PRIME MINISTER
CHECK & GAINST DELIVERY. EMAGEZUTLDLIVERY
PRINZ MINISTER'S OPENING STATEMENT
SPECIAL PREMIEKRS' CONPERENCE
BRISBANE 30 OCTOBER 1990
At the outset, let me thank each of you for the very
positive way in which you have responded to the call I
made in July for a new approach and a new process to
achieve a closer partnership within our Federal
Constitution. Your positive response as individuals and as leaders of
your Governments is the key element, the vital spark,
in giving life and direction to the historic process we
are inaugurating together today.
The contacts I have had with each of you in recent weeks,
parallel with the preparatory work of our officials, and
your response, encourage me immensely.
our agreed goal can be simply stated in this last
decade of the first century of the Australian Federation,
to make the Federation work better.
I believe we are agreed that the purpose of setting such
a goal is to improve our national efficiency and
international competitiveness and to improve the delivery
and quality of the services we provide as governments for
the people of Australia.
And we are agreed, I believe, that our first task is to
move by sensible, practical, achievable steps to get
better co-operation within the existing framework of the
Federal Constitution.
Those means and ends are easily enough stated.
Yet we know from the experience of ninety years how hard
it is to achieve even modest change and reform and I
speak here not of the Constitution itself, but of change
and reform in the way we do things, the way we govern
ourselves under our Federal 4system.
BUt your reaponto co far convincee me that never has the
time been so propitious as indeed, it has never been so
urgent and compelling for a new effort, a new approach
and a new spirit of co-operation.
An important objective for this first special Conference
is to reach broad agreement on a set of principles, as a
clear guide for future action in the key areas under
review. Those areas which we are looking at today cover the full
range of inter-governmental relationships: the general
financial arrangements; tied grants: micro-economic
reform; duplication of services; the environment; and
industrial relations.
To set principles and clear courses for action over such
a breadth of areas in itself is a major challenge for
this Conference.
It would mean a very serious resolve and very substantial
commitment by us all on behalf of our respective
governments, and on our own behalf as the elected leaders
of this nation.
In the Commonwealth's case, the adoption of the
principles before us would in some areas involve an
historic change of course in the way the Federal system
has developed over the last ninety years.
One such instance is the matter of tied grants. The
commitment I am prepared to make on the Commonwealth's
behalf to work with the States towards a substantial
reduction in tied grants represents a fundamnental. shift
in direction. But we are prepared to make this
commitment as an earnest of our determination to work
genuinely and sincerely with the States to create a
closer federal partnerohip.
I cannot emphasise too strongly the need for us all to
move our thinking beyond old fixed ideas of centralism or
State rights of the Commonwealth versus the States. I
believe the people we represent expect us to rise above
that. The guiding test for everything we do here should
be: what is best for all our citizens, our fellow
Australians. Our officials have worked hard to prepare the ground for
this meeting.
But officials can advance the work only so far.
This Conference is the critical stage in the process
the catalyst for change.
3.
S We alone, as the elected leaders, as the responsible
heads of government, can make the commitment the
commitment of personal and political will to create,
guide and invigorate the process towards a better, more
effective, Federal system and through it, a better
Australia. If we now make that commitment and I do so
unequivocally then I am convinced we will be able to
meet the just expectations of the people we have the
privilege to represent, not just for the two days of this
Conference, but for this crucial decade in the history of
Australia. I look forward to a co-operative approach from all of us
in this first meeting and in the work ahead.