FOR MEDIA 21 AUGUST 1989
Attached are comments the Prime Minister will make at this
evening's dinner hosted by Alan Griffiths, MP. He will also
comment on this afternoon's developments in relation to the
pilot's dispute.
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
ALAN GRIFFITHS' DINNER FOR
WESTERN SUBURBS COMMUNITY LEADERS
MOONEE PONDS 21 AUGUST 1989
Alan Griffiths, commitment to the people of Melbourne's
western suburbs is nowhere better demonstrated than in his
support for the establishment of a new University on this
side of the city.
The decades of conservative government in Canberra and in
Melbourne through most of the 1950s, 60s and 70s were
decades of neglect for the western suburbs.
neglect in the provision of the basic services and
social infrastructure that people in the better off
suburbs take for granted.
This neglect was specially marked in the provision of
education services.
For too long, children of the western suburbs were denied
the vital educational opportunities they deserve.
You have probably heard me narrate, with pride, the story of
what I consider one of this government's greatest
achievements. It's an achievement measured in better lives and brighter
futures.
We want to ensure that all young people, regardless of where
they live or how well off their parents are, have the
opportunity to complete a full 12 years of education.
When we came to office in March 1983 we found that
tragically, under the Liberals, only about one out of every
three school children was staying on to Year 12.
What a waste that figure represented a waste of human
resources, a waste of young lives, a wasteful denial of the
aspirations that Australian kids are entitled to have for a
decent education and a good start in life.
And worse, that waste was accompanied by an imbalance,
within the Australian community, regarding the educational
achievement of our school kids.
Within Melbourne, in 1983 the retention rate for students in
state high schools in the Western Metropolitan area was
lower than the overall Metropolitan rate, and the Eastern
Metropolitan figure was higher.
We were determined to rectify that waste and that imbalance,
and we have.
The changes we made have dramatically lifted the number of
kids who are getting this vital chance in life of finishing
secondary school.
Now, about 58 per cent of students finish their schooling.
Within Melbourne, all sections of the city have better
retention rates and the imbalance of six years ago has been
wiped out. In fact, the Western Metropolitan figure is now
slightly higher than the overall figure for Melbourne.
So that dramatic turnaround is one of Labor's greatest
achievements in office.
But unfortunately there are still educational imbalances
within this city especially at the tertiary level.
In Andrew Peacock's electorate of Kooyong, about a quarter
of the population 23 per cent have tertiary
qualifications while in this electorate of Maribyrnong less
than 9 per cent have them. In some electorates in the
western suburbs the figure is even lower.
That hasn't happened because people here are any less well
endowed at birth with intellect, or any less determined to
succeed in life.
It isn't because tertiary training is less valued in the
western suburbs.
It's because of lack of opportunity.
In particular there has been no university in this part of
the city to open the doors to new levels of academic
endeavour and to set new standards of academic excellence.
Now we haven't been idle in expanding tertiary educational
opportunities in the western suburbs.
We have provided almost $ 13 million for the construction of
Broadmeadows College of TAFE, and we are contributing a
further $ 3 million for a new computing complex at the
College where construction is expected to start next year.
3.
We created the Western Institute in 1986, with the
co-operation of the Victorian Government, providing the
western suburbs with tertiary opportunities ranging from
basic trades and technical courses through to diplomas and
degrees. At the Footscray Institute of Technology, we have increased
student numbers through to 1991.
And tonight, we can look with pride on the fact that thanks
to the work of Alan Griffiths, and many other people, my
Government and John Cain's Government have agreed to provide
new resources for a fifth university in Victoria to
rectify the neglect of those past decades of conservative
neglect. The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology RMIT the
Western Institute and the Footscray Institute of Technology
are to combine to give the western suburbs access to a world
class University of Technology with enhanced funding for
both research and research teaching.
It will be a place that will attract the best minds and
serve as a target for local kids who want to get the best
qualifications in higher education.
We have already committed more than $ 375 million to the new
university, including $ 55 million for capital development up
to 1991.
Now I am very pleased to inform you of our most recent
progress towards this goal.
Already, the State Government has made development of this
university its number one priority in planning for Victorian
higher education growth in the future. Commonwealth
commitments for growth and capital in 1992 will be announced
shortly but we do know there is overwhelming community
support for the project and we too are prepared to accord
the highest priority for capital funding to the campus at
St Albans.
My colleague, John Dawkins, has recently written to the
State Minister for Post-secondary Education, Evan Walker,
outlining the financial commitments we have decided to make
to the new university.
John Dawkins' letter spelt out that additional funds will
flow to the new university for growth in places in the West.
We also want to see a steady development of the research
capacity of the new university. We will be helping to bring
this about both through operating grants and through the
significant new money for research that I announced recently
as part of our new Science and Technology package.
So this is the very concrete assistance we're providing to
ensure that, like the rest of Melbourne, the Western suburbs
have access to a world class university.
In an era of fiscal restraint, this decision shows again
that Labor in Canberra and at the State level is getting
it right. We're expanding educational opportunities and
building a fairer society.
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a pleasure to be here in this part of Melbourne so
soon after Williamstown's success in the competition for the
frigate contract.
Over the last few years Williamstown has undergone a
complete transformation.
A few years ago let's be frank the Williamstown Naval
Dockyards' record of industrial problems, exacerbated by
restrictive work practices and poor management, left a lot
to be desired.
There was a very real chance that after some 140 years as a
major focus of port activity, Williamstown was about to
become an industrial ghost town. But the last two years saw
a dramatic turn around.
The region is now one of the fastest growing areas in
Melbourne and it is no exaggeration to say that Wiliamstown
is a leading centre for marine technology.
This transformation didn't happen by accident.
It happened because employers and employees made the
conscious decision to make it happen.
As a result of reducing -demarcation disputes, improving
productivity and enhancing work skills through on-site
training, Wiliamstown Dockyards has become a model of
industrial restructuing.
So it was no surprise that Williamstown, along with a
consortium in Newcastle, put together tenders for the
frigate project which was of world standard.
Both here and in Newcastle, the workforce, the employers and
the State Government presented Canberra with a united
determination to make a success of our largest defence
project ever.
And the real winner is Australia, because the fact that we
could have two shipyards capable of undertaking this huge
project proves in the most dramatic fashion that the whole
Australian economy has undergone a transformation of
similarly dramatic dimensions as Williamstown's own
turnaround.
Under the Accord between the Federal Government and the
trade union movement, and more generally through our
capacity as a community to work together for our mutual
economic advantage, we are seeing the emergence of an
industrial culture committed to quality, competitiveness and
productivity. I want to pay unqualified tribute to the men and women of
the Australian workforce whose wisdom and commitment,
matched by a new attitude on behalf of employers, has made
this possible.
Australians now understand that the practices of
uncompetitiveness and the habits of confrontationism
fostered by the conservatives for most of the post-war
decades must be abandoned.
Wage earners have understood that wage restraint creates
jobs some one and a half million since 1983 and makes us
more internationally competitive.
Employers and employees have understood that greater work
effectiveness creates a greater economic capacity to pay
wages. Industries that were sheltered behind the walls of
protectionism have understood that long-term success lies
with freer trade.
At the level of the Federal Government there has been an
equally marked transformation.
The contrast between the seventh Budget of the Hawke
Government and the seventh Budget of the Fraser Government
provides dramatic proof of that assertion.
Their seventh Budget was brought down in 1982 It will go
down in history as the last of the pork barrel budgets. Its
only strategy was the strategy of cynicism.
The results of that lack of leadership were very clear and
they were very painful:
the worst recession Australia had known since the Great
Depression; double digit unemployment and double digit inflation a
unique, and tragic, testimony to economic mismanagement;
and a massive prospective Budget deficit of more than
$ 9 billion.
We have now turned that recession around. We have begun the
vital process of making Australia a more flexible and
competitive country. We have abandoned the Liberals'
industrial confrontationism and put in its place a process
of consultation and co-operation. And we have taken their
prospective Budget deficit of more than $ 9 billion and
turned it into a Budget surplus of more than $ 9 billion.
Our seventh Budget showed our determination not to sacrifice
our long term economic strategy a strategy that offers the
only prospect for economic salvation for this nation on
the altar of short term political expediency.
With our seventh Budget we are on about securing the long
term future of the Australian economy. With the Liberals'
seventh Budget they were on about securing the short term
future of themselves.
we are succeeding at our task. They failed at theirs.
They failed in their doomed attempt to hoodwink the
electorate and they failed to tackle the real issues facing
the economy.
I don't want to spend a lot of time this evening outlining
the broad macro-economic strategy of the Budget. That has
already been well explained in the Budget and has, I
believe, been well received by the community.
What hasn't been fully understood yet is the sweeping nature
of the changes to retirement policies that formed one of the
highlights of the Budget.
In terms of their impact on the individual well-being of
Australian families, today and for decades into the future,
these changes are of unparalleled signifiance.
They prove once again that while this Government is getting
on with the fundamental economic problems facing this
country, we have not forgotten the cardinal rule that
Government is about people.
our social justice policies policies aimed at ensuring
that the least well off members of the community have the
assistance to which they are entitled is one of our
proudest achievements in the traditional mould of Labor
Governments. Brian Howe summed it up precisely when he said recently of
our approach to spending on welfare: it's an " active,
positive one that provides opportunities for people to leave
the social security system, and a safety net for those
unable to do so."
We are spending today nearly $ 9 billion more on social
justice than was being spent in 1982/ 83 an increase as a
proportion of total public spending excluding public debt
interest, from about 50 per cent to some 58 per cent this
year.
That is a very substantial increase, especially given the
dramatic reduction that has taken place in the number of
people receiving unemployment benefits.
Medicare, child care, public housing, care for the elderly,
the unemployed and the sick are all important recipients of
this spending.
In this Budget we provide new assistance to the aged,
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, to homeless youth,
to fee relief for child care not giveaway measures but
steady, affordable help focussed on the areas of need in the
community. Our policies on retirement income continue our determination
to focus on the real issues affecting the prosperity of
individual Australians.
When we came to office, what we inherited in this field
according to Ross Gittins of the Sydney Morning Herald,
" couldn't be called a retirement incomes system. It was
just a mess".
There was simply no logic to a system where the millionaires
were receiving the age pension, while for blue collar
workers superannuation was a virtually unattainable dream.
Now, taxpayers are paying the pension only to those elderly
people who need it not to the millionaires.
The result of that targetting, of course, means that needy
people receive more assistance than they would otherwise.
In this Budget we acheived our longstanding commitment to
lift the age pension to 25 per cent of Average Weekly
Earnings. At the same time, we have transformed superannuation from an
unattainable dream to a practical reality within the reach
of virtually every Australian employee.
Right now about 65 per cent of workers are covered by award
based superannuation, and by the end of the year this will
rise to about 80 per cent.
Why is it important that the Budget focussed on
superannuation? It is because it is essential from the point of view both of
individual families and of the whole economy that wherever
possible people are encouraged to save for their retirement.
Otherwise in a few years time, when. the baby boom generation
starts to retire, there will be a huge burden placed on
future taxpayers in the form of massive demand for pensions.
We hear a lot from the opposition about savings. You may
recall that when Andrew Peacock was travelling around the
country on his mock election campaign that he produced this
half-baked scheme of inflation adjustment of interest. It
really was a classic Peacock example of searching for a bit
of meat to add to the feathers.
Now Paul Keating and I have explained on a number of
occasions why such a scheme would be a disaster. But you
don't have to take our word for it. only last week
Brian Loton, head of Australia's largest company, BHP,
announced his verdict on the scheme: he said, " if you want
to see indexation at work, go to Brazil."
This Government is not in the Peacock game of half-baked
gimmicks that make problems worse rather than cure them.
Our commitment to superannuation is a commitment to real
savings a long-term strategy to overc * ome Australia's
long-term propensity to consume rather than to save.
To provide incentives for people to save for their
retirement, the Government will implement a three-stage
reform of the social security and taxation systems.
The first stage, announced in April 1989, will ensure that
by next July, 80 per cent of all pensioners will not be
required to pay income tax.
Under the second stage, the Government will, in the
following year, 1991, for the first time ever, index
annually the pension income test free area so that it is not
eroded by inflation.
The third stage of reform, from 1995, will be the removal of
all pensioners from the tax system, so that pensioners with
income above the free area will be subject only to the
pension income test.
As part of the wage system for next financial year, we will
consider the gradual introduction of a further 3 per cent
award based occupational superannuation.
Among other changes, we have also introduced rules to ensure
that when people change jobs, they don't lose the super that
has been paid on their behalf.
And at the same time we have encouraged people to preserve
their superannuation benefits until they actually retire.
The limit on tax deductions for super contributions for the
self employed will be increased, and workers on low or
modest incomes with relatively small employer-funded
superannuation will be able to top-up those funds and claim
tax deductions.
So these historic reforms will substantially assist current
pensioners with income above the pension free area, and
provide a major boost to incentives for those currently in
the workforce to save for their retirement.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I referred before to the seventh budget of the doomed Fraser
Government in 1982. It was their last budget.
I want to express my complete confidence that our seventh
budget, that Paul Keating brought down last week, will not
be our last budget.
The Liberals' seventh budget looked only to the next
election, and as an inevitable result the Liberals were
repudiated by the electorate.
In our seventh budget we are looking beyond the election,
setting in place the elements of our strategy for our next
term of office and, if you like, beyond.
Dramatic changes are underway within the economy the
changes represented by the Williamstown dockyards; the
changes represented by the establishment of a new university
here in the western suburbs; the changes represented by our
historic reforms to super and to age pensions.
I want to reaffirm tonight our utmost commitment to
continue, with energy and determination, this great task of
reform on which we have embarked.
That is a task whose successful completion will, I believe,
be Labor's best guarantee of continued electoral success
into the 1990s and Australia's best guarantee of greater
prosperity and fairness.