M.
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J
KEATING, MP, OPENING OF PRATT INDUSTRIES' NEW DE-INKING
AND PAPER RECYCLING MILL, MELBOURNE, 9 OCTOBER 1992
E OE PROOF COPY
I think it is true to say that we arc in a new culture and that culture changed in the
1980s, the culture of protection, seeing Australia ringed with a fence of tariffs, a
managed -exchange rate, cxcbange controls, a constipated financial market, there's
no way a business like this would havc been funded with them through the 1980s
without financial deregulation, but we are -seeing the great shift to a more supple,
fluid economy whcrc manufacturing is becoming the order of the day.
This is the first year in our history where manufactured exportsM have equalled rural
and mining exports. This is a great change for Australia, a great change from our
culture as an importing country, and as I said, John Button and 1, a week ago were
opening a plant, the Holeproof plant of Pacific Dunlop's. You might have heard
about my underpants on thc way through. But the thing was, here was another
busincss whcre Australians have decided to do something technologically clever
and produce a product which is compctitive and which will feed into the Australian
retailing industry and which will import replace. And not so many months before
that I had the honour again with Mr Toyoda to turn the first sod of the plant, an
$ 800 million investmcnt in a new motor vehicle plant which will be the ncw
denominator of the Australian motor vehicle industry; an enormous investment. Or
just a few weeks after that a new catalytic cracker for Shell over at Geelong which
is going to change our petroleum industry, going to sell into the Singapore oil
market and into south-cast Asia.
VO/ TO'd GIO'ON 91: ZT Z6' 30613:-131
These are just in the space of a few months and there are more of them and as
many as I talk about John can double them because he gets more invitations than
me, most out there in the manufacturing industry, they like him more.
Last week I was at the AMECON plant, we were not opening it but we were down
there tyre kicking, looki~ ng around and there was the latest destroyer delivered to
the Australian Navy, a most sophisticated warship, state of the art, world quality,
navy accepted it it had no faults, which is almost unprecedented; at its sea trials,
no faults. They say it is a better quality product from similar plant ships from the
United States, a great Australian achievement.
And recently I was at the Pacific Dunlop tyre plant where we see again technical
innovation to turn a new export business out of tyres; or at theFord plaig. where
we're exporting the new model Capri to the United States. This is just in Victoria.
Last week I was atMitsubishi where we saw the new Magna wagon go 6,000 of
them around the world as a-new export market for Australia.
We've made the jump, we've made the cultural shift to a society which is putting its
focus on technology and ability and part of that is of course, bringing up the quality
of our education system because the greatest Australian resource was never the
next deposit of minerals or the next paddock full of wheat, but the Australian
people themselves. And that's why now in 1992 just over 7 out of 10 children
complete secondary school where it was just 3 out of 10 in 1982. How could you
ever hope to be a technologically smart country if only 3 kids in ten completed
secondary school? Forty per cent of those are now streamed into universities
where we have added 50 per cent of places, we created the equivalent of twelve
universities of an average campus size of 10,000 since 1986 and we're now seeing
a revolution in vocational education, in technical and further education with a
Na_ t ional Training Authority to do in vocational education what we've done in
tertiary education and participation rates in schools.
We're seeing all that fed into a much more conscious research an~ d deve lopment
culture with support for research and development and product innovation which
welre seeing come through in Australian business. We are seeing Australia
integrate itself with these products with our near neighbourhood with the rest of the
world. Just a week ago I came back from Japan and Singapore and not long before that a
from earlier in the year from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and there's no
doubt in those countries Indonesia, Japan, Singapore et cetera that we are finding a
new place for Australia and we are building up conducive training and government
relationships and private relationships which is going to lock Australia much more
O/ ZO'd ST0' ON 95!: 2-T Z6* 430O6 :-1133.1
into that Asia Pacific area. Already 70 per cent of our exports go to the Asia
Pacific area, 60 per cent of it goes to the south-east Asian area, 75 per cent goes to
the APEC area, Asia Pacific area as a whole.
We're already part of this region and we're integrating with it now rapidly. I
suppose the most important statistic one can quote is that a decade ago 14 per cent
of our produce was exported, this year it is 23 per cent; that is nearly a quarter of
everything we produce is exported. This is a phenomenal change which without
that our current account deficit would be double, our debt levels would be
astronomic and of course, the international financial markets would already be
inducing a permanent slow down of Australia so that our debt levels didn't
increase. So we've madc a very important change and part of the change is in the culture of
business and the culture of the workforce, it's not just entrepreneurship like
Richard's ( Pratt) display here or the marshalling of the capital or the technical
innovation in the management group, but also in thc great revolution in industrial
relations. Because we are now seeing enterprise agreements written across this
country where all sorts and manner of conditions, be they penalty rates or hours of
work or conditions of employment rolled into new innovative agreements which
give us all the flexibility in the world, higher productivity, better salaries, lower
costs and lower inflation and it is that sea-change in industrial relations which has
given us a period of unprecedented industrial peace and which is seeing us do the
most innovative things, introduction in plants across the country. I think that
consensus model, that bringing Australia together and holding it together and
giving people a stake in the business, giving people pride in what they are doing
and having management to include them, an inclusive policy is the one that's
obviously producing the goods for Australia and not a competitive policy in the
work place where one worker is pitted against another or an adversarial
relationship where the management is pitted against the employees. That's what
we want to avoid and if we want to take any lessons from Japan or any of the
cultures from our near north, if there's one thing in common they have is that peer
group pressure and the work ethic have come togethcr as a cohesive group is what
made those societies productively great in what is changing Australia.
So the spirit is there and the faith is there and that is what's going to matter to us
and the hope is there. The fact is, T said this week with some criticism that the
recession is over, technically it is true and as we know we are still living with the
effects of it and we will for some time. But the point is the recovery is on and it's
on in plants like this across the country and it will grow as we go through thc 1990S
as a low inflationary culture where we've got the emphasis on product innovation
and we're looking to add value and do good things for our employees.
tVO/ MOd G9100N 91: LT Z6* 13O613:-131
But in every business they are all becoming more productive, Richard was telling
me at the table that in each plant of course there are fewer people producing more
products and that's true across the country. It has to be true to be competitive. So
what is the answer? What is the answer to the implied redundancy of having fewer
people producing more product; and the answer is to produce even more product,
even greater levels of product. There are just thousands of business opportunities
that will be taken up in the 1990s doing innovative things, producing more product
to let the country grow, hut you can't run this country at a speed which takes the
employment up without it spilling into inflation, without some agreement about
incomes. Whether you call in an Accord or you call it ca-operation or an
understanding, call it what you like, but there is no way sonme draconian Reserve
Bank on monetary policy is going to let Australia grow and at the same time keep
inflation down while we can take up the unemployed into productive jobs. If we
want higher rates of employment and more growth, we must have more production,
more speed in GDP, greater rates of growth, but if we want to lower intended
intlation risk and keep that competitiveness we've got to do it together. We'll never
do it banging people over the head with a vicious monetary policy administered by
some independent reserve or central bank.
So it's all about doing things together as things have been done here, doing clever
and complex things, but doing them well, seeing intelligence, entrepreneurship,
street smartness, good will, a bit of heart brought together to produce something
really new and innovative.
So Richard, I congratulate you on what you have done, I congratulate you on the
business you have developed which is a good thing for Australia, you're replacing
all of those imports which you would otherwise be taking as raw product, you're
doing things to employ Australians and you'll keep on employing because youll
keep on growing your business, notwithstanding the fact you need fewer of them in
the productive process and in doing so you are part of that great cultural change of
Australia, going out, meeting the world, engaging the world and doing it in a way
which earns Australia a place of repute, of substance, in the world of trade
particularly in the A-ia Pacific where we live.
This is a a great day for the industry of Victoria and of Melbourne and I salute and
congratulate every Victorian who has been involved with it, none more so than our
afcsbian entrepreneurial fricnd, Richard Pratt.
Thank you.
S910N 9 Z6' 430613:-131