decision which gave jurisdiction from the Commonwealth and
upset a traditional view of that particular matter. We could
have exerted Commonwealth power, but we believed that was
an arena in particular, because there had been traditional
State interests, where we ought to work in co-operation with
the States and not just take the view " the power is ours,
therefore, we are going to use it". We believed we should
share that power. That Governments should work in co-operation.
We have agreed on mining and fisheries and all matters
offshore, and it is a sensible one, giving State
territorial rights out of the three-mile limit instead of just
to the low-water mark and all the rest. Legislation will be
introduced into the Parliament at the end of this session.-
certainly passed not later than the Autumn session.
But what will Labor do? Assert total Commowealth supremacy
offshore, upset all the agreements with the States, and
move their own Federal bureacracy out into the administration
of mining and all the rest offshore. Again, total centralisation
of power in Canberra. Whitlam all over again.
But then they are going to intervene to take action to prevent
the continuance of activities of trans-national corporations.
To then,, that's just -a large company with some people or
som~ e parts of 4t coming from, overseas, that. are, against the
interests of the Australian public..'
They are also going
to establish a body to spy on those organisations. What are
they going to do with the information? Give it to the trade
unions, the domestic trade unions and the international trade
unions. Under these circumstances, how much foreign investment
would be left? How many great resource projects would proceed?
I don't believe any of them would. They would stop development
dead in its tracks. That also is Mr. Whitlam all over again.
They would reneg on uranium contracts and keep uranium
in the ground. They would have a resource tax and make
enterprises unprofitable. That is Whitlam., or Labor Party,
all over again.
In other areas, and this is of course where the argument
with Mr. Hawke came in, they have no economic policy at all.
Mr. Hayden--the great economic Messiah, the Treasurer who
had the most irresponsible Budget of all time, the Treasurer
who devised the plan during the supply crisis to make the
trading banks of Australia pay for the bills of Government.
How many of us remember that? In my office I've got copies
of the documents and the certificates that they were falsely
and unconstitutionally and illegally going to use. It is
Mr. Hayden who devised that plan and perpetrated it.
But he has no economic policy. There is no mention of
inflation and the importance of' combatting inflation in their
policy, in their platform. No recognition of the wages
problem. Would you like me to read their economic policy
to see if you can understand it. " With the understanding and
co-operation of the trade union movement, development of
economic policy which would encompass wages, incomes, non-wages
incomes, the social wage, taxation reform and elimiation of
tax avoidance, and which will achieve a more equitable
distribution of our national wealth and income, wit ' h the
commitment to the maintenance of real wages by quarterly
adjustments and the passing on of the benif its of the increases
in productivity". Even Mr. Wran called it a hotch-potch.
Mr. Hawke,' in always a bit plainer in what he says, called it
a gutless sell-out to the Left. It is a meaningless policy.
It is a non-policy.
This policy would spell the death-knell of this country.
It is our duty as Liberals to make sure that people understand
this. To make sure that they understand that the cloak of
moderation is just the same hiding an animal that has not
changed. But it can't change because it is an organisation that
has been captive of the Socialist Left for years and it is still is.
But also as Liberals we have a responsibility
to see that people can understand what we have achieved.
To see what we have done. To make sure that they can understand
the basis and the purpose of our policies and where we intend
to take Australia through the next decade.
The Budget I believe is a good one. Because . it maintains the
streng-th of our anti-inflationary policies. I haven't heard
anyone say, and I'm glad they haven't, that they want a Budget
more anti-inflationary than this one, because no objective is
more important for the economic well-being of this nation.
The deficit is down. But also within that responsible overall
framework we have been able to provide responsible and
sensible concessions for business, to take new initiatives in
that area and also to reassert the Liberal Party's pre-eminence
as a Party of social reform and make significant advances in
that area also. / 6
-6
With the economy, the Budget builds on existing achievements.
But it also responds to new pressures and dangers coming from
the increase in oil prices and increase in beef prices.
We haven't just sat down and said: " Look, overseas effects'
are difficult. There is nothing we can do about it". We
have responded to those events as we should. I don't think
Jo1bn Howard liked introducing that mini-Budget much. I
certainly didn't like the publicity that led up to the first
two weeks before it. I haven't particularly liked the
publidity over the last three months. But with our
responsibility to the people of Australia, our first
responsibility even if it meant some cost to ourselves
was to govern this country responsibly. If that meant we
had to trim our sales because of changing economic
circumstances, then so be it. We had to do it. I can just
imagine the kind of publicity we would have had if we had
done nothing in May. People would have said. there are new
inflationary pressures, the Government has done nothing about
it. The economy is out of control. They won't be able to
reassert themselves. They haven't said that, because they
know we took the responsible path as we should.
We have restrained Government expenditure again in this Budget.
There are still rigid ceilings on the Public Service and they
will remain. If the recruiting programs of Labor had stayed
in place, there would have been 70,000 additional Public
Servants, all doing some work and all costing an awful lot
to provide programs for them to administer. It is the first
time in the history of Australia, as I believe, that the
Public Service has been reduced -in size by something over
considerably over 10,000 and held, was kept down, to that
reduced size for a period of years.
I know that my most distinguished predecessor at one stage
reduced 10,000 people from the Public Service but within ten
months they were all back in the Public Service and a few more
besides. We have shown more continuing determination than that. Since
1975-76, Government expenditure has been virtually held in
real terms.
Because there has been a little argument about how much
expenditure restraint there has been, let me refer to the
figures John Howard used in his Budget speech. In the three
years before 1972, real expenditure by the Commonwealth grew
by 4 3/ 4 per cent a year. In real terms. That I think was a
bit much in restrospect. In the three years of Labor it
grew by over 10 per cent in real terms. That I am certain
was much too much, as we all know. In the last three years
it has grown by 1 per cent or less a year. A very great deal
of restraint indeed. It is the first time, I believe, that
Commonwealth expenditures have been held, certainly constant,
over a considerable period. / 7
-7
That is all the more noted, when you understand that there
have been some areas of expenditure where we have had to
provide more funds and where I am certain you would have
wanted us to provide more funds. How many of us understand
that in 1968 there were 176 welfare recipients for every
1,000 people in the workforce. Now, for a variety of reasons,
because returned men from the last World War many of them
are turning 60 and are eligible for the Service Pension
because in any case we have an ageing population, there are
more people of pensionable age. There are now 100 more.
276 welfare recipients for every 1,000 people in the workforce.
But I haven't heard anyone point to expenditure restraint
saving we should deny pensions to repatriation people. I
haven't heard anyone saying that we should extend the pension
age for women. * I haven't heard anyone saying we should reapply
the means test for people over 70. 1 haven't heard anyone
saying that we should reduce the general level of pensions
to people who are old and who have worked for this nation in
the pas-t. I don't believe there is anyone here who would say it.
There is an inexorable demand for additional funds in
that area. An equally strong demand for additional funds in
defence. Each year we have provided more in real terms. This
year $ 281 million more and that is a very considerable increase.
Under Labor, they averaged 7 per cent of the defence budget
on defence equipment. They were using up the defence forces.
They were using up defence infrastructure. we have build that
up considerably to over 15 per cent of the vote going on
equipment not yet enough, but much better than it was.
Under Labor,. manpower was taking 60 per cent of the total vote.
We have dropped that back to nearly 50 per cent, so that more
funds are going really to improve and advance the quality of
Australia's defence. That is a good thing.
Partly as a result of other economic policies, there have
been one or two real breakthroughs within the defence area.
I can remember two years ago Jim Killen bringing a submission
( 3 to Cabinet to award a major shipping contract to a French firm
$ 70 million or $ 80 million. And we all said, after looking
at it " look, can't we give. an Australian firm, Australian
corporation, one small opportunity to tender for this contract..
Does it have to go overseas".
So we went back to Australian
industry. Yesterday Jim Killen announced the successful
tender, Vicker Is Cockatoo Docks, and did we have to give any
did we have to provide any subsidy? No, because they
quoted under the French contract. In other words, for a highly
sophisticated piece of defence equipment costing about $ 70 million
an Australian concern has been able to beat the world. Isn't
it time we started having a little pride in what Australia can
perform, instead of knocking Australia at every opportunity as
so much of this community seems to do.
-8
As we believe there has been a great demand for additional
sums to support industry, that also has been provided.
Because of increased demands on the Budget in areas such as
social welfare, which I know is a favourite one for people
to say cut expenditure but they don't like it very muchwhen
you say precisely where. Greater demands from social
welfare, greater demands from defence, a greater requirement
to support industry so that jobs can be provided in a real way,
the expenditure restraint that we have encompassed is all the
more remarkable.
This Budget reduces the deficit substantially indeed, from
nearly $ 3,500 mil-lion to under $ 2,200 million.
That is a reduction of 3.4 per cent of gross domestic product
to 1.9 per cent of gross domestic product.. Now, I took out some
figures and compared that with what's happening in North America
and Europe and that is a much lower percentage of the gross
domestic product, or deficit, or the gross domestic product
than in Japan or Germany, the United Kingdom or Canada or
many other advanced western countries. It is a tremendous
achievement. It means that this is really is an anti-inflationary
Budget. It means that Australia can look with pride at what
this Budget achieves in that particular area.
The domestic deficit is down more than half to a little under
$ 900 million. This . means a further downward pressure on
inflation. It strengthens the Australia dollar. Remember how
Mr. Hayden was trying to knock our policies, undermine confidence
in the Australian dollar. That sort of comment today would
be laughed out of court, because our policies have led to a
continuing strengthening of the dollar on international markets
and greater and greater investment-from overseas as confidence
in our policies grows.
This is all creating conditions for continuing business
expansion. We have reduced taxes. The surcharge comes off on December 1.
C If there is anyone who thinks that tax cut is a hoax, why don't
they Just write out a check and send the tax cut back to the
Treasury and see how they like that. I am sure we can find
some arrangement so that Treasury can receive it. But from
the 1st of December $ 4.45 a week for a person on average
weekly earnings. John Howard said in May that we couldn't
take of the surcharge and restore indexation at one time. We
do remain committed to the re-establishment of tax indexation.
That is taking all factors into account. We can be helped in
that if there is a degree of restraint in the decisions of
the Arbitration Commission. over the last day or two one or
two people have tried to say as incomes go up, taxes will go up
and that is wrong. But it is not a very novel idea. I think
when people get an increase in their wages, an increase in
their incomes, they know they are going to have to pay tax
on that increase. To suggest that they shouldn't be paying
tax on their increase, and that there is some kind of hoax or
fraud involved in that, is the greatest piece of humbug that
I have ever heard of.
9-
But the truth of the matter is that for every additional
dollar earned, as a result of taking that surcharge of f,
taxpayers will pay less tax on those additional dollars than
they~ would have payed if the surcharge stayed on. People
can argue that they would sooner have tax indexation and
the surcharge off. That is fair enough. It's a legitimate
argument. They can argue that the tax cuts should have been
greater, and that is a legitimate argument. They can argue
about economic responsibility. But they can't argue that
what was done wasn't plain and straighforward and easily
understood.
The Budget embodies special policies for business, for the
rural community. It advances our energy policy further.
For the business community there are new initiatives designed
to encourage the development of more efficient and exportorientated
and competive industries. I am sorry for the
technical term, but Division 7 tax, the retention allowance
first lifted from 50% to 60% in an earlier budget, now lifted
to 70%. That will be a great help for small business people.
Export expansiLon grants have been greatly increased from
million to $ 170 million one Budget to the next. There was some
backlog in the past, but the program has been much successful
than we dreamt of because Australian firms have been much
more successful than we believed in getting out into export
markets. That is an expenditure that I think the Treasurer
won't cry about, because it indicates the success of Australian
industry and if they are going to be selling that way it means
they are going to be employing more people in the process.
Industrial research and development grants are up significantl. y.
Export market development grants are also growing very greatly.
There are some people who have been claiming that we have no
policy for employment. I think that is about the falsest thing
of all. We certainly don't want a program which leads to
false ideas, to phony jobs. The Labor Party were having a
RED scheme and it didn't work, and even they abandoned it.
False jobs destroy -confidence. They waste funds and could lead
to less overall employment than would otherwise occur.
Our policies for a stronger private sector result in policies
for jobs. Low inflation enables firms to compete and to sell
and therefore they need people to work. The research and
development programs in industry enable new products to be
built and that provides jobs. Export incentives obviously
provide jobs. As firms export more, produce more, they need to
employ more. I.
The great infrastructure program an initiative of this
Government enabling the States to borrow overseas to support
major resource projects, in coal loaders and electricity
generation and many other things, all of that provides jobs.
Nearly $ 500 million dollars alone in this one year, will be
borrowed overseas to support major infrastructure developments
backing up the investment programs in Australia's great capital
resources and all of that provides jobs.
10
The investment allowance, the training programs, the amendments
to the Industries Assistance Commission in which. we said they
ought to take into account the social
and employment consequences of their decisions. I don't know
that they always do it as much as we would like, but we have.
put it into the act, and that is a program for jobs. All of
this is because of our concern for employment. But real
employment that will last, provide rewarding work for people
and add to the wealth and the strength of this nation.
I think our help to small business is particularly important
because as I said earlier, the United States' experience has
shown firms employing 20 people or less generated66 per cent
of all new jobs in the United States between 1960 and 1976.
If that can happen there it can happen also in Australia.
We support employment by getting this country moving. Creating
a.. climate for private investment and enterprise. In coal
alone, there are announced projects worth $ 2 billion. In bauxite
and alu-minium there are announced programs of a further $ 2 billion.
Under mining and manufacturing investment, under the surveys
of the Department of Industry and Commerce, total $ 12 billion
of firmly committed projects or projects in the final feasibility
stage. W. D. Scott had a detailed survey and they said the
figure was nearly $ 30,000 million of major investment ready to
go over the next five years. That is their survey $ 30,000 million.'
I don't back it up. I just state the figure for what it is
worth. It is absurd to suggest that the Government is not
concerned with jobs, it is not concerned with employment,
I would believe that we are more concerned than many others
because we are prepared to stay with policies that are real
instead of being prepared to erect a shop window that doesn't
really mean anything very much at all. That might give a false
hope and a false expectation. We are not prepared to indulge
in that kind of deception.
For the rural community, special depreciation allowance has
reappeared for the storage of grain, and hay and fodder.
The national water resource program expands by 25 per cent this
year. Our energy programs are designed to achieve conservation,
alternative sources of energy, greater exploration and
development. Import pricing of oil is a vital ingredient
in pursuit of those three objectives. But we also encourage
the use of gas, a greater use of coal. The Budget continues
that path; special investment and write-off policies for
the conversion of industrial heating equipment. We are going
to provide the same incentives to exploration onshore as we
have been providing offshore to make ourselves more self-sufficient
if that is possible. / 11
11
our expenditure restraint has been stringent, but I believe
fair. We haven't lost sight of social reform and the needs
of people less well off in the Australian community.
Family allowances will remain one of the major social reforms
of all time. It was this Government that indexed pensions.'
In the last three years, 15,000 beds and places have been
provided, homes for aged people in our population. Over the
last two Budgets record sums have been provided under the
Handicapped Person's Assistance Act, to given handicapped
people a better deal than I believe they have ever had before
from the Australian community.
The Budget builds on what we have done in the past. Because
inflation is higher than we were advised at the time of
the last Budget, indexed pensions and benefits will again be
indexed twice-yearly and not once a year. There will be
increased income support for those eligible for fringe
benefits. Again, helping many of the lower income people
in the community. Eligibility for pensioner health benefit
cards are being extended to single parent beneficiaries.
There have been many advances and changes in repatriation
benefits for returned servicemen.
The Budget builds on the strength of the economy. It responds
to dangers that there are in the present situation. It is
clear that Australia is living in a difficult and an economic
terms, a som-tewhat dangerous world. Inflation is rising in
North America and in much of Europe. Because of that I believe
world trade is going to remain sluggish. In the last seven
or eight years it has grown by only about 4 per cent a year.
In the preceding 20 years it grew by 9 per cent a year.
In t,-hose figures alone we find much of the reason for
higher unemployment in North America , in Europe, and in
advanced developed countries.
I don't think there is going to be much change in that, because
under policies being pursued in North America, being pursued
in Europe, inflation will remain too high and
therefore growth in world trade too low.
That doesn't mean however, that we need to be gloomy about
Australia's future, because if we continue on our present path,
keep our inflation ratebelow that of many other major countries,
it is Australian industries that will become more competitive,
it is Australian industries that will capture better markets
and more markets in Australia and overseas. Then again, if
we continue to capitalise on the great resources within this
nation, in energy and in minerals, we can attract to Australia
investment of a kind which is not available to many other countries.
Even countries with the same resources often don't have the
political stability or the economic commonsense or the
attractiveness as a reliable supplier of this nation. / 12
12
Therefore, because we possess great natural resources,
because we are an energy supplier, because we have policies
that bear down on inflation, because we are attractive
to foreign investment and devise policies which deliberately
seek to attract people from overseas, we can expect to
get in Australia greater economic activity, greater
movement within our economy than might otherwise occur.
That means I think, that even if the world trading is
difficult in the years ahead, if we run our own ship
properly, if we keep a tight control over our own expenditure,
and keep inflation below that of major countries overseas,
we can look after Australia and get through a difficult time
much, better than most other countries.
If we can have pride in our own achievements, pride in what
has happened within this economy, a confidence in ourselves
as many people overseas are plainly showing confidence in
Australia, voting with their dollars the confidence in Australia,
then the 1980s can indeed be a good period for Australia.
There are many things I think we can do. I believe that much
too often we find people within Australia who knock this
nation, who say we can't do it, that other people can do it
better. I have given one example of a ship that we can build
better than anyone else for less money than anyone else. There
are many other examples. We produce world-class cars, but
how many people still want to buy the car with the foreign
label on it, because they think it might be better and they
will pay three or four times the price, Why can't we have
pride in what we do ourselves and what we build ourselves
through the skills of our own people.
It is up to us as Liberals, all of us, to know what we have
achieved in controlling inflation, in our energy policies,
in our taxation reforms, in our support to business, in our
social reform. We need to make sure that everyone else knows
about this. We can't expect necessarily to have all the
things that we've done on the front pages of the newspapers,
because it is only bad news that is news. The good news we
will have to spread abroad ourselves.
The successes we have had have been hard won. Do you think we
likedmaking the decisions in May not to remove the
tax surcharge. But we had to do it because it was necessary.
It has been taken now off in this Budget, now that the economy
can afford it. Our first obligation is to keep Australia on
the road to economic recovery and we will meet that obligation.
Even it that means a degree of unpopularity in the short term.
Because we are not a short-term Government, full of short-term
ideas which will shortchange the Australian people.
We. are a Government responsibility and stability, committed
to doing what has to be done to advance Australia; comitted to
our own Liberal philosphy of free enterprise, of independence
of the human spirit, of encouragement to individial initiative,
and of care for those who really need assistance from the
community, from Government. / 13
13
The Budget maintains economic progress. It is a Budget
for lowering taxes. It is a Budget of smaller Government,
of increased incentive, of an increased role for private
enterprise and initiative. It reaffirms-the national
Liberal initiative in social reforms. It is a Budget
to -proclaim it is a Budget to sell-, * it* is a Budget
as I believe, for all Australians. 000---