PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING, MP
ADDRESS TO THE ACTU CONGRESS, SYDNEY, 31 AUGUST 1993
E& OE PROOF COPY
Thank you very much, Martin ( Ferguson), members and executives, and
delegates. Well, the newspapers were telling me that I couldn't come to the
ACTU a week or so ago, in one of our celebrated spats over industrial
relations and now more latterly over the Budget, they said a Labor Prime
Minister couldn't speak at the ACTU. Well I would have broken the door in if I
had to, to get in here. So, you have no doubt about me, if only for the video
show, if nothing else, and that song at the start, I wouldn't have missed that
for quids.
But the fact is, why wouldn't we be together and why wouldn't be true
believers after such an epic triumph as we had. We absolutely stole the
election of the Liberal Party, when they so smugly believed it was theirs, it
was in their lap, and they thought they only had to canter home to election
day and that was it. You can see today's newspapers where we have the
election contributions published, you know, generally it was Labor 20,000,
Coalition 100,000, Labor 17,000, Coalition 75,000, and it goes on. That was
the most well healed campaign they have ever had, their best organised, but
they had at their core the hard right-wing agenda, as Malcolm Fraser has
called it, and we came at them horizontally, vertically, laterally and swept
them up on March 13. It was a great victory for Labor, and a great victory for
the Labor movement.
I can say that nothing moved me more than the meeting I had with your
executive just after the election, about ten days after the election, when one
really understood what it was all about, and when it had sunk in just how
extraordinary a win we had had, and w hat it meant to everybody, those who
did believe in a better Australia, who did believe in decent values, who
believed in an inclusive society, who believed in a clearer sense of our
national identity, and who believed in for justice for Australians, but in a
society which was economically changing and economically efficient, and
where we had all the social and economic balances largely brought together,
and I think we had them right. And so it was a magnificent win and I am
particularly indebted to the trade union movement for their faith in the
Government, for their financial support which was very material, but beyond
that the enthusiasm and commitment which each one of you gave in the
I 2
course of the campaign from the various sectors, I mean, this made a real
difference in the election, and it had the Labor movement together as last
before perhaps in the early 1980s, but really probably never since 1972. And
the amalgam of people we had, the various interests groups just made it so
obvious to all of us.
So, we have had a magnificent win, and we have now got to do something
with it. Now, we have worn a bit of flak over the last week or two, and I wore
a bit of flak yesterday as a matter of fact from some of the colleagues, but I
am a flak taker and a flak giver, as Lee Matthew's said, a couple of months
ago in Collingwood, there are only two kinds of players in this game, there is
hitters and hitee's, and he said, I am buggered if I will be a hittee, well ditto
for me, ditto for me. So, I think that we have got to come with the ebb and
flow of these things. Now, look, I could have followed up the election with a
round of warm inner glow speeches, quite easy for me, I can get emotional at
the drop of a hat, and roll one of those off my tongue with comparative ease.
And I am sure we would have all felt really good about the long tail on the
comet, the long after glow, and then we could have had a Budget, nice and
pat with a few things in it which paid passing lip service to the social wage,
and everyone said well that's ok, we're back here and we are the crowd we
thought we always were, and we are in office and we are carrying on, but
instead of that what we have done is really hop into the big issues. I mean
the biggest of the big issues. Like dealing with a two hundred year old
problem of Mabo, which most every other Labor Government passed, found
too hard, and where the great stain of dispossession and the shame of the
injustice which came with it, has never been dealt with, that we have occupied
the continent and not recognised the fact that the Australian indigenous
people were here first and that they had truly to be given the same rights and
entitlements in our society as the rest of us have, but perhaps even more
than that, that we recognise a special cultural relationship that Aboriginal
people have to the land.
Now, it is only twenty years ago that the white Australia policy was put to bed.
And we were dead lucky in the 1960s we were not marginalised like South
Africa, dead lucky, running the kind of policy we were in this part of the world.
And there are harder assessors of Australia watching now, all around us in
the countries of the Asia-Pacific region saying, ok these people say they want
to be part of us, that they are a multicultural society, that there is no basis in
race or creed in their selection of their migrants, or the cast of their society,
let's see what they do with their indigenous people, let's see how they deal
with this challenge, the challenge of the High Court decision on Mabo. So, it
is a real test for us, this one. Now, conservative people think we can fail ttie
test and that rights conferred on Aboriginals are ok, but inherent rights are
not. Seeing Aboriginal traditional law and custom in the common law of
Australia is too much for them to stomach. They just don't want to give land
to black people, and that's why we have to come to terms with this essential
and basic requirement of our society, that is, that we are on terms and at
peace with the original inhabitants of this country. Now it is hard, but we are
moving towards it, we will have, I think, one of the most impressive pieces of
common legislation ready in September, for introduction into Parliament and
the draft bill ready this week, the comment by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander community, by the States and other interested parties.
So, we have taken that Mabo challenge up, in the immediate period, from
March to September, six months to put into place a body of administrative law
in land management, in a decision which most countries would not have been
able to handle in a decade. In six months we will have built, with a lot of
consultation, a well thought through set of principles for the body of
administrative law governing social justice and land management in this
country. And it will be one of the greatest achievements of Labor ever, when
that bill gets the Governor Generals assent. So, that's one of the things we
have been doing since the election.
The other thing is putting together AP EC, trying to find for Australia a place at
a very big table for the first time in our history. Because we have seen the
world moving into blocks in North America and in Europe, we don't
particularly want to be in a restrictive trading block, in fact, we don't. We
want to be in an open regional arrangement. So, Australia, this Government,
has put together the concept of APEC, and in the last 18 months, and
certainly since the election, I have done as much as I could possibly do to
develop and promote the concept of an Asia-Pacific G7. That is, to take
APEC from simply an information exchange, a body which is talking about
economic change and getting a better idea of its constituency and its
features, to one where there is real executive power, and to turn APEC into a
heads of Government organisation. Now, we are still moving through this, but
now President Clinton has invited all of the APEC leaders to attend a leaders
meeting in the United States in November. And that means within a few
years we have taken APEC from just an idea to a body, to an organisation,
and when it comes together with countries like the United States, China,
Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand. I mean, when this group comes together it will be representing over
per cent of world gross domestic product and will be very much the focus
of the fortunes and power of the Asia-Pacific.
That is coming off, and it is coming off because in part of the work of this
Government and the work since the election. The other thing we have been
doing is working on our major fiscal challenge which is the Budget. To see
that by the time we get through a strong recovery and private investment
picks up in the middle ' 90s, where our demand on savings the Budget deficit,
which we expanded through the One Nation period to kick the economy
along, is winding itself back. It is 6 challenge we must meet. Because this
time we have the option of a low inflationary long term recovery, the only
thing that can spike it is a short fall of national savings, and the time to get
that done is now, and we have been working on that, as we have been
working with you on the industrial legislation and putting a package to
improve our industrial relations system.
Now, I should have thought a reasonable set of things to do in the five
months since the election, that was Mabo, APEC, major fiscal challenge, our
industrial relations, and of course we have also advanced now the processes
on moving towards an Australian republic, with the establishment of the
committee to bring back options indicating in which ways we can make a
competent change to a republican structure, and those processes being
considered, those terms of reference had to be written, that committee set up,
I have had some consultation with the committee now, and that committee is
now in the process of writing its report.
Now, I had some people in the media say, well the Government won an
election it didn't expect to win, and after the election it is not sure what it is
doing. I mean, really, really, with Mabo and APEC and the republic and the
Budget, and industrial relations. Have a look at it, I mean the agenda is so
huge, I mean it is unconventional maybe, but the Government takes on issues
this large. But what's the bloody point in being conventional, what's the point
in being conventional, you may as well, if you have got the mandate, hop into
the big issues, and get the work done, get the thinking done, but the thinking
on these things has got to be done properly, privately with time and
consideration and when you have got it together well then is the time to go
and sell all these things.
These, I think, have been as time well spent, and time we well and truly well
used, but the Budget of course has been a big part of it. And I want to say a
couple of things to you about the Budget, because a lot of the essential
strategy behind it has been lost in the public debate, but to put a major
Budget together with these issues on the table at once takes a lot of doing.
And we have got a Budget there now which does two things, it provides a
stimulus of $ 2 billion this year, which is as large as One Nation and it also
provides for a lower Budget deficit in the medium term, in 1996-97. That's the
point of it. In other words we have given the economy a kick along with One
Nation doing then again the unconventional thing, when we had everybody
telling us to hang on to the low Budget deficits, don't expand fiscal policy,
don't give the place a kick along, public demand has now played a very big
part in kicking growth along. We have had 3.1 per cent growth for the year,
for the last quarter, 1.2 per cent for the last quarter, and we have got a
conservative 2.75 per cent growth for the year forecast in the Budget, we may
do better than it, we may. But we have got a conservative number in there.
At any rate we are growing faster than most OECD economies, in fact, I don't
know any growing faster than us at the moment, and the One Nation package
was the right thing to do, as well building good public infrastructure and
getting it up.
Now, we have given in this Budget another stimulus as big as One Nation, in
other words we have got the ball rolling, but what we want to do now is keep it
rolling so that we have a full blown recovery on our hands, and so that comes
by way of the outlays changes and tax cuts, but we then get the Budget back
to around 1 per cent of GDP in 1996-97 by the revenue measures which will
then come in in the nexfone, two and three years. Now, you remember the
United States debate and the television pictures of Vice President Gore
casting the casting vote in the Senate on President Clinton's Budget, and
there was great celebration in the United States that finally they got a Budget
through, and that President Clinton had done more than his predecessors in
dealing with the American fiscal policy. Well in 1996 the American Budget
deficit will be at 3 per cent of GOP, ours will be at one, one. In other words
we will be fully set up for a recovery, while other people are still limping along
with the Government's hands in the savings jar constraining private
investment. We are sifting there with low inflation, a very competitive
exchange rate, a profit share which is already high, stronger investment
which we will see in this period and the savings balance adjusted via the
public sector to let it all continue.
Now, is that good Government, or is that not good Government. And what
are our opponents doing? They are going to oppose the lot. They are going
to oppose all the changes because they don't want to get to 1 per cent of
GOP, after telling us that's what we should be doing. That change to 1 per
cent of GOP was a key election commitment. It was as key as any other
commitment, and part of it of course, part of the whole Budgetary scene is to
make certain that the tax revenue to GOP comes back to about where it was
in the last couple of years. That's all we are doing there, it's not as if there is
a big tax hike. In fact, in every year between now and 1996 we are giving
away more revenue than we are getting back. We. are giving away $ 3.8
billion a year in the tax cuts each year, and we will be raising about $ 3 billion
when the revenue measures are up and running. And that will mean that
people on the tax cuts, particularly for people between $ 20,500 and $ 50,000
will be paid from November and the result of that will be that we will see a
substantial tax cut of around $ 8.00 to $ 10.00 a week being paid to workers in
that average weekly earnings area of the economy.
Now, even with the revenue changes, revenue to GOP, the key indice in the
Budget, revenue to GOP this year is falling, it is a decimal point below last
year, last year it was 23.6 per cent this year it will be 23.5 per cent. It is just
that it won't be falling as fast because of the changes which we have made.
But that will provide a stimulus as will our monetary policy. Let me just bear
this in mind, we have just cut another half a percentage point off interest
rates, how were we able to do that? Because the Reserve Bank and the
market were convinced that the Government was going to take the Budget
deficit down, so we have now got bill rates of 4.75 per cent. I mean, we had
bill rates of 4.75 per cent when I was a teenager. And not only that, we have
now got a housing rate of about 8.5 per cent. Now, you remember before the
interest rates went up, the standard housing rate was 13.5 per cent, this was
before the rise in rates in 1988-89, up to 18 per cent for cash rates, and I
think housing peaked at 16 per cent or 17 per cent. But let's forget that part
and just look at the standard rate which was 13.5 per cent. It is now 8.5 per
cent, roughly, that's five per percentage points below that norm, and on a
$ 70,000 mortgage, that's $ 70.00 a week. There is a $ 70.00 a week benefit
going to ordinary wage and salary earners by way of their reduced interest
rates because of lower inflation and because of a decent Budget going into
place. So these are all part of the conferred benefits which are there, and I
think the other important thing is the tax cuts.
Now, I want to say something to you about the tax cuts, because we have had
a bit of a view, a campaign, indeed, that we should abandon them, but at the
time they were introduced in One Nation they met everybody's approval. But
what happened after One Nation is the world dropped, the OECD area
dropped by four percentage points of growth for two successive years, and
the OECD and IMF revised down their growth in two succeeding years, which
meant the second round of tax cuts we put back, but we brought the first lot
forward and maintained them. Now, some people have said, well look, these
tax cuts go to higher income earners, well that's only in part true, they also go
to people at or below average weekly earnings. So I asked the Department of
Prime Minister and Cabinet last week to go back and look at all of the outlays
and tax changes since 1983 and look at a number of category of people and
see how they have been treated in terms of increases in disposable income.
And it is quite interesting the result. Between March 1983 and July 1983 a
process worker who was married with two children experienced an increase
in real disposable income of 15 per cent, real. Not nominal real. That is a
process worker with two children over the period, both on the tax side and
through things like the family allowance supplement and other changes on
the outlays side. If we take in the same time period a female machinist who is
a sole parent with two children, she experienced an increase in real
disposable income of 32 per cent. Between March 1983 and July 1994 a
single income family with two children earning three quarters of average
weekly earings, so this is someone payed above a process worker, obviously,
at three quarters of AWE will have experienced an increase in real
disposable income of 19 per cent.
But a person on AWE with two children, on AWE with two children, the
increase in real terms is really quite small. Because what happened in this
period was all of the tax cuts were going in their greatest measure to those
people below $ 20,000 and just above it. And, of course, a lot of the family
payments were going in that area tailing off in the middle 20,000s. And the
people at the top end, they had their tax cut cut from 60 to 47, but in part was
paid for by the capital gains tax and the fringe benefits tax which basically
covered the budgetary costs of that reduction. The people who deserve
some support now are those in those areas of 2/ 3 of AWE, AWE and above
AWE. And that is what these tax cuts do. So the notion that every tax cut we
ever give has got to be skewed only down the bottom is a notion which I think
is not fair to those who have waited last to get the kind of tax relief I think they
ought to be getting. And who is to say anyone on $ 30,000 or $ 33,000 is
wealthy? Or $ 36,000? Because if we even look at 1996 in three years' time,
even with modest growth in average weekly earnings, we'll have AWE around
$ 36,000. And if we don't change the tax scales those people will cascade
into a marginal rate of 46 per cent. So every dollar they earn at weekends
they will pay 46 per cent at the margin. Now I don't think the Labor movement
can live with that kind of rate and I don't think this Government could and that
is why we thought it was important to do that. And can I just say over the
same period, for what it's worth, for a man on average weekly earnings who
began receiving award superannuation in 1986, and of course, since
enhanced by the SGC, the accrued benefit at Juine 1993 was $ 7,050, and in
two years, that person's accrued benefit will be $ 11,150.
So if you look at the tax~ and outlays side of the Budget, you've got the
changes I've mentioned and superannuation, of course, underpinning it.
Now in this Budget, we have kept our election commitments and funded them
in ways which we think are advantageous to the economy and the community.
But let me go through some of the measures and I will also tell you what we
decided yesterday in terms of revision to some of the Budget measures.
Since the election, we have introduced the legislation for the home child care
allowance which will go to 840,000 families paying $ 60 a fortnight, or $ 30 a
week, and that will go to the dependent spouse who is looking after the
children in the family. $ 30 a week, $ 60 a fortnight. Now $ 54 of that $ 60 was
formerly paid as a dependent spouse rebate to the taxpayer. That is now
being cashed out to the dependent spouse at home. But $ 6 of it is new, $ 3 a
week of it is new.
Then we have got the generalised child care rebate which* provides a rebate
paid at Medicare counters for child care so that families who spend money on
child care don't have to wait till the end of the year to get a rebate or
something else, they can get it over the course of the year by going
periodically to Medicare offices. And that is a generalised thing, it recognises
child care as an expense in earning income and, of course, gives families a
chance to earn that income and women, particularly, a chance to participate
in the workforce.
The labour market programs. We've increased those in the Budget. We
doubled them last year to $ 1.6 billion, and in this year increased it so that
now 500,000 unemployed people are being touched by those labour market
programs. Where we are giving them either a wage subsidy, and/ or training
and work experience for half a million. In the Budget the Newstart allowance
for single adults increased by $ 6 a fortnight. Basic dental care was provided
for health card holders, that is pensioners and beneficiaries who often find
they just can't afford basic dental care. We created an extra 29,000 child
care places in the community over the course of this year. We've diminished
the waiting period for rental assistance for young homeless unemployed
people, we've abolished that. There are improvements there for pensioners
and for the arts and also, of course, there are other changes in respect of the
labour market as they effect industrial relations.
And, I suppose, the best guide to that is since 1983-84 spending on health,
community services and social security. Well in 1983-84 it was 38.4 per cent
of the Budget. This year it is 51 per cent of the Budget. So outlays on health,
social security, community services and housing has risen from 38.4 per cent
in 1983-84 to 51 per cent of Budget outlays this year. So they are the Budget
measures and, of course, on top of those, the tax cuts.
Now let me say a couple of things about the measures we have decided in
the last day or so. They key changes are that we are going to increase the
rebate from low income earners from $ 100 a week which we have in the
Budget to $ 1 50. And that coupled with the home child care rate increase and
other outlay benefits will improve the position of those people below, say,
about $ 23,000. A reduction, we're reducing the differential between leaded
and unleaded fuel from 5 cents to 2 cents a litre. In other words, the price of
leaded petrol will go up now by 7 cents, not 10 cents and the differential with
unleaded will be only 2 cents.
We are restoring eye tests under Medicare for full rebates for optometry.
That is, optometry will be as now. And we've-amended the unused long
service leave lump sum payment so that unused long service leave paid as a
lump sum, accrued up until the 17 August 1993 will continue to attract a
concessional rate of tax. Future long service leave lump sum entitlements as
well as all unused annual leave will be taxed as normal income.
Now those changes amount to about $ 110 million roughly this year, and just
on $ 400 million in 1996-97. And that brings the Budget deficit to a projected
1.2 instead of 1.1 per cent in 1996-97. Well the government has made a
commitment to bring the Budget deficit in around 1 per cent, so that still fits
that category. And this year we're putting the tax cuts back 2 weeks to make
sure that the Budget is neutral in terms of those changes. So they will begin
now on the second week of November in stead of 1 November.
So those changes mean that there will be not only no detriments, but benefits
for practically everybody. Now yesterday the Treasurer had these changes
run through the Prismod model. The one which the Treasury constructed to
look at the Liberal Party's Fightback and GST proposals. And when you put
the tax and outlays changes in the Budget together in the Prismod model, it
shows there are no detriments, and benefits right through the quintiles and
the only place where there are any detriments whatsoever, are for those
actually running down capital who have no relationship with the Government
through the tax or social security, or spending systems. In other words for all
the people in your constituency, there are no detriments and only benefits.
But can I say, that even before these changes, on an earlier run of the
Prismod model, there were only very few detriments anyway. Because what
has been overlooked in the Budget debate, was all the outlays changes I've
just mentioned and people focused on the revenue changes and thought that
was the only way to make a judgement about it.
But the key thing, of course, of all this in the Budget is employment. And in
there, we have a forecast of 100,000 job growth over the course of this year
and 500,000 more jobs over the next three years. At least 500,000 more
jobs. Now we're confident that we can meet those forecasts. Because they
are based on fairly conservative growth estimates. And that being the case,
we will start to see improvements in the unemployment rate. And, of course,
as you know we have got this major study into employment and to
unemployment which will be concluded later this year and upon which the
Government can take decisions.
But if you look at the settings we have got now. We have got the Budget
balance which has gone from an $ 8 billion surplus to a $ 16 billion deficit. A
$ 24 billion change which has held a floor under the economy and provided a
shock absorber to relieve a lot of the pain of the recession from the
community of Australia. That was done by a Labor Government and it
wouldn't have been done by a conservative government. We're adding a $ 2
billion stimulus this year, to keep that going, to keep activity and growth and
employment coming through. We have now got very low inflation and low
interest rates and a high profit share. And that profit share now needs to be
spent on higher investment to guarantee higher employment and better
employment levels over these next few years. And, of course, with the
Budget balance tailing back to a 1 per cent of GOP deficit by 1996 as the
private economy comes through, we should start to see a return to better
rates of employment growth of the variety we are talking about. And on top of
that, the labour market programs sifting there dealing with 1/ 2 million people,
particularly those who are long-term unemployed, of which now over 300,000
are in that category and 180,000 who have been unemployed for more than 2
years. So those programs are particularly focussed on those people to give
them job subsidies and training and work experience to get them back into
the labour market while out in the economy, the big aggregates should be
pulling employment along about 100,000 this year and 500,000 over three
years. So that is our great challenge, to deal with unemployment and to get back the
growth. And I am pleased that profits are picking up in-the economy and we
are starting to see profits come through. But we want those profits spent on
investment and the business community knows if they think they can just
store up profits to levels above the 1980s experience, not just the golden
years of the 60s, but as well as that the really high levels, the peaks of the
1 980s. That if they think the profit share can get to above those levels and
simply stick to it and not invest it, well I'm quite sure the ACTU will have a
strategy to share some of that with themselves. And so we want to see it in
investment, and if we see it in investment, we have got a chance of getting
better employment.
Could I just say a couple of things now about superannuation, very briefly.
And that is, that the superannuation legal minimums will increase
progressively to 9 per cent by the end of the decade. We are supporting that,
and of course then we can look at taking it further, perhaps to 12 per cent,
beyond then to that stage. And on the industrial agenda generally, let me say
that we are supporting you before the Industrial Relations Commission for a
safety net adjustment of $ 8 and we are supporting the development of
enterprise agreements.
Now I know there has been some discussion between us, some may say
dispute between us, but I don't think that is true, about extending enterprise
agreements. And we want to see enterprise agreements extended to the
non-union sector. But we won't see it done in ways which allow for reduced
wages and conditions or weaken trade union responsibilities. And I have got
no doubt a way can be found to do that. We have already established a
working party to consider with the ACTU, with your negotiating committee, a
solution to the problem and I think one can be found. And the Cabinet will be
giving that appropriate attention. But, I think, the thing is, this is a great
opportunity for the labour movement because this election has given you the
breathing space to get out there and organically expand the tentacles of
unionism to make enterprise bargaining work, to involve your members and
include, and bargain with your employers, and train people, and recruit
people, and win the hearts and minds of young Australians who might not
have been coming to unionism but through enterprise agreements.
So we see the enterprise agreement path as a sensible and organic operation
of the organisation of the trade union movement which lets you build a more
relevant place in the industrial culture of this country. And where you're not
sitting at the whim and caprice of some centralised structure and where we
have a golden opportunity in this next year to legislate in ways which really
sets up a new industrial relations system for Australia, but one which you are
a key part of and which give you all the opportunities to exploit.
Let me just say a couple of things about the Accord and just say that the
Accord has changed and you were discussing it here yesterday. In 1983 we
had an Accord of detailed policy calling for detail commitments from unions,
actual individual union commitments. We are not asking individual unions for
those commitments in 1993 as we were in 1983. What we are asking for is a
commitment to the basic ideals of the Labor movement, of Labor in
government and a recognition of the need for the economy to be productive,
to maintain low inflation and to keep our focus upon employment and
unemployment. I do not think in asking that we are asking a great deal of you any more than
you are asking of us. But together we have done so much and we changed
Australia, we have made it a more competitive place. Just imagine where we
would be if we didn't have a competitive manufacturing sector now. Imagine
where we would be if all those new industries we have created were not
created in this last decade, or if we were still only exporting 13 per cent of
GDP instead of 20 per cent of GDP, or if the debt service ratio was where it
was five or six years ago instead of where it is now, or if we were still drifting
around that old industrial relations culture of a decade ago. Where would the
country be? Where would our constituency be? And where would be the lot
of ordinary Australians without the Accord and the processes?
Can I say the opportunity is there for us, we are going to be in a growth cycle,
the business cycle in on the upturn over the course of these next three years.
We have already generated a recovery and a low inflationary one. We are
setting up fiscal policy for the medium term so that we can capitalise upon it.
We are dealing with employment in the best way we know how by bringing
growth and investment back on again and dealing with those unemployed by
a very expansive program of labour market reform and now looking at novel
ways in ways we can deal with the unemployed on a long term basis to see if
can do again something in Australia which is unique and interesting in the
world. Our opponents of course, they have no such ideas. They met last weekend
at their Federal Council which was the one meeting they had after five
election losses on the trot to sit down and say well, what's wrong with us?
Where have we gone wrong? In which way should we change and be more
relevant? Basically they passed the opportunity up. They sat there and
smothered with a lot of motions which were put around; which John Hewson
weakly voted for and everybody sat there and sat mum on the whole thing.
Maybe it was because of difficulties we were having with the Budget and they
thought well, the Government is having a bad week, we won't distract
attention from them. But they passed up a great opportunity and if the
problems of the Budget debate has meant that we have succeeded in
keeping John Hewson as Leader of the Liberal Party for longer than his
natural time cycle would have kept him, then it has been a damn good
weekend all round.
People say, he is walking around saying well, I told you so about the election
he told us so we are raising $ 2.5 billion this Budget. The GST was going
to raise $ 24 billion, over eight times as much and it was paid back not to the
people who paid it. $ 7 billion going off payroll tax, $ 6 billion going off petrol,
more than half of which is paid by business and $ 9 billion to abolish the
wholesale sales tax. So the people paying the $ 24 billion would not have
been the people who got the rebates in the other tax changes. And then to
pay $ 12 billion of tax cuts, he was going to cut $ 10,000 million from
government spending. We tried to take $ 90 million out by taking one of the
ancillary medical services of optometry from the Budget. Now, if there is
something easier than optometry, do you think we wouldn't have done it?
You are looking around saying well here is one, oh no, that is too easy we will
do the hard one.
Here we are in a society like this flat out knocking in a major element of a
program, $ 90 million out and they were going to cut $ 10,000 million out, but
they are still committed to it. Griener, not Griener, what's his name
Alexander Downer, Shirley Temple as I call him he was up there at the
Press Club last week, committed to the $ 10,000 million still, but won't say
where the $ 10,000 million is coming.
Look, here is a Budget which is raising over the course of three years, $ 2.5-3
billion and giving back Compare that to raising $ 24 billion and giving it
all to different people who pay it and then cutting $ 10,000 million out of
outlays and seeing the tax cuts from that go only to those on the top end of
the tax system.
Now, it is not to be compared with what we are doing. They are running
around, these characters, trying to make a case for themselves about what
we said in the election about taxation and I'll tell you what I said, so I will give
you the full quote in full. I was asked a question and I said this to maintain
the tax to GDP ratios we roughly have at the moment what's your policy?
and I said to maintain the tax, that is the revenue to GDP ratios we roughly
have at the moment. In other words what I'm promising is not to put up tax,
that was not to put up revenue to GOP. In 1996 with these tax increases and
the tax cuts, revenue to GOP will be about where it was last year and the year
before. In other words, we are keeping our commitment absolutely, but because they
run on a high tax policy with a GST and were canned for it, they have been
seeking to imply somehow we are running on a low tax policy, well we are in
the sense that revenue to GDP has been falling. But we can't let it fall to
pieces, we have got to maintain it at some reasonable level to bring the
Budget deficit down and as I said to you when I started, this year revenue to
GOP is a decimal point below last year even with the revenue changes. In
1996-97 when we get there, it will be as it was a year or two years ago way
below what it was in the middle 1980s.
So we have kept our commitment absolutely on tax while at the same time we
have kept the tax cut promise to see that people between $ 20-50,000 get a
tax cut and because of the changes in the Budget, those under $ 23,000
secure an increase in the rebate, a cash rebate, plus the home childcare
allowance seeing not only do they not wear a detriment, but they wear
benefits as well.
In all of this we face a Liberal party which is now turning itself against any
norms of decent governance. In the Senate they are opposing everything,
they are opposing all of our fiscal measures how does John Hewson go to
the business community speeches on a Friday telling them about how we
should have a lower Budget deficit, then on Tuesday in the Senate, his
Senators down all the measures. How can you live with that kind of duplicity
and hope to get away with it? Well, of course, he can't. That is why he is not
taken seriously in business he is a low impact player, as I said to him
yesterday, a low impact player with a limited future and he has.
I do not know whether some of you saw the ' Sunday' program on the Liberal
party it was quite interesting. One fellow said well, the problem is we have
got a hole in the centre, he said there is no core, nothing at the core of the
policy. Malcolm Fraser said it was a right-wing group; they have turned the
Liberal party into a right-wing party. I have got the quote here somewhere,
but you all know what he said I think. That is, ' that it wasn't always this way'
he said, ' but it has been taken over by a small group who have turned it into a
right-wing conservative party'. That is really what has happened.
On Mabo, John Hewson sat at his National Council, his Federal Council on
the weekend while they carried a motion which said all options consistent with
the responsibilities of the states for control of land use including a
referendum. In other words he was running around weeks ago saying a
referendum would be divisive, on Sunday he sits there doggo while they pass
a resolution, he weakly puts his hand up for it, like a mouse, hoping he is not
sighted, voting for a thing which abolishes native title and overturns the High
Court decision. Is that leadership? Is that Leadership when he knows
better? On the republic he said when all the younger, brighter people in the
Liberal party were urging a conscience vote and support for the republic, he
put his hand up for a motion which said the onus is on the Government to say
why the Constitution should be changed.
In other words, I have to say why we shouldn't have the Queen of Great
Britain as Queen of Australia, as our Head of State forever. He-ioted for that
Vproposition, the hand went up weakly for that one as well.
In other words, the Liberal party which is always telling us about the rule of
law, I mean how many times have they told us about the rule of law? Until
our most supreme of Court the High Court says that Aboriginal custom and
tradition is now part of the common law of Australia and they are not
interested in the rule of law. It is the same as their behaviour in the Senate.
They have just a father of a hiding in the election what are they doing?
Three months later, trying to deny the Government's legitimacy by voting its
measures down in the Senate.
Always they attack the legitimacy of the Labor party whether it is endorsed
in popular mandates at the election always they attack you. In other words,
this has never been the Liberal party, the party of convention, it has always
only been the party of shabby convenience. And now where it is a rule of law
and you have fops like Hugh Morgan, well dressed dandies, whose only
clever thing was choosing his parents wisely and out there in the High
Court. You would think butter wouldn't melt in their mouths three years ago
about the High Court, now of course, it is a social 4peri mental group they
say. All now attacking the legitimacy of our measures in the Senate because
we didn't really win the election now they are saying won on a false premise.
What false premise? John Hewson was roundly rejected and at their meeting
instead of saying look, we have lost five elections on the trot, for God's sake
let's sit down now and say what is wrong with us, lets have a good hard look
at ourselves. No, no, they put these mealy mouthed propositions around and
out goes his weak little hand up to vote for them.
That is OK John, I have you covered four square covered. I have got you
right in the sights. The trick for me will be preserving you.
But I tell you this once we get things really rolling, that is we get this solid
budgetary position into place, we get the great principles of Mabo established
in our law and then we really get onto focussing about our place-in Asia and
our right to an independent identity where we are represented by an
Australian as our Head of State, that is when the heat will go on the Liberal
party. That is when the heat will really come on and there will be no weak
little motions then. We will be after them for 1996 like we are after them for
1993. So I say this. Keep the faith as you have, you were true believers and I
amongst others appreciated it ever so much that you were. We haven't let
you down not in the Budget and we won't let you down. This is always
going to be a traditional Labor Government, but it will never be a do nothing
Labor Government. I won't see this be a government of shame, passing the
parcel on Aboriginal rights like other governments before us have done. I
won't see us lose the chance of making a statement about our identity, but
more than anything else I won't see us lose the chance of seeing every
Australian have as much chance as possible to a job and a chance to
participate in what this society can hold.
We will always have arguments rattling through trying to get things right, but
that is part of our strength. At least we can have an argument. We do not
have to have pap resolutions which we all vote for and then go out and rise
and turn and twist afterwards. We can have our debates in public, at the
ACTU Congress, at the Executive, at the wages committees, at your industrial
organisation committees, in our Caucus we can have the debates because
we truly stand for something, we represent Australian society and Australian
culture as no political movement in this country does.
If our opponents who seek to deny our legitimacy or seek to face up to the
issues, who weakly skirt the real issues in Australian society think they can
sneak under our guard they can think again, because the public are more
conscientious than that. They know we have got the big issues on and that
we have been considering them for a few months we have been
reconnoitring, working out how we deal with them and in which way we
advance them, but get our act together on these things as we are on Mabo,
on the Budget, on these other big issues and you will see, I hope, past
breaking ground, big ground, 200 year old ground, the sort of ground that
only a Labor government can break.
That is what we are about and always remember this: together we are always
strong, while ever the trade unions and the Labor party stick together we are
too strong for the others. If they couldn't beat us in 1993, I think they have
got buckleys in 1996.
Thank you.