PRIME MINISTER
EMBARG~ OED UNTIL DELIVERY CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTEC
NEW SOUTH WALES ALP STATE COMIEREC
MONDAY 3 OCTOBER 1988
Nearly fifteen months ago in the last days of the Federal
election campaign I asked the Australian people to determine
two issues of overwhelming importance to the future of
Australia. The questions I asked were crystal clear summations of the
basic differences between the Labor Oovernment and our
conservative opponents.
I asked the people of Australia:
who could provide Australia with the responsible
economic management it needed; and
who could provide Australia with the united and credible
political leadership it deserved.
Responsible economic management and united political
loadership no wonder the electorate's verdict was so
definite. Because these factors, then and now, are the essential
components of good government, and, then and now, they are
the unmistakable hallmarks of the Australian Labor Party.
That's why we won re-election last year to our historic
third tern in office.
And that's why John Cain was re-elected to his historic
third term in Viotoria on Saturday.
At the State and Federal levels in Australian politics today
there is the starkest of contrasts between the quality
performance of Labor and the divisiveness which
characterises the Liberals and Nationals In both their
policy choices and their leadership brawls.
_ 2369
And that statement lbpplies with as much strongth and
relevance where Labor is in office as-it is in Canberra
and Melbourne and Adelaide and Perth. as it does here in
Sydney now we are in opposition.
As Prime Minister I have the very great privilege of leading
a Labor Government which is dedicated to an unrelenting
program of reform aimed at building the prosperity of the
Australian economy and the fairness of Australian society.
And I claim the very great achievement that no Australian
Government has pursued those goals more successfully than
the one I have the honour of leading.
Despite inheriting in 1983 the worst recession this nation
had extperienced in 50 years, and despite facing a subseguent
massive collapse in our terms of trade, we have been
successful beyond precedent.
We are now approaching the half way mark of our third term.
So let me measure our achievement today by reminding you of
the promises we made in the election campaign last year and
by outlining the actions we have taken to keep those
promises. And, even more importantly$ let me make utterly clear to
you, and through you to the people of Australia, our
absolute determination to maintain the pace of economic and
social reform for the remainder of this term and beyond.
Because just as we have achieved a great deal, so we have a
great deal still to do.
Just as we have proven our capacity in the past to provide
united leadership and responsible economic management, so we
are determined to provide that leadership and that
management into the future.
When I launched our campaign for re-election in June last
year I released a 40-page document which set out in detail
the record of our first two terms in office and our detailed
plans for the future; across every department and in every
area of Government activity from social welfare to defence.
And as I drew the campaign to a close I highlighted twelve
specific items on the Government's immediate economic
agenda. Taken together, those commitments represented probably the
most comprehensive and realistic blueprint for action ever
presented to Australian voters and certainly, given the
chaos of the o10position's tax policy, it was the 2i1 such
blueprint presented to the voters in the 1987 campig.
Today I can state with pride that in the fifteen month.
since the election we have acted decisively and
comprehensively on that blueprint for reform.
We are seeing around us, in the cities and towns and on the
farms and in the factories and home. of Australia, the
undeniable evidenae of progress towards our goals our
Labor goals of greater prosperity and greater fairness.
We promised to eliminate the need for child poverty in T
Australia by 1990 and our opponents scoffed. o b
But we are achieving that goal. We have Introduced the nowC
Family Allowance Supplement to direct to the mothers of some
150,000 Australian families an unprecedented amount of T
tax-free cash assistance. A
We promised we would give those families $ 22 a week for each a
child and $ 28 a week for each teenager between the ages of d
13 and 15. 4e
We met that promise -and in the last Budget we increased
the payments by some 10 per cent. 0
We have also increased support for families renting their o
home or flat on the private market those who are feeling 8
the squeeze of the property boom. W
Let me give you an example of how these two measures the
increased Family Allowance Supplement and the rent a
assistance have improved the lot of low income Australian a
families. C
A family of five three children aged 12, 14 and 15 and two N
parents earning up to $ 16,900 and paying private rent will 11
by the middle of next year be receiving $ 106 a week in
Government assistance from these measures.
That is tax-free Income so it's the same as a wage rise ofa
$ 167 a woek.
That's assistance of an unprecedented nature it's further
proof of our capacity to help the people who really need it, A
even in tines of economic restraint.
Bill Kelty of the ACTO had it right when he said the familyT
package represented such a boost to incomes that it would
have taken fifty years to win through traditional industrial
means. it's an achievement I'm proud of and it's an achievement
that we will improve on again in the 1989-90 budget context
to meet the targets we set ourselves.
2 3 6; 4
That landmark program-rof assistance to needy families is
Just the latest major Instalment in Labor's sweeping social
justice strategy a concerted effort to make Australia a
fairer cociety a society in which economic resources are taxed
f airly and distributed fairly; and
oociety in which there is fair access to all
essential community services.
The fruits of that strategy are seen in our historic reforms
of the taxation system our capital gains tax and fringe
benefits tax which require the more privileged among us to
contribute resources so the needy can be helped.
They are seen in our steady increases in acost by
Australian workers to superannuation cover.
By the end of the current parliamentary term, we will have
doubled the extent of superannuation coverage from
per cent of Australian workers to 80 per cent: so that
eight workers in ten have the security and certainty that
super providus.
Our social justice strategy has also led to a massive
opening up of new opportunities for young Australians at
schools and universities and in job training.
When we came to office, only about one-third of school kids
were staying on at school past the compulsory age. What an
appalling restriction that represented on the life
opportunities of hundreds of thousands of Australian
children. Now, an a result of the decisions we have made, more than
half the kids 57 per cent of them are staying on at
school. By the early 1990s it will be about two-thirds.
The last budget also allocated funds for 40,000 new places
at universities as well as increasing allowances to
students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Such reforms not only ensure broader horizons for individual
Australians they also mean a-better trained workforce able
to compete with the world.
The fruits of the social justice strategy are also seen int
our 8.3 per cant real increases to the aged pension,
compared to the 2.5 per cent drop under the previous
Covornment; our increased funding for home and community care, this
year totalling $ 209 million; 23615
our massive increase in the availability of child care,
with our recent decision to fund another 30,000. places A
taking the total under Labor to 94,000 three times the h
number in existence when we came to of fice; and
our efforts towards equality of opportunity f or women.
Host of all, the fruits of our social justice strategy are
seen in its direct interrelationship with our economic
strategy. Our economic strategy has been and will remain aimed at
generating new prosperity in the community; equally, our T
social justice strategy has been and will remain aimed at
distributing that prosperity fairly throughout the
cmmun ity. p
Tehcaotn omIyn wahnyd tIh ec anc osmtmautnei tyt odaaty lathragte itshe a oputolsoiotki vef oro net. hae iin
Because Australians -all Australians stand to gain from0
the combined effects of our economic and social justice0
strategies. Nowhere is this clearer than in two key economic forecaots: 1
the jobs outlook and the prospects for the intersection of t
wages, taxes and inflation. a
In jobs, our achievements are already massive. T in
In the five years we have been in office, we have createdr
mare than one million new jobs. In the fifteen months since d
we were re-elected to our third term we have created over a A
quarter of a million Jobs. u
In all, our rate of jobs growth is four times faster than el
the Fraser/ Howard Government achieved and it is twice as 13
fast as the Western world. 1
Ait the same time the unemployment rate has fallen from P1
per cent when we came to office to 7 per cent now. A
One million more people in jobs. A falling unemploymont
rate. The great result of the restraint and intelligence
displayed by the trade union movement the proud record of
cooperation between trade unions and the Federal Labor
Government under the Accord.
I am confident that we will continue to create jobs in the f
economy for the remainder of this tern and beyond that we
can continue to provide the best form of income security T
there is: a regular pay packet. d
That leads logically to the second key economic forecast
covering the intersection of wages, taxes and inflation. I
The bottom line is t~ at real wages will be maintained over
tho next 12 months.
As Prime Minister, I recognise that many Australian families
have found it difficult to make ends meet over the last lew
years. In particular, middle and lover income earnern have felt
much of the pain of economic reconstruction so far.
Thlat recognition provides the underpinning for tho wage-tax
trade off which we want to see In 1989go we aim to keep
inflation down without the need to sacrifice the living
standards of Australian workers.
That will mean we cam introduce personal tax outs from the
middle of next year tax cuts that will be structured
particularly towards the needs of Australia's lower and
middle income earners.
How large those cuts can be depends on achioving an
appropriate wages outcome this year and on a stable prospect
of restraint for next year.
Blut I want to affirm again in this audienco that the
legitimate aspirations of workers for the maintenance and
the progressive increase in their living standards can be
and will be met.
Tax cuts, more jobs, more superannuation, eliminating tho
need for child poverty that's what we can achieve in the
remainder of our third term. And that's what we will
deliver. And we can guarantee too that we will continue to make the
underlying reforms to the structures and institutions of the
economy that will sustain that progress.
Because when I speak of-the maintenance and improvement in
living standards I do not do so with any pretence that such
progress comes easily.
Australians have become all too familiar over recant years
with the challenges of the International economy to believe
that we can simply pay ourselves more wages., cut our taxes,
improve our welfare structures, unless we get the
fundamentals right first.
It is our recognition of that fact that differentiates us
from the conservatives, and that explains our political and
economic success in recent years.
The conservatives offered tax bribes in 1987, with complete
disregard to the prior question of whether they could be
paid for. 2367
We now plan for tax cuto to commence next year in the full
knowledgo that they can be afforded, that they are
responsible and that they are structured especially towards
the lower end of the pay scales.
We can do this because we are pushing ahead with the groat
task of reconhtructing the macro-economy as well as tackling
the thorny issues of the mioro-economy. I will be making a
more detailed statement next week outlining how our momentum
for structural reform will be maintained.
Delegates, At our Party's Federal Conference in Hobart in June I said
that Australia was a stronger country, a fairer country, a
country far better equipped to face the future than it was
when we came to office in 1983.*
It is our task to make sure that over the coming years we
continue to build Australia's strength and fairness and
continue to equip it to neat and master the challenges we
face. As we enter the 1990s that challenge won't evaporate. We
still have obstacles to surmount on the path to secured
prosperity. But our achievements so far, and our determination for the
future, make me confident we will succeed.
Delegates, My confidence in our prospects and in the prospects for the
Australian nation stem not just from the policy record of
the last few years.
It stems also from a deeper source within the heart of this
great Labor Party itself.
I can say, with complete truth, that I have never felt a
greater sense of pride in being the Labor Prime Minister
than I do now.
Because Labor at prosent is meeting the challenges of
Government more effectively and with greater unity than it
has ever done bofore.
In the early days of Government the various faotions of our
Party still had to learn how to understand and get on with
each other.
We had probably been in opposition for such a large part of
the post-war decades that we had come to accept factional
disputes as an affordable luxury.
2 3 6 8
I recall we tended at times to think that if a mozaber of
another faction did not have exactly the same interpretation
of how to reach our Labor goals, then that other faction
member was somehow not absolutely dinkum.
It took us a while in Government to understand the truth
that each group within our Party has its integrity that
all the groups need each other because they are all
essential components of our great Party.
In my judgement, there has been no period in our poet-war
history in which this Party has worked more constructively,
more coherently, more effectively, with such unity, than it
does now.
That is why we are going to meet the challenges of Labor in
Government. hnd let me say particularly to those who work so hard, day
after day, week after week, in the branches you do not get
a great accolade, but without you it would be Impossible for
us in Government to function.
I have never felt before so strongly that we can record with
pride and justification to our bramch supporters that we are
giving you what you want.
Compare all this with the picture our opponents present.
Earlier this year I warned that the conservatives in
Australia today posed the threat of a resurgence of what I
called the dark side of politics.
Virtually everything our opponents have dome and said since
then has proven the truth of my warning.
You will recall that when we cane to office in 1983 this
country was divided against itself because the conservatives
in government had sought to set Australian against
Australian, It is one of our proudest achievements that we have fostered
a healing process so that Australians are working together
to achieve our crucial national goals.
In theso last few weeks we have witnessed a shameful
resurgence of cynicism and political opportunism by the
leadership of the Federal conservative parties.
We have always known they are hopelessly divided among
themselves. It has now become an accepted fact of political
life that the parties which call themselves coalition
parties are utterly incapable of coalescing. 2 3 6'
9 Tcoo nfa or
of n
They cannot govern themselves so they certainly could not that.
govern the country. And I
the no
But in recent weeks we have seen that leadership weakness the re~
and that disunity translated Into a disgraceful attempt to Party
inject discrimination and racism into our immigration years
policies. return
John Hioward is helping to destroy the Liberal Party by his rosoun
comments on Asian immigration.
well, what happens to the Liberal Party is not our concern.
What is our concern, what is my business as Prima Minister,
Is the -damage those commentsc arc doing to the social fabric
of the community and to the economic prospects of the
nation. It is because of the potential for damage potential which
now is in fact being realised that I have affirmed that
under My Government there will be no revival of the White
Australia policy no backtracking on our commitment to
multiculturalism no restoration of discrimination on
grounds of race.
That is non-negotiable.
I toll the Howards, the Sinclairs, the Stones, all that
motley crew they don't understand the Australian people.
Theirs is indeed the dark side of politics. In the end
Australians won't cop it they will reject the
conservatives' brand of racism and of oonfrontationist
social policies.
So when the Australian people see, and they will, the nature
of the conservatives' dark and divided politics;
When they see on the other hand, as they will, the Federal
Government pressing ahead with its momentum of reform for
the remainder of this term and beyond;
When they see, as they will, that Labor is maintaining and
gradually improving living standards for Australians;
When they hear, as they do, Labor leaders such as myself and
Paul Keating and Premier John Cain and Bob Carr speaking
honestly and straightforwardly about the nature of our
economic challenget
Then the Australian people will have all the evidence they
require to determine that their future well-being lies with
Labor.
2370
To a State branch of our party which is holding its first
conference in opposition in mare than a decade, I can think
of no message of greater confidence for the future than
that.-And I say specifically to you, with confidence, that when at
the next State election the people of Now South Wales see
the renewal of spirit and commitment of the Noew South Wales
Party and compare that spirit and that commitment with 4
years of the dark side of politics in Government they will
return Labor to Government in New South Wales with a
resounding majority. 2,371