PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING, MP
DOORSTOP, SHIRE COUNCIL AND LOCAL COMMUNITY COUNCIL
CHAMBERS, MILDURA, 6 MAY 1994
E& OE PROOF COPY
PMV: I might just say a few introductory words and then you can ask me
some questions after that. The point of my coming was to demonstrate
the application of the White Paper for regional Australia. And in the
White Paper we fund an importanf salinity program here in Sunraysia
Mildura, and as a demonstration of that, regional areas that
understand what they are doing and have programs of coherence will
get support, and can get support, from the Commonwealth and State
Governments. And in the White Paper there is the opportunity to
exploit now infrastructure bonds, pool development funds, but more
particularly, funding for regional economic organisations that need
some core funding to let them put strategic plans together. Because a
lesson out of all the studies, the KeltyTs Force, all of the other
studies that we have had, is that regions which are well lead and
coherent in their plans, do better than other regions that aren't.
So what it is, is strategic funding and specific funding for particular
projects from an infrastructure fund. And I am looking forward to today
being involved with that salinity program this afternoon. This morning,
of course, I had a very interesting tour-through the district, looking at
some innovations in horticultural production in grapes, this is going to
be one of the important grape growing areas of Australia for the
Australia wine industry, export industry. And therefore, consolidation
of farms, higher output and productivity, new techniques, mechanical
harvesting, better use of water, all of these things, I think, are
important lessons and I was very pleased to be able to see them
today. Could I just say for the White Paper in general, that there is a great
opportunity here, I think, for regions, but also for all areas of Australia
where unemployment is high, to have people who are long term
unemployed case managed so that they are better trained and placed
for work, so that their prospects of retaining work are enhanced. So,
can I say I have been heartened by the reception it has had from
business, which has been very supportive of it, the various industry
groupings, the Chambers of Commerce, the Metal Trades Industry, the
big companies like BHP. Because of these things, I think, have been a
big confidence boost for it.
J: Mr Keating on the White Paper, it obviously going to be a great test
here because unemployment is 20 per cent here. You hope to get the
national average down to 5 per cent by the year 2000, what will it do to
Sunraysia?
PM: Well, there will always be greater problems in regional areas because
of diminished employment opportunities. But if we can get the output
and productivity of areas like Sunraysia up, there will be more
aggregate employment. But we have also got a policy in the White
Paper called the new opportunities program, which will allow support
of job subsidies under labour market programs to go to regional
proposals that are conceived well and which have got some chance of
using local, otherwise unemployed labour, other than in commercial
things. I wouldn't suggest this is going to be the complete answer to
unemployment in regional areas, far from it, it won't be, but it will help.
J: What per centage?
PM: I don't think I can say that either. But one thing I think you need to
know and remember is, in the 1980s we had just about, in those eight,
nine years between 1983 and 1990-91, we had nearly 2.5 million job
growth. We lost about 300,000 of those in the recession, but we still
kept the 2 million. To get to around 5 per cent unemployment by the
end of the century we have got to create over a million job growth. I
think we can do that.
J: Mr Keating, in light of your own and Mr Howe's statement that the
regional development strategy aims to on what potential of
Australia's regions. Will you talk to the NSW Opposition and tell them
to allow passage of the Irrigation Corporations Bill, debate on which
has been adjourned at the moment, and seems that that may be
threatening the $ 27 million refurbishing of the irrigation project?
PM: I am not aware of the Bill, but now that you have mentioned it I will
acquaint myself with it. I think there will be a lot of privatisation in
some areas of the public infrastructure which is going to be
commercial. We announced a very large one in the White Paper and
that is, the Federal Airports Corporation large airports around
Australia. So, I think, from the Government's point of view we have
been the first Government in Australia to champion large scale
privatisations with a sale of half the stock of the Commonwealth Bank,
and more'latterly, the FAC, Qantas, which is coming up. So, again, it
all gets back to the viability of these projects. I don't know the project
you speak of but I would be very pleased to find out.
J: You will talk to him?
PM: I will talk to him about it, sure.
J: Mr Keating, if regional Australia does have such big potential, why was
out of $ 6 billion only $ 150 million went to regional areas?
PM: You have got to see this not in terms of the way you help regional
areas is by just throwing a bucket of money at them. That has proven
not to work. I think what works is regional communities who know what
they are doing themselves. I mean, you can see this here in Mildura,
in the Sunraysia. The people I met here today are very confident
about regional plans, how they can lift the productivity of the area, how
they can lock that into the world market, how they can draw capitals to
the area. What they need is strategic funding, that is what the White
Paper provides. It has also got mechanisms to draw private funding,
private capital, into public infrastructure works, but might not otherwise
be -available through the public account. So, I think that is the
approach. Any approach which says we will fix the money with a big
cheque from the Budget, really, has never worked, and it won't work
now.
J: Dr Hewson says that regional Australia's expectations have been
raised, but they have just got piddling concessions.
PM: Well Dr Hewson is somebody who is discovering, I mean, Dr Hewson
would need an army map to find his way out of Sydney and Melbourne,
particularly Eastern Sydney. He is obviously somebody who has been
more comfortable in the comfort station of the leafy suburbs of Eastern
Sydney than anywhere else. We are acting on the Report of the Kelty
Taskforce which had the most extensive regional consultations of ainy
taskforce ever. The huge surveys of McKinsey and Company, and the
Industry Commission Report, all say what we need is strategic funding
which supports the regional leadership and some instruments to
finance things that otherwise regional bodies can't finance. Now, if Dr
Hewson thinks that is piddling, that is a reflection on his failure to
understand the aspirations of regional Australia and his failure to read
the reports, which in themselves, I think, are very illuminating. He is
also, can I say, he has been running on this the last day or so, this
question about poverty traps. Let me just say a couple of things about
that. I made this point clear in Parliament yesterday, that is, the
changes to the Social Security system, the changed taper
arrangements, and paying half the married rate of unemployment
benefits to each member of a family, a couple, is going to dramatimlly
change the Social Security system. It is the antithesis of a poverty
trap. A poverty trap is a circumstance where somebody can't earn
more income by virtue of the fact that the marginal effective tax rate, or
the withdrawal rate takes it from them. That is the current position
before the White Paper.
The introduction of the White Paper will mean that couples will be able
to earn much more income by, instead of having a flat cut off of 100
per cent, that is, for every dollar of income earned a dollar of the
benefit is lost, we will go now to a 50, then a 70 per cent taper, and
that withdrawal rate. And that will mean that people won't be in
poverty traps as they are now. But this is the same Dr Hewson who
said that people on unemployment benefits should be chipped off after
nine months, this is Australian families. This is the same person who
said, " if you reach down and pull the unemployed up beside us, you
will pull the rest of us down". These are the people who described the
unemployed in the Social Security Office as riff raff. These are people
not to be listened to.
ENDS