PRIME MINISTER
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
LAUNCH OF SOCIAL JUSTICE REPORT
SPRINGVALE 2 MAY 1988
The launch today of this report, " Towards a Fairer
Australia: Social Justice Under Labor" marks an important
new stage in the life of the Labor Government.
It is the first time that all the facts about what I believe
is a proud Labor record of social justice have been gathered
together in one document.
It is a pleasure to launch it here at the Springvale
Community Centre because it is at Centres such as this that
the effectivenss of social justice programs is ultimately
tested.
And I believe too that Centres such as this both in their
very existence and in the quality of the services they are
capable of delivering reflect the depth of the Labor
Government's commitment to enhancing and expanding such
programs. This report is about Labor's social justice strategy and I
want at the outset to stress that it has been just that a
carefully crafted and costed staey pursued from our
first days in office, to lift t~ eTeel and quality of
social justice in Australia.
This has not meapt randomly applying bandaids to social
problems only when those problems have become too big to
ignore. Social justice under Labor does not mean throwing money
around in the false hope that indi-scriminate expenditure
might be an adequate substitute for careful targeting.
Our strategy has not been about abandoning the weakest
members of our commuiiinity on the scrapheap while extending
protection to those who do not need it.
Each of those failings has characterised the mismanagement
of social policy by our conservative predecessors and each
still forms part of their philosophy of government which
they would implement if they were ever returned to office.
( 006 172
A*
What social justice under Labor means can be simply put: a
concerted effort to make Australia a fairer society
a society in which economic resources are taxed
fairly and distributed fairly;
a society in which there is fair access to all
essential community services;
a society in which there is equality of rights in
civil, legal and industrial affairs;
a society in which all Australians, regardless of
their background, can participate in making the
decisions that affect their lives.
It has to be understood that these aspirations have been and
remain fully dependent on and supportive of our economic
strategy.
Our economic strategy is about generating new prosperity in
the community; our social justice strategy is about
distributing that prosperity fairly throughout the
community. Our economic strategy has meant tightening our belts as we
pass through what have been for Australia very tough
economic times. our social justice strategy has meant that
the necessary sacrifices have been shared, fairly, by all
sections of the community.
Right from the start of our term in office, when I
articulated the foundations of our economic strategy -in
for example my address to the National Economic Summit I
convened straight after we were elected I also articulated
our social justice goals.
In that address, I declared that the purpose of the economic
strategy was " maintenance and through time an improvement of
standards of living".
The Prices and Incomes Accord between the Federal Government
and the trade union movement also spelt out an economic
strategy to achieve social justice goals.
Its success can be measured by the fact that under the
Accord over one million jobs have been created in the
Australian economy.
That's one million Australians in work, providing for
themselves, participating in a more fulfilling life one
million people who would otherwise have been unemployed,
unable to cope without assistance, excluded from the
satisfaction of employment.
our creation of one million new jobs means Australia has
created jobs at a rate twice that of the rest of the western
industrialised world and four times that of our
conservative predecessors.
It has simply been a massive step forward in the enhancement
of social justice in Australia.
At the same time, the real wage restraint that helped create
those one million new jobs has been compensated for by the
Government in a variety of ways.
we have restored Medicare,
we have massively expanded child care places,
we have extended care for the elderly in their own
homes, we have improved education and training
opportunities for young people,
we have increased social welfare payments to those
in greatest need such as the low-income and
pensioner families who are now receiving the new
Family Allowance Supplement,
we have increased the age pension in real terms.
our social justice strategy has been implemented following
careful reviews of Government programs, including the Cass
Social Security Review, the Kirby Report on training
opportunities for young people and the Miller Report on
Aboriginal employment initiatives.
The report I am launching today provides a stocktake of all
these developments and presents a comprehensive picture of
the social justice initiatives we have taken.
But it also recognises that there is more we can do and
more we must do.
Just as we recognise that building a more productive and
competitive Australia will take time, so it is true that we
can't build, overnight, a fairer and more just Australia.
Too many Austrzrlians are still finding it hard to make ends
meet. Too many children are enduring the deprivation of poverty.
Too many people are unemployed for too long.
Not enough young Australians are completing school.
There is still more to be done to address the legitimate
needs of the Aboriginal people.
To meet such problems, the report Towards a Fairer Australia
spells out the& Government's future policy dir'ection_ s for the
further enhancement of social justice in Australia.
Let me summarise them now. 006174
4.
The maintenance and improvement of living standards depends
on what happens to three things: wages, taxes and prices.
We are confident that our poli cies will deliver in each of
these areas.
Our argument at the next National Wage Case, our
introduction of significant personal tax cuts in the life of
this Parliament and our further reduction of inflation will
lead first to the maintenance, and then the improvement, of
real disposable incomes over the next year or two.
We will continue to create jobs, so that the best means of
avoiding poverty and hardship namely, employment can be
available to as many Australians as possible.
We will encourage and assist people who have been unemployed
for long periods of time to break the cycle of unemployment,
poverty and low self-esteem which is hampering their efforts
to return to work.
We will lift the proportion of young people who complete
Year 12 schooling to 65 per cent by 1992.
we will be making a special effort, starting in this our
Bicentennial year, to recognise more fully the needs of the
Aboriginal people.
And we will provide the necessary level of Government
assistance so that by 1990 no Australian child need live in
poverty. The major reason why thousands of Australian kids have not
been properly fed or clothed or sheltered or educated or
sustained in good health and all these are the bitter
fruits of poverty is not lack of care by their parents but
simply lack of money and lack of access to services.
That is why we have pledged ourselves to provide low income
parents with tax-free cash payments large enough to lift
their children out of poverty.
The first instalment $ 22 a week for each child under 13
and $ 28 a we7ek for those 13 to 15 has already been
delivered. By 1990 we will lift the payments to the further benchmarks
we have already set.
That is why we have introduced the new Child Support scheme
which will provide further help by extending secure, regular
maintenance for children whose parents have separated.
And that is why we will continue to supply the range of
education, h-ealth and community services which families need
especially poor families with children. 0 06G17
It saddened me that, in response to the greatest assault
ever made by any Government on the ugly blot of child
poverty, our political opponents and others have only bean
able to trivialise our commitment.
That response shows an intellectual poverty.
But basically, it did not surprise me.
Because in none of the areas of social justice policy that I
have outlined today have the Opposition got anything
positive to offer.
Where Labor recognised the need for restraint and sacrifice,
but ensured that the burden of restraint and sacrifice was
borne by all sections. of the community, our political
opponents would make Australia a less fair place.
They witness a society becoming fairer and they propose to
turn the clock back.
They witness a fair tax system and would make it unfair
again by abolishing the capital gains tax and the fringe
benefits tax.
They are considering embracing a consumption tax which would
send inflation through the roof and which would increase the
cost of virtually every item you buy without any
safeguards or compensations for the least well off.
Theirs is a formula for social injustice.
It is also a strategy of economic shortsightedness.
Because there are two reasons why the Australian Government
must pursue social justice.
one is because it is the compassionate, decent thing to do.
Australians have always tried to help their fellow citizens
when they are in need.
But in the 190,0s, at a time when priorities have to be
weighed carefully and set firmly, and when the community's
resources have r to be focused as never before on vital
national goals, the case for social justice becomes even
more compelling.
It becomes, in fact, an essential element in national
survival.
Because there can be no social progress without social
justice. Social justice should be pursued because it is in the
. national inteiest to do so. f) r . V 1 G
When people are unemployed, living in poverty, or prevented
by discrimination from taking their rightful place in
society, that is a tragedy for the individuals concerned.
But it is a tragedy for the rest of us as well.
Because we are all the poorer as a society when any one of
us is unable to contribute fully to the productive effort of
the nation.
But if we are able to create jobs, reduce poverty, prevent
discrimination, we will all be the richer.
That is why Labor is proud of its social justice
achievements and determined to pursue its social justice
aspirations to create a more harmonious, a more just and a
more prosperous Australia. S1I-i
_ I