C 1. 4.
PRIME MINISTER
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
NATIONAL PRESS CLUB
CANBERRA 11 MARCH 1993
I thought he might have surprised us.
I thought, seeing that there is an election on Saturday,
he might have come along for a debate.
I thought he might have stopped impersonating American
Presidents, stopped running, and come along to answer some
questions from the people whose democratic purpose is to
ask them.
No such luck.
Dr Hewson has broken one of the traditions of Australian
-poltics:.. we don't have such a lot of home grown
traditions but one of them is that leaders make
themselves accountable to the press in the week before an
election. Dr Hewson has not answered a question of substance since
Christmas. Every time he has been asked a question of substance and
that is about three times he has fallen over.
Dr Hewson has not been able to accommodate anyone who is
asking for facts about his so-called " plan".
. His campaign itself has been a falsehOOd.
S1D 17nitation of Freaent Clinwios campaign disguises
c fact that QEhat rlinton standt for, Hewson despises.
U .* C14miCF ha% Vrn a mask in this campaign.
If W* AX ans have not seen behind it yet, they still
have two days.
Dr Hewson has been unable to provide 4= wAth facts on the
GST. 71 4F
He has said it will create 2 million jobs. He has said it
consistently. There is not one person in this room who believes that.
I daresay, there is not one economist in Australia who
believes it.
I would venture to say there are a good many people in
this room and a good many economists who believe that it
will create no jobs or, wnrR, it will cost jobs.
I am one of the latter. I am sure I am not the only one
to have heard reports in recent weeks of companies in my
case some of the finance houses of Sydney and Melbournewhich
are planning lay-offs of workers when the GST is
introduced. That is the first great deceit of the Hewson campaign.
They say the GS'r will create jobs.
The GST will not create jobs.
I would also venture to say that there is not one person
in this room, nor I imagine is there one doctor in
Australia, who doesn't know that Dr Hewson is going to rip
the heart out of Medicare and leave it a universal health
care system in name only.
Dr Hewson would move the Australian health system towards
the American system.
The American strategy of publicly subsidising private
health care and insurance has left 35 million Americans
without insurance, and given doctors and private health
insurance companies the ability to unremittingly Jack up
health costs.
Just as they promise to do in Australia: in their own
journal. In the Sydney seat of Lowe 9 out of 10 doctors
promise to increase their fees.
It's your money or your health.
American health care costs are more than 50 per cent
gredftii'tiin-Kust-ral-j 850 per cent greater and a
fraction of the service.
Last year in the United States employer spending on health
care exceeded total after tax profits.
Last year in Australia employers paid nothing and were
that much more Competitive as a result.
In America a huge part of the population lives in fear of
being sick or injured because of the health bills they
would have to pay. In Australia the only thing to fear is the sickness
itself.
There are waiinlis-ts-it is true. In the campaign
speech I announced action to remedy it by contracting out
the treatment of public patients in private _ hospitals.
This is additional to the S70 million we have given the
States to shorten waiting lists.
But if those waiting lists were twice as long they would
not constitute a reason to adopt the American health care
system. That is the second great deceit of this campaign.
The Liberals say they won't destroy Medicare.
The fact is they will.
I am also sure that there isn't a single person in this
room who doesn't know that Dr Hewson's industrial
relations 2pgram will destroy the cooperative ethic on
whc ifER1naustrial relations are based; or that he will
throw people onto individual contracts and destroy thereby
their security, their wages and conditions, and their
dignity. That is the third great deceit.
Dr Hewson's industrial relations policy is not designed to
reduce unemployment but to drive wages down.
I don't believe there is anyone here who doesn't know that
Dr Hewson's plan for Australia is a plan of radical
regression. A plan conceived in the bowels of a computer in the late
1970s, using the Thatcherite software that was all the
rage at Johns Hopkins in those days.
Dr Hewson's so-called " plan" for Australia is an old plan
that has failed wherever it has been tried with
disastrous economic and social consequences.
My great fear is that the damage he could do in three
years, would take us decades to. jepair.
Then there is the one about selling Telecom to an overseas
buyer for S20 billion.
This is the one from the man who talks about national
sovereignty and creating jobs and funding promises.
On each of these counts, the Telecom sale is a fraud.
Does anyone think that Dr Hewson will get $ 20 billion for
Telecom?
7146
Does anyone seriously think that there will be more jobs
in Telecom if it is sold?
The only way they could get anywhere near S20 billion
would be to sell it overseas and remove all protection for
Australian consumers and workers. It would have to mean
timed local calls. It would certainly mean huge job
losses. Creating jobs in Telecom by selling it overseas is about
as likely as creating jobs in tourism by making it cheaper
to holiday in Bali than it is in Cairns which is what
the GST will do.
So there is another great deceit.
And here is another little one.
On every Fightback pamphlet that has gone out in the last
12 months the Opposition claims that it will abolish seven
taxes. One of them, the coal -export levy, is a standing
joke because it is already abolished.
There is another one there under the heading " customs
duties". The Coalition says it will abnlish cus tom duty.
That means, unequivocally, zero tariffs.
But when it suits them, they say they are not for zero
tariffs not immediately, in some industries, in some
electorates. Both thin~ s cannot be true.
This whole ' plan" of Dr Hewson is a deceit.
He does not have a plan, he has an obsession.
He does not have facts, he has gimmicks.
He has only one fact at his disposal unemployment.
The one big negative of our national life at present.
Unemployment is the great curse of the nineties.
And it is apparent again in today's figures. Essentially,
they are " as you were" figures, which makes the point that
unemployment is going to be immensely difficult to deal
with and it won't be fixed quickly. That's why we need
the full focus of the nation's energies; and why we don't
need those energies dissipated in a divisive scramble for
a piece of the cake.
7148 The figures mean simply that unemployment is too high.
They also show that the unemployment rate may be
flattening out, which is consistent with recent statistics
showing that the economy is picking up.
But this is really beside the point. If unemployment has
in fact peaked, that is no reason for complacency. It is
certainly no comfort for the unemployed.
The central issue is which party is best equipped to deal
with unemployment, and that means which party will succeed
best at getting the economy moving.
It also poses the question which party is best equipped
to help the unemployed directly?
There is no simple answer to unemployment, but there is no
doubt that the best answer in the long-term and the shortterm
is economic growth. and the way to get growth is by
investing and our efforts are aimed precisely at this
point investment in Australian companies.
By contrast, it seems to me beyond doubt that Dr Hewson's
so-called " plan" will not be a remedy but a new disease.
If unemployment is our greatest problem now, how much
worse will it be if we stifle the recovery with a 15 per
cent tax on virtually everything we buy and everything we
use. How much worse will it be if we deal with the problem of
unemployment in an atmosphere of industrial and social
turmoil. How much harder will it be to find solutions, or to find
the concerted national will to solve the problem, if the
rest of the population is divided, insecure and rancorous.
If unemployment is a great problem now, how muc~ h worse
willitZ. P without a universal health care system, or with
an unfair education system.
If unemployment is a tragedy now, how mucrh worse will it
be with S10 billion taken out of the Budget.
How much worse will it be wit~ i social security spending
cut? How much worse with funding for regional areas cut?
How much worse with cuts to State services like State
schools?
How much worse with S800 million cut out of funds for the
unemployed and people left to wait much longer for their
benefits?
6
If unemployment is the worst fact of our national life at
present, how much worse will it be if Government " gets out
of the way" as Dr Hewson says it should, and people are
left to fend entirely for themselves?
How much worgep will it he if we put inflation back in the
system? How much worge will it he if we add a tax burden and an
accountancy burden and a time burden to the small
businesses which we know are going to drive growth and
create jobs?
Since the campaign started, a raft of positive indicators
have appeared illustrating our economic progress.
Tuesday's figures on job vacancies and retail sales were
the most encouraging since 1990. Export figures have been
positive.% Today this very day if you distil the politics out of
this morning's press you will find unequivocally positive
economic news. There's a story about our continuing
export surge, another about our growing manufacturing
sector, another about an Australian company landing a Sl
billion contract in Laos. There is much more but John
Hewson of course won't tell you. For twelve months
wherever there has been hope, Dr Hewson has counselled
despair. That's why today I have released a document accompanying
this speech which describes some of the good things which
are happening in Australia, and which Dr Hewson refuses to
talk about.
There is no . quesrion that the direction we are going is
the right one. We are going too slowly to lower the
unemployment figure, but that is not a reason for changing
course. It's a reason for accelerating progress where we can and
we have done this by lowering company tax rates, by
introducing an investment allowance of 20 per cent and by
cultivating a.. nebankint _ culjture.
Every sensible thing that can be done to speed the pace of
recovery and long-term reform is being done, or is
proposed for a second Keating Government.
And the things we do are all directed at the goal of
creating employment and helping the unemployed through
with training and other forms of assistance.
Some of you will have seen the statistics released this
week on the success of labour market programs. They are
working. They are helping thousands and thousands of
Australians. 7
So why wreck the recovery? Why wreck the safety net, the
humane and constructive government interventions? Why
wreck the social fabric of Australia?
my message for those people who are presently wondering
whether to desert the Labor Government is think very
carefully. Think about what you would lose.
In an election the choice is not between one party and a
vacuum, it's a choice between two parties.
Ask yourself whether by voting for policies which are
proven failures elsewhere in the world, you won't be
punishing Australia and the next generation of
Australians. Ask yourself whether the absolute hollowness, the absolute
fraudulence of Dr Hewson's campaign is not an indication
that a vote for Dr Hewson is a leap in the dark.
To the people of Australia, between now and Saturday, I
would say, every time you hear Dr Hewson say he has a
plan, ask yourself do I understand. Has he explained it
to me. And if the answer is no or maybe don't vote for
him. In this forum this week, Dr Hewson had a chance to explain
his so-called " plan" a chance to explain how it would
create a single job, how it would not destroy the social
fabric of Australia, how it differs from the plans of
Thatcher, Reagan, Douglas and Mulroney he had a chance
to explain it in this forum and he refused. He chose to
play soccer and shout slogans instead.
Let me give the oldest advice in the world to the people
who are contemplating the big jump. Don't do it. For
your own sake don't do it. For Australia's sake don't do
it. For your kid's sake don't do it.
I have been to this Press Club 18 times in the last
decade. I've been four times in the past year. I don't
know how many press conferences I have given in the last
twelve months, or how many doorstops that my staff said I
let go on too long.
I don't believe it can be said that I've ever run away
from scrutiny, or from the opportunity to explain our
policies, or failed to face up to the ramifications of
those policies.
As Treasurer and then Prime Minister, I have taken full
responsibility for the economic and social affairs of
Australia. And all the responsibility that is mine, I
will shoulder. All the damage that the recession has
done, I will attempt to repair. Every sensible thing that
can be done, will be done. Much of it is already being
done and I want the chance to build on this.
7150
AS I said in the campaign launch, fifteen years ago I
began to imagine an Australia which not only exported
minerals and farm products, but Sophisticated
manufactures. The thought occurred to me and a few other colleagues that
Australia could be what no one had really ever imagined it
could be that is. a country integrated with the world
( you've heard it before I know), focussed on the region,
competitive, creative, sophisticated secure.
And as every one of you know this is happening. Any one
who was old enough and compos mantis in the 1970s will
know what a huge change there has been.
You've heard the figures exporting nearly one-quarter of
our total product, exporting 70 per cent of it to Asia,
exporting quantities of elaborately transformed
manufactures we never dreamed we could make.
Some of you will have seen the McKinsey report on the new
breed of Australian company which is emerging. Some of
you will have noticed that in the last two months, a
S2 billion contract has been signed by BHP with the
Vietnamese Government, and yesterday a $ 1 billion
hydro-electric project in Laos one of the largest
construction projects yet in Indo-China.
These-things are happening as a result of a conscious
decision by the Australian people to change. These things
are happening because we intended them to hKappen.
The new Australia the Australia of the nineties will
be different from the Australia of any other era. And the
essential difference will be this: the Australia of the
nineties will be one entirely conceived by Australians and
brought into being by Australians and wearing the stamp
Aius~ tralija on everything it does.
Now I say that is at stake on Saturday. Our economic
future is at stake, and so is the quality of our society
the Australian stamp of our society.
So much is at risk. A society where chil~ d-Car -e is,
finally, a right. A society which believes women should
get equal pay and be able to participate fully in all
areas of work and life. A society which cherishes those
who spend part of their lives caring for children or sick
people. Those of you who know me will know what I believe.
Whatever my faults, I don't think hiding my beliefs is one
of them.
Very simply I believe in creating a high wage, high skill
and high productivity ' Australia. John Hewson believes in
a low wage, low productivity Australia. John Howson believes in dismantling the public sector he
hates the., public sector. I, believe in making the public
sector, as it is in every successful country, more
efficient, more people-oriented.
John Howson believes in fear in the workplace. I believe
in cooperation and creativity in the workplace.
John Howson believes in private health insurance. I
believe in sharing our personal health care risks through
a national public and private system working in
cooperation. John Hewson believes in zero tariffs as an end in itself.
I believe in using tariff reform as a fair benchmark to
improve our industry with long term plans and safeguards.
John Howson believes in American razzamatazz and hoopla
and carefully staged passion plays and bunfights, and
American advisers, and the constant reiteration of poll
driven phrases.
I don't believe in it, myself. I think it's an assault on
good democratic Australian traditions. I think it's
rubbish. I think one should face the music scratchy,
discordant, unpleasant music though it might be. I think
you have to say what you believe and be prepared to defend
it in detail.
This way at least, when people vote on Saturday they will
know what they will get with Paul Keating. To judge him
by his campaign, the same cannot be said of John Hewson.
Finally, let me say this if people are not convinced by
Dr Howson's intention to impose a GST, to make Medicare a
universal health system in name only, to destroy the basic
rights of workers and the cooperative ethic of the
Australian workplace, to turn our colleges and
universities into businesses, to set back our environment
programs a generation or more if they're not convinced
that Dr Hewson's policies represent a threat to our way of
life and our values, perhaps it will help to think of it
in philosophical terms.
Dr Howson's philosophy is based on the idea of selfinterest
and survival of the fittest. Remember what
Margaret Thatcher said: there is no such thing as
society, only individuals making their way. This is Dr
Hewson' s philosophy.
He wants to impose this idea on Australia. That's what he
means by breaking the mould.
What he doesn't like about Australia is the humanitarian,
community ethos the one that is there in Australia from
the beginning of our European history until now. Think
about it. The heroes of Australia have always been and
remain the champions of the underdog.
Now this may not fit well with the economics that Dr
Hewson believes in, but it fits well with Australia. It
is what we are. It has sprung from our history. It is
what unites us it is the principal bond between us.
I hope I never see the day when our traditions are
subverted by the doctrine of unmitigated self-interest.
That is Dr Hewson's doctrine if I fought him on nothing
else, as an Australian, I would fight him on this.
So if you're not persuaded that ripping up the . social wage
and introducing a giant flat tax will irrevocably-dam8
the fabric and the way of life of Australia, be persuaded
by this.
Be persuaded by the philosophical change, the change in
the ethic be persuaded by all those statements Dr Hewson
has made in the last couple of years, the most telling of
which was that one in the Budget reply when he said, we
must not reach back for people because they will drag us
down. This goes to the heart of it. Ultimately this is the
nature of the risk. John Hewson has been projecting a
more temperate image in recent weeks of course but
perhaps the best reminder of John Hewson's old Fightback 1
persona came in January, in a speech byAshley_
Goldsworthy, the Liberal Party Federal President.
Goldsworthy said Australia needed a jolt. " Life has to
become tougher", he said " with less security and greater
uncertainty". Be warned:-this is the brave new world of Dr Hewson. Let
dog eat dog. Let the lucky and the rich prosper and the
rest gather the crumbs that fall. Dr Hewson is an
unashamed theorist of trickle down economics. If he is
allowed to become a practitioner of this theory, he will
turn Australia on its head.
Call it scaremongering if you like. I do fear for
Australia. I fear for the people. I fear for all those
things which bind us together, and in which I believe
above all other things.
But it's not scaremongering. It's factmongering.
Exposing the facts which Dr Hewson won't reveal.
I am absolutely sure that Dr Hewson will be bad for
Australia. His agenda is radical, disruptive,
destructive. I sincerely hope and believe that
Australians will recognise that they cannot take the risk. NE S L a AS
11 March 1993
COALITION WILL RUIN GAS INDUSTRY
Claims today by Tim Fischer about the future of gas in the Nowra region are a
cheap diversion from the Coalition's real agenda of ruiningthe gas industry
The Federal Minister for Resources, Alan Griffiths, stonglv refuted claims by
Mr Fischer that Labor would not build the gas p, eine extension to Nowra.
" Labor has committed $ 15 million to extende Moomba-Sydney pipeline to
Nowra, to ensure gas is supplied as cheaq as possible to the region, especially
the crucial APPM paper recycling plan ocated in Nowra," Mr Griffiths said.
" We stand by this commitment. T people of Nowra can be assured that the
pipeline extension will be deli ed."
The Coalition plans to sell o the pipeline, regardless of the consequences.
Mr Fischer is today ipdulging in pathetic politics to disguise the fact that the
pipeline extension to Nowra will not be built under the Coalition the pipeline
will simply be soldoff to meet the Coalition's unrealisable promises.
" Only last week, Mr Fischer spoke at the Australian LP gas conference, where
the Coalitio's GST policies were condemned as representing an end to the auto
LP gas industry.
" Furtermore, Mr Fischer knows full well that the Coalition's GST policies will
cripple attempts by the gas industry to extend gas pipelines which supply gas
to'more Australians," the Minister said.
/ Labor was the force behind the Moomba-Sydney pipeline, which now supplies
gas to Sydney and the many country centres Mr Fischer claims to represent,
including Wagga, Orange, Cowra and Young. Under Labor the Pipeline is
being extended to Griffith, Leeton and Narrandera.
Only Labor has a true commitment to develop Australian gas resources to meet
Australian energy needs.
Further information: Kristen Barry ( 06) 2777480
" 7 1. s A