EMBARGO: 10: 00 pm
FOR MEDIA MONDAY, 18 MAY, 1981
ADDRESS TO N. S. W. STATE LIBERAL PARTY
PRESIDENT'S DINNER
SYDNEY
I am delighted that so many of you are here tonight to support
the Liberal Party. The support of Party members is vital to
the independence as well as the effectiveness of our Party.
Our most important tasks today are to make Australia strong and
competitive, humane and free, and confident in the face of
the future. I believe we are succeeding in those tasks.
All Liberals, and all Australians, can surely see this.
We want to pass on to our children an Australia whose future
is not in doubt and we want to communicate to our children those
values which will enable Australia to fulfil its great promise.
I firmly believe that the Liberal Party has given that lead.
In 1975 we saw the dangers to Australia. We have been determined
that Australia will not go the way of other countries, whose
prosperity has been undermined by bloated bureacracy,
confiscatory taxes, and over-centralised Government. We have
determined not to allow every group to take for themselveseverything
they could, without ever asking what they could put
back for the good of the country as a whole or their own
children. That was the road Australia was on in 1975. It is no
longer on that road. For five years our policies have
consistently asserted that we cannot afford to spend more than.
we produce without the risk of inflation, unemployment and
social division.
To Liberals, the real strength of Australia is its people -their
values., their abilities, their skills and their imagination.
We have maintained since 1975, that the Australian economy
needed policies which would give it the room, and the
encouragement, to grow policies of lower taxes, less
bureaucracy and less costly regulation. We said that with such
policies, Australia would rapidly recover its vigour and
its magnificent future. I think that we are at last putting
behind us the age of unrealistic expectations, when there was
a feeling that people only needed to ask, for Governments to be
entitled to spend. / 2
-2
This Government will not mortgage the-future of Australia.
Government in Australia is now facing much more frankly those
difficult but inevitable questions of priorities, which are
what Government is really about. For Government to keep.
growing undermines prosperity and all our other
objectives. It is absurd to assume that Government can
spend a larger proportion of the nation's wealth year after
year. If Government is to do more of some things it must think
much more seriously about reallocating resources from one
activity to another. We should not assume that it can
carelessly take more resources from private people to do this.
Government needs to become much more streamlined and efficient:*ñ
to meet the challenges, and to seize the opportunities, of
the eighties. This is in no . way a doctrine of austerity.
It does not mean that the community as a whole must make do
with less. Responsible Government of the kind I am talking about means
that we are all going to be a great deal better off in the future.
Our tax cut from 1 July this year will put approximately--
$ 500 million more in Australian taxpayers' pockets. Responsible
Government means that Australia is going to be stronger and
more prosperous. It means that Government.--is going to be able to do
much more than in the past to assist those who really need help.
Our decisive rejection of Socialist policies, of endless growth
in bureaucracy, taxes and regulation is bringing about in
Australia the-eb-onomic recovery-f which we-are all aware.
It is nice not to have to argue these days that the economy,
is starting to do well.
People recognise now that Australia is growing quite strongly,
more strongly than other countries such as-Britain or the--
United States -in fact the growth predicted for Australia
this year is faster than for any other advanced industrial country.
Normally, as a trading nation, Australia feels keenly the ups
and downs of world trade. But our policies up to this point
have given us the capacity to move against the tide. While the
economies of some other countries are shrinking, ours is
pushing rapidly ahead. Inflation one of the most insidious,
divisive ills which can afflict a society has been
strongly cut back. Private enterprise has taken heart, and
-in the two years to last December, has provided nearly a quarter
of a million new jobs for Australians. This is far more jobs
than Mr. Hayden's make-work schemes paid for by the taxpayer
could ever have provided. As a result, unemployment is now
falling well and in April this year was the lowest for
four years.
Prosperity, too, can of course have its own problems. We have
to be constantly on the alert against renewed inflation. We
need to make sure that there are enough skilled people to take
advantage of the opportunities growth and development are
bringing. But I would much prefer the problems of prosperity to
those of recession and stagnation.
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This change in the outlook for Australia has not come about
by accident. I think people have taken-heart from the fact
that almost for the first time, we are showing in this country
that it is possible to reverse the decline which the Socialist
policies of big spending and high taxes brought about.--
Provided that Governments have the heart and the will to do
what they know to be right there is nothing inevitable about
bigger bureaucracy, more regulation, higher taxes and stagnation.
And never has our direction been made plainer than in the
recent decisions we have announced.
The decisions arising from Sir Phillip Lynch's Committee of
Review, the decisions on health arrangements, and at the recent:
Premiers' Conference, all show unmistakeably our determnination.-
to take advantage of the opportunities Australia now has.
Government should play a constructive and positive role in
Australia's development, not a stifling and oppressive role.
The Lynch Committee decisions are perhaps the clearest
indication of the historic turnaround we are now making toward."
a more modern and streamlined role for Government.
Under Labor, Commonwealth employment grew by no less than 52,000).
We have already cut back the number of Commonwealth Public
Servants under staff ceilings by over 10,000 and we aim to
reduce the number further by some 16,000 or 17,000. Along with
these decisions, I announced a very large number of further
decisions arising from the same review some 350 decisions in all.
These decisions aime at rationalising and streamlining the
functions of the Commonwealth Government, and withdrawing from
functions more appropriate for the States to handle, or which
would be much better undertaken by private enterprise. These
decisions recognised that in recent years particularly Government
regulations-and demands for business to fill in forms, were
becoming too costly and actually creating inefficiencies.
As a result we decided to Abolish the Prices Justification Tribunal.
We decided to give Qantas greater control over its own affairs,
including increased flexibility in setting its own fares. We
wanted Qantas to run its own business without the Department of
Transport breathing down its neck at every turn.
We will be cutting down on the-demand for business to fill out.
forms for Government and all Ministers, Departments and
authorities have been directed to make sure that they are not
demanding unnecessary information from business.
As the economy picks up we also believe that business can stan~ d
much more on its own feet go we have taken some measures to
reduce the level of industry assistance. / 4
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I want-to emphasise that the-Lynch Committee's review was
not just a cost cutting exercise. It gave practical expression
to the way of life we seek for this country, a way of life
which rejects an all-embracing role for, government, which
seeks a streamlined,-* government for the age of growth and
expansion ' that lies ahead, and which relies heavily on the
initiatives and efforts of individuals. The review will,
however, -produce a very useful saving to taxpayers amoilhting.
ultimately to some $ 560 million a year, at a very
conservative estimate.
One of our major objectives has been to reduce unnecessary
duplication and overlap between the Commonwealth and the
States. This is reflected especially in our decisions on
health arrangements. In health, we are ending dual control over
public hospitals and what an absurd arrangement it was to have
two bureaucracies trying to run hospitals. If one cannot do it,
it is certain that two won't.
The expiration of the hospital cost sharing agreements on
June this year ( after a year's extension) has given us the
opportunity to establish a much more rational and sensible way
of providing hospital services. How could you have a sensible
way of handling hospital and health costs when people could get
free treatment at public hospitals no matter how well-off they are.
The aim behind our recent decisions is to make sure that the
disadvantaged are protected so they do not have to pay for health
care which they need and cannot afford, but at the same time to
make sure that the taxpayers do not bear the brunt of the health
costs of-the well-to-do. We believe that all of this is
sensible, and based on -sound _ principles-which-everyone would
wish to see put into practice.
The responsibility for making-sure that Government plays a
sensible and constructive role in the future is not just a
responsibility for the Commonwealth alone. It involves the
States as well as the Commonwealth. It is not generally realised
that State and local governments spend just over half of all the'
money spent by Governments in Australia. But at the same time
they raise less than one fifth of all the taxes. The
Commonwealth raises the rest.
It is easy to let the Commonwealth raise its taxes while the
States can reduce theirs. Indeed Mr. Wran was able to say in
his 1980-81 Budget speech that " for the fifth year in a row,
there will be no increase in the rates of State Budget taxes"
In fact, he gave further tax concessions in relation to death
duties, and payroll tax. But he. is not so happy when the
Commonwealth Government acts to protect the taxpayer, which
is what we were doing in our decisions at the recent
Premiers' Conference.
The taxpayers' pocket is not bottomless-.,-Government cannot go
on asking taxpayers to pay for more and more. And how many
taxpayers believe it is legitimate to raise taxes to fund the
activities of political parties? How can-Mr. Wran teU... me
that he is short of money and that he needs more from the
Commonwealth, when he places high on his priorities the
giving of money to the Labor Party?
What sort of new priority is this, at a time when most
people want Government spending to be cut back? If that is
the measure of Mr. Wran' s social concern, then let me say
that it is not the Liberal Party's.
In asking the Statds to accept restraints on spending,
our major concern is to protect the taxpayer of this country.
We believe that the taxpayers need a fair go. Our policies
are directed to making sure that Governments can perform
their functions effectively while at the same time establishing
the conditions under which taxes could be brought back further.
Our philosophy of Government can open the door to a
magnificent future for Australia. Up to the advent of this
Liberal Government, Governments accepted that they could
raise more and more taxes. They even assumed that this
would be a public good. we are reversing that trend.
There must be a limit to the additional demands that can be
placed by Government on taxpayers. Governments cannot go on
doing more and more things, spending more and more money,
without causin -grievous-damage-to-this-country.-
When I, talk about a turnaround, this is the crux of what
I mean. The turnaround means a halt to unreasonable demands
upon taxpayers. What we have already achieved has given the
lead-to other-countries. -It-provides a basis for genuine
optimism about the future. It shows that the obstacles
to progress in the form of larger bureaucracy, higher taxes
and more stringent regulations can be overthrown.
In the interests of us all, and of our children, and of
future generations, I say that the Liberal cause must be
advanced, promoted and supported throughout this country.
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