EMBARGO. 8.30PM, 3 NOVEMBER 1994
** CHECK AGAINST DELI VERY"*
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING, MP
AUSTRALIAN QUALITY AWARDS
SYDNEY, 3 NOVEMBER 1994
Well, it's a great pleasure to be speaking to you all right across Australia.
The involvement of so many people in these National Quality Awards is as
good an indicator as any of just how far Australian business has come since
the Awards were first initiated in 1988.
Australian business has well and truly made the leap to international best
practice and quality is now a central plank of Australian business culture.
Of course, the Australian Quality Council has played a critical role in all this.
And I congratulate the Council for all it has done to build a quality culture, to
create a culture of excellence throughout Australia.
I think Australian business should also take great comfort in knowing that it
has the wherewithal to match it with the best in the world and, in many cases,
to be the best in the world.
Of course, Government too has played its part.
The many reforms we have introduced, and with which you are no doubt
familiar, have opened Australia to the world and provided an environment in
which business could flourish.
As indeed it has.
We've seen manufacturing exports grow by an average 15 per cent a year
over the last decade.
We've seen our exports of services, which place a premium on quality, grow
by more than 10 per cent a year to now account for one fifth of our total
exports.
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And, over the same period, we've seen our exports increase their total share
of GDP from 14 to 22 per cent.
These are all big achievements for which both business and government can
take credit.
Ten years ago, most would have seen achievements like these well beyond
our grasp.
And events like this one tonight would have been equally unthinkable.
Back then, you would have been more likely to assemble these sorts of
numbers for a national debate on how high the tariff wall should be.
And the overwhelming majority would have argued the higher the better.
Thankfully, that debate is now well behind us but it does have important
lessons. I think one of the most important lessons it has taught us, and it's borne out in
our export performance, is that we are right to have faith in ourselves in
one sense, that's what tonight's awards are about.
When we have faith in ourselves, we feel more optimistic about the future.
And feeling optimistic, having a sense of the possibility of a better world,
leads you to build that world.
Whereas if you don't share the optimism, you won't see any point in making
an effort.
That's why when people are confronted by big changes, like the opening up
of the Australian economy, they quickly fall into two camps.
There are those who don't have faith in our ability to meet the new
challenges. They fall back to supporting the status quo, or worse still, they advocate a
retrograde return to a supposedly glorious past.
These are the ones who once we start to grow strongly ask not " How can we
sustain the growth?" but " When will it end?"
These are the ones who when we have low inflation ask not " How can we
keep it low?" but " How high will it go?"
And then there are the people, like those associated with the Australian
quality movement, who believe in our capacity to ride the waves of change
and to ride them well with excellence.
These people realise that in an increasingly competitive world you are more
likely to provide for those who come after you if you embrace the future not
with fear and loathing but with confidence.
And it's into this second camp that the majority of Australians are flooding
there's a real sense of confidence about the place.
It's a sense of confidence that we haven't had for a while.
And, in terms of our place in the world, it's a sense of confidence that we've
never had before.
You can certainly feel it among the business community, and particularly on
nights like this.
And it's not a sense of confidence that is boastful or short-sighted.
Nor is it of the sort paraded by the buffoons of the 1980s.
Rather it is a quiet confidence, a quiet confidence in business's ability to
produce world class products and services and the government's ability to
run a low inflation economy.
It's the sort of quiet confidence that leaves me feeling very optimistic about
the country's future.
And you can see it in the new class of business leaders that have emerged in
recent times.
You can see it in the leaders of small to medium sized firms identified in the
McKinsey Emerging Exporters report and the LEK Intelligent Exports report
leaders who had a vision of their companies as global exporters, who
searched out new markets and who then set their companies on the path to
winning those markets.
You can also see it in the leaders in the big firms like Tubmemakers, Toyota
and BHP Steel, firms that have picked up Australian Quality Awards in recent
years.
Tonight we honour all these leaders.
But by " leaders" I don't mean just the chief executives, just those who come
up to accept the awards, I mean those people that are committed to quality
and excellence right throughout an organisation. 1
It doesn't matter whether you are a CEO, a line manager or a stores assistant
or for that matter a Prime Minister it's what you bring to the position
rather than the position itself that really counts.
Great organisations have great people throughout the organisation from
the bottom to the top.
And that's one reason why these Awards are so important they
acknowledge excellence right across an organisation.
Great organisations, be they firms or governments, will always welcome new
challenges.
And this is where APEC comes in we have to ensure that our world class
products and services aren't denied access, particularly in the booming Asian
markets.
There's no point in having a quality product if you've got nowhere to sell it.
What we are seeking to do with APEC will deliver significant long term
benefits to many generations of Australians.
We are looking to the forthcoming APEC Leaders' meeting in Bogor to make
a commitment to free trade in the region by a particular date.
Once the political will is expressed, business will factor it into their
calculations and the export success of businesses like the ones we honour
tonight will depend not on the extent of their access to the world's fastest
growing markets but rather on the quality of their products and that's as it
should be.
Harmonised standards are a smaller part of the picture and, through APEC,
we are already working to harmonise product standards and to secure mutual
recognition of standards and conformance arrangements throughout the
region.
And as we seek to improve our external environment, we continue to do the
same at home because we know that economic reform is a process of
continuous improvement.
That's why, in partnership with the States, we are putting in place a national
competition policy that will create a single market for Australian goods and
services. It's something that will be of major benefit to business and I hope those of you
in business keep up the pressure on your State political leaders to embrace
national competition.
Together with the reforms in electricity and gas, already well underway, the
new national competition policy will give a huge boost to our international
competitiveness. Let me finish up.
Two weeks ago, when I launched our cultural policy statement, Creative
Nation, I referred to the raw energy, skills and ambition of Australians as
sources of great riches.
From them flow the creativity, innovation and dedication needed to bring the
value and quality of our products and services up to standards competitive
with the best the world has to offer.
Underlying Creative Nation and all the other government initiatives I have
referred to tonight is one thing confidence in our ability to excel at what we
do. It's as simple as that.
There are few other developed countries that can match present day
Australia. But we shouldn't be content with that, there's no excellence in parity.
As I see it, the goal of this Labor Government is to ensure that in the 21st
Century there is no better place in the world to live and do business than
Australia. This is a highly ambitious goal but it is achievable.
What's reassuring about the Australian Quality Awards is that they show we
are a nation rich in excellence, that Australians have the ability to deliver on
quality. Tonight's awards should give us every reason for approaching the new
century with a quiet but deep-seated confidence.
Thank you.